No Killing in This Book: Louis Romano's Zip Code Challenge (Episode 83)

Imagine a world where your birthplace doesn't dictate your future. In this groundbreaking podcast episode, 74-year-old author Luis Romano shatters the myth of geographical limitation, transforming personal struggle into a powerful narrative of hope and possibility.

From Bronx Projects to Literary Success: A Story of Resilience

Growing up in the challenging landscape of the Bronx, Romano experienced firsthand the crushing weight of societal expectations. Told he wasn't "college material" because of his Italian heritage, he defied every stereotype—becoming a successful businessman and launching his writing career at 58.

Key Insights You'll Discover:

• The profound impact of systemic barriers on youth opportunity
• Real-life stories of individuals who transcended socioeconomic constraints
• Practical inspiration for overcoming societal limitations
• A nuanced exploration of race, geography, and personal potential

"Zip Code": More Than Just a Book—A Movement of Possibility

Romano's novel doesn't just tell a story—it challenges fundamental assumptions about success. By following teenagers who swap lives between the South Bronx and affluent Ridgewood, New Jersey, he exposes how geography and background shape our perceptions of opportunity.

Transformative Takeaways:

• Learn from Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor's extraordinary journey
• Gain unfiltered advice for navigating societal obstacles
• Understand how personal determination trumps external limitations

A Message of Hope for Every Dreamer

"If anybody tells you you can't do something... just do it." These aren't just words—they're a lifeline for anyone feeling trapped by circumstances. Romano's commitment goes beyond writing; he's actively supporting young readers by offering free book copies to those who can't afford them.

Whether you're a teenager in urban America, a student in rural Africa, or anyone feeling constrained by your background, this episode promises to ignite your potential and challenge your perceived limitations.

Don't miss this transformative conversation that proves your zip code is just a starting point—not your destiny.

To go straight to the book, please click below.

https://louisromanoauthor.com/products/zip-code

Transcript

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Introduction to MindShift Power Podcast

Fatima Bey 0:01

Welcome to MindShift Power Podcast , the only international podcast focused on teens , connecting young voices and perspectives from around the world . Get ready to explore the issues that matter to today's youth and shape tomorrow's world . I'm your host , fatima Bey , the MindShifter , and welcome everyone . The Mindshifter and welcome everyone . Today we have with us Luis Romano , and he is from New Jersey . He's an author , and today we're going to talk about his book called Zip Code , which is really , really interesting . So how are you doing today , luis ?

Louis Romano 0:40

I'm great Fatima . The only thing is I'm not from New Jersey , I'm from the Bronx . I have to correct you there . I live in New Jersey . I raised my family in New Jersey , but I'm a Bronx boy from the projects .

Fatima Bey 0:52

I didn't mean to hurt your pride , I'm sorry . No , okay , you're forgiven . He's in New Jersey now .

Louis Romano 0:57

Yeah , right , you're forgiven .

Fatima Bey 1:00

All right , so tell us a bit about your background .

Louis Romano 1:04

All right , so tell us a bit about

Luis Romano's Bronx Beginnings

Louis Romano 1:06

your background . So I was born in the Bronx , like I just said , and I went to Catholic school , which was good and bad for me . I'm a child of immigrants who came here from Sicily and Italy , so I had a kind of rough background growing up . The Bronx was kind of tough in those days . I went to college after I was told I couldn't and then I started after business and after raising my family in New Jersey , I started writing novels . I started writing when I was 58 years old , believe it or not , and I'm old enough to be the grandparents of most of your , the grandfather of most of your listeners .

Fatima Bey 1:42

Yes , you are Back up for a second . You said you went to college after being told you couldn't . Could you briefly tell us about that ?

Louis Romano 1:50

All right , senior year at St Raymond's High School for boys in the Bronx , I was a bad student . I'm not going to lie , I'm not that gifted when it comes to math and sciences . I'm probably not that gifted with anything , but I have a creative mind . So that doesn't work when you're in a math science school . For me it didn't .

Louis Romano 2:09

And I was in my senior year and the Vietnam War was about to draft me to go fight Vietnam , which I didn't want to do , and the brother asked me what I was going to do when I left St Raymond's and I said I'm going to go to college , I think , brother . He said don't waste your mother's money . I said we don't have any money . I said we live in a project . There's no money to waste . He said well , I don't mean the tuition , I mean the application fee . Don't even apply . He said you're Italian . Take the sanitation department test in New York City , work for the sanitation department . And I wanted to say what I wanted to say to him , but in those days they used to beat the shit out of you , so I didn't say it . I said okay , brother , I'll see .

Louis Romano 2:47

Then he said well , doesn't your family own a pizza shop or a restaurant they did . It was a very famous place . I said , yeah , he goes . Well , go learn how to make a pizza pie . I mean , that was my advice as a senior in high school . Unfortunately , I listened to him . I went to a community college because we didn't have any money . Then I went to a state college in New Jersey and then I went to graduate school in New Jersey . I did okay in business and then I had a really good business career in sales and left that after I don't know 35 , 40 years and decided to be a writer . I opened up a couple of businesses too with the money I had . So we did all right .

Fatima Bey 3:27

I want to say I asked you about that because unfortunately that was a long time ago , but unfortunately there are kids today who are still being told that they can't do something or being guided into a lesser career than they're capable

Challenging Educational Expectations

Fatima Bey 3:42

of , and that pisses me off .

Louis Romano 3:44

Well , that's what zip code's about . I'd hate to step on your toes , but that's what zip code's about .

Fatima Bey 3:49

Yes , it is so . How many books have you written ?

Louis Romano 3:53

Last count , 21 . Most of them are fiction , crime fiction , serial killer stuff , and I have a mafia series and I have a serial killer series . And I have a couple of other standalone books . One we're promoting right now . It's about a couple of children that were separated at birth in Barranquilla , colombia , and one becomes a drug dealer , the other becomes a nothing . And what happens to their lives ? That's a standalone book and a couple of real life crime books . John A Light is a mafia killer , gene Borrello is a mafia hitman and another guy who's a Puerto Rican drug dealer . So I have three nonfiction books , but my forte is really fiction . I like to develop stories in my mind and that's that's what that's what my , my passion is .

Fatima Bey 4:47

What got you for for the ? For the youth that are out there right now listening who they might want to write something too , and they don't want to use AI . They want to use their own brains and be , use their own creativity and write something . How did you get into get into writing after you know working for ?

Louis Romano 5:07

so many years ? That's ? That's a great question . In fact , I really always wanted to write , uh , even as a boy . Uh , I don't know if you guys , uh your audience , ever heard of the twilight zone , but it was a TV show called the twilight zone and I used to watch that on television and a few other movies and so forth , some real feature films and I used to be intrigued with how they came up with the story , who wrote this story , who made this story , and that stayed with me my whole life . And then I finally , at 58 years old , wrote a not such a great book , but some people liked it and it started me writing more seriously . It wasn't my best book , because you get better at what you do when you continue to do it Exactly . I think my newest book is better than my first book , and I hope so . So it just intrigued me to write and then I finally did it , and it took me a long time to write the first one .

Fatima Bey 6:00

Wow , that's interesting . That's very interesting because it often does work that way . We try something out for the first time , we have these big dreams and visions and we're like I'm going to be great at this and you will be if you keep doing it

From Business Career to Author

Fatima Bey 6:12

anything about where you're writing it .

Louis Romano 6:12

I mean , a lot of my stuff takes place in the Bronx , but it also takes place in Europe , where I visited . I was very blessed to be able to visit Europe many cities around Europe and Boston and I have a great memory for places that I've seen and I've always intertwined them within my stories , and people are fascinated by the trips that I take them on in the books .

Fatima Bey 6:42

Well , it does sound interesting actually .

Louis Romano 6:44

Yeah , and one book Intercession . We just got word that we're going to be able to get some money to make a feature film , so I'll believe that when I see it . But you know , it's okay , I didn't write books to make movies . I wrote books so people could read them .

Fatima Bey 6:58

Right , can I be an extra in a movie ?

Louis Romano 7:00

You got it , you in a movie . You got it , you got it . I do not want to be an extra . Well , and , and , and one of the books . They do kill a nun , so you could be able to put you in a habit .

Louis Romano 7:12

You know wait , you gotta kill me yeah , yeah , we do a lot of killing in some of the books no , I I know how much work goes into movies yeah a lot of work goes in , and one and one of the reasons I wrote zip code where there's a lot of really more important reasons , but one reason was to prove to myself I could write a book without killing anybody . Nobody dies .

Fatima Bey 7:36

You challenge yourself .

Louis Romano 7:38

Yeah , I challenge myself .

Fatima Bey 7:39

So tell us now , we're here to talk about zip code what is zip code about ?

Introducing Zip Code: Breaking Barriers

Louis Romano 7:45

Well , could make the balance of the rest of your life . So I was from zip code 10472 in the Bronx in the projects and we were labeled as 10472 . Poor kids , some ethnic , many ethnic . I grew up in mostly Puerto Ricans and blacks and you know Italians , jews , but mostly Puerto Ricans and blacks , and we were told that we were not good enough , not even in those words , but subliminally we were told we were not good enough , for example , in the book all right . So two teenagers from Ridgewood , new Jersey , two seniors on a sociological experiment experiment , two kids from a very , very important , rich , wealthy school in New Jersey go to school in the South Bronx and two kids from the Bronx , a black kid and a Puerto Rican girl , they go to school in New Jersey , in Ridgewood , and they live in this big mansion and they , you know , and they're in this fabulous school .

Louis Romano 8:48

When I was doing the research and at the schools at DeWitt Clinton High school in the bronx where we did , it was a charter school now and the important thing was they said , okay , we have , uh , the , you have to meet the um , the einstein class , the kids who were called the smartest kids in the school , einstein . And okay , so what's ? How do you get into the einstein class ? You have to have an 80 average . Well , to me that's bullshit , because an 80 average is a b . I was a 77 average , so I'm not scoffing at an 80 average man , but I could say that , um , if you have an 80 average , yeah , you're pretty , you're not brilliant , you're okay , but you're not einstein . But they but they put the ball low . In the ethnic schools and the bad neighborhoods . They put the ball low . So you shouldn't . You should be a 90 or a 95 to be in the Einstein group , not an 80 . So they're setting the ball low .

Fatima Bey 9:45

So what's wrong with that ?

Louis Romano 9:47

What's wrong with that is that you don't achieve . You're not studying hard enough , you're not looking more , you're not doing more research or reading more , and you're not going hard enough , you're not looking more , you're not , and you're not doing more research or reading more , and you're not going to get there in real life . I mean , you could be happy . You could be happy as a waitress . I mean , my father was a waiter , my grandfather was a waiter . I mean my other grandfather was a plumber . They were relatively happy . They didn't know any better . It was happy . But if you , if you want more out of life , you you got to go get it . You can't say , oh , because I'm Black or because I'm Italian and they told me I can't do this , I'm going to not do it and I'm just going to lay here and get my AV average and I'll be Einstein . No , because when you get out of school , the world changes .

Fatima Bey 10:28

Yes , and I agree with you . I cannot stand it when the bar is set lower for our people and then when they get out in the real world , they're not matching up with their peers .

Louis Romano 10:41

They're not .

Fatima Bey 10:42

They're not . And then they fail . And they fail in a much worse way , because now your ego is like drop , kicked in the forehead .

Louis Romano 10:50

And no one gives a shit about your race card . It's not going to happen anymore . People are not looking at your race card saying , oh , because I'm black , I should be considered an Einstein because I'm a B-play no , that's not working anymore . It's just not .

Fatima Bey 11:05

Yes , do you mind if we say what your age is ?

Louis Romano 11:08

I'm 74 years old . I was born in 1950 .

Fatima Bey 11:11

And the reason I'm mentioning that is because I think it's a very large part of a lot of what you're saying is the era that you grew up in , because our youth know a different world than what you grew up in , and I think it's important to note that , because some of the stuff you're talking about and some of the stuff that's in your book is still an issue today . We say it's not , it is , but it really is , and I like the fact that you're an old white guy saying some of the same stuff that young black people are already saying .

Louis Romano 11:45

Listen , I saw I'm sorry , I saw three boys , three of my sons , grow up as teenagers . They're all growing up now . One went bad with drugs and I live in a beautiful neighborhood . I live in a beautiful area . I made very , very good money with my career . They all went to good colleges . The third one didn't , but it cost me more to keep him out of jail than it did to pay the colleges for my other two kids . They've all done well .

Louis Romano 12:11

He's done well , but he's not a good person and we stay away from him . And it breaks my heart . And it breaks my heart because he got in with the wrong people , with drugs at 13 years old and daddy , who thought he was slick from the project , didn't even see it . So you know , everybody's got their own baggage man , and I have baggage . And now I have a 13-year-old grandson who's the apple of my eye and he's a basketball player . And now I have a 13-year-old grandson who's the apple of my eye and he's a basketball player . He thinks he's an NBA player . He's a terrific kid and we have a great time watching him . So I've seen kids go through their teenage years as an adult and as a parent and as a grandparent . So I think I have something to say and Zip Code said it . I think very , very well .

Fatima Bey 12:53

Now something I think is very interesting I want the audience to know what inspired you to write the book .

Louis Romano 12:58

Wow . Well , my own personal insults helped me . I wanted to show people that , okay , there was a young girl in my class . I went to a Catholic school in the Bronx , and Blessed Sacrament School , and in 1964 , I graduated elementary school . So your readers are probably going oh shit , this guy's old . So I graduated elementary school in 1964 .

Louis Romano 13:23

She was in the class of 1960 , this young girl and this is the idea behind zip code so this girl had a couple of strikes against her in 1960 . She was in my brother's class and I remember her well . She was Puerto Rican , that was strike one Hispanic . She was poor , dirt poor . She lived in the in the Bronxdale projects and that was a pretty . My project was better than her project . And if you want to believe that it was a bad project , my project was better than her project . And if you want to believe that it was a bad project and number three and I hate to say this to you , fatima , and don't get angry Well , she was so smart . Her father was dead . I think it was her mother . I met her mother several times and I think her sister or brother . I don't remember that now .

Louis Romano 14:22

But anyway , this young girl went to a very good Catholic high school on scholarship because they were poor . It was called Cardinal Spellman High School in the Bronx . From there she went to a little school nobody ever heard of called Princeton University , which is one of the biggest schools in the country right Now . Yeah , right , and she went to . It was then too . She went to Princeton University on scholarship and all of a sudden now she's going to Yale Law School .

Louis Romano 14:49

After that Yale University , all Ivy League schools , this little Puerto Rican girl who had no future . So she got into the law business and blah , blah , blah , and now fast forward . She's four years younger than me , so she's 70 . And they named the projects after her , the Sonia Sotomayor Houses . Now , if you don't know who Sonia Sotomayor is , she is a Supreme Court justice , one of nine Supreme .

Louis Romano 15:16

So this little Puerto Rican girl from my school who had no shot for advancement became a Supreme Court justice . That's a lifetime acknowledgement , it's a job for lifetime , and I'm not saying I believe in her politics , but I believe in her . I believe in what she came to . And she wasn't the only one , general Colin Powell . There were so many ethnic people that came out of the neighborhoods that I lived in and they became very successful people . Why ? Why because they wanted to , because they had the internal something that said I'm not going to stay here , I'm not going to stay in the projects , I'm not going to stay in this bad neighborhood anymore . I'm going to do something with my life to make myself better , to make my family better and to make myself more secure and have a happier life .

Fatima Bey 16:11

I want to interject right there .

Louis Romano 16:12

I'm so sorry , I talk too much .

Fatima Bey 16:13

I know You're fine , but I want to say this right in this moment , while you're saying what you're saying , because this is an international podcast I want to talk to some of these kids that are in right now . We're talking about New York City and the Bronx and the poor areas in the US , but there are kids out in the village of Zimbabwe who need to understand and hear the principle that you're talking about

The Sonia Sotomayor Success Story

Fatima Bey 16:34

, because it still applies for them too .

Louis Romano 16:36

Absolutely .

Fatima Bey 16:37

You could be the poorest area . I don't care what your challenges are and some of them have real serious challenges you can still make it to wherever you want to make it If you are determined . I don't care what your society says , I don't care what the boundaries are . You can break through them , and that's what I love about zip code is that it really is all about that . Demonstrating some people of color are what we already live through , but also for some people who might not live through that , for them to understand that there are still differences , for them to understand that there are still differences and although we've gotten better as a society , we haven't arrived . You know , we definitely haven't arrived . There's some of the same issues that you talk about in the city All over the world .

Louis Romano 17:22

Could be Nigeria , it could be Southern Italy , it could be France , it could be anywhere Northern Ireland , anywhere .

Fatima Bey 17:31

I love that . I knew that there were some things about Sotomayor , but I didn't know all that you were telling me and I was like , ah , okay , Now I see why people like her so much because of her story . I'm a big fan of people who have come from nothing , or have come from a place and rose to another place , whatever that is . Those kinds of stories inspire me all the time . But you know something in my neighborhood when I was , those kind of stories inspire me all the time .

Louis Romano 17:53

But you know something In my neighborhood when I was a kid , there was a lot of street money , especially with the Italian kids . There was money to be made illegally . The mob wanted us to work for them and once you cross over that line , you're no longer a civilian , You're a mobster and you could be killed for any reason they deem necessary . I decided not to go that way . I mean , I didn't think that was the right life to have and that's really appealing . When I didn't have $300 to pay my last month's tuition in college at Montclair State University , I was offered $1,000 to make a delivery . I didn't know what the delivery was . I'm going to tell you it wasn't mozzarella salami .

Louis Romano 18:35

They wanted me to make a delivery from one point to another for $1,000 in 1969 . My new car cost $2,600 . So it was almost half the value of a new car to make a delivery . And then I decided at that point , in that moment in time no , I'm not doing this , because then I'm in and I'm going to be in for life . So I made a decision . It was easy money . I didn't even have the tuition , I had no money at all . And I said you know what ? I'm going to do this on my own and my mother was behind me . My mother always told me to stay away from those bad guys , so it was kind of I'm sort of happy I did that , because I'd be dead or in jail today for sure .

Fatima Bey 19:15

So I think you kind of answered this , but I know that you have more to say on it . Why should young adults read this book ?

Louis Romano 19:22

Well , I think not only young adults , I think their parents as well , older people , should read it and say hey , wait , wait a second . So one of the girls has a little weight problem in the Bronx the Spanish girl and she gets involved with a mother in Ridgewood who really works it out with her , she helps her and she becomes this knockout because she had all this self-esteem questions . The black kid that came to Ridgewood , new Jersey , his name is Jamal Jamal Samaj . I'm sorry , samaj Samaj thought everybody was prejudiced against him and he was blamed for robbing a store and he didn't do it . But he feels he finds out at the end that they were not prejudiced about him and it opens his eyes .

Louis Romano 20:11

And then it talks about interracial dating a little bit . It talks about the people who went to the Bronx and how they had to look around and say , hey , I can't get on this subway at 4 o'clock in the morning and get home alive . You know , I got to be home at a certain hour . That's why there's a curfew at nine or 10 o'clock , because after that all hell breaks loose in the New York City subways and if I'm on that subway I'm going to get killed . And they learn that pretty quickly . They learn the streets pretty quickly . So , yeah , I think it's also about understanding each other understanding each other's foibles , understanding each other's racial makeup , understanding each other's customs . I mean , I have a friend who doesn't want his son to be involved with this girl because she's Dominican and he doesn't understand the customs of the Dominicans . He doesn't even know it . So he needs to go to the Dominican Republic and spend time and see what the culture is about . It's a wonderful culture . I go every year , so it's a culturally . People need to open their minds .

Fatima Bey 21:20

I agree .

Louis Romano 21:26

And once that prejudice goes away and once those , it's going to take a long , long time more for that to happen , but it's happening , I see it happening yeah .

Louis Romano 21:30

I mean when we , when I was a teenager , if you saw a black guy and a white girl , or a white girl and a black guy you know mixed couple you stared at them . We stared at the black what the fuck Excuse my language that's a black guy and a white girl . Today it's commonplace and no one's staring at them . I mean , it's just commonplace . It's like okay ,

Overcoming Systemic Barriers Globally

Louis Romano 22:13

no-transcript . Systemic racism is absolutely an issue , and it's not an issue in the United States . You're a global network . It's an issue globally , and the only way I think you could fight it is one at a time , one person at a time .

Fatima Bey 22:31

And I love that love . That's why I brought that up , because I like hearing that coming from an older white American who's , you know , not one of us , who's complaining all the time or whatever nonsense they want to say , but hearing it from someone else who's not , who's not in this , so to speak , but who understands it because of the fact that you grew up in the South Bronx and and I it because of the fact that you grew up in the South Bronx and I get where you're coming from .

Louis Romano 22:59

Back then , you was just the same as a Black guy . First of all , Italians weren't considered white until 1940 .

Fatima Bey 23:04

I mean that and I lived in a neighborhood I don't think most of our youth understand that though , oh yeah , oh , absolutely Just the same , black , puerto Rican or Italian , you were all the same . We were the white elites .

Louis Romano 23:12

Now in the neighborhood . I grew up in Arthur Avenue , also before I moved to the projects . A black person or a Spanish person were not allowed to walk through the neighborhood . They'd get stopped by the guys what are you doing ? Where are you going from here ? Well , we're going to the hospital . Walk around . They made them walk around the neighborhood . This was in the 60s and the 50s and I remember it . I mean now the neighborhood is fine . It's right near Fordham University .

Louis Romano 23:42

I go every week for lunch and have cigars with my friends and it's a melting pot . Sure , every once in a while , a Dominican or a Puerto Rican drive by in their car and they're blasting the music and it sort of like pisses me off because it's loud , it's loud , it's loud . But I understand it . That's their culture , that's their expression . Let it happen , let it happen . I mean , I don't like tattoos on people . People have sleeves of tattoos . That's cultural . Yeah , that goes back to my grandmother who fainted when my uncle had a tattoo of the word mom on his arm and she fainted . So you know .

Fatima Bey 24:13

I mean , come on , man , and look , you know well , yeah , because she grew up in a different time different time but . But what I like , though , is that a lot of the stuff that you are talking about and , as you just mentioned , is in the book . It's it's some of it is very time-centered , but a lot of it isn't . A lot of the principles behind some stories are thank you for saying that timeless and they are still very , very , very relevant .

Fatima Bey 24:41

Plus , you're just interesting . You like to put murder and serial killers not a good stuff in there , and that's what we all like to hear about . All the gory details .

Louis Romano 24:53

And so I have to tell you I want people to read the book . I don't care about making money . I made my money in my life . If you want to buy the book and I can make two dollars on the book , thank you very much . I'm gonna use the two bucks . But if you , um , if you don't have the money , you can get it cheaper by going online . It says uh , what do you call ? What is that called ? Not audio book ? It's not on audio books , it's signed ebooks . But if you're in the united states and you don't have the money for it , send me a letter and I'll send you a book for free oh , wow yeah , I mean , if yeah , I'll send you a book for free , because I want the book to get into the people's hands .

Louis Romano 25:30

I don't really care about making the two bucks per book , I don't . You know it's . It's more of the awesome , it's more of the , it's more of the uh , the uh .

Fatima Bey 25:40

Get the word out yes , it's more about getting the information that's in there into people's brains and helping them to think differently . It's got to be , you said storytelling is one of the best ways to do that .

Louis Romano 25:52

You said you were an international and I know you are very well known throughout the world . So I was doing a lecture at a library in Jersey and this big kid comes up to me . He was 13 , 14 years old , handsome kid , blonde hair , blue eyes . He goes . I read your book before this lecture and he had a little bit of an accent . He was Russian and he said wow , I am so happy to meet you . This book meant so much to me . His parents didn't speak English , they were Russian immigrants . He goes . Now I know I can make it here . I have to tell you I almost fell into a puddle of piss . I mean , I was really , really so taken by him .

Fatima Bey 26:30

Oh , I would have started feeling up .

Louis Romano 26:32

I did really so , taken by him , oh , I would have . I did and , and and I . And how I affected this young man's life by what I wrote .

Fatima Bey 26:39

I won .

Louis Romano 26:39

I was , as far as I'm concerned , I won .

Fatima Bey 26:42

I agree , cause I'm the same way , totally .

Louis Romano 26:44

Now I'm going to give you a moment ?

Fatima Bey 26:46

um , louis , did just talk to the teenagers out there for a minute who are listening right now . What , what do you have to say to them out there for a minute , who are listening right now ?

Louis Romano 26:53

What do you have to say to them ? Well , this is the old man talking .

Louis Romano 26:57

Your life is what you want to do with it . If anybody tells you you can't do something , I'm going to say the word fuck you , just do it . Just go , do it . Do it the best you can . I don't care if you're in North Africa and in Detroit , in the hood in LA . Don't let that shit be your life . Don't make it . Manage your life .

Louis Romano 27:20

Like I told you before , I had a son he's still alive , but we don't talk anymore who went really bad , and he didn't have to go bad . We lived in a lily white , beautiful community . His two brothers graduated major colleges . They're both very successful businessmen . He himself is a successful businessman , but he's a drug dealer not anymore drug abuser and a thief , and I couldn't have that around me .

Louis Romano 27:47

So imagine me having three grandchildren that I don't see .

Message to Teenagers: Define Your Future

Louis Romano 27:51

That breaks my heart . So don't do that to your family , don't do that to yourself . Don't try to be slick because of whatever drugs are popular today . I don't even know what drugs are popular today . When I was a kid it was heroin , and I think it might be back to that Fentanyl . Who the hell knows all these bad things and look at all the kids we buried and look at all the people who meant so much to us , who could have affected our lives so well , like Michael Jackson , like all these great , great performers who died from drug overdose . They robbed us . So if you're doing that , you're robbing society . You're robbing your family Never mind your mother's crying over your casket . That's bad enough , but you're robbing society of your positive possibilities . All I say is go do it .

Fatima Bey 28:42

Beautifully said , beautifully said .

Louis Romano 28:44

Thank you .

Fatima Bey 28:44

Well , lewis , thank you so much for coming on . For those of you that are interested in this book , there will be a link to that book on his website in the show notes , and you can also , once you go to his site , you can go to the contact page if you need to contact him , right on his site . So once again , louis , thank you for coming on today .

Louis Romano 29:06

Thank you , Fatima .

Fatima Bey 29:07

It has been enjoyable and fun talking to you .

Louis Romano 29:09

I had a good time . Thank you so much .

Fatima Bey 29:13

And now for a mind shifting moment .

Fatima Bey 29:19

Let's talk about the title of this book Zip Code . Your zip code is the area in which you live within the US , canada and a few other places in the world . You might call them postal codes , but some of you listening don't have postal codes . That doesn't matter . You still have an area that you live in , and I want to say this to everyone . Listening when you come from does not have to define you . You do not have to follow the same path as everyone else around you . In fact , you should step outside the box , outside your postal code , outside your zip code , outside your village , step outside of everyone else's expectation . That is where you can find true freedom .

Mind Shifting Moment: Beyond Your Zip Code

Fatima Bey 30:14

Thank you for listening . Be sure to follow or subscribe to MindShift Power Podcast on any of our worldwide platforms so you , too , can be a part of the conversation that's changing young lives everywhere . And always remember there's power in shifting your thinking .