Erica Ford Shares Thoughts on Snoop Dogg’s Inauguration Performance, Talks New Book & More

We got my girl Erica Ford in the building today. At this point, Erica, you're like a New York icon.

People say that, yes, you are right.

They say a lot of things.

Yeah for sure, a legend and og and a good friend and a and a friend to this city and.

To so many and uh and now author author author of the.

New book, Uh, The Piece Doctor's Playbook by Erica Ford, Author and publisher.

Oh what do you mean? Tell me?

I put the book out. I don't have no machine behind me putting it.

Out of Oh you're self published? Why did I think you were under an imprint?

Because it's because the footprint is so.

So big that it was giving. It was given corporate vibes. What do you mean?

So?

Wait, how does that so? What does that?

How?

What is that process? How does that work? You just wake up? There's why did you decide to go that route?

Because didn't nobody come and say they want to give me a million dollars to put my book out? So I'm not dam damn them. That's right, I'm not waiting, you know. And how the timing was of what was happening in the world. I felt that people needed the peace stop this playbooks.

What is the peace Dooptor's playbook. Let's break that down for everybody off top.

So it is a series of plays for fifty two weeks, every day, every week of the year, giving you action tools on how you can be intentional about your life. Like we wake up in the morning sometimes and think that we could just come into Monday, and it's going to be Monday. Now you got to plan. You gotta be purposeful, you gotta like there's like yesterday I woke up with Trump saying he's freezing the federal funds.

That's me.

I have federal funds.

So now I.

Had to go in motion to like see how I had to maneuver stuff and put different things in place in case we couldn't get our funds right, and so if I didn't have things already lined up, I would be you know, asked out. And then of course they just I just got a text saying that they rescinded the freeze.

They did, Yes, they just did it.

But that's because people went into motion, right, and so and some people rolled the colt waves of the people going into motion. But we got to have a plan for life, you know, like you're talking about, Yeah.

I got all types of injuries right to fix my injury.

And not only fix your injury, Like who are the people in yourself you could tap into different people like I tapped into you when I was sick, right, and you helped lift my voice, and then different people came to me.

I love that, by the way, just so give people understand a little backstory. When Erica was here the last time on the show, that was the last time, right.

I think there was one in between that course, like.

During election time also, okay, but before that you were not doing well. You had lost all this weight. You didn't know why you weren't sleeping. Yes, It's so scary to me when I think about it, how many people deal with that? Like you know something wrong with you, you go to the doctor, they send you home, yes, and then you sit in your house and what you

Who saw it? Queen a fool.

Queen a fool saw it.

Russell about it.

Even the folks at Northwell Hospital heard about it, and so and a lot of people people in the airport heard about it. They were questioning me, like where am I going? You're supposed to be resting. So you have a lot of followers. But I was able to get the help that I needed.

I love that, Thank God. And yes, and what was the help? And did you find out what was wrong?

So yes, I had so people pay attention.

I mean, tell what you want. You don't have to Yeah, yeah, yeah, I ain't holding old cards.

I tell it all right. But what the reason why I pause is because y'all are gonna say, you're gonna throw it back on me. Because I wasn't taking care of myself. I wasn't resting, I wasn't listening to my body, I wasn't eating the right food. And so the accumulation of all of that caused my white blood cells, the eosinophils, to have an overdrive. And so most people have two thousand eosinophils. I had two hundred thousand eosinophils.

White blood cells.

The white blood cells attack something when it's when you have a right and so there was nothing for it to attack.

So the body was in crisis and it was attacking me right.

And so as you said, I lost sixty two pounds, I looked like a straight I don't know if I could say crackhead, but you know, in the eighties, crackheads were skinny and malnutrition and they looked like they were dying. That's what I looked at like. And so now I no longer look like that. I got my weight back, and part of that was steroids that they gave me.

So I was scared.

Last week I weaned off the steroids and so now I'm no steroids and I feel wonderful. And I'm an author and I'm running these screens publisher and a publisher. And I was, you know, at the Bill's game. You know, we were defeated. My heart was broken, but I was able to go and do things that I like.

Thank you. And what is the number one lesson you learned from that? That whole thing?

I can't save the world. You know, that's a tough way.

That sounds like this might sound like a small thing to somebody else, but to you specific and.

What that means is I have to take everything in mine. I gotta have fun. I'm six, I'm gonna be sixty this year. Wow, i'ma be sixty. A lot of times I know can't say they're going to be sixty. A lot of people I know don't look as beautiful as me.

You know, skin is not flourishing like you're just flourishing at.

Sixty at sixty, you know. And so I got to enjoy life. I got to focus on life. And so that's why I wrote the playbook so that I can teach. I can share my wisdom that I've learned over these last thirty seven years, and it's work and really have fun with it. And that's what I'm here for, to have fun with it.

I can only imagine for you like these times right now. We'll get back to the book in a second, but like these times where everybody is stressed the hell out right, but for things that you've been dealing with, for him, I don't know, for decades, you've been fighting, you know, injustices and you know the system. You've been fighting the system and the BS for decades.

The thing is that people.

Are confronted with like some of the worst of the system right now, So they're having a hard time. I know a lot of people that are like depressed, and they may not be saying those words, but I could tell by every day how what they're posting, what.

They're saying, like it's this is a negative place. How is this all affecting you? And what is your advice to people who haven't done this?

For some of my advice is stop feeding the negative narratives. Right, That is not the totality of your life. Right. If you just sit there and feed all of this negative narrative every single day, that's all you're gonna have to eat, right. And so if you just eating negativity, then you're gonna be corrupt with a lot of negativity, right, And so you got to put some other stuff in. I know somebody said to me the other day and they felt

You took it, you took it to the left. We got to think about our ancestors.

We got through that and we're here, and so we're going to keep elevating through the bs. But we got to be intentional. We gotta be disciplined, we gotta be organized, and you have to be there for your family, right. You can't be so consumed with this ish that you can't be there for your children. You can't check their heart, you can't give them the love and the time that they need because your head is so filled because.

You're watching the news every day and you think.

Your life is over, and so you're not planning for your life because to you, your life is over.

But it's not.

Just like yesterday he said some dumb dish and it got shut down. And every time they rise up, we're gonna keep rising, right, We're gonna keep elevating and just get the piece doctor's place, Well, join the community. This will fix your problems, will fix your problem and it's not then I'll get you a good drink and you can.

Just stop them.

But you know what, you have to remind yourself like, okay, well what can I do about this? And you're right, there's always a negative narrative. If I spend the day looking for the negative narrative. I could depress myself.

Exactly because it's it.

Is out there, but there's also other things out there, and there's other things that require your attention and your you know.

Yeah, so I get that. I was telling you. I was telling Erica.

I woke up this morning because I was in a weird place yesterday. I was feeling like I don't know, and I had this thought. My first thought this morning when I woke up was, can you think of anybody who's.

Not going through something right now?

And I started doing like a rolodex stuff my people, my friends, my family, and not only are people going through things, but they going through real things. And it put me in check real quick, like you're right, You're okay. That little thing that you were stressing yesterday, it's still there, but it's fine, like you know, tomorrow's coming, It's fine.

I don't know.

It just put me in check, like everybody's going through stuff, but we can always find things to be sad, angry at, worried about. But yeah, like you said, the balance, So the Peace Doctor will help me do that.

Yeah, every day. It will wake me up with proper thinking every.

Day every day because what you have and what you're in control of is right now. Right now. There's a lot of people that you know and I know didn't make it to the next right now, right and so and their family, although they were planning a lot of things, their whole family narratives shift tremendously because someone was taken out of their life. Right and so, you know is all we have is our breath until we don't have

Oh no, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's tough.

Yes, it is tough. But he's got the piece doctor play with them. I sent it in there to him, and he found it very helpful, right because, just like you said, he woke up one morning and was like, you know, like I'm okay, Like I can use my energy to build a positive environment while I'm here, right and so, and although he got sentenced to eight, he'll probably only do two. Then there's sometimes served and he's going to come out and he's going to be next to me every second of the rest of his life.

And he has the rest of his life, which how lucky is he?

That's right, that's right. And so one of my other main.

You know that we any of us, have the rest of our lives.

One of my main other objectives is to get this playbook into as many prisons as I can. OH love that because I think that those brothers and sisters have a lot of time to sit down and really be intentional and not get tickets, not get into the box, not get into fights, but really control their live and their destination while they're there so that when they come out that they can make the best of their life,

You forgot page numbers week so weeks once we gave tea while you're going.

Through your book, make sure if there's an important part, you should fold the little tips so you don't lose it.

So we have new things that we're going to start selling with the books, and some little things to put on the side of the pages. Join the community, scan the QR code, join the community, and we'll get you all the tools you need to know where you are okay, and this is my first book, So bring all the you know feedback that I need.

So you set professional goals for the week, your health goals for the week. Yes, so it's like an intention play us, right, It's it's like set your intentions financial goals for the week.

So not like you you have. Your health goal is to get rid of the pain in your back. I know, right, And so you have to do something real and you can't just ignore it.

I know it's going to go away.

You're right, you have to do something.

And I wasn't thinking that way, right.

I was thinking I got to get on a plane later and I got a podcast to shoot tomorrow.

I was like, okay, I gotta do this to be able to get my kid to the whatever.

You know nothing about my actions with saying, well you do, so deal with this.

Need to have someone get you one of those back braces.

No, I don't need a back brace. So they have ones that you can't see. I don't need a back brace. I need to exercise.

I need to do plane. So you're not okay, So while you're going to the plane, make sure that you are twisting.

I need left ing Erica. What I need is drugs. What I need is drugs before I get on the plane.

Is not going to take the pain away.

I'm make it what I need today. So no, the truth is what I need today is drugs.

What I need moving forward is to get my core stronger. Because my core is stronger, I have less problem because you do. I have a cage in my like my back when I had that car accident. So I have like this like thing, this thing in my spine, and so sometimes it acts up, you know, and then if my core is not stronger, it acts up more often.

And so I have been a little cordless. I've been cordless.

I haven't been fun. I haven't put in the playbook work. On Wednesday and Friday, all of the people.

With the legal cannabis stores in New York City and you needs some CBD oil and some scent. All the weed over here, you know, sol the all the weed make a delivery too soon soon, you know, to get on a cannabis tip. Because that was the other thing that we talked about. So I was last year you got this supposter child right for the cannabis license. They gave you a license and it was a very big deal. Gave me a piece of paper that said I could have a license.

Oh so this was the This was the trick, the dope, this was the and it was a big deal because you were the only black woman at the time that has.

Shifted, that has shanged shifted tremendously, the whole thing.

There's a whole bunch of people with licenses and stores, and I'm still standing on the sideline, like put me in, coach.

Wait, what do you need to get put in?

Then we need landlords not to be so racist people afraid to rent to you. I don't know if it's me because I'm a black woman with you know, a gray afro, or because.

Did you sense a center representative?

You know I tried that once.

How did that go? You can make it to the long Really is this?

No?

Seriously, this is this is the problem that landlords won't rent to you.

Landlords come up with different stories each time, and so I definitely have taken it like it's it's personal. You know, I might be black ball. I can understand why they were black ball the peace doctor, because you know, I used to be the angry peacemaker and so I might have pissed off a couple of people. So you talk about and that's another reason why I want the Peace Doctor's Playbook for yourself, right, because you can't curse out everybody.

Right, You're having a consequence, right.

And me on you know, opening up this cannabis retail place, I'm having consequences. But there's always a Peace Doctor Playbook to take us into tomorrow.

It will change your life, guys, just a little intention a little that's what it is. It's about deciding that I'm gonna have some intention about my life.

I'm not just going to let it happen to me. That's right every day.

Yeah, if you want to make money, you got to do something that's going to bring in an income to make money, right, you can't spend it all on nine hundred dollars pants. Right. If you're talking about you want to make money, right, you have to be intentional, especially you want your kids to go to a certain college or have a certain career. You got to be intentional of what you're exposing them to and what you're doing

Like what, I didn't see that?

Yeah, based on what there's a terrible ingredient that we should have known there the whole time.

Use you g app So I have to check it out. You how are you dealing with all of You can't say today? Just where our country is right now? What's happening?

Man?

I saw you on the track. I saw you out there in the street.

So we were getting people to vote and trying to rally the troops in Pennsylvania and in North Carolina right right right, yeah, and now here we are, yes, Erica Ford.

So I really believe as Trump said that he rigged the election. He said it, not me.

Did he say that? When did he say that? I can't give him his speech with Elon, I don't remember.

He said that Elon went over the end, he did something with the machines, and you know, we rigged it and we won and we here he said it.

He suddenly used the word rigged. Yes.

No, So when you asked that question about who the YouTube thing. That's the last thing that took me. Oh yeah, we're gonna go through your questionnaire because I couldn't believe that he would say that. But I mean it's on there now. AI could do anything with anybody. You know. I wasn't at the inauguration, but there's several videos that show him saying that he wrecked the election. Yes, and you know, Elon could send some one to the moon, right.

It's not within his it's not outside of his scope.

No, it's not, it's not. And so but you know, it is what it is. It's the land that we live in. It's the world that is here for us today. And we just have to be intentional, Like we really have to be intentional. There's the whole thing on him taking away DEI. We have to be intentional, like where

There's a whole list, by the way of places that have also rolled back their DEI programs ever since he said that, so do a little research, guys.

Yeah, And it's annoying because like two of.

Those places like that's my spot.

I'm not gonna say which one, but one of them is like my spot. Yes, And now I'm like, it can't be my spot.

I know it can't be. And you might slip one day.

No, I'm in particular.

I'm saying people in general, don't kill yourself for it, right, right, don't kill yourself for it. Right.

Let's just stand back up.

That's you know, and get back in line and do the right thing, and let's stay focused. It's a long term. It's the marathon that we run in, right, It's not a sprint, and so you know, get yourself ready for the marathon.

What do you think about how people Well this is a two part question, because what do you think about how.

People have treated like Snoop and Nelly and who else? Ross?

And there's a lot of reaction to it. It's very it's very loud. It's people are putting a lot of energy into it. I'm like, that's a lot of energy. Yeah, I'm just curious about what you think about that. People who have stood up and supported Trump and stood next to him I mean clearly a lot of people have.

Yeah, a lot of people have, and they have their own self interest as to why they are doing what they're doing. And I think, you know, if I say the wrong thing, and if I say the right thing, people will come and cancel the already canceled Erica Ford. And so I just want you to know that in this world, people don't always make the right decision right. The ninety percent of my employees are people who killed somebody and they came back and they turned their lives around,

What's the new favorite thing?

For people to do is try to find something about anybody and that you know, it's a gotcha it's a gotcha world that we're in.

In a life.

And that's why I wrote the Peace Doctor paper, so you can focus on your life.

And not focus on the lives of other people.

Focus on your life because if you keep being great and you keep doing.

All the right thing thing, yeah, that's so true. So rightfully do so true. Right, It's like where are you putting your energy? Right?

Right? Then your children will see you as an example of righteousness. Right, and your community will see you as an example of righteousness. And so keep standing on your righteousness. And as Jesus Christ said, he who throws the stone to the prostitute in the hole.

However that scripture wins, I think I'm not sure that's exactly.

Let you stand forth by child and throw the rock at the snoop dog one. But you know, like people, people f up and people redeem and whatever whatever. So there's a lot of people. I mean, you know, this world is full of EPs and flows for sure. Oh right, So I am going to be at Barnes and Nobles, Okay, when on Fifth Avenue, when March twenty six got it, and so they do. You know, I'll be doing a

Write a book.

So all of you who are having trouble with grammar and boctuality know that you two can write a book. And that is the other reason why I'm saying journal, because your journal turns into your your book.

This is actually your book. It's not Eriica's book.

It's actually your book exactly, and we will help you publish it. So scan the QR code, join the community erkafod dot org, Eerica Ford, just Google. You could find all of our social media with all book online platforms. We're going to be at your college on February second doing a book signing, a book event with the links, and we're going to be going to Las Vegas on the ninth, tenth, eleventh, one of those states. But if you tune into Erica four do all the dates and

And your Instagram, I guess you post all this stuff all right on Instagram.

Yeah, shout out to Carry, who's managing the Instagram.

It's not you, do you?

Yes, No, nobody posts on my Instagram me. It's why I don't post that much. It's why I haven't posted probably in.

The week, because first of all, when I post, they yell at me, right, because I just do whatever I want, And so they're like, no, that doesn't fit the description of how you're supposed to post in the time. Why are you posting it one thirty in the morning, because there's people in another world it's one thirty and afternoon.

Of course, when you feel like it, don't let them tell you. Don't let me post what I feel. Yeah, do it? Keep going? All right? So y'all heard that world, keep going. Carry, I'm taking back over.

Take your Instagram over, Carry Carry Rachel's son.

Let's go through your questionnaire before we let you go.

In real life questionnaire with Erica Ford, what the last thing you ate pancakes next door next door here, like in the middle of the day. Yeah, so you're pancakes in the afternoon time of lady.

And cakes all day type of lady.

Okay, what is your go to karaoke karaoke song? Ain't no stopping us. Now you no stopping That's.

Very a triple O G status right there. What's your superpower Peacebusters?

You're like the Ghostbusters. You're the peace Busters.

Your celebrity crush dress, Dresel. But where we were somewhere when he was there?

I feel like I was his wedding. I was at his wedding. Were you at his wedding? No, you weren't at his wedding. Wedding, I was. I'm some movie events. I was at his wedding. It was in Marrakesh. It was beautiful.

Ever ago, I've been in a lot of events with Idris. He's been supporting me forever.

And he said that, so salt his wedding. I love his wife. I love his wife.

She's a beautiful, beautiful sister. But he does this similar work with knives.

Yes, he just did a documentary about it. Yeah, So, uh, your favorite? What is one thing on your bucket bucket list?

Oprah? Super soul Sunday? Does she still have super Soul Sunday? She will if she doesn't, and she.

Brings it back for the peace, bring it back for the peace, doctor, Like, why not?

Let's put it out there.

Your pet Peeve, Yo, your pet Peeve is crazy, our pet Peeve.

You know what it is? People talking to me.

You can't be a publisher and an author and doing public events and people talking.

To you as your pet. Peeve, don't stop talking to me. But I hate.

I.

You know what? Just I don't know.

Your face?

And thison and this breath?

What is the last thing that sent you down a YouTube rabbit hole? Trump saying that he rigged the election? Yes, and what did you find in the rabbit hole he rigged the election?

Is it there?

It's there in many different videos.

Wow, in your favorite emoji? What the hell is this? What is this? The peace side? This is terrible. This is terrible. You're the peace doctor. You should do better. That's amazing.

What type of ericafore Get the piece doctor, playbook everybody and go to Barnes and Nobles in March.

You'll get all the information. Joined the community. Let's stay connected and let's let's let's champion through this trump ish.

This Trump area, and let's keep the peace. Let's keep the piece it is ericad y'all,