The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Journey to Freedom serves as an exclusive extension of the Living Boldly with Purpose podcast series—a platform that inspires powerful transformation and growth. Journey freedom is a podcast hosted by Brian E. Arnold. The Journey to Freedom is an our best life blueprint exclusively designed for black men where we create a foundational freedom plan. There are five pillars: Identity, Trust, Finances, Health and Faith.
The Journey to Freedom Podcast
The Power of Personal Growth: Paul Howard Flowers Jr.'s Journey
What happens when you stop letting your past dictate your future? Paul Howard Flowers Jr. takes us on a powerful journey from his South Side Chicago roots to becoming a successful entrepreneur, podcaster, and multi-time Amazon bestselling author.
Growing up in the Mary Nook neighborhood after losing his father at age three, Paul's path wasn't predestined for success. Yet through a series of intentional choices—joining Toastmasters after receiving brutally honest feedback, embracing personal development, and challenging traditional career expectations—he transformed his life trajectory. His turning point came when he realized: "If you don't put your past in your past, your past is in your present, and whatever is in your present is ultimately creating your future."
Paul shares intimate details about his professional evolution from working as a janitor while in college to discovering opportunities in direct sales that revealed the power of residual income. He discusses his decision to launch his own insurance advisory practice after recognizing that "legal, moral, and ethical should be a part of every transaction." Now partnering with hospitals and municipalities, he helps organizations save millions on healthcare costs while maintaining quality outcomes.
Throughout our conversation, Paul emphasizes the importance of information diet ("Garbage in, garbage out. Greatness in, greatness out."), the transformative power of consistent personal development, and how he's passing these lessons to his children through daily affirmations. His parenting philosophy centers on helping his children develop strong identities: "I am strong, I am smart, I am beautiful, I am kind" – ensuring they define themselves rather than letting others define them.
What makes this episode especially valuable is Paul's transparency about overcoming self-doubt to launch his podcast and write his books. His message resonates with anyone feeling stuck: success doesn't require special advantages, just consistent effort in areas available to everyone—improving communication, developing a positive mindset, and taking action despite fear.
Ready to reprogram your thinking and take control of your future? This conversation might just be the catalyst you need.
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And I started. I mean I had people that were NBA players. I had people that were actors. I had I guess what you know some musicians. I had Ronnie DeVoe from you know New Edition, that was on, and I, you know I had some you know NFL Super Bowl players. But then I had what I think I was most excited about is I had regular people that are making a difference in their communities on a daily basis. You know, I went from people who had been in jail. I had one brother that was in the jail for 19 years and when the crime was committed, I mean he was in prison for 19 years before he got exonerated and when he was in, when the crime happened, he happened to be in jail, and this was in Chicago. So they manipulated the system. I know that's where you're from.
Speaker 2:Oh, my goodness.
Speaker 1:It took 19 years, with the pills and everything to prove. This man was in jail when the crime happened and they finally exonerated him and he wasn't mad at anybody. I said, oh my gosh, this is so cool. So it's just been folks like you who come out on an everyday basis and just tell us hey, this is what it means to be successful. This is what it means not to be stuck. This is what it means when we have five pillars trust, faith, identity, health and finance are the five pillars that I've been working with. That, just with everybody.
Speaker 1:How do we interact with identity? How do we begin the identity? So, whether it's a person who grew up in a rough neighborhood or a person who grew up with, you know, hollywood parents, you know it doesn't matter what it. How did your identity get shaped? Folks that have we've done a lot about talking what it means to be a dad. I'm sure I'll ask you that today as well, and not from the perspective of you know. We all know that our kids need that. You know that is one of the most important relationships and I don't think anybody is going to argue from the child side that a child needs to have a father in their lives, you know. But kind of from the perspective I've been asking is what does it mean when you take on that responsibility being a dad? How does that who you are and how you interact in life? You know, I've had some amazing dads who have said, hey, my, you know, the mom of my child didn't want me in the life and they did everything they could to make sure that I wasn't around, because we broke up and then they had somebody else and our court system and our systems haven't been on the side of dads for so long and the hoops and everything that they've had to jump through. You know somebody's driving like from Florida to North Carolina every weekend just to make sure that they can see their child and then to have the mom go to another state at some point to stop them from doing it. It's just, you know, it's just amazing. And then you have some families that were just you know, hey, this is.
Speaker 1:I had one brother who said, you know, when their son was born they said I would love for him, we want him to go to an Ivy League, college and everything we're going to do in our lives to be able to do that, or still want him to be a kid, still want him to have relationships, still wanted him to feel like he was growing up as a, you know, as a normal child, but with the intent like, by the time you're five, you're going to know a couple languages. And I think he ended up learning new languages. Well, what's the best time in our lives to learn languages? Right? When we absorb right. So that was, that was a benefit, uh. And then he ended up going to an ivy league college and getting his phd. Uh, it was really cool.
Speaker 1:About a month and a half ago, I got to interview the son and ask him what it was like to grow up with the expectation that you know your parents had on you in your life. And he's like it was fantastic. I never felt pressured that I had to be somebody, and yet they woven in, you know, by giving experiences, like you know he had been to I don't know how many countries by the time he was 15. So that's not like putting pressure on you to achieve, that's just saying 15. So that's not like putting pressure on you to achieve, that's just saying here's some experiences that other people have, that might be something. And so it's just been fantastic doing this and I can't wait to talk to you.
Speaker 1:Like all of our guests, I've asked Paul to tell his story, to say, hey, what is it? Because one of the things that we get to do sometimes is we get to talk about the things we do Like this is I'm a doctor, or I'm a, you know, an attorney, or you know I, you know I work at a insurance company, or you know I've worked at the plant for so long and you're like well, who are you? I want to know who you are. You know, and so you know, don't tell me. I want people to tell me what they do, because I think that's important. But what I really love is how you became that person who could do what you do. What are the things you know? What was your childhood like? And I think people can relate. I have yet to find somebody on one of my podcasts that I haven't found something in common with that.
Speaker 2:I couldn't relate to that.
Speaker 1:I don't know something, and it just brings us so much together. As a result, I even started a show it's called why Love Waits that we do on Monday nights, about once or twice a month now, where we put men and women together and try to find out why. When we think about black women and black women 40, I think it's forty nine, point nine percent of black women who are over the age of 40 have never been married and 75% of them have at least one child. So there is an issue where why aren't black men part of the equation? And what are you being taught as a young girl about who we are and what we represent? And you know, in order for you know, marriages to happen, and you know we I personally believe that the family is one of the strongest institutions that has ever been put to. You know, been put together.
Speaker 1:And we think about when we go back in our history and we think about the, you know, the thirties and the forties and the f 50s, where the Black family was so strong, in fact, our education system, when we were segregated and there were Black schools and where we were passing more tests. We were actually ahead of our white counterparts in our education, and then we did this thing in our country called integration and they bused us to schools, put us in back of classrooms and then took dads out of the equation, right with our welfare system and all these other things, and we just now see what's happened is, you know, in the last 30 years as a result of men being taken out of families and then this whole thought. So you know a lot of that thought process that we've been able to talk about, and so this is so fun, and so I want you to tell your story. I know you grew up in Chicago and we've had many people that have grown up in that area and love to hear what your experiences are. And now you run a successful company and you're able you know where we go, okay, where do we see that? You know, sometimes I'll interview a Black. He was one of the top physicians, heart surgeons in the you know, and that you know.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I'll interview a Black. He was a, like, one of the top physicians, heart surgeons in the you know, and that's not everybody. But how many of us have businesses that are thriving, that are working, that we and we just go, okay. So why don't we see that on, depicted on television. You know, why don't we see that in our communities? Why do our young Black men believe that they need to be athletes and stuff? And so thank you for being on today, thank you for being willing to spend the time with us and giving me the opportunity to spend a few minutes just talking about why this podcast exists. But I want you to kind of tell your story. So thank you again for being on. Can't wait to hear it.
Speaker 2:Excellent. Well, dr B, first and foremost, thank you for inviting me on the show. It's an absolute pleasure and an honor to be here and share a few moments of your time, as well as grace, the ears of the listeners of the show, with just a little bit about myself. So I, like you mentioned, started off by asking you that question which prompted you to say let's go ahead and hit record. I'm curious by nature, so I love to connect with people and I love to ask questions and learn, as that's one of the things that I'm sure we'll get into later isn't really highlighted in our community. That drive, that inner drive to actually learn, and with that I'll introduce myself, share a bit about my story and we can go from there. So, paul, like the Saint Howard Flowers Jr, I'm my father's son and I started out in Chicago, like many individuals in Chicago, with a little bit of trauma in the household. My father passed when I was three and from there my mother raised myself and my sister it was just the two of us siblings in a home in a nice area in Chicago. We grew up in Mary Nook, which was, I believe, one of the first HOAs in the state of Illinois, if not the city of Chicago, maybe both the growing up on the South side. It's not what many people may have the perception, that it is where it's all violence and crazy and wild Like. It's a really nice neighborhood. You know people teachers, educators, policemen, firemen were in the Mary Nook area as that was one of the more prominent neighborhoods that those types of individuals would work in. Excuse me that those professions would want to live in that neighborhood because they had to stay in the city of Chicago. So you've got like your Mary Nook, your Peel Hill Again, those are actually in the city of Chicago and a few other areas Went to private Catholic school all my life.
Speaker 2:So from that aspect, my mother wanted us to be in a little bit more of a I'll call it a controlled environment for all intents and purposes, having a non-religious nuclear family, meaning inside the direct household, a Baptist extended family, which would be my father's side of the family, and then a Catholic school system where we learned to stand, sit kneel, stand, sit, kneel, stand, sit kneel and don't get it out of order. Okay, anybody that's gone to Catholic school understands exactly what I mean. I had a great childhood, though we traveled, so I was very fortunate that my mother actually wanted to expose us to things and have the resources to expose us to things and not just kind of keep us in these little boxes. So everything from different countries, I think before I went to let me see, I'm trying to think of how old I was. I know we'd been to three or four countries on a cruise, as well as a couple of places in Mexico, I want to say, before I was 20, definitely before the age of 22. High school, as a matter of fact, prior to starting college, let me say this um, I was in boy scouts and my mother, I got a phone call basically saying hey, we've got space on this trip, can your son go? And the trip was to japan. Really, at 17 years old, I had the opportunity to go to japan for two weeks with the scouts, where we not only did the usual camping thing but we stayed in a couple different hotels in various parts of Tokyo and surrounding cities, as well as we were able to live with the host family for several days also. So when you're exposed to the varieties of cultures that exist far, far, far, far, far far from here at a young age, you tend to have a bit more openness, more tolerance, more understanding than those that are only really exposed to very little or have the opportunity to see very little inside of their adolescent years, which again are very formative years to who we ultimately will be and what types of risks we will take and types of experiences that we'll look for as we grow older.
Speaker 2:Moving out of the house, at 17, I went to college at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, costa Luques, so that's five hours south of Chicago. Phenomenal place it was like a mini Chicago, was the joke, because so many people from Chicago went there. I started as a second semester freshman at 17 because I'd taken a CLEP test and had some additional college credit. So by the time I finished the first semester, before I even turned 18, I was already a sophomore, because my birthday's at the end of December and that just kind of let me know that, hey, I can go even faster, right? A mild story from years before, where I had the opportunity to skip a grade but I didn't because of fear of leaving the old behind, right? So that was something that impacted me. But as I got older I realized that I could have continued further faster and there's no problem with that right.
Speaker 2:Sometimes you do have to leave just little nuggets I dropped throughout the story. Sometimes you have to leave those things that aren't necessarily serving you in the past because they're not serving your future or they'll keep you in a space where you're destined for so much greater. And I had that happen several times throughout my life and I'll probably weave more of those stories into the conversation. But fast forward a little bit. Let's go back to college.
Speaker 2:I got involved in toastmasters.
Speaker 2:I got involved in fraternity kappa alpha order, not kappa alpha psi so I wasn't throwing up the yo, I was more of a gentleman, which is kappa alpha order, uh, fraternity and uh, mason at that point as well.
Speaker 2:So I understood some things that are uh, I look at life differently. Let me just put it like that. I like origins of things. So when I initially looked at joining a fraternity, there was, of course, a Divine Nine and I said, well, you know, where does all that come from? And as I did a little bit more research, it turns out that they had their roots in Prince Paul Masonry, and that was where I decided to plant the proverbial flag of organizations that I partnered with. So Toastmasters, let's see Freemasonry, and personal development really took hold of me in my later years in college as a result of getting involved in direct sales we know it as network marketing and that industry quite frankly changed my life. I didn't really have the desire for learning. It wasn't this big thing that was exciting for us, although I did a lot of reading as a youth. By the time you get to college and then you got textbooks this thick and $300.
Speaker 2:It's like man, they make reading a chore or at least pricey. From medical microbiology to medical botany, advanced cellular biology I was a physiology major, turned biological sciences major because I didn't want to take Calc 2. And it was refreshing once I began to reestablish that love for learning as a result of being involved in that direct sales company. So this kind of starts me into the professional part of my life that has grown since then. It was technically considered an insurance in 16 states, legal insurance, and the beautiful part about it was I saw people that look like myself making a quarter million dollars, half million dollars, you know, a million dollars a year, working from home residually. I said, wait a second, I was supposed to be a doctor and, from what I know, doctors have to go to work every day. Right, I have whatever the schedule is every day until they retire. So you're telling me that you can sell a product one time and get paid for it over and over and over and over and over again. I said where the hell have they been hiding this information? You want to talk about information being hidden, talk about the concept of residual income and residual income being something that is. I'll say it was new to me in my 20s for sure. I'm not sure that it's something that well. You know what? Let me rephrase that Nowadays, with everyone talking about how to make money online and I don't like to use the word should it's more commonplace for people to understand that they can build something or put a system together where they can get paid multiple times for doing something one time, like setting up automated marketing on an online store, and then getting paid month after month after month. So I got involved in this company. I reestablished my love for learning, I got around people that were making all this money and I started to have some success in the industry myself, built a nice team of I think 50 or some odd and fast forward. I finally leave college Corps, so I did a program called Leader Corps and that ultimately led me to when I finished at SIU in 2009,.
Speaker 2:I went to Georgetown in DC Go Hoyas Great school. I think there were some movies that were filmed out there as well. I think the real world DC was actually being filmed while I was in Georgetown. So we were literally saw a van with people and cameras following some other people down the street and started following them. So it was pretty interesting. Let me see what else. Dc program in Georgetown. Funny story there I got asked to stay after class because I was a little too woke and asking too many questions. That was challenging essentially the status quo conversation that the teacher wanted to have. So I felt good about that being put out of a or asked to stay after class at a university for challenging the initial assumptions of the instructor.
Speaker 2:Fast forward again. Some more came back to Chicago, stumbled upon a family and a fiance. Fiance didn't quite work out, but that was where my first son was born, and his mother and I have a great relationship. Now it's a 12 year old son. His name is mason, ironically enough, and he is the again the, the, the next generation of flowers men. So I'm amazingly proud of him. Also.
Speaker 2:You asked a question before we got started, one of one of the things you're most proud of in life, and that's absolutely my son. And I have two daughters also. We'll talk about them in just a sec. But my son is 12 years old, he's in a gifted school, tested into it, and he's doing phenomenally. I'm just amazingly proud of this gentleman.
Speaker 2:He's been doing affirmations you know, mildly for us since he was about three or four. But the funny thing is the affirmations that we have and that he's been saying since, like I said, three or four years old I'm a leader, strong, respectful, smart, amazing and happy. So I asked him who are you? So I said Mace, who are you? He said what are you? So I'm a leader, strong, respectful, smart, amazing, happy. I said and what can are you thankful for? You know, he gives me a thing that he's thankful for, so on and so forth. But the funny thing is I see those things, those attributes, showing up in his day-to-day life. So it's not just the fact that it's rote memorization for him to a degree. We never wrote it down and it was something that we would say on a regular basis and add to it, but I see him being those things, but I see him being those things.
Speaker 2:And now I got married in 2022, had a first daughter in 2023, second daughter, 2024, with our oldest daughter. I've started affirmations with her. So we're doing one, one at a time, two at a time, and then we'll build on those. So I put them with, like some physical things. We see, I am strong, I am smart, I am beautiful, I am smart, I am beautiful, I am kind, so that she can start that growth herself internally and have the belief that she is exactly what she says. She is not what anyone else says that she is.
Speaker 2:So brings us to today, our kind of so that kind of transitioned into family, back on a professional side, started in legal insurance, moved to life insurance, found my claim to fame in health insurance about a decade ago, in 2014, 2015, where I was working corporately in individual health insurance sales, realized that legal, moral and ethical should be a part of every transaction, not just. You know some of them and though I'd risen through the ranks really quickly as a top agent, top manager, top broker, I was actually the top trainer for the company and I'm not just one of those guys that just says it right. I've got a website, paulhealth. I've got a web folder so you can actually go and see the stuff that I did. A lot of people say, oh, I was the best at this and uh-huh, that's all there but the um, uh roasted ranks in the company. But I realized legal, moral and ethical weren't at the core for what I was being asked to do and how I was being asked to train. So I hung my own flag of superior insurance advisors in november of 2017, officially incorporated in 2018.
Speaker 2:And the rest, as I say, is history. Fast forward a little bit more. Got into some consulting and then partnered with a big box brokerage in the employee benefit space because I thought I needed a big name behind me in order to do well in this industry. And it turns out sometimes the bigger they are, the less they lack that legal, moral and ethical piece. Of course, what they're going to be doing is legal, because they don't want to get sued, Right, but the moral and ethical parts are the very, very gray lines, and when I say gray and I mean the grayest of the gray, the thinnest of the thin.
Speaker 2:So more on that to come. Left corporate America again in 2024, 2023. I did a contract in 2024. And when I realized that sometimes it's not meant to work quote unquote, under the rule of other people, I said you know what? Everything that I'm doing here I can do a lot more efficiently and a lot more effectively on my own and begin to build around that. So I am a partner with NextGen, mastermind and Superior Insurance Advisors is now a consulting practice for employee benefits. We focus on companies that are over 50, primarily hospitals and municipalities are kind of the niche that we work in. But we work with any employer, really of any size, to help them actually understand the coverages that they have from a health insurance standpoint and realize that there are other options aside from the ones that market the most, that tend to have lower quality outcomes from a health standpoint but also have a very, very high up into the right stock market symbol, which that's again, more on that to come. So, just to wrap up my story, I'd recently gotten the blessing of a hospitality in Indiana, as well as a hospital in Southern Indiana and we're showing them millions, millions of dollars that they're able to save on their health plan, where their former or the incumbent brokers simply didn't show them these things, and the short version of why that happens is because there's money involved. So there's that.
Speaker 2:Now to the most recent thing and that's this fun little symbol that's behind me. Now, like I shared, I'm in a t-shirt. I'm usually in a collared shirt. Those that have seen me on a podcast, the Pulp Replace podcast show, shameless plug Again, it's also at the website down here I'm using a collared shirt, right. So this is really odd for me because I'm on the road.
Speaker 2:I've gotten involved with this business because of my in-laws. They shared something with me that, again, we tend to miss and I didn't know that people were out here making $800,000, $900,000 a day driving their own vehicles, riding around calling out stuff on the CB radio. I said, wait a second, they have a load going from where to where for how much? We're talking something that'll go from Chicago, illinois, for instance, to Carbondale, right, a five hour drive and, depending on the position of your vehicle, you make anywhere from $450 to take that drive to eight and even $900 to take that drive. I said, wait what? I went to school for all these years. I got these degrees. I got a master's degree later on from Oklahoma State University and you tell me people out here are making two, three, four $5,000 a week driving their car, not like Uber, lyft right, this is next, next, next level. This is next, next, next level.
Speaker 2:It requires a little bit of investment, a little bit of startup capital, but it was really easy to start and when I found out about this industry, I'm like, yeah, I need to show other people this. So this is a little symbol behind me that actually the DBA we're operating under right now, which is Load Guard Alliance, and the goal is to have these pilot and escort vehicles in every state, as well as have a training academy to work alongside workforce development agencies where we can actually get grant funding et cetera. But the main thing being able to educate people A that this exists, b how to get started. C put them through the actual training which I'm working on a certification to be a trainer for the pilot escort vehicle operator certification, because you do technically have to have a certification to do this work.
Speaker 2:So that's the long, short version of the story. I know there's a lot to unpack. Again, my podcast is up for a couple of awards. I've written, authored three books that have hit number one on Amazon bestseller list, all around the healthcare space, and I've got a fourth that I've only spoken about on one podcast and I actually had to push back the release date, but that will be out this year. I'm going to be able to build like the other courses and things around that and again, all that stuff is at the link below wwwpaulhealth. So Paul's time out. Dr B, I gave you a lot, let's talk about it.
Speaker 1:Oh my gosh, yes, oh, it is so, so refreshing to have you know, people who can say this is what I've done and it's not, you know, trying to sugarcoat or make it blow up or just, hey, I got out there, I worked and I can blow up.
Speaker 2:I'm not sure if you can hear me have a little bit of audio.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I hear you a lot.
Speaker 2:Well, you can hear me, yes but I can't hear you as well as I did before.
Speaker 1:You did. Let me make sure, because I want to.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I want to make sure that here, let's do this. Let's see my volume is up. Okay, Testing my mic is on. I'm on the stage.
Speaker 1:All right.
Speaker 2:Let me change my speakers.
Speaker 1:All right, can you hear me, hear me, hear me.
Speaker 2:The laptop directly testing testing.
Speaker 1:I can hear you really good.
Speaker 2:No, not yet.
Speaker 1:You can't hear me.
Speaker 2:I'll put everything in my book here testing, testing.
Speaker 1:One, two on my side. You can still hear me, but I can't hear you.
Speaker 2:Okay, I'm wondering if it's because it's going live to Facebook. Let's get rid of that Love you guys on Facebook, and if it'll help, we'll come back later. Yeah, exactly, let me. Let's see Posted creative. We don't want to delete it on Facebook, we just want to come off the stream Testing one, two, can you hear me? I can't change it either.
Speaker 1:I'm not sure what. Let's see.
Speaker 2:This is strange. You can see me, you can hear me, I can see you perfectly fine, I'm just not hearing clearly.
Speaker 1:I'll change my microphone and see.
Speaker 2:Technology is always the bane of our existence. We love it because of all the things that it does, but then, at the same time, it'll have a moment where it's just like, yeah, through no fault of our own, yes, testing one, two.
Speaker 1:I switched microphones. Did that make me go?
Speaker 2:up at all. Let's see I might have to pop it in the chat.
Speaker 1:Microphone one two, one, two. Hello, hello, all right, let's try this again here. Microphone 1212. Hello, hello, all right, let's try this again here. Microphone 1212.
Speaker 2:I know that we're still live hanging out.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so let me go in my chat.
Speaker 2:Might have to have a voice chat. I'll tell you what. Maybe, if I leave the studio and then come back in, that may help. If you stick around, let's see if it makes a difference. Hang on.
Speaker 1:All right in that may help if you stick around. Let's see if it makes a difference. Hang on, all right. Testing one, two, one, two testing. Sorry about that. If you guys are on and watching this live and seeing the technical side of it, I can come off of the. Okay, let's add you back here. Can you hear me now?
Speaker 2:There we go.
Speaker 1:I can hear you perfectly clear, no issues at all, and you just couldn't hear me. So I'm glad we we fixed that and brought it back to to town so and your whole story came super, super clear. So we'll edit out what we got to edit out and when we do the, the, the programmed, the recorded version of it, yeah, so what I was saying is there's so much to unpack in your story, there's so many ideas, and it's so refreshing to have somebody who just says this is what I did, shows that he did it and it's not like I had to do something that isn't something everybody else can do, like this special thing that I had to go through life. You did a lot of what we talk about in the American dream, which is go to school, get an education and sometimes you'll get a bigger job and happy.
Speaker 1:I think the difference in what a lot of us and what you did, and maybe what I did and what others are doing, is we didn't rely on the system to allow us to be successful, and I think that's where sometimes it gets, whether it's our parents or our grandparents that just believe if you just do the things that they're telling you to do, everything's going to be all right.
Speaker 1:And we said, well, wait a minute, I don't know if everything's going to be all right if I don't go out there and I start working on me. And so what I'd love to talk about here a little bit is, you know, you kind of talked about getting the love of reading and you started talking about maybe some of the books that you read as you started working on you, through whether it was a direct sales company. I was in Amway at one point and then I went to World Financer Group and then I was in, you know. So I did the same type of thing where I grew, because of my associations, the people around me and my attitude. I think those three things were huge for me. So maybe you can kind of talk about, you know, when you decided to get into personal development, what a difference it made, and then maybe about some of your associations that might have changed your identity a little bit.
Speaker 2:Gotcha, gotcha, and now that I'm not on the AirPods, can you still hear me clearly? Yep, absolutely so. A funny story. There was a gentleman by the name of John Malott and John Malott was in the company that's prepaid, legal and John Malott was a janitor.
Speaker 2:Now, he didn't look like me but he was a janitor and I thought that was funny because at the time I was working as a janitor in school and he went from janitor to quarter million. I was a janitor looking for my next 10 cent raise in this company and I just gotten started. I'm talking to somebody about it on the phone one day and this guy and it's funny, I can't remember his name, but his impact was so, so just present for me. Right now I'm talking to somebody about again the opportunity or the membership, one of the two and he's standing outside of the office that I'm cleaning up. Well, he's a floater, so he's not usually there, meaning we didn't have that tight bond like myself and the other gentlemen who were there on a daily basis. He came every so often and didn't seem like he really did work because, well, he's sitting outside on the couch while I'm in the office cleaning. He's listening. I didn't know he was listening, but he's listening to the conversation I'm having. And then he says, once I finished, he said hey, man, was that a business conversation you were having? I said, yeah. He said dude, if I was on the other side of that I wouldn't have bought anything from you. You sounded bad, oh my God. And you know, my South Side of Chicago came back like who the hell are you talking to? You don't know me, but I didn't let it out, right, it was there, but I I didn't let it out, right, it was there, but I toned it down and I just looked at him for a second and said what do you mean? You know cause I learned to not react but to respond, and oftentimes if you ask a question, it broadens your horizons to a degree like when you can get some intelligent feedback. And he said well, you know you're real choppy and you had a lot of ahs and ums and it just didn't sound like you're really confident in what you were saying. I was like, hmm, ok, and then went back to work Right Now.
Speaker 2:What he didn't know was about two weeks before that I went to something called group school, which is what you go through to be certified to offer this program on an employer basis, as an employee benefit an employer basis as an employee benefit. And in that group school they'd said if you have issues with how you speak in front of people or how you present yourself in public, then you might want to check out this group called Toastmasters. Somebody had given me a card. I kept it in my wallet. So after that lovely commentary from my floater friend, I go home, I grab that Toastmasters card out my little card case, mad looking at the car, like what is this Typing in the website, toastmasters, or typing in?
Speaker 2:And it was one meeting, one meeting within, I'd say, like a 40 mile radius, southern Illinois, and that meeting met every Wednesday. Well, I think this happened on a Thursday, so I missed the meeting that week. But I called the number, got some information. I'm like I'll see you next Wednesday. From that next Wednesday, for the next three years, I was at a Toastmasters meeting every week for the next three years and I may have missed five meetings during that entire time for the next three years and I may have missed five meetings during that entire time. That is what I always will pay homage to.
Speaker 2:As to the quality of my speech today, I don't just talk, I speak is what I like to say. Now, my mother always impressed upon us that you need to speak the King's English. So, excuse me, from a grammatical standpoint, we'd always use correct English, correct grammar, and there were just some hiccups in how it was presented. Toastmasters really helped to sharpen that and it was about $100 a year, right? So people think that it takes a whole lot and I've taken speech communication classes in university Definitely different.
Speaker 2:The consistent practice and leadership and speaking and having that feedback from people who actually want to help you get better and who may have had some training on how to help you get better as it's a part of a leadership track that's within the Toastmasters program, was amazingly helpful for me in my 20s. So it was also really helpful that I was literally the only minority in the group, so I'm the youngest, I'm the darkest and I'm definitely not from Southern Illinois, so that allowed me to stretch my comfort zone as well and be around people that were not like myself. And I've actually deviated so far from the question that you asked, dr B, that I'm having trouble remembering the question. We were talking about learning.
Speaker 1:First, I was just talking about personal development. Yeah, and to create that which is you're right on topic.
Speaker 2:Okay, okay, perfect, perfect. So that was a huge part of that development where I not only was already starting to read more you know, napoleon Hill, dale Carnegie, dr Norman Vincent Peale or some of the authors that I would read Robert Kiyosaki and let's go, robert Greene like, goes on and on. I'm reading all this stuff and now I'm beginning to speak like that Because what you put in comes out. So garbage in, garbage out is a phrase that I like to use. Geico is a computer term. Greatness in garbage out is a phrase that I like to use. Geico is a computer term. Greatness in greatness out as well. And it's not always only the greatness that someone else puts into you, but as adults, we have to put that greatness into ourselves. So, again, there were some questions that you'd share prior to the show, and I think what I'll ultimately end up leaning towards is that there needs to be some sort of internal drive to deliver yourself from whatever situation you're in, and that's going to take putting different things inside of you that weren't there before, and then repeating those things and making sure that that's what's on your mind when you wake up, not the first thing you scroll on or click on, or somebody calls you and puts that mess inside your space. So that personal development was huge because I'd begun to again read, speak.
Speaker 2:Like you said, the associations were different and I stopped watching the news. That was what I had when I was growing up with my grandmother and mother. They watched the news and we mother, they watched the news and we would sit and watch the news. Now I watched Jeopardy, which I really enjoy, with one of my grandmothers. Again, they both since passed, but they would watch the news and we would see the news and hear the news and didn't really care about the news but be around the news. And I realized as I got older I'll never forget I think I was in Dallas, no, no, it was in Oklahoma and I was at a convention and I woke up. I think it was 530.
Speaker 2:I woke up, I went to go get breakfast down the hall and from maybe 6 o'clock to no, it wasn't even 6 o'clock, it was about 630 until about 7 o'clock I had heard about three deaths, murders, shootings. Right Before I even finished my Cheerios I'd heard about the fires that had taken place, the accidents that had taken place and the bad weather that was coming. I'm like, oh man, like people wake up to this, because now I'm looking at it objectively but also from a critical perspective that says what you put in is ultimately what shapes your day. And now I'm realizing that first thing in the morning people are getting up looking at how bad traffic is so they can complain about it, how bad weather is, how bad the economy is, how bad people are out in the streets hurting and raping and looting and pillaging, right, bad, bad, bad, bad, bad.
Speaker 2:Well, if you start off your day with so much negativity, what do you think the day is going to look like? Right? So that personal development for me, dr B, was life changing, was game changing. To be was life-changing, was game-changing. And again, I owe a lot of that to being inside that company where I saw examples of success and I said that too can be me.
Speaker 1:There's so much in there that I want to kind of unpack and talk about, because when I think of things like the news and the things that go out, and the news that you and I grew up with I think I'm a little bit older than you is way even as bad as it was then is so different than what people are being fed today. Because people are being fed an algorithm about who they are and just gives more of what is negative for them to have them, you know, continue to watch it and be, you know, mesmerized by it, sucked in.
Speaker 2:We're on the same wavelength. I knew exactly where you were going with that one, yep.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but then when I think of, like you know, the personal development and the things that we try to grow up and do and and making sure that we're finding ways that we can feed great things into our minds and, like you said, garbage in, garbage out and the things that we do just seems so important that we don't spend all of our time doing some of those other things. And now, when you start, I kind of lost my. And now when you start, I kind of lost my where we start going okay, so now I've read these books and now I'm going. Okay, how does that apply to me in my life right now? Because I don't. I may not have the right associations or the right people or be in the right rooms or the right groups to be able to now take advantage.
Speaker 1:And sometimes we get stuck, especially as Black men, with this belief system because we don't know our history very well. You know, when I took 18 men to Birmingham in the end of January, a couple were even my own sons, because I didn't grow up in the South, I grew up here in Denver, colorado, right, and so I didn't understand our history, but yet I was affected by it because I understood what I was told you know, and not even what my own family told me. And so, by not knowing the history of some of the things we're doing and then being fed all these things now I'm reading these things that says I can do anything, I'm the strong person you know the affirmations like you give your kids. That wasn't given to me and now we go. Okay, I guess I just have to complain.
Speaker 1:So, for you, in that identity and as you move forward, how did you now take that information that you're giving, or who were you starting to listen to? We turned off the news. Sometimes I think about our barbershops right, where it's we go, whatever we talk about that, the greatest athlete that's out there, and we know more about Michael Jordan, and we know more about LeBron James and we know more about you know Patrick Holmes, or whatever. Then we know about our own kids' life and somehow we feel like we're on teams that we're really not on. We don't play on the team, they're not paying us, they talk to us, right. So how did you pull yourself out of that and then be able to do the amazing things that you're doing now?
Speaker 2:able to do the amazing things that you're doing now. Again, I am an example of what's possible when you remain open to possibilities and take action on advice from people who are more successful in areas that you'd wish to grow. So that's my disclaimer the actions that I've taken, the actions that I've taken one was coming into Toastmasters. Another was a course that and this is me having gone through dozens and dozens, if not hundreds of books at this time audio books, courses, et cetera, and having an epiphany, if you will, and then I'll give you a story.
Speaker 2:I know exactly where I was when it happened. I was working at Cogent Communications. I was working in business-to-business internet sales for like the big boy internet right Gigs and 10 gigs and data centers and all that. And I'm searching on the map for a place that I can go and prospect and one building on the map had this little word on there. It was so tiny, it was odd that it even popped out to me the way that it did, but I'll tell you why it did. It said landmark education. And I'm like, wait a second, like all this stuff, just come back to me and said somebody told me about landmark and they made a reference to how it helped them to be the person that they are. The gentleman's name was Ray Higdon. He was in a different direct sales company, but I would listen to some of his conversation and he mentioned it whenever ago and when I saw it that day, probably some years later, it like a preview to the course and see if you want to invest in order to actually take the course, did that special evening and I'm like, yep, I'm signing up.
Speaker 2:I'm looking at the transformations that people were having, that were sharing their stories, et cetera, and I saw it as something again that I can have for myself. Well, sure enough, they boast a 92, 94% of the people that actually complete the landmark forum say that it has had a lasting impact in their lives and relationships. Yeah, I'm definitely one of those, right, because it absolutely did. And the way that they go about it is it's basically one big conversation that you're having. Now. You're having this conversation in a room full of others mine was physical, they do virtual now and that conversation is so impactful that it allows you to take the junk. That, effectively, is what we think is our past. But if you don't put your past in your past, your past is in your present, and whatever is in your present is ultimately creating your future.
Speaker 2:Yes, I didn't get that. I thought that the stories that I told myself and kept repeating were yeah, I'm just repeating conversations about stuff that happened, but I was creating a future that, ultimately, when I was saying certain things I didn't actually want to take place in my life, I was doing that. Nobody was making me do it, nobody was forcing me, nobody was. It had nothing to do with anyone else, it was me and when I realized that I was at the epicenter of this either amazing life that I have or this consistently being criticized and condemned life that I have that I was at the center of it and I was at the cause of it and that I can actually do something to make a difference, oh, I did that and I give a lot of credit to again that course, because a lot of that transformation came as a result of those three days in the evening.
Speaker 2:Now, again, I don't get any kudos or toasters or you know, free passes from Toastmasters from talking about them. I don't get any kudos or Toastmasters or kitchen sinks or like free passes from Landmark when I talk about them. I just share the things that were very helpful and impactful to me and in terms of being able to sit with here, sit here with you today and connect with you. Today, you know a brother to brother, man to man and feel perfectly fine. Right, with opening up, shooting and being vulnerable and having hard conversations about things that matter. Right, not just for myself but for others. And again, I may have deviated from the question, right?
Speaker 1:Not just for myself, but for others and again I may have deviated from the question, no-transcript and then, like you said, it becomes our future, because it becomes the excuse, the outside condition that we now use as why we're not able to be there and those people stood in our place so that we don't have to repeat the past. And one of the things that I think is another thing because you've talked about Toastmasters a lot and I think about communication, and one of the things that I've been and you do this, and so I wanted you to talk about a little bit is I believe that podcasting is one of the number one ways that we can take ourselves and become effective communicators. And when I think about, like you know, I was telling the person I talked to earlier today, I said you know, nine out of 90 percent of people who start a podcast never even do 10 episodes. And that's that's around of everybody, the 400 million people who have done podcasts. That's a round of everybody, the 400 million people who've done podcasts. When we think about our community, that's even higher. And then you think of out of that, have you ever done anything 10 times and been good at it? And somehow we think we do three episodes and we're supposed to be this fantastic, incredible communicator, but kind of, what you were able to do at Toastmasters is not only did you learn how to speak, but you learned how to listen.
Speaker 1:Not only did you learn how to listen, you learned how to ask good questions. You learned how to hear good questions. You learned how to communicate effectively, because there's a lot of intelligent folks that can use vocabulary that nobody else can understand, and you can and you can sound super smart, but if you're not, actually you know, I guess the biggest mistake in communication is believing that it happened. You know that you and I actually. You know, at the end, well, I did good, I did this great speech.
Speaker 1:Nobody had understood a word that I said, and so you do podcasting. And when I for almost everybody that I talked to, they said if you want to get good at sales, if you want to get good at talking to people, you want to be good a teacher, if you want to be good at whatever it is that you do, what if you started a podcast with about something that you know that you're competent in and just talk about it until you get really good at it? And so I mean, as you've done a podcast and you've done it and you've done Toastmasters and you know I was a communication major and you know I've ever found a median that has been able to help others in a quicker amount of time if they're willing to take on a thing like podcasting. There's a whole bunch of organizational other things that you have to be able to do to get you know, to help people to do it Right. What have you learned through the? You know I brought it here because we've been talking about it, so in that, space.
Speaker 2:So in the podcasting space, one of the things that I realized is that self-doubt will take you out. I love it. Self-doubt will take you out and I'll tell you my story. I don't. I'm not in my office right. As I shared, I'm in Jonesboro, arkansas Now, but in my office there is a little sticky note, little memo pad, and I had that little pad for probably over a year and it was just one little note and it had podcasting on there and it had these sites and things that I was going to check out and an idea for the name of it all on a little sticky pad. Post-it note that's the word I'm looking for. And it took until I hit 40 and went through an awakening in my own right that you know, my father died when he was 40. So right now I'm standing in shoes that he never saw and, as a father of a son and two daughters also, I'm in a place where I have an impact and a legacy that I'm responsible for creating and flourishing. Right Gardening, if you will, as the flower, I like to play on my last name gardening and growing into future generations. And in order to do that, because something can happen and to get a moment's notice. It's nice to have something that they can look back and see. That's more than just a picture of dad. I don't have the videos of my father saying nice and wonderful things to me. I don't have those memories. And even if he said them, he said them to someone else. Or if he said them to me, it's somebody else telling me that he said those things or was this way. It's not videos or recordings of me seeing him do that thing. So if something were to happen to me and it's actually something I should probably do is have something that I'm saying to my children that in the world of YouTube and Facebook and social media, this stuff is going to be around forever and to a degree it can be downloaded and saved and transferred and blah, blah, blah. It's important to have a record of success is the way that I'll put that. You know so off the family side, right, legacy, but more so like the record of your own success. And the success doesn't come with waiting. The success comes with doing the thing messing up, figuring out why you messed up and how you messed up, and then going back and doing it again. So now to the podcasting piece. Self-doubt Will Take you Out. I sat and I said you know what I'm going to do this podcast. So I took my phone and I set it up on a little tripod, right, and I pressed record, set the room up, just right. It was in a library, a little sound booth, and I finally recorded that first episode. And then I told myself I wasn't going to put it out because somebody else told me that you needed to have at least three to five episodes to launch your podcast effectively. So I had to battle with myself and that little voice just kept saying do it now, do it now.
Speaker 2:Often I wear a watch. I just took it off, but my watch says now, I love it. So, as a side note, people would see me wearing two watches. At times I'm like, dude, why are you wearing two watches? And I said, well, one is so that I can tell the time right. That's the one that says tick tock, tick tock. And then the other one is so that I always know what time it is. It's time to do it now, always, now. We live in the present, so it's only always now. I digress.
Speaker 2:So that first episode, I was going to wait until I had three or four more episode. I was going to wait until I had three or four more and then something said no, just put it out there, because if you don't you won't have a podcast. So I put it out there. This was April 15th roughly of this year. I want April 15th, 20th, something like that, the first the middle of April, and to date I have three seasons completed. The third one I'm admittedly late on putting out there, just being transparent, but it's 13 episodes that are up on the audio. I didn't put them up on video and I like to release them both at the same time, so I've got to go and put all my show notes and stuff in there.
Speaker 2:So for whoever is in season three that sees this, my bad, but I've already recorded an episode for season five with the host of Podmatch as the key episode to kick that off. And then season four you know Alex right and then season four is going to be a season that is going to be a solo season. So once I get three out, I'll start recording four, which it may not be a whole 10 or 12 episodes, probably more like five or six, but those episodes will be on things that are really important to me that I want to make sure that I share uninterrupted, uninhibited, without, is a little different, because I came from a personal development and Toastmaster space, but that doesn't mean that a person needs to go through all of that in order to start a podcast. Phone subscription to Buzzsprout and I think literally, that's it right A phone and a free subscription to Buzzsprout and you can be up and live. Youtube is free, right, so you can be up and live, literally put your podcast out there and, like you said, the key is consistency Do more than three episodes, more than 10.
Speaker 2:I think I've got, with the season that will come out, somewhere close to 40 under my belt just in the last few months. But what happened in the last few months was so many connections that I made and so many podcasts that I've now been invited on to. I actually just went and actually met a gentleman who I was on his podcast when I was in Beloit, wisconsin, and, ironically enough, two weeks later, because of this transportation company, I'm back in Beloit, gave him a call. He's like yeah, come by the office, we dropped the load, I go to the office, we have a great time. For a couple hours. He gave me a book, took some pictures and it was just a very surreal experience because it's not often that you meet people that you podcast with, especially through these virtual platforms.
Speaker 2:So the quality of my questions, I'll say, has gotten better over time and the quality of the conversations on the podcast have gotten better over time, and that's because I decided that I was going to continue to do podcasts over time, like right now again, I'm traveling, I'm on a podcast.
Speaker 2:Sometimes I've had to change my schedule because of this new endeavor to where my recordings for my show are only at like three or four in the morning and if a person's willing to record at three or four in the morning, I'm with you three or four in the morning and that's just what time you have to record, because if I'm on the road and I'll get off the road, then I'll have that time where it's uninterrupted whether I'm at home or on the road at three or four in the morning. So I've had to make some changes, some adapt adaptations to things that are growing in my life and it's still been a fun journey that I wouldn't have traded for anything else. So that sum this all up. It doesn't matter where you are in your development journey in your life journey. Sorry, there's a fly that literally heard something randomly buzzing and I probably shouldn't do this live on camera, but yet you know some things, because he'll be in the room with me all night and then I got to do it.
Speaker 1:Oh, you got to take that fly out now.
Speaker 2:Oh he's done. Oh my gosh, it's one of those things where we don't have to make. Yeah, it's some live things that go on on my podcast. I did one from a lounge and a deer because I sat outside to do it. A deer walked by while we were recording the show and I think this is going to come out in October and the host he was like can we see it? I said sure.
Speaker 2:I've turned the light off and I point to the deer and he starts walking while we're recording and he's like I've never had A. The theme of his show was stories horror stories from previous clients, and he said that he wants the show to feel like we're two friends at a bar having a drink. So I dropped the load. I went to the Churchill Lounge, got a drink and we were two friends at a bar having a drink.
Speaker 1:With the deer.
Speaker 2:And the deer right. So it was literally that feeling that was created and, again, it's just so amazing to have these relationships to be able to be created through these virtual mediums. You know Zoom. You can have a free account that records up to 40 minutes, so now you've got your video and your audio all done at once. So those that are out there that are thinking about a podcast yes, you'll be one of millions. So what? You're one of billions of people and you can still do something. You know to make a difference in this world. Look at the people that make a difference in this world, in this world, Look at the people that make a difference in this world. They're just people, too, and you can start that today. So through this journey again, quality of conversation has increased, questions have gotten better and I've had some really cool relationships come as a process, a part of this process, oh, my gosh when I think through some of the things you know, as I started, you know, and people, the excuses they give.
Speaker 1:They have this great idea, you know, like yourself, and they write something on a, on a post-it note or a sticky note that says they're going to start it. And then you said, you know, when in doubt it'll take you out. You know a self-doubt will take you out and I think like, well, I'm not going to make any money at it. Well, you are. You're just thinking about money differently. You know I I did one called the mile high real estate spotlight podcast, when I, you know I still do mortgages, but when I was heavily into the mortgage industry and all I did was call up real estate agents and say I'd love to highlight you on my podcast. You know, and let you talk about yourself on my podcast. I will ask you four questions. It'll take 20 minutes and I will just ask you who you are, what makes you a great real estate agent, what do you do differently and how can people get ahold of you? I did that In six months. I had 75 episodes because every real estate agent that I called wanted to be on the podcast. I could care less if I had any subscribers. They didn't even know if I needed subscribers because they weren't trying to get my subscribers. They were trying to take the footage from the podcast that I created and put it on their social media so other people could hear me telling them how great they are and me asking them a question about how great they are right, and they can answer it without having to get on by themselves and say I'm great, right. I had somebody else ask me a question. I will say today that's almost three years ago that I did that. I still get loans from those 75 podcasts that I did from those agents, right? So I monetized the podcast and it made thousands and thousands of dollars without any subscribers that need to be on that podcast because it wasn't for that. And so there's just this such of a belief that if I get on and I start talking, somehow I'm going to be bad. And absolutely you will be, because you know how to do it and if you've had some formal training you're going to be better at it. But you haven't been doing this medium, you don't even have to do it where you're interviewing people, but it's just getting started at something that has the ability to spring you forward and, I would say, for networking, like I have. You see, we're becomingthepersoncom is here. I've started a community that will launch on September 1st I don't know when you guys are watching this, it might already be launched where I'm taking all 400 of the folks that I've now done podcasts with and I'm saying I've learned so much. It's been incredible networking.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to share it all with you without letting you be part of a community, like I'm thinking Paul, I want Paul to be on and I'm going to convince him somehow some way to talk about his business in our community.
Speaker 1:Because if somebody can come in the community and say, hey, I don't know what I'm doing, I don't know how to do it, I don't even know if this would be something for me and he does a half hour, 45 minute webinar and they connect and now he has the ability to teach them how to go do what he's doing and then their life changes because they're part of a community and I'm going to try to convince as many people as I can. Hey, go do a podcast about it, talk about it, you don't have to do, I don't need you to do a million episodes. I don't need you to do a radio show. I don't need you to do a TV show. I don't need you to be famous, I need you fact that you said my kids and my legacy, like you know, 40, 50, 60, 70 years from now, when you and I aren't here. 70 years from now, maybe we'll be, but probably not, you know 70 years from now, 85, maybe maybe 90 years from now.
Speaker 2:science and technology are growing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly, You're the health guy, but at the same time, you know my great grandkids will know the essence of who I was, because they'll be able to watch a thousand episodes of if they want to or if they don't want to talking and them not know who their grandfather, their great grandfather, was and what he believed in and what his values were and what those ethics were and all those things that the morals that you talked about, that you and I got to share tonight and be able to do that. So thank you, Thank you for sharing that, because, even if that's not our intention in this podcast is to convince you to do a podcast, we want you to do a podcast. Right, you wrote a book. You know I know one of them's the hidden healthcare gold mine and you know I want you to be able to talk about, you know your books and get people to listen to them.
Speaker 1:This isn't our last conversation. This is too good. I know we're at our hour and a little over an hour right now, but and we had some technical difficulties but I kind of wanted to give you the opportunity to talk about all the things that people can connect. I know if they go to paulhealth. They can find all your books and stuff, but maybe give some highlights of some of the things that can help them in their lives.
Speaker 2:Absolutely so the a couple of things.
Speaker 2:If you are an employee, and if you are an employee of a company that offers you health care in the United States and that health plan begins with a, b, a, U, a C or an A like, for example, a Blue Cross, a UnitedHealthcare, a Cigna or an Aetna you have a responsibility as the steward of your own money to investigate why the individuals that are choosing those plans chose those plans and what other options are available to you and your colleagues at your company.
Speaker 2:It's not solely the responsibility of the C-suite, though they do carry a fiduciary responsibility to make sure that they're handling the dollars for their health plan, specifically self-funded health plans as best they can.
Speaker 2:And it's also the employees that need to know, if their plans begin with a, b, a, u, a, c or an A, that they're likely paying anywhere between 15 to 30 percent more for lower quality health outcomes, and this is all documented by case study after case study after case study. So from that instance, I don't want to go far into the books, because the three books that are out are aimed more at the employers to better understand it, and, as an employee, it makes sense for you to also understand that if you have a B-U-C-A, a BUCA plan, that there are other options out there that can save you money, put money again back into your household's family, your family bank, as well as create a better health outcome when you do have issues right. It's one of those things where you know I have the philosophy or mantra that I'd say I don't like to complain about things unless I'm willing to change them.
Speaker 2:So I don't complain about healthcare without providing a change. I don't complain about education without providing a change, which my 20-year goal is to own my own school. I'm halfway through, using insurance as a means to financial freedom and retirement, of course, education and empowerment as well, and then going on to open my own school. So I don't complain about things that I'm not willing to change. So for those of you out there again, don't complain about things unless you're going to do something to change them, and I think I'll leave it at that. Again, I just want to be respectful of the time, so please connect with me on LinkedIn. Paul Howard Flowers Jr. Paul H Flowers Jr is what you can just type into Google, basically, and everything comes up, whether it be a podcast, amazon IMDb page, youtube channel, whatever it's there, and I'm very accessible. I'm open to communicate, have conversations and, overall, be a steward and a person of service to those that are, again, open to being served.
Speaker 1:I'd love the fact that you came on to talk to us today, and several reasons in my mind of you know what you've been able and bring to the table with me. It's very clear that you're a super intelligent man and you've done a lot of things and worked on a lot of ways. But you're real and sometimes we don't get that right. We get the polished. You know I've been doing this for 20, 30, 40 years. I possibly you know, when I'm looking at it as an individual, I possibly can't do what you did because you're so polished. Or right now, where I'm at in my own personal development belief system is I don't believe I can do it, although I know I can, because you look so polished. What you brought to us today is hey, these are four or five things that I did. All of you can go, do those exact same things, get the exact same outcomes, and you can be as successful as you want to be. And not once did you say I needed to go to school, get a good education, so I could get a good job, so I could be happy. What you said is I had things that are happening in my life and I saw an opportunity and instead of waiting for that opportunity to knock me on my head, I went after it. A gentleman came into my office and he told me where I was cleaning and he told me that I didn't communicate well. So you took advantage and said wait a minute, I'm going to go learn how to communicate well. And you went and did it. You said well, you know, when you went to the landmark education thing, you said you know my thoughts may be a little bit jumbled up, so let me go figure out how to put those together. You know I don't understand my position in life. So you know, I joined the Masons and then I got some clarity there.
Speaker 1:All of these things, folks, if you're watching this for the first time, are things that you can go. Do it's as you see, things that come your way, because things are going to come your way all the time. Take advantage of them. There's an example. I would even encourage you I can probably promise you I guess I could be wrong If you were to go to Paul's website and you were to say you know, I need some help, I'm lost, I don't know where to go. Can you maybe direct me in the direction? I don't think he's going to just go. You know, cut off, delete. I don't have time for you. He's going to do that, right, and so I would take advantage of this. This is your first podcast that you of these that you've watched. There's a whole bunch more that you can go watch with people just like Paul, who are out there who are doing things that you know.
Speaker 1:Once you do one thing, there's a snowball effect that happens, and once you start improving yourself he talked about self-improvement, he talked about some of the books that he's read. He's talked about some of the associations that he's run Once you start doing, the snowball starts happening. And when that snowball is happening, you see success, opportunities come your way. And once you've learned how to take advantage of an opportunity like I need to speak better then when an opportunity says I can go make a thousand dollars a day by driving a car boom, I have the ability to take advantage of it. If you don't understand it, also, if you want to, there's so many things that you can do that he's been able to do.
Speaker 1:He's written four books, right? You probably believe you're never going to write a book, right? I've written. I've written four books now, and I was a special ed kid that told me that I was never going to write anything right, but I got around the right associations and the right people, and so, again, thank you for being on. Do you have any one last thoughts that you'd love to share with everybody before we finish today?
Speaker 2:There's a quote that I enjoy so much in my office at home and, for those of you who may check out a podcast, a video version on YouTube, you'll see it on my bookshelf and it says be the change you wish to see in the world. It's such an important quote to me. Mahatma Gandhi or Mahandas, depending on who you look at Gandhi is the one most noted for sharing that quote. Gandhi is the one most noted for sharing that quote, and it's so notable to me that I have it tattooed on me also that when something's that important right, you make a commitment and, yes, tattoos can be removed, but there is a permanence of a tattoo, and I'm not just saying this to have everybody go out and get tattoos of your favorite quotes. What I'm saying is that when you have a decision to do a thing, do what you need to do in order to make it permanent. If you have to put it on posters all around, if you have to tattoo it on yourself, if you have to put it on your screen that you look at the most, you have to reprogram you, because if you don't, someone else is going to continue to put their programs in you. Wow, yes, they will Period. So you make the choice of taking control of your own life and being able to reprogram yourself because, believe it or not, you are the result of somebody's decisions and programs that have been had and laid out there for your life. You can continue to live like that and that's okay. Many people will, and that's fine.
Speaker 2:And for those of you who are out there that are saying there's something more to my life than what I'm doing, there's something more to this relationship, there's something more to my ability to parent effectively, there's something more out there for me, then you have to be the person that is in charge of identifying what that is, finding the right associations or avenues in order to bring that out, and then doing something over and over again, right, consistently throughout time, to see that you, that you know, is there.
Speaker 2:And so with that, again, I'll just share again my gratitude once more for dr b you have me on the show and for your audience for listening again, through the difficulties and technologies and all that stuff, right, for those that are stuck around, you're still here. We have some comments in the chat for those able to see it on facebook and other places that you're streaming it. So again, I'm just grateful and really appreciative to have had this opportunity and I appreciate you for allowing me to continue to put this legacy out there for my children and other family members and friends, colleagues, associates, what have you to be able to learn? Glean maybe just one thing from in this time we spent together.
Speaker 1:Wow. Well, thank you. I love Be the Change. It's one of my favorite quotes that I have written, but I might I'm thinking now I'm going to put self doubt will take you out. So thank you for that. I mean like self doubt is going to take you out. So again, thank you for being on. You guys, go ahead and hit whatever buttons that you have to hit so you can be notified when these come out. Please go ahead and hit subscribe. I'd love to have you guys on here Go to becomingthepersoncom. Sign up to be part of the community that has the ability to change your life. You guys have an amazing, awesome, incredible day. I believe you're God's greatest gift. He loves you. If you allow him to, I look forward to talking to you guys on the next one. Have an amazing day.