Speaker 1: He said, an application process. You didn't have.
Speaker 2: My buddy Craig filled out no application.
Speaker 3: Did I Did I need some references? Give me three references.
Speaker 1: You didn't have no references?
Speaker 3: Yes, I did.
Speaker 2: Didn't.
Speaker 3: We did call the references and actually had he had interviews.
Speaker 3: A few friends of mine said they would have never
Speaker 3: done it. I said, well, that's why you would never
Speaker 3: marry me.
Speaker 2: That's it. Welcome to Bear Future Wifey podcast Kadiza and Craig,
Speaker 2: Sharif Drinker.
Speaker 1: How y'all doing.
Speaker 4: We're doing great this one.
Speaker 5: I also wanted to hear how you felt when you
Speaker 5: initially got that application.
Speaker 4: Little ego, who are you thinking?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 2: A little bit of that?
Speaker 7: And then what I realized that this application was.
Speaker 4: For her, but it was really about me.
Speaker 7: There is and if I couldn't write anything on this paper,
Speaker 7: who in mine to.
Speaker 4: Be in her space and her face?
Speaker 2: You're in law school at the time he was working
Speaker 2: at budget. You weren't the type of woman back then
Speaker 2: that said he has to be a doctor, going to
Speaker 2: be like the Huxtables and.
Speaker 1: All that stuff.
Speaker 3: I had a must have less and a nice to
Speaker 3: have less, right, and that must have less with somebody
Speaker 3: who was gone first and foremost who gave reverence to God,
Speaker 3: somebody who was a family person, and then also somebody
Speaker 3: who had character integrity. Then I also said tall, I
Speaker 3: ain't gonna lie.
Speaker 8: Yeah, Kadija, how much we spent on our life?
Speaker 3: Oh? Probably, like I was gonna say fifteen hundred, but
Speaker 3: maybe eighteen hundred dollars. Yeah, we had a budget wedding.
Speaker 3: Like we said, we had no money really and my
Speaker 3: husband's I worked at budget and you had a budget exactly.
Speaker 7: I would not be who I am and what I
Speaker 7: do without.
Speaker 3: Just want to hear it is power, we imagine my
Speaker 3: mission to get it, grow it, and give it away
Speaker 3: is a leadership journey about what it looks like to
Speaker 3: stand up in places that are not built for us,
Speaker 3: to leave with impact and integrity, and to help people
Speaker 3: understand how to use that power and that the power
Speaker 3: that we have at home is connected to the power
Speaker 3: that we have in the world.
Speaker 2: You talk to a lot of successful black men, what
Speaker 2: do they say is the tension in the dating tool?
Speaker 7: They are not willing to sacrifice their peace to deal
Speaker 7: with crazy because I have worked on myself and I'm
Speaker 7: not giving this up just because.
Speaker 2: What do you hear from the women.
Speaker 3: I'm hearing a lot of things.
Speaker 6: But.
Speaker 2: What started as a search for understanding became a journey
Speaker 2: of transformation. Every letter that I wrote led me to
Speaker 2: this day, the day I got married November twenty second,
Speaker 2: twenty twenty five.
Speaker 9: Dear my forever, Forever is a long time. That's how
Speaker 9: long I'll love you. Those lyrics echo through every fiber
Speaker 9: of my soul at the very thought of you.
Speaker 2: This journey has culminated with you as both the award
Speaker 2: and the reward of my pursuit of love. You are
Speaker 2: the award, the honor God placed before me, the recognition
Speaker 2: of growth, healing and becoming the man I needed to be.
Speaker 9: And you are the reward, the blessing given after endurance,
Speaker 9: the gift promised to those who were fuse to faint.
Speaker 2: This isn't just our story, this is for all of us.
Speaker 2: I'm a Terrassaar Whitfield.
Speaker 3: I'm Ashley our with Field.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the Dear Future Wife Podcasts. Welcome to Dear
Speaker 2: Future Wifie podcast. I'm your host of Terra Sar.
Speaker 3: Wifield and I'm Ashley our with Field.
Speaker 1: Listen, are you still shacking up with us?
Speaker 2: Come on? If you're still shacking up with us, come on,
Speaker 2: can we get a commitment? Hit that subscription button and subscribe.
Speaker 2: Make sure you turn on your notification bell so you'll
Speaker 2: be notified about upcoming episodes. Now y'all heard me say this,
Speaker 2: it's so important for you to subscribe to the Dear
Speaker 2: Future WIFEI podcast. Why. It's because we have a lot
Speaker 2: of sponsors and advertisers who want to be connected to
Speaker 2: the Dear Future WIFEI Podcast, but they want to know
Speaker 2: that we have an engage audience that is consistent. ASA
Speaker 2: and I looked over the metrics and the analytics, and
Speaker 2: we found that fifty.
Speaker 3: Two percent, fifty two percent.
Speaker 2: Of people who listen to the podcast aren't even subscribed.
Speaker 1: That's a problem.
Speaker 3: That is a major problem.
Speaker 2: That means you find value in the content but won't
Speaker 2: hit a free subscription button. But I bet you if
Speaker 2: I check your Netflix account, you subscribe to that agent.
Speaker 9: Uh huh.
Speaker 2: Heymen, So I want you to make sure that you
Speaker 2: subscribe to the Dear Future WIFEI podcast so we can
Speaker 2: continue to put content out there for you and make
Speaker 2: it free. A lot of podcasts that you may like,
Speaker 2: a lot have gone to Patreon where they have to
Speaker 2: get paid for the content, and they charge you for
Speaker 2: it in order to subsidize the cost that it takes
Speaker 2: to put on these episodes every week. So just do
Speaker 2: your part. Hit that subscription button. Listen. Today's episode is
Speaker 2: gonna be extremely fun. We got Wisdom sitting on the
Speaker 2: yellow couch, Ashley's personal friends. She's been knowing them for years?
Speaker 2: How long you been knowing them?
Speaker 3: How?
Speaker 2: I ask them? How will will?
Speaker 10: Will?
Speaker 5: I believe I probably would say twenty fourteen is when
Speaker 5: I met fourteen?
Speaker 2: So you want to introduce to me on music? Introduce
Speaker 2: them you?
Speaker 3: I like the way you introduce our guests.
Speaker 1: Okay, So without further ado, welcome to give you to
Speaker 1: wife the.
Speaker 2: Podcast, our homies, Produzia and Craig so Drinker. How y'all doing?
Speaker 4: We're doing great? This one good Listen.
Speaker 2: We're excited to have you on the podcast. Why why
Speaker 2: don't you want to talk to them?
Speaker 5: Well, I you know, besides the fact that we go
Speaker 5: so far back, I am super excited because my big sis,
Speaker 5: my mentor, my sorority sister has a brand new book
Speaker 5: out with such great nuggets and information that we all
Speaker 5: need to consume, and so I'm excited about that, but
Speaker 5: most importantly, I'm excited about their love journey and how
Speaker 5: they came to be because I think it will offer
Speaker 5: a lot of great wisdom and nuggets to are awesome
Speaker 5: lit fam Kadijia.
Speaker 2: Yes, what do you do for a living? We're gonna
Speaker 2: go ahead and just talk about what you do so
Speaker 2: we can understand how you came to be well.
Speaker 3: First and foremost today as not only in my author
Speaker 3: thank you so much Ash for that, but also I
Speaker 3: oversee a business affairs department at and so I spend
Speaker 3: my days overseeing deal making and strategy for the network
Speaker 3: and production studios.
Speaker 2: Let's go.
Speaker 1: Nework number one news network.
Speaker 2: And so we're going to unpack a lot of that
Speaker 2: just by understanding how you think, because I feel that's
Speaker 2: quite interesting and Craig has to deal with that on
Speaker 2: a database.
Speaker 4: Every day every day.
Speaker 2: Craig, Yes, sir, what do you do? Who are you king?
Speaker 7: I am the CEO of a private foundation that focus
Speaker 7: on the city of north called the Victoria Foundation.
Speaker 2: And so what I love about your story I had
Speaker 2: people hear me say this over and over again. I
Speaker 2: had guests on the podcast, Jason Wilson, who's out of Detroit.
Speaker 2: He built the Cave of Adulum, which is this young
Speaker 2: male leadership program. And he and his wife Nicole when
Speaker 2: they first met was she was an rin making way
Speaker 2: more money than he made, and he worked two jobs
Speaker 2: in order just to help support the family and felt
Speaker 2: quite less than and was working hisself to the bones,
Speaker 2: to the point to where he almost literally died because
Speaker 2: a forklift almost fell on him when he fell off
Speaker 2: of a loading dock backed up, and he said he
Speaker 2: was looking up to the heavens and he had to
Speaker 2: had to relearn what masculinity was because he felt like
Speaker 2: being you know, being a man, being a husband, you
Speaker 2: have to be a provider financially. And he said, I'm
Speaker 2: I'm I'm hurting myself. I don't even realize I have
Speaker 2: this partner here to help me. And he left me
Speaker 2: with this quote and he said he and his wife
Speaker 2: got it together together. He said, we got it together
Speaker 2: together mean and that we're both we just we didn't
Speaker 2: come into this marriage ready made, as you and I discussed,
Speaker 2: as we all discussed prior to this episode, that we
Speaker 2: helped build each other to where we want to be.
Speaker 7: Uh.
Speaker 2: Before we unpack how y'all came to be and how
Speaker 2: y'all got married? How does that quote resonate with you?
Speaker 2: Creg Well, that has been that.
Speaker 7: I think the secret source of our marriage is that
Speaker 7: our communication around anything we wanted to do, whether it's
Speaker 7: Kadida's early career journey and things that you want to do,
Speaker 7: we set down every time and had a conversation like like,
Speaker 7: what do you want to do? How does it going
Speaker 7: to impact the other person? And let's figure out what's
Speaker 7: the best way to kind of manage all the change
Speaker 7: that's going to happen with any decision we needed to make.
Speaker 2: Well, how did you who taught you that? Because a
Speaker 2: lot of times we're introduced to more of the toxic
Speaker 2: side of masculinity where I ain't gonna discuss, you ain't
Speaker 2: gonna discuss with me what you're gonna do, You're gonna
Speaker 2: come support what I gotta do, you gotta come follow me,
Speaker 2: and it's not we're going to have this healthy conversation
Speaker 2: about partnership.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wish I had a clear example to say
Speaker 7: I love this from. I think it was just how
Speaker 7: I grew up, you know, very close with my mom
Speaker 7: before she passed, and I just just.
Speaker 4: Learned from her just the nurturing side.
Speaker 7: It helped me understand and listen, I pick up that
Speaker 7: skill by sitting in the kitchen with her for for years,
Speaker 7: for years.
Speaker 2: Yeah, how important was that, Kadesion, Oh?
Speaker 3: It was huge. Was game changer because to your point,
Speaker 3: I've I've grown up in spaces where masculine masculinity looked
Speaker 3: toxic actually right, and power looked like it was abusive
Speaker 3: in many ways. And so for me to have a
Speaker 3: husband and a person who was a partner in power
Speaker 3: and in love be able to say to me some
Speaker 3: version of let's talk about it, right, that's important and
Speaker 3: that's part of what I was looking for and made.
Speaker 3: So it's a big it's a big deal.
Speaker 7: Well let's go I would add that if I made
Speaker 7: go ahead, that it didn't start off like that right away.
Speaker 7: You know, we came in as two individuals in love, right,
Speaker 7: and you're.
Speaker 4: Staying called love.
Speaker 7: And then we had to learn how to live together
Speaker 7: and like each other every day while still being in love.
Speaker 8: And so we learned.
Speaker 7: So I'll be honest, the first year or so, it
Speaker 7: was a lot of who's going to be the strong one?
Speaker 4: And I think for me it came down to the
Speaker 4: point of what was most important.
Speaker 7: Was it more important for me to win this fight
Speaker 7: or is it really more important for me to build
Speaker 7: for the future. And I opted to build for the
Speaker 7: future and not try to win a fight.
Speaker 2: And you said it took about a year to get
Speaker 2: to that, Yeah, I think so a little bit.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it was about the year. The first year
Speaker 3: was a little rocky, but I think also to Craig's point,
Speaker 3: it was because we were still understanding each other. We're
Speaker 3: trying to figure out who we are as new people
Speaker 3: to a marriage, because you're not the same person you
Speaker 3: were as an individual, and then you have to start
Speaker 3: to consider other people's personalities, feelings, timing, Do I say
Speaker 3: this now, do I not say this now? I had
Speaker 3: to learn how to figure out, like how to pause things,
Speaker 3: maybe address it a little bit later, even if I
Speaker 3: really thought it was important to say, maybe not at
Speaker 3: the moment. So it was a lot of things that
Speaker 3: we all be both learned, I think, in the process early.
Speaker 3: But again, it's really a question of whether or not
Speaker 3: you want to be right or you want to be
Speaker 3: right together, you know what I'm saying, And you can
Speaker 3: be right personally about a particular issue, but you can
Speaker 3: sacrifice your relationship oftentimes just because you want to make
Speaker 3: a point versus actually trying to get right with the
Speaker 3: other person. Years be married twenty nine in September nine, and.
Speaker 7: We dated for eleven months before we got married. Oh yeah,
Speaker 7: so it's not like we had like years together. So
Speaker 7: when we got together, that first year was a little
Speaker 7: intense because again, we were learning some things that normally
Speaker 7: people have courtships over along a period of time.
Speaker 4: Maybe they revealed themselves, but you know, we didn't have that.
Speaker 5: Now, did you all have like some like oversight or
Speaker 5: people kind of guiding you or was this really trial
Speaker 5: by fire?
Speaker 3: Excellent question. Well let me say this so, well, so
Speaker 3: we did have folks giving us some oversight in some
Speaker 3: ways because I actually, you know, we'll talk a little
Speaker 3: bit about this through the application process that I asked
Speaker 3: him to fill out and he.
Speaker 1: Said, an application process, Yeah you had.
Speaker 2: You didn't have, My buddy Craig filled out no application
Speaker 2: digit I did, Oh, we're gon, we're gonna get to that.
Speaker 2: Go ahead now, you said, yeah, Because.
Speaker 3: I think a big part of it was I wanted
Speaker 3: to understand who Craig was in totality, and I wanted
Speaker 3: him to actually lay out who he was. Also, I
Speaker 3: thought it was important to have transparency up front, to
Speaker 3: have clarity and to make sure we understood what this
Speaker 3: was gonna be. I didn't know what it was yet,
Speaker 3: so I was like, well, tell me about yourself. And so,
Speaker 3: long story short, I asked him not only to fill
Speaker 3: out an application to tell me you know who he was,
Speaker 3: give us some mission statement of sorts to read through,
Speaker 3: give me a sense of your resume. I need some references,
Speaker 3: give me three references. Yes, yes I did. You didn't
Speaker 3: call the We did call the references, and actually we
Speaker 3: had and he had interviews. He had to sit and
Speaker 3: talk to some people that I asked him to talk
Speaker 3: to to make sure that they could vouch for, you know,
Speaker 3: for me, like whether or not he was somebody I
Speaker 3: should pursue or you know, and understand like what this
Speaker 3: was going to be. And I was twenty four years old.
Speaker 1: Who told you do that?
Speaker 3: I just knew that I had enough life experience that
Speaker 3: I saw you on this a long time, said, because
Speaker 3: I knew what it looked like if we didn't ask
Speaker 3: the questions. And so I was like, ask these questions
Speaker 3: up front and more importantly, half other people help in
Speaker 3: the process, like make it a communal process. So that's
Speaker 3: just not me bringing somebody home. It's like my mama
Speaker 3: and my auntie, my cousins. Everybody's like, Okay, who is
Speaker 3: this young man that wants to talk to you? And
Speaker 3: then let's see, let's see if we can all talk
Speaker 3: to him together as a conducial So it wasn't just.
Speaker 2: No boyfriend situation. Now when you were talking to him,
Speaker 2: you were betting husband.
Speaker 3: I was betting husband. I was betting and to be honest,
Speaker 3: I was on a hiatus from dating anybody. So I
Speaker 3: was like, if you want to be in my space,
Speaker 3: we need to understand what this even is. What what
Speaker 3: are you coming with? Who are you and how are
Speaker 3: you going to show up? And how are you going
Speaker 3: to help improve my life? Like what are you bringing
Speaker 3: to the party? Twenty four years?
Speaker 5: So it was the appletic was that, like the first
Speaker 5: time y'all met, Like at what point?
Speaker 3: So it was a few months into it, So a
Speaker 3: few months and so a good friend of I was
Speaker 3: introduced us and have been trying to for a while,
Speaker 3: and I was and I was like, no, I'm not
Speaker 3: really interested. I'm in law school. I have a lot
Speaker 3: going on, a lot in my life. I moved back home.
Speaker 3: My mother was fighting cancer, my little sister was six
Speaker 3: years old. I had a lot going on. I was
Speaker 3: in Jersey City, but I moved ba to the projects
Speaker 3: in Harlem. I went back to Harlem to my two bedroom,
Speaker 3: three bedroom house, apartment whatever we lived in at that point.
Speaker 3: And the crazy part was, I was like, I don't
Speaker 3: have time. So who is this young man who's so nice?
Speaker 3: Nice young man, but don't have time. I didn't have
Speaker 3: time for this.
Speaker 2: I didn't have time.
Speaker 4: She thought, Well, that's why.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay, so what is it that you're
Speaker 3: trying to accomplish? And so he actually had the truth.
Speaker 3: He told that he came to me. He said he
Speaker 3: wanted to do an event. He wants to plan a
Speaker 3: pro a program. Well, he wants to plan a program.
Speaker 3: He did, but I didn't know that was a program.
Speaker 3: And so fast forward we find out that the program
Speaker 3: was the wedding. But I didn't know that was the program.
Speaker 3: I thought of what he said, it was a youth program,
Speaker 3: because both of us work with young people a lot.
Speaker 3: So that was the thing that he said wanted to
Speaker 3: get to me. So he finally came over one day
Speaker 3: and we've taught had this conversation. I said, well, if
Speaker 3: this is what you you're trying to do, I need
Speaker 3: to understand more about you. But you're gonna have to
Speaker 3: fill out some paperwork and then you're gonna have to
Speaker 3: sit for some interviews and we're gonna have to understand
Speaker 3: this whole thing. And I'm just serious. And it's a
Speaker 3: few friends of mine said they would have never done it,
Speaker 3: and I said, well, that's why you would never married me.
Speaker 1: That's it because you have.
Speaker 3: To understand so you know, like the the requirements of
Speaker 3: what it is that you need. And I think this
Speaker 3: was my own purpose and process of vetting. You don't
Speaker 3: have to do this particular thing, but I think that
Speaker 3: everybody should be vetted. Everybody should have a process everybody,
Speaker 3: however you choose to do it. You need to be
Speaker 3: able to say to yourself, I deserve somebody who has X,
Speaker 3: and I'm bringing why and I'm looking for z fuss
Speaker 3: to bill together. And that's what I personally did at
Speaker 3: twenty four, and I thought it worked out.
Speaker 2: What do you think I was just gonna say that
Speaker 2: when she first told you well, first, when the friend said,
Speaker 2: I have a friend that I would like to introduce
Speaker 2: you to.
Speaker 7: So actually they had shared that with our friend that
Speaker 7: is a couple. The wife shared it with her that
Speaker 7: she wanted U has onone for me. I didn't I
Speaker 7: didn't know any okay, So actually we met at a conference.
Speaker 3: I didn't know that all these.
Speaker 8: Years, I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I never knew that.
Speaker 8: I never knew that.
Speaker 3: She just told me. She just told you, So then
Speaker 3: why are you You saw me like you didn't really
Speaker 3: want me.
Speaker 4: So let's make the record straight.
Speaker 7: I was actually it was a conference, one day conference,
Speaker 7: and I was actually working at the conference.
Speaker 4: So I was volunteering to work at the conference.
Speaker 2: And when the.
Speaker 7: Friend introduced us, I was actually in the middle of
Speaker 7: making sure things from one workshop to the other was
Speaker 7: transitioning properly. And we met, I said, you know, pleasure.
Speaker 8: To meet you.
Speaker 7: She took me as being rude. My mom was thinking
Speaker 7: about the program using work mode.
Speaker 8: I was in work mode right because I was there
Speaker 8: to do.
Speaker 4: I was showing who I was committed.
Speaker 1: To be focused.
Speaker 7: And then later on at the end of the program,
Speaker 7: we had a chance to sit down and communicate and
Speaker 7: we exchange numbers and I pursued her.
Speaker 8: Right, this is true different.
Speaker 7: He was interested, But I would say I would say
Speaker 7: though before that when she when she came in, I
Speaker 7: noticed a lot of people in that conference who I respected.
Speaker 7: The excitement and joy that they displayed by seeing her
Speaker 7: made me say who is this woman? Because people and
Speaker 7: I really like had deep love and respect for and
Speaker 7: for them to be that excited about.
Speaker 4: This person coming in the door, I was like, wow,
Speaker 4: I know.
Speaker 2: Who this is.
Speaker 8: I need to know who this is, right, exactly sweet.
Speaker 2: And so you felt that he wasn't that interested and
Speaker 2: he was acting shy.
Speaker 3: Well yeah, because at first when she introduced us, she
Speaker 3: was like, you know, you know, this is Kditra, this
Speaker 3: is Craig, you know. So I was like, I sounded
Speaker 3: like him. He was like like he k like went
Speaker 3: over and did something else and I was like, oh, okay,
Speaker 3: well that was interesting, right, And then I didn't even
Speaker 3: know if that was him until she said, oh, that's
Speaker 3: who I want you to meet, and I was like,
Speaker 3: oh okay. I said, well he was interesting, you know,
Speaker 3: like he was cute, but he was interested. He was
Speaker 3: gone on to something else he did. But the thing
Speaker 3: I will tell you though, is that so as we
Speaker 3: moved to the next room, because it's all these different
Speaker 3: pans and all this stuff that was, you know, on
Speaker 3: the program. So I sit down at the table and
Speaker 3: then you know, I'm sitting next to some other people chatting,
Speaker 3: and then I see you that he's sitting next to me,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, oh, it's you. Okay. Then I get
Speaker 3: up and I move because I'm talking to somebody use
Speaker 3: again and just moving around the room, and I realized,
Speaker 3: I'm like, oh with you again. Oh he's next to
Speaker 3: me again. And everyplace I moved, I felt like he
Speaker 3: was sitting next to me each time.
Speaker 1: Was you doing that on purpose?
Speaker 4: I think I have a different recollection.
Speaker 7: But I'm gonna let her own it, right, I'm prone
Speaker 7: to forget his own number.
Speaker 8: It was cute.
Speaker 3: It was cute, but I mean, I'll I'll just put
Speaker 3: it this way. We were connected a few times in
Speaker 3: that during that day because I kept I kept feeling
Speaker 3: like he was right. Then I was like, oh boy,
Speaker 3: he is just really like moving around the room too.
Speaker 3: Is he following me? And then when we were time
Speaker 3: to leave, he gave me his card, and on the
Speaker 3: card he gave me a few numbers, and I mean
Speaker 3: a few by like five. I was like, I was like,
Speaker 3: he had a beep of two. I was like, this is.
Speaker 8: Late nineties, right, I'm.
Speaker 3: Like, dude, I'm not gonna be calling me all these places.
Speaker 3: Just call me exactly by the back of the car.
Speaker 3: And so I was like, Okay, so clearly he's gonna
Speaker 3: call me. You just called me, d he called me call? Yeah.
Speaker 3: How long did you wait to call.
Speaker 8: Later that week?
Speaker 3: It was, yeah, a couple of days, A.
Speaker 7: Couple of days a Saturday maybe by that Wednesday.
Speaker 2: And when you called, what were you calling for?
Speaker 4: You know, that's a great question, what would you call
Speaker 4: them for?
Speaker 7: When I was I was fulfilling my commitment and said
Speaker 7: I was going to call on your word.
Speaker 4: I was on my word.
Speaker 7: And I was curious one to follow up on the
Speaker 7: project because we did say that we wanted to write
Speaker 7: an article around the program that we had pulled together,
Speaker 7: and she had volunteered to.
Speaker 4: You know, she was a journalist for the Muslim journals.
Speaker 4: She was one of their staff writers.
Speaker 7: And so I reached out from the stat on behalf
Speaker 7: of the organization to fill in any information she may
Speaker 7: have needed. So that was part one, and then Bartu
Speaker 7: is that I did want to know who this person was.
Speaker 2: At what point did it turn romantic instead of it
Speaker 2: start off with interest? What made you interested more in
Speaker 2: her on a romantic level?
Speaker 8: You know, as we started talking right away, it went quickly.
Speaker 7: From you know how when you sometimes you meet someone
Speaker 7: it's light and nonsubstantive.
Speaker 4: I was kind of shifted quickly to more substance.
Speaker 7: Her mom was, you know, she mentioned earlier, was recovering
Speaker 7: from cancer. I had lost my mother about a decade
Speaker 7: before that, so I knew the serieses of that we
Speaker 7: talked about. I think I shared with you some of
Speaker 7: the things I remember my mom going through, particularly with
Speaker 7: chemo and radiation, Like, hey, this may happen, medicine may
Speaker 7: have advanced, but this is what we So we ended
Speaker 7: up having conversations.
Speaker 4: At that level, like really early.
Speaker 7: She was in law school, so I realized she was
Speaker 7: balancing a lot with her mom, with law school, her
Speaker 7: other assignment she had with law school, and she had
Speaker 7: a little sister that she had to make sure moved around.
Speaker 7: So I was in Jersey, she was in New York,
Speaker 7: and you know, I would drive from Jersey to New
Speaker 7: York sometimes just to take her from law school and
Speaker 7: drive her home. Really, and we would just at midnight,
Speaker 7: yeah really, and then drive back home just so we
Speaker 7: can continue the conversation.
Speaker 2: That's good. Yeah, that's good. So she was twenty three,
Speaker 2: and y'all have an age difference, what four years, five years?
Speaker 2: And so you drove over there to pick up What
Speaker 2: did that mean to you for him to want that
Speaker 2: level of quality time, even if it's just an hour
Speaker 2: or so.
Speaker 3: No, it's it was a game changer, because I mean,
Speaker 3: you know, I was literally like my days were crazy,
Speaker 3: I literally were I was in the law school classes
Speaker 3: during the day. I would get my little sister at
Speaker 3: like three o'clock from school. I would take her home.
Speaker 3: I would go get them fed, go back to law
Speaker 3: school to deal my cases. I had some cases in
Speaker 3: the clinic that I was litigating in and then I
Speaker 3: had classes and homework and my professors were there helping me,
Speaker 3: and they understood like all the challenges, and so by
Speaker 3: the time I get out of the look out of
Speaker 3: the library, it was like, I don't know, some version
Speaker 3: of like midnight, one o'clock in the morning.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 3: And then Craig would be waiting outside in the car
Speaker 3: to take me home, then to drive back to Jersey
Speaker 3: just to make sure I got home. Okay. Yeah, so
Speaker 3: it was really yeah. Yeah, and sometimes I think it's
Speaker 3: had to be there like a five or six o'clock
Speaker 3: some days. Yeah, she was.
Speaker 4: All right, all right, right.
Speaker 2: You would go and sit outside wait till she leave,
Speaker 2: take up there, and then go back home and then
Speaker 2: probably go to sleep about three hours and then go
Speaker 2: to work four hours and get it and go to work.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I remember when when our first early interactions.
Speaker 7: I came over one Saturday and you didn't know.
Speaker 4: I said something about I will cook. He was like cook.
Speaker 4: She know I know how to cook.
Speaker 3: He knows how to cook.
Speaker 7: And so we went to the supermarket to buy some food.
Speaker 7: And I think she was still skeptical if I know
Speaker 7: how to cook. And we're in the supermarket and we
Speaker 7: were we were fighting over paying at the register.
Speaker 4: And I was like, I'm not going to let like yeah.
Speaker 8: She was like I got it.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 7: So I went and we took the food back to
Speaker 7: her mother's apartment and.
Speaker 4: I cooked the meal for her mom. A little sister
Speaker 4: in Kadiji, and we all had dinner together.
Speaker 2: Things like that.
Speaker 7: Yeah, the first time I actually went to the matter
Speaker 7: of fact, the first time I went to go see
Speaker 7: Khadija a couple I think a week or so after
Speaker 7: we first met, uh, I spent more time sitting the
Speaker 7: couch talking to her mother than talking to Kdija.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I didn't know much about talk for like two hours.
Speaker 4: I talked for two hours on the couch.
Speaker 3: Yeah. I was in the kitchen cooking and organizing things.
Speaker 3: And my mother said to me at the end of
Speaker 3: the night, he was a nice young man. I said, oh,
Speaker 3: was he? I didn't know much because I didn't get
Speaker 3: to talk with him that much. He said, oh, yeah,
Speaker 3: he's funny too. She had all these things to say,
Speaker 3: and I kept saying, that's interesting. I didn't get to
Speaker 3: see much. I didn't get to know him, you know,
Speaker 3: that much that evening. But but then he came back
Speaker 3: and then so I got to talk to him more.
Speaker 3: But my mother had all the details.
Speaker 2: Let me tell you, so, so did your mom. Did
Speaker 2: you get a sense of approval when your mom was
Speaker 2: talking about him.
Speaker 3: M you know how your mama do. When she was like,
Speaker 3: he's a nice young man, she went right there. I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, Mama. Once came in at one time, right,
Speaker 3: But it was really comfortable.
Speaker 7: Yeah, it was really comfortable sitting there talking with her mom.
Speaker 4: And even today we're still cool. We have a special
Speaker 4: relationship with your mother in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that's so funny. They're like two peas in the pod.
Speaker 2: Yeah something.
Speaker 1: But you see how beautiful that is.
Speaker 2: You said you lost your mom ten years prior to
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, meeting her mom, and then the first
Speaker 2: encounter you have was more of a connection with her
Speaker 2: mom than even the woman that you were interested in, exactly.
Speaker 2: That's the beautiful It's just how God works. It's like,
Speaker 2: why did that have to happen like that, you know
Speaker 2: what I'm saying. It's like why y'all could have met
Speaker 2: somewhere else? Your mom couldn't even didn't even have to
Speaker 2: be a part of that discussion, right, And then it
Speaker 2: was like this moment that you got a chance with
Speaker 2: her mom and you said you are still think of
Speaker 2: thieves his very day. Yeah, yeah, this is absolute beautiful.
Speaker 2: I love not hear moments like that.
Speaker 5: You say something I was about to say, so we
Speaker 5: wanted to all. I also wanted to hear how you
Speaker 5: felt when you initially got that application, because I think
Speaker 5: it's one thing to know it's coming, but then it's
Speaker 5: another thing to be on the receiving end of it.
Speaker 4: So two things, well, a few things.
Speaker 7: One I knew I couldn't share this with none of
Speaker 7: my homeboys for they to clown me right to.
Speaker 2: Application all that.
Speaker 3: Now when they found out, they're.
Speaker 7: Like, what, yeah, I'm catching it now. For some from
Speaker 7: my friends who read their book, like, yo, man, you didn't.
Speaker 4: Tell me that.
Speaker 7: You don't come up in conversations things we just know. Yeah,
Speaker 7: So one show it was. It was that first one.
Speaker 7: I think the second one was a little ego like.
Speaker 2: Who are you thinking?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 7: A little bit of that, but then you you have
Speaker 7: this this more I speak for me.
Speaker 4: I had this moment and I was.
Speaker 7: Like, hmm, let's pause for a second. And then what
Speaker 7: I realized that this application was for her, but it
Speaker 7: was really about me.
Speaker 2: There it is right, there is.
Speaker 4: And if I couldn't write anything on this.
Speaker 7: Paper, if I didn't have any people who I could
Speaker 7: put up to say, let me speak to his.
Speaker 4: Character there it is? Who am I to be in
Speaker 4: her space and her face?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 7: I would say that that was That was probably more
Speaker 7: in the more deep into subconscious.
Speaker 4: As almost married thirty years.
Speaker 8: I could admit it, and I can admit it now loud.
Speaker 7: But really it came out there and I had to
Speaker 7: look at that. When I wrote it, I was like.
Speaker 4: Hmm, not bad.
Speaker 7: You got some gaps here, not so much for her,
Speaker 7: but some things that you still want to do for yourself.
Speaker 3: Yeah, so lit up.
Speaker 1: So then what stage that the app case and get introduced.
Speaker 3: Oh so we were probably talking like about three months.
Speaker 3: And then I was like, okay, look, you know I
Speaker 3: have spent a lot of time in my life analyzing
Speaker 3: all the things that were twenty four at twenty four ye.
Speaker 2: You know years old talk about right, that's but you
Speaker 2: know you.
Speaker 5: See a lot of twenty four and so were you
Speaker 5: guys fit? Like what did you? How did you all?
Speaker 5: Because some people don't believe in boyfriend girlfriends, people do like,
Speaker 5: what would you how would you describe your relationship?
Speaker 3: Three months? So I think three months you were about.
Speaker 7: To say, No, I don't want to get this wrong.
Speaker 3: I don't get this wrong. I wouldn't say we were
Speaker 3: a boyfriend and girlfriend because I don't think that that
Speaker 3: was I think that we were trying to understand if
Speaker 3: this was going to be a courtship for me or
Speaker 3: a commitment because I was I was interested in being
Speaker 3: then girlfriend. I was like, I don't have time for it,
Speaker 3: So what is it that we're doing here? But that
Speaker 3: was the application process. It was like, this is the
Speaker 3: reason why the application needs to come up, because if
Speaker 3: you you can come and hang out with us and
Speaker 3: talk we were friends, that's nice, but what are we doing?
Speaker 3: I need to understand that. So that was actually really
Speaker 3: my way of nudging to say, put on paper, bro,
Speaker 3: what you're trying to do here? I need to understand it.
Speaker 3: Do you remember how you said?
Speaker 5: Because I know a lot of the women, Okay, walk
Speaker 5: us through how you communicated to him?
Speaker 3: Yeah. So I think we were putting dishes that we
Speaker 3: were cleaning up the kitchen after dinner and he was helping.
Speaker 3: I think I was washing, he was drying or whatever
Speaker 3: the dishes and we were chatting, and I was just like,
Speaker 3: you know, so what are we doing?
Speaker 4: I was putting up.
Speaker 3: Okay, well okay, well we were we were together, we
Speaker 3: were doing the dish. We were doing the dishes together.
Speaker 3: I think I asked him something like, so what is this?
Speaker 3: What are we doing?
Speaker 2: Like?
Speaker 3: How what do we what are you what's happening here exactly?
Speaker 3: Because you know, now, mind you, I had already said,
Speaker 3: you know, I was done with a lot of other
Speaker 3: stuff in life, and I was just trying to make sure,
Speaker 3: like I don't need anybody else to take care of
Speaker 3: per se. I don't mind being a partner in something,
Speaker 3: but I need to understand, like what is it that
Speaker 3: the person is bringing. So I asked him, I salf so,
Speaker 3: you know, I have some ideas about how we can
Speaker 3: get to what we're trying to do, but what is
Speaker 3: it that you want to do? And he was like,
Speaker 3: you know, I want to be with you. I think
Speaker 3: that was his answer. And I was like, well what
Speaker 3: does that look like? And then he was like, you know,
Speaker 3: like together and I was like, okay, well I have
Speaker 3: I have a process figure and then he said, well
Speaker 3: what are you thinking. I was like, I'll get back
Speaker 3: to you, but it's going to require an application. And
Speaker 3: then I was like it was that, and then I said,
Speaker 3: I'll give you some stuff and you can get back
Speaker 3: to me and we'll have a because you have a
Speaker 3: two week process time to kind of get all your
Speaker 3: paperwork together, and then i'll let you know after you submittion.
Speaker 3: How did you have this application pre made? No? Created
Speaker 3: it right? No, it was It wasn't making. I had
Speaker 3: to organize it and stuff. But I knew what in
Speaker 3: my mind I was percolating like what I needed to know,
Speaker 3: And I was like, we're going to need to figure
Speaker 3: out some things, and I want to see it on paper,
Speaker 3: because you know, listen, we do all this stuff for jobs,
Speaker 3: for internships, for colleges, right, we do all the business
Speaker 3: stuff to make sure that we get the job right.
Speaker 3: We got the right position, the right title, the right everything.
Speaker 3: And then in our lives we were just floating our
Speaker 3: lives when something take up space, right, we always want
Speaker 3: to be chosen. We don't want to do the choosing.
Speaker 3: I want to be choosing and chosen. And so I
Speaker 3: was like, we're gonna need to have a process here,
Speaker 3: and I want him that's right, right, And I want
Speaker 3: him to feel like also that he is getting the
Speaker 3: best that he needs for him because maybe we weren't
Speaker 3: just compatible, we would have a good time together. Maybe
Speaker 3: we weren't supposed to be married. Just figure that out
Speaker 3: real quick, right, And then we have our parents and
Speaker 3: now I love ones helping us navigate this to ask
Speaker 3: the questions to and then the other thing is that
Speaker 3: the one thing I loved about Craig. After he finished
Speaker 3: his process and I told him he was accepted.
Speaker 1: You have permission to move on to the next.
Speaker 3: And let me tell you what he did. He said,
Speaker 3: said that was such an excellent process. Would you mind
Speaker 3: doing the same thing for me? I need you to
Speaker 3: fill out an application too.
Speaker 2: I said, I said.
Speaker 3: I clutched my parents for a second, but I said, right,
Speaker 3: that makes sense. Let me get let me get to
Speaker 3: the world. It's the application in the book. It's not
Speaker 3: you know why why because those of you'll want to application,
Speaker 3: you're gonna have to ask me.
Speaker 4: To get that.
Speaker 3: Afraid I didn't get that for a free But anyway,
Speaker 3: get the book because the book is good.
Speaker 4: Crib yes, sir.
Speaker 2: Well, first I'm gonna ask you, so, when you got
Speaker 2: the application, how long did it take you to turn
Speaker 2: it in?
Speaker 4: Oh? I definitely took all I took them for two weeks.
Speaker 7: Yeah, As I mentioned, you know, like first like yeah,
Speaker 7: and then you just kind of like yeah, and then
Speaker 7: you realize you.
Speaker 8: Don't have those things readily available.
Speaker 7: So I had to like sit down and be thoughtful
Speaker 7: and you know what is ah, what is my mission statement?
Speaker 4: What is some things I want to accomplish?
Speaker 7: So I had to spend some time being not only reflective,
Speaker 7: but that is just so good to me and but
Speaker 7: also for me to start thinking thinking forward.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 7: You know, at the time Kadidi was in her list
Speaker 7: year of law school and at the time I didn't
Speaker 7: even have my college dugree. Right, so it's like, hm, wow, oh,
Speaker 7: but I wasn't intimidated by that. It was just a
Speaker 7: reflection point in my life.
Speaker 2: Is like, hmmm, why weren't.
Speaker 1: You intimidated by that? A lot of men would find.
Speaker 2: Intimidation behind an intelligent, educated woman, especially from the realm
Speaker 2: of law, Like that's the whole you like, Lord, this
Speaker 2: later going to be debating stuff.
Speaker 8: But that's that's true. That's I didn't say that didn't happen.
Speaker 7: That didn't happen, But I enjoyed it because that was
Speaker 7: about mine expansion, the expansion, and I really loved that.
Speaker 7: So I wasn't intimidated by it. And she just mentioned
Speaker 7: now it could have we could have come to the
Speaker 7: conclusion that we weren't compatible, but it wasn't from a
Speaker 7: sense of me being intimidated by her and what she was,
Speaker 7: the lofty things she had already accomplished in that good
Speaker 7: likely to accomplish it. She was I thought, was a
Speaker 7: very fascinating person, had all these experiences. We had similar upbringings,
Speaker 7: but different enough that it was still exciting.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 2: So what would you say about this condesia because you said,
Speaker 2: here it is. He even said you had lofty goals ambition.
Speaker 2: You're in law school at the time. My buddy Craig,
Speaker 2: he was working at budget. Yeah, budget, And so you
Speaker 2: weren't the type of woman back then that said I
Speaker 2: see myself married to another attorney and we can do this,
Speaker 2: or he has to be a doctor. We're going to
Speaker 2: be like the Huxtables and all that stuff. Like you
Speaker 2: didn't have this ideology at twenty four. You had all
Speaker 2: this other stuff figured out, You had applications and all that.
Speaker 1: You didn't see that in your future, or.
Speaker 2: You were like I was looking more for character.
Speaker 3: Well, I was looking more for a character for sure,
Speaker 3: because I mean, the thing I I knew also is
Speaker 3: that you could have somebody who has money, power, titles,
Speaker 3: but it didn't necessarily mean that their person was going
Speaker 3: to be good for me. In my own life right.
Speaker 3: I was standing on my own business too, so I
Speaker 3: knew I could take care of myself ultimately. But what
Speaker 3: I was looking for, I had a must have less
Speaker 3: and a nice to have less right, and that must
Speaker 3: have less with somebody who was God fearing first and foremost,
Speaker 3: who gave reverence to God. Somebody who was a family
Speaker 3: person who understood how to care for their families. And
Speaker 3: then also somebody who had character, integrity, who was loyal,
Speaker 3: who understood, who was caring, who was nurturing all those things.
Speaker 3: I think that sometimes we, you know, we don't really
Speaker 3: think about as much, and sometimes in relationships when we're
Speaker 3: thinking about is he going to be? And I also
Speaker 3: said tall, I ain't gonna lie somebody taller than me.
Speaker 3: I was like, somebody taller than me, but on the
Speaker 3: nice to have list with some other things. And I
Speaker 3: was like, you know, if they want to have or
Speaker 3: he wants to have, you know, a career, an extra
Speaker 3: Y or Z, that's fine. Long as he's fulfilled and happy.
Speaker 2: Right as he fulfilled and happy, why don't we hear
Speaker 2: more of that?
Speaker 1: Yeah, as long as he's fulfilling happy.
Speaker 2: I've never heard anybody say that it's always based on
Speaker 2: the woman's fulfillment and validation of his career choice. And
Speaker 2: we always and I hate when people say this. They'll
Speaker 2: use the teacher as the lowest standard or something like.
Speaker 2: I mean they say, if they were a teacher, would
Speaker 2: I be comfortable? Like you know, how fulfilling that to
Speaker 2: be an actual teacher? How much reference that as I
Speaker 2: have for our teachers? And then you'll be like, I mean,
Speaker 2: let's say that. I mean, people ask them, could you
Speaker 2: be married to a school teacher? Like that's like that's
Speaker 2: low and I'm like, what so that means so much
Speaker 2: to hear you say, as long as he's fulfilled, because
Speaker 2: if that person's calling is to be a gym coach,
Speaker 2: to be a teacher, to be whatever it is, then
Speaker 2: that's what makes them happy.
Speaker 1: That's what makes them satisfy.
Speaker 2: And who are you to come into their life and
Speaker 2: be like mm hmm, that's this is I.
Speaker 3: Can never accept this and you like that's fine.
Speaker 2: That's why I've always want to be like that's all
Speaker 2: you want to be like, yeah, should I not? You know,
Speaker 2: my daddy was this and I've always wanted to do
Speaker 2: that and be like, no, that's not good enough to
Speaker 2: and so how did you adopt that ideology at twenty four,
Speaker 2: at the old age of two, because you've been on
Speaker 2: the firth a long time, So at twenty four years old,
Speaker 2: how did you learn that, especially been around peers that
Speaker 2: may not have thought.
Speaker 1: The same way.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I don't think that we the first and foremost.
Speaker 3: I think each one of us is valuable in our
Speaker 3: own right, right. I think that every single person has
Speaker 3: a story that is worth hearing, being told, respected, And
Speaker 3: so you know, I'm not here to tell people what
Speaker 3: they need to be and what they don't need to be.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of times people prescribe things on
Speaker 3: other people that they haven't fulfilled in their own lives.
Speaker 3: And so for me, I was just focusing on being
Speaker 3: whole myself, like, because you should do the best that
Speaker 3: you can do what you have, right, And we came
Speaker 3: from very humble beginnings and right, both of us, so
Speaker 3: we understood. I was in Harlem, he was in Newark, right,
Speaker 3: and we both grew up in very challenging circumstances at times.
Speaker 3: And so you know, I was just trying to stand
Speaker 3: up and use my power as best I possibly could,
Speaker 3: and then make sure I share what I had with
Speaker 3: other people so they could actually do the same thing
Speaker 3: for themselves and other people as well. That power sharing
Speaker 3: is so important to me. So I wasn't trying to
Speaker 3: change him. I just wanted somebody who was willing to
Speaker 3: work with me and to help me become better at
Speaker 3: who I wanted to be. And I think that's just
Speaker 3: so important. I think so often sometimes people get married
Speaker 3: and think that I have to change the person. I
Speaker 3: got to make my husband do this. I had to
Speaker 3: build amand this n't build a beer, right. You know
Speaker 3: what I'm saying. This is like we need to be
Speaker 3: working together in concert to make sure that we're fulfilling
Speaker 3: who we can ultimately be our best selves. And usually
Speaker 3: the person that you marry, if they can bring out
Speaker 3: the best in you. I mean, that's really what partnership
Speaker 3: truly is about. So I didn't really care what he
Speaker 3: did for a job as long as it was legal,
Speaker 3: it was wholesome.
Speaker 8: That's good.
Speaker 3: Legal and wholesome. I was good, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 7: But I think that's been one of our our secret
Speaker 7: sources of superpowers is around sitting down having these conversations
Speaker 7: around you know, where we were individually and what are
Speaker 7: some of our aspirations and not being afraid to talk
Speaker 7: about that, and then hear from the other person how
Speaker 7: we could be supportive. So could he just finish his
Speaker 7: law school? I ended up going back to school finishing
Speaker 7: my undergrad degree, and then later a few years later,
Speaker 7: you know, got my MBA. In between that, we Kadiza,
Speaker 7: we had a conversation around she wanted to focus up.
Speaker 7: She had the opportunity to grow in her career and
Speaker 7: was like, hey, let's have this conversation.
Speaker 4: We got this little baby.
Speaker 8: You work in the city.
Speaker 7: I'm on this side. It's easier for me to drop
Speaker 7: the baby off in the morning, pick pick the baby up,
Speaker 7: whatever we need to do, so you can have these
Speaker 7: pursuits that you gonna make you feel feel fulfilled and
Speaker 7: not just be limited to you have to be a
Speaker 7: mother now come home like, no, what are the things
Speaker 7: that's gonna make you feel like you're a full person.
Speaker 7: And then when my opportunities came, we did the same thing.
Speaker 7: So even when the book, when Kadida decided she was
Speaker 7: gonna write this book, like okay.
Speaker 3: That's a third baby, right and powery imagine, yes, really.
Speaker 8: You need your writing time you need to go do that.
Speaker 7: I got it right, you know, don't worry about this,
Speaker 7: don't worry about that. And so we've always been really
Speaker 7: good and listening and helping each other kind of reach
Speaker 7: their dreams and inspire for more.
Speaker 2: When I said I love hearing healthy, when I say,
Speaker 2: it does something to me because I know the disconnect
Speaker 2: and why the black experience is what it is is
Speaker 2: because we don't hear enough healthy examples and what reign
Speaker 2: supreme on social media is the toxic examples. And they
Speaker 2: don't hear like you, like we hear so much about
Speaker 2: people looking for ready made people like you need to
Speaker 2: be if you're going to be an attorney, be an attorney.
Speaker 2: Don't be in the process of becoming one. Don't be
Speaker 2: when you're failing the test. I don't want you while
Speaker 2: you failing. I need you passed and passing, already, attorney, already,
Speaker 2: a partner, already, all this stuff, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 2: like how many How easy is it for anybody to
Speaker 2: choose the finished product of anything?
Speaker 3: Oh it's so easy. Yeah, it's so easy. And I've
Speaker 3: had people I told you, people have told me that
Speaker 3: they would have never married a man like Craig who
Speaker 3: was working at budget as a manager without having at
Speaker 3: a college degree, right, let alone like not that's just
Speaker 3: an undergraduate degree, not alone a graduate degree.
Speaker 2: Right.
Speaker 3: So it was like you were already on your way,
Speaker 3: you know. And I'm like, but see you missing the point,
Speaker 3: missed it, you know. And so I think so many
Speaker 3: people miss the opportunity to find really good people, to
Speaker 3: get partners in life that really could compliment and then
Speaker 3: to build something together, which is more beautiful in my opinion,
Speaker 3: Like you know what I mean, you know, I get
Speaker 3: when I think about the fact that Craig was going
Speaker 3: to school at night after he left his job. During
Speaker 3: the day, we were paying for his school. And then
Speaker 3: then he would another job and they start paying for
Speaker 3: his school. And the next thing, you know, he finished that,
Speaker 3: he graduated with honors. It was wonderful.
Speaker 2: I was there.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was beautiful. Then I went to his next
Speaker 3: thing and he got his NBA and we had a
Speaker 3: little baby girl and she was in the class with
Speaker 3: him some nights. He would say in the class, yes
Speaker 3: and taken with him. The class should be in the
Speaker 3: back of the class sometimes with them, and that all
Speaker 3: the all the graduate students should be taking terms playing
Speaker 3: with her to make sure they'd gotten from a quantum
Speaker 3: accounting or whatever the case is they were taking for
Speaker 3: his NBA. And then I would because I was working
Speaker 3: late in the city. I was at my job, you know,
Speaker 3: doing meeting up pulling midnight hours sometimes right. And then
Speaker 3: he was like, I got don't worry, I got it.
Speaker 3: You just get home safely. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: He maybe any fool for every child that we had
Speaker 3: never ate draw food. Every Sunday was the day. But
Speaker 3: he was making baby food. And I used to eat
Speaker 3: it too, because it's so darned I did. That's what
Speaker 3: was delicious. It was like sweet potatoes and carrots and
Speaker 3: apples and sweepertails and carrots together. And I'd be like,
Speaker 3: and every time I traveled, I was nursing both big kids.
Speaker 3: I would travel with them on my trips, and he
Speaker 3: would say he would freeze the food who had pass
Speaker 3: and things now would care with me. My sister would
Speaker 3: meet me on the trip and so she can help
Speaker 3: me take care of those kids. But he would pack
Speaker 3: all the food and events.
Speaker 2: So I'm saying, when I say, God and all his
Speaker 2: infinite wisdom knew that even his upbringing from his mom
Speaker 2: teaching him how to cook, will be necessary for him
Speaker 2: to even make custom made baby food for y'all's.
Speaker 3: Kids, right, you know, it's like every little.
Speaker 2: Intricate details that your vision couldn't even see it. If
Speaker 2: you were only stuck on the right now, you'll never
Speaker 2: be able to see what was going to take place
Speaker 2: years later. And what's so I think so many people
Speaker 2: have are so short sighted and their dating process that
Speaker 2: they don't even know how to discern the type of
Speaker 2: character that they need.
Speaker 1: In a husband.
Speaker 2: A lot of people still be hung up on your
Speaker 2: height requirement or prefer I ain't gonna say requirement because yeah,
Speaker 2: because you said bust have and would like to have.
Speaker 2: So they'd be like, what she would like to have?
Speaker 2: Oh no, that's a must have, like really, like really,
Speaker 2: so as long as he's this height while you're sitting
Speaker 2: up there lugging the kids, sitting at your office with
Speaker 2: the baby, so you're cool with that, And they'd be like,
Speaker 2: oh no, no, I need a man at least gonna
Speaker 2: have to share in that. Okay, now you just said
Speaker 2: you in the future you want somebody sharing that, So
Speaker 2: what are you willing to negotiate to, and a lot
Speaker 2: of times they're just not using wisdom on what they
Speaker 2: consider a none negotiable. A lot of times people are
Speaker 2: calling stuff that's the none negotiable, and you be like,
Speaker 2: when you got married, you'll realize that that is not
Speaker 2: a true negotiable. This just don't make sense, don't And
Speaker 2: so I get excited when I hear couples that has
Speaker 2: been married almost thirty years that are able to come
Speaker 2: and say, let me tell you this, even the experience
Speaker 2: that the people around y'all, and this is what God
Speaker 2: is showing me in your NBA program. The people got
Speaker 2: a chance to witness what fatherhood looks like.
Speaker 3: That's right.
Speaker 2: The fact that because typically you wouldn't see a father
Speaker 2: with the kids sitting up here while there in school,
Speaker 2: that mama backed her be the one taking care of
Speaker 2: that kid, because you ain't finna come in. I ain't
Speaker 2: gonna be walking around with no kid like that. We're
Speaker 2: not gonna do that. That's a mother's job. So they
Speaker 2: got a chance to witness not only what fatherhood looks like,
Speaker 2: but husbandry on the truest sense of what husbandry looks like.
Speaker 2: So I get excited when I hear stuff like that,
Speaker 2: because I'll be like, God, we just get it so wrong.
Speaker 2: And you hear a key thing where you said the
Speaker 2: stuff that y'all got a chance to experience while y'all
Speaker 2: were getting it together together, that that's what brings a
Speaker 2: deeper bond with each other.
Speaker 1: You're like, man, you remember.
Speaker 2: We were struggling. You remember we went had and you
Speaker 2: remember when we didn't have. Like people can look at
Speaker 2: us right now and say this. We could ask you
Speaker 2: to celebrate and say, hey, you over here working with
Speaker 2: one of the biggest with the number one news station,
Speaker 2: But what happened before that, what happened in the interim,
Speaker 2: That's right, that's.
Speaker 3: What fortifies your marriage.
Speaker 5: So a lot of times people want the end result
Speaker 5: without doing the work.
Speaker 3: That it takes to get there.
Speaker 5: And everybody can acknowledge like, oh, if I want muscles,
Speaker 5: I can't just go to the gym for one day, right,
Speaker 5: There's like some consistency that I have to put into
Speaker 5: to grow muscles. And so hearing the story, I think
Speaker 5: it is so helpful for everyone because it's like, Okay,
Speaker 5: this is the work that we put in to get
Speaker 5: the harvest that we wanted, but without you know, planning
Speaker 5: the right seeds and then watering them time after time
Speaker 5: and growing though you know you don't get that harvest.
Speaker 2: You had a woo statement when I said the struggle.
Speaker 2: Let's talk about the struggle. What kind of struggle that
Speaker 2: y'all go through as y'all was in the interim and
Speaker 2: the build up stage.
Speaker 4: Oh well it was.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 7: It was a list of things, and I'm so there.
Speaker 7: Of course, is getting to know each other's struggle.
Speaker 2: Put the microphone closer to you. You're trying to get
Speaker 2: all booted up with y'all boot up.
Speaker 7: Well, you know, it's the struggle of getting to know
Speaker 7: each other and getting to know yourself differently as a
Speaker 7: husband and as a wife. Right, I'm a different person
Speaker 7: than I was before the day we got married. Right,
Speaker 7: So it was that struggle. And then it was the
Speaker 7: reality of the financial struggle. Right, you know, we realized
Speaker 7: earlier she ain't have a lot. I have a lot.
Speaker 4: But let's try to figure out how we build something together.
Speaker 7: I think one one key moment we had we were
Speaker 7: set down women.
Speaker 4: The insurance lady came. She's laughing.
Speaker 7: So these lady's came to sell us some financial services
Speaker 7: and you know, we were, you know, making pittings at
Speaker 7: the time, and she sat down, she was sisters walking
Speaker 7: us through everything, and she was like, well.
Speaker 8: It looks like if you all just can script and
Speaker 8: save some more money. I was like, no, that's not
Speaker 8: the issue. We need to make more money.
Speaker 3: She said, cut back on this, cut back on it.
Speaker 3: We didn't cut back on everything, and.
Speaker 8: Then that's to cut back, go down to bone.
Speaker 7: But then and that point though, we would still find
Speaker 7: ways to be able to show each other joy and
Speaker 7: appreciation even when we didn't have a lot of financial resources.
Speaker 7: In the it was it could be a card, it
Speaker 7: could be sometimes I will find an.
Speaker 3: Outfit for her, a shop for me, shop for a
Speaker 3: lot of time.
Speaker 4: Right and she would come home and be a few
Speaker 4: outfits there for her, things like that.
Speaker 7: But those things let me know that when if we
Speaker 7: can go through this, we can.
Speaker 1: Build for the long term part.
Speaker 7: And everything we've been doing was we talked about this
Speaker 7: last night. The balance between living in the moment and
Speaker 7: appreciating the moment while always thinking about the future life
Speaker 7: that you want to have together.
Speaker 3: That's good, yeah, because you know the thing is that
Speaker 3: and you know, I've started to realize I was telling Craig,
Speaker 3: there's so many people that we start to actually that
Speaker 3: we know who's plan for retirement. Sometimes one of the
Speaker 3: spouse's passes away before they even get there, right, And
Speaker 3: so you're pushing everything off until like when we retire,
Speaker 3: we're going to do all these things versus like we
Speaker 3: want to do some things now, but we're also going
Speaker 3: to keep planning for some other things. And so I think,
Speaker 3: you know, we're just trying to be grateful. One. I
Speaker 3: think just gratitude is everything to me. I think we
Speaker 3: both just tall our kids this too, Like you know,
Speaker 3: if you're grateful, you will get more, Like you just
Speaker 3: have to be grateful. Yeah, the same thing. It's just
Speaker 3: so important. And then and then the other thing is,
Speaker 3: you know, I laugh oftentimes when I think about, like
Speaker 3: going back, I was talking about the credit card. Craig
Speaker 3: and I had two credit cards that we share, and
Speaker 3: I think that one of them had a limit like
Speaker 3: a three hundred dollars and we would like we were.
Speaker 11: Literally like pay off the secure one, right, you gotta
Speaker 11: put your money down, and we were like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 11: we got to build out credit right, and literally you
Speaker 11: put boys up next to you and you're like, we
Speaker 11: got two ninety already spent.
Speaker 3: We got ten dollars laugh. And then you built, you
Speaker 3: paid off and that's got the same thing.
Speaker 8: It was.
Speaker 3: At those priorities order. What the crazy part is is
Speaker 3: that I was thinking about that and I was like,
Speaker 3: you know, just how like we just can't act only
Speaker 3: kept working in that way, and then next thing, you know,
Speaker 3: we were able to buy a house one time, you know,
Speaker 3: one year, and the next time the first.
Speaker 1: Time you get an unsecured car.
Speaker 8: That's right, you go from.
Speaker 2: A secure car to unsecure. They be like, hey, we're
Speaker 2: going to send you your deposit back. You was like, yeah,
Speaker 2: they start you off at that three hundred dollars credit limit,
Speaker 2: get back and then they give you five hundred and
Speaker 2: I'm earning trust.
Speaker 3: You know what I forgot about that, That's right, That
Speaker 3: is that was a graduation.
Speaker 1: You did something.
Speaker 2: It's like every milestone that shows you that you're in
Speaker 2: trusted before you ever get trusted with a whole mortgage.
Speaker 3: That's true. Actually that is true though. But by the
Speaker 3: time we did that and we got that little house Stough,
Speaker 3: we were so excited. We were like, oh, we want
Speaker 3: to come up in that little key house, but it
Speaker 3: was it was all the you know, all those small.
Speaker 2: Things like that.
Speaker 4: And we got married in ninety seven.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, September.
Speaker 7: Of ninety seven. June of twenty of two thousand. Yeah,
Speaker 7: this all happened at the same time. We're moving into
Speaker 7: our first house. We're going to a Ruble for vacation,
Speaker 7: and we.
Speaker 2: Were a new car.
Speaker 1: The Rubles where we spent the honeymoon.
Speaker 3: We have such great memories about a Yeah, that's great.
Speaker 8: Yeah, but we were committed to this.
Speaker 7: And then to your point, when you are make the commitment,
Speaker 7: things is kind of they speed up and they magnify
Speaker 7: that much much more because we were committed to each
Speaker 7: other into the process for each other.
Speaker 5: Yeah, So what did you say to those people who
Speaker 5: questioned you?
Speaker 3: Like, I didn't have to say much because they see
Speaker 3: me now. So I was like, they know, they come around.
Speaker 3: I just like, I don't have to say much. I
Speaker 3: think they just you know, it's like, you know, the
Speaker 3: the evidence is here, you know where we are, and
Speaker 3: you know, I think a part of also is reminding
Speaker 3: people because a lot of times a those people don't
Speaker 3: get married ever, they don't find their person, and you know,
Speaker 3: you miss perfect exactly and not progress, right, And so
Speaker 3: I think, you know, like just being able to really
Speaker 3: you know, be a resource for people. I'm always happy
Speaker 3: to tell people and share with them like a better
Speaker 3: way to operate in terms of looking for me. But
Speaker 3: I think also really what I wanted to say to
Speaker 3: folks is you know, we are all of us or
Speaker 3: works in progress, and so you know, such this this
Speaker 3: is something wonderful about building together as you both know. Also,
Speaker 3: it's such something beautiful about being able to go back
Speaker 3: and talk about those memories and like how you start off,
Speaker 3: or even things that you you thought probably you know
Speaker 3: you had together that you realize you didn't have it together.
Speaker 3: Or even when you lose you think you got something
Speaker 3: and you lose it and you have to regain it.
Speaker 3: You know, all those things matter, right, Trust in relationships,
Speaker 3: building trust, you know, it's not just about the financial stuff,
Speaker 3: not just about the accolades and the degrees, but it's
Speaker 3: also about like how do you establish trust in a
Speaker 3: relationship and how do you build that so that you
Speaker 3: all and all of us can be in these relationships
Speaker 3: that where we really ultimately feel like we're with the
Speaker 3: person who we can put our heart in their hands, right,
Speaker 3: And so for me, like I can put my heart
Speaker 3: in Craig's hands, and I know he ain't gonna just
Speaker 3: like squish it up. It's gonna be like a situation
Speaker 3: where it's gonna be it's gonna be like that surgeon
Speaker 3: who's like, this is the last heart we got, We
Speaker 3: got have to put this in this person's boy, this
Speaker 3: is all we have in the world. So I think
Speaker 3: that's really important for me to be in that space
Speaker 3: and to be emotionally and psychologically safe, right, And the
Speaker 3: relationship is really really important.
Speaker 2: Y'all get there though, when you look at twenty nine
Speaker 2: years how did you get to a place? You got
Speaker 2: this grown twenty four year.
Speaker 10: Old, you know, you.
Speaker 2: Got this twenty nine year old and y'all dating, and
Speaker 2: y'all trying to figure out why y'all are because a
Speaker 2: lot of times, Kadija and Craig y'all too young to
Speaker 2: be getting married. You know, y'all get married at twenty
Speaker 2: fold twenty y'all don't even know each y'all't even know
Speaker 2: y'all selves, So y'all shouldn't even get married, which I
Speaker 2: literally debunked that ideaology, uh, in my book Student of Love.
Speaker 2: But a lot of times people think that y'all too young.
Speaker 2: Go learn a little bit, go experience, find out who
Speaker 2: you are, and then after you know who you are,
Speaker 2: then get married and that makes a healthier relationship. And
Speaker 2: so how did y'all deal with the becoming of yourselves
Speaker 2: and the becoming of a wife and title of a husband,
Speaker 2: and how y'all find safety with each other while just
Speaker 2: trying to navigate just life as a whole.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you want to go first, you know what. I
Speaker 3: think one of the most important things really for me
Speaker 3: was being open to the fact that I was really
Speaker 3: independent as a young person. I was in my mind
Speaker 3: self sufficient in some ways, and I wanted to make
Speaker 3: sure that what I knew that I had to I'm
Speaker 3: gonna have to give up some of this right, some
Speaker 3: of this ego. I had to kind of figure out,
Speaker 3: like how to try to focus on being more vulnerable
Speaker 3: as a woman. I think that was hard for me
Speaker 3: because I was so used to fixing things for so
Speaker 3: many other people, and so being vulnerable was one those
Speaker 3: things I know, I.
Speaker 1: Think didn't I think I brought out here for a reason.
Speaker 3: That we used to you know, listen, we've been running
Speaker 3: you know, you run them life, you're trying to you know,
Speaker 3: you're doing all these things. And so so for me
Speaker 3: to be able to have someone who I could say,
Speaker 3: oh wait, holds up, I can have you help me
Speaker 3: in this Like that's that's hard, right, but it was beautiful.
Speaker 3: That is hard. It is hard, right, But I think
Speaker 3: that's how we got there because I had to start
Speaker 3: to sit back to and say, girl, let him help you,
Speaker 3: like you know, you're helping everybody else. Girl, let him
Speaker 3: help you.
Speaker 7: You know.
Speaker 3: And that was that was a moment for me when
Speaker 3: when when I started to do that, it changed a
Speaker 3: lot of things, Like the argument stopped on some things.
Speaker 3: We were ladying by some of the simplest things and
Speaker 3: I was like, well we aren't about that, and he's like,
Speaker 3: I'm just trying to help you. I'm like, oh help
Speaker 3: me for he was like, because that's what I do.
Speaker 2: I want to help you.
Speaker 3: And I'm like okay. And once I got to that
Speaker 3: place where I was like, yeah, well that's the thing though,
Speaker 3: right for for the kindness. So when I got past
Speaker 3: those things and I was like, girl, let this man
Speaker 3: help you. Child, You've been asking for somebody to be
Speaker 3: here for you and then you got to help come
Speaker 3: on now. And that was actually really a game changer
Speaker 3: for me and my own experience. I think in terms
Speaker 3: of the relationship, and then I think for you, Craig,
Speaker 3: you do.
Speaker 4: You want to do it.
Speaker 8: To set you out?
Speaker 7: And for you, well, it's been our journey, you know,
Speaker 7: coming from a personality type that is used to helping
Speaker 7: and having someone who wants to help you is kind
Speaker 7: of awkward, Like why you want to do why you
Speaker 7: want to do that?
Speaker 8: I'm used to being doing that. And so.
Speaker 4: We use this term like we.
Speaker 7: Try to outdo each other in goodness we try to
Speaker 7: that's we try to outdo each other and good we
Speaker 7: don't try to outdo each.
Speaker 4: Other and other stuff and like who gets the most likes?
Speaker 3: Like I'm not on social media that much, He's not
Speaker 3: on social at all?
Speaker 8: Right, Like that, it's like.
Speaker 4: How do we just can.
Speaker 7: Do these things just for the joy of it. But then,
Speaker 7: as you know, trust is built over time, and I
Speaker 7: trusted her like on this journey when we first got married,
Speaker 7: and then this this this milestones when you go, wow,
Speaker 7: we're still here. Wow that that that argument didn't didn't
Speaker 7: cause us to break up. Or say things. The one
Speaker 7: one instance that I remember, we were moved into the
Speaker 7: house and look about so so so. On the weekends
Speaker 7: a lot, her mom used to come over, right, So
Speaker 7: one Friday, her mom, her mom came over. I picked
Speaker 7: them up from the train station, and for some reason,
Speaker 7: soon we get in the car, she and I bickering
Speaker 7: about I can't remember what, but all the way home
Speaker 7: it was like a ten minute drive home, we bickering.
Speaker 7: We're in the house for like twenty minutes, we bickering,
Speaker 7: and then I was like, oh, it's seven o'clock. We
Speaker 7: got this dinner reservation. The argument was over. Her mother
Speaker 7: was like, what the hell just happened? Because her mom
Speaker 7: had always made like arguments always ascarated to the different
Speaker 7: types of of your mom and s head, but different
Speaker 7: types of intensity. I did that way. And then when
Speaker 7: we went to dinner, she said, I gotta ask you
Speaker 7: our question. How was yall able to turn it off?
Speaker 7: And this be at this dinner like nothing like five
Speaker 7: minutes ago. But it was just that moment, right, But
Speaker 7: because we had we had trust that that was just
Speaker 7: a moment.
Speaker 4: It wasn't. It wasn't a relationship.
Speaker 7: And to be honest, it's still a journey, right, and
Speaker 7: it's the it's the beauty part of this work where
Speaker 7: you still could find that you still have other things
Speaker 7: and about yourself, you still can share and that person
Speaker 7: is learning about you in a good way. Like you
Speaker 7: got bigger aspirations, you got bigger dreams.
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 7: We getting to an age like, so, what's next? Our
Speaker 7: kids are grown now, my kids are finishing college. You've
Speaker 7: done this, you're doing the things in your career.
Speaker 4: What's next for us?
Speaker 7: What's next for you? How can I support? She's asking
Speaker 7: me the same question, Craig, what do you want to
Speaker 7: do next? And so we get a chance to slowly
Speaker 7: and properly reveal ourselves and put ourselves on the tape,
Speaker 7: to make ourselves vulnerable, to let each other know that
Speaker 7: we still need each other throughout your journey.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you, how did y'all learn how to
Speaker 2: not build monuments out of a moment?
Speaker 3: M I think for me personally, I just recognize that
Speaker 3: I've seen what the result is. And you can lose
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of trusting each other and
Speaker 3: also real respect when people tier other down. And so
Speaker 3: even when we argue, we had some rules about how
Speaker 3: we debate, like you know, you can't. You can debate
Speaker 3: the issue, but don't tear each other down, like you
Speaker 3: can't call you know, name call in. This is some
Speaker 3: things we don't do. We don't you know, you ain't
Speaker 3: no good, we don't do that, right. It's like, no, no,
Speaker 3: let me tell you how I felt in the moment.
Speaker 3: Let me tell you how you hurt me. Or let
Speaker 3: me say when you said that you hurt me, because
Speaker 3: this is and then when you do it that way,
Speaker 3: it's a whole other thing because now it's like, wait,
Speaker 3: hold up, your feelings are real, Like I was hurt
Speaker 3: by that.
Speaker 2: You can't.
Speaker 3: I can't tell him he wasn't hurt because when he
Speaker 3: says he was hurt, then I'm like, okay, well that
Speaker 3: wasn't my intention, right, So now it's about what do
Speaker 3: we what's the real thing we're trying to debate because
Speaker 3: I think sometimes too, you know, oftentimes we were arguing
Speaker 3: about something, but it's not even about that thing, So
Speaker 3: what is underlying here? Like what's that under the surface?
Speaker 3: So I'm like, what's the real thing? And sometimes Craig
Speaker 3: we used to go he was like, cause, what's the
Speaker 3: real thing yit, baby, what's the real thing, because you're
Speaker 3: saying this, but it's not really that. It has to
Speaker 3: be about something else. And I'm like, okay, well that's true. Yeah,
Speaker 3: but those are the kinds of things should be able.
Speaker 3: So people have to know each other enough one, I think,
Speaker 3: to care for each other, because that's what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: You have to like the person, you have to care
Speaker 3: for the person, and the love will grow when you
Speaker 3: do those things right. But but it can't. When I
Speaker 3: first my Craig, I wasn't he was cute all but
Speaker 3: I didn't know him like to be. I wasn't on
Speaker 3: romanticized by the whole thing. It wasn't hoiw I got
Speaker 3: to understand who he was in his heart that I
Speaker 3: started to say, Oh, I really like him. He's a
Speaker 3: nice person. His soul is kind, he is a purified soul.
Speaker 6: Oh.
Speaker 3: I love this fact that he thinks about all these
Speaker 3: other things. So but I didn't know that from the outset.
Speaker 3: I had to know that by knowing him better, right,
Speaker 3: So I feel like a lot of.
Speaker 8: I mean, she had to learn what was underneath that
Speaker 8: budget uniform.
Speaker 7: That's right around the intensity of being intensity in the moment.
Speaker 7: One thing I I think we have grown and is
Speaker 7: a lot of times and those intense moments when someone
Speaker 7: is expressing how they feel, sometimes we like to say, well,
Speaker 7: you do the same thing.
Speaker 8: And what we.
Speaker 7: Had to come to the agreement on is like, let's
Speaker 7: stay in a moment, let me own whoever it is,
Speaker 7: let me own my part of it, and not go, well,
Speaker 7: well you do the same thing, and so like this
Speaker 7: has some adult ownership or some of our own issues.
Speaker 7: We can get to the other stuff later, but not
Speaker 7: like discredit how you feel and what your experience was
Speaker 7: and so good. Yeah, yeah, yeah, that's go some time.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 5: So a lot of people would say, like, man, marriage
Speaker 5: is too that sounds too challenging.
Speaker 3: It sounds a.
Speaker 5: Little bit like struggle of like y'all, y'all been together
Speaker 5: for twenty nine years, but y'all still argue, Like I
Speaker 5: got more peace alone because right like now, people say,
Speaker 5: I don't really need to get married. I'll just switch
Speaker 5: the person out. This way, I don't have to do
Speaker 5: the work. I don't have to argue because I don't
Speaker 5: want to be trying to.
Speaker 3: You know, I got it, learned them.
Speaker 5: And that sounds like a lot of work, and I
Speaker 5: just have so much peace alone.
Speaker 3: What would you say to that? Yeah, I mean there's
Speaker 3: just you know, listen, I don't knock people for whatever
Speaker 3: they choose to do with their own lives. If they
Speaker 3: choose to be solo and they that's sort of what
Speaker 3: they think fulfills them, that is okay. But for me,
Speaker 3: as a person who loves humanity, I like to be
Speaker 3: with people. I love to be in a relationship with
Speaker 3: a mate that understands me and is simply trying to
Speaker 3: grow themselves and I'm trying to grow to It's something beautiful,
Speaker 3: really beautiful about growing with somebody, right, And see, It's like,
Speaker 3: I mean, look, you know, when you have children, it's
Speaker 3: a different situation because you're literally trying to raise people.
Speaker 3: But when you're in a relationship, as you know, a
Speaker 3: married couple, there's something beautiful when you connect with someone
Speaker 3: else's soul and you have decided that you want to
Speaker 3: grow together. It's a choice. And so for me it's
Speaker 3: just a beautiful choice. And to have someone like Craig
Speaker 3: stand beside me and work with me on all the
Speaker 3: things in life that I want to do and the
Speaker 3: things that he wants to do, right, there for him.
Speaker 3: It's great. I mean, it's nothing like it. It's just
Speaker 3: you know, and again it's being chosen and choosing at
Speaker 3: the same time. And I think that's for me, that's
Speaker 3: just a wonderful thing. So I don't knock people who
Speaker 3: don't want to be married. I get it if if
Speaker 3: that's something they don't want to put the work in
Speaker 3: for it, because marriage is work, but it's beautiful work.
Speaker 3: It's a beautiful struggle in my opinion.
Speaker 7: Yeah, correct, echo what Kadizus said that we don't knock
Speaker 7: people for their choice.
Speaker 4: We just know what works for us.
Speaker 7: And yes, it's been twenty nine years.
Speaker 4: It doesn't seem like twenty nine years, right, It seems
Speaker 4: like yesterday.
Speaker 7: Right, it seems like and you look up and go,
Speaker 7: oh my gosh, it's been twenty nine years.
Speaker 4: Now.
Speaker 7: I know people who've been married two years and he
Speaker 7: feels like it's been one hundred years.
Speaker 4: Yep, yep, right, And I want to I want to
Speaker 4: use this word carefully.
Speaker 7: You know, people don't they don't submit to marriage, right
Speaker 7: and the work that it entails to get there.
Speaker 4: And I submit. Oh, I know that could be.
Speaker 8: Cuss words, right, Oh, that's what the man wants like,
Speaker 8: we don't. We don't use that.
Speaker 7: In in our relationship. Submit, we don't use roles in
Speaker 7: the house. It's like whoever is available, if the dishes
Speaker 7: is done, I get home first, I'm doing the dishes.
Speaker 4: If I'm home.
Speaker 7: Right and it's time to cook, it's time to cook.
Speaker 7: It's not like has a role, I have a roll.
Speaker 12: You got the trash too young, I said, well, baby.
Speaker 7: So yeah, so that that piece around like, it's a lot.
Speaker 4: Yes, it is a lot of work.
Speaker 8: But I can imagine choosing to have to.
Speaker 4: Swap you have to use the term swap out.
Speaker 2: That's a lot of words.
Speaker 3: That's a lot of words.
Speaker 8: That's a lot of no return on investment, right that part.
Speaker 2: I want you to say that again, return on investment, right, Yeah,
Speaker 2: the whole way.
Speaker 4: I don't believe God is the all norm.
Speaker 7: I firmly believe I would not be who I am
Speaker 7: and what I do without this one here.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: Bottom line.
Speaker 7: I make no bones about that at all. Right, And
Speaker 7: this is front and center. This has to be front
Speaker 7: center after God. This is front and center in our life.
Speaker 2: Let me ask you this, Craig uh. You talk to
Speaker 2: a lot of successful black men yes, what do they
Speaker 2: say is the tension in the dating pool? What do
Speaker 2: they say is the challenge? And those who desire marriage.
Speaker 7: From the male perspective, I think that again, it depends
Speaker 7: on their age range.
Speaker 4: I talk to younger men and men from what age
Speaker 4: you say young to what.
Speaker 7: I would say, I'm talking those thirty ish on up
Speaker 7: to my age.
Speaker 4: Your age is what I'm be approaching. I'll be sixty
Speaker 4: in November.
Speaker 2: Yeah it is.
Speaker 4: And so you know, you're talking about folks who are young.
Speaker 7: Men, who are degreed, who have careers, who have built things,
Speaker 7: who have worked on themselves and through all the aspects
Speaker 7: of mental health, physical health, all those things, spiritual health.
Speaker 7: And so they are ready and they sometimes men are
Speaker 7: getting a bad rap about dang ready. And what I
Speaker 7: hear from the men I know who are standing on business,
Speaker 7: they are not willing to sacrifice their peace and well
Speaker 7: being to deal with crazy. And the crazy comes in
Speaker 7: a lot of different forms. It's not just the sister
Speaker 7: and the street. It could also be the sister in
Speaker 7: the boatroom and they're like, you know what, I will
Speaker 7: rather exit out and let me be labeled.
Speaker 8: I can't deal with.
Speaker 4: A strong woman.
Speaker 7: No, I don't deal with crazy, And I'm not going
Speaker 7: to deal with crazy. And I will go ahead and
Speaker 7: continue to search for my queen or my maid or
Speaker 7: my my partner some other form. But I'm not going
Speaker 7: to stay in something because I have worked on myself
Speaker 7: and I'm not giving this up just because and and
Speaker 7: and they and they are steadfast abound staying away from
Speaker 7: crazy at all costs.
Speaker 1: So define what they see crazy.
Speaker 8: As it runs.
Speaker 4: It runs the gamut of it could be narcissism.
Speaker 8: And I think we used this word earlier in terms
Speaker 8: of I've made it.
Speaker 7: I got a successful career, I got followers, I got all.
Speaker 8: This stuff, and you don't. You ain't living up to
Speaker 8: my to my.
Speaker 4: Standard, or you know.
Speaker 7: Or people are dealing with untreated trauma and and toxic
Speaker 7: lifestyles that are getting in aware of them being their
Speaker 7: best selves, let alone trying to be a partner for someone.
Speaker 7: So they are still getting aware of their own best
Speaker 7: selves because they haven't dealt with their own trauma, untreated trauma.
Speaker 2: And so you're finding marriage minded men who aren't getting
Speaker 2: married currently because they feel like they're just running into
Speaker 2: a lot of toxic women. But then a lot of
Speaker 2: men have to carry the burden of if you want
Speaker 2: to get married, you could just get married. But who
Speaker 2: they're choosing are women that aren't women that they can
Speaker 2: see as wives. Basically, yeah, yeah, some.
Speaker 4: What I've heard some of them.
Speaker 7: Some they feel some women are addicted to the lifestyle
Speaker 7: of being single and being pursued, not because they want
Speaker 7: to be caught.
Speaker 4: They just like being pursued.
Speaker 2: See. People don't talk about that part that they like
Speaker 2: the attention, the attention.
Speaker 1: They like the attention of.
Speaker 2: Being that girl, that woman that a lot of dudes
Speaker 2: look at on social media, look her at on the
Speaker 2: job and be like Ooh, I want her, and they
Speaker 2: like and then you'll see it show up when they
Speaker 2: get married. A lot of times they'll end up get
Speaker 2: married and they'll still seek that attention. I'm not gonna
Speaker 2: speak about a specific person, but it was this couple,
Speaker 2: this NBA star whose wife said that she doesn't feel
Speaker 2: desirable anymore because a lot of men don't hit on
Speaker 2: her anymore.
Speaker 1: And this man is.
Speaker 2: A high level basketball player, And I was like, what
Speaker 2: would that make me feel like if my wife said
Speaker 2: that she doesn't feel desirable because other men aren't hitting
Speaker 2: on her, I'll be like a message.
Speaker 1: Like is that what you that's what you want?
Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: But she went viral saying that, and I was like
Speaker 2: and then some women was like why I kind of
Speaker 2: understand because you do want to know that you're desirable
Speaker 2: by a lot of men. And I'm like, what, Like,
Speaker 2: I've never ever thought like as a as a married man,
Speaker 2: I never sit there and say, Astley, I mean all
Speaker 2: these stalker women that used to stop me while I
Speaker 2: was single, I missed them. They used to wish I
Speaker 2: was getting gifts like I used to. I just I
Speaker 2: just don't feel desirable anymore. It's like, no, that's called
Speaker 2: a midlife crisis. So it's like, where does that come
Speaker 2: into play. You're about to say something.
Speaker 7: About, you know, just thinking about what people can get
Speaker 7: caught up in the attention they get for from others
Speaker 7: around getting married.
Speaker 8: Right, you're getting married.
Speaker 7: You know you're gonna right, but how many Well there
Speaker 7: is the same attention on yourself there for the work
Speaker 7: of the of the marriage life.
Speaker 2: It is.
Speaker 4: It's not it's not about getting married, right, because you
Speaker 4: know how much we spend on our way probably.
Speaker 3: Like I was gonna say, fifteen hundred but maybe eighteen
Speaker 3: hundred dollars. Yeah, we had a budget wedding. Like we said,
Speaker 3: we had no money really and my husband's I worked
Speaker 3: at budget and you had a budget. That's right, he
Speaker 3: said to me. He was like, we're not going into
Speaker 3: debt over a wedding. We're gonna use what we have.
Speaker 3: We're gonna get people to help us. And we had
Speaker 3: a friend who gave us a discount on catering. People
Speaker 3: are putting the decorations up and the master we literally
Speaker 3: we used my uncle's time share for our honeymoon Saint Martin.
Speaker 3: I mean it was like and then we came back
Speaker 3: and he was like, we're just not gonna go into debt.
Speaker 2: We don't have to.
Speaker 3: Listen. And then we went to all them darned time
Speaker 3: she had.
Speaker 2: Means yeah, yeah, yeah, everything an hour and a half
Speaker 2: to sit.
Speaker 3: In fact, I said him one day, I said, listen,
Speaker 3: we havepping through our honeymoon. Now we're going no more
Speaker 3: meetings anything else. We had a free boat ride, a
Speaker 3: free carving to a free I said, a free day.
Speaker 3: I said, that's enough.
Speaker 2: Can do that.
Speaker 1: We can upgrade the room. We're gonna try to get.
Speaker 3: Say, I mean that we do what you gotta do.
Speaker 1: Said, We're not gonna buy it.
Speaker 3: We're going to the beach. Right after that, my stomach growling.
Speaker 3: Can we go eat?
Speaker 2: Yeah, they said you come and eat with you with
Speaker 2: one of my part of the presentation, that man sitting
Speaker 2: across the table while were eating. I was like, this
Speaker 2: is crazy, yeah, exactly.
Speaker 3: Oh my gosh. Do you know the first book I
Speaker 3: gave you, Smart Money Moves for African Americans.
Speaker 8: So our first conversation was really about.
Speaker 3: Financing money in the future, building wealth.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: He was like, and he said, I need you to
Speaker 3: read this book. Talk to you about this book. I
Speaker 3: was like, okay, I'm still trying to get smart with
Speaker 3: I'm trying to stay right on that track my head.
Speaker 3: But he did. He was very he was very This
Speaker 3: is the thing too that I was going to say,
Speaker 3: and I'm glad you said that, because the truth is
Speaker 3: that so Craig was very well read. I mean he
Speaker 3: is still to this day, but he was very well read.
Speaker 3: And there were books that we could talk about, things
Speaker 3: that we read that I can connect with him on
Speaker 3: and just experiences and I would say, oh my gosh.
Speaker 3: And at one point I said, did you like go
Speaker 3: to law school some because he'd always try. I thought
Speaker 3: he was a lawyer and then he's like, not just
Speaker 3: play one on TV. But he had all these you know,
Speaker 3: he had the vernacular, he had the intellect, and he
Speaker 3: also had the curiosity, which I thought was really great,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And that excited me too.
Speaker 3: So I was like, oh, this is a guy who
Speaker 3: likes to learn. He's a life learner. I love life learners.
Speaker 3: I'm just like people who like to learn, who are
Speaker 3: interested in things and people and understand just how big
Speaker 3: we are yet small at the same time, you know,
Speaker 3: and just the interconnectedness of the humanity that we that
Speaker 3: we exist in. It's just it's fascinating. So for me,
Speaker 3: I was just super excited that, you know, he brought
Speaker 3: all those other little things this is That was the
Speaker 3: actually on the muscapitalist too, by the way.
Speaker 5: And I love what you said because so many women
Speaker 5: I hear them say like he has to make six
Speaker 5: figures or whatever that is. But if you when you
Speaker 5: look at the traits of a person, that's so much
Speaker 5: stronger because what you're really looking for is not the
Speaker 5: dollar assign attached to his job, right, because if he
Speaker 5: loses his job tomorrow, and he's not ambitious, you're going
Speaker 5: to be homeless. So behind the money, you have to
Speaker 5: unpack what those traits are about a person, because if
Speaker 5: he's ambitious, when he loses the job, he's gonna still
Speaker 5: be ambitious and he's going to get another job. But
Speaker 5: if you only look at the six figures, then what
Speaker 5: happens when he loses that, right, because that's the thing
Speaker 5: that you're valuing, So it's only a self fulfilling prophecy.
Speaker 5: He gonna lose it and then you're gonna be stuck
Speaker 5: with somebody where you prioritize the fact that on paper
Speaker 5: they had this. Now when they don't have it, they
Speaker 5: don't know how to recover.
Speaker 2: That's right, and they and they can get to a
Speaker 2: place of want to unlive themselves because that's value is
Speaker 2: only a tach y'all.
Speaker 1: Remember when Ronan.
Speaker 2: Broke my heart to hear so many people can you know,
Speaker 2: I can't say the word on social but unlive themselves?
Speaker 1: Jumping off readis and stuff.
Speaker 2: Because the job went bankrupt because they lost their four
Speaker 2: one k and all that you need somebody whose value
Speaker 2: is attached to us in their bank account. And I
Speaker 2: was just like, wow, these people a company had that
Speaker 2: level of control. Fact that there's so many other companies
Speaker 2: to go work for. But because they felt like they
Speaker 2: lost their futures, that's their their four one k's their retirements.
Speaker 2: They said, I no longer have value on this earth. Well,
Speaker 2: you see, this is why come on.
Speaker 3: Teach, this is why I wrote this book to let
Speaker 3: me say this power, imagine power, we imagine my mission
Speaker 3: to get it, grow it and give it away. Because
Speaker 3: we live in a time of urgency where people have
Speaker 3: to be able to stand to their own power, but
Speaker 3: more importantly, for people to be able to understand that
Speaker 3: their value is not connected to their titles, to their
Speaker 3: to where they work, to the companies, that we don't
Speaker 3: get built up by companies and jobs, that we come
Speaker 3: as people who get built up by communities and families,
Speaker 3: and that we in our essence right have innate qualities.
Speaker 3: Right as we talk about the Declaration of Independence, you know,
Speaker 3: all these inalible rights that we have. But more importantly,
Speaker 3: but God has given us these wonderful values and qualities
Speaker 3: that we have internally that we don't even know we
Speaker 3: oftentimes have because we don't tap into them. And so
Speaker 3: the power that we really are we own actually is
Speaker 3: power that we get from outside of all these other
Speaker 3: things that we assign value to. Right And so for me, really,
Speaker 3: I know what it likes to feel powerless. I know
Speaker 3: what it's likes to feel powerless. I've been there right
Speaker 3: where people told you you weren't enough, you weren't supposed
Speaker 3: to be in the circle because you didn't do the
Speaker 3: right things, you don't know the right people. And so
Speaker 3: I wanted people to understand that this was a time
Speaker 3: and place where we all should be thinking about who
Speaker 3: are we at our essence, what do we bring, what
Speaker 3: power do we have, and then how do we use
Speaker 3: that power to help other people? How do we share
Speaker 3: that power? And that's really what this book is about.
Speaker 3: So it's a it's a business book that is wrapped
Speaker 3: around a story that happens to be my life story,
Speaker 3: but more importantly is a leadership journey about what it
Speaker 3: looks like to stand up in places that are not
Speaker 3: built for us, to leave with impact and integrity, and
Speaker 3: to help people understand how to use that power and
Speaker 3: that the power that we have at home is connected
Speaker 3: to the power that we have in the world. It's
Speaker 3: not separate. You can never entangle it. And so people
Speaker 3: oftentimes think that when you're at work, you're one person
Speaker 3: and you're home with somebody else. But I believe that
Speaker 3: who we are is who we are, and so that's
Speaker 3: really what this book is early about ultimately, and I want.
Speaker 2: You all to go click the link in the description
Speaker 2: and go get this book. It's available on Amazon everywhere
Speaker 2: you purchase your favorite books. Make sure that you go
Speaker 2: get this book. You're about to say something, Craig.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I want to go back to something asking you
Speaker 7: you were mentioning around people. You know, people sometimes wanting
Speaker 7: a spouse with money, or do you want money? Somebody
Speaker 7: who makes a lot of money and they got a
Speaker 7: lot of power, right, But what good is that if.
Speaker 4: The person is not generous and kind?
Speaker 2: Yep?
Speaker 6: Right?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 7: So he can he in this case, he can have
Speaker 7: a lot of money. But if he's not generous, do.
Speaker 1: You never see it?
Speaker 2: Right?
Speaker 7: He's going to do line the way where it only
Speaker 7: benefits him. But he has power and he's not kind.
Speaker 4: How is that going to show?
Speaker 8: Right?
Speaker 7: So, like, what are the things that again we talked about,
Speaker 7: what are the things that we value?
Speaker 4: There are the things that we believe that we actually truly.
Speaker 7: Need and desire in our relationships, and we need to
Speaker 7: just be really clear about what those things are and
Speaker 7: what they're not.
Speaker 3: That's good.
Speaker 2: Good, that's good.
Speaker 1: How long did it take you to write this book?
Speaker 8: You know?
Speaker 3: A little I would say a little bit less than
Speaker 3: two years, baby, like a little over over a year
Speaker 3: and a half.
Speaker 2: In the process of writing, your learning about yourself on
Speaker 2: a different level of certain lessons that you are now uncovering,
Speaker 2: you go, wow, I remember I went through that. I
Speaker 2: didn't think I was gonna make it through that. What
Speaker 2: were some of those aha moments? As you was right,
Speaker 2: and Craig mentioned his homeboys reading the book and said,
Speaker 2: hold on.
Speaker 1: She'd have made you go through that.
Speaker 2: He was like, hey, listen, so what were some of
Speaker 2: those aha moments for you? You know?
Speaker 3: I think you know, writing is one of those processes
Speaker 3: where you it's so personal, but at the same time
Speaker 3: you know it's going to become so public, so you
Speaker 3: have to get out of your own head. I think
Speaker 3: at times where you start to self edit before you
Speaker 3: really get to put the truth down. So putting the
Speaker 3: truth down is so important first, I think, and then
Speaker 3: and then coming back later on and saying you know what, Okay,
Speaker 3: maybe I don't want to say that part right, But
Speaker 3: for me, the AHA moment really was that I wanted
Speaker 3: this to be a book that showed highs and lows.
Speaker 3: I didn't want it just to be like I did
Speaker 3: all these great things in life. I wanted people to know,
Speaker 3: like what it meant to be in the valley and
Speaker 3: on the mountaintop, right, because I think so often we
Speaker 3: get excited about the end product going back to what
Speaker 3: as she was saying, right, but we don't want to
Speaker 3: hear REALI about what it took to get to get
Speaker 3: that diamond shining right, and how we had to cut
Speaker 3: that up and stuff like that. And so I felt
Speaker 3: like for me, I wanted people to recognize that this
Speaker 3: was really a story about how do we get powerful
Speaker 3: on an everyday basis, right, not when you like on
Speaker 3: a stage, like what does it mean to be powerful?
Speaker 3: Just like cleaning your dishes, walking to school, you know,
Speaker 3: driving your card work, Like what does that look like?
Speaker 3: And so I wanted people to have a real sense
Speaker 3: of the connectivity between what that looked like for me
Speaker 3: as an individual and what it can mean for other people,
Speaker 3: and particularly young people. I think who struggle with this
Speaker 3: notion of how they have to achieve certain things and
Speaker 3: get to certain places by a certain period of time.
Speaker 3: And I just thought, personally, I was a kid who was,
Speaker 3: as you know, at twenty four, who had a checklist
Speaker 3: on life about what needed to happen by when I
Speaker 3: needed to also tell people that we have to take breaks, right,
Speaker 3: because the truth is that, as you see in the book,
Speaker 3: there are times in the book where well, I don't
Speaker 3: do so well. Actually I lose it a little bit, right,
Speaker 3: There's some losses here, and I had to step back
Speaker 3: and redefine and reimagine what power really was. Because the
Speaker 3: lesson that I was taught about power was it a
Speaker 3: corrupt version of what power was. And so I needed
Speaker 3: to redefine and reimagine what power should be, what it
Speaker 3: can be, and hopefully what it will be for all
Speaker 3: of us. And so that's what I'm trying to help
Speaker 3: people understand about the power that we have and the
Speaker 3: power that we hold, and the power that we must
Speaker 3: share with other people.
Speaker 2: Good these That's amazing because even reading this book can
Speaker 2: help people understand, like you said, from their personal life,
Speaker 2: how to prioritize things of importance yeah, because even when
Speaker 2: you say that power the title or use the word power,
Speaker 2: you know, the first thing people go to is a
Speaker 2: high level of that. You know, I got to be
Speaker 2: the CEO of this. It's more of a control on
Speaker 2: a high level. Some may end up going to the
Speaker 2: TV show Power, you know what I'm saying, where that's
Speaker 2: a different corrupt level of power. That's instead of saying,
Speaker 2: how can I show up with power in my everyday life?
Speaker 2: It may be even hard just getting out the bed
Speaker 2: because people may be struggling with depression. But I'm going
Speaker 2: to take power over this situation and get up.
Speaker 3: And that's and that's in chapter what I'll tell you.
Speaker 3: I think it's chapter three the Power Tank. But no,
Speaker 3: but that's real and that too, right, because we have
Speaker 3: all these things that we are trying to accomplish oftentimes
Speaker 3: and we're checking off these lists, and we've been told
Speaker 3: that power looks a certain way, right, and so we
Speaker 3: have to we have to dismantle this myth of what
Speaker 3: power really is and we have to reclaim it. And
Speaker 3: I think that's really what you know. Somebody said to
Speaker 3: the other day who was the principal of a school,
Speaker 3: and she said, I'm reading this book and I'm in tears,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, really, she says, you know what, because
Speaker 3: you actually you're helping me understand that I shouldn't be
Speaker 3: running from power, I should be running toward power so
Speaker 3: I can share with other people. I said, absolutely, we've been.
Speaker 3: We've been relinquishing our power, giving it up to other
Speaker 3: people so they can abuse it, and then not recognizing
Speaker 3: that we're not standing in our own power, with the
Speaker 3: rights that we have to be in that space, and
Speaker 3: losing it, and then we're wondering why things are crumbling
Speaker 3: around us. Right, So, so much for me is about
Speaker 3: making sure that we reclaim what we know we're supposed
Speaker 3: to have and do the right thing with it. God
Speaker 3: has given it to us for a reason. It's alone,
Speaker 3: it's a beautiful loan, and it's supposed to be used
Speaker 3: for good things, and that's what I'm hoping to do.
Speaker 2: We asked Craig a minute to go about what he
Speaker 2: hears from his single uh men that he talks to.
Speaker 2: What do you hear from the single women?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, I'm hearing a lot of things, but
Speaker 3: I can't say everything. No, right, right, But what I
Speaker 3: think I mean, Listen, I hear that it's hard out
Speaker 3: there of the day in game, it's hard out there.
Speaker 3: It's difficult. Sometimes you know, they're looking for the husband,
Speaker 3: the brother to try to you know, get you know, uh,
Speaker 3: the marriage proposal hopefully. But at the same time, you know,
Speaker 3: I think sometimes people are not ready, right, and you know,
Speaker 3: we alluded to some of that.
Speaker 2: I think I have you told women that have spoken
Speaker 2: to you about Yeah, these men ain't stepping up, they're
Speaker 2: not doing this. And as you've been assessing them, you say,
Speaker 2: maybe you know, ready for marriage. Some stuff that you're
Speaker 2: saying right now ready?
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'll tell sis is easily to say, Okay,
Speaker 3: well listen you let me tell you about how sort
Speaker 3: of you're gonna need to work on yourself. Because the thing,
Speaker 3: a large part of what I think we miss is
Speaker 3: we want other people to be ready made, but we're
Speaker 3: not really ready to sort of come to the party
Speaker 3: prepare it either, quite honestly, and so we have to
Speaker 3: figure out some of those other pieces that are missing
Speaker 3: within ourselves. But I do I will say this, I
Speaker 3: have a lot of hope for relationships and people. I
Speaker 3: think that we just have to do the work on ourselves.
Speaker 3: I think Craig always says, get a good therapist. I
Speaker 3: think that's true, right, People need to really be prepared
Speaker 3: just to kind of do the self work and then
Speaker 3: more importantly, to be graceful with other people. I think
Speaker 3: too often we don't get people grace to be able
Speaker 3: to grow and we recognize that we're all growing and
Speaker 3: we're never complete. And so for me, I just think that,
Speaker 3: you know, I tell sisters all the time, like, you're
Speaker 3: gonna just have to try to reimagine what it is
Speaker 3: that you think you're really looking for and get down
Speaker 3: to bare bones, what is it that you really need
Speaker 3: and want in a mate versus all the stuff that
Speaker 3: your friends tell you that you should have, Right, I
Speaker 3: think a lot of it is big ball and and
Speaker 3: all that stuff. And you know we got to work
Speaker 3: on that. Yeah, yeah, well, and I have one.
Speaker 5: So we talked a little bit about how you had
Speaker 5: Kadeza do the application process, but you never shared the
Speaker 5: results of what you found out when you called her references.
Speaker 4: Okay, I am.
Speaker 7: So glad you brought that because.
Speaker 4: It was what's the word, so what I'm looking for?
Speaker 3: It was a very important moment, defining.
Speaker 7: A very defining moment, right, the world, I think is
Speaker 7: the cinema, which one the world is like when something's
Speaker 7: really important that at this moment and it come back
Speaker 7: to me.
Speaker 2: Okay.
Speaker 7: Speaking to one of the references, it was an older
Speaker 7: sister from our community that had a lot of respect
Speaker 7: for and who known Kadija make your whole life. And
Speaker 7: she said to me, she said, you know, Craig, I
Speaker 7: know you have a lot of respect for you. She said,
Speaker 7: my concern is it's about Kadija. We the older sister
Speaker 7: in the community, looked to Kadija as this bright light, right,
Speaker 7: and we worry that who she marries, would they look
Speaker 7: to put her in a cage, a cage exactly what
Speaker 7: someone says, a cage?
Speaker 8: Right, What will you try to confine her?
Speaker 7: Right when you try to, will whoever marry her try
Speaker 7: to confine her?
Speaker 4: Because you see that a lot with.
Speaker 7: You know these roles, and I'm the man, and you
Speaker 7: see this right, particularly times in religious communities, right, the
Speaker 7: man is right and so you and I remember saying
Speaker 7: to I said, you know, I really appreciate what you said,
Speaker 7: and I still I like to believe I hold onto
Speaker 7: this in my heart that I said to her that
Speaker 7: if I ever felt that I was.
Speaker 4: Getting to a place where I was trying to confine her.
Speaker 6: I would let her go mmmm, because she needs to
Speaker 6: be who she was, and if being with me would
Speaker 6: limit what she had to offer to herself into the world,
Speaker 6: I would have to get out of the way.
Speaker 4: I like to believe. I still believe that. So that's
Speaker 4: why I think you would.
Speaker 7: I would, That's why I should.
Speaker 2: She knows me.
Speaker 7: Actually, I'm I'm a vaccine guy, right, she said.
Speaker 4: She let me know this was important to her.
Speaker 2: This podcast.
Speaker 3: Yeah, because I was like, I need you to come.
Speaker 3: It's behind the I'm a.
Speaker 7: God, that's my spot, right that I could plan out
Speaker 7: a bunch of stuff.
Speaker 4: I like to see things from a different purview. But
Speaker 4: she said this was important to him.
Speaker 8: Like, okay, then we're going.
Speaker 2: Thank you Craig.
Speaker 8: Of course he get to see this.
Speaker 7: This is wonderful wife of yours, and you can see
Speaker 7: you again in person.
Speaker 4: Was great.
Speaker 7: But because this is important to her and her sharing
Speaker 7: of her message.
Speaker 4: To people across the country and across the world, you know,
Speaker 4: it is my duty to be here and support her.
Speaker 2: I'm trying out to cry, well, because that's so important.
Speaker 2: I just think more men need to hear that. Man,
Speaker 2: I think that I just matter of fact, I ain't
Speaker 2: gonna say think. I know. More men need to hear that.
Speaker 2: More couples period need to hear that is to support
Speaker 2: your spouse. It's like, it's not marriage is never meant
Speaker 2: to be comfortable, and so many people are looking for
Speaker 2: a comfortable marriage. It's like, you be what I am,
Speaker 2: and you be what I like, be exactly who I am,
Speaker 2: and it's like, well, white thing, God brought that person
Speaker 2: to you.
Speaker 1: I remember growing up where.
Speaker 2: A Paul ab Duel had this song you take two
Speaker 2: steps forward and I'll take two steps back. We come
Speaker 2: together because opposite is a track. And I remember when
Speaker 2: I was hearing as a young kid, I said, oh,
Speaker 2: why would I want to be somebody opposite? That even
Speaker 2: makes sense to me? I said, how does opposites attract?
Speaker 2: The only thing that I could liken it to at
Speaker 2: that age was magnets and you take you take the
Speaker 2: polarity of a magnet. If they're both positive, it's going
Speaker 2: to push it apart. And I used to always try
Speaker 2: to force it to move and shift and shift, and
Speaker 2: I'd be like, all right, so I'm flipping on the
Speaker 2: negative side. And I try to push it in repel itself,
Speaker 2: and then when you put the negative in the positive,
Speaker 2: it comes together. And I said, but still, why would
Speaker 2: I want to marry somebody that is the opposite of me?
Speaker 2: And my mind goes to that paullab Duel song that
Speaker 2: says that if you can understand how to sentuate the
Speaker 2: positive in each relationship of that person and know that
Speaker 2: person has something in you in them that you need,
Speaker 2: and vice versa, then that's when you have what you
Speaker 2: call the beauty of marriage. You said, this is beautiful,
Speaker 2: This beautiful thing that happens when y'all two come together
Speaker 2: as husband and wife. That is the I call it
Speaker 2: synergetic emergence in my book. It's like the you get
Speaker 2: the synergy and it emerges into something even greater than
Speaker 2: the sum of the sum together, is greater than the individual.
Speaker 2: You said that he talks about how he could have
Speaker 2: never become who he is to this day without you,
Speaker 2: this powerful woman. Do you agree? Could you have become something?
Speaker 2: Could you have still done everything you've done without Craig? Here?
Speaker 3: Not this way?
Speaker 2: Well?
Speaker 1: Why not this way?
Speaker 3: Because I think because I think Craig softened me. Also,
Speaker 3: I was really like so focus, No, I was, but
Speaker 3: but but I was very like, very like, it needs
Speaker 3: to happen this way now that you know, and I
Speaker 3: think that Craig and my children all would say also.
Speaker 3: I think just the children that we have together, our girls.
Speaker 3: I think just that whole experience has softened me in
Speaker 3: some ways and helped me also prioritize things differently, right
Speaker 3: and understand like what the parties really were in life.
Speaker 3: Like the goals and stuff were great, but you know,
Speaker 3: you can't live life for goals just to check them off.
Speaker 3: It's really about like how do you share You go home,
Speaker 3: people have all kinds of goals that they've achieved, they
Speaker 3: go home and you're alone, right, and so like, you know,
Speaker 3: to be able to take a step back and just
Speaker 3: to say, you know what, though, this is an important
Speaker 3: goal that we did together actually, right, because everything that
Speaker 3: we do, anything that I've won, anything that he's won,
Speaker 3: we've done it together. So we can I get excited
Speaker 3: when he's like, I'm like I had a year of
Speaker 3: like, like last year we celebrated Craig like twelve times with awards.
Speaker 3: I was like, yeah, we out there. You know, they're like,
Speaker 3: but it's not your what I'm like, but it is
Speaker 3: not got we got this right? And then he's like, please,
Speaker 3: let's go. We got your book. We got we got
Speaker 3: our book. He said, this book is a birth birth,
Speaker 3: this book. I don't know how long now, But the
Speaker 3: point is is that we really I think we see
Speaker 3: our wins as our wins, like you know what I mean,
Speaker 3: And I think that's really important. So I don't think
Speaker 3: that I would be the person that I am, And
Speaker 3: I'm not even sure I would have done things that
Speaker 3: I've done in many ways without Craig. And I'm not
Speaker 3: so sure because I don't know. Yeah, have you know?
Speaker 3: I mean, I had goals. I was really driven, but
Speaker 3: I think at the same time there was this is
Speaker 3: not just about what you do, is how you do it?
Speaker 4: Yeah, the opposition you kind of touched on.
Speaker 7: You know, we do have different personality, but they work
Speaker 7: well together where you know, she's super type A personality
Speaker 7: and I come in right, but I can always make
Speaker 7: her laugh no matter how intense.
Speaker 8: And crazy it is. She was like, why are you
Speaker 8: going to make me laugh? Right?
Speaker 7: She ended up laughing, But some of her type A
Speaker 7: personality at times rubbed off on me and then This
Speaker 7: has shown up with our children because we are different,
Speaker 7: we are different approaches.
Speaker 4: They need different pieces of us.
Speaker 7: Absolutely, and we know we say you're going to be
Speaker 7: the best one for this conversation. With time, you know
Speaker 7: you handle that part right. And so we we spend
Speaker 7: a lot of time. We do a lot of breaking
Speaker 7: down like who needs to do what part and let
Speaker 7: the best person do it in the job and not
Speaker 7: like I got to be the ones got to be
Speaker 7: the hard one.
Speaker 4: Let me be this type. What's the best one, best
Speaker 4: person who needs to show up for this role at
Speaker 4: the moment.
Speaker 2: I love that because I pushed askle in that a lot.
Speaker 2: With even my son, my nephew's son. He don't like
Speaker 2: the son because I adopt him. It's my nephew. But
Speaker 2: I always say, don't tell them. You should be like, well,
Speaker 2: I mean, I said you because she's really good at
Speaker 2: certain things that I'm just not, you know, and she's
Speaker 2: not even a biological parent. But I'd be like, say it,
Speaker 2: and I want her to trust the wisdom that God
Speaker 2: has given her to say say it. If you see
Speaker 2: a gap. It's not meant for me to go say it,
Speaker 2: It's meant for you to find your place in his
Speaker 2: life and say it and he receives it.
Speaker 1: He appreciates it.
Speaker 2: He tells a letter thank you, thank you Auntie Ashley,
Speaker 2: you know, for telling me this or whatever.
Speaker 1: I needed to hear that.
Speaker 2: But I want her to trust her god giving wisdom
Speaker 2: to do so. Another thing that's happened, dear future wife.
Speaker 2: He existed five years prior to us getting married, and
Speaker 2: I built this amazing following this, this trusted audience that
Speaker 2: I nicknamed the lit faun, which stands for learning, living
Speaker 2: intentionally and transparently.
Speaker 1: And so this awesome audience.
Speaker 2: But I will always tell them over and over again,
Speaker 2: don't get just used to me, because at the end
Speaker 2: of the day, what I built was great, but it
Speaker 2: pales in comparison to whoever God brings as my wife.
Speaker 2: The greatest honor I ever received is when I read
Speaker 2: comments where people say, no offense, Lataaris, your podcast was good,
Speaker 2: but now it's great. That's the greatest accomplishment because I
Speaker 2: don't I don't have an ego where I say, because
Speaker 2: think about the reverse, your podcast was great before, but
Speaker 2: it's all right now. Since I'd be like, oh Lord,
Speaker 2: what in the world, Like I know what she brings
Speaker 2: to it, and so the beautiful thing about it is
Speaker 2: it should always be an elevation and so as doing
Speaker 2: a job phenomenal. I love when people talk about how
Speaker 2: amazing you are, how much value you add to the conversation.
Speaker 2: After we just did this live yesterday and for worth
Speaker 2: this couple when of my friends shout out to to
Speaker 2: Tisha and they were talking about how we need we need.
Speaker 1: Her feminine energy.
Speaker 2: We want to hear more from her. She has so
Speaker 2: much to offer, and so that's what I love hearing.
Speaker 2: And as she's like, I don't want to be one
Speaker 2: of the overt talk I want to do this, I said,
Speaker 2: you're never gonna overtalk.
Speaker 1: You're never going to say too much.
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. And I said, you have
Speaker 2: so much wisdom and value to add to the conversation.
Speaker 2: Just trust the God in you to just be you.
Speaker 2: You are enough, you are worthy, you are qualified, and
Speaker 2: you're absolutely amazing. I love you.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she is.
Speaker 2: I love it, absolutely amazing. Don't tell everybody real quick
Speaker 2: as we conclude, how y'all met? Yeah?
Speaker 3: Oh so, oh my goodness. So Ashley, Well, first of all,
Speaker 3: my sorrow, baby sorrow actually is one of our extraordinary
Speaker 3: Executive vi P. I mean, I mean I would just say,
Speaker 3: like event planning, everything from the Black Entertainment Sports Lawyers
Speaker 3: Association conferences that I used to chair. I was on
Speaker 3: the board for out of and chaired the board as well.
Speaker 3: And the acronym for Beesla exactly Beesla that is right
Speaker 3: out to be shout out to all those Diesel lawyers
Speaker 3: and babies and so Ashley is. I mean, she just
Speaker 3: has handled so we gave her so much to do
Speaker 3: over the years and we've watched her. She was a
Speaker 3: baby's looker. It's been like yeah, it's been over a
Speaker 3: decade easily, but she has been she is from day one.
Speaker 3: She is a I mean like a no nonsense, like
Speaker 3: a fiery I mean Sarah. She she is on She
Speaker 3: is on fire with her stuff. She she was about
Speaker 3: the business from day one. Handles everything so well, so
Speaker 3: excellently beyond professional, but just I mean takes things like
Speaker 3: did you think about this? What do you think about that?
Speaker 3: What about this thing?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 3: So talk about type A. She's very on top two,
Speaker 3: which I love, so her thinking is excellent, but also
Speaker 3: she's just about the business and she always elevates what
Speaker 3: we do and what we bring, and we give the
Speaker 3: biggest talent to Ashley to basically to take care of,
Speaker 3: to curate ideas with, and she just has been a
Speaker 3: fantastic partner in that work. So that's how we actually
Speaker 3: first met. And then you know, we're sore rus. So
Speaker 3: we have all these things that we do, you know,
Speaker 3: at the conference and other places, and it's just been
Speaker 3: great to watch her grow with her business. I can't
Speaker 3: believe she's like this grown woman now.
Speaker 2: I told him.
Speaker 5: I was like, they probably think of a child exactly right.
Speaker 3: But it's so beautiful to see that. You know that
Speaker 3: you all have built such a beautiful union and just
Speaker 3: this amazing enterprise together. I think it's just a beautiful thing.
Speaker 3: And you know, it's just everything that she deserves you too.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was funny because about saying I snuck to
Speaker 2: Beesla this year, but I just she took me to
Speaker 2: Visla last year and we were in line getting some
Speaker 2: food and I shared with you because she has spoke
Speaker 2: so highly of you, and I said, I said, you know,
Speaker 2: now people don't know this, but we're getting married.
Speaker 1: And you said, does she know?
Speaker 10: I did?
Speaker 3: I was like, didn't know? I didn't know if he
Speaker 3: was a stalker. He was just like, I like her.
Speaker 3: She's so cute. I like miss Ashley. I was like, wait,
Speaker 3: does she know? Yeah, I want to make sure I'll
Speaker 3: give the okay.
Speaker 4: First she told me that story. I cracked up. I
Speaker 4: was like, oh my godfring.
Speaker 3: On my finger, so cute, and she was like I
Speaker 3: would know. I was like what, And then I realized.
Speaker 3: I was like, oh my gosh, your future. That's the
Speaker 3: reason nobody downs. Okay, but it was so beautiful, Oh
Speaker 3: my gosh, how I mean listen, I mean to be honest,
Speaker 3: she was the best person for that whole thing, because
Speaker 3: I was like, because you know, she's she's very like,
Speaker 3: she's she holds she can hold a secret, holdret So
Speaker 3: you can.
Speaker 2: Speak on to how a lot of times early on
Speaker 2: people are like, uh, he kept her secret, you know
Speaker 2: all that type of stuff. I said, yeah, she preferred that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: And so you know, I know in your experience people.
Speaker 3: She's about the business. Behind the scenes. She's just like,
Speaker 3: y'all go ahead. But but that's why, that's that's what happens.
Speaker 3: So oftentimes, you know, oftentimes God gives those kinds of
Speaker 3: blessings and these kinds of opportunities to people who can
Speaker 3: handle it in a certain way, because you know, a
Speaker 3: lot of times folks can't handle it and you have
Speaker 3: to be really discerning in that way. So yeah, that
Speaker 3: this is this makes sense. This all makes sense. I
Speaker 3: mean it's funny. You know, like, girl, you're not.
Speaker 2: He's like, she knows.
Speaker 3: I was like, okay to you.
Speaker 2: Oh man, we've been talking and they need to do
Speaker 2: a relationship. They need to do dear future wife yet, Beesla,
Speaker 2: that will be such a really powerful moment to have
Speaker 2: these and it could get heated.
Speaker 7: Have some breakouts, seers and.
Speaker 8: Some stuff going over there.
Speaker 3: How much it's great, I think fantastic it's coming.
Speaker 2: That would be hot to have their future wife happen.
Speaker 2: It would be so so fun. But listen, here's the
Speaker 2: part of the episode where y'all write a key to love.
Speaker 2: Pick up that box there, if you will please, and
Speaker 2: inside there's a key and there's a marker. Y'all can
Speaker 2: use the box that you can use your book to
Speaker 2: write on on yours, but grab a marker.
Speaker 4: And shiny y.
Speaker 3: You know what, everything that shiny ain't always better is
Speaker 3: a key, Okay, so.
Speaker 2: We can touch so y'all write down a word, a sentence,
Speaker 2: a phrase, whatever you want to leave with the audience
Speaker 2: will have you read it after you write it, and
Speaker 2: then you'll go hang it up on that available wrong
Speaker 2: on that wall there.
Speaker 3: So don't get to sign your name.
Speaker 8: Word or free, but you don't say it out that.
Speaker 2: He's ID eight and and build a word or phrase
Speaker 2: that you would like to leave as a key to love.
Speaker 2: What do you think is a key to love that
Speaker 2: you want to leave so astley? What'd you think you
Speaker 2: had your people on here?
Speaker 7: I did?
Speaker 3: I mean, I just love the application process.
Speaker 5: I love getting really clear early on about what it
Speaker 5: is that you know you need because I think it
Speaker 5: helps you identify who you are.
Speaker 3: And I thought it was so smart that Craig had
Speaker 3: her do it.
Speaker 1: In return, Craig keep the same as.
Speaker 5: Yes, but not as a like, well it's an ego thing,
Speaker 5: I have to do it, you have to do it.
Speaker 5: But because after you know, he said the word yeah,
Speaker 5: then he was like, wait, I actually this is really helpful.
Speaker 5: And so I think when we approach, you know, our
Speaker 5: interaction with each other with such intentionality, it can be
Speaker 5: really really helpful to set us up for success and clearly.
Speaker 5: Twenty nine years later it was valuable.
Speaker 2: Yep. Well you'll never have to give an application to
Speaker 2: nobody because I ain't going.
Speaker 1: Nowhere that you'll never be able to use that. We
Speaker 1: can we can do evaluations.
Speaker 2: That's what student Love talks about, is we can do
Speaker 2: reviews with each other and talk about areas of improvement
Speaker 2: and have that. So we'll have on the job training,
Speaker 2: on the job training.
Speaker 3: Yeah, maybe even the report car report card.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we do a report card.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I like her report cards. When she was younger, she.
Speaker 1: The same.
Speaker 8: We got, we got the same people.
Speaker 2: She got this whole biography, this is about them, about you,
Speaker 2: about everything. I was like you, it's beautiful though. So
Speaker 2: that's one thing that I really enjoyed. She did a biography,
Speaker 2: was it for your seventh grade project?
Speaker 3: Eighth grade?
Speaker 1: A biography of eighth grade?
Speaker 2: And it's just, I mean, a thick book and had
Speaker 2: pictures and everything. And in the earlier part of us dating,
Speaker 2: she pulled that book out and I sat there and
Speaker 2: I was reading through all that, and it taught me
Speaker 2: little girl eighth grade Ashley, and I.
Speaker 3: Was just like, did you write this?
Speaker 2: I was intelligence. It's like I was like you couldn't
Speaker 2: have back then. I was like, there's no way. An
Speaker 2: eighth grader wrote this, like there's no way, and she
Speaker 2: was like yeah. And then I got a chance to
Speaker 2: go visit the school that she went to, and it's
Speaker 2: like one of the most prestigious schools in southern California.
Speaker 1: And I was like, okay, I went to business school.
Speaker 2: I looked at those those other ethnicities walking around.
Speaker 3: He was like, everybody was there.
Speaker 1: I said, okay, it's it's a different level here different.
Speaker 1: It's different to what y'all write on y'all to.
Speaker 3: Love, I wrote, reverence and respect is the key to love.
Speaker 1: Why is that important?
Speaker 2: Reverence? We don't hear that word spoken to in a relationship.
Speaker 2: Why do you say.
Speaker 3: Well, I say reverence because I'm also thinking about reverence
Speaker 3: with our creator first and foremost. Okay, right where, I
Speaker 3: think that's where it begins. And I think that when
Speaker 3: we connect with our creator in a way that he
Speaker 3: would have us connect with him, he also gives us
Speaker 3: the tools and the way in which we can understand
Speaker 3: how it is important to connect with humanity. And so
Speaker 3: in a relationship, in any relationship, reverence is important. But
Speaker 3: I think particularly in a marriage actually to be able
Speaker 3: to reverence one another the souls. We have a survey,
Speaker 3: we talk about reverencing the souls that bore us, but
Speaker 3: reverencing each other also in that space. And then also respect,
Speaker 3: I think is so important because again, you can like somebody,
Speaker 3: you can love somebody, but if you don't respect them,
Speaker 3: it's really hard to really connect on the level of trust.
Speaker 3: And you don't have love without trust.
Speaker 2: Really. Yeah, create, Oh you got to get your microphone,
Speaker 2: all right.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I wrote a few things. The first thing I
Speaker 7: wrote is, you.
Speaker 4: Know, we have to love love.
Speaker 7: I like that, but I just know I love and
Speaker 7: I just love black love. So I'm sitting here watching
Speaker 7: YouTube and thinking about some of our friends and others
Speaker 7: that we have in our circle and watching the couples
Speaker 7: go through their growth.
Speaker 4: It's because they love love.
Speaker 7: Yeah, yeah, and they love being in love with each other.
Speaker 7: And I have here openness. Can I come and be
Speaker 7: transparent and open with my full self? Can I be
Speaker 7: honest with you as I be honest with myself and
Speaker 7: hold on to the fun. It's going to be a
Speaker 7: lot of you know, long nights, but hold on to
Speaker 7: that fun. Find the fun, and this as well.
Speaker 2: Long nights greg be long nights.
Speaker 10: Long days, long long nights can't be a bad thing.
Speaker 4: But hold on the fun.
Speaker 7: We get so caught up on these checklists, accomplishments.
Speaker 4: And deadlines that sometimes don't really matter.
Speaker 7: Sometimes just find a moment to have a good laugh
Speaker 7: yeah there with each other and figure out how we
Speaker 7: just have a little fun in this crazy world.
Speaker 2: Thank y'all so much for blessing us again. Make sure
Speaker 2: y'all get this book, Power Reimagine. Get the book Power
Speaker 2: to I mean Power Reimagine available everywhere. Matter of fact.
Speaker 1: Shout out your social media Craig, I know you don't know.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I'm Kadida Drinker on Instagram. Could you just reef
Speaker 3: drink it on Facebook? And actually this is Craig Drinker.
Speaker 3: I give him my last name. Sometimes drinking, but it's
Speaker 3: just joking on my teeth and I'm not a massive
Speaker 3: with him. But this is Craig Drinker and he's actually
Speaker 3: on Facebook. Believe it or not. He doesn't really post,
Speaker 3: but he's the actual.
Speaker 2: Ther So go go go follow him and make and
Speaker 2: get scared. Yow was coming.
Speaker 7: From follow us.
Speaker 3: You know, we love to talk about power and more importantly,
Speaker 3: how we can share our power with the world.
Speaker 2: Well listen, May the love y'all share today, outlive the
Speaker 2: season you're in.
Speaker 5: May it carry you through the days when words are few.
Speaker 2: And faith has to do the talking. Y'all.
Speaker 1: Give it up for the drinkers, y'all.
Speaker 3: All, thank thank you so much, thank you for having him.
Speaker 3: I love y'all, Love you.
Speaker 2: Ladarian thrust it suddenly into child protective Services in twenty fifteen.
Speaker 2: My nephew, black a boy. The likelihood have been adopted
Speaker 2: outside of kinship, slim to none, Harmione, sixteen years old,
Speaker 2: black a boy with five years in the foster care
Speaker 2: system before I even knew his name. The likelihood have
Speaker 2: ever been adopted? Yep, you guessed it. Slim to none.
Speaker 2: While Darian and our money were trying to survive and
Speaker 2: barely thrive in an overpopulated and underfunded false care system,
Speaker 2: I was living my own life, doing well professionally, having
Speaker 2: been a single father with a daughter who at that
Speaker 2: point was doing well in college. It was my time
Speaker 2: to live my life right wrong. I felt unsettled, tireless, agitated.
Speaker 2: There are just too many of our black children stuck
Speaker 2: in ambiguity and in the limbo of the Falseter Care System.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, I legally adopted my nephew Ladaria. Fast
Speaker 2: forward to twenty nineteen. I had no ties to this
Speaker 2: other young king, but I felt God instructed me to
Speaker 2: adopt them also in al Babe. Starting over with parenting
Speaker 2: should have been enough. Right, working with various foster care
Speaker 2: and adoption agencies to help bring awareness to the countless
Speaker 2: young Black Kings and the Falster Care system should have
Speaker 2: decreased My agitation. Right joined the board of directors of
Speaker 2: Advantage of Adoption in the organization that helps find permanent
Speaker 2: adoptive homes for children and false should have led to
Speaker 2: some type of resolve. Right, No, not at all. None
Speaker 2: of it felt like I had done enough. I now
Speaker 2: realized that every one of those experiences was land the
Speaker 2: fundamental foundation for my life's mission. Kingdom Royal. Kingdom Royal
Speaker 2: would be a luxury, state of the art home for
Speaker 2: foster boys. Our first location will be in the Dallas
Speaker 2: Fortwork Metroplex. We will utilize the whole person approach that
Speaker 2: instills identity, empowers them to advocate for themselves, and enlightens
Speaker 2: them regarding new perspectives and limitless options that they thought
Speaker 2: were impossible. Though, the young Kings will attend the local
Speaker 2: public schools that are in proximity to Kingdom Royal. Our
Speaker 2: at home curriculum will broaden their worldview through participating in
Speaker 2: the arts, attending various cultural events, learning about and engaging
Speaker 2: in multifaceted discussions about current events and even relevant historical contexts.
Speaker 2: Introducing them to gardening, landscaping, and even caring for our
Speaker 2: animals on our form and on site stables. We just
Speaker 2: launched our startup capital campaign with the goal of raising
Speaker 2: two point eight million dollars. Now why two point eight
Speaker 2: million dollars?
Speaker 6: Well.
Speaker 2: In twenty seventeen, I created a web series in which
Speaker 2: I performed random acts of kindness for targeting the homeless community.
Speaker 2: One of the most notable successes was that one of
Speaker 2: the videos went viral, garnering twenty eight million views. However,
Speaker 2: one of my biggest regrets is that I didn't raise
Speaker 2: a single dollar to help in implementing a more sustainable
Speaker 2: plan for the homeless community. So, throughout the years, with
Speaker 2: much remorse, I reflect and I'm not maximizing that moment.
Speaker 2: I knew if at that time just ten percent of
Speaker 2: the viewers donated one dollar, we would have raised at
Speaker 2: least two point eight million dollars that could have really
Speaker 2: established long term support for the homeless community, or at
Speaker 2: least started a long term initiative to do so. This
Speaker 2: is my due over, this is our new beginning. Together,
Speaker 2: we can attack this at the root by specifically helping
Speaker 2: our homeless Black boys who are already disproportionately represented in
Speaker 2: the American fossil care system. I'm the Terisarwidfield. I've been
Speaker 2: nominated for three regional Emmys documenting my work with the
Speaker 2: homeless as well as my personal adoption journey. Despite those accolades,
Speaker 2: the greatest award for me is truly providing the infrastructure
Speaker 2: for a transformed life. Visit Kingdomroyal dot com for more
Speaker 2: details Crown of King and make a donation today. I
Speaker 2: hope you enjoyed this episode of the Dear Future WIFEI podcast.
Speaker 2: Remember be lit, live intentionally and transparently, and don't stop loving.
Speaker 2: Make sure to subscribe to our Dear Future Wife and
Speaker 2: YouTube channel. We're available on Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, Spotify,
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