Emmanuel Acho, UNCOMFORTABLE CONVERSATIONS WITH A BLACK MAN
[0:08]Hi, I'm Zibi Owens, and you're listening to the award-winning podcast Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:13]Please sign up for my newsletter at zibiowens.com for weekly updates about my podcast's events and more.
[0:20]Also, follow me on Instagram at zibiowens and also at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[0:26]And finally, join my virtual book club called Zibi's Virtual Book Club, which meets every other Tuesday at 2 p.m.
[0:32]Eastern Time until 3 p.m. and features half an hour of book club discussion followed by 30 minutes of Q&A with the author whose book we've just discussed.
[0:41]You can sign up on my website zibiowens.com under the virtual book club section or even on Instagram, under the link in my bio.
[0:49]I hope you'll find to me in all these different channels and enjoy this podcast.
[0:53]Thank you so much to Audible for sponsoring today's episode.
[0:57]For those of you who don't know, Audible is the leading provider of spoken word entertainment and audiobooks ranging from bestsellers and new releases to celebrity memoirs, business motivation, and also podcasts.
[1:08]They've recently launched their newest plan called Audible Plus.
[1:11]With Audible Plus, you get full access to their Plus catalog filled with thousands of select originals, audiobooks, and podcasts and connects you to just amazing content.
[1:22]The best time to try it is now with their holiday offer because for only $4.95 a month for your first six months, this is a fantastic deal.
[1:31]And all you have to do to get it is visit audible.com slash zibi zi bbi or text zibi zi bbi to 500-500.
[1:43]Again, visit audible.com slash zibi or text zibi to 500-500.
[1:50]I love Audible and listen all the time in my car and on walks.
[1:54]I recently finished searching for Sylvie Lee by Jean Quack, also small animals by Kim Brooks,
[2:00]his only wife by piece, Medi, and also on all fronts by Clarissa Word.
[2:05]So those are for my recent ones.
[2:07]I hope you'll join me in checking out audibleaudible.com slash zibi or text zibi to 500-500.
[2:14]Did I say that enough times?
[2:15]Emmanuel Acho is the author of the best-selling book, Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black Man,
[2:22]which is also a viral video series which you absolutely must go watch right now.
[2:27]It's amazing.
[2:28]He's also a Fox Sports Analyst, co-host of FS1, Speak For Yourself.
[2:33]And as I mentioned, the host and producer of Uncomfortable Conversations with the Black Man,
[2:38]the web series is about racism to drive open and uncomfortable dialogue.
[2:42]He earned his undergrad degree in Sports Management in 2012 and was drafted by the Cleveland
[2:47]Browns. He was a former linebacker who played in the NFL and also played college football and
[2:53]played for the Philadelphia Eagles. Anyway, listen to our conversation. It was amazing.
[2:57]I am such a huge fan of his and I just adored talking to him.
[3:02]Welcome, Emmanuel. Thank you so much for coming on momstone of time to read books.
[3:07]Of course. Thank you for having me.
[3:09]I feel like I should rename it for the night. I should call it like very comfortable conversations
[3:14]with a mom. How about that?
[3:17]Now that's a little more welcoming. You can say that uncomfortable conversations with the Black
[3:21]Man.
[3:21]Yeah. My whole thing is making people feel like they can talk to me and whatever. Although,
[3:25]I have to say that is your thing too. The Uncomfortable is sort of a misnomer because you make
[3:30]comfortable immediately.
[3:33]Yeah, that's the trick. It's like people like will man you wear as a discomfort.
[3:36]And I'm like, it's not always for you, right? Sometimes I'm the uncomfortable person.
[3:40]Sometimes the listeners the uncomfortable person and sometimes my guest is. But in more than anything,
[3:45]I try to make people comfortable because that's when you really get the truth out of people.
[3:50]It's so true. I was thinking of myself ahead of time. I was like,
[3:53]oh, what could I ask him to make him really uncomfortable?
[3:56]Anyway, I decided not to do that. We can just start time.
[4:02]So take me back to May when you decided to start uncomfortable conversations with a Black Man,
[4:08]the videos and when your friend came and you were going to record together and then she bailed on
[4:13]you that morning. And the whole thing of how you started it as the video series and then how it
[4:17]transitioned to your book.
[4:18]Yeah. So after the murder of George Floyd's, if you I was like, what do I do?
[4:23]I have to do something. Okay, I'm a sports analyst, but I'm a Black man before I'm a sports
[4:28]analyst. And before the world acknowledge me as a Black man, I'm a human being. It's my responsibility
[4:34]to positively contribute to society and some way shape or form lead the earth better than it was
[4:39]when I founded when it found me. And so I said, okay, what am I skilled at? I may to a degree gifted
[4:45]or I can speak. So I'm going to do something called questions white people have because I grew
[4:51]up with so many white people. And I know they have questions. I grew up in a fluent neighborhood
[4:56]in Dallas, Texas went to this affluent white private school, more uniform, all boys school called
[5:01]St. Mark's School of Texas. So I said, okay, I know my white brothers and sisters have questions
[5:06]and they don't have answers because they've never actually asked the questions. I've just heard
[5:10]the murmurs and the whispers. So great. I'll get three white people together, three black people
[5:13]together as they will sit around the round table, clear fish bowl in the middle of it. And my
[5:18]white brothers and sisters will pull out a question. They'll ask it to the black people at the
[5:22]table and we'll have a conversation problem. We're in the middle of a pandemic. So nobody can
[5:27]travel. Okay. Now what do I do? Okay. I'll call one of my white friends who can come down from
[5:32]Dallas to Austin, Texas through your hour drive straight shot interstate 35. She said,
[5:37]Emmanuel, if I'm going to be there for you, I have to show up. I said, thank you. I greatly
[5:41]appreciated. She shows up on Saturday. We're going to record on Sunday. She spends a night in my
[5:45]guest room. We rehearse in front of her mom, I'm in front of her sister in front of my best friend,
[5:49]we're good to go. And hour and six minutes before call time on Sunday for the first episode of
[5:54]uncomfortable conversations with a black man, I come downstairs and she's in my kitchen with tears
[5:59]in her eyes. Like I just, I can't do it. It's not right. You should do it by yourself. They don't
[6:03]want to see me. They want to see you long story short. She had a change of heart. Now I'm like,
[6:09]what do I do? I'm like, I gotta do it myself. I still didn't want to do it myself. Transparency
[6:14]moment. I don't think I said this. If I have it, I haven't said it often. I called another white
[6:18]friend last minute. I said, Hey, can you just stand in and ask me these questions and all
[6:23]answers? Remember, uncomfortable conversations with a black man, not uncomfortable monologue
[6:28]with a black man. I was not supposed to be me talking for nine minutes, 27 seconds. The first
[6:36]episode was also very likely only going to be one episode. If you listen closely, episode one,
[6:41]welcome to the first of hopefully many episodes. I didn't know what the heck I was going to do.
[6:47]So that is how this all came to be the ups, the downs, the highs, the lows. It was kind of ordained
[6:53]a moment meant for me. I wasn't searching it or seeking it out. The man I guess met the moment.
[6:58]Wow. That's impressive. And then so you started doing all the videos. And by the way,
[7:04]like the quality of the videos, this isn't like you were just, you know, propping up an iPhone and doing
[7:09]like, you know, they were like highly produced. When Oprah shows up on episode three or four,
[7:15]whenever she came, I was like, well, of course, she's going to show up because it already looks
[7:18]like an Apple TV like set that you're doing the sun. So let me interrupt you. Okay. First episode,
[7:25]the producer was my best friend who's an Olympic gold medalist in Rio Olympics, 2016,
[7:30]just to track a sprinter, anger the four by 100 meter relay. The videographer was a wedding
[7:35]videographer. I'm not some Emmy award winning videographer. It's just my friend who's a wedding
[7:40]videographer and his wife. The first episode was shot in an area that I shot in my 2018 birthday
[7:46]video. I wanted a white psych wall. And I said, wait a second, I'm going to do this. We got to do
[7:52]it well. It looks very highly produced. But the reason it looks like that is because it was so
[7:56]simple because I paid for it. I paid for the first three episodes out of pocket all myself.
[8:01]And so the first episode, I said, but I said this, I said, people eyes need to be satiated if that's
[8:09]the right word. They need to be stimulated. The content is digested better if it's higher quality.
[8:16]So I said, let me take the $1,500. Let me do this with friends. These aren't pros to track
[8:23]Olympic gold medalist in a wedding videographer in myself. We were the four people in the room
[8:27]for episode one. That was it. Episode two, I got my friend who's an interior designer. And she was
[8:33]our stage manager. So it was not a family affair, but it was a friendly affair of just me gathering a
[8:42]group of people who wanted to see the world be better and wanted to see the world change. And we
[8:47]all kind of garnered those first 40 million views. I'm just kind of doing it.
[8:53]You know, there's something almost like metaphoric and the fact that it was you against the white
[8:59]background, right? The black man, the white background, you probably thought of this before. Okay,
[9:03]anyway, thought that was genius of me. Anyway, well, first, let's go to the content of what you
[9:09]talk about and what you put in the book and all the rest, which by the way, was so much more
[9:14]than just a continuation of the videos. I mean, this is like a history book. It's like, I was
[9:19]really good before bed and I was just like, Oh, I'm like learning. This is like, I feel like I'm in
[9:24]school again, but also memoir highly engaging, but just so many facts. So you had to go, you must have
[9:30]had to go research or do you just know all this off the top of your head? Tell me about like
[9:35]making the book. So the book, I didn't want it to just be a regurgitation of the episodes,
[9:39]because that to me is to a degree lazy, but it's also not enough. It's accurate, but it's incomplete.
[9:46]I wanted the book to be both accurate and fully complete. So I wanted to give people
[9:51]a ton of information. Let me submit this to you because this is something I've had a challenge with.
[9:56]We learned our history too young in America.
[10:00]We learn our history too young. Why do I say this? I was taught about the Civil War before I cared
[10:07]about the Civil War. Like don't teach me about the Civil War when I'm 11 years old and I can't
[10:12]even spell freaking whatever. Like don't teach me about that stuff then. Like don't teach me
[10:18]about the judicial system. Don't teach me about the three-fifths compromise. Don't teach me
[10:23]about things that have to do with my identity before. I know my identity. I've never said that
[10:29]before but I'm really having that moment of we learned so much stuff so young that we didn't
[10:36]even we didn't digest it. So now when I was writing this book and researching more information
[10:42]I was having those moments of I forgot the grandfather's clause. Prime example. Everybody knows
[10:48]the term the grandfather's clause but we don't really know what it means. We don't remember what it
[10:53]means and for those listening when black people were disenfranchised there were put those Jim Crow
[10:58]laws together that would try to limit black people from voting and so they would make you take
[11:02]literacy test in order to vote after slaves became free. You had a literacy test. The problem is black
[11:07]people couldn't read because they were slaves and you weren't allowed to read but the problem
[11:11]were you were disenfranchising white people because some lower class white people couldn't read.
[11:16]So rather than adjusting and removing literacy test because that might have helped black people
[11:22]we said let's create the grandfather's clause if your parents could vote if your grandparent
[11:27]could vote you can vote. Well black people's grandparent could vote because of slavery. I don't care
[11:31]about that in fifth grade. I care about that as a 29 year old like that's when I care and so when I was
[11:38]re reading all the information and I was writing this book I was like we have this notion in our
[11:44]head that history is boring outside of a few history majors that are walking the earth that we
[11:49]like all those super nerds like no no no outside of like we have this notion that history is
[11:54]boring when all you got to do is go watch the Hamilton musical and you'll be like yo history is
[11:59]kind of interesting we just learn it too early so I kind of tended in when all over the place but
[12:04]I do think those listening will really feel that and that when I was writing this so much of the
[12:09]stuff is it's so interesting the fact that black and white people couldn't be married 60 years
[12:15]like that's so interesting well I think this loving versus Virginia like so much stuff is so
[12:20]interesting and all and like this you have to know your past to know your future. You have to
[12:27]know where you came from to know where you're going and I think we have to do a better job of knowing
[12:31]where we came from. You're absolutely right and by the way I was just helping my 13 year old
[12:36]daughter study for an American history test and I had to go through like all the things that happened
[12:41]you know around 1760s, 1750s and I was like huh that really would happen because when you get to
[12:47]be this age and I'm 44 so this is even more embarrassing like I learned it in school but it hasn't
[12:52]really come up that much more since and so all the details get a little buggy but yes I think
[12:57]knowing your history and also positioning I mean history needs a rebrand I think we should just
[13:01]call history that you know amazing stories or you know something anyway I totally agree with you
[13:07]you need the context I'm also curious about I know so many people are watching you and listening
[13:13]to you and you're engaging people everyone from police like just so many people about things that
[13:19]they're unwilling perhaps to look at or haven't thought about before but I'm wondering what you
[13:24]deep down believe is the potential for change do you think that the right people are listening
[13:29]do you think people can change I mean you asked that amazing question with the police when you said
[13:35]do you think you know we'll ever get to a place where a young black child could look to a policeman
[13:40]in a as someone who's a safe haven and the question the answer was sort of up in the air like what
[13:46]do you think we have to make incremental leaps steps and then eventually bounds so now here's what
[13:52]we have to understand the people that are on extreme sides my black brothers and sisters on extreme
[13:56]sides that are just I hate white people because of what they've done and what the history and I just
[14:01]will never forgive white people we got to move off that fence the white people on the extreme
[14:06]side of racism doesn't exist systemic racism doesn't exist black people just need to get over it
[14:11]black people things have been equal for 50 years now there's not a problem got to move off that
[14:16]fence we all kind of got to get away from our sides and get towards the middle because the truth
[14:22]of anything lies in the middle the truth of most arguments that lies in the middle it doesn't
[14:28]hover on extremes so how can we move forward as a as a country as a world as a nation we have to
[14:34]have real dialogue the biggest thing for me is it is the simplest conversations I was talking
[14:41]to the group of police officers my latest episode for those that are listening but having
[14:44]you watch it it's a group of 25 petaluma police officers in northern California and predominantly
[14:50]white this is a population of 60,000 but that's less than 1% black my first question I asked the
[14:56]the officers was one's the last time you're at a dinner a conversation with a group of black
[15:00]people and two officers that I asked that honestly a manual we never have now there's nothing
[15:06]wrong with that but there's nothing right with that either inherently there's nothing wrong with
[15:14]that I don't think it's malicious but you have to understand if you're not going to expose
[15:19]yourself to a group of people that don't look like you don't sound like you aren't cultured
[15:24]like you are then how do you expect to interact with them and however you think you're interacting
[15:31]with them how can you think you're interacting with them properly if you don't even know the them
[15:35]that you're interacting with I went to an all-boys preparatory school I told you this high school
[15:40]I didn't have girls in my school from fifth grade to 12 grade didn't better school of girls
[15:44]some perks to that you know you don't have to worry about wearing a loan and like looking good and
[15:47]all that but there's some negatives when I got to college I was like there are girls here
[15:52]oh my and there's a woman here what do I do right I had to learn and relearn how to navigate
[16:01]how to act how to be don't be so aggressive don't be so hostile don't be so curd I had to learn
[16:07]some things because I hadn't been exposed on a daily basis to a large people group it's the same
[16:14]thing it's the same thing and so that's really I don't even remember the question you asked anymore
[16:19]but nonetheless that's okay whatever it doesn't matter but nonetheless I think that's that's
[16:25]what we have to do to become better as a nation is we have to just have real conversations
[16:32]so we'll get get rid of all boys close that's the answer basically I worry my son did an
[16:38]all-boys school right now and I'm like what is he going to do and he gets you know face-to-face
[16:42]with women like do you feel like how do you feel like you were behind the other guys when you got
[16:46]to college or what yeah but it's a quick learning curve you know and it's also depends on like
[16:53]I was still going to church on Wednesdays and Sundays and so like and then I have to older sisters
[16:58]so it's not like it was like a completely foreign speech he's like oh my god brain malfunctioning
[17:02]I see someone with longer hair I don't know what to do like I didn't have it but it was it was just
[17:08]different being in class it's because now you gotta figure out how to navigate differently it's
[17:13]just different and I submit that it truly is the same thing with black and white people just because
[17:19]we're all people no a man you'll also navigate differently around white people than he does around
[17:24]black people he just does and we just have to understand that and move and navigate life according
[17:30]Wow so you must have written this book really quickly how did you fit this in and you already
[17:37]have a busy schedule you're like hosting a show and you're I mean you're all over the place when
[17:40]did you do this well I don't have a ton of fun right now okay I have a ton of work I did it for
[17:45]on the last two weeks of June to August first two weeks of August that was kind of like hey
[17:52]let's knock this out in six seven weeks that was before I was doing a lot of talking in public
[17:57]speaking so in my free time I would just start notating the stories notating the concepts where do I
[18:02]want to go here's the thing though I realized the end of something before I ever started what
[18:09]do I mean 2015 I'm playing for the Philadelphia Eagles I got a direct message on Instagram from
[18:14]a fans they be hey a manual if I get two thousand retweets where you go to prom with me right
[18:19]I say if you get ten thousand you got yourself a deal I never thought it would happen
[18:23]but here's what I also said I said may the odds be ever in your favor quote from the famous movie
[18:27]hundred games and that's kind of how it was ended because I said in the event that she got
[18:32]seized ten thousand retweets I want there to be a cool story a cool response so I ended with that
[18:37]won't long story short Elizabeth Banks I think the lead star of Hunger Games I'm the
[18:41]retweeting the story because I had gone to the end before I ever got to the beginning
[18:47]when I was getting thousands of emails after my episodes I was favoriteing the ones that were
[18:51]really good questions because I said in the event this ever becomes a book I want to use these
[18:57]questions in the book because I want to be able to talk to real people and answer real questions
[19:03]and so it was easier to write because as I was always thinking about it I always thought
[19:09]I don't want this to just be a moment of sizzle I want it to be a moment of substance and books
[19:13]are more substance spoken word is sizzle so I was always preparing for the potential end interesting
[19:19]were there any questions you considered putting in the book or making an episode of your show and
[19:24]you felt like they were just too uncomfortable or like you just didn't want to go there or
[19:29]there are there are a lot of places so the biggest place I don't want to go is politically
[19:34]some people like hey Emmanuel why don't you bring on somebody on the hard extreme and who doesn't
[19:38]even think racism exists and then I submit this to be I say I want to have an uncomfortable
[19:43]conversation not an uncomfortable argument you know I don't want to sit up here in art if your
[19:47]mind was already closed what am I going to do I'm not here to bang on a door that's deadbolt
[19:53]locked I'm there to knock on a door that's cracked open and so if you're already closed by
[20:00]It's not gonna do me any good.
[20:01]I'm not sitting here trying to get into a yelling match.
[20:04]Racism is real.
[20:05]Maybe if you were like, hey, a manual to earth, this flat,
[20:08]I'd be like, okay, you're wrong,
[20:10]but you're entitled to it, you're wrong, dependent.
[20:12]People that are like systemic racism doesn't exist.
[20:15]Okay, you're wrong, but you're entitled to your own wrong,
[20:18]depending, because we're not debating opinions,
[20:20]we're talking about facts.
[20:22]So I'm not going to get into an opinion-based debate
[20:25]over factual matters.
[20:28]So that's probably to answer the question,
[20:30]but what I've been asked most to do
[20:33]that I just don't bother with.
[20:36]So where is this whole thing going?
[20:38]I know it started, you didn't plan it,
[20:40]you just responded emotionally,
[20:42]and then you put this enormously brilliant whole thing
[20:46]together and it's already been expanding
[20:47]and Oprah's been on your show and put you on her list
[20:51]and the book's gonna just blow up.
[20:52]I don't know what this is probably releasing
[20:53]right after the book.
[20:54]So I'm sure by then it will have already blown up.
[20:57]Where do you see this going?
[20:59]Like, what is, do you have a vision?
[21:01]Like, are you gonna be the president one day?
[21:03]Like, where do you want this to go?
[21:04]Like, how big, what do you see?
[21:06]Like, what's your secret hopes and dreams?
[21:09]Yeah, great question.
[21:10]I think any answer would be too small, right?
[21:13]If you would have asked me on May 30th or May 31st,
[21:16]I never would have told you that I would have gone
[21:17]to call for Matthew McConaughey, Oprah Winfrey,
[21:20]and Roger Goodell, the commissioner of the NFL
[21:21]all within a month and a half.
[21:23]Because my mind can't fathom the reach
[21:26]in which this could have.
[21:27]And nor do I want to.
[21:29]I said this before, when I was a kid,
[21:31]you would lay like a hundred dominoes,
[21:33]the black and white dominoes,
[21:34]and you'd push the first one in hopes
[21:36]that you would see a train of a hundred dominoes fall.
[21:39]It was just the coolest thing ever.
[21:40]The first dominoes, they'd be didn't care about the hundred.
[21:43]It just cared about knocking over the second one.
[21:46]I'm not worried about the 200th or 100th domino.
[21:51]I'm just worried about the next episode.
[21:54]And I'm worried about the episode with the police officers.
[21:57]Then I'm worried about the next one.
[21:58]Then I'm worried about the next one
[21:59]because I just want to keep making pockets of change,
[22:03]keep making pockets of change.
[22:05]And then I'll look up and be like,
[22:07]oh, wow, this is pretty cool.
[22:09]So many people to be like,
[22:10]a manual, if you're not stopped to celebrate,
[22:12]you're not super excited.
[22:13]I'm like, I don't have time, I got work to do.
[22:15]Now, I'm going to stop and look back one day
[22:17]and reflect and I've had one waterworks
[22:19]here jerking, God, thank you so much moment.
[22:22]But I don't have time, I don't have time to celebrate.
[22:26]Like, I'll look back at the end
[22:27]and I'll be grateful that I was used as a vessel in the moment.
[22:31]But I don't have visions of why we want it to go.
[22:35]I just want to keep staying focused and true
[22:37]to the moment because I think our society will benefit.
[22:40]Did you feel like you had room for a calling
[22:43]before this happened?
[22:44]Do you know what I mean?
[22:45]Like, I was looking at your before Instagram
[22:47]and I'm like, what was he after you before?
[22:48]And like, you know, it's not like you were doing nothing.
[22:50]You already had a whole, you know, singing and this night.
[22:54]But like, this came in and clearly has like,
[22:57]just ignited like every sense of you, right?
[23:00]And you're, you said earlier.
[23:02]So like, did you know there was room?
[23:04]Like, do other, you know, is this going to just,
[23:06]can it just happen?
[23:08]Did you, did you long for something?
[23:10]Can it just happen for other people?
[23:12]I guess or just like, did you know that there was like
[23:15]something that you wanted to do to make meaning
[23:17]and then this fell in your lap?
[23:18]Like, were you waiting for something in other words?
[23:21]I wasn't waiting for this.
[23:24]I was trying to create content around love shows
[23:28]and create crazy type of entertaining content.
[23:31]It was never this, but let me answer your question.
[23:34]There was a difference between your career and your calling.
[23:36]And I think your career is what you're paid for.
[23:38]Your calling is what you're made for.
[23:39]Many people have heard that being said before.
[23:41]Your career is what you're paid for.
[23:42]Your calling is what you're made for.
[23:44]I think that my career is sports.
[23:46]I was focused on my career,
[23:48]but I was still attentive to my call.
[23:50]I got three calls for no call right.
[23:52]The number is during the course
[23:53]of these uncomfortable conversations with the black man.
[23:55]The first one, Oscar Award winner Matthew McConaughey.
[23:58]It calls me.
[23:59]I chose McConaughey here.
[24:01]I want to be a part of your second episode.
[24:02]Matthew McConaughey.
[24:04]The second call, Oprah Winfrey, a manual.
[24:06]I love what you're doing.
[24:07]We'd love to have a conversation, et cetera.
[24:09]The third one, Commissioner of the NFL,
[24:11]Roger Goodell, hey, a manual.
[24:12]I just saw one of your episodes.
[24:13]I want to be a part of this conversation.
[24:16]I say that to say this.
[24:17]Your calling will call you.
[24:19]Pick it up.
[24:20]Your calling will call you.
[24:21]Make sure you pick up.
[24:23]And so my calling called me.
[24:25]I wasn't really, I didn't dial any numbers.
[24:27]My calling just said, okay, a manual, now's time.
[24:30]I don't remember.
[24:31]I wasn't trying to do this alone.
[24:33]That's what people don't understand.
[24:34]I was trying to do this with anybody else,
[24:37]but I couldn't, but I still knew I had to do it.
[24:39]Last quick question.
[24:40]Do you have any advice to aspiring authors?
[24:43]Man, that's a really, really, really good question.
[24:48]I think I have tons of advice,
[24:49]but let me lead with, to aspiring authors,
[24:53]I would say, stay true to yourself.
[24:55]Stay true to your intention.
[24:56]When I first talked to Oprah,
[24:57]the very first question she asked me,
[24:58]and she made it sound way more elegant than I will.
[25:00]But she said, a manual,
[25:01]what is your intention?
[25:03]Because your intention will drive you.
[25:05]And I said, well, Oprah, number one,
[25:07]I want to change the world,
[25:08]and I actually believe I can.
[25:10]And number two, I want to be a catalyst
[25:11]for racial reconciliation through dialogue and conversations.
[25:15]So my intention's not to get a lot of Instagram followers.
[25:18]My intention's not to get a lot of clicks.
[25:19]My intention's not to get a lot of fame.
[25:21]My intention is to change the heart of at least one person
[25:24]or at least change it open their aperture of understanding.
[25:27]So to my authors, potential authors,
[25:30]stay true to your intention.
[25:32]Like, don't be focused on selling the most books,
[25:35]selling the best book,
[25:37]sell the book that is true as to you.
[25:39]That is the best book.
[25:41]Whatever it is that your intention said,
[25:43]this is what I want to do.
[25:45]That is what you do.
[25:46]Everything else will come.
[25:47]Everything else will come.
[25:48]And lastly, there's a difference between success
[25:50]and significance,
[25:51]pursue significance and successful come.
[25:54]Pursue success and you may miss both.
[25:56]But if you pursue significance, successful follow.
[25:59]Amazing.
[26:00]Thank you so much for your time.
[26:02]This has been such a treat.
[26:03]I can't wait to watch your star continue to rise.
[26:06]And I'm so glad we got to spend some time together.
[26:09]The pleasure was mine, my friend.
[26:10]All right, take care.
[26:12]Bye bye.
[26:14]Thanks for Audible sponsoring this episode.
[26:17]Get your amazing deal for 95 for six months
[26:21]for your first six months for their holiday audible plus offer.
[26:25]Go to audible.com slash zibi or text zibi to 500-500.
[26:30]Thanks Audible.
[26:31]Thanks for listening to this episode of Moms Don't Have Time
[26:33]to Read Books.
[26:34]Don't forget to follow me on Instagram at zibi Owens
[26:37]and at Moms Don't Have Time to Read Books.
[26:39]Also sign up for my newsletter at zibi Owens.com
[26:42]and sign up for my virtual book club
[26:43]and meet lots of authors on Zoom every other week.
[26:46]Thanks so much to Steve and Ryan at the Textures Sound
[26:49]for the Sound Editing.
[26:50]And thank you to Morning Moon Productions
[26:52]for providing this fantastic intro and now trim music.