Hi, Chris, Hey, Chris, how's it going. Let me tell you some pigeons.
I've been there. I felt like I was in New York. Yeah, I'm out there fighting pigeons.
What's going on?
I get back. I went for a walk this morning. I had plenty of time to get ready for the recordings. I sat on the couch. I'm going through the show notes that uh uh, Maddie said to me, going to make sure I know what's going on. And I hate this noise in the background. I hear like a little like a little rustle. I'm like, I get up. I walk around the kitchen island and there's a pigeon on the floor, just chilling. Kitchen pigeon, a live pigeon inside
in the kitchen, right by the washing machine. And I'm like what, And then I must have said something, because then just went wow. I just jumped in the and started flying across the kitchen.
Oh, I don't like birds.
How did it get in though?
That's what I'm trying to figure out. I'm like, it ain't coming with me because I didn't it at all. It was it was already chilling in the kitchen before I got here. It was it making a snack.
It was there when you woke up and you didn't notice it.
It was it was in there watching TV. It was all watching Netflix.
Living in the even noticed you had a roommate.
Yes, yeah, Ellie, did you catch did you catch that? B and Chris they lived together, though he tried for the shoot that y'all moved in together.
It's a living arrangement.
Business out there.
Throw all my bites in the streets.
And I already came up on a previous episode.
You kind of said it, Chris, I just wasn't gonna double down on it.
Well, that makes me look like immature, but it does.
Really somebody here has a higher maturity level. I'm not gonna point in what you want to be here it is, but you really tell me.
Ellie talks about like civic action and stuff, and I'm just like, wow, I need to like really button up. I'm like, I voted in a recent election, one of those small matter. It was the county executive. So George Latimer was the county executive for Westchester where I live, and he it's kind of unfortunate. So Jamal Bowman, do you know that name him?
Yes?
He was a yes, but he lost his election to George Latimer, who was our He's a more moderate, still a Democrat. But Latimer went up against Jamal Bowman, who had made some lightly anti Israel, like had had basically been not anti Israel but pro Palestine, and had made some remarks about obviously the the ongoing crisis over there and like, and you know, I think Brennan ambition as a whole, like we've always supported like a peaceful resolution
and ceasefire all of that. But anyway, Jamal Bowman he got, he lost his seat. He basically sacrificed himself. He's like, well, I'm not gonna not stay with Palestine. I'm going to say some things even though his district is heavily Jewish in Yonkers, and like were he anyway, So he lost his seat to George Latimer, which then opened up a spot for the county executive in my in my county, and like that's what I mean by these local elections. It still has a huge impact on you know, how
things are run, different policies and stuff. So and the turnout was abysmal for this little small election.
I don't get it, because I don't understand how you don't know that when you turn out and droves for a presidential election that has very little impact on your daily life, and you ignore the ones that are highly localized that have a massive impact on your daily life.
Maybe I mean, they just don't teach civics in schools. I guess I just don't get it.
It's also like the lack of local news. I mean it's there's not like before you would have like your paper of record for your town, your city, you know whatever. In Georgia that was always the Atlanta Journal Constitution a lot. You'd read the AJAC next year, New York Times next to your journal and all that, and like there's so much there's no there's not these like prominent local voices that people pay attention to. And now everyone's on the
freaking internet. And if you can't it's back to your point about money, Like I think I saw one sad little sign for homeboy who was going up against the conservative candidate for this seat, one little paper sign, like on the way to daycare one day, and it's like, there's not a lot of money in these races, and if you ain't got the money, it's just it takes so much money and that's why a billionaire was able to buy the White House and did and uh, it's
just it's infuriating. But that does remind me what I wanted to kick off the show with, which I did not put in my show notes. It's all good because I forgot too, but I wanted to start brown ambition this week at the Brown table by asking y'all, I just need you to send me just five bullet points. What did y'all do last week? And is your spot here at the Brown table in Jeopardy Like I don't know.
Hey, look, I can tell you none of the other people fighting pigeons. I can tell you that successfully fighting pigeons.
I mean maybe on next week's email to save your seat you can include that. But like technical, this is a new week, So like last week, what did you do? Five things?
Let's go in retrospect, not at Corentin.
You know one thing I would do is you know I'm like an old married lady. Is because my mom yesterday I was talking to her on the phone and she was like, Mandy. I was texting Enrique about this whole like elon Musk email that he needs to send five bullet points of what he did last week, and I this is my husband, right she texted him on Saturday, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I haven't even talked to him about this at this point, Like I'm at the grocery store and I'm like, oh, so, what did he say?
Is he going to do it? His agency? He works under the Department of Justice, which is obviously a huge thing. And so they've been told right now, like, don't respond to that email.
Or I saw that.
They've been multiple agencies have been telling them ignore the email.
But like, I wouldn't ignore it.
I don't know, man, because that's tell me job, that's your job on that.
I don't think they should ignore it because honestly, those people who are like his boss and stuff, he's like, oh he's a day And I'm like, yeah, baby, you don't understand. They have no power anymore. The power is in the hands of Musk and his doge people.
You know.
That's I personally would not trust an agency over like the folks on the top, because they can fire the entire agency.
They've been doing that.
Have you not been seeing them fire entire cohorts of teams of people like that? That's a gamble, girl. You well, your mom talk to him. Now, you gotta talk to him.
If we're just surviving. That's the funny thing, is like, yeah, when you have small kids, it's just hilarious. How yes we're all like I see the news and stuff, but like the for us, the day to day emergencies are like did you pack the snacks the extra snacks? And we have diapers in the diaper bag? And are their wipes? And like which kid is screaming? And it's crazy.
You have to like survive bedtime routines, girl, I.
Truly, and you have to like plan if we don't have morning coffee in the morning together like at seven am, just to like and and we have like a hug and a kiss and just like a cup of coffee. I mean that maybe the last time I connect with him until like the next morning, because that's how insane it is. Sometimes. Well that got sad and af.
There's a lot of moms of littles out there listening like damn Okay, at least I know it ain't just me because the first few years too, so it's listening real af very raw.
Oh thanks y'all. All right, Well Chris, would you what would you do? If that if you got that email.
It's hard because I get why people are saying, don't respond, because like, you don't want to give validity to someone who's not even like who. No one elected you, no one told you that this is your role now to make all these decisions. You who are you? You nobody to be making these choices for all these other people. So I get it. But at the same time, I
see what you're now. They're saying too. It's like you don't want to give them an excuse because they are just at any point, it's just letting people go, and it's it's it's so okay. I don't know. Maybe I would write them down and be like, let me just ask a couple of people what they're doing, and maybe we like a unified things. I mean, they can't fire the whole they can't hire fire that everybody got to keep us because these these foods to go.
But they can just fire everybody and then like hire some of them, hire.
Two or three people.
Bet right, that's sure they are doing it.
I'm texting him right now. Did you send your email? Also, we should be using the signal app for this signal is like encrypted.
Yeah, true, Hey, don't be putting that in check in your and your eye messages.
At this point, I'm losing track of doesn't it feel like when you read the news now, it's just like drinking water from a fire hose. Yeah, Or I feel like brending where I'm just like hanging on to a light pole and a hurricane, like those memes of like weather people, whether men and women, who are out there telling them whether and it's like mile you know, winds are one hundred and fifty miles per hour and they're just like hanging on for dear life to a like a stop sign. Like that's how I feel.
No, it's yeah, it's the meme of the little cartoon on fire and he's like.
It's okay, everything's okay.
That's burning, like quite literally a couple weeks ago, everything is burning. It's just that I just don't understand how people are gonna go about life acting like everything's okay and normal. So many people are and I'm like these federal workers, like, first.
Of all, the country is thrilled, true, although.
I haven't seen quite a bit of stuff in my feet of the people who voted that way, being very upset right now, because they didn't think this was going to happen either.
They personally are being affected, their families being affected, their loved ones, and they're like, this is not what I voted for. This is not so.
And when I see them, I'm like, oh, a tiny violin. But I am seeing a lot of that. Maybe it's targeting me on my social.
I think social to make us feel a little bit better, but I don't feel better. I feel sill.
Man. That's what it's meant to do. It's meant to overwhelm, right. It's like the game plan is to put out so much happening at once, so you can't really focus, so you just tune out and just don't pay attention at all.
Right, And like I you know, a tiny part of me is always trying to be contrarian, Like, okay, what if I'm just looking for confirmation bias of my own ideas and thoughts and beliefs. Right, So, if I was in charge of trying to clean up and let's be honest, bureaucracy tends to get really big and lots of unnecessary positions in government for sure, Yes, but what would be
my plan of attack? It wouldn't be to fire everyone and start getting everyone to do it would be like maybe last in first out, maybe like like I don't know, I would figure out a way to yes, reduce because I don't understand that needs to happen. But the way, the tactics, the strategy, the methodology that you're using is ridiculous and it's so like near to impossible to justify. So I think that that's the problem that I'm having
with it. I'm not up here trying to say they shouldn't be doing this and this is horrific.
It needs to stop, Like, let's all be honest.
There are plenty of government jobs that people go they sit at their desk, they shop on Amazon all day, or they work from home and don't do much and they get paid a government benefit, a government salary with good government benefits. So that does need to be addressed, but not in this fashion though. I just feel like it's the way they're doing it that's just wrong and that it's tasteless.
He showed us exactly. He showed all of us at Twitter when he went in. It was the exact same thing. Fire thousands, hire some. It's all very confusing, but at the end of the day, there's no recourse. I mean, like they can do it. It is what it is. And I think that this is the strategy that I can't. I just can't. Everyone saw everyone who voted for them, like they said this, they said they were going to
do this, and that is what they've done. So yeah, I really have like negative patients for anyone who is shocked by this. And I'm just like, well, you know, for me, when I wake up and I think about brown ambition and the promise that I've made to our to be a fan, to be like that voice of hope and inspiration and like let's keep pushing forward. Woo. Sometimes it's I mean it's not always the easiest thing.
But I was just thinking about, like if you've been let go by one of these agencies, I mean, the thousands of y'all that have been let go and are hitting the job market at a really difficult time. I was just wondering, like if we could chat a little bit about for them, you know, like what would you say, because they got bills.
To pay, The bills don't stop even when the Jicks stop the paychecks.
I you know, I would say, like be on LinkedIn.
I mean, I know that it is exhausting and you're not in an emotional state of being where you can be positively doing that. But if you need to take a day or two to just like cry, disconnect, vent, write down your frustrations, call your BFF, and like just rant, do all those things.
But once you're done with that.
Like dedicate time to it, and then like get your battery pack fully charged, because you gotta go. Like at the end of the day, you have to go, go, go, Like I'm picturing the little energizer bunny right, Like, you don't stop, like you have to. You have to be on LinkedIn, you have to be reaching out to your network. It to be texting everybody that you're close to, Like
if you hear of anything, send it my way. This is the position that I'm in, you know, but I'm in positive spirits and i feel like I'm ready for something.
I'm ready for my next move. Because when people see that.
That's a demonstration of your character, of your resilience, and that's the type of person they're gonna want to put on when an opportunity does come to their email in box or to their desk. So it is a little frustrating because you're sort of being asked to be everything all at once. But I do think you definitely want to address the negative emotional aspect of it, like cry it out, do what you gotta do, go outside and scream, throw plates, I don't know, do what you have to do.
But then come back and like snap into it.
Because you have people in your family and in your home depending on you.
You, you know you need to keep it going.
And then don't be ashamed to take like a smaller part time role or to do some ten ninety nine contractor work in the meantime, bro like that holds us down.
Like I will tell you I've gotten in.
Certain situations where ten ninety nine little contractor jobs that I've done have held me down when I was not full time employed. And you know, granted that was for me maybe a fourth five month period of time, so it wasn't extended.
But those are the things that I think, Yeah, you got to be prepared to do.
One thing that sometimes takes people that I've talked to a long time to do is like look up your unemployment benefits by your state level and immediately apply even before I think it's like each week sometimes you have to apply for unemployment benefits to like get on that track so you have some money coming in hopefully, especially because it doesn't seem like a lot of workers have gotten their separance payments yet finding cam Unity and other
people who have been let go. I know, for my husband, his offer was rescinded by an agency that he was supposed to start with in the new year. Yeah, that's terrible. Nearly two decades of civil service and he is not a worker who just sits on his ass. Another one of his colleagues was also in the same boat, and like talking to them took the sting out of it.
You know, it's almost like by opening up about what you're going through and doesn't have to be a public LinkedIn post, but just like an email to your network, you know, just to privately, sort of privately tell them what's happening so that they can support you and like make you feel better. But it's it's it's really a noock to even if you know it's part of this like crazy political you know, power play move, it's still not to the confidence like to your oh.
For sure, in the case of your husband, where like it's not that he didn't get it he.
Got it and then he took it back.
Like that is some other psychological emotional layers too, because like it was mine, I earned it, I got it, I was given the offer, and that's this whole other thing. But I agree having some like having somebody companieser rate with is so important. Yes it's frustrating, Yes it's emotionally draining, But if you're actively looking for work, you have to actively do it.
You can't be like, I've been looking for work for you know, six weeks, and I'm like, okay, how many how many LinkedIn messages have you sent? How many? You know?
Did you sign up for LinkedIn Premium for free for a trial so you could blast a bunch of people? What have you actually done in these six weeks rather than just say I've been open to work. Being open to work doesn't mean you're actively taking the steps to find and secure position or make a connection with someone who can hook you up.
And I mean, Mandy, you may you probably know this better than I do. But from what I've been hearing from people too, it's like a lot of it is like you gots just like leaning your network. You can be a little more unconventional about how you're broaching it down because with all these tools ail tools out there are weed out resumes even if you are qualified, they're
spitting people out. And it's been a lot of people who've may reach out to those people they know with their network who have been able to have more success just because it's just so hard out there. We have so many other people looking for work and it's like, not even a guarantee you're qualified, you'll get through. You got to get a little more creative, which is more work and it's harder, but it's like you have to do it, which is just like, you know, I hate
having to help people. Yeah, you just got to do work even harder to find a job than you would have had to before. But it's kind of turning into that now.
But that I think when it comes to jobs, that it's just like accepting the reality that's a really tough job market. It may take you months. The average amount of time someone's looking for a job now is six months in America. The Department of Labor tracks that, and so that's a long time. And you're gonna need a system and a process and almost like treat your looking for nine to five like a nine to five in a way, and it's a huge but it's the mental
game too, and it's the mindset. And I think where you can fall into depression and lethargy and like really filling down is when you when you give in to those feelings of like it's not fair, it shouldn't be this way. You know, everything is terrible. It is like drinking water through a fire hose. You turn on the news, it's all pressing. And to really build resilience, you have to build like that mental resilience to be able to say I accept the way that things are and I
will keep taking a step forward. And I had the saying that I use a lot, which is that there's a version of me a year from now who's already been through this and has gotten me through it, and all I gotta do is just like think about her, because like she's rooting for me, she's gonna she's telling the story of how it took so long and she figured it out, and like you just have to be It's optimism is a choice, it really is.
Yeah, that's a great point. And I love that perspective, like picturing yourself a year from now being past this and like channel that strength of like the light at the end of the tunnel and push.
But yeah, like use WhatsApp group chats.
If you're not in them, get in them, you know, find community. I'm in a lot of slack communities and I'll look at the Slack channel that's like opportunities or like job openings.
There's so many.
If you're a black woman listening to this. I have a good friend named ronisiha Being who started a community called her Agenda, there's so many. There's no profits, you know, like get get with your people and help each other out.
Because at the end of the day, like if you.
Send out an email, just like Chris said, to a person who doesn't know you, they are so much less likely to go out of their way, bend over backwards to put in a good word they don't know you.
And same thing is true for a resume. It's just words on a page.
But if it's a person behind those words that I know and I can vouch for, it makes all the difference.
All right, Well, let's take a quick pivot into more like I guess it's not maybe not pop culture, but sort of related. My inbox was blowing up yesterday and my social media feed was the news about Joy Joy read from MSNBC her show has been canceled, the read out, and I didn't MSMB. I mean, it's it's just shocking to me that they would cancel her show's and yeah, I just want to I want to acknowledge what an incredible legacy she's leaving behind. She has one more show.
It's gonna air the twenty fifth, I believe, so by the time this comes out, it's already going to be passed. But I'm sad.
You know, she's amazing, She's such a powerhouse.
And it's funny because I looked into it and I was like, why is this happening? And everything that I've read that that it has nothing to do with her specifically, but that they're trying to make shifts that could lead to higher ratings across the board.
They always are. Usually it means let's fire the black ladies.
Right, you know. But then that's the thing.
I was like, yeah, right, they're just trying to get rid of her. And then when I looked at what's replacing her, it's it's.
Simone Sander's, right, Smon Sander's.
Thomson's and yeah, and then I think Alicia Menandez and and then some another guy something.
Your memory is like, I'm jealous.
I've literally read it.
But oh, I recognize Lisa Menandez because I did go to a conference where she spoke, and I do respect her a lot, and small Sandra's just incredible. I read her book, which you know, I just I do think it's interesting that they're just positioning this as multiple voices and some diverse rather than one black woman's voice. And that is what I noticed about the shift.
Yeah, I mean it did appear to me. I think that third, the guy whose name we don't remember, he's more of like a conservative slash moderate kind of voice. Yeah, I think he's actually a Republican if I'm not wrong, which I don't mind that. It's not about for me that they're you know, I like the multiple I mean clearly, that's what I did with Brown Ambition. I was like, I want more than just me, I want more than just two voices. Let's add it, you know, two and three.
And I love that approach. I think, you know, we should be open to different opinions. But Joy is just such an icon and her voice has just been I don't know. She's just one of those people that something big happens, like Kama, like it's the nomination. You know, these even during Trump's inaugural, that whole like that whole week, you just want to like turn to these voices to find comfort into, like you know here, I mean not that she was always giving comfort because it was a
lot of straight talk. It was a lot of like you know.
You know, they had expanded her show to be a panel that included her would be.
I bet they gave her that option. I doubt she took it because for her to step down, yeah, I think it was more of a pride thing.
You have to step down, but step down is better than a step away. I think we want access to her voice and her she's so powerful.
But I guess hard get it.
She's probably like, no, I can go somewhere else and grow rather than you shrinking my you know what, my impact.
Yeah, well, you feel like they've lost confidence in you all of a sudden. That like it probably probably makes you just want to say, you know what, I'll just do something else. I'll go somewhere else. We're on one and not where you're going to try to push me to the side.
I feel that.
But at this see something they're saying that they're trying to push towards like a younger demographic. But I'm like it may sit bec I don't think has the draw they think it is to bring in young people, making.
Young panelists if you want, if you want to target a young audience.
Yeah, and I'm someone too, like I got rid of cable over there.
People are not watching TV.
Yeah, people not watching it turns its turning on their TV, clicking the little click to get to the No, that's not happening anymore.
So that the row MSNBC clips on YouTube shorts like if they if.
That that's where I watched my clips. I don't watch a full thing of I can't take it. First of all, it's too much to have these news channels on all the time. But yeah, clips right, and the joking people. I think we're just not consuming news in the same way. Like it's not like a think like my parents just have the news on all day in the background.
Like we're like it's horrific. I don't want to sit there and listen to this all day long. Give me a bolt, carve out a window. I'll take it a little bit and then I'm cutting it off.
But it's also a shift to the technology, Like we don't really use TVs that much anymore, Like I know most homes probably have them, but they don't.
They just like collecting us.
Like most people watch stuff on Netflix on their on their laptop or they'll connect it, you know, through HTMI to their TV screen or have a smart TV to stream on the TV. So I just think the fact is that people are looking at stuff on the Internet, not on television networks, and so that's really the shift. And it's it's not like I don't mean, I don't think it's to blame Americans for not turning on.
The news all day every day.
It's just that we don't have TVs on running all day every day like we used to. I mean, I remind parents used to do the same thing they used to have when Telemundo on all day on the at home. But it's just not a thing like anymore. I don't think.
No, they're not really shifting with the times. And the thing is like you you got to pivot, and these traditional media networks like they still are hold on. Obviously they're not gonna give up cable because there's still people have it, but they're not really smoothly making that transition into like a digital streaming service. I know, like on Max they have a few news and networks that are streaming there, but it's not really prevalent. Like I don't
think Netflix really has an option. No, I don't think anyone's going on Peacock where they're looking for stuff like that. I might be over there.
I think Netflix. I feel like these streaming services, like live TV is a huge you know, you've seen like Netflix do more live events. Netflix just stream the SAG Awards, and I'm sitting here thinking, oh, I can't watch the SAgs. I don't have abciously, I don't have regular show, but it was it was streaming on Netflix. I could have, but I don't know. It's the time I was going to sleep really anyway. But I feel like there are
these live events. I mean, it started with the Love Is Blind reunion show that was a sh show, and it was like all was that the one? It was all glitchy to start with, but then beyond sample was a big test for the sample. I mean, I'm not worried for Joy because I feel like she's an icon
shall always have a space. It's another example of like why we can't trust even the you know, you'd think, I'MSNBC is so liberal and progressive and stuff, but at the end of the day, it's a business, and businesses are going to business and with this like fire hose of information that we're getting, especially in like in terms of layoffs and stuff, I think you'll see other CEOs and like company leaders take advantage of this time of
chaos and just start cutting people out. I mean, you're I think DEI has been obviously impacted by everything happening with Trump, and you'll see you'll see more like shake
ups and stuff to come. And it's just another signal how powerful your own personal brand has to be and how we should always be no. Joy like it's going to have a million contacts people who want to come out for her for the win with Black Women Network literally hosted an emergency call last night and supportive in suppport of Joy, And it's just another like, Yeah, it's a good reminder to just like keep that network that you have, your friends, your colleagues, your peers, keep their
support and like keep your networks tapped into what's going on. With you, because they'll be the ones, like you said, youan Ellie who can open those doors to opportunities in a way that yeah, not many others can. In fact, if that happens, it's giving. It's giving, you know, financially, get your together. It's time to be paying off your debt. It's time to be saving, it's time to be investing. It's time to be and investing in your own self.
I think it's a time. I honestly feel like it's a time for us to be entrepreneurial as people of color, as marginalized communities, like building businesses, like creating our own sources of wealth. I feel like there's this we can we have. That's that's a form of resistance, is a
form of survival. Even it's just like build your own because we see how fallible our systems are to wealth and white superiority and the majority, and like it's that's the that's what's given me a bit of optimism is like, Okay, well we can't fix that, Chris, you with us?
What happened?
All right? Your face went, You're frozen.
I'm just sitting real switch off, No, I hear you. I love that. Mandy I do.
I will point out I know that there's so much pressure for everybody to go out there and start their own thing and do their own thing because we can't depend on anybody. But I know I also recognize there's people out there who are like, I'm so tired of being pushed towards entrepreneurship. It doesn't call me, it doesn't speak to me, it's not me. In my bones, I know that I am not going to be an entrepreneur
and I'm not interested in that, and that's okay. But I would say, go find your people who are are those visionaries, those entrepreneurs, and help them build You don't have to build that law.
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Not for someone who is launching, like no, absolutely, one hundred percent. I don't want y'all to be doing this from a place of fear. I want it to be I want people to find their inspiration, Like I wake up excited to like make this show and to build Brown Ambition into like a multi channel media brand, and I want other people to join me
on that journey. And it's like we have to open up the door and we're gonna hear actually be a fan and there's all there's many different ways to like build our own and to to to build our own sources of wealth. It doesn't have to be, you know, to your point y on Ellie dropping everything and going to like build a bakery or buy some vending machines or a trucking business.
Yep.
I just I want to say that because I just feel like I just spent some time with college students and they told me that they feel so much pressure to like become a millionaire by twenty one and like being make your own schedule, don't let you know.
And I was like, yeah, don't be that noise.
That's because we're all out here trying to say in sound bites you why, that's the truth of a Kid's like everybody's trying to push in a sound bite or in a social media clip or in a headline, but like you're just hearing the same and people's attention spans. It's like we need more books and long form content. People need the full comprehensive picture behind that.
We just like need to make room for nuance.
Nelly, can you do speaking engagements or no?
Yeah, I did want to speak engagements.
Tiffany had asked me and for like some people that I recommended, like if she gets something and she can't do it, and she's like, I didn't think you, Nellie could take paid speaking gigs. Okay, good, okay, I don't want to block your blessings.
Thank you, Christy.
Your name didn't come up.
But you know what, I was just acting like they had nothing to do with me.
I with me, what is going on with you?
Didn't need the comment didn't need the commentary from you on that on that topic. But you know, I figured it wasn't applying to me.
I didn't mention you. What is other than pigeons? How is that stuff? How's your career.
Going going on?
Over there?
It's going well. I was. I did some more stuff with fuse who me and you Ellie didn't work with. So I was down in La back in Wait on a couple of weeks ago, right before the week before Super Bowl, I was down there doing it. So I did a couple of shoots there and that. But so far it's been fun something news. I'm out of the box. So uh yeah, yeah, doing that and then I'm trying to m I did and I couldn't. I couldn't come here and say, no, I know you're gonna look at me crazy.
How do you make money because y'a elle, you're like primarily with next gen PF, but then you have your extra stuff on the side, right, and your book is your own business, right, like that's your own thing. I loved, Just like the multiple incomes.
Yeah, anything that's in the school system, yeah, no.
For me, it's like four or five different income streams.
So if it's in schools attending p if it's advocacy, it's Mission twenty thirty fund, which is a separate job, separate check, separate email inbox, then.
It's missed off.
Well, we'll see for speaking and for books and mind your Money books dot Com for any speaking engagements related to the book and book sales. So it's it's like four at least or five different incomes streams, which is I think truly what it has to be in order for you to be successful these days, because just trying to do one thing over and over're going really well lucky if you get that. But I just knew that setup was going to be much harder to pull off.
Chris. I think you and I have talked about not just trying to get into the money or ask like gotcha questions? Always?
I got your question Ryanlle's getting these nice, beautiful questions, like, Chris, so what's going over the relationship? Where where's your money coming from? Can we can we lighten up on me a little bit? I don't want you to get more emails. Okay, you're gonna be get some more emails about how you drink.
We got a nice one coming up for you, Chris, We got a nice one up next.
You know you don't come up lunching the emails anymore. You also haven't been on the show in a minute. But no, you and I spoke, we did our high last summer, and I think you were talking about like what's next for popcorn Finance, and like where you want to go next, and so like how are you strategically looking at how your business is laid out? And for BA fam too. I think it'll be interesting to hear your approach to it. So, because you're a serious dude, and I take you very seriously.
Yeah that no one believes that you know what I'd say. I look, I'm not as strategic of a person as you, And really I actually look up to both of you and how well you strategize and plan and think ahead. I'm trying to get better at that. So for me, my business is like it's the podcast makes up a portion of it. It's more so like this is how I connect with people. This is what gets my name out there, is how people find me. Other work I
do is I do. I've been working with Trueliant Credit Union out in North Carolina for the past three years. So I host a seriously called money Bursts, So I do basically similar I do with the podcast, but like more video format. So I do like educational stuff for them personal find it's not a flops.
Back of your all state Polo shirts.
You talking about it in the beginning of this very bright blue shirt where.
Like a Polo branded shirt short.
Oh god, and they're like, yeah, you can drop that. I say, okay, I think that's a good move for move to me wearing my own shirts. But no, that's been really fun. They've been like you're super easy to work. Whilce I do that. I still do some consulting work. So I used to be a financial analyst. I would do like revenue analysis, and so I still do that from time to time. I'll do you know, we have a few hours here and there on that, and then you know, just I do some do some speaking, I
do some brand work and things like that. Stuff I'm doing with Fuse now and a million stories. So yeah, it's kind of like a like I was saying, you got the.
Men's Health thing, You're a contributing writer at Men's Health.
Completely forgot how I do that. I write article it is, so I probably do like four to five articles a year for them. So once every other month I do an article for them. Yeah, So you gotta you gotta be peace mailing it. You gotta be you gotta be spreading it out because at any point one thing can disappear. You don't want to be like left just holding the bag, like, oh wow, I don't know what's going on now that part.
Yeah, income streams in twenty twenty five. Yeah, well, I won't just put y'all in the hot seat. I'll share too, because that's one of the things that I have my accountability buddy that I meet with like once every couple
of weeks. And at the beginning of the year, we made a goal to like basically dig into our dusty closet of like digital product services, you know, things that were just like on our websites that we had offered and kind of forgot about webinars and stuff and instead of creating new stuff, like try to repurpose and actually like tell people about stuff that already exists, Yeah, that they could take advantage of now Glass or you know remember the app fish Bowl, Yeah, yeah, Glass bought them.
There's alls like an anonymous an anonymous like company advice, like professional advice kind of thing where you could be anonymous. You can post questions like a Reddit thread kind of thing on what's going on with you. And they have all these different bowls and the bowls are like different themes like negotiation and career pivoting and men in tech, women in tech whatever. I guess men in Tech is
just called the tech Bowl. And but anyway, so I Glassdoor is like has influencers come on and like create content for their bowls, And honestly I love Glass store bowls. Like if y'all now it's now it's like the that's been branded Glassdoor, but it used to be Fishbowl. So if y'all are not on fish Bowl, the engagement is high. People are really there to help and to like provide
you can put any kind of question. I mean, definitely send your questions to Brown Ambition, But like if you want to engage, I'm I'm having fun, all right, Okay, Well we lost a lot of time to Chris's pigeon expedition, so we're gonna take a quick break.
Hey, it was tough. Look I'm still here. I survived.
You might need to get a tetnis shot or like some.
I know everything that pigeon touch.
All right, fan will be right back with Brown Boost Brown Break. Stay tuned a and we're back. It's time for Brown Boost, Brown Break, y'all, Nellie, Chris, I don't got to tell y'all what a brown booster or break is. You got anything you want to share, shout out that's exciting, you can boost or anything you want to. I mean, Chris, you can't break your pigeon because that's you've already talked about it.
That's a boost right there. That was an adventure. I didn't even need to drink coffee. I'm awake now stop.
I can go first if y'all want to think there, all right, I have a double boost one I want to I don't think anyone's talked about this very much, but can we just acknowledge black Captain America's movie is out. I'm not a Marvel person, but I am an an Anthony Mackie stand and I just want him to have all the success he deserves. And I don't know, Chris, have you seen it? You're a dude.
Oh, I've seen it. I've been there. I went there and saw it at Imax. I gotta say, look, Marvel, they've been a little bit of a dip movie that been as great. But look, the movie got a lot of hate for obvious reasons. We all know why. People have internet movie got to hate Captain America. We all know why.
With anti Yeah.
It was getting like before it even came out.
Really was primarily the platform where people were hating on it. And y'all know why.
Yeah, we all know why.
It's a woke Marvel movie.
Is not what it is, of course, but it was. I enjoyed it, like, look, is it the best movie I've ever seen? No, of course that i'd expect you to be. But it was fun. I had a good time, had great action scenes. You had Anthony mackin there, you had Harrison Ford. It was I thought they that for Marvel and not having to put out a movie in about a year a little over year. It was. It was solid. I had a good time.
Good well, I just I want to acknowledge that, and also I really needed something fun to listen to. So I turned on I got the Libby appout.
Yeah, I would been using that for years.
Oh you have Okay, I was late to the Libby party. But it's like the library app. You have a library card and then your library I guess because a certain number of loans you can get for audio books, so it can be hard to get newer titles. I had to. I was on the wait list for Keiki Palmer's book Master of Me, but I decided to listen to Jennifer Lewis's. You know, Jennifer Lewis from Blackish, Yeah, the mother, the
Mother of Black Hollywood exactly. She's so phenomenal. But the best thing is her book She reads them herself, and it's like getting as it's a free ticket to a one way Broadway show with Jennifer Lewis, so her.
Specifically, yes, and yes, both of them, but Keky's so young.
Jennifer's just got so much history, you know, I love Keky's books for other reasons, but Jennifer is just like, it's so funny and she's just she talks her ship and I love it. So I wanted to boost her book, her second memoir, Walking in My Joy. It's a fun listen. And if you haven't, go back and listened to her first book, The Mother of Black Hollywood, because it's also huh. Warry Is.
Got to read them both.
Yeah, you know, for Libby too, you know, because they're known for the way time because obviously libraries they got to pay for all those books there they're loaning out. But you can have multiple library cars, just so you know. I just picked up my San Francisco library car because I live in San Francisco now, so I got like three. I got my Long Beach library car from when I lived there. I got my LA Public Library, I got my San Francisco.
You have my mom's Saint Louis library car.
Chances ripple your chances. I'm not mad at that strategy. I didn't think about that.
Sorry, well I can go next.
I'll do the I'll do a brown break, which is that I got so many dms the last week of February with people freaking out about the stock market. The news headlines were like, it's the worst day in stock market history for twenty twenty five, which is literally sixty days in Like, so you mean to tell me the last the worst performance in the stock market in the past sixty days, and you're freaking out, ready to wipe out your accounts. Like I had to talk people off the ledge.
I had to talk to people. There were people like what do we do? Like, I just don't understand.
And so for me as a brown break because it's so frustrating that like, no matter how I feel that we're constantly putting out so much educational content, so much education content like out there, right, And I'll say again and again and again again, this is normal. The stock market will go down. This is a normal part. If you're in it for the long haul, you don't pay attention to these drops. They're going to happen. They're natural.
It's just normal, right, Like, and then I get people sending me, you know, nine hundred and twenty seven billion dollars was wiped out from the stock market today worth day of twenty twenty five.
What do I do? What do you think about this?
And it's just like, oh my gosh, it's I think the same thing that I thought the last time you asked me. Like it's just so frustrating to be like saying the same broken record, you know, again and again with the same thing.
Baby girl, you chose personal finance and wait, I know, but you just gotta say, all we do is say the same shit one hundred different ways from Sunday.
That's so true. And you know what, it's a good reminder.
It's a good reminder for me that like sometimes I'll be like, already made ten videos about that, make an eleventh because you never can, like, you know, it seems to me like I'm being a dead horse. But no, like people really need to hear it again and again and again. And so you know, somebody had asked, like explain it to me. I just don't understand, and so what I sent her a message and I'm going to make this into a real because I just feel like
other people probably are also confused about it. But like she didn't understand how nine hundred and twenty seven million dollars could just disappear. Not I said million billion would a beat How nine hundred and twenty seven billion dollars could just disappear.
And so then I explained it through real estate.
I was like, if everybody's trying to buy your house, and your house is worth one hundred thousand dollars, you got so many people trying to buy it, you can increase the price. You can sell it for five hundred thousand, right because because there's so much demand, So you could create four hundred thousand dollars of value by increasing the price of your home. And if somebody wants it that bad,
they'll be willing to pay same thing. When your house is not selling, you listed it, it's been listed for ten months, you haven't.
Got one offer. Well, maybe you lower.
The price from one hundred thousand to ninety thousand to see if you can find a buyer desperately. Then you just erased quote unquote wiped out ten thousand dollars of value by lowering the price.
Of your home. And so I explained to them that's exactly what happens in the stock market. When you think of a like Nike. We're if one.
Hundred and thirteen billion dollars, say there's a billion shares of stock of Nike, that's one hundred and thirteen dollars per share of stock. But if the price drops to eighty dollars per share because everybody's selling it, so now the price decreases, well, now you got to do eighty dollars per shit per billion shares, right, and so now you're seeing.
Oh no, that means that quote unquote they went from one hundred and thirteen billion dollar.
Value of the company to only eighty billion dollars, and that difference thirty three billion dollars is wiped away, right, like quote unquote disappeared. So it's not real money. Guys, Like I just I know it's so confusing, but I just felt like when I explained it that way, like.
She was kind of like, oh, I get it.
I guess maybe connecting it to real estate, which is something tangible that people can understand.
But yeah, I guess my break is.
A little bit of like a break with myself and reminding myself that I just have to keep repeating some of these lessons again and again in different ways.
Because hired traveling world. That's why we need each other. That's why when I'm like, I know, that's one of the reasons why I'm really excited with Brown ambition is like having a content hub, like having because I'm gonna just hire a bunch of people to write the content that I know we need, but that I like, but that I'm tired of writing. All right, Chris, you had enough time.
Now, I know. I'll sit there thinking, I'm trying to you know, hating to pay attention and think at the same time.
We all got a prom you.
Know, I'll give it a quick boost to my boy Johnny the pigeon, who was in here. We were hanging out for a bit this morning. Chris, you got, I gave it. It's a small one, you know. He came by. We had a little we were gonna have coffee. Bad to kick him out because I was like, I got a podcast to do, But you know what I'll do. My brown boosts will be for uh. Yesterday I went and saw all the Oscar shorts at the theater down here. They didn't ran him back to back. It was a
five Oscar nominated short films. These are the live action ones. I'm gonna see the animated ones tomorrow. But they were really good. There's some really powerful ones in there. One that stood out there was two two I say that
was my favorite. There's one it's called Anujah. It was done in India and it was based off of these two girls who are working in like a basically like a sweatshop making making clothing essentially, and there's a girl who was like the younger sister was like really smart, and they were trying to make sure she got to the school to test to get into this boarding school. So it's a really really cool story, really well told.
Uh.
And the other one, I think, I don't know if you've explained it right, but it's like a it's like alien but it's a and then space Lean and it follows this couple, I'd tell it there in New York.
Uh.
They were going down to the immigration office to apply for for the husband to apply for a green card and had a daughter together. He had lived there for here basically grew up in New York his whole life. He grew up in I think it was in the Bronx. And so then they get there and as he's in his interview, Ice shows up and they're arresting people in the immigration officers who are applying for their green cards.
And it basically it was a story of this process and how this is happening and how common it is for ICE to do these raids on immigration offices as people in the documentary, it's it's a short film, so it's it's it's not like actually documentary, but it's like depicting these real life scenes that are going on, and it was it's like just in an environment where it now is just like powerful, sad, frustrating all the things to see that like that. But I think it's it's
really well told and it's something I didn't know. I didn't know that was going on because it makes that makes no sense to do that. Why would you do that?
So how can you trust any government agency, local, federal, How can you trust any any office If that's the kind of stuff happening.
Right exactly, it shouldn't be. It shouldn't be legally allowed to do something like that. But I'm really happy just got nominated. So it's out there and I was able to catch it. So if anyone out there wants to go sar, I don't know how you can go find it. I saw it in the theaters, but I'm sure there's ways of streatment out there. So a Leen is the.
I'm the worst sister in America because my little brother makes short films and he has one premiering tonight and I forgot to boost.
Wow on social now was something.
Man.
The thing with short films is they are like and I Chris, I'm so glad that you supported too, because theaters will do these short fests, these like film festivals where it's just short films. That's the only it's literally the only way that their art gets seen. And I was asking his girlfriend. You know, she's also a producer and makes films and she has incredible work, and I'm like, so what happens when the movie's out, and like if does someone buy it? And then she's like, well, maybe
a streaming platform. There's Quelly TV kW e l I, which focuses on underrepresented voices, so they'll buy content from creators and then you can watch it on QWLLY. But other than that, if it doesn't get an award, or it doesn't get shortlisted for these awards, and even then, if a streaming network doesn't pick it up or regular network, then just kind of like disappears. So they're really just
more passion projects. Yead. My little brother Alex, he's been on the show before, he's going to be on it again too, because speaking of income streams, he's a full time AI sales director and he does his art, his movie, his films on the side. But his film is a short film called.
My God, My God, you are the worst right now, the sister everybody needs right here.
I went to the premiere in New York. I was there, so.
You should know the name you.
Four. All I could think about was Atlanta because I just was looking at my boyfriend in my head, Brian Tare Henry, and he was in Atlanta. Anyway, this is like follow follow, Okay. I've never felt more seen by a celebrity than when Carrie Washington thought she forgot to thank Tyler Perry and her acceptance speech at the NAACP Image Awards, and then she ran across the stage to take over the mic for the next presenters and said,
I forgot to thank Tyler Perry. And then the audience is like, you did, you did, and She's like, bye, that's.
So freaking Can we just admire her brilliant talent, beauty.
I love carry Washing.
I'm literally like I think I would I have a girl crush on Kerry Washington.
I just I'm just gonna say it all out. I'm just gonna say it all out. I love her more.
Yeah, yes, I mean stunning. She's just so smart. She's always been like politically active. She never kind of like tried to get that part of herself. She was such a Yeah, she was such a force during the twenty twenty four election. And for her to also have made this movie six Triple eight, y'all know, I'm not good with titles.
She's well, is that you are?
Now? So why am I wielding a colored pencil?
I don't know, but I will say unlike Mandy, I got I got the information for you about these films. So you can watch Alien on Vimeo and they posted it up there on Vimeo, and the Anuja is on Netflix.
Okay, yeah, I'm definitely gonna check those bolt outs.
And my brother's film Thomasville, you can watch if it comes to a theater in your you which it. It's in Atlanta. It was in Atlanta two days ago, so you missed it. But his production company is called Pineapple Cut.
So if you google them and you go to their website, you can get on their list and they'll let you know when their other films are going to be premiering in these different short festivals, and please support your local short fest because these filmmakers are just like truly artists and they are putting out their work and it's very inspiring. I'm so proud of him. We come a long way since editing each other's Harry Potter fanfiction.
Say that you know, Wow, it's super short. It's under fifteen minutes. Okay, I just looked it up. I'm totally gonna.
Bookmark this alien or what was it? No, I'm talking about Thomas or Thomasville. Oh okay, yeah, he wrote it, directed it.
Oh look at it director Alex Woodraw.
You two looks so much alike.
Yeah, you really do.
We're both writers. And yeah, I'm just really proud of he inspired me. You might see a short film by Mandy Woodrif Santos Hey Trick.
I bet you remember the name.
He is a better person than me in many ways, so he probably won't. But yeah, I love my brother. It's also his birthday, Happy birthday. How do I get the balloons to come up again?
You gotta do something with your hands.
I don't know what.
Yeah that you did it like by mistake and then when you were to happen, it doesn't happen.
Is this uh okay? B A fam? All right, well that is the show. Thank you to Chris and y'a Nelly for joining me at the Brown Table. BA Fam, Stay strong, stay hopeful, choose optimism every day. We love y'all, See you next time.