The Foureva Podcast
Welcome to The Foureva Podcast, where we break barriers and redefine success!
Join host Jamar Jones, a dynamic entrepreneur, national speaker, and author of "Change Your Circle, Change Your Life," as he takes you on an extraordinary journey of inspiration and motivation.
In each episode, we bring you an impressive lineup of star-studded guests, each with a unique voice and a wealth of insights to share. From industry leaders to renowned experts, we uncover their secrets to success in personal, business, and marketing domains. Prepare to be captivated by their stories, strategies, and experiences that will empower you to reach new heights.
Whether you're an aspiring entrepreneur, a marketing professional, or simply seeking fresh perspectives on life and business, The Foureva Podcast is your ultimate destination. Discover the transformative power of changing your circle and unlocking your full potential. With each episode, we delve into the minds of the most influential voices in the industry, providing you with the tools and inspiration you need to overcome obstacles and achieve greatness.
Don't miss out on this dynamic podcast that will fuel your ambition, challenge your limits, and propel you toward success. Tune in to The Foureva Podcast and join a community of driven individuals who are ready to make an impact. Get ready to be inspired, motivated, and 'foureva' transformed!
The Foureva Podcast
How your Past doesn't Define You to Reach your Goals
In this inspiring episode, we dive deep into conversations about confidence, career paths, resilience, and the courage to start over. Our guests share powerful stories and practical insights that will motivate you to think differently about money, education, and mental health.
✅ Rhonda Nordike – Divorce Financial Advocate and author of Bold Beginnings – on helping women reinvent themselves after divorce and build financial confidence.
✅ Jonaed Iqbal – Founder of NoDegree.com and host of the No Degree Podcast – on creating career opportunities for people without college degrees and challenging traditional success narratives.
✅ Deanna Pelley – Mental health therapist & speaker – on the importance of self-reflection, resilience, and embracing emotions instead of running from them.
✅ Torel Simmons – Host of Rise Urban Nation Podcast – on amplifying Black and Pan-African entrepreneurial voices and creating spaces where representation matters.
💡 Key themes you’ll hear in this episode:
Why knowledge + experience = confidence
How to overcome shame and self-doubt around money and divorce
Rethinking success without a college degree
How COVID revealed hidden struggles with anxiety, depression, and relationships
Why self-reflection is the secret key to resilience and growth
The power of storytelling and representation in inspiring future generations
✨ Tune in to hear powerful insights, practical advice, and bold beginnings that can inspire your own journey.
I want to teach them how to think. I want to teach them how to problem solve, I want to teach them how to make decisions and ultimately that builds their confidence. I mean, I've always said the formula for confidence is simple it's knowledge plus experience. If we have the knowledge without the experience, it's theory. If we have the experience without the knowledge, it's trial and error. But when we get those two to working together, like a little knowledge and a little experience, and we're walking through through that, they can come out of this process really feeling like they can take on the world thank you for all being here.
Speaker 2:look, we joined the whistle. What's this? Believe the movement business conference. You know forever. Media is forever Bringing people together, changing circles, changing lives. We all know Jamar. He brought us here together, terrell Simmons with the Rise Urban Nation podcast, and we're going to get some good conversations going in. Now we get to start off with our lovely first guest. I see you got a book there. Hold the book up, tell them what the book is.
Speaker 1:All right book there. Hold the book up, tell me what the book is. All right. So the book is called bold beginnings and it's really intended for women that are going through divorce that really want to improve their relationship with money yeah, all right, right money, and then my the esteemed panel is going to be helping me moderate this interview yeah, let's go.
Speaker 3:So why did you call it bold beginnings? Because oftentimes divorce is like the end of something and it's the end of something messy. What gave you that title?
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you know, I've been doing this work for over 10 years and I think one of the things that I often see is people see it as an end, which it is, and there's a grieving process that goes along with it. But there's also an opportunity for women to reinvent themselves and to really take the opportunity, as they're going through that process, to improve their relationship with money. So when they get to the end of it right, they're in a different space, and I really wanted to be able to focus on how do I help them increase their confidence and focus on leaving a legacy, because a lot of times, women feel like they're going to leave the divorce process and have nothing to show for it, and if they accept the narrative that hey, everything is what it is, it's status quo, you don't have a voice, just accept this and move on, then they may be in that spot so the work that I was doing.
Speaker 1:Really, you know we're going in a rebranding direction.
Speaker 3:Actually, as of today, yeah, my new website's launching and we're yeah, so it's a bold beginning for you, it's a bold beginning for me.
Speaker 1:But really it's going all in on the advocacy piece like really saying, listen, I want to stand in the gap, I want to give you the questions to be asking and, ultimately, I want you to be able to be advocating for yourself. But I can help you do it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we've been doing some rebranding today, so I'm gonna put you on the spot yes well, tell us what you do, who's it for and why you do it.
Speaker 1:Yes, awesome. Thank you so. Rhonda Nordyke, divorce financial advocate. I work with women that are going through divorce to help them have a voice.
Speaker 2:Jamar would be so proud. He would be proud because he's making us do this all this week. It's true, you know I I can't wait to see what question you're gonna ask, as somebody who's a therapist, who probably has gotten a C's, some people go through this like, well, what would you? What would you ask her as a question?
Speaker 4:well, so many questions. I think that, for the first and foremost question on my mind is, when you have these women that come to you, I imagine they open up a lot and you're helping them with gaining confidence, which is huge, I think. As women, that's not something that we've historically been kind of set up to have, and I'm curious what themes you notice in this practice that you're doing and in getting to know these women that come up where they really lack confidence. And, yeah, if there's any patterns or themes you notice in that.
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I would say and that's a great question, I think, a couple of themes. One is that they feel shame, they feel guilt about not having taken more ownership or interest in the finances.
Speaker 1:Um, I also think that they have some programming that's running that says I'm not smart enough. I was working with a woman. She was in her early 60s and I remember we were getting toward the end of the process, we're reviewing the final documents on the financial side, and she looks at me, of course over Zoom, and says, rhonda, I'm smart right.
Speaker 1:Yeah you're smart, no question, right. And so I think there's just a lot of doubts that are running through their mind and they've accepted the hey, my husband makes more, or he's smarter or he's whatever, um, and I'm like, no, you're smart and you can do it. And so it's been really cool to see them step into that. Um, I just got an email today from a client whose divorce was finalized last week and she said Rhonda, I'm, I've got a couple of questions, but I really feel like I'm making good financial decisions, like she's starting to think critically, you know.
Speaker 1:So there's a lot of pieces that go into it, but it's I want to teach them how to think, I want to teach them how to problem-solve, I want to teach them how to make decisions and ultimately that builds their confidence. I mean, I've always said the formula for confidence is simple it's knowledge plus experience, and if we have the knowledge plus experience and if we have the knowledge without the experience, it's theory. If we have the experience without the knowledge, it's trial and error. But when we get those two to working together, like a little knowledge and a little experience, and we're walking through that, they can come out of this process really feeling like they can take on the world, and it's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's beautiful. I want to unpack that a little bit. Where does the shame come from? Because you know I'm thinking two prong because the I was like is the shame coming from because societal pressures, you know, from, I'm gonna say, old school mindset of thinking you know that women are running the household down or is the shame coming from? I didn't learn this and now I'm stuck in this position. I'm trying to understand that. Help me understand where the shame comes from yeah, I think the shame comes from that.
Speaker 1:You know, in having interviewed past clients, right, they say, hey, I used to manage my finances, I used to balance my checkbook when that was a thing you know what I mean Like they felt independent at one time and then I think they allowed themselves to be, you know, not engaged.
Speaker 1:And I think also the aspect of that is they know that it could impact their future and they feel bad about that, like what if I don't know what I need to know to make good decisions and, as a result of that, not only my you know my financial future but my kids is impacted because I didn't ask the right questions or know enough.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's beautiful. So close us out one more time with the book. Where can people find you? What would you give a piece of advice for a woman who's looking to get that support?
Speaker 1:Yeah, absolutely so. The book is Bold Beginnings. It's on Amazon and I would say the biggest advice that I have is make sure that you are reaching out, get the help that you need to navigate through this process, because it is essential. Your voice matters, your future matters and really your legacy matters.
Speaker 2:Love that. All right, clap it up for that, y'all. All right, moving on? All right, you know what I'm going to ask you, right. All right, moving on. All right, you know what I'm going to ask you, right. What are you going to ask me? All right. Jamar said who are you? Like your name? What do you do? Who is it that you're helping and why do you do it? You ready?
Speaker 3:I'm ready, let's go. My name is Junaid Iqbal. I help people without college degrees find meaningful jobs that pay well. I'm the founder of NoDegreecom and host of the no Degree podcast, where I interview people without college degrees and have them share their stories. So oftentimes people without college degrees they think that they're not as smart, they think that they're not as capable, and often society has told them that you have to do this, get a degree and get a good job. And often society has told them that you have to do this, get a degree and get a good job. And oftentimes, even our parents right, you're Nigerian, yeah, and if you don't get a degree, I think your father would have shot you.
Speaker 2:Oh, oh, my son has forsaken me. Why do I have this son with no degree? Ah, please, do you want to shame the family?
Speaker 3:And it's just oftentimes like they're speaking from their experience. Right, there was a time that it made sense for them and they made certain sacrifices, but Now things have changed. Right? Education is much more accessible than ever before. Like back then, if you wanted to learn certain things, you didn't have a lot of books or you had to go to a library or you had to go to this expert.
Speaker 3:And now you have so many more sources. You have YouTube, you have online courses. You can literally watch Harvard courses the same courses that these people take, and get certificates and all that. So the world has changed and my goal is to really help people without degrees realize like, hey, I can become this cloud engineer, I can work in healthcare, I can work in sales or marketing, and oftentimes it's helping them realize that there are so many jobs out there like when you're a kid you only know like five jobs, like a cop doctor, lawyer, engineer, and then you start realizing oh, there's a program manager, does a project manager, there's a product manager, there's like sales engineers, like what are these jobs?
Speaker 3:and so it's really exposing people to realizing. And you know, one of the most cool things I get to do is like you see someone who's worked retail or they've worked fast food, and then they start like hey, you can work operations manager and you can make 60,000, 70,000, 100,000, all with their experience, and it's crazy because people don't know what they don't know, and no shame to the immigrant parents who that's the only way they knew and so that's why they pushed us that route.
Speaker 2:But now because I have a workforce development background where there's so many ways to get into a middle-aged income job without a degree now and people, there's literally six-figure jobs out there's no degree figure jobs, like seven figures job.
Speaker 3:Yeah, what's these seven figure jobs? You know what it is? Uh, usually a lot of them are sales, and the thing is you don't learn sales in college, you just have to get out there and it's experience it's not like, hey, you're gonna make that seven figures the first year, but you're gonna, you can make it five, ten, fifteen years down the line.
Speaker 3:Like I had one guy he worked at like a Sprint Verizon store. He worked his way up and now he was a regional vice president and he managed a hundred stores. So if those hundred stores, yep, got 10% extra in sales and think about 10% of 100 stores and he would get a certain percentage, and his see, yeah, he had a server. I remember one time I called him. He's like oh, oh, sorry, I couldn't make the meeting, I was buying a doctor's office. So it's just interesting that there are a lot of. Now obviously there are far and few, but there are a lot of six-figure jobs and it's about staying consistent and combining all your skills.
Speaker 2:I see you saying yep over there. What are you thinking about?
Speaker 1:I know you're about to jump in. Couple of years ago, when I went to a panel discussion and they were talking about how many people had four-year degrees, it ended up actually going back to like the technical colleges to get you know more of a technical kind of practical application and the numbers were staggering and I thought this is really, is this really what's happening? But it was like there was such a, there was such a void in some of these other areas that people with four-year degrees were like, yeah, am I really using my degree and was it worth it? I don't know. And having a daughter in college right now, I mean I can totally see it. Like she's going to a private school. It's not cheap. You look at how much she's going to make coming out of it. I'm like you're making more at Starbucks and you're just got RSUs. Like you've got restricted stock options and you're 19, yeah, you know like that's.
Speaker 1:I mean so you're right and I'm not that I want her to work at Starbucks forever, but I mean the point was like you're spending all this money going to school and you're come out. Yeah, you might be doing something you want to do, but there are a lot of options for people.
Speaker 2:I think this generation is smart enough. Do you feel that way? Because they're there's, because college is not what it used to be, and people are saying no to college. Yeah, is that what you see happening?
Speaker 3:Yeah, because now there's more options and people are rejecting their parents and they're rejecting society, telling you you have to do things this way and this is the only way and there are more options. And I tell people look, 18 is not always the time to figure out what you want to do. Sometimes you have to get out there, explore and some I'll tell you I'm not anti-college, I'm just you have to figure out what's right for you. And sometimes the best students are people who come back in their late 20s, early 30s, because they're like I know myself much more and I know what I want to do.
Speaker 2:I was almost wondering if our therapist had anything to think about, to add to the conversation. So many things.
Speaker 4:My mind's going in like 18 different directions. I know we've got to be mindful of time. I'm actually really curious what it is about you and your own life experience that led you to want to do this, Like maybe I identified the need. Let me tell you.
Speaker 3:So I unfortunately have a master's degree in actuarial science. What the heck. So, from Columbia University, right and I did it for my parents, but got me like when I went to Columbia, a lot of kids were extremely wealthy.
Speaker 3:A lot of people don't realize that 60% of people kids in college come from middle-class backgrounds or higher. And the ones who are, who don't come from that background, tend to struggle a lot more because they don't have the support, because you have to have your parents paying your car, like if you don't have a car in college in some areas, okay, you're gonna be walking like three miles, you're gonna be doing xyz, you won't be able to network, go to whatever you want, and or you can't go to some job fairs outside of campus. So just to make it easier for people who don't have that support system to realize there are more options so that they can figure out what's right for them. Because you know, some of these schools, like schools, are in the business of education. They are and you're in the business education. They are and you're in the business of yourself.
Speaker 2:Education is big business, yeah.
Speaker 3:And you're in the business of yourself. So you have to figure out where it aligns and where it doesn't, and then make the decision right for you All right.
Speaker 2:So for somebody who's listening to this, who's agreeing with everything that you're saying, how can they connect with you and what would you give them as a piece of advice?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So on the no Degree Podcast, and what I would say is it's your life. You have to figure out what you want out of it and don't let other people determine your career choices. That was beautiful.
Speaker 1:Love it.
Speaker 2:Let's clap it up for that, yeah. Clap it up for that.
Speaker 1:All right All right.
Speaker 2:You know what I'm about to ask you, right?
Speaker 4:I'm ready, hit me with it.
Speaker 2:Hit it All right as a great philosopher by the name of Jamar would say who are you, what is your?
Speaker 1:business who do you?
Speaker 2:serve, and why do you do it? Thanks for this, thanks for this.
Speaker 4:My name is Deanna Pelly. I'm a mental health therapist. I've been in clinical practice for eight years. I love it, and in my years of doing this work I've come to learn certain things. And there's one thing I wish I could get the whole world to understand, which is that you cannot go through life without experiencing hard things.
Speaker 2:It is not possible.
Speaker 4:You will experience difficult things in life, and what we all want is to be resilient, and I'm all on board for that. But in order to attain resilience, you have to be able to self-reflect. You have to be able to look inward to get the resilience you want to increase your empathy, to increase your confidence. You have to be able to think about your own mind and your own experience. And so I'm a speaker, I'm a podcaster, I love to go and talk to groups about these things to get people to look inward. I think we spend a lot of time looking outward for an answer. What we need to do is look within ourselves, even to what you were just saying to say hey, you know what?
Speaker 4:I'm not getting this college degree from my parents. I'm actually getting this from me.
Speaker 2:Now. This is perfect timing. We're now in what year? Are we in? 2024?
Speaker 3:We're basically in 2025 right now.
Speaker 2:Okay, 2025. 2020, it hit us with the, the, the, the pause around the world that made us all self-respect, self-reflect and look inward, whether you want it to or not. Yep, yeah, what did you tell us? What? You see, what's your take on that of 2020? Like what, what happened to everybody in 2020? And you probably have some good data around this that like talks to like what happened to the world.
Speaker 4:I don't know the exact statistics on it, but there would be a lot of data that would suggest the depression and anxiety increase and I certainly, as a therapist, saw an increase in my practice and people seeking therapy. My own personal bias on this is that depression, anxiety didn't really increase as much as it was revealed during covid. People were not able to engage in all the activities and all of the busyness that keeps those things at bay. Then they had to just be home and I remember this is like how much netflix can one watch, like good grief, you know, but like when you don't have the same outward distractions, which is what we all do. We all engage in distractions and the more we carry that we don't want to face, the more we have a tendency to engage in outward distractions.
Speaker 4:Once all that's gone.
Speaker 2:I mean, that's going to increase anxiety and that's going to increase depression naturally, and I can imagine, like from my own biased experience, I'm going to go to our divorce expert here in the segment that divorces were on the rise in 2020. Oh my gosh, I don expert here in the segit that divorces were on the rise in 2020. Oh my gosh, I don't know what you saw.
Speaker 1:but, like, give us, give us your thoughts and then your question my business grew 120 percent because people were like I've been wanting this and you know, usually at the end of the year there would be this influx, like they didn't want to file during the holiday. Nobody cared during covid because they were all home and they're like I don't have to talk to family, I, I don't have to even tell anybody. I did it, peace out, I'm filing, like it was crazy.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I mean there was a lot going on, right, which I'm sure that you saw too, but that's an interesting perspective, because and I almost feel like that's a disruptive perspective, right, which is? It's not that COVID caused people to be depressed, it was. It revealed what was really going on.
Speaker 2:So what questions come to mind for you when you hear us talk about this conversation in relation to what she does in her business?
Speaker 1:Yeah. So I guess my question would be you know really what are some of the things that you're doing to help them with the self-reflection?
Speaker 4:So first it really starts with like discovering how you feel, and this is what I talk about in when I present is how can we discover, how can you process an emotion? And then how can you be empowered to move forward? If you can discover and allow yourself the ability to self-reflect about how you feel about something, that is enormous. I think it's really when we're unable to identify our triggers that we do stuff that we dislike about ourselves that bring us the most shame. That's when we blow up at our partner or at some random Starbucks barista and then we feel bad about ourselves the rest of the day, because we're not sure what we're mad about to begin with.
Speaker 4:If we can identify and take the time to think. That's so huge. And it is important to note that that is not wallowing. I think there's this idea that if you feel bad, somehow that that makes you bad and bad feelings aren't the enemy, um, they're not a problem to be solved, but rather really an experience to be understood. And so that's where I start um with people, even even um. I'm getting ready to launch a coaching business and that's where we're starting is, how can we discover these things and think about them? And that's okay to do that, to give your space to do that. And then you have to process, which can include a like a support network.
Speaker 4:When I work with people who struggle with anger, I tell them to go to boxing class sometimes. Get that anger out, man, you've got to do it, it's got to come out of your body because you experience it in your body just as much. And then imagine the world of possibility. If we weren't running from our emotions or trying to stay away from a bad feeling, but knew that we could conquer it, would we put ourselves in more risky positions? If we knew and by risky I mean taking risks that could benefit ourselves would we put ourselves in those positions if we knew we could handle rejection. It's one of the hardest things to handle in life. It feels bad. If you know you can get through it, you're more likely to put yourself out there. The point is not that the rejection doesn't feel bad. Of course it feels bad. I don't like it. It doesn't feel good to me either that we need to handle the bad feeling then, we can get through it.
Speaker 2:I often think about the arguments that I had with my wife, because I'm in therapy too and when I'm starting the process, sometimes when I feel maybe she's overreacting or she feels I overreacted to the situation, I'm not necessarily dealing with the emotion of me as a 30-year-old. I'm reflecting too. I'm sitting with the feeling of me as that 30-year-old I'm going, I'm reflecting to, I'm sitting with the feeling of me as that eight-year-old, the first time that I got rejected over something. So I'm taking it back to that. And then how do I process that and bring that to the lesson of now? And then how do we have grace for each other and then support each other in those moments when we're having those situations? You know so, thank you, know so that they thank you for bringing that to light. I want to close it off with I with a question what? What comes up to mind for you? Because I'm thinking like the self-reflection we talked about when the career, but you might take a to another close that was your question.
Speaker 3:I see a lot of with my like when I'm working with people on the career is a lot of its self-aware, like the people who make good decisions are aware and the people who make bad decisions are not aware of their strengths, their weaknesses. There's a lot of self-doubt and it's a journey and I encourage people to like really think deep about like what is it that I want? What are, like some interesting commonalities that you see a lot of people when they're dealing with, like the anxiety and the depression, like what are some of like the root things that they start realizing as they're working through it?
Speaker 4:I think the thing that comes up most commonly in my practice actually, and in why people avoid that self-reflection, is because I think people think that if they discover something bad about themselves, it makes them bad. It does not. It makes you human. I mean I will say this all the time my practice like a bad feeling doesn't make you bad. It does not, it makes you human. I mean I will say this all the time in my practice like a bad feeling doesn't make you bad.
Speaker 4:Feeling angry does not make you bad. That usually stems from childhood. A lot of times many of us were like punished for feeling angry, instead of someone helping us understand the feeling and work through it. What we learn then is that anger is bad, or if we're punished for being sad or jealous or whatever, we just learn that the emotion is bad. And I think that that's what feels scary about self-reflection. And you're right when we can self-reflect and those people are really resilient and they're accomplishing what they want, it's because they're able to realize that these bad parts of themselves and we all have bad parts of ourselves, myself included don't make you bad. You are not defined by those things. You also have great parts of yourself.
Speaker 2:It's a human experience. It makes you human, absolutely. Things you also have great. It's a human experience. It makes you human absolutely. It makes you human, right. So I'll resonate with everything you said. I'm pretty sure there's going to be an audience that's like, yes, yes, they over there snapping their fingers how can they connect with you? What you got going on? And, um, where could we lead them to and what words advice do you want to leave them?
Speaker 4:with. I never thought I would ever say this, um, but my favorite platform is linkedin, so find me on linkedin. That's my very favorite platform. It's my favorite one. I love that. I love the audience in the group there, um, dianapellycom, and, and what I would leave you with is you're going to experience bad things in life. We have to understand those. It is very important that you understand what gets triggered in you. That's not wallowing, it's not anything. It's growth it's growth.
Speaker 2:It's, ladies and gentlemen, let's clap it up for that Woo. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a wrap.
Speaker 3:Well, we got some questions.
Speaker 2:Oh, we do.
Speaker 3:Yeah, damn. So what are your takeaways? Who are you?
Speaker 4:Who is this person asking us such great questions? Yeah, how do you know, jamar, our 15 minutes is up, you're not running away from this one uh, I met jamar.
Speaker 2:Uh, um, when did I meet? Okay, so I met jamar because he I interviewed somebody he knew and then he found out about me, linkedin, stalked me, linkedin, right, and he's like, hey, if I would love to come on your podcast, if you like me, then go on the podcast. And we just stayed in contact ever since.
Speaker 1:And who are you?
Speaker 2:Terrell Simmons, founder of the Rise Urban Nation podcast, started this podcast as a passion project out of 2020 because I did a lot of workforce development, got to speak to students to help them get into careers as well, using government funding, state funding to build. I was like an entrepreneur into these different companies, state funding to build. Like I was like an entrepreneur, like into these different companies. And then when I went to go out and speak to some of these students of um, which were usually in lower income neighborhoods um, they, they had a hard time.
Speaker 2:It's like well, terrell, you're the only one I see doing it. I don't see nobody else doing that, and so that's when I realized they can't be what they can't see. So I wanted to highlight all the amazing black and pan-African entrepreneurs that I knew so I could highlight their stories, so they have a catalog of people that can finally see themselves and represent it in these different pathways that could be for them, because some of them were great engineers or whatever and they're chasing something that's not their skill set because somebody told them to.
Speaker 3:What got you into this?
Speaker 2:What got me into this. What got me into this? When 2020 happened, I wasn't public speaking as much and then people said you know, all that stuff you was talking about, you should start a podcast. You should start a podcast. And then so, but I couldn't public speak anymore because everything was shut down. I started a podcast, but I didn't want the podcast just to be about me talking. I wanted to highlight others and amplify others' stories. So what's the future looking like for you? The future is looking like, you know, everything's opening back up. I might have to get on this speaking tour again. That's right. That's right.
Speaker 3:Anything you want to ask him.
Speaker 1:Oh goodness, who's the most interesting person you've interviewed?
Speaker 2:That's a good question. I interviewed this guy who had a patent to reduce carbon in cars and he was really interesting because he opened my mind up to this the world of patents and it was one of my highest ranking episodes and I learned that these all these companies like Apple, google and so forth they have a bunch of patents that they got from engineers who worked in the company and mostly engineers of color, who didn't know that they could own and have their own patents and that could have been their way to wealth. And I learned there was a lot of wealth in patents and people just giving it up and not retaining the rights to their patents or even knowing. And then he was like the thing the disservice that we did in school is all these engineers didn't even know that that's just what they should be doing. They should be creating and filing their patents and then go to the company and license it to them.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:You got to own your stuff, yeah.
Speaker 4:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Anything you want to ask them.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I'm curious. You know when you started your podcast. I'm curious the vision that you had for it and has it gone the direction exactly like you thought it would, or has it evolved?
Speaker 2:It's constantly evolving. So the first, because I thought I was just gonna interview people, put their stories out there, and so here's the crazy thing too. So I got invited to a startup week. Does you guys know what a startup week is? So a startup week for those who don't know startup week the one that I went to was by Google and Techstars and it was doing DEI stuff and it's like, hey, could you help us get more colored people to these events? And I was like, yeah, I can help you.
Speaker 2:And then they invited me to the event and I was like it was a whole weekend long thing. And I was like I'm not an entrepreneur, there's no reason for me to come to this event. And it like, well, you're more entrepreneurial than you think, right. And then I got in. I was like, oh, I've done that, but I've done that inside a company and we don't call it that. And then I realized, oh, I got all these entrepreneurial skills that I didn't know of, and and so from that I got to interview and highlight all these entrepreneurs. And now I get calls from entrepreneurs want me to help them in their business, and I'm like this is crazy. All right, I'm gonna have to figure out how am I going to. So that's what I'm evolving to how do I help early stage startups and entrepreneurs think about equity and so forth and some of the things that I've talked about thread that into their business to make it more successful?
Speaker 3:How do people find you?
Speaker 2:You can find me on wwwriseurbanationcom. I'm on all social medias.
Speaker 1:Let's connect and look out for the future.
Speaker 3:When I'm on the next stage or helping out early stage business. You know really thread and be thriving in their business. This was fun, awesome, yay. Don't forget to like, comment and subscribe. And don't forget to hit that notification bell for more amazing content that we're going to be putting out. And don't forget you can change your circle to change your life.
