Speaker 1: M how many things are different since we met, since
Speaker 1: before the pandemic, how my life has changed, and how
Speaker 1: a lot of people's lives and and how things that
Speaker 1: you didn't realize were so important are really the important things. Right.
Speaker 1: It's not just your career, and it's not just you know,
Speaker 1: how you show up at work. It's just it's really
Speaker 1: the words that come out of your mouth and how
Speaker 1: you live your life. Bobby, we're talking to Malik Yoba.
Speaker 1: My favorite memory of him is seeing him in Cool
Speaker 1: Runnings when I was a kid, so that was my
Speaker 1: initial reference point, but obviously he's done a bajillion things
Speaker 1: since then. Yeah, he is way much more than that.
Speaker 1: I first met him at the George Hotel. He was
Speaker 1: having breakfast with some nice lady and I went up
Speaker 1: to him. I said, oh my god, you are so cute.
Speaker 1: Are you a trainer? I didn't know who he was,
Speaker 1: and I was my My boys were with me and
Speaker 1: they looked and they're like, Mom, you don't know who
Speaker 1: that is. And we become friends ever since then. But
Speaker 1: I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has to say.
Speaker 1: So here's our conversation with Malik Yobach. Hey, Malik, Hello Bobby.
Speaker 1: Oh my god, just that voice. Wait say it again?
Speaker 1: Just hello, Malik, meet Angelie. You know it's almost sounds French,
Speaker 1: but it's Indian. I know. But I think we're gonna
Speaker 1: start saying it the way you say it. That's a
Speaker 1: way better way. What is your name? You? Good to
Speaker 1: see you, Good to meet you. Yeah, good to see
Speaker 1: you too, Malik. Your your bio that they gave me
Speaker 1: is about twenty four pages along. It's kind of mind
Speaker 1: blowing everything you have done. You're like, you're like one
Speaker 1: of those like ridiculous hyphen guys. But congratulations on your doctorate.
Speaker 1: So now you are doctor Malike dr Yoga. Can you
Speaker 1: guys say usually can you say doctor dr Yoga? Yeah? So,
Speaker 1: so congrats on the start of this like amazing cool
Speaker 1: journey or on. And um, I was really excited to
Speaker 1: have you on because this podcast is called The Important Things.
Speaker 1: It's not just about all your like ridiculous amount of
Speaker 1: things that you have done, but it's like why and
Speaker 1: how and who. So if you could do me one favor,
Speaker 1: if you could just tell the people that are listening
Speaker 1: how you would describe yourself, like and how do you
Speaker 1: introduce yourself and tell people what you do a work
Speaker 1: in progress, and I usually say, okay, well we're in
Speaker 1: the elevator. So people say, well, what do you do?
Speaker 1: I like to say I'm in the give of damn business.
Speaker 1: And so if I say that, if I've been sure,
Speaker 1: so you know what, I say, Okay, Otherwise I mean
Speaker 1: we're not. Yeah, we're not in church. I'm in to
Speaker 1: give a business. I'm in to give a business that
Speaker 1: has a lot more to it. But you know, I
Speaker 1: was just born with a particular um. As my mother
Speaker 1: would say, you were born with a star over your ahead.
Speaker 1: And for me, that star has always guided me towards service.
Speaker 1: So that's why my bio so long, because if we
Speaker 1: look at it, the majority of it um is about
Speaker 1: you know, me caring about other folks and doing things
Speaker 1: in different spaces to improved a lot of other people.
Speaker 1: That's how we were raised to contribute and to you know,
Speaker 1: not just tape. But you know, my father would say,
Speaker 1: if there's a crack, fill it, you know, and so
Speaker 1: I kind of took that literally. But but actor, I mean,
Speaker 1: I know you sing, I do, correct you do? So
Speaker 1: have you ever done a musical? Oh? Yeah, I started
Speaker 1: doing musicals as a kid. That's how I started like
Speaker 1: theater for me. I saw Alice in Wonderland when I
Speaker 1: was four years old, and and uh, that's kind of
Speaker 1: where the dream began, just seeing those characters on stage. UM.
Speaker 1: And then you know, being taken to theater as a kid.
Speaker 1: We grew up at the time when they were actually
Speaker 1: drama programs in most public schools. UM. I was born
Speaker 1: in the South Bronx, raised in Spanish. M Uh, but
Speaker 1: I always went to school. Uh. You know, we can
Speaker 1: get into a much deeper conversation about why schools in
Speaker 1: the hood, you know, don't have the real estate tax
Speaker 1: base to provide proper education to our parents. Always UM
Speaker 1: sent us downtown. UM. So my schooling was Third Avenue
Speaker 1: PS one night. Then I went to Wagner Junior High
Speaker 1: School where a lot of this all began. Around the
Speaker 1: theater stuff. I was part of the metropolit not but
Speaker 1: children's theater go where they would go around the city
Speaker 1: and audition kids, and they decided where they thought was talented,
Speaker 1: and they would teach you the gamut like writing, producing, directing,
Speaker 1: how we've made our own lights, um, costumes. They take
Speaker 1: your tours of the met you'd see the opera, which
Speaker 1: is an amazing, amazing experience as a as a kid
Speaker 1: in New York at the time. So that's where it began,
Speaker 1: just wanting to be on on stage. And that's that's
Speaker 1: I think where a lot of you know, disservice stuff
Speaker 1: came from. I was always given a seat at the
Speaker 1: table as a kid, and so I always thought that
Speaker 1: was important to do to other people. And what kind
Speaker 1: of student were you? It depends on who you ask.
Speaker 1: I read, mom, uh, you know, I read. I talked
Speaker 1: a lot. I always had something to say. But I
Speaker 1: think as I got older, I realized because I think
Speaker 1: I was, I kind of was repressed at home. You know,
Speaker 1: I wasn't given a lot of space to fully express myself.
Speaker 1: So I think I acted out a lot because of that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: did were you? Did you get in trouble a lot?
Speaker 1: I didn't use that language, No, I did. Hell yeah,
Speaker 1: I got in trouble all the time. Like you know,
Speaker 1: in elementary school, junior high school, they they would give
Speaker 1: you a you or ask for satisfactory, you for unsatisfactory,
Speaker 1: for baby and self control. Mine was always a you.
Speaker 1: Well it was always but but didn't like acting kind
Speaker 1: of channel some of that energy, and maybe that's why
Speaker 1: your parents kind of pushed to that direction. Um well,
Speaker 1: my father wasn't having it. He didn't want us really
Speaker 1: to do any of that, certainly not professionally. My mother
Speaker 1: was more of the whatever you want to do, I'll
Speaker 1: support you kind of kind of thing. But no, you know,
Speaker 1: I don't think it was necessary about channeling energy. What
Speaker 1: drove me to our education, if you read my BIA
Speaker 1: talks a lot about the work that I do in education,
Speaker 1: is because I had a sense as a kid. Oftentimes
Speaker 1: the people who were close to educate me weren't capable
Speaker 1: of identifying my needs. And so I had that because
Speaker 1: there were teachers that saw me and those teachers, Miss Tarrell,
Speaker 1: you know, fifth grade drama teacher understood who I was,
Speaker 1: gave me my first solo to sing a ten years
Speaker 1: old and play Calrady Kate. And this is a woman
Speaker 1: I invited to any production in junior high, in high school, Um,
Speaker 1: you know, because of that relationship or someone like Ms.
Speaker 1: Donnowitz was my English teacher in seventh grade. She was
Speaker 1: at my thirtieth birthday party because she understood and I
Speaker 1: was a kid who gave her my autograph and said,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be famous, so you should keep this, uh,
Speaker 1: And she kept it. And you know, I didn't believe
Speaker 1: her when she told me that story. Like I when
Speaker 1: I by the time I was five or six and
Speaker 1: I started doing New York on the cover, I told
Speaker 1: that story on an interview and she happened to see
Speaker 1: it and recorded the interview, brought it to class, showed
Speaker 1: to their students, and apparently showed them my autograph. Now,
Speaker 1: for years I was like, Ah, that's sweet that you
Speaker 1: told me that, But did that really happen? And I
Speaker 1: never questioned it until two thousand nine and I turned
Speaker 1: thirty and ninety seven to two thousand nine, I'm in
Speaker 1: Puerto Rico and a a club and a woman comes up
Speaker 1: to me and says, did you have Ms. Donal Wits
Speaker 1: as your teacher in Wagner Junior High School? Because I
Speaker 1: was her student, and she showed me the autograph that
Speaker 1: you gave her when you were a kid, and she
Speaker 1: would tell that story about you and to the class.
Speaker 1: And then maybe a year or so later, right here
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, another guy stopped me coming out of the
Speaker 1: bodega and said the same thing, And so I guess
Speaker 1: Mr Donowitz told me the truth. But those are the
Speaker 1: type of teachers that made me want to get into education.
Speaker 1: What an incredible gift to have teachers that saw you
Speaker 1: like that's so young, and identified your talent for your
Speaker 1: needs and to really focus it on you is is
Speaker 1: pretty extraordinary. If like not many people, how I mean
Speaker 1: everyone has a story of that one teacher because I
Speaker 1: wasn't a bad kid. I wasn't out here like setting
Speaker 1: a trash candle fire or beating people up. I just
Speaker 1: talked a lot. I had a lot of opinions. I
Speaker 1: saw the world a certain way. And I had a teacher,
Speaker 1: miss Arius, who literally made a dunce cap out of
Speaker 1: oak tag and sat me in the corner and wrote
Speaker 1: Dunce on it. And he was that type of teacher
Speaker 1: that would tell the kids not to do things, but
Speaker 1: he would do them, like don't eating class, but he'd
Speaker 1: have kit cats in his breast pocket to eat them
Speaker 1: in front of us. And so fast forward, I'm now twenty.
Speaker 1: I'm working in the thirteen high schools in New York
Speaker 1: with the City Kids Foundation, helping to reduce the dropout rate,
Speaker 1: and I'm learning a workshop for teachers on how to
Speaker 1: communicate with students. And there's this one teacher that's disruptive,
Speaker 1: and I probably have fifty teachers in the middle of
Speaker 1: a library UM in a school in Harlem, uh running
Speaker 1: this workshop. And I look at this dude, I'm like,
Speaker 1: oh ship, that's Mr Arius. And I pointed him out
Speaker 1: and blew up his spot and said, you were that
Speaker 1: guy when I was twelve. He didn't recognize me. I
Speaker 1: was twelve, you were my teacher, and that bullshit you're
Speaker 1: doing right now is what made me do what I'm
Speaker 1: doing right now, because you were the guy that sat
Speaker 1: me in the corner with a dunce cap. The same
Speaker 1: thing happened when UM. We had another Spanish teacher named
Speaker 1: Mr Ambrose, who totally really good friend of mine, who
Speaker 1: was a very successful physician. Now, Adam grew up Puerto
Speaker 1: Rican kids. He grew up on ninety seven Street between
Speaker 1: Park and Lex's father was a super building, seven people
Speaker 1: in the one bedroom apartment. Adam used to come to
Speaker 1: school with like no socks in the winner and a
Speaker 1: track suite and say he wasn't cold, but he always
Speaker 1: dreamt about being a doctor. And Mr Ambrose told him,
Speaker 1: you know, you need to be a little bit more realistic.
Speaker 1: And when I did, They're gonna cover. I get invited
Speaker 1: to go speak at that same school. Um, and I
Speaker 1: invited Adam and that principle, that teacher who told him
Speaker 1: that was not a principle, all proud of his former student.
Speaker 1: I had to blow him up to Mike, bro, do
Speaker 1: you remember what you told Adam when Adam was twelve?
Speaker 1: And so you know, I think that you ask about
Speaker 1: what's the name is? The little things? No? No, no,
Speaker 1: the important things, the important things, important things, but the
Speaker 1: important things oftentimes are the little things because God is
Speaker 1: in the details. And when you do have the ability
Speaker 1: to see people, whether there's students adults, we all want
Speaker 1: to be seen. And so those teachers, both the ones
Speaker 1: that didn't see me and the ones that did, are
Speaker 1: the ones that drove me to want to do education. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and what has changed for you, like the important things?
Speaker 1: Has anything changed especially since the pandemic? Like how did
Speaker 1: you do during the pandemic personally? You mean besides um
Speaker 1: quadruple bypass and my mother dying and getting COVID. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that nothing happened, but I'm here, No, I'm here. Um.
Speaker 1: You know the last few years have been quite interesting
Speaker 1: and transformative. UM. So I spent a lot of my
Speaker 1: time during the pandemic editing shot a documentary um uh
Speaker 1: in called The Real Estate Mixtape, which is about my
Speaker 1: journey pursuing my first development deal in New York. And
Speaker 1: I took seven young people with me, UM and I
Speaker 1: you know, in my mind, I was Anthony Bourdaine, parts unknown,
Speaker 1: just bring except shot at more cinematically and brought you know,
Speaker 1: some cameras along and directed it while I'm in it.
Speaker 1: UM and exposed the seven young people of color to
Speaker 1: this built environment UM and gave them access to the
Speaker 1: process or not just my journey pursuing a dream UM
Speaker 1: of commercial real estate development in New York City, UM,
Speaker 1: but also just turning lights which is on in them
Speaker 1: and introduced them to people that would allow them to
Speaker 1: dream new dreams. And I feel like they could have
Speaker 1: agency in the city that we live in. UM. And
Speaker 1: so I shot that expecting to work with a couple
Speaker 1: other editors, but then COVID happened, so I ended up
Speaker 1: editing the whole thing myself. So too. It's intended for
Speaker 1: high schools, colleges and community screenings UM, which we've been.
Speaker 1: Did you have to learn editing or had you already
Speaker 1: been an editor? I've worked with editors like over their shoulder,
Speaker 1: but you know, got the you know, premiere pro uh software,
Speaker 1: which the learning curve is a bit like tedious and anning.
Speaker 1: So I ended up editing the stock series on my movie.
Speaker 1: But what I love to about that experience was finding
Speaker 1: my voice as a director, particularly in UM documentary format UM.
Speaker 1: And then you know, you're trust in your instincts to say,
Speaker 1: I knew what I was shooting. I knew I had,
Speaker 1: you know, sort of episode ideas. I wanted to cover history,
Speaker 1: present future, from redlining too, you know, people who were
Speaker 1: working finance, to developers themselves, to people who are in
Speaker 1: construction and interior designers and political folks who make decisions
Speaker 1: in real estate, the whole ecosystem. UM. But I found
Speaker 1: I had a good time, like finding an artistic voice
Speaker 1: in my mind. I was making an art film that
Speaker 1: just happened to be about real estate. Because real estate
Speaker 1: is opaque. It could feel boring, But how do you
Speaker 1: make it sexy? More importantly, how do you make it emotional?
Speaker 1: And how do you drive a narrative that's you know, aspirational, inspirational, emotional, accessible.
Speaker 1: It's not academic, so it's fun to like have this
Speaker 1: idea which came to me. Actually while I was shooting
Speaker 1: a show called Um Godfriended Me. I was playing the
Speaker 1: real estate developer, and the character says a lot of
Speaker 1: the same things that I say in real life, around
Speaker 1: the importance of having agency and equity and a seat
Speaker 1: at the table. And it was one of those art
Speaker 1: imitating life kind of moments, and I heard real estate,
Speaker 1: filmmaking and young people, and I thought about I was
Speaker 1: shooting here in Brooklyn, down the block from the projects,
Speaker 1: across the street from a major development that a friend
Speaker 1: of mine is developing, and thought about all the people
Speaker 1: who live in the projects and walked by film sets
Speaker 1: and construction sites and have no idea how to get
Speaker 1: in the world. And I just followed that voice that
Speaker 1: said filmmaking, real estate, and young people and resulted in
Speaker 1: UM the Real Estate Mixtape, which you know, is part
Speaker 1: of the transformation that I'm talking about, big part of it,
Speaker 1: because you know, I'm at a place where I've been
Speaker 1: dealing a lot with the important things. Right this theme
Speaker 1: I'm gonna keep coming back to, you know, when you
Speaker 1: our commodity, and we're watching Johnny Depp right now, and
Speaker 1: Amber heard as an example, and Depth said something to
Speaker 1: this this, you know, to the effect of it's hard
Speaker 1: to hear him say here his own name, because he
Speaker 1: understands the commodification of his name. So it's not even him. Like,
Speaker 1: we're watching what we thought was the persona of Johnny Depp,
Speaker 1: and then the veil is pulled back and now we're
Speaker 1: getting to see the person same thing with Will, right,
Speaker 1: Will smacks Chris. It wasn't the persona of Will. It
Speaker 1: was Will. And so when you're a public person in
Speaker 1: your the commodity, the lens that you view life is
Speaker 1: through that lens, whether you are conscious of it or not,
Speaker 1: and it can be a very dangerous place, the space
Speaker 1: between who you are and who you want the world
Speaker 1: to think you are, or who the world thinks you are,
Speaker 1: which is even more challenging. Back to the important stuff.
Speaker 1: The important stuff is knowing who you are, and when
Speaker 1: you live this life as a commodity, it is easy
Speaker 1: to lose sense of who you are. And so who
Speaker 1: I am I don't believe has ever changed, right, But
Speaker 1: what happened is because the journey in Hollywood, the commodification
Speaker 1: of the namely Gilba and the persona has created a
Speaker 1: distance between me and who the public thinks I am.
Speaker 1: And so this transformative time to COVID has been about
Speaker 1: reclaiming self because the commodity and the persona is for
Speaker 1: public consumption. And so in this time you find self,
Speaker 1: you find so who am I now? Who? Whatever? I
Speaker 1: really care about? I care about the things that I'm
Speaker 1: doing right, like Yoga Development as my development company. Right,
Speaker 1: our slogan is we build a builder of people, places,
Speaker 1: and things in that order. I don't know one real
Speaker 1: estate development company that has that as a mantra because
Speaker 1: for most developers it's six and bricks penciling it out
Speaker 1: to the numbers. Add up, let's get maximum profit for
Speaker 1: all of our extraordinary effort, because it is extraordinary. But
Speaker 1: if you look like me and you don't grow up
Speaker 1: around the table with your family teaching you these principles
Speaker 1: about how to build a business, specifically in that area
Speaker 1: of real estate development, who is shaping the built environment
Speaker 1: that impacts all of us? And if we don't teach
Speaker 1: each other because we don't grow up at the table,
Speaker 1: um sitting at the table, we have to build our
Speaker 1: own table. We have to invite each other to the table.
Speaker 1: We have to eat together, we have to invest together,
Speaker 1: we have to be educated together. And so the authentic self,
Speaker 1: the important things is getting back to that core. That
Speaker 1: same kid they used to get in trouble in school
Speaker 1: because he has something to say, The same twenty year
Speaker 1: old that was training those teachers and working in thirteen
Speaker 1: high schools to reduce the dropout. Right, the same twenty
Speaker 1: year old I was working at Rikers Island, you know
Speaker 1: by high school. The same year old I went to
Speaker 1: eat theopia, help build a school or belize. And the
Speaker 1: work that I've done globally with young people um COVID
Speaker 1: and and this time of intense self reflection has produced
Speaker 1: incredible art. So not just the mixtape, but business and
Speaker 1: deal flow and opportunity. And so I'm at a place
Speaker 1: now where I'm spending the social currency that that commodity
Speaker 1: has generated, but not in the way I've done it
Speaker 1: in the past. So it has to be from a
Speaker 1: place of power, of authenticity, of purpose. It can't be
Speaker 1: come auditioned for this and be the actor. It's got
Speaker 1: to be the storyteller. It's got to be the business.
Speaker 1: So are you done? Are you done acting? No, I'm
Speaker 1: not done. I'm writing a script right now. I'm writing
Speaker 1: a pilot right now. Um, doing a rewrite on the
Speaker 1: pilot that's set in the world of real estate. And
Speaker 1: so for me, like, it's about distilling everything that you love,
Speaker 1: that you're passionate about, and which is the important thing
Speaker 1: and then standing in that is the legacy. Right, It's
Speaker 1: not about the roles that I've been known for. Those
Speaker 1: are I p I don't know. Well, then how do
Speaker 1: you like give us take us through your daily habits,
Speaker 1: because how do you keep yourself like feeling good and
Speaker 1: excited and attentive? Do you have any practices, any special
Speaker 1: way of eating? What's your work out? Just the real
Speaker 1: don't need I don't sleep, I'm kidding, And I don't
Speaker 1: have sex. That is the key. No. Um, what I've
Speaker 1: just left the gym a little while ago. Um, what
Speaker 1: do you do in the gym? Full body work? There's
Speaker 1: no all of it, all of it, so we don't
Speaker 1: It's not like leg day, arm day. It's always a
Speaker 1: full body kind of situation. And walk a ton, right,
Speaker 1: you're a big walker? Well I was, Yeah, So part
Speaker 1: of the heart recovery was walking up to like seven
Speaker 1: miles a day. So that became a new ritual last summer,
Speaker 1: which I really appreciate it. But I am fifty four
Speaker 1: and sometimes the bodies like, what do you think you're doing?
Speaker 1: Do you feel this need? You feel this back? Sit down?
Speaker 1: But no, definitely that I used to sol psychle all
Speaker 1: the time. I haven't in the pandemic, but uh, you know,
Speaker 1: just stay active, um, work out, meditate regularly throughout the day. Um.
Speaker 1: I like to have quiet mornings when I can um
Speaker 1: to just sending myself and visualize or plan whatever I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do for the day. And how about food? How
Speaker 1: about food? What do you have? Well, I'm vegan ish
Speaker 1: now since vegan ish, I described myself that way too.
Speaker 1: I'm vegetarian ish because I eat bacon, I do I
Speaker 1: need to eat cheese, but directionally vegetarian. That was my
Speaker 1: new I like that direction direction. Yeah. I learned that
Speaker 1: this gift from my ancestors called congestive. Well it's called
Speaker 1: a few things, but I had four blocked arteries and
Speaker 1: I hate to say it, but that's what it was.
Speaker 1: I didn't know, so, um, I just thought feeling what
Speaker 1: I thought was heartburn. I was working on the show
Speaker 1: The Last O G with Tracy Morgan, and we finished working,
Speaker 1: I took a bike ride and I started feeling, uh
Speaker 1: what I thought it was heartburned, But it turned out
Speaker 1: it was lactic acid. Um. So it took a bunch
Speaker 1: of scans and um blood tests and stool tests to
Speaker 1: figure out what it was. And so um M. You've
Speaker 1: learned that things like chicken and beef for a person
Speaker 1: that has a genetic predisposition, can elevate your levels of
Speaker 1: cer reactive protein, protein, little a calcium. So those things
Speaker 1: create blockage and you know, plaque in the in the
Speaker 1: in the arteries, and so it was. It was. It
Speaker 1: was an eye opener and a chest opener. Yeah. Well no,
Speaker 1: but how lucky, I mean, you know, how lucky that
Speaker 1: you found someone that found it and you could make
Speaker 1: the changes. Yeah. I'm very very grateful. So you know,
Speaker 1: those are those things, like you know, there are things
Speaker 1: that we consciously want to change, and then there are
Speaker 1: things that life just goes hey, And I feel like
Speaker 1: the last three years has been a whole lot of life. Like, Bro,
Speaker 1: you think you're going in this direction, No you're not. No,
Speaker 1: You're not no, this is what you're doing now. So yeah,
Speaker 1: how's your personal life? What about it? Dinner with you?
Speaker 1: But just at dinner with you? What do you do
Speaker 1: for fun? What do you do for lightness? No, but lightness?
Speaker 1: You know you're you're a heavy dude. We needs it
Speaker 1: all depends on how you see it. This is light?
Speaker 1: Why is this heavy? Like life is? This is an
Speaker 1: amazing life. I'm a black man in America fifty four
Speaker 1: years old, Like, you know what it is? Every single day?
Speaker 1: Right every day? What is it like to grow up
Speaker 1: in this country at this time looking like me? You
Speaker 1: gotta be like it ain't heavy. You gotta fly above it.
Speaker 1: You can see it objectively and see the chess pieces
Speaker 1: and make your moves. I'm living the dream. I have
Speaker 1: a life that people dream about and I'm manifesting every
Speaker 1: single day every day. So you say, what's the fun?
Speaker 1: Fun is talking to you right now? Like this is
Speaker 1: not no, but it is you know. I remember my
Speaker 1: daughter was sixteen, she you know, at sixteen, she's like
Speaker 1: my friends always say, like, you know, are you so deep?
Speaker 1: And these are just families that's the way we are.
Speaker 1: This is not it's just you know you gotta have
Speaker 1: these levels of consciousness. I didn't come on this to
Speaker 1: like talk some bullshit. I have all kinds of fun.
Speaker 1: Like you know, the show is called The Important Things.
Speaker 1: We want to go deep. I mean, it's like getting
Speaker 1: past all this, you know, the other stuff, like again
Speaker 1: we can read your bio. Your bios incredibly impressive, and
Speaker 1: I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface and
Speaker 1: this winding conversation to actually tell people what you do,
Speaker 1: because you do so much, but then when you really
Speaker 1: go down to the core of it, it's clear that
Speaker 1: there are red threads through your work. Like to me,
Speaker 1: it's it's very clear that you know, service working with kids,
Speaker 1: empowering young people, um inspiring young people to do beyond
Speaker 1: what they think they might be capable of, you know,
Speaker 1: just like there's there's pretty clear threads connecting everything and
Speaker 1: then clearly rooted in themes of areas of interest that
Speaker 1: you have like real estate or the like. But you know,
Speaker 1: I think that is it's really what we're trying to
Speaker 1: get to and all these conversations. So I'm gonna show up,
Speaker 1: just ask me more questions. So I have fun, all
Speaker 1: kinds of stuff, like you know, I like to build
Speaker 1: business like I've had a restaurant marketing company, have had
Speaker 1: a theater company. I'm doing real estate. Like to have
Speaker 1: dreams and to manifest them and understand how to unlock
Speaker 1: these laws of the universe, to live a life that
Speaker 1: most people dream about but never achieved because they don't
Speaker 1: understand how to think right. I can say things like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm a black man in America. You know what that is.
Speaker 1: But I don't walk around like with the heaviness of
Speaker 1: that ship, like I was born to be a king,
Speaker 1: Like we were raised to be kings. Like that's what
Speaker 1: my father said, Like you were raised to be a king.
Speaker 1: Yoba means last of the slaves and new generation, a
Speaker 1: name he made up right and gave meaning to he
Speaker 1: was born Milton. Sounds like he could be your uncle Bobby.
Speaker 1: But but okay, So I'm a serial entrepreneur. I don't
Speaker 1: have any hobbies. No, but I don't have anywhere. How
Speaker 1: does that work? I don't have hobbies. But as an entrepreneur,
Speaker 1: you don't look at that as a hobby. No. My
Speaker 1: my work is my passion. It's what I love to
Speaker 1: do new businesses. But and and yes, I don't have hobbies.
Speaker 1: I don't play golf, I don't play tennis. I don't
Speaker 1: go to the I don't do it, but I like
Speaker 1: to we should go to the theater and then let's
Speaker 1: go out dancing. I like, I like, actually I liked. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I'm a terrible dancer. I could never break dancer. I've
Speaker 1: seen you cut a rock, Bobby. Why don't you go
Speaker 1: to the theater? You don't go to the her, Bobby,
Speaker 1: But is that a choice? Like you just go you know,
Speaker 1: I'm a live life with no hobbies, or you just
Speaker 1: get you know, I know, I just I get bored easily.
Speaker 1: I just get bored. I mean, I think golf is
Speaker 1: the most boring thing in the world. And yeah, I
Speaker 1: just find it boring. I'd have to agree with that.
Speaker 1: Your husband plays, all right, my husband plays golf, and
Speaker 1: so do my so do all my three sons. Well,
Speaker 1: there you go. Let's I need to go play golf
Speaker 1: with you can take you can take all the guys
Speaker 1: golfingly were Bobby and I will sit and have drinks
Speaker 1: with your daughter. You're twenty one year old. But then
Speaker 1: you guys can go and hold boy golf. But theater
Speaker 1: you go to, Bobby, do you're not going to see
Speaker 1: the Bitter Bobby. I have not been to the theater
Speaker 1: since the pandemic, so hopefully when I remap my one
Speaker 1: man show Hollywood with that character, gland Is rausenbergs. Okay,
Speaker 1: Mali geriatric party, it's instruct what tink therapist? Just do us? Okay,
Speaker 1: you have a Jewish woman therapist? I did? Yeah? Really
Speaker 1: really women had Latin guy. I've had a black of therapist.
Speaker 1: I'm more into life coaches, right have I am? I'm
Speaker 1: really into life coaches. Like I'm stuck with this? What
Speaker 1: do I do? How do I drink more water? You know?
Speaker 1: How do I deal with someone annoying me? So they've
Speaker 1: been really effective and where do you find them? I've
Speaker 1: thought about that, but yeah, oh no, it's amazing. It's amazing.
Speaker 1: He really helped and he helped me kind of get
Speaker 1: things straight and help me deal with some emotion. And
Speaker 1: he helped me love my messy house, like like things
Speaker 1: that were driving me nuts. He It's like it wasn't
Speaker 1: it wasn't a shrink thing. And I would tell him
Speaker 1: all the things that would drive me nuts. So first
Speaker 1: he'd say, well, visualize yourself with your kids running all
Speaker 1: over that couch. That's why it looks like that. See
Speaker 1: the happiness. But then he said, go around the house,
Speaker 1: take a picture of everything that bothers you. And I did.
Speaker 1: He said send it to me. I sent him the film,
Speaker 1: He printed it out. He gave me a sharpie. He said,
Speaker 1: this week, go circle what bothers you. I did it.
Speaker 1: The next week he came back and gave me names
Speaker 1: of people to fix the things that we're bothering me.
Speaker 1: So that's what a life coach does, helps you solve
Speaker 1: the problems. So he's like Angie's List. He's a little
Speaker 1: bit of Angie's List, a little yeah, yeah worked. It
Speaker 1: worked for me. You know this this real estate, Uh,
Speaker 1: it's actually kind of taking over my life in a
Speaker 1: lot of way. In a good way. Yeah, because you
Speaker 1: start a company, you know, you start some ship, and
Speaker 1: then you've gotta be responsible. You tell people got a dream,
Speaker 1: and then they buy into your dream. Then they show up,
Speaker 1: they start calling you, and then you got out. Man.
Speaker 1: But but no, it's fun like back to the fund.
Speaker 1: I mean literally every single day. Like I had heart
Speaker 1: surgery August nineteen, I was laying on my back of
Speaker 1: one not even not a year ago. Yeah, so not
Speaker 1: even a year ago. And so when I couldn't walk
Speaker 1: twenty or a half a block to regain everything right
Speaker 1: body at your fees, you really have an existential time
Speaker 1: and of everything, like, am I gonna lay here? Like
Speaker 1: you understand how people end up broke and depressed because
Speaker 1: you can't move right and physically you're vulnerable, you're anxious.
Speaker 1: So this is not even June, right, So I I
Speaker 1: literally went to the hospital with two computers and three
Speaker 1: drives because they told me I was just having an angiogram.
Speaker 1: They're like, oh, it's gonna be like, you know, overnight
Speaker 1: it and maybe we'll have to keep you. It's like
Speaker 1: an our procedure. So I get up off that table
Speaker 1: and they're like, we need to admit you right now.
Speaker 1: And so I was admitted August sixteen, and so I
Speaker 1: came out August could barely walk, as and said, but
Speaker 1: I was determined to walk out of the hospital door.
Speaker 1: They're like, do you want a wheelchair? Was like absolutely not, ego, ego, ego.
Speaker 1: But I made it and it was like nine degrees outside.
Speaker 1: And so I came home and one of the first
Speaker 1: things I did, I just shot a short film that
Speaker 1: I'd written and directed in July, and in fact, July
Speaker 1: thirty one in August one is when I was shooting it.
Speaker 1: Two weeks later, I'm in the hospital, not knowing when
Speaker 1: I was shooting the burning that was in my chest
Speaker 1: was actually it could have killed me. And so I
Speaker 1: was editing the docs series. I merely get to work,
Speaker 1: start editing the film from my couch. Uh and then ah,
Speaker 1: like the walks gave me strength and I thought I
Speaker 1: was wasting time, right I would. I would walk every
Speaker 1: day at eleven o'clock with another friend, Dan Pearson, and
Speaker 1: sometimes other friends. My daughter would join, or other friends
Speaker 1: from out of town, or sometimes with men and women
Speaker 1: and be like five six people have meetings on the wall.
Speaker 1: And then business starts flowing again, Ideas start flowing right,
Speaker 1: the work that I'm doing around this doc series started
Speaker 1: sharing it with more people. UM, traveling to screen my
Speaker 1: short film with Steve Harvey Foundation in Atlanta, going to Dubai.
Speaker 1: Like all of a sudden, I'm back in the flow.
Speaker 1: Right December, we start screening the Real Estate Mixtape. The
Speaker 1: first screening we did UM was in the building in
Speaker 1: the South Bronx where we were crowdfunding for that actual
Speaker 1: the purchase of that true building, well not to purchase,
Speaker 1: but the opportunity to invest in the development of that property. Uh.
Speaker 1: This work with with Yoba Development, the real Estate Mixtape.
Speaker 1: You know, there's a scripture that says your gifts will
Speaker 1: make room for you, and that can be interpreted in
Speaker 1: all kinds of other ways, but it is true. When
Speaker 1: you move with intention and you're on your purpose, all
Speaker 1: of a sudden life begins to blossom and flow and
Speaker 1: the right people show up. So all of a sudden, um,
Speaker 1: all the things that I've been that have been jest
Speaker 1: dating for the last four years are starting to reach truition.
Speaker 1: This work has led to an actual development project in
Speaker 1: the South Bronx of affordable housing, a sports and wellness center,
Speaker 1: and a school. It's led to the doctorate, it's led
Speaker 1: to awards in real estate. It's led to me going
Speaker 1: to Alabama in a couple of weeks to screen the
Speaker 1: docs series Day or Atlantic City or Connecticut a few
Speaker 1: weeks ago, which led to more opportunities where more people
Speaker 1: and finance invest helping to raise money for the company.
Speaker 1: So when you talk about fun like waking up every
Speaker 1: day with the gift of life. I have three birthdays.
Speaker 1: I was born September seventeen, nineteen sixty seven. I was
Speaker 1: shot January eighteen three and had heart surgery August um.
Speaker 1: So the gift of hoping eyes, the gift a sight
Speaker 1: of hearing, of being here. It's all fun. So you
Speaker 1: mentioned it, so I have to ask you were shot. Yes,
Speaker 1: I was shot in midtime, Manhattan when I was fifteen
Speaker 1: years or fiftieth Street between eighth and ninth Um. When
Speaker 1: uh I left school. I went to a school called
Speaker 1: Park West High School. And there were kids in the
Speaker 1: street acting up, beating each other up, and they were
Speaker 1: pushing people out the way so they could beat this kid.
Speaker 1: It was nine kids. One had a baseball bat, one
Speaker 1: had a golf club, and they're beating the ship out
Speaker 1: of this kid, like I wish they would like, and
Speaker 1: they did. And so learn about the power of thought
Speaker 1: and speaking things into existence. So that autograph when I
Speaker 1: was thirteen, that thought of like I wish they would,
Speaker 1: and they did. The next thing I know, I'm in
Speaker 1: the middle of it. I get shot. Um huge life
Speaker 1: lessons on the power of our words, you know, And
Speaker 1: so I'm very very grateful. Yeah to be here and
Speaker 1: to talk to you and okay, so leak. You're doing
Speaker 1: so many different things, how do you actually stay grounded
Speaker 1: and all these different things. It sounds like you have
Speaker 1: a strong faith or meditation practice and sort of you
Speaker 1: know anchors. But tell us about that. I've been trying to,
Speaker 1: not trying to. I've been very intentional about language always,
Speaker 1: but certain well, sometimes I sunk up, like we all do.
Speaker 1: But um, if you trust your instincts, right, a lot
Speaker 1: of times it's a whisper and it's like, okay, go there,
Speaker 1: go there, right. But I've been dealing with this very
Speaker 1: what I realized is a very loud yelling of my spirit,
Speaker 1: like you can't do that, right, yestery. I was supposed to. Well,
Speaker 1: so Matt Damon and Ben Affleck doing a film and
Speaker 1: Ben's directing it. I was asked to audition for it,
Speaker 1: and I was like, can we get a zoom? They're like,
Speaker 1: now they're only doing you know it tapes thirty years
Speaker 1: in this game. That's what I'm being asked. Still, right,
Speaker 1: Sometimes it's straight offer, but stuff, can you come audition?
Speaker 1: Forecasting director discast me in something before and so when
Speaker 1: that happens, that's not where the flow is. The flow
Speaker 1: is in all this other stuff that I'm talking about.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because I'm observing myself like like, because in
Speaker 1: my heart, I'd rather be right here doing this, not
Speaker 1: on the set somewhere doing someone else's vision, or sitting
Speaker 1: over there writing this pilot, or working on my book
Speaker 1: or editing my next episode, or having meetings like I
Speaker 1: did with the d OE with the Chancellor about the
Speaker 1: school based education platform, or meeting with Pratt because they
Speaker 1: asked me to be the honorary chair of the School
Speaker 1: of Construction, or all these other things that are happening
Speaker 1: as a result of this work, this purpose, And so
Speaker 1: it's easy to stay grounded when you're clear around the purpose.
Speaker 1: So the discomfort has been my my instinct screaming at me,
Speaker 1: and I'm not always listening because I'm feeling like we
Speaker 1: like Bobby asked me, and I done. No, I'm not done.
Speaker 1: I'm writing a character for myself to my own pilot,
Speaker 1: and I'll die in the in the pilot because it
Speaker 1: sets the story. You can't tell what happening. I can
Speaker 1: always flashback, I can, right, I'd rather be directing and
Speaker 1: writing and producing and doing this real estate. And so
Speaker 1: it's interesting because I always said at some point income
Speaker 1: will come from things that I create. I didn't know
Speaker 1: that the last three years would be this period where
Speaker 1: it's where it's happening. Um, and it's been you know,
Speaker 1: partly me doing it and partly it's just you know,
Speaker 1: the energy and the flow right in that other space.
Speaker 1: And so I stay grounded knowing that I'm staying on purpose, right,
Speaker 1: and so when things manifest, but typically particularly when you
Speaker 1: see the rate at which things begin to manifest, right,
Speaker 1: it's been crazy in the last six seven months, Like
Speaker 1: and I'm just watching this objectively, right and going, wow, well,
Speaker 1: this is where I'm supposed to be. I have one
Speaker 1: final question, Malik. I ask everyone this, and it's it's
Speaker 1: an important one. If you could tell everyone that's listening
Speaker 1: one thing, one thing that they could do, it would
Speaker 1: change their life. According to Malik, one ounce of doubting
Speaker 1: you're out. Say that again, that's a good one. One
Speaker 1: ounce of doubt and you're out. Like people the negative talk,
Speaker 1: like when you actually sit and talk with folks about
Speaker 1: what's actually going on in their heads. There's some extraordinary
Speaker 1: stuff going on, and a lot of it is not
Speaker 1: pretty and it's amazing because people don't realize that that
Speaker 1: is the key, that's that's that's a law as surely
Speaker 1: as gravity is a law. Where our mind goes, we
Speaker 1: flow right, you know, we are as a man think
Speaker 1: it's so, it's you know, so I was eating his heart.
Speaker 1: Nothing is right or wrong. Thinking makes it so right.
Speaker 1: Change the way you look at things, and things you
Speaker 1: look at change all the whether Wayne die, whether it's
Speaker 1: the Bible, whether Shakespeare, you know, it's all the same.
Speaker 1: Thinking right, never gota, whether it's you know, wireless wattles,
Speaker 1: holding hill, you go back to you know, human history.
Speaker 1: That's something that has been kept from people quite frankly.
Speaker 1: And that's actually a big part of the Real Estate Mixtape.
Speaker 1: As much as it's about exposing people to this world
Speaker 1: of being built environment and was doing it, it's also
Speaker 1: about helping people understand this thinking you hear throughout, Thoughts
Speaker 1: become things, connective tissue, right, and then what you see
Speaker 1: and it is actually I stepped back and I purposely
Speaker 1: did this in the edit. I pushed the young people
Speaker 1: forward in the narrative because you see the lights go
Speaker 1: on in there like in real time, and they're saying
Speaker 1: when we've only been doing this for like eight days,
Speaker 1: and I used to think this, and now I'm thinking this,
Speaker 1: and I can't believe I was raised this where and
Speaker 1: now I need to go home and tell my mother
Speaker 1: we've been doing it wrong for the last thirty years. Right.
Speaker 1: That's a beautiful thing if you're able to do that
Speaker 1: and so help people, h uh, not have negative thoughts
Speaker 1: about themselves and love on themselves a little bit more.
Speaker 1: I'm only scratching the surface of this guy, and I
Speaker 1: am so glad to meet you. And I know we
Speaker 1: have a lot more, a lot more catching up, So
Speaker 1: I'd like I'd like you to come to my my town,
Speaker 1: come to Montclair, play golf with the boys, and check
Speaker 1: out Steven's real estate and let's you know, I love
Speaker 1: to h