Speaker 1: I'm Will Lucas and this is black Tech, Green Money.
Speaker 1: Olympia the Point is an award winning rocket scientists and author.
Speaker 1: By her fans, Olympia is called the new Einstein, and
Speaker 1: she was named the modern day Hidden Figure by People
Speaker 1: magazine and Newsweek. She spent almost a decade at Boeing
Speaker 1: as a propulsion scientist f NASA programs, specializing in, among
Speaker 1: other things, calculating the probability of catastrophic exposing events. We
Speaker 1: often hear the phrase, either jokingly or sarcastically, it's not
Speaker 1: rocket science. So I asked Olympia to dispel any myths
Speaker 1: or confirm any facts about how hard it is to
Speaker 1: become a rocket scientist.
Speaker 2: Oh my, that's a great question that you ask. Being
Speaker 2: a rocket scientist is actually not as hard as it seems,
Speaker 2: because a lot of people don't know that. When you're
Speaker 2: a rocket scientist, you have an expertise in a certain area.
Speaker 2: My expertise is mathematics and probability and understanding how the
Speaker 2: numbers can predict a few So when you're in rocket science,
Speaker 2: especially when we helped build and launch NASA Space Shuttle
Speaker 2: main engines and Shuttle launches, we each had our own specialty.
Speaker 2: Mine was mathematics and science, and I calculated the probability
Speaker 2: of catastrophic explosions within space flight. But they were also
Speaker 2: chemists that could understand exactly how the oxidizers and the
Speaker 2: fluids would run together and would burn appropriately. There were
Speaker 2: structural integrity engineers that would look at how hard and
Speaker 2: strong the metal was to ensure that it would rupture
Speaker 2: us with the launch or when there was explosion to
Speaker 2: cause a lift off. And there were people who would
Speaker 2: sit by in mission control, including myself, that look at
Speaker 2: different aspects like the turbopumps. There are people who would
Speaker 2: understand how rotating machinery would work so people would have
Speaker 2: a safe flight. So there's different experts in all these
Speaker 2: different areas. In mind was mathematic and.
Speaker 1: So if you compare that to like an orchestra, like
Speaker 1: you have a bassoon player who is an expert at
Speaker 1: the bassoon, and the person on you know, the flu
Speaker 1: is an expert at the flu But somebody has to
Speaker 1: sit above that and you know, knows all the instruments
Speaker 1: and how they're supposed to fit into this, you know,
Speaker 1: beautiful sound. Who is that person that sits above the
Speaker 1: chemist and the mathematician and the probability person and all
Speaker 1: of these different people. Who has to be the most
Speaker 1: you know, proficient across or is it the same type
Speaker 1: of you know thing as like you know, a conductor.
Speaker 2: Great question. It is the program manager. The program manager
Speaker 2: at each different location would oversee how all the different
Speaker 2: parts and pieces would come together, and then you would
Speaker 2: have the massive program manager. Now, most of the launches
Speaker 2: that have been done here in the United States have
Speaker 2: been formed by Massive until recently we've seen commercial space flights.
Speaker 2: We've seen on the news SpaceX, Blue Origin, Virgin Galactic
Speaker 2: that would go into certain levels of the outer space.
Speaker 2: But it was NASA overseeing most of all of the
Speaker 2: deep space travel, and so still to this day, NASA
Speaker 2: program managers are the ones to oversee that each one
Speaker 2: of the companies as well as the employees with their
Speaker 2: own specialty, would come together and actually launched the engine
Speaker 2: and vehicle in a safe way.
Speaker 1: I'm so glad you brought up that these private industry,
Speaker 1: private companies is commercialization of space travel, because one of
Speaker 1: the things I wanted to ask you about was how
Speaker 1: you feel having been at NASA. How do you feel
Speaker 1: and how do you read the landscape of private industry
Speaker 1: coming in, because I think about how, you know what
Speaker 1: competition does to people who have just historically had a monopoly,
Speaker 1: and it forces you to innovate. And I remember Elon
Speaker 1: Musk saying, you know, he wanted to challenge the idea
Speaker 1: that a rocket could only be used one time, and
Speaker 1: so he developed ones that could be used over and
Speaker 1: over again. And so as somebody who's worked in this
Speaker 1: field for twenty plus years, and talk to me about
Speaker 1: how you read the landscape of the importance of government
Speaker 1: being involved and the importance of the private sector being involved.
Speaker 2: There is an equal opportunity for both. And this is
Speaker 2: why I say that governing structures are the ones to
Speaker 2: ensure there is safe innovation. For example, let's look at
Speaker 2: something that's basic that's not rocket science. If you look
Speaker 2: at how a dam is built in how it holds water,
Speaker 2: there's going to be safety regulations to make sure that
Speaker 2: dam is going to be safe so it doesn't break
Speaker 2: and doesn't take out homes and the water doesn't hurt
Speaker 2: people downhill. It's the same process within aerospace. You have
Speaker 2: these great companies that are creating these products, and you
Speaker 2: also have to have some sort of regulatory procedure to
Speaker 2: make sure or that the product is safe, whether it
Speaker 2: be space travel, whether it be food, whether it be
Speaker 2: food and the Drug Administration, whether it be all these
Speaker 2: different areas. You have to have some sort of basic
Speaker 2: guideline procedures to make sure that each one of the
Speaker 2: companies in any one of the areas operate to the
Speaker 2: same standard. So the aerospace companies and the commercial flight
Speaker 2: companies are coming out now. It's great because a lot
Speaker 2: of the companies that are out, we've seen them contribute
Speaker 2: to space travel before. There are major companies like Raytheon,
Speaker 2: like Boeing, as well as the newer companies that are
Speaker 2: coming out like SpaceX and Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic
Speaker 2: and Astra. These are all private sector companies that are
Speaker 2: building innovation, and the United States governments looks at these
Speaker 2: companies and say, hey, you're building great innovation. How can
Speaker 2: we support this innovation and how can we include it
Speaker 2: in our programs that we're using right now. So it's
Speaker 2: this one on one opportunity with both government and private
Speaker 2: sector to do things. And sometimes the private sector has
Speaker 2: an ability to create things at a lower cost value.
Speaker 2: Let's say that they create a way to build nozzles
Speaker 2: on engines. Instead of going through a three year process
Speaker 2: of forging and casting all the metals, there may be
Speaker 2: a printing process that's easier to do. That would be
Speaker 2: a three D printing process that may take half the
Speaker 2: amount of time. So there's different innovations that's created through
Speaker 2: private sector companies and commercial company that is extremely valuable.
Speaker 2: And so we want to understand the innovation that comes
Speaker 2: from both government as well as private sector. So innovation
Speaker 2: can be not only affordable, but it can also be safe.
Speaker 1: Talk to me about what a day looks like in
Speaker 1: what in your domain of rocket science? So what kind
Speaker 1: of projects do you work on and what does a
Speaker 1: typical day look like when you clock in? You know,
Speaker 1: per se, Well, it depends.
Speaker 2: Now I have I've been a rocket scientist, I've been
Speaker 2: a professor, I've been an author, and I've been a
Speaker 2: public speaker. So each day is different based on what
Speaker 2: I'm doing. I have to laugh because when I was
Speaker 2: in science, and when I was doing science for nearly
Speaker 2: a decade, I was sitting at a computer, crunching numbers,
Speaker 2: looking at a screen, and crunching numbers looking at a screen,
Speaker 2: and crunching numbers, and I was sitting down. I was
Speaker 2: sitting down crunching numbers. And the time in which I
Speaker 2: would get at is when I go to a meeting
Speaker 2: and talk to other people who are experts and we
Speaker 2: devise a way to be able to construct or inspect
Speaker 2: a certain part of the engine. And that was exciting
Speaker 2: interacting with people. But when I was at my desk
Speaker 2: crunning numbers, it wasn't the most exciting. Exception to when
Speaker 2: I could look at the math and figure out the patterns.
Speaker 2: For me, that was exciting. Everybody's different, but I am
Speaker 2: more of a person who is active. I like moving around.
Speaker 2: I like doing things that is not only scientific but
Speaker 2: is engaging. So after spending ten years in rocket science,
Speaker 2: so what I did is I laughed and I went
Speaker 2: to become a math professor. So I was a math
Speaker 2: professor for fourteen years. And so I was walking around,
Speaker 2: moving around all the time, having to write all the time.
Speaker 2: There was not one moment in which I wasn't like
Speaker 2: still unless they were taking a test when I was
Speaker 2: sitting down proctering. But I had the ability to walk
Speaker 2: and move and I could show the students the next
Speaker 2: generation of the scientists, the technology specialists, the engineers, and
Speaker 2: the mathematicians, how they could take this information and use
Speaker 2: it for the innovation that was going to be used
Speaker 2: at these large, major companies. So that day was more
Speaker 2: writing and moving around. Now, as a public speaker, I
Speaker 2: interface with people, and it was interesting before the pandemic
Speaker 2: and after pandemic. After the pandemic was two different types
Speaker 2: of situations. Before the pandemic, I would go and meet
Speaker 2: with everyone and it would be great. Now after the pandemic,
Speaker 2: you have to make sure that people are safe and
Speaker 2: people have the right safety measures, especially when we're in
Speaker 2: When we were in the pandemic itself, it was really
Speaker 2: a pivot point because I had to learn the technology
Speaker 2: to give virtual lectures so people could understand what was
Speaker 2: going on online and make it exciting for that. And
Speaker 2: now that people are getting healthier after the traumatic situation
Speaker 2: the entire world saw under the pandemic, we are seeing
Speaker 2: an ability to really educate in more profound ways now,
Speaker 2: not only in person but in online, and so that's exciting.
Speaker 2: And as an author, I get a share to do
Speaker 2: fun things like this being on your show and talk
Speaker 2: and share information because being an author is just the
Speaker 2: first step of the process of writing a book, because
Speaker 2: when you write a book, the first step is writing it,
Speaker 2: but you have to like market it, and the way
Speaker 2: you market it is giving away as much information and
Speaker 2: content as you can so people can grow from the
Speaker 2: information and what you've written. So that's the exciting part
Speaker 2: when I get a chance to connect with your audience
Speaker 2: and answer questions and do all this fun stuff. So
Speaker 2: thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I want to talk about education in a second,
Speaker 1: but before I do, you know, we often have a
Speaker 1: conversation and tech about you know, there's opportunities for technical
Speaker 1: people obviously, engineers, coders, programmers and non technical people, and
Speaker 1: so I wonder before we talk about education, you know,
Speaker 1: are their roles for people who may not be technical
Speaker 1: people in the field of you know, rocketry.
Speaker 2: There are different types of people. There's different type of thinkers,
Speaker 2: just like there's diversity with educational backgrounds, and just like
Speaker 2: there's diversity within how much income someone has. They can
Speaker 2: have very little or they can be billionaires. So you
Speaker 2: can have diversity in people's heritage. Someone can be Asian,
Speaker 2: someone can be African American, someone can be African, which
Speaker 2: is different things. Someone can be European or Caucasian or American.
Speaker 2: There's different types of ways in which people see the
Speaker 2: world and based on their background, but there's also diversity
Speaker 2: in thinking. People think differently. People can be of the
Speaker 2: same nationality but think differently. And it's really important for
Speaker 2: people to respect the differences in how we think because
Speaker 2: as we can respect the differences on how we think,
Speaker 2: think together as human beings would create solutions and answers.
Speaker 2: So in this process of not everyone being a technical
Speaker 2: minded person, that is one hundred percent great because not
Speaker 2: everybody can do numbers. Not everybody can sit down and
Speaker 2: feel comfortable dealing with a calculator. Not everybody is feeling
Speaker 2: comfortable looking at engineering the prints. That's just not how
Speaker 2: their mind works. But they may be a great communicator.
Speaker 2: They can read the room and see someone's mannerisms and
Speaker 2: be able to say that person needs help. Some people
Speaker 2: are great at being able to sell. Like for me,
Speaker 2: I'm not the best seller at all. If I ask
Speaker 2: someone to buy something, I'm like, you can buy it,
Speaker 2: you cannot buy it. You can do whatever you want.
Speaker 2: But that's that's not for instance, it's a great seller.
Speaker 2: A great sellers well, is somebody who can read a
Speaker 2: person and know exactly what they need and point to
Speaker 2: in the product, what exactly works in the product that
Speaker 2: that's going to help them. So that's not my gifts,
Speaker 2: that's someone else's. But we each have this ability to
Speaker 2: provide a contribution to an overall outcome. And this overall
Speaker 2: outcome I feel as a scientist, is being able to
Speaker 2: create an innovative approach for our world, and that is
Speaker 2: going to give people answers with science, whether it be
Speaker 2: finding solutions to the climate change, whether it be understanding
Speaker 2: how to keep people's information and faces safe and artificial
Speaker 2: intelligence technology, whether it be trying to understand how quantum
Speaker 2: communications in the future can help keep data secure at
Speaker 2: hospitals and at state departments and governmental agencies, and the
Speaker 2: electrical companies and grids across the world. So we have
Speaker 2: the with each of our diverse ways of thinking to
Speaker 2: contribute to a solution that's going to help humanity. So
Speaker 2: you don't have to be just a technical thinker, but
Speaker 2: you can provide your skills in the way that's going
Speaker 2: to help people. And that's the most important part.
Speaker 1: I love that education. This I know this is close
Speaker 1: near and dear to your heart. And I wonder. You know,
Speaker 1: I was on social media and every once in a
Speaker 1: while you'll see like a math problem and it'll be
Speaker 1: like it'll seem obvious, and then there's like a million
Speaker 1: different answers for the same math problem in the comments,
Speaker 1: like everybody believes they know the right answer, but everybody's
Speaker 1: got a different answer. And then there's you know, then
Speaker 1: there's math problems I've seen on social media that you know,
Speaker 1: explain how to do it, and then it'll show how
Speaker 1: other nations teach how to do that same thing. And
Speaker 1: we wonder why we seem so backwards in so many ways.
Speaker 1: And at the same time, we are near the bottom
Speaker 1: in the United States of thirty five industrialized countries nations
Speaker 1: in math proficiency. What are we getting wrong about how
Speaker 1: we teach math?
Speaker 2: Oh? Boy, whoa, that's a good question. I mean, that's
Speaker 2: a hot question. I love that question. That's a good question. Boy,
Speaker 2: I can do. You know what, I wish we had
Speaker 2: educational officials all from all across the world and across
Speaker 2: this nation listening to this particular podcasty, I can break
Speaker 2: it down.
Speaker 1: Let's break it down. Let's bring it down.
Speaker 2: People don't address the fear behind mathematics. They address the
Speaker 2: answer when people fear certain situations. It doesn't matter if
Speaker 2: it's mathematics. And I talk about this in my first book, Mathaphobia,
Speaker 2: How you can overcome your math fears and become a
Speaker 2: rocket scientist. It doesn't matter if you're fearing mathematics or
Speaker 2: you're experiencing fear because you're in a home where your
Speaker 2: parents are getting divorced and you're a kid. Same fear,
Speaker 2: it's shutting down the frontal brain loads. Here's the problem
Speaker 2: with fear. When it shuts down the frontal brain loads,
Speaker 2: it stops someone from solving problems in mathematics, mathematics, and
Speaker 2: science stems specifically science technology injuring mathematics requires our frontal
Speaker 2: brain loads to transport a problem into a solution. If
Speaker 2: our frontal brain lobes are not working due to fear,
Speaker 2: because fear turns off this part of the brain, and
Speaker 2: fear is part of the reptilian part, and it shuts
Speaker 2: down our creative problem solving, which is a part of
Speaker 2: our frontal brain loads. And that's also when we get older,
Speaker 2: is considered the executive decision making portion of our brain.
Speaker 2: So when we experience fear, our brain shuts down. And
Speaker 2: when our brain shuts down, it can't do a math problem.
Speaker 2: So when you're looking we had a child starting to
Speaker 2: fail their math, it's because they're experiencing fear in their life.
Speaker 2: And if you don't give the child tools to be
Speaker 2: able to communicate themselves so they can address the fear
Speaker 2: and remove it from their brain at an early age,
Speaker 2: they become stumped in mathematics. They become stumped in mathematics.
Speaker 2: When they become stumped in mathematics, it affects the rest
Speaker 2: of their education. The quickest way to know if someone
Speaker 2: is a child is having really bad problems somewhere in
Speaker 2: their life is look at their mascors. Their mascores are
Speaker 2: the first indication that a child needs help because they're
Speaker 2: having trouble mentally processing a solution and finding an answer
Speaker 2: to a situation. Math is the first place where you
Speaker 2: see that. So in our country, we do not have
Speaker 2: the best mental health access and priority, and it's across
Speaker 2: the board. It doesn't doesn't matter if you're white, it
Speaker 2: doesn't matter if you're black, it doesn't matter if you're Asian.
Speaker 2: This country needs to increase its knowledge and understanding and
Speaker 2: respect of mental health when we can increase the ability
Speaker 2: for young people to identify their feelings, how they're experiencing things,
Speaker 2: and to identify when they're are falling into one of
Speaker 2: these characters where they get stuck. And I write about
Speaker 2: this in my first book. When people get stuck, they
Speaker 2: turn into Quincy the quitter. They'll quit even before they
Speaker 2: even try. Donnaga overdoer. They'll try and try and still
Speaker 2: miss the mark. Samuel the struggler. He thinks that his
Speaker 2: approach no one respects, and people think he's done. And
Speaker 2: then Crystal the criticize will blame everybody for her pro
Speaker 2: performance because she doesn't know how to take ownership of things.
Speaker 2: They students learn that at an early age, and if
Speaker 2: we don't find a way to correct that type of
Speaker 2: mental thinking at a very early age, it extends into adulthood,
Speaker 2: where that adulthood makes someone think not only oh, I'm
Speaker 2: not good at mathematics, they'll also think I am not
Speaker 2: worth trying to succeed in a certain area. So I
Speaker 2: become a business owner, So I become a scientist, So
Speaker 2: I become a podcast host, so I become an entertainer.
Speaker 2: It's a full spectrum of different careers. That people can
Speaker 2: go on to. So when we address the psychological issues
Speaker 2: that people are facing, we then clear out the mind
Speaker 2: to turn off the fear, and then we turn back
Speaker 2: on the frontal brain loads that are responsible for effective
Speaker 2: decision making. And it doesn't matter if it's effective decision
Speaker 2: making where's a child or if it is an executive.
Speaker 2: When we turn off the fear, we turn on solutions
Speaker 2: in our brain, and that is how we provide answers
Speaker 2: to society.
Speaker 1: That's great, that's great. And so I was thinking about this,
Speaker 1: and you know, going through my math journey, and I
Speaker 1: learned that math is a lot like you know, putting
Speaker 1: wheels on a car, like if you or even stacking
Speaker 1: blocks like if you miss a principle in the early
Speaker 1: fundamentals of math, it's very hard to get math at
Speaker 1: higher levels because the principle, the foundation is not there.
Speaker 1: So if you don't get math, it's hard to get subtraction.
Speaker 1: If you don't get subtraction, it's hard to get multiplication
Speaker 1: if like and these things keep building on themselves. And
Speaker 1: so when you think about, you know, to your point
Speaker 1: of helping people mentally in their socialized you know, removing
Speaker 1: trauma and et cetera. And life hasn't stopped though, you know.
Speaker 1: So now I'm progressing through grades, and I missed some
Speaker 1: fundamentals back two three years ago, pick a number ago,
Speaker 1: and how do how do or I'm an adult now
Speaker 1: and I didn't really get it, you know in those
Speaker 1: school age years. How do you fix the car while
Speaker 1: you're driving? And you only got three wheels?
Speaker 2: By this one concept that I want everyone to remember,
Speaker 2: it's never too late to learn. It's never too late
Speaker 2: to learn. And I know that from my own personal experience.
Speaker 2: And I'm going to tell you why I failed algebra.
Speaker 2: I failed geometry. I felt calculous and I felt chemistry
Speaker 2: in school. And I laugh about it now because I
Speaker 2: eventually had to take the classes over, struggled and take
Speaker 2: the classes over again. Then I finally got it. And
Speaker 2: then I got it because I sat down with someone
Speaker 2: who was willing to help me understand it. And it
Speaker 2: was I think I was sixteen years old when I
Speaker 2: finally started understanding algebra.
Speaker 1: Well me before you continue, because I want to stop
Speaker 1: you because you just said something very salient. Is most
Speaker 1: math issues with children about the teacher, their ability to teach.
Speaker 2: Reasons I write about this in my book, and these
Speaker 2: are phenomenal questions. It's due to three reasons. The parent
Speaker 2: him or herself that has their own fear that they
Speaker 2: give off to their child through a math teacher who
Speaker 2: may not be supportive or may say some things that
Speaker 2: would negatively affect a student. Or it's by the system
Speaker 2: itself that doesn't give the proper structure or the foundation
Speaker 2: for someone to go far in science, technology, engineering, mathematics.
Speaker 2: So those are the three root sources of why students
Speaker 2: do poorly in mathematics. And for me, my mother had
Speaker 2: a math fear. She was scared of mathematics, and she unknowingly,
Speaker 2: God bless her soul, because she really tried. She really
Speaker 2: truly tried to help me as a single mom. She
Speaker 2: was scared, she was really scared of mathematics. And I
Speaker 2: remember seeing her take a math class when I went
Speaker 2: back to which when I was like fifteen or sixteen,
Speaker 2: I started to taking a man class and it was
Speaker 2: with doctor Lee, and so she took me to class
Speaker 2: with her. And when she took me to class with her,
Speaker 2: the teacher himself helped me with calculus. And that's why
Speaker 2: that's how I understood algebra because I started actually doing
Speaker 2: trigon alentry and calculus and asking him questions because my
Speaker 2: mother was taking me to class, her beginning algebra class
Speaker 2: when she was at the community college, and that process
Speaker 2: made me start thinking, maybe there's stuff I need to learn.
Speaker 2: And then I sat down with a teacher that actually
Speaker 2: spent time tutoring me, and that's when I realized I
Speaker 2: had the foundation. Now all those classes that I failed,
Speaker 2: there's one class that I didn't take over. You're gonna
Speaker 2: get a kick off this. There's one class I failed
Speaker 2: I didn't take over. It was algebra fundamental with algebra.
Speaker 2: But I'm a spiritual person, and I truly believe God
Speaker 2: was helping me because the class that I started teaching,
Speaker 2: the first class I started teaching on an ongoing basis
Speaker 2: after I left Rocket Science, was an algebra class to adults.
Speaker 1: Wow.
Speaker 2: So for ten years I looked at the information that
Speaker 2: I failed when I was younger, and when I would
Speaker 2: look at the book, I would see it and I'm like, oh,
Speaker 2: I know exactly what I did wrong when I was
Speaker 2: sixteen and seventeen that I didn't get right. And it
Speaker 2: was like I could know what was going on in
Speaker 2: the student's brains. Because I was there. I know how
Speaker 2: they were thinking because I did that too. So that
Speaker 2: was the pleasure I had, was helping adults learn basic algebra,
Speaker 2: and that was one of the most fulfilling parts of
Speaker 2: my career where I had the ability to help people
Speaker 2: learn and it didn't matter your age, because you can
Speaker 2: learn at any age.
Speaker 1: I know you're a big proponent of the pursuit of
Speaker 1: higher education, and we're having a real strong conversation in
Speaker 1: our social discourse about the value of a college degree,
Speaker 1: and I want to get your thoughts on how we
Speaker 1: either change our minds about it or how do we
Speaker 1: increase the value of it.
Speaker 2: I am slightly biased. I am biased for a higher education.
Speaker 2: And the reason why I am a big supporter of
Speaker 2: higher education is because I am a professor. I am
Speaker 2: a professor, and I recently started teaching at my campus
Speaker 2: that I graduated from. I'm starting at teaching research methods
Speaker 2: in the Africana Studies Department at California State University, northrich
Speaker 2: I am honored because I am going to be helping
Speaker 2: the department as well as students understand how statistics and
Speaker 2: information goes into making sure that systems are equitable and
Speaker 2: fair and diverse for people of various backgrounds of color.
Speaker 2: So I got here because the fact that I came
Speaker 2: from an environment South central Los Angeles where education wasn't promoted,
Speaker 2: And when I went to other areas and was busted
Speaker 2: into other and other school districts, I saw how economically
Speaker 2: different these areas were and the type of expectations that
Speaker 2: were placed on the students to succeed. Growing up in
Speaker 2: South central Los Angeles, there wasn't that expectation on any
Speaker 2: one of the students that were in that area. But
Speaker 2: yet when I was busted over into this other area,
Speaker 2: that expectation was on them. For You're going to go
Speaker 2: to college, You're going to succeed, You're going to do this.
Speaker 2: You're going to become a business owner, you're going to
Speaker 2: become a lawyer, you're going to become a doctor. You're
Speaker 2: going to provide your skills and expertise to help humanity.
Speaker 2: That was the concept that was instilled in younger people
Speaker 2: at that age when I was busting to that area.
Speaker 2: So being able to objectively look at the different communities,
Speaker 2: I realized that an education was the ticket to success.
Speaker 2: Now there's different types of education. I believe in higher education,
Speaker 2: which is at a four year university, but you can
Speaker 2: also educate yourself in a trade, whether it is understanding
Speaker 2: how to do construction, whether it is understanding how to
Speaker 2: do hair and nail. You have to educate yourself in
Speaker 2: a way to properly do things. So it's going to
Speaker 2: turn out the way that you would like it to.
Speaker 2: It doesn't matter what area you're emphasizing or specializing in,
Speaker 2: but you do have to know about it, and you
Speaker 2: do have to know about it by learning about it.
Speaker 2: And why you learn about it is you go and
Speaker 2: you hopefully can enroll in a community college, which is
Speaker 2: affordable for most people, thankfully in California and other places.
Speaker 2: You go to a community college, you can get certain courses.
Speaker 2: You can even finish your high school diploma through taking
Speaker 2: community college classes. So I'm a big person to really
Speaker 2: promote education because it changed my life. I can't speak
Speaker 2: about anyone else's life. It changed your mind, and so
Speaker 2: as a result, I'm very supportive of education because it
Speaker 2: transforms the way that we think. The more that we
Speaker 2: can renew our mind far there we can go on life,
Speaker 2: and I truly believe education can do that.
Speaker 1: I get approached by a lot of parents who want
Speaker 1: their kids to find careers and technology and your path
Speaker 1: and science and maths started when you were six, you know,
Speaker 1: and you had some exposure to things, you know, to rockets,
Speaker 1: and so what are some great things parents can do
Speaker 1: with young children to help inspire that sort of learning
Speaker 1: and desire earlier?
Speaker 2: Just thinking about that off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: The first thing that they can do is make science
Speaker 2: and technology real. When I was six years old, I
Speaker 2: went to the Jet Proportion Laboratory and that's here in California,
Speaker 2: in Pasadena, and there I saw the jet engines, and
Speaker 2: I saw the rockets, and I went to their mission
Speaker 2: control room and I saw pictures of men launching our O. Now,
Speaker 2: I didn't realize that what I was looking at were
Speaker 2: men launching rockets. They didn't have my same skin color,
Speaker 2: and they did not have they did not have femininity
Speaker 2: in the photo. And I looked at it and I
Speaker 2: thought to myself, I didn't see that. All I saw
Speaker 2: was science. All I saw was the ability to do
Speaker 2: something great and launch something and explode something into the
Speaker 2: air and help humanity. That's what I wanted to do,
Speaker 2: and that's what I decided I had no idea the
Speaker 2: challenges I was going to face. If parents could introduce
Speaker 2: their kids to something like that early on, that will
Speaker 2: forever help set the foundation of positive seeds in a
Speaker 2: child's mind. Those seeds will grow and will be able
Speaker 2: to fight off the depression and the discouragement that they
Speaker 2: have as they're growing up, because those seeds that are
Speaker 2: planted in a child's mind early in life helps them
Speaker 2: see how they can contribute to something that is real.
Speaker 2: So if you have the ability to take a child
Speaker 2: to be your nearest airport, show the child how airplanes fly,
Speaker 2: how they land, do basic think. Take them to a museum,
Speaker 2: a science museum, have them look at the different anatomy
Speaker 2: of the human body and how muscles are from. Take
Speaker 2: them to things that will inspire them. If you think
Speaker 2: that your child's going to be a musician, take them
Speaker 2: to the Take them to a symphony and learn how them.
Speaker 2: Teach them to be quiet so they can listen to
Speaker 2: the music. These are all the different ways to inspire
Speaker 2: a young person and put a positive seat of growth
Speaker 2: in their brain. The second idea that comes to mind
Speaker 2: is giving positive reinforcement. I was just watching it was
Speaker 2: Joel ostein. It was a sermon that he did online
Speaker 2: and he was talking about the comedian Steve Harvey. And
Speaker 2: this was really interesting when I heard this story. He
Speaker 2: said that Steve Harvey, when he was a really young person,
Speaker 2: wanted to be a comedian. And when he told his
Speaker 2: teacher that, the teacher told the boy, which at the time,
Speaker 2: which was Steve Harvey as a young child, is anyone
Speaker 2: else in your family on TV? And he said no.
Speaker 2: Then she says, go back and write something else down there,
Speaker 2: And that was something that was very discouraging to him.
Speaker 2: But his father, from the story that was sared in
Speaker 2: the sermon, his father came and said, don't listen to that.
Speaker 2: Listen to this. You can be anything that you want
Speaker 2: to be. That note and keep your plans and put
Speaker 2: it first in your drawers, so every time you open
Speaker 2: up the drawer, you'll be able to see your vision.
Speaker 2: And that's what Steve Harvey did. So throughout his homelessness,
Speaker 2: throughout all these different type of situations that he faced,
Speaker 2: he kept that in the back of his head, which
Speaker 2: is I'm going to be on TV, and I'm going
Speaker 2: to be on TV. And one of the first opportunities
Speaker 2: he had was to be on the Apollo Show. If
Speaker 2: any I may be dating myself, let's tell you I
Speaker 2: remember the Apollo Show, but Erry, But any case, he
Speaker 2: did it. And so that that story goes to the
Speaker 2: point of the second point, which is you have to
Speaker 2: reinforce young people with positive words of encouragement that they
Speaker 2: can achieve what they want to achieve if they are
Speaker 2: persistent and consistent. And the last thing I would recommend
Speaker 2: to do is educate yourself and provide ways for your
Speaker 2: child to be educated. Now, I grew up in south
Speaker 2: central Los Angeles in a gang in the nineteen eighties,
Speaker 2: so it was like gangs all over everywhere. There were
Speaker 2: crack houses everywhere, and it was just really terrible. And
Speaker 2: my mother found a way for me to be busted
Speaker 2: into this other school system, and through that education, I
Speaker 2: got a chance to see that it doesn't matter what
Speaker 2: color someone is or what their background is per se
Speaker 2: with ethnicity or their heritage. It matters on what information
Speaker 2: is being fed into their brain at an early age.
Speaker 2: So with that concept, you want to feed the brain
Speaker 2: of young people so they have the foundation of being
Speaker 2: able to build upon in the future. I happened to
Speaker 2: learn science I wasn't necessarily good at it all the time.
Speaker 2: But if I happened to learn science and I just
Speaker 2: stuck with it, I just stuck with it and stuck
Speaker 2: with it, and stuck with it and stuck with it
Speaker 2: and stuck with it until eventually I'm like, oh, this
Speaker 2: is clicking. We have to place kids in an environment
Speaker 2: where they're exposed to healthy education and keep exposing them
Speaker 2: to it, keep putting them in study groups, have them
Speaker 2: meet with their friends at a safe location that is
Speaker 2: a public location where they can study together. You know,
Speaker 2: make sure, and I always want to say for parents,
Speaker 2: make sure and keep your children protected. Not all parents
Speaker 2: have the same philosophies or ideas as you have, but
Speaker 2: the kids themselves can learn from one another because they're kids.
Speaker 2: So what you can always do is make sure that
Speaker 2: they're incredible environment and public type of settings. To always
Speaker 2: keep your kids safe so that when they learn information,
Speaker 2: they can learn it freely without any fear.
Speaker 1: That's what I have last one hour have is your
Speaker 1: book answers at least to the science of attracting what
Speaker 1: you want. It explores a lot about you know, the
Speaker 1: science of attraction, and I wonder about how your experiences,
Speaker 1: education and expertise in rockets and space might have informed
Speaker 1: you know that that sort of concept of attraction.
Speaker 2: Oh wow. I did a talk about the book Answers
Speaker 2: on Least to the Science of Attracting what you want,
Speaker 2: and it's if you go to answers on LEAs dot
Speaker 2: com slash live Lectures, it's my page and the last
Speaker 2: lecture you see on the page is the talk. So
Speaker 2: I highly encourage you to go to the page. It's complimentary.
Speaker 2: You can watch talk and the talk I did with
Speaker 2: California State University of Northbridge to produce that so people
Speaker 2: can have free education online. So the talk basic deals
Speaker 2: with understanding quantum deciding, and basically what quantum deciding is,
Speaker 2: it's the ability to make your decisions count. There's six
Speaker 2: different decisions that we make on a daily basis that
Speaker 2: will attract opportunities to us. And they are making decisions
Speaker 2: with your faith, how you see your purpose in the world,
Speaker 2: making decisions with your identity, with who you choose to
Speaker 2: be in all situations, making decisions with your intent, how
Speaker 2: you choose to impact and influence environments instead of let
Speaker 2: the environment change you. The next decision is based on
Speaker 2: your learning how do you take in new information and
Speaker 2: throughout the old information that is no longer accurate or
Speaker 2: maybe fake news. The next is your resources. How do
Speaker 2: you take your resources and multiply it so what you
Speaker 2: think is not enough will be more them enough. And
Speaker 2: then how do you make decisions based on your love
Speaker 2: and time? How do you love yourself and love other
Speaker 2: people so you create positive relationships in the present and
Speaker 2: in the future. So these are the decisions, the six
Speaker 2: decisions that count towards attracting opportunities that come to us.
Speaker 2: And so we attract opportunities that come to us. And
Speaker 2: it's not always easy to make these decisions. If it
Speaker 2: were easy, I'd be a millionaire already, but that's not realistic.
Speaker 2: The realistic part of it is we have to continuously
Speaker 2: make wise decisions on a daily basis to keep attracting
Speaker 2: opportunities so we grow to where we're supposed to be
Speaker 2: in life. And what allow me to be able to
Speaker 2: create this just groundbreaking decision making? Science based method was
Speaker 2: three things It was working at in aerospace because when
Speaker 2: I was working as an aerospace engineer, I used mathematics
Speaker 2: and science to calculate the probability of explosions, So I
Speaker 2: actually had to see in the future before an event
Speaker 2: would happen, and then come back and make the decisions
Speaker 2: in engineering and help encourage other people to make the
Speaker 2: decisions in engineering. So the explosions wouldn't lose the vehicle
Speaker 2: or cause people to lose their lives, but the explosions
Speaker 2: would go down the plume and the explosion would happen
Speaker 2: in the right places, so it could be a launch,
Speaker 2: and it could be a safe launch. But I had
Speaker 2: to see two different futures in front of me and
Speaker 2: pick the one in which you were going to go to.
Speaker 2: And the epiphany moment happened. What if we do that
Speaker 2: with our own lives? What if we're able to pick
Speaker 2: the future that we want to go to instead of
Speaker 2: thinking we have no options? And I started thinking about
Speaker 2: that in my own life. Well did I use that
Speaker 2: in my own life? And that's when the epiphany came,
Speaker 2: Oh I did. I had several different futures that existed
Speaker 2: from my own personal life because I grew up in
Speaker 2: this really povery stricken area. There are three futures that
Speaker 2: existed for me. I could have been a victim to
Speaker 2: this surrounding area and or I could have been a dropout,
Speaker 2: or I could have gone into science. When I saw
Speaker 2: the picture of the men launching rockets when I was
Speaker 2: six years old, and I unknowingly chose the future where
Speaker 2: I could launch rockets, I didn't realize what I was
Speaker 2: doing was picking my future, and how I would pick
Speaker 2: the future was through my decision making to get there.
Speaker 2: We each have this ability to pick our future by
Speaker 2: making decisions that are in a present. And the way
Speaker 2: we make effective decisions in the present is by seeing
Speaker 2: the future that we want, looking back to the past
Speaker 2: to figure out what are the values and the lessons
Speaker 2: we learned through our most toughest situations, and I outline
Speaker 2: how to identify those six different tough situations that everyone
Speaker 2: is faced in my book, and from identifying your values
Speaker 2: and finding out the lessons that you learned in past situations,
Speaker 2: how to talk to yourself in the past and talk
Speaker 2: to yourself in the future, so at this very moment,
Speaker 2: you can make a decision that will get you to
Speaker 2: where you need to go. That is que and deciding.
Speaker 2: And I'm a scientist and I love to make sure
Speaker 2: things are really solid. I like to make sure there's facts.
Speaker 2: I like to make sure is detail. I like to
Speaker 2: make sure that what I say is valid. So what
Speaker 2: I did is I looked at all the science that
Speaker 2: proved how this is possible, and that included Albert Einstein's
Speaker 2: quantum entanglement theory of how the past, president, and the future
Speaker 2: are all interconnected in a way in which deals with
Speaker 2: quantum physics. I looked at this with NASA's teleportation discovery
Speaker 2: that happened in twenty twenty when it created long distance
Speaker 2: teleportation to the future, which was to the space station.
Speaker 2: So it was hologram technology where they had to actually
Speaker 2: see in the future and project in the future before
Speaker 2: it actually happened. And that was the science that was
Speaker 2: used with NASA there. And then I also used my background,
Speaker 2: which is my mother is Native American. So with the
Speaker 2: understanding of the principles of how my mother and my
Speaker 2: mother's family understood how energy works. Realizing that we have
Speaker 2: decision making that literally changes the energy of situations and
Speaker 2: the energy of our lives. And so when I peered
Speaker 2: that with the science and peered that with the energy
Speaker 2: of how atoms work and how the energy of how
Speaker 2: our planets rotate around the Sun, there was this universal
Speaker 2: story which is we each have this energy that in
Speaker 2: this power, I call it the power, the power that
Speaker 2: comes from our decision making. It's no superstitious thing. This
Speaker 2: is real. We have the ability to make powerful decisions
Speaker 2: that's going to change the course of time, but we
Speaker 2: have to own it. So that is what I learned
Speaker 2: when I wrote my third book, Answers. I reached to
Speaker 2: the science of attracting. What we want is that we
Speaker 2: each had this power for decision making capability, and it's
Speaker 2: up to us to make the sixth decisions that count.
Speaker 1: Black Tech Green Money is a production the Blavity Afrotech
Speaker 1: on the Black Effect Podcast Network and i Hied Media,
Speaker 1: and it's produced by Morgan Debonne and me Well Lucas,
Speaker 1: with additional production support by Sarah Ergon and Rose McLucas.
Speaker 1: Special thank you to Michael Davis, Vanessa Siroundo, and Maya Moldrew.
Speaker 1: Learn more about my guess. The Other Tech Disructor is
Speaker 1: an innovators at afrotech dot com. Join your Black Tech
Speaker 1: Green Money, Share this with somebody, Look at your money.
Speaker 2: Piece in love