Putting yourself in a position to be successful w/ Will Lucas

that success is either possible for us. Or we might believe that it's possible for us, but we don't know what to do in order to accomplish that success that we so desire. So I'm gonna tell you two stories today, and this is these are my stories, and hopefully, UM, whenever I whenever I talk to people, you know, whether it be talks at conferences, whether it be keynote speeches

or whatever, I'm really trying to give you. So if I'm telling you my story is not because my story is so great, It's because I'm hoping that there's something in my story that you can take and use for yourself in order to find your success. So the first story is a story about how I found at least the first few steps into the career that I'm in today. Because um, I'm on preface my story with this. There's a quote by Steve Jobs, and you, if you're listening

to this podcast, you've heard me say this before. And it's a quote by Steve Jobs that I firmly believe in. It's one of my favorite quotes. I do have a couple of favorite quotes, but this one is among like the top three of my favorite quotes, and it says, you can't connect the dots looking forward, you can only connect the dots looking backwards. And what that means for me at least I I believe know how he meant it.

But what I get from that quote is this is, if you look back over your life, you will find clues that dictate your present circumstance. So if you find yourself doing a particular job and you are like really really good at doing that job, if you look back at whether you were you know, a kid, or whether you had a particular job, or whether you had certain experiences, you will find, if you look hard enough, certain instances in your life that says you will be good at

this particular thing. And that's what connecting the dots means. It's not something like, you know, super highbrow. It's not like, you know, it's not super deep. It's it's really a simple thing. If you look backwards, you will see things that connect to what you find yourself doing today. And it's hard to do looking forward, if not in some cases, um,

very very very difficult. So we want to do certain things in the future, but we don't always know what, like and and I believe in like, like what is the divine plan for you? Like? Because if I would have told you at you know, sixteen or seventeen, what I wanted to be doing, it's not what I'm doing today. But I'm really really happy doing what I'm doing today, but it's not something I could have articulated, you know, years ago. So anyway, all right, so let's you know,

we set the stage with that particularly quote. You can't connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect the dots retrospectively looking backward. All right, all right, So there was a time when I wanted to be in the music of business. I wanted to be um a producer. I wanted to be a music producer and a songwriter. And so I'm from Toledo, Ohio, which is you know, if you drive fast it's like half an hour from Detroit, but if you like relatively close to the speed limit,

it's like forty five minutes. It's a little bit south of Detroit. And you know, you know where it's at, Look on the map. If you don't know where's at, Google Google Map it all right. So I'm from Toledo, Ohio, not known for like a lot of things other than you know, we have i think one of the top rated like minor league baseball teams in the country, and um, very rust belt, midwestern, you know, middle class, blue collar sort of city, you know. And I wanted to be

in the music business. So being an ambitious kid, you know, I've I've always been super ambitious and always like strategizing about, Okay, I know what I want to do, how do I get there. I've always been that way. It's been my life's part of my DNA. So I was thinking as a youth, like how how can I find my way

to the music business in Toledo? And I found myself at a teen summit that a local radio station UM was putting on, you know, or at least the program director was on a panel at this team summit that was happening at a particular library in my hometown. And so after the team something, I almost remember what I was wearing that day, which is like super wild because I don't remember like a lot of details about like my my childhood and youth. But I remember, like almost

verbatim what I was wearing a day. But it has nothing to do with the point of this story, only that it's like the good point in my life that obviously was like super critical to um what I'm doing today.

So anyway, so at this team summit, the local program director for the radio station was on a panel at the library that I'm an attendance of, and I'm with a friend of mine that I was going to high school with, and we were for some reason, we're at this team summit and we were just there to hear about I don't even know what the team summing was about, but I guess it was about teen issues because it

was a team summing. So the program director is talking, and in my mind at that team summit, I'm sitting like in the last row and I'm thinking, like, yo, I would want to be in the music business. And so I'm in Toledo. The closest thing to the music business is the radio station. And so this is how my mind works, and my mind has always worked this way. So I'm like putting together the pieces and so active

the team something is over. I go up to the program director, who's like in the only he's the program program director of the only hip hop and R and B radio station in town. There's only one at this age. So I go up to him. I say, hey, my name's Will Lucas and I want to be in the music business. And so he says, um, well, the best thing I can tell you to do is find an internship somewhere. So a matter of fact, a matter of fact, because there was a lot of like teenagers like in

line because of tea something. There's a lot of teenagers in line waiting to talk to him. And so he said, just come out to the radio station like tomorrow or whatever and we'll talk some more. Because it's a lot of teenager in line. So I go out to the radio station. Had to be the next day because that's kind of the kind of guy it was. So I go out to the radio station and he says, again, you know, we're sitting in this I guess, like a little tiny three thousand white radio station like way out

of town. Like it's I mean, I think Midwestern country, like no man's land. This is like pure flyover. So like the radio station is like in like places you don't go. So, but for whatever reason, that's where the radio station was. So I'm out there, and you know, I'm sitting inside the radio station, inside the studio. And he says again, so, the best thing I can tell you to do is find an internship somewhere. And so as a matter of fact, we need an intern here

at the radio station. So I'm so my internship started that day at the radio station. And so I would go out there every day after high school. I should say every day because it was like three days to the next point in this story. And so I would go out after um school for the next several days directly out to the radio station and my um Buick Riviera. I would drive out there, and I would see um

about like what he wanted me to do. So three days into my internship, which I really wasn't like doing anything. I was just watching him do radio. I was watching and b on their personality. And so three days in he put me on the air with him during the five o'clock traffic jam. So mind you, he works from three pm to eight pm, like Afternoon Drive, which is like beyond the morning show is the number one radio slot for radio personality. This morning show is like the

King of the Hill. Afternoon Drive is the next biggest um like time slot for radio personalities. So I go out there. I hang out with him during his shift. After I get a school obviously, so I probably make it out there like three thirty four o'clock. Um, and he puts me on the air with him during the five o'clock traffic jam my third day into my internship, and so, um, he did this five o'clock traffic jam, which is like when they do this you know mix

and you know, I'm Will Lucas. I'm like, I don't know what to do, is but I'm just like hanging out with him on the air, you know, from five to eight pm when his shift is over. So I did that for a couple of days. You know, we found I'm sort of chemistry obviously because he let me continue to be on the air with him every day after five o'clock and so signs my phone and so three days into it, we're going to air, did that every day. I went through like it's so crazy to

think about. I went through multiple you know, like radio names, like like because I was trying to find like what was my name going to be for the radio. His name was Charlie Mack, and I'm like, Okay, I gotta find a name for myself. So my name's Lucas. And so we was just like messing around with a bunch of names. So, you know, the at one point in my you know, early early early, like the early weeks of my radio career, my name was like night Train

for whatever reason, I have no idea. So then then there was a point where, um, I remember being in the production room with him and we were talking about, Okay, what is my radio name going to be? And um so he was like, after we like probably throughout ten fifteen names. It's like roomors. Tiny's like at four by six rooms like super duperteen. So I remember he was like, whenever you figured out, let me know, brother, And I heard him say butter. He said brother, but I heard butter.

So my first radio name, my first official radio name, was butter because when he said whenever you figured out, let me know, butter, I heard Butter. He said, brother, so Butter, it was so my name on the radio. My first name on the radio was Butter, and that's what they called me for years UM in my radio career. So six months after Um doing the five o'clock traffic jam with him, he put me UM in this Saturday

I gave. I got a Saturday night show. I was eighteen years old doing radio on the Saturday night UM in my hometown six to ten every Saturday night. And I had the number one radio show in the city on Saturday nights in Toledo. And mind you this particular radio station, and this for some some of you guys like you, this will mean nothing. So I'll try to make it like parallel or something that will make sense to you. This is this is a three thousand watt

radio station. The biggest radio stations in town have a hundred thousand watts or more. So think of you know, like this. Let's say we're talking about cars, and so I am driving a UM A Nova, like a Honda Civic, like a Priest. I am driving one of those, and the biggest dogs in town. The biggest radio stations have

like Dodge Rams F one fifties or you get. So we are in the tiniest situation in town, the bottom of the totem pole with regards to the power of the radio sate radio tower that this particular radio station has. So anyway, um, I'm doing these Saturday night shows, but I have the number one show in the city. I'm like eighteen years old. And so he remember he was on the afternoon drive. Six months after I had the Saturday night show, they moved him to the morning show

and I got his afternoon drive show. So I was eighteen, just about to turn nineteen, and I'm doing drivetime radio in my hometown three to eight. And so by this time I had graduated. So I'm doing three o'clock to a p m. Monday through Friday. And so I had the number one show in my demographic because I was My job was to target eighteen to twenty four. Eighteen is four years old people who are in the listening audience, because that was a coveted demographic of people who listened

to the radio because they spend money. So advertisers want to target that demographic. And so I'm doing that. And so suffice it to say, like all of those skills that I learned. Again, I didn't want to do right. I never wanted to do right. Yo, Like, don't forget that point in the story. I happened to be good at something. I learned very quickly, how to be engaging.

I learned very quickly. How to build production skills. I learned very quickly, you know, how to um make things sound a particular way to make people want to listen to it, and just creating engaging content. And so I did this very early in my career with the intent

of finding my way into the music business. And so story number one, the whole like crux of this conversation is talking about how I thought I was doing this particular thing to get to what I wanted, But there was another plan for my life, and so I found if you look at what I'm doing today, I have a podcast that's her all around the world because and I'm able to do this. I produced this podcast, I do the booking for this podcast. I obviously record myself.

I'm in my basement right now recording this podcast. And I'm doing all of these things with the skills I learned at seventeen and eighteen years old, having taken an internship with the intent of being a music producer and songwriter. I couldn't have scripted this. I could not have scripted this because I was doing it with a particular intent. But I did it well because I knew if I did it well, it would put me in position. It's just a different position that I thought I would be in.

But I'm living a dream today. I'm living a dream that I didn't know I had. But it's a better dream than the one I thought I had. Story number one, Story number two, let's talk about it. So Afro Tech and so I'm doing podcasts. So, oh, I gotta see this thing about podcasts. Man, I've slipped into the podcast game. So I've talked about this, maybe not on this podcast, but the one I'm about to tell you about. So a couple of years ago had to be what like

five years ago? Now, um, this is before. This is pre me being involved with afro Tech. So I'm talking to a friend of mine. He's an advisor. He's a white guy. He's an advisor to a startup that I'm founding. I'm trying to get going at this particular stage. And he comes to me and he says, you know, what would it take you Remember he's a white guy. He says, what would it take to get more black kids interested

in tech? And I said, well, they need to see a black Mark Zuckerberg, like somebody who looks like them and is realizing success. And because that's what I believed in that moment. And at the end of that conversation, I kicked myself because I'm like, yo, like, we have super successful black people in tech, we just don't know who they are. And so I went and after that podcast, after that conversation, I went and I'm I'm thinking to myself, like, what can I do to be part of the conversation

of elevating the names of black technologists? What can I do to be a part of the conversation of making sure that we have representation? So I said, Yo, I did radio for all these years. I did radios, Leado, I did radio and Detroit. I know how to do this. And so I'm like, I'm gonna put together I'm gonna do a podcast and it's called Today. I mean, I'm kind of jumping ahead and the story, but just for to save the time, I did. This podcast is called of ten podcast. It was white. I was only gonna

do ten episodes. That's why it's called of ten podcasts. One of ten, two of ten, three of ten. You guys are smart. Thank you for following on. So I did this podcast called of ten podcast. It's still in my iTunes, you can find it today. And the point was to highlight these super successful black people in tech, and I wanted to share their stories, and so I did this podcast. I was only intending to do ten episodes. Again, it's called of ten podcasts, and that was gonna be it.

So I did these ten episodes. I had like fantastic people on there. I mean like Crime de La Crime, people who were at the top of the game in these this podcast, in this season of black technology. So I'm like the first episode was like my my guy who's a friend of mine, mcin Day at the egg Bow. He was like one of the lead engineers at Facebook, friends with Mark Zuckerberg. I mean, this guy's he's fantastic and he's he's actually founder of um deaf Color. He's

founder of Deaf Color. I was about to google it, so sorry for the falls there. I was about to google it, but he just came to me. He's founder of deaf color like a black um kind of cohort or collective of black engineers in Silicon Valley. So, um my guy mackind So he was the first episode that I had, and I had like a run of ten episod so olds phenomenal people who were in this podcast that I did. And I'm a nobody, Like I'm a guy in Toledo and in his basement doing this podcast.

And people are saying, yes, I will do your show. And so I'll save another day to talk about how to get great people for your podcast, but for tonight we'll talk about, you know, putting yourself in the position to be successful. So did this podcast called often podcasts fantastic series of um highly successful black technologists put it out and you know Twitter is like yo, people on Twitter, not tweater, not actual Twitter people on Twitter. We're like, yo,

fantastic run UM episode six. I love that episode fire Remember when he said this episode like seven? She said that, and I was like bars, So it was like it's fantastic run. When is your next season? And I'm like there is no next season? Like this is it? Like I'm I'm working on other things. I did this to contribute to the conversation, like I was intending to do several several seasons, but I did it, and like, this

is like a gift to the world. I didn't even have any sponsors for this, Like I did it because I wanted to contribute to the conversation. So like we're five we were five seasons in. I'm kind of jumping ahead of the story, but we did more seasons. But the point is, after that first season of of Tim Podcast, Um, I heard about this thing called afro Tech and I'm like, how did I not know? It was the first year of afro Tech, And I'm like, how did I not

know that this conference happened? Because half the people I interviewed on the of Tim podcast podcast we're on the stage of the first afro Tech and I said, I'm never gonna miss another afro Tech. I'm never gonna miss another one. And so I knew then, like I was sold, Like I didn't I had. I didn't go to the conference that year because I didn't know about it, but I saw pictures and I'm like, yep, this is my thing. I'm never gonna miss another one. I'm here when until

they stopped doing it. I knew that the first moment I heard about afro Tech. So obviously I go to the second year of afro Tech and I knew, I absolutely knew I was gonna have a life changing experience. I don't know why I knew it, I just knew it. And so again, I'm a content creator, so I said, you know what, I know, I'm gonna have fantastic experience.

I'm gonna vlog every day of this conference. So I'm taking my camera and I'm gonna record, not with the intent of like putting out, you know, like a bunch of content, but I'm just gonna record, put a bookmark there because we're gonna come back to that. I planned on doing a video, and I said, I'm gonna put out a video about my experience going to the first to my first afro Tech, which is the second afro Tech that ever happened. And so I was know it's

gonna have a good time. So I did it. So I took my camera recorded everything about my trip to getting on an airplane, matter of fact, getting in the car, on the way to the airport, getting to the airport, sitting in the airport, landing in San Francisco, first day vibes like the whole situation, and I said, um, and

remember I did this up Tim podcast. I was still doing the podcast at this moment, so I'm so I took and I come from radio, so as I'm telling you, the dots are connected, I come from radio, and I have this podcast that is called The of Tim Podcast, which is a tech based podcast at this time, so coming from radio, I'm a DJ. I do club nights. So I said, I'm gonna print flyers to take with me to AFRO Tech. And on these flyers, it's not

a club night, it is promoting my podcast. So everybody, because I saw who was going to be speaking on stage because it was on the website, So I said, everybody, who's gonna be speaking on stage, I'm printing flyers about my podcast with their faces on and saying, Hey, if you like Jessica Matthews Uncharted Play Present Day, Uncharted Power,

check out my podcast because she's on my podcast. Hey, if you like Paul Judge, several companies, a whole bunch of patents, a whole bunch of money, a whole bunch of night's clothes. If you like Paul Judge and you and he's gonna be probably in the conversation because I think he's on stage, but he's gonna be in the conversation at Afrotech. He's on my podcast. You should check out on podcast. Here's a flyer, here's the link to

go get it subscribed today. So I took this. Um, these flyers probably printed five dred flyers, and I'm recording video. So I'm the only person there. I'm the only person there at the second afro Tech who's passing out flyers for anything, because there's not even club people passing out flyers for the parties at night. There's only me passing out flyers and people like, yo, where the party at? And I'm like, no, not a party, it's a podcast.

So I'm doing that. So people all over the situation are, you know, taking my flyers because anything gets they're about to get turned out that night, but they're about to subscribe. They don't even know it yet. So I do that. So I'm sudden the stage for something here, all right. So I'm recording every day and I'm passing out flyers. I decide the first night sitting in a friend of mine's apartment, um because he left because he said, you know what, you don't have to get a hotel coming

to San Francisco. I'm out of town. You just had keys to my my place. So he let me stay in this house, in this um department or whatever. He was a basement in San Francisco um, but it was somebody's basement, but he made an apartment or they made department. He's written it way to a new weeks right now. So he let me stay there. He was not in town, so he's like, you can stay at my place while you're there. No reason for you to get a hotel. So I said, you know what, I'm not at I'm

not at one of the parties. I'm gonna go back to the place and edit the video that I recorded. I remember, I think the first the first Apple Tech I went to was like a Thursday, Friday, Saturday. It could be Friday, Saturday, Satnday. I don't remember too many details that are not helpful to the story. So I record all day Thursday, record all day, and I'll get back to the room and I'm like, I'm not gonna do like a big video. I'm gonna do a video every day. So I record. I edited down all the

video from that Thursday and edited down real quick. It might have been I could look on Google right now or YouTube. I'm not gonna but I edit all the video down from that Thursday. Might have been five minutes long, might have been ten, and I don't remember. You can find it because it's still on YouTube right now afro Tech. You can go see it and it might have been

five minutes long. But it was the video that I took from that day and it was like my experience, my journey of being at the first afro Tech for my for myself, and edited the video down, put it up on YouTube that night. So on Friday, I'm walking into the conference and people are like, yo, I saw your video from yesterday? How would you do that? Because that was yesterday? Like nobody this is seen nobody, Like this is no TikTok, there's no Instagram stories, there's none

of that. Like nobody puts out video that fast and quality video edited, like not just like hit record and just play some stuff. Like I edited the videos that night, a bunch of video edited that night, put it up on YouTube Friday. People like, yo, fire video, I saw your stuff from yesterday? How did you do that? Whatever. I did the same thing all day Friday. I recorded all day Friday, edited it when I got back to um my Guy's place, put it up on YouTube Saturday.

People like, oh my god, how are you doing this? You are here, but then you on YouTube from being here fast how so I'm like, this is what I do. So did that every day at the conference. Put it on YouTube asap, not playing around what I didn't know what was What I didn't know what was happening was I was building a name and reputation for myself as being a content creator in this scene of black technology. I had no clue. All I knew was I went

with the intent of giving people black technologists. Specifically. I wanted to give people FOMO. For what reason, I don't know, because I've never been an afro tech before. I just knew that. I said, I'm never gonna miss another afro tech. This is my first year going. I'm never gonna miss another afro Tech. But I want to make sure anybody who should be here never misses another appro tech. I want to give you FOMO like you missed out. I had no idea what it was gonna be like. It

could have been like, ah, smoking mirrors. I had no idea, but I knew in my heart of hearts that this was gonna be a life changing experience. So I edited the video, put it up fast, built a name for myself. Didn't even know I was building a name for myself. So I went to the next Afro Tech, which would have been eighten, and I took my wife because I'm like, yo,

you've got to see this thing. Like there are thousands of black people in San Francisco, and there ain't that many black people in San Francisco, So I'm sure the airport was like security, because why are all these black people coming to Savings? Like why all of it? Why? Why why are they here? Um? But we're all like pulling up in San Francisco. So I took my wife

and I said, you've got to see this thing. It's like thousands of black people, all of them are in tech, and they all talking about tech, and they're talking about building million dollars, billion dollar, trillion dollar companies. They're all talking about algorithms, they're all talking about crypto, they're all talking about like strange stuff to most people. You've got

to come see it. So I took her and I didn't record this year, and so this is when I knew that I was building a name for myself because everywhere I went, people was like, where's your camera? And so I'm like, oh, y'all really like on that? Like I didn't not. I didn't realize people were looking for me to be recording. And so this year I'm specifically talking about the first time I realized that people wanted

what I was doing. Because you see the comments, like, you see the likes, you see the shares, but you don't really like see people and you didn't you don't really know that those likes were clicked by a person. I mean content creators know what I'm talking about. Anyway, I didn't realize people would miss it. But I was putting out all this content about tech, putting out all this content on my podcast, putting out these videos about entrepreneurship and business, which you can still find on my

on my YouTube page. UM, and I remember being back home. UM. Actually, let me tell this first floor duck out of here because this is an important part of the story. And so because I'm like a big believer in UM, like you gotta see yourself there, representation is so important and sometimes when you don't have an ecosystem around you, it's hard to have that reputation in this and being an afro Tech season right now, we're like a couple of

weeks from afro Tech. This is why this particular epis so it's so important and why you cannot not be there. All right, So I took my wife. I told you all eighteen and at the end of the conference, on the way home, I'm like, we're in the airport and I'm like, it wasn't that fantastic, Like that was like thousands of people black people and we all intech doing this thing. And she's like, yeah, it's beautiful, fantastic conference. That was amazing. You should not come back unless you

on stage. I'm like, oh, how I'm gonna get on stage? I don't know. I'm like I don't understand, like because I'm thinking, like the people that I'm looking at on stage are people who should be on stage, you know what I'm saying, Like the people who are on that stage like doing things like you know, because you know, you know how it is, like you just feel like you know everybody's got it, but like you're trying to qualify yourself and it's difficult to do that. So I'm like,

how am I gonna get on that stage? Do you see that credentials? Do you see their resumes? Do you see the money they raised? Do you see the exit you know bag? Do you see like all of that? And I'm like, I don't know how I'm getting on that stage. But you know, I'm talking to my wife. I'm like, I challenge accepted, Like, I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I got a podcast, I got a couple startups. I got one, two, three, five, six that failed, but I'm gonna figure it out. So that's

obviously November. So I said this want to do. I'm a big believer in vision boards because like you need to see it. So I put a picture. I still have the picture because I took it down off my vision board. UM, but it was a picture I found on Google. I just google afro Tech and I found a picture at our bay. Um. He's a um a designer for like video games black Dude, and he spoke at afro Tech that year. So I found this picture because it was in particularly that I was looking for

a picture. I't war speaking to afro Tech. I just googled Afro Tech and I looked for pictures and that was the picture I chose. So I took this picture of our on stage and I put it on my vision board. So you gotta remember, every single day, I'm looking at this picture and others um about, you know, what I want to bring into my life. And so I put this picture on my vision board and I'm looking at it every day. And I said, the next time that they opened up a call for speakers, I'm

going to apply. I don't know if I'm getting on stage, but I'm gonna apply. I gotta a drink. So I take um this picture, put it on my vision board. I see it every day. I said, next year, when they opened up call speakers, I'm gonna apply. I don't know I'm getting on but you know, I gotta do what I gotta do. So around the time that they make the call for speakers just had to be like February, March, April May. I don't know somewhere around there, but it's

around that season. I'm driving down. I remember exactly where I was, And y'all don't live where I live, so I won't give you like exactly you know, Uh, coordinates, but I remember exactly where I was, and I'm sitting at a red light and I get an email from somebody who works for Blavity, which owns afro Tag. Obviously if you didn't know that, Yeah, Blavity is like the black BuzzFeed, Like it's the biggest black millennial website in

the world. Um Chatham Morgan too born. So I'm I'm sitting there and I get an email from somebody at Bravity saying, hey, um, my name's Da Da Da. And I was talking to Morgan because we're going on or going in a new direction for afro Tag, and Morgan said, we should talk to you about running it. And I'm like you, I don't, what like, hold on, You're going in a new direction for afro Tech and you want me to run it. The guy who says, how in the world am I going to get on this stage?

How like I don't feel qualified? Is what I was really saying to myself. I didn't. I never cognitively said that to myself, but that's what I was saying along the whole line of thinking, if you if you look back, if you get rewind, that's what's happening in my story. I'm telling myself you aren't worthy of that. So I'm sitting at this red light, get this email saying we're going in a new direction for afro Tech, and Morgan says we should talk to you. Do you have time

to talk? And I'm like, oh my god, this this is the thing because you gotta realize I come from radio and um so I've seen a lot of celebrities, some of the biggest celebrities in the world, been to all the concerts, all the things. So like celebrities don't improbamly like black Tech. People like winners are like, that's

my rock star too, that's me. So when I walk in the room and I'm hanging out with Dave south Hunt, you know from Squire, or I'm with Rodney Williams, or I'm with you know, Morgan, or I'm with Jessica Matthews, or I'm with whoever like Paul Judge, Bryan Glover, Like, well, I'm with these people. Those are my rock stars. And so you're asking me to steer the ship of the most important thing to me, the thing that makes my

eyes glitter, like you're asking me to run it. And so I'm trying to figure out how I'm getting on the stage to give a two minute talk and you're asking me to there the ship of the brand. I'm trying to tell you all, like, I'm not saying that about I'm not saying that to glorify me. What I'm saying is, if you look back at the things that I did before getting that email, it's set me up

to get that email. So don't despise small beginnings, like there are things that you are doing today that puts you in a position if you're diligent, if you treat it with respect, if you get the education you're supposed to get out of it, if you don't take it for granted, if you actually do the work, if you do it with integrity, if you don't cut corners, but you learn the lesson, if you go all in, if you disciplined. I was putting out content when nobody was

paying me. I was putting out content because I loved the content. I wanted to hear the stories. And so now the people that I interviewed a lot of these like may my friends now then on people like I text with him, I talked to him when I see him, it's what up we get a drink, we got to eat, we hang out. The people who are like my rock stars, those are the people that you know. I can rub shoulders, where I can stand next to, I can sit beside, and we're all good. I'm getting the bag, they're getting

the bag, and we all get in the bag. Because I didn't realize that at the moment. But again, you can't connect the dots looking forward. So when I was doing the podcast, I thought I was doing it for X week reason. I thought I was doing it for reason X. But reason why why was around the corner and I didn't even know it. But I treated it with respect because I gave to the community. I wanted you all to have something that didn't exist before. I wanted you all to see yourselves in the people that

I represented put on the platform. Gave a pedestal to uplifted on that podcast, which put me in a position to touch more people. I couldn't have I couldn't have scripted that out. I couldn't have dictated how it was gonna happen. So today I sit in a position, you know, a privileged position, A position I worked for, a position of honor, a position to be able to serve you, and that's really what it's all about. But I did that work, and what I do this work for continually

is to show you that you do this work. These are the rewards because the stories that we highlight on this podcast, the stories that you will see at afro Teche, the people that you're gonna meet at this conference coming up, which I mean I did the whole podcast just now trying to get you to see why you need to be there. You can't miss this. You cannot miss this. It's virtual. So what this this virtual world that afro Tech bills is like, it is This ain't zoom family,

This ain't go to meeting. You can build the whole world for y'all. And you meet people from all across the world. There's people I met last year from Tanzania, as people I met last year from the UK. There's people I met last year from all from Tennessee, as people I met from all over the world. And they all look like I mean, they all pretty for the most part, look like us. And they're trying to do the thing, and they're doing the thing. They want to hire you, they want to fund you, they want to

buy your stuff, and they're at this conference. So that's my story. I hope you got something out of that. UM. You never really know why you're doing what you're doing. You might think you know why you're doing what you're doing. You might have real intentions on the reasons that you're doing specific things that you're doing, but sometimes they don't work out like you planned. That's just a fact. Sometimes

the outcome isn't something that you prescribed. But if you're in there and you're doing the work, there will be opportunities that open up to you that you could not have asked for, that you couldn't have imagined would be possible for you put yourself in a position to be successful. That's my story for today. I hope you'll enjoyed this episode.