This episode is sponsored by FX's Fleischman Is in Trouble, starring Jesse Eisenberg, Claire Danes, Lizzie Kaplan, and Adam Brodie. The strama tells the story of recently divorced Toby Fleischmann, who dies into the world of at bass dating with the kind of success he never had in his youth. Then his ex wife disappears, leaving him with their two children and no hint of her return. Effexus Fleischman is
in Trouble, streaming November seventeenth only on Hulu. Welcome to P M Mood then No Talking Points, no Bullshit podcast that takes you behind the curtain, off the red carpet, and to the front lines of progress with change makers and innovators that are doing the work to shift our culture and expand our social impact. I am so decided to welcome to PM mood sec who Andrews who is a seventeen year full time poet, a twenty nineteen Grammy Award nominee for Best Spoken Word Album. And I mean,
if you read the man's bio, it is exceptional. You're doing backyard hangouts with Oprah and Michelle Obama. You do and Ted talks. You are named by Forbes to be like their poet Laureate for Corporate America. I mean, my god, you've turned a title of poet, which everyone is associated with being broke into something amazing. Secod, thank you for coming to PM Moods. So tell me how you've done this with lots of creativity, perseverance, innovation, and just stubborn persistence,
you know. I mean, if you can imagine trying to you know, when I tell people that I introduced myself as a as a full time poet, and they look at me like I said, I'm a full time mermaid, you can imagine. You can imagine the challenges of trying to create something that people don't think even is even possible. So it has been a lot of you know, four
to two that is taken. But it's also been very purpose driven for me, because at the end of the day, my purpose has been to create a more commercially viable industry for the art form of spoken word, so that poets can make a purposeful and a profitable living off there of art, so that when other young poets, you know, when their parents asked them in the future, what do you want to be when you grow up and they say I want to be a spoken word artist, I want to be a poetic voice, that there will be
some context for success in that. And I think that's one of the things that we don't have as an industry for spoken word artists like you have in comedy, like you have in theater, like you haven't even some of the you know, a kid can say I want to be a dancer, and the parents still might look at them like, boy, go get a job, but at least they understand the trajectory of a dance so they understand that you can sign with a company, that you can make a living, that you can't go on World
of Dance or Americas got talent and then get signed and joined and tour and so forth. They have no context of what that means to a force spoken word artist. And so that's been the biggest joy for me is just with the Grammys, with Poetic Voice, with the business world of the speaking world, creating that model so that poets can actually, you know, follow towards success. Tell me you you know, we're initially a teacher, yea, what inspire?
And we share that similar background. I too was a teacher I taught first and second grade, our special education and went to school everything, got my master's in education because I believe in it. I just used education as a different tool. Now, how did you make your transition from the classroom to the stage. Yeah, so I was originally planning on doing law school and becoming me too because of the the day. Yeah. Yeah, girl, we keep talking, We're gonna mind out. We got relatives. Yeah, I was,
you know, I was gonna do entertainment law. Um. And then I started working in law firms after college and decided that I didn't want to do law, and so I took up um substitute teaching, you know, as my sort of that was gonna be my actor waiter job, you know what I mean, like flexibility to go on auditions or in my case, go on the world tour. That was just around the corner always, and and I eventually decided to sign on as a full As a full time teacher, I taught fifth grade. I couldn't do
the little ones. You could talk little ones, right, but most of the little most of the teachers, the first secon grade teachers, they didn't want them to do a fifth grade. So it was a good balance um, that is very true. See fifth grade, I'm like, that's too many hormones. You started to figure out yourself if I'm not about that life right, And I see I wasn't about that running around the room played with you all day life. I was like, I need you to be
able to understand Sardcastle. That was my room and so I you know, I talked fifth grade. But during that time I had been pursuing I mean even since middle school, I had been pursuing music. I fell in love with hip hop and I fell in love with acting at the same time, and I kept pursuing both of them through high school through college. So during this time of teaching, I was still sort of trying to figure out how
to build a career in entertainment. And I started going to poetry over Mikes, and I kind of just accidentally fell in love with poetry. Like it was not plan right. Nobody was waking up in the morning going I'm gonna be a full time spoken word just because nobody knows what that is. But I was just like, this art form is dope. And I kind of loved being appreciated for just my words, Like I didn't have to worry about how dope the hook was, and did I have
a dope feature? And what was the mute? Was the beat? You know, a trendying enough for whatever? It was just like people were like, yo, your words moved you. Even when I was up there as a hip hop artist delivering my stuff spoken word style, they were like, your words moved me. And that got good to me. And so I found myself, why do we not have an opportunity to make a living off of our words as performance artists? You know? Why does it always have to
be coupled with something else? And so I found myself going, let me do that, you know, let me see what explore that. And the entrepreneur in me got excited about that, like this is a this is kind of fertile ground, this is this is a trail week of blade, you know. So I think that was really what pushed me to make that transition. I talked for about four years. In
fifth grade, I remember pulling up to my principal. Pull on to the school to have a meeting with my principle, and I sat down and she said, you're leaving me, aren't you? And I had prepared each you know what I mean. I was like ready to go in and she already knew and she was like, you said for you. She was like I get it. She was like, we're gonna miss you and you and we need you here, but you're meant for a different stage, for a bigger stage.
And I appreciated that send off, and so I quit my job and three days later I did my first CD release show and I made my rent in CD sales that night and it's been non stuff ever since. That is beautiful one because there's a meme that has been going around on social media that asked a question, what age were you when you had your first black teacher?
And I and it is so beautiful to me that you have classrooms of children that can say fifth grade, because unlike them, my first black teacher I didn't have until college and I only had two in my entire life. And so just that just that that I so I want to commend you for that because I think that that's that that's beautiful. Yeah. So you you make you see now in your with the CD that you're able to make a career and you know, unlike some artists,
you like you said, you have an entrepreneurial spirit. This is a business. You were building a business, not just a brand. Um. I always equate that with Jay Z when he was just like, you know, I'm a business man, right, not a you know, not a businessman. And I think that you know too often as artists, you can get very connected and should be very connected to your craft and you're you're the best salesperson for that craft. You can try and go out and get agents and scouting managers.
But if you don't really know how to sell yourself, right, like, then no one's going to really be picking up what you're putting down. Yeah, that's it. How did you yet tell me? What's funny about that? Is so you're not both know Teresa, And so I literally just had this conversation with Teresa the of the day because I was telling her the history of trying to create a business that is selling poetry to places that have previously dismissed it.
And I said, look, I don't know, there's not too much there's not too many things that I claim I'm the best fad in the world, but I would I would venture to say I am among the best in the world at selling spoken word poetry in places where it's been said it doesn't belong because that alone is a science and an art form and it's incredibly nuanced.
And I've worked with masters, sells people, professional marketers, and they all come in with you know, they got their their resumes and the and the hit lists and there and the egos that I've done this and I can do this and so forth, and I'm like, Okay, that's cute, I get it. But here's what's gonna happen. The minute that you mentioned spoke spoken words. Here's what's gonna happen.
If you say these wrong words, you will you will instantly remove three or four zeros off of my value simply by using the wrong words, simply by creating the wrong context for what it's it's possible for this art form. And so I'm constantly in a place of having to train people how how how to sort of be the mouthpiece and the voice for my voice for this art form. Right, So you're right, it absolutely is a challenge trying to figure out how to communicate the possibilities for this art form.
But that's also the double edged sword. It's I call it my joyful challenge because it's it's a challenge. It's an uphill battle constantly. But it's also my baby, you know what I mean. It's like it's my creation poetic voice, it's it's me being able to say to the world. Yeah. I know that you thought that spoken word was only this. I know that you thought that it was only relevant
at your company holiday party. But you're wrong. Spoken word can have more values in some context than any of your other presenters at your most important senior leadership executive meeting. If you don't believe me, watch this, and my life
has been the living embodiment of watch this. I love I mean joyful right in facing obstacles, I think is what is what transcends most people, right because when you look at something as it is, this burden that you are carrying to do, that's what people see, That's what that's what comes off of you, that's what emanates off of you, is the toiling rather rather than the spirit of it. So I think that that is brilliant. You
mentioned poetic voice. Talk to me about what you created, what is meant by and what is the meaning behind poetic voice because it's different than spoken word. Yeah, yeah, I love I love that you even you know that you recognize that because you know, it's it's an evolution, it's an extension, but there is a difference. I define poetic voice as a speaking category that fuses inspirational speaking seamlessly with spoken word poetry. That's the sort most simplest definition.
So it's you know, it's not there plenty of folks that are performers and speakers, nothing novel there, but this is not. I'm going to perform and then you applaud and I speak, and then I perform and you applaud and I speak. This is sort of a seamless integration where you don't really know where the theater ends and the poetry begins, the business content ends, and the storytelling begins. One minute, it feels like I'm in a story. The
next minute it feels like you're getting actionable business takeaway. Suddenly, wait a minute, he's rhyming. And now wait a minute. Now I'm crying because wearing a story and this is this is a tech conference, and what the hell is going on? You know what I mean? And so it makes that sense of wonderment of throwing an audience off of their off of their feet, a little bit of cracking them open, and ways that they didn't come in expecting,
which is the power of art. And so infusing the power of art into a business context, into a speaking context in this way is what creates that new experience and offers creates a higher perceived value for spoken word than we've previously had. The challenge that I had, you know, people look sometimes at my brand and they go, man, you you know you don't like the metric for success A lot of times these days is you don't you know how many lights do you have? You know, how
many followers do you have? Your brand is so big, I'm surprised that your social footprint is so small. And the reason that was very intentional. You know, now we're doing a lot more focus on external projects. But the reason was because I recognize very early, because spoken word does not have a perceived value, I want to make a living off of this art. I don't want to be The trajectory for a poet is basically a spoken word poet is you go you do the clubs and cafes.
Then you start doing colleges, and then that's kind of it. Maybe you go teach, maybe you start you know, you write books, or you just go get a job and you do poetry as a hobby, right, it becomes secondary. And I said, I want to content I love this art for him. I want to continue to expand what that trajectory can be for me as a spoken word
artist by kicking open new doors. And so in doing that, that became the challenge, right is how how do I extend that trajectory beyond just the clubs and the cafes and the colleges. And that's why it was it was imperative for me to look at what other doors I can be kicking open, like the Grammys. You know what if artists have not one Grammys, if artists, if artists are dismissed from business stages, if artists are dismissed from media, how can I kick open those doors to show them
the poets have value there? And to create that perceived value took me saying I don't want to worry about the likes and the follow because that will result if I get a million hits on a video, that will result I promise you in fifty gig offers for one hundred dollars each. You see what I'm saying. And I was like, I can't make a living off of that see what I want to So I shift it in said, I want to I want to increase the perceived value.
I want to increase the paycheck I want to build, which is what I did, build a seven figure company off of spoken word. So that now when when someone comes to me and says, all right, we want to book a spoken word artist, they're not looking at me going and surely he'll do it for exposure because that's all they're worth. You know what I mean that? Now, Oh wait a minute, check this dude's resumes. He's proven the concept, So we need to we need to honor
the value that he's created. And now it's like, now let's go get the million hit videos, let's go viral, let's do all of that so that we can actually create paying jobs and careers off of this. And so you still have a piece of your teaching acumen because you are now helping other artists, right, other speakers, other people connect and kind of master that stage. Talk to us about that. Yeah, different different classroom, right, Still still
still an educator. Um, So I appreciate my principle for seeing that in me, because now it's just a different stage. And you know, I credit the classrooms, So you're going to appreciate the classroom as an incredible training ground to become a public speaker. You have an audience every day that you have to impress that is not impressed with what you did yesterday. They're not impressed by what you did an hour ago, like like engage me right now
with starting fresh right. And so yeah, I've I've moved now into helping people to become better communicators because I really wanted to expand the impact, you know, like the I could. There's an impact that I can make through my voice alone and reaching hundreds of thousands and millions of folks on live and digital stages, But the greater impact is in showing other people how to be more
impactful on their communities, how to be more inspiring. And so I'm involved a lot now in an inspiration training really, I mean, you can call it speaker training. But my message to the world right now is, look, I don't I don't care what business that you are in, you are also in the inspiration business. And and this pandemic, this crisis is proving that because people have got Yes,
you have to get people the information that they need. Right, people need to know how does the remote working technology work? And what's the expected schedule when I have to feed my kid in the middle of the day, and how do I manage you know, how do I manage unemployment or or paycheck protection, loans or like all the information is incredibly important right now that the minute that that does settles, people need to be inspired to continue pushing
through this. People need to be inspired to say, now that I know how to have the information to teach me how to work remotely. Now I need to be inspired to work remotely, to do know what I mean, to not have happy hours start at ten am, to not to not like to stay focused on my job, to stay loyal to my to this organization, to you know, whatever it is. And so that's that's what the message
that we're sending folks right now. And that comes not only from yes, partner with me because I can help create an inspirational voice for your organization, but it's also let me teach you how to be inspiring because you have to be inspiring right now. You have to be
the one that's closing in the distance. That isolation and social distancing is creative and there are very specific techniques in ways that you can learn to be a more dynamic and powerful communicator, to be a more inspiring communicator and leader. And my Stage might speaker training program, it's like stage fright to stage might. You know I call a rock star secrets for public speakers because it's basically saying, no matter where your voice is, no matter who your
audience is, you have a stage. I don't care if you're a senior executive leader or a dentist, or you're a lawyer or a teacher or a manager. You have a stage. You have somebody that is under your influence, and that person deserves to be inspired by you, no matter how mundane you think your job or your work is. That is a power that you hold alone, and I can help bring that power out of you. It's so interesting because I never thought, in all honesty that you
could teach inspiration. I know that you can teach people how to be better speakers and how to connect, but inspiration is honestly something that I thought you you were either born with or you weren't right, Like, you know, is somebody walking in your door who pretty much and I will age myself, but who sounds like faris Bueller's teacher who is completely flattened, monotone, Their their job is boring as Hellum, but they're like, I need you to
help me. How do you turn that kind of person into into you into or into into the best version of them? I should say yeah, absolutely, And I think that's the critical distinction is that you know, it isn't safe of training, right. Um, it's saying I used to when I when I first created the stage my speaker training system. Um, I had so much resistance internally because I was like, I don't want to be a speaker trainer. There's tons of them out there, there's plenty of whatever.
But I realized that I had built a successful speaking career and never having been trained as a speaker, I had been trained as an artist, and seeing the stage, even business stages, through an artist and a performance lens is what made me stand out in a business environment. And I was like, well, that's teachable, right. So every time someone kept saying, well, how do you do that? And that was the you know, that's that's a lot
of times. The pivotal moment that we have in terms of evolving and expanding our service to the world is that we used to you know, especially artists, entrepreneurs, you know, go getters. We live in our own magic, you know. We this is my genius, this is my magic, It's my gift. And that's what I kept saying every time somebody asked the question. But it's that pivotal question, someone
asking you how do you do that? Enough times and finally eventually you realize I need to have an answer for that, like I'm not serving the world in as profound and prolific of a way as I could be if I could answer the question how do I do that? And I never knew how I did that? So I began to dissect and codify how I did that, and I begin to realize that, yes, some of it is my magic, but that there's also mastery. There's a point
in which the magic ends and the mastery begins. And when you understand that, then you go, these are the teachable components of what it is that I do. So let me begin to share that part so that I can not only not teach someone my magic, but I can bring out their magic in these teachable ways. So that was really the pivot point for me, and I realized that inspiration, Yes, it is a speaker training system.
But you know when I tell people that they're people who are battling nervousness, and I tell them, I want you to go on stage and I want you to focus on who it is that you're there to serve, because right now you're trying to say, well, I have to reach everyone and I have to do this for everyone, and I go, no, that's not true. There might be one person, there might be three people that are listening to you in this crowd that what you say is going to prove to be a lifeline for their business,
for their family, for their relationship, for their life. Possibly. Right there's a line in one of my poems that says, I spit for the suicide note stuff into the back pocket of someone here tonight, right like you could be what you could be the voice that saves someone's life tonight in some literal or metaphoric way. So that's what you need to stay focused on. Left. That be what
gets rid of your nervousness. And as you go on that stage, no matter how the great the audience experiences or not, and you focus on the fact that you're
there to serve. And I think that's the inspiration part is that yes, it's speaker training, but the more that you focus on the why of the speaker training, the more that you are pushing yourself to say, I need to take this from just speaking to actually inspiring because I need to serve that organization, that customer, that workforce, that employee, that relationship, that community, that try been in that way. And so it's the purpose element behind that
I think makes the inspiration teachable. You know, you mentioned uh, magic and mastery, and I love I love that. I it was like it invoked like an imagery for me because I think that right now, just going back a little bit, in this moment, in this global crisis that we're all living through, working through, just trying many people just trying to survive through every day, every moment, it's different and it's hard. When I started PM mood, this
was not happening, So the conversations were different. I can't get away from, you know, from discussing how this has impacted people are how it is impacting because we're still living the momentum for people who are struggling to find the magic in this moment right that you know, they're they're struggling because they're looking for inspiration from leaders that they're not finding. How do can they how can they
conjure that within themselves? How do people What are some of the ways in which people can find just a little burst right of magic, of sunshine of light that can help carry them through? Because I feel, you know, one of the things that has been so inspiring is the music. Is the song? Are the words? Is the art? I think it's so ironic that those are some of the first things that are cut when we're talking about education,
for instance, we cut the arts. Oh, you don't need that, you need you know, writing, arithmetic and this, that and the other thing. But it is, but it is the essence of art that is saving many people right now. So how do you conjure that magic? There's a line in one of the piece called the Music Movement of off of the Grammy nominated album that says, with music programs raising test scores by twenty percent, cutting funding from music to save money for english and math, it's like
removing a car's engine to save money on gas. And that, to me is what is the embodiment of what you're talking about, You know what I mean, We're cutting off our lifeline because we've we've you know, incorrectly assigned our value system. And so I yeah, it's it's a it's a challenge. But what I tell people, I've been working on a book about the power of inspiration for the
past few years. You know, God willing, I will start to have some space this year, during this pandemic, and this can be one of what I call my pandemic projects, that that will, you know, give me something to come out of this stronger than when I came into it. Um And in the book, I talk about the need to you to seek out inspiration. You know, there's sometimes there is this you have the luxury of waiting for it.
I used to have that luxury when I first started working in the business world, and somebody might hire me to create a custom piece or whatever every blue moon. That was very rare. But most of my poets, we just came from within me. It was just I'm mad at my mom and I'm a writer mad at my mom home. Or I'm you know, loving my mom and
I'm a writer love my mom poem, you know. And now it's like, yo, I gotta knock out this cloud computing piece by Wednesday, you know, And so it's a different relationship that I have the inspiration now now have a lover being able to just wait for it. I
have to go hunting for it. And I think that this is the time for that now because there's so much noise right now, there's so many distractions, there's so much negativity and fear of loss and pain and uncertainty that we have to be more intentional about every thing really in our lives. We have to be intentional about our morning routine. We have to be intentional about our our you know, mobility. We have to be intentional about everything during this but we also have to be intentional
about our about the hunt for inspiration. We got to go hunting for it. And if you hunt for it, you'll find it. Right if you start paying attention to it, you'll you'll see that thing that your kid did that just you look at him, is like, oh God, that was so moving. That's such a symbol of how we need to be in the world. That was inspiring. Let me write that down and man, this thing that this this politician said, this class roots activists said on television.
That made me going, that's what I'm feeling. That was inspiring. Let me drop that down, right, and we begin to we begin to hunt and to gather, and to hunt and to gather, and to hunt and to gather, so that when we have the need to be inspiring, we
are pulling from the source of being inspired. First. We have to be inspired to be inspiring, right, And that's the thing that people have to realize, is that you got to go out and hunt for that inspiration so that you can live and inspired life first, so that then you can help someone else to be to be inspired. And so pay attention, stick that antenna up and start and start documenting the ways that you're moved, the simple thing that you're that move you. Because inspiration is a
very you know, amorphous, intangible concept. You know what is inspiration? What does it mean to be inspired? It's very subjective and personal for each of us. And so I think that we have to pay attention to that was inspiring to me, That was inspiring to me, And the more that we do that, the more that we'll realize, oh, well, if that's all inspiration is, If that's all that it took to inspire me, I'm sure somebody else feels like that.
And if that could inspire me, I could do that for someone, I could say that for someone, I could give up. I could take something and recontextualize it in a way that does that for someone. And now inspiration becomes a more accessible and you begin to access it as a superpower that you've always had in you. You just didn't know how to. You know, you didn't you didn't have a cape in it and a spandex. You know.
I love that. Um. One of your incredibly inspiring moments I would imagine would be when you found out that you were nominated for Grammy in twenty nineteen. Yeah, you are the first spoken word artists poetic voice to be
nominated in what was it, thirty years? So uh, you know, really, if you're thinking about in the context of spoken word poetry and spoken word poetry albums for thirty years, I take nothing away from Doctor May Angelou and Nikki Giovanni who won twelve years ago, seventeen years ago, one or nominated, But they're also in our community. They're not They're not
thought of, and nor do I think of them. Think they think of themselves as spoken word poets right, a much more sort of literary right, literary poets who had a book and then they read the book as an audiobook and that got nominated as different than an album, and ours was a top to bottom spoken word poetry album. So that's why we say thirty years. What was that like? I mean, let me just tell you the clips of
a full orchestra. The string theory behind um or in or intertwined with your voice and your messages was beautiful. It was it was It was. Um, It's something I don't even think I used the word awe struck often, but I'm going to use it now. Um what what retire? Now? What? Um? What did that feel like to get that call? It was in some ways indescribable. Um. You know, I went after this with everything I had and yet and I was met at every turn with that's awesome that you're
doing that. But really, you know what I mean, Like like there was such enthusiasm and also such skepticism, like come on, I don't want you to just like are you what? Are you gonna tell me that you're gonna fly to the moon next? You know what I mean?
It was just kind of like like you're you're chasing something that feels kind of impossible because, um, because of the fact that we were always up against audio books or But to be honest, also what drove me was that because you know, you can't tell me impossible and then make me think, I think it's gonna be a deterrent. If anything, it's an attraction, right um. But what was also a driver was the fact that some people didn't know that it was as impossible as it is, because
they were shocked to find out that our category. The reason why it's so impossible is because the spoken word best spoken Word Album category has been dominated by all the audiobooks. Right. Well, that's that's the challenge. I just I want to make sure that's clear, because some people look and go, why was it such a big deal. You're a spoken word artist, that's the spoken word granny. Why not? Right? Well, the reason is because we're not
ever competing against spoken word artists. Were competing presidents and celebrities and giant publishers that have these huge, huge books and industries behind them that share the same category as poetry. And a lot of people were shocked to hear that. They were like that they shouldn't be together. Like when I think spoken word, I don't think audio books. I think the art of crafting spoken word poetry, not the narration of a book. And so that was really what
made it so insurmountable. And so when we when we got the win and we got the nomination, you know that morning, so I'll tell you, I'll paint the same
for you. I I woke up and I had a whole lot of stuff going on in my life, and my church had just said that they reinstating this super early morning Wednesday prayer and I never go to those kind of things, but I was like, you know what, I got a lot going on right now, All right, let me go handle that right and then and then I found out so that was like five thirty in the morning that was supposed to be happening. And then I found out that the Granny announcement was going to
be made at around five fifteen on CBS News. And so I was like, well, I was already playing on being up. That's awesome. So I got up and I'm making my coffee and I'm sitting down. I'm ready to go. My wife's like, yo, we gotta go, we gotta go, and I'm like, hold on, I have to hear this announcement.
And they kept going the news kept going, you know, and coming up the Grammy nominee announcements, but first and they can't be crazy, And I was like, wait, I was telling tell my wife, wait, I canti find this out. So she was like, well, it's supposed to be up on the website. Why don't we just drive the church and we can find out on the you know, on the website. When we pull up and halfway uh there, I got a call from my Thin brand manager who
who was like, did you see the news? And he was like, we got it, say Coo Andrew was in a stream theory nominated and we were just like I pulled over and my wife started screaming, and I'm in the car and we were like, I remember hearing these moments, these famous stories you hear of like yeah, Button Pepper the first time they hurt themselves on the radio, and they pulled over and we're dancing in their car, you know, and I was like, this was that kind of moment
for me. Suddenly I'm just I'm just screaming and my wife's kind and we're having this amazing moment. And then we pulled up five minutes later and we walked into the church and we just got our prayer on and our gratitude on, and we was like, you know what, there could be no better place for me to be right now than to be in this sort of room and spirit of just gratitude, pure praise and worship and gratitude for all that I have in my life. And let me take this moment right now. And you know,
I wasn't prepared for it. I wasn't prepared for it, even though it was something that I completely chased mentally, I hadn't even cleared space on my calendar for the next round of campaigning. And I told my team, we're good, the boats are in, We're good, you know. And then suddenly we got the nomination and I was like, oh, we didn't even make space for this, you know. So it was it was crazy, but it was. It was a joy to be nominated. It was a joy to
be in the same category as Michelle Obama. It was a joy to get beat by, you know, the most beloved first lady and and one of the best selling autobiographies ever. Like all of it, it was just win after win for me. So I got no complaints. That was gonna be My next question was going to be about Michelle Obama. I'm given the fact that you were talking about audio books, but I'm thinking, if there is anyone that I would ever want to be beat by
in life, it's gonna be her. Exactly. It's gonna be here, like, oh man, who are you beat by? Michelle? Oh? Okay? Well I told one of my friends called me and he was like, yeah, I was talking to my life. You know, it's my ten year old daughter. And I said, you know, hey, you know uncle sak who um just got you know, nominated? I mean, I just got you know, did the Grammys celebration? This is this was after the awards and and she goes, really wow. She goes did
he win? And he was like no, he didn't win. And she goes, well who you know? Who who did he get? And he was like, well it was Michelle Obama and it's ten year old kid win. Well yeah for her, it was like, well of course, man, you know, but come on, if Michelle Obama is going to be in a category, she's gonna win. Come on. Um No, that's extraordinary. One of the last question that I always asked my guests on PM mood um and I feel like for you you've already you've given us so much
um in terms of how you find inspiration. But to put a finer point on it, I asked guests, how do you get in the mood to change the world. What is it that you do? How do you get into that space, that headspace um to do the work that you do. How do I get in the mood to change the world? I would probably say that it's
probably three things. I get in them. I get in the mood to change the world by first identifying how it is that I need to serve the world and being purposeful in that, you know, that's really what drives me.
That was the beauty of the Grammy nomination. It was not that it was not just that it was the wind for me as an artist, but even more that it was the wind for our art form, and that it was helping to helping me to serve my purpose of creating that model of possibilities for spoken word artists that didn't believe, you know, things were possible beforehand. So that spirit of serviceness, a spirit of service, is the first thing that I think gets me in the mood
to change the world. I would say the second thing is is the spirit of collaboration, you know, surrounding myself with people that are that than me, that are greater than me at things that that that fill in for my weaknesses with their strengths. UM. That pushed my creativity, push, push my envelope. I mean, that's what the string theory was.
The string theory is a fifty It's the fifty person neo classical orchestra that has everything from electronica and bagpipe and you know, DJ's in addition to your your your string quartets. And the thought of what an orchestra that is innovating classical music could do with a spoken word artist that's innovating spoken word poetry. That was exciting to me. That got me in the mood to say, let's let's go change something. Um And that was one of the
greatest compliments. I'm one of my competitors, actually, Alex Eric Alex alexandrakis trying to pronouncing his name, was one of my fellow nominees and he came to me afterwards and he said, you have forever changed this category. And that was so gratifying for me because it took that spirit of collaboration for us to do that. Um, and then I think the third thing, it's just, you know, just hope and belief in yourself and joy and kind of that passion that goes along with doing what you love.
You know, they say you do what you love and love what you do. And I really try to bring that into the spirit of everything that I'm doing because right now when I'm in a new place of trying to save the world and trying to serve the world, and I save the world, and it makes sure I correct that of serving the world, and because the world has such a high need, and the message that I'm sending, my sending to my community, to my clients, to my tribe,
to their communities is that, yeah, I get it. I get that the live gatherings were shut have been shut down, But the live gatherings were for the purpose of finding inspiration. Live gatherings for the purpose of creating togetherness, right, so the need for togetherness is still there, the need for inspiration is still there, and it exists now more than ever.
And that's where it is that I'm trying to make sure I'm partnering with my clients organizations, letting them know all way that we virtually from where we are can still help them inspire and serve that need for inspiration. That to me, that serving that need and the joy that comes with that, that's real big for helping me, helping me to get in the mood to tampact as well. Beautiful Secu, thank you so much for joining PM mood.
You are a gift with wonderful Thank you for having me, and thank you for saying that I appreciate it for joy. Thanks for listening to PM mood as always, you can hear episodes every week for free, and my daily political podcast, Woke a F Daily, is on Patreon for just five dollars a month at patreon dot com slash woke a F. That's five dollars a month for five shows a week,
so check it out. If you're in the mood for more of me, Danielle Moody, follow me on Twitter and Instagram at D two cents d e E two c e nts, and as always, stay in the PM mood to change the world.