.png)
Listen Linda! Hosted by Jacquiline Cox
Music commentary
Listen Linda! Hosted by Jacquiline Cox
Virtuously Chic with Dr Nikeya
What happens when virtue meets style in a world gone "ratchet chic"? Find out as Dr. Jacquiline Cox welcomes her newly-discovered cousin Dr. Nakia Young to kick off Season 8 of Listen Linda Live!
Dr. Young's story begins with profound loss - her mother's passing when she was just 14 years old. Yet those formative years with a deeply faithful mother planted seeds that would later bloom into her bestselling book "Virtue Chic: Classy Takes Center Stage." With warmth and wisdom, she dismantles the false choice between being virtuous or stylish, showing Christian women how to embrace both their faith and their fashion sense.
The conversation takes a powerful turn when discussing education and advocacy for Black children. As the first Black speaker to deliver a TEDx Talk on normalizing homeschooling, Dr. Young doesn't hold back about why she chose this path: "The cost of letting our kids get eaten alive by this demonic system is too great." Both women share raw experiences navigating educational systems and standing firm in their parental authority, offering listeners practical wisdom about knowing their rights and options.
Throughout their dynamic exchange, Dr. Young reveals how she balances her roles as homeschool mother of three, bestselling author, mental health coach, TEDx speaker, and entrepreneur. Her refreshing "done is better than perfect" approach has helped her overcome perfectionism and take action despite fears. For single Christian women specifically, she delivers a game-changing perspective: pursue virtue because it's right, not because it guarantees a husband.
Whether you're seeking guidance on faith, parenting, education, relationships, or pursuing your purpose, this conversation delivers heart, humor, and actionable insights. Don't miss Dr. Young's exciting announcement about her upcoming 21-Day Author Boot Camp where you can become a published author in just three weeks!
Ready to live with more virtue, purpose, and authenticity? This episode is your blueprint for shining with grace in a complicated world. Subscribe now and join the conversation!
Her hands were soft but they were strong. Her voice, gentle but full of power. She didn't wear a cape, she wore a sweater that smelled like Sunday morning pancakes and prayer. She taught us more than just how to tie our shoes. She taught us how to stand tall when life tries to knock us down. And now it's our turn to tell the world, featuring real stories from real women from every background and every corner of the world, because love like this has no borders. Because when Grandma speaks, the world listens. Join the Grandma's Hands Anthology and give your grandma an ode she can be proud of and one your legacy will be known for for generations to come. Contact Dr Jacqueline Cox for more information.
Speaker 2:A portion of the proceeds will go towards the Walk for Lupus Now Foundation yes, yes, yes, hey, hey, hey, linda, and welcome back to Listen, linda, live with me, dr Jacqueline Cox, and I'm so excited today, y'all, we are kicking off season eight with a shining light in so many arenas, right? So I have Dr Nakia Young, and before I tell y'all about her, let's not doubt, dr Nakia Young is my cousin. Okay, hey, how did we know that we was family? Okay, so, first of all, dr Nakia is my husband's uncle, which is my uncle, my uncle Frank's late wife's daughter. So I know her, I know her husband and it didn't even click in my head I know they baby, I was pregnant at the same time. I know all and I, and, and I know her because her husband is my mother-in-law's, my mother-in-law's mama pat's producer. He produced her whole album, the Secret Place. So this is just super exciting. I think you co-produced on that too, right, and you did like both and songwriting on there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, look at.
Speaker 2:God. Look at God in my, in my LaShawn Fernandez voice. Look at God, that's being my cousin. She is also a best-selling author, a board-certified mental health coach, a TEDx speaker, an actress, a singer and a homeschool mother of three. Now her book Virtue Chick is it Virtue Chick or Virtue Chic? Virtue Chic Virtue Chic Is it Virtue Chic or Virtue Chic? Virtue Chic Virtue Chic Classy, center stage, was written to help Christian single women love themselves, walk in purpose, sass with grace and, most importantly, shine with virtue. Dr Young, welcome, welcome, welcome, cousin. I am thrilled to have you here. Tell us a little bit more about yourself, other than the fact you are my cousin.
Speaker 3:Yes, okay, so I am also the CEO and founder of Victorious Living Solutions. It is a transformative income and we empower high potential leaders and teams to crush their goals despite life's challenges and live victoriously. We also have a podcast by the same name.
Speaker 2:Awesome, awesome, awesome. Now let's dive into Virtue Chic. Yes, you wrote this as a young Black woman navigating life without your mom's guidance after she passed when you were 14. How did that pain shape your vision for Virtue Chic, and what did you hope to offer the young women throughout their birth.
Speaker 3:Okay, well, I would say my mother was. I just feel like if you look in the Bible under virtuous woman, her picture is right there. That's the kind of woman she was. She was always in love with God and if you were around her for any longer than 30 seconds, you were going to know that the presence of God just exuded from her. She was always warm, always friendly, always carried herself with class. She was a Sunday school teacher. So that's what I knew, and God blessed to have 14 years with her.
Speaker 3:The devil didn't want me to know her at all. 14 years with her. The devil didn't want me to know her at all. He didn't. He almost killed her when I was two, called the family in, told us to say our goodbyes, but she lived for another 12 years after that and I feel like when I would want to get mad about why did my mom have to pass away, I just I can't, because I'm like might think about the fact that we almost lost her early on and that God allowed me to have the 14 years, because I don't feel like a virtuous woman or, you know, had the connection to God. I know I would not have, just because of the houses I lived in after she passed. I knew I would not have become who I am today without those 14 years and having that of God first, and not just going to church.
Speaker 3:Yeah, Just because you're in a garage, that doesn't mean you're a car now you know. So she stressed, just going to church is not enough. Have a relationship with God, you know, having him be the Lord of life, meaning that nobody is perfect, but you're not going to be out here deliberately doing things that grieve the Holy Spirit. That's the kind of mother raised by and that the pain of losing her, I would say how it shaped me was. I really just wanted to continue her legacy by paying forward what she instilled in me.
Speaker 3:And you know when you're 14, that's the age when you really just you and your mom would be kind of beefing a little bit, because that's the age when it's just like dang mama, everything I'm gonna wear, you don't like it. Everything you want me to wear, I don't like it. It's like the weird preteen, early teen years and going back and thinking on it once I got older. It was just like man. So many gyms, like I wish even now, like, oh my, I wish I could talk to her now that I'm out of the bratty teenager phase, because you have such a greater appreciation for the nuggets, like what she was trying to get through my hard head, teen brain, like now as an adult. And it made me want to write the book because, listen, linda, ok, society has gone off the deep end. Ok, it's like at your cheek, not no virtue.
Speaker 3:She is ratchet chic out here in these streets and I feel like the message, even though this book was written in 2017, and my husband like we have to have a second edition or something because I got some more stuff I want to add Just the way things are and how, even with us coming up in the 90s, I'm a Gen Xer slash right on the cusp 1981, of being Gen X and millennial. I don't claim millennial, though, but just coming up in the 90s it was a lot. And now the stuff that they got out. Now I'm so glad I did not have to come up in this. I feel bad for kids now, the times that they're coming up in, but that's another topic for another day. Trust me, I knew.
Speaker 2:Jaden for his 7th grade year.
Speaker 2:I had to come out of school because of some things that were going on in the community and in that district that wasn't right for brown kids. I'm going to say it against black kids and against Hispanic kids because this is my show and I can say what I want that part. So I had to come out but he begged to go back to April year. But now we got him in a private school, going to high school. But at any moment I'm going to pull you out. You'll be at a cell academy. You know I don't. I don't play them games. Dallas Academy, I don't play them games. I appreciate the fact that you just like me.
Speaker 2:I'm an 80s baby, 90s raised me. I see the difference in when we grew up and the things that we were able to do that now my kids can't. I used to be able to go outside wherever I wanted to, as long as I'm back before sundown. I can't trust my kids, we can't. You know I used to be able to go outside wherever I want to long as I'm back full sundown. I can't trust my kids come on, yeah, right now. We can't trust our kids to do the same. We can't say, okay, just go outside and play. No, I have to be right there watching. You can't spend a night over your friend's house, no more, because there's so much technology and things going on it's hard to manage that you don't't know who's recording your kid while they're getting undressed, you know, and these type of things.
Speaker 2:So you know, I told Jay he was laughing at me the other day he's 14. My son, he's 14. And he was asking me something about sleepovers. I said you will never go to nobody. You will never go to a sleepover. I said you will never go. I said guess what? And when you get your own apartment, you won't ever have sleepovers. Nobody can come to your house.
Speaker 2:He was like what I said you don't think that's uncomfortable? Sleeping in somebody else's bed, taking a shower in somebody else's shower, drying off with someone else's towel Like it's uncomfortable. It used to be uncomfortable for me when I used to have to go to sleepovers and stuff because I'm not in my own bed, I'm not using my own bathroom, I'm not using my own bathroom, I'm not using my own towels. You have to rely on that person If they're not as clean as you. Just a lot of things. It's like no, you don't want to bring home the bugs. You don't want to bring home those things. I definitely understand what you mean. I don't know if you still live here, but we're in Illinois and we should now raise. I don't know if you still live here, but we in Illinois and we, we, we, we now raised us. Ok. So we already know how bad it is here, and it was bad when we were going up, but it's worse now.
Speaker 3:It's worse.
Speaker 3:There's just a whole Antichrist agenda to starting from a very young, early childhood age to poison the minds of youth against all things Christ it is. It's an Antichrist agenda. It is what it is, and so I'm talking about. The book is geared towards young adult women and kind of college age and on you know out the house or whatever kind of college age and on you know out the house or whatever. But high school girls could pick this up for real, because it's like the innocence of even being in high school is not there anymore, like kids are. When they did surveys on when kids first experience was that average boys said they had their first sexual experience in like 10 and 11. I'm like what? In like 10 and 11? I'm like what what? 10 and 11? Yeah, so it the devil is after the earlier and earlier and earlier.
Speaker 2:yeah, I definitely they teaching them things. Um, they sent the letter home when my youngest was in the second grade saying that if we didn't want them to participate in sexual education, that we had to keep them home that day. And so we kept them home that day because, you don't know, he was in second grade and it was a public school and they wanted to teach them about the LGBTQ community, which you know. I don't have an opinion. Well, I have an opinion, but we'll talk about like that's another story for another day. But my thing is that I don't judge nobody based on what they do, right? I believe that I'm supposed to love everybody, and let God be the judge of that.
Speaker 2:However, I'm not going to introduce that lifestyle to my child right now. You know what I'm saying. You want to make sure that they're mature enough and old enough to understand what's right and what's wrong, and then you let them make that decision. So I definitely understand you on that. Now I want to get into your title, because it rolls off the tongue, right. But what does virtue chic really stand for? Like? How do you balance classy takes center stage with keeping it authentic to you, especially in a culture like ours, like we were just talking about that. So often misunderstands folks.
Speaker 3:Well, the virtue chic. Chic is a word that means in style, in vogue, and so I took up my modeling background, my modeling entertainment background, and if you look at the cover of the book it looks like a magazine cover. Yes, and if you think about shows we grew up watching in the 90s, like Melrose Place and 90210 and all them kind of shows they would have, there was this character, yeah, Saved by the Bell. But 90210 specifically, they had this character, Donna, and Donna was a virgin. And the way they made the character of Donna, it was like nobody would want to be Donna.
Speaker 3:Her clothes were not as stylish as the other girls.
Speaker 3:She was portrayed as real, naive and kind of dingy and it was like it was a subconscious message that being a virgin or being virtuous or whatever that entails, equals being somebody that nobody would want to be like, somebody without style, somebody homely looking, somebody just out of season, just you know. And so with this book, I want to introduce the concept, or champion the concept, that it's not an either or it's a both, and it's not like oh, you either going to be stylish and chic and beautiful or you, you going to be virtuous, Like. No, you know, you can be both. You can have style, you can have class and be a virtuous woman, and so, and then I talk about how to do that. I talk about beauty tips, style tips, relationship tips, friendship tips, like being a virtuous woman from all those standpoints and contending with feminist movement and everything, and what it means to be feminine according to the Bible and what it means to be feminine according to the world. The two do not agree, you know. So we definitely dive into that.
Speaker 2:Now I read in Authority magazine how you conquered perfectionism with a done is better than perfect mindset. What practical steps did you take to move from overthinking to taking action, especially when launching Virtue Chic and your coaching brand?
Speaker 3:Oh, oh, my gosh. Okay, um, cause I don't do nothing else, girl, if I don't do nothing else, I can overthink some stuff. But I had to get over that and I know there's some people probably listening right now who can relate Um, but I wrote this book and it's fabulous. But let me tell you, as good as I am at writing and as many stories as I have to tell I should have, I should be on like my 10th or 12th book right now, so we can talk about that later because I need to start.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, I was just going to say you are on the list of Linda Publishing, baby. Look you're okay, but we're going to get you right over here, baby, so come on in again. Come on over to the you got to go in. Come on over to Listen. Linda Publishing.
Speaker 3:For real. That's the thing it's kind of like. Even when I was doing my podcast. That's a good example to use If I tell you how long the podcast had been on my brain before I actually did it. It is re-doggone-diculous, ridiculous, and I kept overthinking it. Oh, I have this. Oh, I don't have that piece of equipment, oh, I don't have this. Until until I started watching other people's podcasts.
Speaker 3:People was in their living room, People was just sitting in front of a blank white wall and the information in the discussion was robust. I wasn't even paying attention to the fact that they didn't have all the elaborate trappings behind them, and it really got me to think well, I have some quality things to say I may not have, and we all have to start somewhere. Even the people that we look at that have all the nice things that we go. Oh dang, I wish you know. When I grow up, I want my stuff to look like that. It didn't look like that when they started. It didn't you know.
Speaker 3:But the devil wants us to constantly be in a state of analysis, paralysis, when I get this, when I get that, when you know it's always going to be something else. And one of the biggest tricks of the enemy is to make us think we have all the time in the world to do. Come on now With long life. Shall he satisfy me? I'm not talking about no tragic deaths, and you know, you just never know. I'm not talking about that, you know, you just never know today. Maybe I'm not talking about that, you know. But I'm talking about the fact that, child, we are living in the end times, the end times for real. Like the way this world is going. Jesus could come back by the time we finish this interview. We could just like boom.
Speaker 2:Like oh Lord, mama, is that you? I mean, I'm being funny.
Speaker 3:When I get there, whatever that is, I want to be able to tell God that I used everything he gave me. I don't want to be giving God excuses Like, see God, I was going to do it, but you know, like I couldn't get this together and I couldn't get that together, and I was waiting on my money to write, and I was waiting on this and I was waiting on that, and you always going to be waiting.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know what? My friend, elena Maria, really good friend of mine, you remind me a lot of her. She does everything Right. That's who you remind me of. I was telling my husband she reminds me so much of Elena. Well, Elena has this slogan that she uses all the time and I want to make sure I give people credit where it's due child. She said that she uses all the time and I I want to make sure I get people credit where's due child. She said I'm not giving the grave any of my potential. When she said I was like bingo and you know I get, I get the flack the most right out of my people because I'm talking about like my people here in chicago, but they like jackie, always coming up with something, first she doing this, then she doing seafood balls. Now she got her own shop.
Speaker 2:Now you know, I was like I was literally the seafood ball queen in the um, in the heart of the pandemic. I had trades, people, balls and me and my, my husband, I can we always end on and we make these seafood balls and they used to sell like hot cakes. We used to sell like maybe 10, 20 pans, like I'm really good, like we can cook in this, we can burn in this house, but like everything was shut down, nobody could go to no restaurants, girl, we was making them deliver. Then I went from doing that. I had a cryo skin shop, a brick and mortar that I want best, oswego uh business. I want a grant from oswego. Like I was doing, I do a lot like every time I look up I'm doing something different. But that's a creative mindset and people like she don't never just stick to. We had a clothing, our kids got a clothing line, we did books, we do a lot of things and so people always say, jackie, she always doing something. It's always something different with her.
Speaker 2:But that's called favor, that's called gifts, that's called using every single talent that God gives me not talent, but gifts, because talent you have to practice that and learn that. But gifts are given, they are natural, they come naturally yeah, absolutely. And so you have to make that's what God gives you, that's your inheritance. People be thinking that when you say that God going to give you the desires of your heart or your inheritance, they think inheritance is going to come in the form of a check. No, he gives you the old baby and you got to collect them vessels, and that's how you're going to make money. Because you be sitting in a house full of oil and claiming broke and not knowing that you have that's what's in here your oil. All you got to do is put them in the vessels. Put them in the vessels. That's your inheritance, so I commend you on that. You are phenomenal.
Speaker 2:I did my research on you, honey, but I did not know that you could do that. Daughter, look, because you know why. I didn't go through your Facebook looking at your pictures like some people do. You know what I'm saying, but what I did do? I did my research on you. I read a few articles on you, so I knew what to come with when I came today.
Speaker 3:Girl, if I had went through your pictures and been like one of the little Facebook stalkers, I would have known who you were Let me tell you you might have still not, cause I got hacked and count was permanently disabled during the pandemic on Facebook and I had a business page that had like 3000 people on there. Like it was all my business pages, my personal pages, all my pictures, all of that stuff was just deleted and then they banned me so I couldn't make any new accounts for like a year and a half, almost two years. It was nuts, and I was so sad because I had posts on there, things, people inbox you pictures from Linda and like other people who have since gone on to be with the Lord, that I can never get that stuff back, like all the memories just gone. So the accounts that I have, now I'm slowly building them back up, but you wouldn't have saw the pictures. That would have been like oh okay, you know, because all those pictures is gone so.
Speaker 2:I'm like starting off here oh no, let's stuff back. They can forget it. It's over with. They're going to get what's now? Yeah, okay. So I want to talk about this because I've been nominated to do tedx talks, but you actually did it, so man, wait a minute.
Speaker 3:You said you've been nominated and you just, you didn't do it.
Speaker 2:You just like tedx and I don't want tox, and I was nominated to do the TEDx talk. I was having a surgery done, oh okay, but I was having a surgery done around the time that they needed me to actually do it, so so it wasn't. I just say it wasn't my time yet, and you know what I just said. It wasn't my time yet. And you know what, I wasn't as knowledgeable as I am today and polished, so I'm glad God said no, it ain't time for you yet. You may have wrote a good pitch, but it ain't time for you yet. But you did a TEDx talk on normalizing homeschooling, even becoming the first black speaker to tackle that talk at TEDx Talk. Now, as a homeschool, mom of three, a working coach, a speaker and a musician, I'm going to tell you, girl, how do you balance all of that? What does living look like for you daily?
Speaker 3:Okay. So I will tell people that just because you do a lot or you know how to do a lot, does not mean that you always have to do it all at the same time. That's the best way to answer that question. When people say how do you balance, how do you do all of that? And I go, I don't. I mean I do, but I don't if that makes sense. So, for example, most of the stuff like the modeling and the music and all of that, I was doing that before I started having kids. My husband and I got married in 2009. We didn't have our first baby, our son, until 2016. So we were just pursuing everything we wanted to pursue in them seven years. But then it was kind of like, and then I pursued a little bit during pregnancy and after he was born, but it's not the same, you know. And then we had our daughters in 2020 and it was just like oh, child, I have to pivot for real. For real, because you know you go to have one more baby and it turned out being twins.
Speaker 2:You're like whoop wait, I'm ready, I'm ready, I'm ready for another one now. You gave me two what the world.
Speaker 3:So that was when I started pivoting. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to be at home for a minute. And also we were literally at home during that time because lockdown happened, couldn't nobody go nowhere for two years. It was just a really weird time. But it was also a creative time for me too, because I'm all about thinking past limitations. So if you tell me you can't do this, you can't do this, I'm not just gonna be like, dang, I can't do it, and just sit down. I'm gonna be like, okay, I can't do that, but what can I do?
Speaker 2:that's how my brain well, you tell me, okay, I'm gonna tell you, watch me do it and watch me be better than everybody doing. That's me maybe, baby. I'm going to tell you, watch me do it and watch me be better than everybody doing it.
Speaker 3:That's me, baby, baby. I'm going to take pictures. I'm going to do it twice. I'm going to have video clips, I'm going to have reels. You're going to be like what? Okay, don't tell her, she can't do nothing else.
Speaker 3:But that's how all the rest of it happened.
Speaker 3:And focusing on the kids, and so I got into the homeschooling and I never took my kids, never went to school, so it wasn't like I had them in school and then I pulled them out at homeschool Like none of them have ever been. They just they think everybody mama being their teacher is normal because that's what they know. But the whole experience doing the TEDx talk and God just opening that door, and I sent a bunch of pitches out, but the pitch that got accepted was the homeschool talk and I was like this is the Lord, because the season that we're in, when I first started doing homeschooling it was not, it wasn't chic every, it wasn't like everybody's doing it. You know, black families are the fastest growing group of homeschoolers in the nation and we are um, it wasn't like that back when God told me like as soon as I got pregnant, you know, and now you know, I'm praying about the baby and stuff and he's just like you know, okay, and I didn't need much convincing Cause I used to be a Chicago public school teacher.
Speaker 2:I can't unsee and we're going to leave that right there not only a product of it, but I used to be a lead teacher too. I think it was like zero to three years old. I did daycare and then I did after school program with the YMCA at a bunch of schools where I was actually teaching after school programs, and so trust me being a product of it first, then going back to it to teach oh, we know.
Speaker 3:Yeah, very eye opening. Know some things.
Speaker 2:And that's why I got out of that 's why I got mine out of that. And then I'm thinking a little minute which was a better school system as far as like curriculum wise, right, but it's gonna always be challenges. You know, even now I, my oldest, he got accepted to the number three school in the state. Um, it's a private christian college preparatory school, right, and I accepted into, into that school I can't name it because I don't need no weirdos trying to go see my child but I will say that, right, I gotta be careful and be a jayden, real private. Anyway, he don't be going. People know his being. But i'ma tell a little bit because I brought you here. But so, but even with that, right, it's gonna still be challenges and stuff, you know, and you don't want to shield your child from too much. But I always say, because I've, I've changed schools with my kids so many times I can't even count because I feel like I see any type of mistreatment towards my child, I have dominion over him. So you get in these schools and they think that they can tell you how to raise your kid and they think that they could, they could treat your kid any type of way, because you're like you, like you are set in stone, have to be there and I have to let them know. Do you guys not understand that I have dominion over my child? If I said my child out of here, y'all better give me the paperwork. And OK, you want to treat them like that? All right, get them up out of here. Oh, y'all being racist, get them up out of here. I just said get them up out of here.
Speaker 3:So many times they need to give me a trademark for it. Then you said I answered your question. You said do y'all not understand that I have dominion over this child? The answer to that question is no, they do not understand that. And I'm not being funny, it's important. Y'all hear me, I'm being very serious. They do not understand that Once you put your child in school, in their mind your child is property of the government.
Speaker 3:They do not have to approve any curriculum with you. They can teach them however they want to teach them and they can rear and shape their minds to serve the purposes of the state. And I did air quotes, because that is a literal quote from our government. Look it up. In Illinois they're shaping kids to serve the purposes of the state. Now, if you want your child to grow up and serve the purposes of God, you have to be very intentional. Even if you're not homeschooled, you have to be very, very, very intentional, asking questions, not just how was your day fine? No, dig in their business. Go to all the conferences, go to all the things. Make your face and your presence known.
Speaker 2:Parents, please understand. If you don't want your child at a school or your child is being mistreated, you can take that child out that school whenever you want to. They cannot tell you that. You cannot unenroll or disenroll or withdraw your child and you do not have to tell them what school your child is going to. You do not have to get them. They have to give you every document that you've ever signed, all your transcripts, and you just let. If you don't want them to know, you check that box Private, private.
Speaker 2:This is a great podcast, Ain't it good, some good work. We let them know how to protect their kids because a lot of people they don't want to. They feel like, ok, well, I have to work. We got a lot of people they don't want to. They they feel like, okay, well, I have to work. We got a lot of single moms out here who might not be able to hold your child. You might not be able to hold your child, but you could send your child, like I'm just going to say it to um. Uh, what's the school I sent my son to? Um, I send them to a different, like all type of private schools catholic schools, christian schools and guess what they have, um, they have tuition. They have like they can. They can give you scholarships. They have um financial aid that you can get, so it's ways that you can be able to afford it, you know.
Speaker 2:So if you don't want your child learning certain things and learn certain patterns and things that they trying to indoctrinate into your child, you can absolutely pull your child and do not be ashamed. I have pulled my kids from daycare. I have pulled my kids from after school programs. I have pulled my child from public schools. I have pulled my child from any school that I feel is not treating my child right. I have pulled them from it and I didn't care about the backlash, I didn't care about the flip and the top. All she do. Every year, them kids go up to a different school. Yeah, because you can let yours be missed.
Speaker 2:Come on, okay, I'm raising, I'm a black mom with black boys. They might have a little black skin, but guess what? They still black and they still get treated black. And we let our kids know in this house you're going to be 100% God first. You're going to be 100% in that Bible, but you are also 100% black and just because your skin might be a little lighter, they're going to treat you the same. Matter of fact, you're going to get it from both ends, like your mama did, because black people people gonna mistreat you because you light skin, and the white people gonna mistreat you because you're still black. So you lost both times. You lost both times. Don't never think, because you're hanging with these, these people who are of a different race than you, that you are going to be, you have to work five times. It's hard to get at least half of what they get handed to them on the silver platter. And as long as you fly first, you're going to be okay, that's it.
Speaker 2:That's it girl, girl, I don't go for Duke girl, you should have been calling me girl, I know.
Speaker 3:Girl listen, girl listen, I would be just like you. That's why I never put them in there. I would be like, no, you can't pulling them out. So I just I already know how I am and how I get down, and so I'm just like I'm just putting y'all in there. But now, because I know it's going to be people listening that say I can't afford to.
Speaker 2:I can't afford to.
Speaker 3:I will say this this is one of the biggest myths about people who home school that we just rolling in the dough and we got it like that and we privileged, and that's why we homeschooled. This is a choice. This is not a privilege. This is a choice that we made where we could be a two income household, but we forego. You know, I decided to forego my. I have a master's degree in special education and I could be teaching, making decent money, you know, or I could have a job doing something else if I wanted to put into another career motivation into why I started my own company in the first place, because it's my own business. I can be flexible with the hours and, you know, shift my schedule. However, I need to to still homeschool and still do business, and so that was a choice I made. Has it been always easy? No, but instead of looking at it as this is something, this is not something we can afford to do, I look at it as we can't afford not to.
Speaker 3:Exactly the cost of letting our kids get eaten alive by this demonic system is too great. It's a cost I'm not willing to pay. Yeah, absolutely. I don't care if I got to work day shift and Rodney got to work night shift or vice versa, I don't care, we just always going to be homeschooled. If it gets, if the economy get too bad, we're one of us got to go to work, baby, we still going to be homeschooling. I don't know.
Speaker 2:You know like it's just going to break, because when you're homeschooling, you could teach them at your own pace. That's another thing I like about it. When you're homeschooling, you could teach them at your own pace. That's another thing I like about it. Jayden was able to get college credits when he was home. I mean high school credits when he was homeschooled for a year, because he actually went through.
Speaker 2:We went through a seller's academy to homeschool him. It was $70 a month, yes, and it was phenomenal. They provided him with all the tools. He took Portuguese. He did everything in seventh grade and he was phenomenal. They provided him with all the tools. He took Portuguese. He did everything in seventh grade and he actually finished early. You get what I'm saying. So it's like you can do it at your own pace, you can pause, you can go back, like I said, $79, and he learned everything he needed. When he went back, he was at a 4.0. So, not that he's ever been below a 3, you know, but he was at a 4.0 when he went back.
Speaker 2:Because you know why he wasn't getting judged by his skin color. He wasn't getting treated, you know, biased. You know Jaden has been on a roll since kindergarten. So you know he graduated from that school, not from homeschool, but he graduated from the school because he wanted to go back with his friends and graduate and he graduated. They didn't get him an award and my baby was on the road the whole time. He was there. Wow, jayden has a Presidential All-Into-Service Award. He has three awards from the Mayor of Aurora. He has the Martin Luther King Service Above Self Award. He has all these, a two-time best-selling author and he gets no award.
Speaker 3:See, that's the kind of stuff that is psychological warfare. That is what it is that our kids go through.
Speaker 2:I'm one of them. Mamas, I'll make you an award, Is you okay? I'll make you an award, baby and man me more than that. So you don't need to validate you. I always teach my kids, my youngest son he's the most politest kid, very well mannered, very well spoken. You know he goes to school every day. They don't want to give him no little award that they give the kids for being helpful and stuff like that A character count. I made him a character count when he got home. Okay, you don't need nobody to value you.
Speaker 3:You have to constantly affirm them and uplift them because and you have to constantly affirm them and uplift them because, yeah, I play mind games like that- and you see, it. You know you did better than them, but you're not getting the word. And they get in the ward and you're like what's wrong with me? The devil is a lie. Ain't nothing wrong with you, that's a them problem. God sees you, I see you. We have to do this for our kids.
Speaker 2:We teach our kids If you got a bad grade or whatever, I'm going to let you know something If you ain't in trouble with your mama and your daddy, you ain't in trouble with nobody. You're not going to let them people get up under your skin or get you upset about anything or make you feel like you didn't do something right or whatever, because we teach our kids early that it's an agenda against the black men okay, against black period, but especially black young men. So we teach our kids, you know, hey, don't show it. Still, go in with humility and grace and let God fight the battle. But we just want them to know there's nothing wrong with them. Ok, there's nothing wrong with you. And if they don't give you a war, your mama is the best digital creator in the universe.
Speaker 2:Baby, you don't have an award. And they're going to win the Chicago Tribune twice, jaden. And they're going to see you in the Chicago Tribune twice, jaden. Okay, they're going to see you with two bestsellers Marvis Jr. Okay, they're going to go for Maz with the presidential achievement award Okay, don't, nobody want to give them one. I'll sign up. I'm a certified person to give them out now, even though they ain't doing them, but I'm certified to present them now.
Speaker 3:You were saying, you said they ain't doing them no more?
Speaker 2:Why they ain't doing them no more, Girl we See you trying to get me in trouble on Beyonce. Get me in trouble on Beyonce internet. Look, I understand. They said Okay.
Speaker 3:We're going to take a four year pause we'll get back to that after that.
Speaker 2:Look I ain't get. Look they done. Shut down Stephen Colbert. I like my little show. I have to go back to Facebook live messing around with you. Know we ain't about to do it. I got too many shows. Girl, you know me, I don't care, do it, I got too many shows.
Speaker 3:Girl, you know me, I don't care Girl.
Speaker 2:I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I don't care, I dollars child.
Speaker 3:Girl, that's so funny. I don't care nothing about that stuff. I be like I don't care Yo. But you know that I'm just saying I don't care, like the politics stuff I don't care. First of all, I'm one of them people. I really do think that the Democrats and the Republicans, the right wing and left wing, is two wings of the same bird and life will be a lot better for a lot of people once they realize that. And the division and the acting like we in separate gangs and we don't talk to people from where the red and my color is blue, and gang, gang gang Girl.
Speaker 2:That sure remind me of the blood in the crips. Baby, you ain't how people be acting over these political parties.
Speaker 3:I'm like people at the top pulling the puffer strings is laughing at y'all. They all playing golf with them, laughing at y'all.
Speaker 2:Look, I'm not on any one of the team, but if I had to choose, I'd fight for the lesser devil. Okay, that's all I'ma say. I'd fight for the lesser devil, that's all I'm going to say. I fight for the lesser devil. But I think all things happen according to God's plan.
Speaker 2:You have to see what's going on right now. You think it's wreckage, but look at the weather, look at what's going on, look at what's going on in the news right now about stuff that was here but don't magically disappeared. So it's like, you know when, when the devil think he won, that's when god show up. So, like me, and my husband was saying, we don't sit in our house and this air conditioned house that the Lord keep us with every, every year, every month, every day, praise the Lord for favor, and all the bills are going to always be paid and the raise is going to always be full, and the kids ain't going to never not even Robux that they break my pocket with these Robux y'all. They don't want nothing. Okay, and we're gonna sit back and we're just gonna watch the circus. Okay, and we're gonna let it pass, because, guess what? This too, this too, shall pass.
Speaker 3:It shall, but I'm just gonna tell my people, I'm to tell y'all I can do with this information whatever y'all want to. Y'all can pray about it, let it be marinated and shine it out, but don't get to talking about who you will never, ever, ever vote for or who you will never, ever, ever, ever. God will humble you.
Speaker 4:Okay.
Speaker 3:Because what's going to really cook your goose is when you get to thinking about the fact that all the stuff we're talking about and the reasons we want to homeschool our kids, and the stuff in these school systems that we don't like, the people that our, the party, that our people have been conditioned to vote for, are the people that's championing all of this. Amen to that. I'm just saying it's an ouch moment. So you don't say I never vote red. I never, ever. If God tell you to, we will.
Speaker 2:And that's why.
Speaker 3:I say we have to carry that with a grain of salt. He'll show you. You can't be married to one party or another because, baby, when it comes down to my kids, I'm going to look at elections who is standing for what. And you stand for anything that goes against this Bible, anything that goes against my agenda that God has given me and my husband for our kids. I vote for you. Ain't no lifelong Democrat. If you own foolishness, I'm not voting for you. Ain't no lifelong Republican. If you own foolishness, I'm not voting for you. And that's on period. And that's how we have to look at all of this Weigh it out against what the Bible is saying and vote accordingly.
Speaker 2:That's the posture we have to take, and even when we vote accordingly and we do the right thing. We have to trust God in whatever happens after that.
Speaker 3:Whatever happens happens literally. Just let it be.
Speaker 2:Just let it be and watch it pass. That's why I'm at with it now.
Speaker 3:We can get whole family getting split up over this mess, like we don't talk to them no more because they voted for. Like are you serious?
Speaker 2:it's never that serious everything because of that and it's like, yeah, thing is, what happened to the time where votes used to be private, like nobody got into that, who did you vote for? Like why two things private, and you couldn't ask nobody about. And there used to be religion, religion and and who you voted for, your political yeah, and that was the time, like I said, that we grew up in in the 80s and 90s, you couldn couldn't ask nobody, don't worry about who I vote for, you know. But now it's normal and that used to keep friendships, that used to keep bonds and family because they didn't cross those boundaries. But now it's just like boundaries are no more and people you know what it is.
Speaker 3:You were saying that used to keep friendships. You know what it is. It's we looked for common ground. Yeah, look what let's not focus on, you know, differences of religion or differences of politics. Let's focus on what we have in common and what you're doing morally. Yeah, now it's no, there's no, find no common ground. It's we're going to lead with differences. Yeah, it's a spirit of division, you know it's kind of.
Speaker 3:You remember that movie Divergent? Yes, it was like it was books and it was actually one of the movies on the extras in movies. But that movie is so prophetic, that's one of the movies like Matrix. Every time you watch it you can get something out of it. That's what they're doing to us now. They're splitting us all up into factions. When we come together, there's a strength and there's a unity and we can defeat the enemy together. But if we all divided, like everything we every time we looking around, we looking for something to be divided over, and there's no commonality, there's no coming together, baby, that will sift us, like we every time, every single time, make it easier to control. It does, and it's the church, doesn't power, because the church is all divided. We just saying dividing us makes it easier to control. It does, and the church doesn't have any power because the church is all divided.
Speaker 2:We're just divided as the world just saying why did you see me drop up? I got a real mic here. Hold on, oh god. I'm just saying I got a real mic and I'm going to carry you up oh, I like the mic.
Speaker 3:You have to give me that mic. I got it on.
Speaker 2:Amazon for $16.99. Ain't it cute girl? But, yeah, girl, drop the mic. I dropped all three of them. Baby, I need you to do a recap on my show and go back to church, hurt and all type of stuff that I have on this show. Girl, that is a I ain't look. No, because then we'll be on here for more than the Avro Child messing around with me and Pat. I wrote some books about them, though Check me out on Amazon, shameless plug. So I'm going to go look.
Speaker 3:I see Auntie Pat is going off on this chat. Shout out to Auntie Pat Cox oh yeah, oh yeah, she coming through.
Speaker 2:She is coming through. We see you, mama, she is coming through. She been on here the whole time. Yes, I love it. I want to get back because, of course, course, we could talk about this subject all day and we kind of got off track. But that's okay, everything happens in time, we are not here talking.
Speaker 3:We just family on here talking. We don't forget y'all was there and that's okay. Y'all be alright.
Speaker 2:I hope y'all been taking some notes, okay, but look now, when it comes to Virtue Chic and your living brand, what do you believe is the unique impact that you bring like? What is the one message you want everyone, especially christian single women, to walk away from our talk today?
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness. Okay, well, for the school women. If I could sum up and I don't want to sum it up too good because I want y'all to read it it's on Amazon right now. Amen.
Speaker 3:But if I could sum up one of the main takeaways from this book, I could sum up one of the main takeaways from this book. It is there has to come a point where you are doing what is right because it's right, and what I mean by that is I feel like the church has done a disservice to young women by dangling the carrot of purity and marriage in front of women. If you keep your legs, you're going to get a man. If you dress modest, you're going to get a man. If you do this, you're going to get a man, and that can't be the reason you're doing it. It can't be the reason you're doing it. That's really dangerous, because when you do it for a while and the man don't come, you're going to get mad and say this, this don't work, and then you're going to get, you're going to walk away from it. Yeah, so we have to get to a point where and I talk about this in this book each chapter in the book actually has some life coaching journaling questions at the end, reflection questions that you can write in here and answer.
Speaker 3:I talk about how and I'm not telling you what I heard. I'm telling you what I know. Ok, because God literally had me single and practiced in abstinence for dang near 10 years before he brought my husband into my life. Ok, I wasn't one of those people that, like I'm a virgin until marriage. God bless y'all that was able to do it. But, um, I'm not. I'm not. I was doing good until I turned 18. And then what had happened was the nickel that was between my knees had failed.
Speaker 2:No Counting the same as my saving.
Speaker 3:It was a little bit of interestingness that had happened, but God brought me back and when I came back I said all right, the next person I'm going to date is going to be my husband. Which sounds ridiculous, because how you just don't date somebody and be like, okay, you're my husband, but what I was saying is I'm not going to be my husband.
Speaker 2:First my grandmother told me that he was gonna be my husband and I was like him nah, that's just my friend, but girl. Then I told him he was gonna be my hook. He was like I ain't, finna, get married and have no more kids. I'll say are you gonna be my husband? Baby 26, we were 26, baby, we were married. Okay, don Tell me what God Love his wife.
Speaker 3:I love it, girl. I was 28, but it took him so I would say from I would say 18, 19 to 28,. I was just single. I was just out here. I was going through figuring out myself and figuring out God's purpose for me and watching all my friends date and it wasn't like I was just kind of like I don't want to date, like I did want to. I wanted to be in courtship. That's different than dating. Yeah, courtship is dating intentionality. It is we used to call it back in the days to say you're going steady, okay, so you're not just out here. I got a date with Tom this weekend and I got a date with Larry next weekend. That's not courtship. Courtship is we're dating each other and dating everybody else. We're going for the purpose of getting married. That's the personality that's, that's now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, dr velma, um, her whole whole theme of everything that she ministers to is is is based on that promise of dating with intent to marry, and so she's a lot about that in a lot of her literature, a lot of her talks, her podcast. She's been married for 51 years now.
Speaker 3:And her husband, Dr BAGB BAGB BAGB.
Speaker 2:Okay, bagby, and her series is called the Cat Series so look up that. And she makes fish analogies series so look up that. And she makes fish analogies. She used fish analogies to describe the mate you know as far as like male, and then she uses animal analysis to describe females, like the wrong men to date, and things like that. She's a well-known person on my platform. She's a minister, she's an ordained minister, she has her PhD in theology and she's been a coach for over, I think, 30 years and she's been married for over 50 years to the person she met in the 10th grade.
Speaker 3:Amen, I just followed her on Instagram. Okay, amen.
Speaker 2:Dr Velma Bagby and she speaks on it a lot. She's been actually her and her husband, pastor Bruce, has been here for me and my husband since I met her. Another mother to me, another grandmother to my kids. She is amazing with my children and, um just just taught me a lot.
Speaker 2:You know about marriage and different things like that, that you you have to listen to somebody who's been married before to, really especially for a long time, like that, like I can get advice from everybody else but they's never been married or you know they don't really have the answers that you need. You know it's like a warm advice. Like you know I love you, I appreciate you as a person, but when it comes to marriage, especially an ordained marriage with God, you and your husband, you have to reach out to like-minded people because if you don't, you're wrong. A lot of people don't want to see you married. A lot of people feel like you're not worthy of the person that you're with, so they're going to do whatever they can to try to disrupt that. So you have to be careful of who you allow into your marriage. You know it's supposed to be you, god and your husband. And if you're getting counseled, seek wise counsel. That's always my part Right. Yeah Did, that's always my part right did I say something wrong, dr Young?
Speaker 3:no, you did not. Don't let nobody lead you. People can't lead you someplace. They haven't been exactly.
Speaker 2:I don't expect nobody who never wrote teach me double dutch. No, thank you. Yeah, but before we wrap up, because this has been powerful, we have dropped everything from homeschooling to fashion to, uh, political um, uh things in the political arena, like we have went there with this episode, it's one of the best. And this is what a way to kick off season eight of listen linda. Oh, my goodness and being to find out my first guest is my holy god, like hello, yes, I want you to tell us what's next for you. Do you have any new book projects, coaching programs, um, on the horizon that listenLinda listeners should know about?
Speaker 3:Okay, well, you guys, you can always go to victoriouslivingsolutionscom that's my website and you can subscribe there and be in the know of everything. Because, child, I'm going to be cooking this fall quarter. I'm about to be a busy bee, when am I not? But yeah, the next things for me the podcast we just wrapped season eight of the podcast. You can watch the podcast on YouTube. We have a victorious living solutions YouTube channel and you can listen to the podcast on YouTube. We have a Victorious Living Solutions YouTube channel. You can listen to the podcast on Spotify. So we just dropped that. Yeah, the name is called Victorious Living Solutions and so we just dropped the episode.
Speaker 3:Today we're going to be on hiatus for a few weeks and I'm going to be filming for season nine. Season nine is going to drop in the fall. I don't have the exact release date for it, but it's going to be filming for season nine. Season nine is going to drop in the fall. I don't have the exact release date for it, but it's going to be in September when we'll release season nine, and other than that, I am going to spend the rest of this year writing. I really want to release a new book in the new year. My dissertation was on I can't remember exactly how I worded it because brain fart but essentially it was on the topic of, and specifically among women, and it was really good. I want to take dissertation and I want to turn it into a book, because anytime I this way tell somebody about what my dissertation was about and start talking about it and I'm gonna release it, but girl, when you're gonna release that, I need to read that book today.
Speaker 2:I'm like, okay, let me hurry up and let me pitch you what I got going on. So I have a two-month day author boot camp that starts on the pump and with that you get the weekly virtual coaching. You get writing prompts for your devotional or your memoir or whatever you decide to write about. You get group support. You get bestseller guidance so I can give you my step by step on how to reach your bestseller status. Um, you get a book. You get 10 free copies of your book and you get an arthur highlight in the magazine for 600. Okay, so that's just so. That's something to think about. And payment plans are available. I do paypal, I do a term, I do clarna, I do Klarna, but it's $600 and you get it published in 21 days. So, oh, yeah. So you get full publication, everything, yeah. So it starts on the 1st of August. After that I have another one coming out in October, but the price will not be the same, because I don't know where you're going to get it. Ten copies of the book, I don't know, not for $600. That was my label of love to the world. That's a good deal. It really is. It really is. I'm just as fun as the world.
Speaker 2:Now Y'all can go on PayPal. You can sign up. You can spread your payments out up to 24 months. You can do a four payment plan where you can do it four payments in six weeks, no interest. Hit me up. Start on the 1st of August? Okay, let me know. Let me know, let me know if you're interested.
Speaker 2:Okay, so I got that, that and I got some other things coming up in the works too that I would love to include you on. Please, please, call me after this. I'm so, so glad that I highlighted you. Look at, guy, how he just said reach out to Dr Nick. I was scrolling on Instagram I don't even know how we became following each other, but we followed each other and I said this girl is awesome, like because I'm looking for 25 different authors and I saw, I saw your book and I was like, oh, she's an author. Oh, this is. Oh, yeah, let me ask her and see. So I'm so glad that I was able to highlight you in this magazine.
Speaker 2:It is available. It will be available on Kindle and in paperback on Amazon. So it's not like just a digital magazine. No, this one is international best-selling magazine since September. Okay, every issue. Praise God to all the glory. He makes sure that he blesses my pen and everything that I do, and I owe everything to the glory of God. So I want to say thank you so much. She got a book coming. We're listening to publishing Clock it.
Speaker 3:I got a whole bunch of stuff I to write devotionals I want to put out, devotional coming out.
Speaker 2:That's only 300 dollars gross. Please see me, I got a grandma's hand. Um, um, um, what is it? A children's book anthology that's coming out. That is going to uh, a portion of out that is going to. A portion of the proceeds is going to the Lupus Foundation because both of my grandmothers had lupus and I have it now. So I'm doing that just like a love project and anybody who joins that anthology will be a full-fledged children's book.
Speaker 2:But then you can take your portion and publish it. So you can take your portion and publish. Okay, so you can. You can join your story inside of here, but then you can also expand your story and then I'll publish that for a small fee, very, very small fee, very, very, very small fee. So all illustrations, publishing, everything is included in that price. I will be having a zoom call about that later on today and that price I will be having a Zoom call about that later on today. So we definitely need to talk, we do. Oh yeah, I'm going to tell you something about ListenLender. People will tell you. If you ask anything about ListenLender, listenlender Publishing, listenlender Brand and Marketing. Jackie, I always get something going on that you can participate in Always, always One woman should One woman should be. It's a one woman show, amen. All with the glory of God. He is on my side, and him and his legion of angels. So I want to thank you, dr Young thank you, dr Jacqueline, for having me.
Speaker 3:I've had so much fun. Yes, this is a little podcast. Thank you, jacqueline Cuzzo, for having me.
Speaker 2:I've had so much fun. Yes, girl, this is a fun podcast. Yes, I have a fun podcast Now. Look Now. If you think you like the podcast, you need to come on my radio show because I play music. You get a playlist. We have a ball on the radio. So radio show, international radio show I have the podcast, so could come on any time, Any one of you, we're going to have a ball. Okay, Ladies and gentlemen, please do not hold your book up. Hold your book up. Hold your book up. They look on Amazon. Please don't forget to grab your copy of Virtue Sheep. Classy takes center stage. It's a straight up road map for women wanting to walk in purpose with class. You can find it right on Amazon and make sure to follow Dr Nakia on her socials. She's at Dr Nakia and she hosts a Victorious Living Solutions podcast and leads transformational coaching that helps people crush goals and live victoriously. So until next time, y'all stay classy, stay victorious and keep living chic, Like okay, Amen.
Speaker 3:Amen, amen, amen Aw.
Speaker 2:Yay, she blowing it up. See you, mama.
Speaker 4:Bye, Angie. There's a story inside you, but for years it's been silenced by fear, procrastination and not knowing where to start. You've survived storms, you've walked through valleys and now it's time to turn your pain into purpose and your story into a book. This is your moment. Welcome to the 21-Day Author Boot Camp, where aspiring writers become published authors in just three weeks. You don't have to do it alone. You just have to say yes. Turn your testimony into a title, Turn your journal into a journey, Turn your story into a book that outlives you. The 21-Day Author Boot Camp Enrollment is open. Visit wwwlisten. Linda presents 1.com to sign up. Spaces are limited Financing available. Thank you.
