My league buds has all the knowledge you want. My league buds has all the knowledge you need. My lead buns, yet they have all the books that.
The whole wild world one up read.
A League Buds.
Welcome, Welcome, Welcome to Malik's Bookshelf, bringing a world together with books, culture and community. Hi, my name is Malik, your host of Malik's Bookshelf. Well, I'm hitting another milestone. This is the seventieth episode. I started this journey in the middle of the pandemic, and now I'm on my seventieth episode. I appreciate all the people who continually tune in every week to hear my insights on books, culture and community. This particular episode seventy is huge. It's a milestone.
I had a conversation with my son and I thought I'll feature that conversation and things in my advice that I was telling them. So the name of this episode is called Decisions Have Consequences.
That's right, this Decisions have concanen cause.
That's kind of how I was talking to him, a young guy in his early twenties, and you know, decisions that he's making consequence. You know, every decision we made, is it a benefit or is it grunt? So when you make a decision, you got to see you know, what are you trying to gain from that decision because some of them moves that we make sometimes they have more adverse conclent then they have benefits.
So that's kind of how I was talking to them.
We all got to make better decisions because that's all life is the sum total of all the decisions that you make.
Also, am going to feature on this episode.
A segment that I did talking to my kids because I'm a track coach and I was teaching them about certain things that not only them you demonstrate out on the field, but it carries into your personality and it's.
Called the killer instinct. So I'm talking to them about.
Having the killer instinct and it's raw and it's fresh, and I have just recorded, but I'm talking on about, Hey, you know, everything that you do in life you gotta have is there always a moment where you gotta kill it?
So that Kevin to killer instead. I'm featuring that on this episode.
Also did an interview with a young lady by the name April Russell who wrote a book called Blay Home, Say I got it right this time.
Blay Hoolme.
She wrote a book about Blayholme, the Warrior Goddess. Okay, so I got that interview on here. Very refreshing and new and upcoming self published book that just came out, so we featured her on this particular episode. Also went to a school called Middle College High School and I talked to.
The kids about why you love to read bl This.
Event was sponsorble by BSU and and Middle College High School. And what happened was we gave away three hundred and fifty books to the high school students. So that was just a wonderful event where we gave away all these books sponsored by BSU and Middle College High School, and I went.
Around to talk to the kids. You know, it's pocket is about community.
Went around talking to the kids about why they loved to read, because it seemed to me that these students at this school had an appetite for reading. They was preaking all kinds of books. So this was a yogivent, very positive. And they also had that day and an assembly where all the schools that the college students were going to they were you know, had an assembly where they was announcing all the schools that they were gonna have parents and students, and it was just like the
energy was high. It was electric, and they had all the high schoolers in there. They were all cheering each other on. It was just a wonderful thing. And I happened to be present and to give away what I call a golden ticket, which is I gave away to the volevantory and the saluted turn at the assembly. And I featured that particular segment on this episode too.
The Golden Ticket.
So hey, hey, stay tuned and enjoyed this episode. Number seventy Decisions Have Consequence.
Warrior.
I think I'm feeling like just accomplished. I'm feeling satisfied. I'm feeling like kind of in shock. But I you know, this makes me, I'm feeling flattered. So online, I've been getting a lot of people that love the cover and that like the story, and so just the idea that people are going to go away and read it and have a takeaway that.
Just makes me.
That's probably one of the most rewarding feelings out of all. I was like, oh, Okay, people will read this and take something away from it. So I think I feel it's rewarding. Yeah, it's rewarding.
Well, I think that's an actually exact way. Actually the title your book, So how you come over with that time?
I will tell you at The title was lay Home, very easy title to remember. So I came up with it with a character that I did originally in on the corner of Hollywood and Highland, the famous Hollywood Walker of fame. I was a character of black Hollywood, Maryland, and I was on a lot of character development trying to figure out who this character was cause I wanted
to write a story about this world. And as I started writing the story, I realized that I needed to figure out the backstory of who she was on her homeland, and I knew I could only do that through book form. And I was scared to write a book because I come from TV and films, so writing a novel was not in my forte. My aunt is a children's author, and she kept telling me I could do it. I could do it, but I was nervous, didn't wanna do it. Just had no COVID hit and I was really considering leaving,
like the whole business all together. And I enrolled in law school and I was, you know, studying entertainment law and I went through my first year of law school and read more books, wrote more essays than I probably ever have in my life. And I had an Aha moment.
And the Aha moment was, if I could write that type of have that type of discipline to write those essays, to read those books on subject matters that at the time wasn't as important to me as being a storyteller, I could take the same discipline and transfer and write
the book that had been lingering in my soul. And so I dropped out of law school and took the same discipline that I learned, and I started writing the novel and so and it took me about two years, but I finished it because it was something I needed to be done right.
So what is the backstory?
So?
Well at Home.
Home comes from a planet on planet Serious, and there are two different species, the zae species, which is they leave heavily in God and they have divine powers. And then they're the Delhian's that leave heavily in technology and they do not have divine powers. And for years, these
two she's have been at feuding with each other. Recently, there has been a war declared against the women of the Zayids and blay Home and her sister as royals are completely locked down, and now dream has happened, and now they will have to become warriors, and they're training
to become warriors. And so throughout the book we see black Holme and her sister kind of shifting from these goddesses to these fierce warriors, and we see her brother trying to protect them so that they don't become warriors. And like anything, there's family secrets, there's some you know, a couple of scandals that happen along the way, because we really wanted to paint the picture of them being
life right. Life happens amongst the good. So we see passion, we see hero's journey, but we also see like the weakness, and so that was important for me to show that in both the male and the women on the planet.
And you have some unique in your book because you have these QR codes and tell us all about that implemented out of the book.
So I like to do creative things, and so you know, after I do one creative thing, I want like three more to do. Then I have to do three more, and what like fourteen want to do? So I wasn't joined enough and I really wanted to get really, I really wanted to give the reader a lot like I really wanted to pack them. If you go to the website, you'll see I spend a lot of time creating characters and putting just I wanted it just to be juicy.
And so what I did in the book was I embedded some QR codes in secret places in the book. And if you when you read throughout the book, so there's five and book one, you'll scan the QR codes and I'll ask you to log in and to go to the fan club. And so under the book there's two flan clubs. There's a Blay Home Blade Club and then there's a Blay Home Book Club. If you're part of the Blay Home Blaye Club, you will not be
able to see this. The only way you'll be able to get this is one if you have the code, which is getting the book, and then if you join the Blay Home Book Club. And in there there's some artistic work of the different scenes. So at the end of the book it's to articulate it's going to show you some of the different scenes that are.
In the book.
So that's maybe very interactive and artists.
That's very interactive.
Different got a million books up in here, but I ain't got one with a budget. Yeah, I like to take it outside of the box, keep the match that a lot of that.
What's to take away from what you want? You know, if a person read your book, what do you want them to come away with?
Uh?
The biggest thing was important for me was I wanted to pay homage to both the male species and the female species on the planet right now at the grid of society that's male and females are there's something that's happening that we're at odds, and I think understand the value of both. And so in the book, you'll see I pay a lot of homage to the men and the warriors and what they contributed to the females and vice versa. There's some strong women in here, and they
contribute a lot to the males as well. And so for me taking away from that, through the weakness, through the mistakes, through the betrayal, right, there's still that sense of unity in both the different species.
And well, I think you gave a beautiful description of Black Home.
Why my brain is like twisted it with so easy.
Like that it's just the us.
Just it says, you gotta say the.
April lay Home.
It's different. I got his wife's name is April because he has a.
Long a y.
Hey, thank you April April Russell new book lay hold Home.
Fa y'all.
I love your energy, and y'all need to give it up to each and every one of y'all.
Because y'all high school. It's a mind store.
Y'all going to college and the love. But I got some wars and I got the golden ticket from the books, the golden ticket.
We want to give it up to two people here now.
With this golden ticket, you can pick a book, any book, don't I don't care what price it is, at the bookmoll Bill. You can visit Milligue Books at the Westfield Coomba City Mall.
That's a big store.
So you can come through there and pick a book out of there, or you can pick it.
Right out here today, don't mind at the price. You got it.
This golden ticket right here for the botting victorian of the middle College high scho.
Golding up and get to a got ticket. Let's go, get to go ten.
Yes, you heard it before you take you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you. Listen, give it up for the boy the Victoria.
You know, that's a milestone. That's a big achievement, and you need to be appreciated, if you know, because that's that right there. He's doing big things, all right.
He put it into work. He put it in the work.
So hey, I got the next golden ticket and that's going to another stead.
Come on up.
Or you knows ever you know, so hey.
Again you you can get go right out here and get a book, any book, don't mine at the price or come to the store. Congratulations to lie you a salutary. You're right, they're okay. I got to say this because I hope everybody joined the book for here putting on a book fair.
And you picked the wonderful book. But I'll tell you this, it's dead. You gotta give a.
Thing in a wove explosion of celebration for the person who smoked the organizations. But the b and you who sponsored the book fair in the middle college.
High school, they helped parganize and putting this.
So give it up because they spent a lot of money because they.
Believe in you.
You'll go out of decent in the future without too many have no future until we come to y'all to take the torch and carry it to the next generation. All right, thank you, And I appreciate.
Why you enjoy reading.
It's a story about different things, fictional and nonfictional.
Why you like read?
Because they tell stories, They tell different perspectives. They can be informational fictional, but then they all provide enjoyment and you can sometimes relate to them.
Absolutely. Why you enjoy reading?
I really like enjoy reading like fantasy type books because I'm not the biggest reader, but stuff like comic books and stuff that's really eye catching, like like fighting stuff. It's really interesting to me and it grabs my attention and it helps me learn about different things historically, even if it's a historical nonfiction.
Absolutely wonderful. And what about you? Why you enjoy read?
Because it's from reality when times are hard, So yeah, it's just trying to read.
Yeah, you picked up Rise of the School for Good yep.
Fantasy amazing, amazing, thank you? All right, all right, so tell me you picked up Nick Stone Jackpot.
Why do you like reading?
I like reading because I've always read, even when I was like a little kid, and books are just really interesting to me. Also, I read one of her books before I read this one. It's called Dear Martin, and it was really interesting to me.
So I think I like this book too, wonderful.
Wonderful, moving on to the next young lady here. So why do you like you reading?
You know me, I'm back with another love book.
I love romance, especially when it's about black people. And I've always been interested in reading. I've been a high level reader since like first grade. I've read all the Harry Potter's. I just I like reading. It makes my brain feel big.
My daughter read all the Harry Potter. So y'all got something in common. That's what's up. Yeah, like reading books on imagination. You came back because you had one earlier. Yeah, I guess you found another vout you. That's what's up because I know, hey, you get three hundred and fifty kids students that are not kids. These are high schoolers. Not everybody like love reading, you know. So that's the reason why we're out here. Come over here, black man. I need I need to know why.
You enjoy reading. I mean, it's fine.
If it's it's time passing, I don't know, it's just it definitely helps me test my ringing level too.
I mean if I would understand the word and stuff like that, I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah, you picked up this one.
What's system called future Legend of Skating Sword Okay, okay, this.
Thing about action and teams like so I'm excited about.
Wonderful wonder Well, we appreciate you enjoying them. Books. Now Enjoorge's book we At. We're out in the community.
Were middle College High School putting on a book fair. You know, part of my podcast is all about community. Elik bookshelf bringing the world together with books, culture and community. This is about community. B as U help sponsor this endeavor. They sponsored three hundred and fifty four students. Each one here gets to pick out a book of their choice. So that's amazing, incredible. I'm moving on to you, so tell me about why you like reading.
I like reading because it puts me in another universe, kind of gets me away from reality for a little bit, and even if it is nonfictional, it just gets me out of my head.
That's why I like reading. What you pick up right here today.
It's a Big Body creator of Kobbe Bryant, and it's about two athletes that gott to choose between becoming being an athlete or being a leader.
So wonderful, wonderful, enjoy that.
Enjoy happy reading, happy reading, happy reading.
So moving on over here. Why you enjoy reading?
I love reading because it helps me escape?
You escape? And what book did you pick up? Well, you're going to pick up me, mo. I think it's a poem book. I really love poetry.
This book happened to be a national finalist National Book Award.
Couliss got a war already. So hey, that sounds like a great read. Enjoy, Thank you so much. Joy. Yeah you're still looking.
You found a book yet, somewhat okay, So why are you interested in this book?
I don't know. It just kind of streaked my interest.
Like you're enjoy reading?
Yeah a lot?
Why?
It just gives me like my own space, gives me your own moment, gives me like an escape from all the real world, you.
Know, open up a whole new world of imagination.
Expansion. Boom. We're middle college high school.
They sponsored a book fair for every student here gets to receive a book. It's three hundred and fifty four students. We put out the bookmobile. We got books all over the place. So I'm walking around just interviewing some of the students and asking them, you know, why they enjoy reading, and some of them asking about what book did they pick.
And to talk about it?
You know. So it's a wonderful, wonderful thing. And the background is my theme song Releak Books music video soon to come out, so stay tuned. We already completed it, so we got to be putting together a launch party for the music video. So stay tuned, Stay tuned, Stay tuned. Let me see if I can get one more before I end this. Y'o William, how you doing, my brother? What book did you pick up earlier today?
Blackly? Okay, so tell me why that book? Why that book sounds interesting?
Okay?
The Black A little Return of the King by Rodney Barnes. You know, he's uh accomplished.
A lot over his years.
I've interviewed him on my podcast. He's uh has a lot of graphic novels and he's put together the movie Blacker that came out, plus a whole lot of other TV movies TV series has come out. So roll accomplished, brother, and so enjoy the book. Appreciate you and why do you enjoy reading with.
Did I ask you that?
Yeah?
I did?
Oh no, you did not get Okay?
Why you enjoy reading?
I enjoy reading because you can picture the story in your brain.
You're even though this one it has specials, you can still like picture what's going on.
Yeah, like imagine it.
Yeah yeah, well said my brother, thank you enjoyed reading?
Enjoyed reading? Well, hey, that's community.
That's what we're out here doing doing community, paying it forward. We book activists. We're out here talking to the students. Were out here putting on a book fair and sponsored by the Black Student Union, right BSU.
That's what that.
Means, the BSU, right at here at middle College high school. So some of them moving on. I got a chance to talk to a few of them earlier today. So I hope you enjoyed this segment for community.
You got no killer instinct.
Listen, listen, when you got somebody, this is the difference between you and your brother.
One is laid out on the ground and.
You still standing up because you don't give one hundred percent.
You led that race the whole way and then you let him pass you right at the end.
Why why Because you got no killer instinct? You're not gonna go far in this world if you don't apply yourself with every ounce of ability and talent. You cannot take advantage of a situation and then follow a part at the end. What that does is that you gotta condition.
Yourself to kill it at the end. You what was that?
I just don't sit down?
Well, they don't have nothing to do with that.
You If you're not laid out, you don't give your best. People, when I used to run, I was laid out on the track because I wanted to be great. I wanted to give my best. You're not doing that. You you you You led the race the whole way and at the end you lose. You know why, because you didn't take advantage.
Of the last hundred. You have to take advantage of the last hundred.
You're not standing because you're not because you're not tired as you should. You should be laid out, you should last, should be burning, you should be light headed, you should. That's the way you gotta push yourself. This is this is some things in life. You gotta self ref You gotta what I call self inflict pain. You're not putting the pain to get the game. You're not putting the pain to get the game. I'm telling you that you're only hurting yourself in the end, and that's how life is.
You must apply your ability.
What I saw right there was that no killer instinct in the end. You don't pass a person, lead them the whole way, and then let them come back and get you at the end. This is what you do in the track meets.
Because you don't care, and when you don't care, you don't get better. You gotta care. You gotta care. You gotta have some pride.
You gotta have. You gotta feel something. You gotta feel some disappointment. You gotta feel some kind of pride. You got to stop feeling about her other period, feel about how you feel, because what I'm seeing here is that you're giving up and are not applying to killer instinct. This required to win in this world. You've got to apply the killer instinct. You got to finish, and you gotta finish with everything.
You gotta stop that.
You've been doing it for too long, and I don't know what it's gonna take for you to extract it out of.
You, because you keep letting people beat you and you don't have to. You lead them the whole way, and then.
You give it up right at the end because you're going through the motions and not killing it at the end. I told you there's nothing. You gotta take off fast.
And you gotta end fast in this sport. But that's like life. You gotta take off and you gotta finish.
If you start to tell you gotta start good, right, and you gotta finish the test right right, Okay, then this ain't no different. You gotta start off fast and you gotta finish with everything you got, and if the best, if you give your best at the end and it still means you lose, then you know you gave your best.
But that ain't your best. That ain't to killer instinct.
It's because you make no transition in your arms in order to close it out.
So that tell me you're just going through the motions. You just have hazard. It's like, I don't care. You gotta get out of that.
Mindset because it's carrying over in everything that you're doing. Classroom test personality out here on the track.
It's not a good thing. You can correct it now you're young.
You're gonna come to me when you get older, and you're gonna say my dad was right. I'm telling telling you everybody out in coach, and all of these years, them girls got old. I've been coaching girls since they were five, they become a dawson, go to college. You know what, they come to me and say, my coach Miley was right. Cause I'm telling you right now, this is what's gonna happen in life.
You're gonna find out the hard way. I'm telling you. Let's go. Oh man, I got a lot of thoughts. I'm just trying to figure out what direction i want to go in.
But one thing that stuck in my mind was talking to my son Tyreek Muhammad today out here in a park right behind my mom's backyard.
And you know what we talked about.
We talked about benefits in consequences from our decisions, Benefits in consequences from our decisions that we make, because every decision has it benefit and a consequence. And I'll give you an example. Let's eat an apple. It's wholesome, it's full of nutrients, it's delicious, it's sweet.
It is one of the most favorite fruits on the planet.
But you can eat that apple and you gain a tremendous amount of benefits a tremendous amount of nutrients, and there's also some consequences that you might not be aware because the body only wants nutrients when we eat food.
It does not want other properties just in foods.
So there's a part of the apple that the body just don't want, and so the body eliminates it because it's toxic and if it stays in the body, there are consequences.
See.
So there's a benefit in a consequence, but the benefits of eating an apple farly by far gives you the most benefit versus the consequences. So therefore that's a good decision to eat that food.
See. And that's how life is.
Every time you encounter a situation, you gotta look at your benefits from it. They're from your consequences. Talk to you about level. It's a lot of people emotionally get involved there in committed relationship with someone, but or they get involved in a side piece an affair because emotional reasons, financial reasons, maybe whatever the reason might be. There's a
benefit and there's a consequence from this decision. And this high life is safe because a lot of people did are marrit or in good relationships that have families make that decision to get involved with a jump off from the side piece and an affair with another woman or another man, or whatever the case is.
What happens is.
Might feel good at that time, that experience might have an explosion of memories, explosion of emotions, and the explosion of just a good time.
And it's all good and why, but it's short lived.
It's temp work because a lot of people is gained no small short term benefits. In the end, many other relationships and marriages have broken up, or they went home with disease and gave it to the house with your little friend, or what have you. The kids broke up, the family broke up, the finances broke up, all over
that emotional scene to have an affair. And what I'm saying is there's a benefit in the consequence, and you gotta calculate those I'm talking to my son, because life is nothing but a sum total of all the decisions that you make.
And so when you look back at all your gains and all your your your your and you and your things that you didn't.
Quite do well at, you know, you got the gains and you got the disappoint right, Well, the thing is is decisions that you made because they came with a benefit, and it came because but in time so was all out. Because they're clear cut decisions. Sometimes we get in life, well we gotta say, WHOA, I'm kind of stuck. I don't know whether I should go left or right on this, And you go with your gut, you go with your instinct, you go with might feel right, and time is gonna decide.
Whether or not that decision was right or wrong.
And what happens is, as it does in any situation, we'll see in time whether or not that was the right call, because they are close calls sometimes, but every decision is a consequence and benefit, and that's the point, whether.
It's right or whether it's wrong. And sometimes right and wrong.
Has nothing to do with decision that you made. There's a situation where there's no right or wrong. There's just a decision that gotta be made. See, everything ain't right or wrong, everything ain't up and down. There's just times when it's just you gotta make a call. And if it's the you gain the most bang for other decisions, and if it's the wrong call, you gain less from the decision.
And that's how life is. That's the point. Make better decisions. Think about it before.
You act, think about it before you act on whatever it is that you gotta make. And believe me, if you live long enough, you're gonna have to make some major decisions. You're gonna have to make some major decisions and they come with major benefits and they come with major consequences. So you got to learn how to do this better because life is simply a word problem. It's an equation and you getting to some total out of an outcome of a decision that you gotta make.
And that's what I was trying to talk to my son about making better decisions as he, you know, become you know, he's.
Already young man, but now he has to grow up into a mature man and he has to make better decisions.
And none of us always make perfect decision, but we gotta learn from the decisions that we make.
Even if they're wrong, they're still a game because you learn from them. And that's the greatest way we learn is through our experiences, and that's how we become more mature. So a lot of our mistakes are still a game, but we got to learn to do better, not to make those mistakes. That's all because when you continue to make the same mistake, you know, it's not call a mistake, it's call it error down because one is accidental. Mistake is accidental. An error is intentional. See like in baseball,
they call an error when they drop the ball. They call it error when they don't make it because they're supposed to do that. They're not supposed to make that mistake. That's not why it's a mistake. I was supposed to catch that ball.
I supposed to make that play the first base, and when I don't, they call it that error. They don't call that no mistake.
So learn to dive between a mistake and an error, because an error is intentional because you you weren't supposed to do that, and you did it anyway, So it's not a mistake and it's not an accident. It's intentional and you know it was, and you need to learn from it instead of say, oh I made you know you didn't. You did not make a mistake. So hey, this is life and life is a journey. In life,
we grow and we evolved and we make mistakes. But are you gonna keep making the same mistake over and over you're gonna keep getting the consequences over and over or you want the benefits? Do you want the benefits? That's the question. I want to benefits. Everything we do there's a benefit and it's a consequence. I want to gain the most out of every decision that I make.
That's what was on my mind at heart that I wanted to share with my podcast audience benefits in consequence from our decisions.
Boom, that's it.
That's it, So stay tuned for some more for Malie's bookshow bringing the world together with books, culture and community. Thanks for listening to Malak's Bookshelf, where topics on the shelf are books, culture, and community. Be sure to subscribe and leave me a review. Check out my Instagram at Malak Books.
See you next time.