Bedros Keuilian Podcast Show - EMPIRE: Being Black in America - Navy SEAL Remi Adeleke - 150

Episode Date: June 2, 2020

The United States and the World are experiencing trying times of historical magnitude. Today’s podcast is here to give you an incredible perspective from Bedros and Navy SEAL Remi on the state of the world, racism , and the impacts of our situation on business.  Here’s what you’ll discover: 06:20 - Addressing George Floyd’s death and how things need to change 17:45 - The issue faced with political parties and the extreme loyalty side effect 22:10 - Remi’s deep dive perspective on what being Black in America looks like  25:00 - Bedros’ story with carjacking in connection to racial stigmas developed from experiences 31:00 - The objective analysis of human behavior and how this may be impacting the way we take in information  33:45 - The media,  it’s goals and why we are so hooked into it    “Racism itself is another pandemic” “The media’s job is to sell adspace and serve political agendas..” “Our past experiences strongly form our current beliefs” - Bedros Keuilian   --   Follow me on Instagram: @bedroskeuilian   Buy Man Up and get Bedros’ High Performance Leadership Course for FREE: https://manup.com/   Subscribe to My Channel for weekly videos: http://www.youtube.com/bedroskeuilian/?sub_confirmation=1   Youtube https://youtu.be/N_QIlFMu98k

I understand we have problems, but I want to be an agent of change because I know that there's so much potential within this country where we can be. Hey, welcome to the Empire Show. This episode is going to be a little different and you'll understand why in just a moment. I don't normally go on a bit of a diatribe before interviewing our guests, but today I am going to do that because you all know the Empire shows about building an empire, financial wealth, generational wealth, and taking that money and creating meaning out of it. Money and meaning is what we're all about. And a few weeks ago when I started talking about the COVID virus and how small businesses are suffering and how when you look at the states that are open for business, they're the ones that are leaning more Republican or conservative, and the more democratic states are

still shut. And my theory was that because it's an election year, And obviously the Democrats don't want the Republican to go to get reelected that maybe there's a little bit of finagling going on. And I also told you that I'm not a Republican and I'm not a Democrat. I'm a free market capitalist. That's it. I solve problems in exchange for money and I take that money and I produce meaning out of it for myself, my family and the three charities that I give to, Striner's, Toys for Tots and Compassion International.

But a few people got on my ass about, hey, you should leave politics alone, Bedros, and you should stick to teaching us to make more money. Well, let me tell you something. It's the politics that give us the environment to make money. My father was a member of the Communist Party. You guys know this, that I escaped a communist Soviet Union when I was six years old. And my dad did not have the opportunity to make money. In fact, when he would steal material and make suits in the home so that he could have bribe money to get us to escape the Soviet Union, the KGB came through because they suspected that he was working under the table and, of course, producing money above and beyond what the government was given him. So understand that the political powers that be determine how we make our money, how much we can make our money, and of course how much of that goes to taxes. I'm going to shift gears one more time here, and we're going to talk about what's happening with George Floyd, racism, bigotry, good cops, bad cops, and how it affects your money. And I'm going to tell you this real quick.

I don't want you to think that empire is all about making multi, multi-millionions. I've got a good friend. He's Loeatian. We've known each other for 25 years. Chanta I am Sissanith is his name. And this dude is a computer tech at a local fashion design high school or college. And we surf once a week together. He serves four times a week.

90% of the time I'm highly jealous of his lifestyle. But I also realize my purpose is to create wealth and to do a lot of good with it. But Chanta make no mistake about it while he lives in a small condo and has a job and he doesn't have a lot of fancy possessions. The man has an empire. He's got two amazing kids. He sleeps well at night. He's got peace of mind.

And everywhere we go, it doesn't matter where we're surfing along the Southern California coast. He'll find the kid who's not doing well surfing, and he'll start coaching him up on surfing just out of the blue. And I share this with you because an empire can simply mean just having some level of small financial freedom or having enough money to be able to help your church. And so make no mistake about it, man.

What happens in our streets right now when we see small businesses catching fire all over the United States. And now it's carried over to Toronto, Berlin, and London as of yesterday, this is another pandemic. Make no mistake about it. Racism is real. It exists. I see what's happening out there. And there's a whole other side to this looting and rioting that we're going to talk about. The person that we're going to talk to about this happens to be African American.

What do you know? He's black. And so I would like to invite and welcome my friend Remy Adaleke. Yes, sir. Hey, what's up? Welcome. Welcome. Yes, sir.

And you are the first interview that we've had in person, in studio, since the COVID pandemic. And you've got this awesome book that you've written, transformed. Thank you. A Navy SEAL's unlikely journey from the throne of Africa to the streets of the Bronx to defy all odds. let me understand this. Were you supposed to be a Nigerian prince? Well, technically I am. You are, right?

Yeah, we've all gotten those emails from the night. I'm not that one. Okay, you're not that guy, okay. All right, all right. So, but man, you've got an amazing story, literally riches to rags to riches. And as I learned about you, and I think we have mutual friends, Raycare and a few other seals. As I learned about you, I'm like, holy smokes, man. Like you and I live parallel lives where my dad was part of the 18% of society who was part of the Communist Party.

So I would have caviar butter and bread for breakfast with hot tea in Armenia. Yeah, yeah, right, in the Soviet Union. And when we escaped and we came here, we lived in Section 8 housing and food stamps. And we were going through dumpsters behind grocery stores to find food. And I would cry at the age of six asking my mom, where's my morning caviar? Yeah. And so as I was learning about you and reading your book, I'm like, holy smoke, man. This guy went from riches to rags to riches again.

And so I thought you would be, and you were very vocal about what's happening. Yep, I am. Right now with this whole situation of, I don't know, racism, bigotry, white privilege. So let's start there. What's been going through your mind and emotions over the last week about the George Floyd murder? I mean, first and foremost, what happened to him? was horrific, but at the same time, I was, I was even more upset because it's been happening, right? There hasn't been changed. We've talked about change with, you know, with Trayvon Martin.

We talk about change with Eric Garner. We talk about... Rodney King. And I'm mispronounced. I can't pronounce this last name, but the Haitian in New York City when I was coming up, right? So we've always been talking about change for so many years and no change has come. So when this happened to George Floyd and then it happened the way it happened, it was maddening. It was maddening. And for me, you know, as an African American and having a platform that I have as a seal, I was just like, you know, I know I have been speaking out about this, but I'm going to do it even more vociferously. Sure. Because a change absolutely has to come because we're talking about off-air, if a change doesn't come, what are we going to have left?

Right, right, right. So what? Let me ask you this. What does that change look like? Oh, well, one, policing. I mean, for me, again, a lot of the answers I'm going to throw out is my opinion on it. Sure. So my first answer is screening. Police officers absolutely have to be screened in a different way.

Like in order for me to go through seal training, I have to go through an extensive screening process, right? And just to get into the program. And if I don't get through that screening process, I'm not going to get into the program. And then I have to go through six months of screening in order to even qualify to get the rating of the seal. And then I got to go through another four months of screening in order to go on the seal team. Now, obviously, because of money and time and resources, a police officer can't go through all of that screening. But there has to be a change in the screening and more of a background check is into who were these guys? Who were these guys?

What are their associations? Because that plays into it. The mindset, because we could train, we could train, we could train. But, you know, I heard somebody say earlier today, you know, a lot of police officers, when they find themselves in a situation with a white person, their training works, right? Like, that white person, for the most part, is not getting shot or killed unless they pose an absolute threat. But how come, when it's a black person, it's a different situation, right? Like how come their training doesn't kick in to like how come this guy couldn't get his knee off of George Floyd's neck, right?

Do you think he was in a fighter flight state? Man. I got, I'm asking you to make an assumption here. You weren't obviously in the pop's head. I think it was pride personally. I think when you look at the video and you hear the voices of people saying, listen, he can't breathe. He's dying. You're killing him.

and then that cop has his hands in his pocket. And he's staring like, what are you going to do? I think a big part of it was pride. I'm not going to let you dictate to me what to do because I'm right, because I got this badge. I got this power. So I'm going to stay right here no matter what you say. And what are you going to do?

You know, I keep getting this message from so many people and the majority of them are, you know, my Caucasian friends. And they're saying, why didn't those black kids who, why didn't they put down the camera and go do something? Think about that question, right? You have a cop who has, who is killing somebody.

He has a gun on his side. You got three other cops that are participating, maybe directly or indirect, well, two others we know directly, a third indirectly, because he's just standing there watching. And they have guns, and these are other African Americans

on the other end of that camera. What do you think would have happened if one of those young African-American kids or men went to go charge one of the police officers? The body count would have went up, right? At least that's how I see it happening. Would you have charged? I would have. Personally, I told my wife, I said, while everyone was blaming the two other cops who were on his back, on George's back, and the one cop standing there. And again, I didn't know how that it was all African-Americans behind the camera, but there had to be some white folk as well.

some Hispanics, whatever. I imagine there was more people around. And I told my wife how easy it would have been to just follow my moral code, tackle the cop just enough, not punch him, not fight him, tackle him to get him off, and then lay on the ground and let them handcuff me, but now he's off his neck.

And I honestly, again, hey, I'm not black, so what do I know? But I honestly don't think that if anyone had tacked, so I believe everyone watching was just as responsible as the cops, in my opinion. But again, I also walk around a very different color skin. Yeah, yeah. And for me, I've been in situations where, case in point, you know, about a year, two years ago, I went to a Best Buy, right?

I get out of my car and right next to me is a white woman, you know, and she's in her car, and we get out around the same time. And I guess she was leaving her kids and her teenage daughter in the car, right? And so she gets out and then she starts walking. And then she catches, she sees me, right? She recognizes, okay, this is a black person. I don't know what's going on through her mind, but she sees me. And then she looks at me and then she goes back to her daughter and she says,

make sure you lock the door. Right. Now, can someone argue, well, maybe she was just being safe and she forgot to tell her daughter to lock the door, possibly? But when that has happened to an African-American, so many times when you go into a department store and the security guard is watching, I mean, you really, you really, read my book so you know what happened at the McDonald's. When you go into certain places and

everybody's being suspicious, there's another story that I couldn't share in my book, but me and my friend, we went to Seahals, a restaurant in San Diego in Mission Valley. And right after we ordered, the waitress said to my, but we were in Seal training at the time. We're training at the time. We're

training to be Navy Seals, right? We're not huddlers. Like, we're regular clothes and this girl says to us, you need, okay, she gives us a, she doesn't say, she said, here's a check. I mean, my buddy, look at each other like the check we just ordered our food she's talking about the check and then she said well there's been a string of people walking out and not paying the bill and and you know the manager put it on a waitresses you know if you feel like somebody may walk out you need to give them

the check for that's straight of profiling right gotcha now so when you have instances like this in so many instances and then you get in a situation with this you know this this white woman who I've served this country. You know what I mean? Like, I've done a lot. And for this woman to look at me, like, I'm going to. And it wasn't just what, it was the look that she gave me

that I've seen so many times before. I get it. And so, bringing that back to, you know, the skin that we live in, I understand as a black person, if I was on the other end of the camera and I went to go charge, which I would have done,

I would have probably ended up shot. I would have probably ended up on the ground. I would for sure end up on the ground. And in the case that I was able to save George Floyd's life, I would definitely have probably been arrested and charged with, you know, whatever I would have been charged with, right? Because he survived. It was like, why did you do that? The cops had it under control. Right, right. He survived. Yeah. So there was, I see what you mean. There was no winning that scenario. Yeah. Yeah, there's no winning that scenario. You know, again, so I'm going to go back to your first point where you said, I said, hey, why do you think the cop didn't get off?

You said it was pride, and you're 100% right, in my opinion. Again, but I'll tell you where this comes from. Obviously, a Fit Body Boot Camp or a franchise and like any big organization, franchisors, we band together under the IFA umbrella International Franchise Association, and we have a lobbyist. He's an attorney, and he goes to Capitol Hill, and they lobby on behalf of franchises. Just like the gun companies have lobbyists and cigarette companies and alcohol. et cetera. And so I was being interviewed by the International Franchise Association four weeks ago

and also the lobbyist for our organization, the IFA. And, you know, because all these franchises are shut. They're closed. Whether it's fitness or restaurant or yogurt franchises, it doesn't matter. They're shut. And so the interviewer asked him, he said, hey, so now that we see stats coming out that this COVID thing really wasn't that big a deal, it wasn't as contagious. It wasn't. The death rate has been modified because of, you know, someone could die with COVID, not necessarily because of COVID. When you're up there on Capitol Hill, why do you think the policymakers are not moving quick enough? He goes, we have to walk so gently around the policymakers to allow them to save face because their pride won't allow them to pivot. Yeah. And as I saw that cop on that man's neck.

Yeah. And you could see the look like he knows he's supposed to get off. He knows you could tell. Yeah. You know when someone knows they're doing something wrong. Exactly. But he wouldn't because he wanted to save face. Yeah.

In the despite the death that took place. Yeah. So that's something worth bringing up. Yeah. And you know, so funny because I was formulating as I was working out today because I get I mean, as you know, being athletic working out, it does something to your brain. It's good for your brain.

You know what that is, by the way? My wife's really smart. She figured, well, she studies a lot. Yeah. Because I'm a knuckle dragon. So when you're working out, swimming, running, biking, anything with sets and reps, rhythmic, it's called bilateral stimulation. And in the psychology world, it's called EMDR, where they give you two little electrodes. Not nothing that zaps you, but it just goes tick, tick, tick, tick.

Forces both sides of your brain to work, the left and right side, to solve problems together. Yeah. And so it's called bilateral stimulation. because I used to tell my wife, I'm like, I don't need therapy, because I've had a lot of fucked up child. Like, I don't need therapy. I just go work out and I solve all my problems. Yeah, yeah. And so she did the study.

She goes, you actually do. It's called bilateral stimulation, EMDR. Yeah. But go on. So as you were doing that, you truly were probably coming up with brilliant. Yeah, I was thinking about what I was going to say tomorrow in a post. And, you know, it's something. I don't want to give it all the wages yet, but because it might not be formulated properly by tomorrow.

But I say all that to say. this pride it has seeped so much into politics and that's kind of what I'm going to be talking about either tomorrow to the day after is because you know I'm like you I'm an I'm in you know I would consider

myself an independent you know in similar spaces as you I'm not a Democrat and I'm not a Republican and one of the reasons why years ago I chose to be to not be either one is because I started to see how even especially at the political level there are people on both sides who are more loyal to their side and to their idea of what's right or wrong than to the people.

That they're serving. To we, the people, everybody, right? And it's so dangerous. And that is seat down to the ground floor where people are just so, we live in a very individualistic culture and society. We've been that way for a long period of time, where it's all about. me me me and mine me me me and my tribe and so I say all that to say when people have become so rooted to I'm a Democrat or so rooted to I'm a Republican when that

Republican does something wrong you're so your pride and you're and you're so rooted in that Republican that you can't say what that person did was wrong bingo so let's actually take that down and bring it right to that street in Minnesota yeah the two cops on George's back and the one watching if we We could tap into their brain. Come on. You know they're going, what he's doing is wrong right now.

But me and my tribe. But this is our tribe. And I'm going to bite my tongue. And the man dies. Exactly. And it trickles down from the top all the way down to the bottom. And this is why I wanted to talk to you because you've been very vocal on your social media. You and my friend Ryan Tillman, who I tag in that post yesterday,

he's an African-American cop right here in Chino. and he also has this awesome side business called Breaking Barriers, and he'll go and speak at different high schools and stuff, and he brings communities and cops together. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I texted him yesterday, and I was like, hey, man, first of all, thank you for coming to my defense when that cat was calling me out.

And I said, secondly, you know, your business is going to be doing really good, unfortunately, with what's happening. He says, yeah, it sure is. And I've been mentoring him for six months now. Yeah. Good dude, but the perspective that you have is so different. Let me ask you something. When that lady turns back, looks at you, turns back, goes to her daughter and says,

make sure you lock the car, or you walk into Best Buy and the security guard is giving you a little extra attention. Or the lady at the restaurant does her profiling and goes, here's a check before your food comes out. Right? You're like, but what if I want to deserve? And the crazy thing about that story is there was a table of a couple right next to us. a white couple right next to us, and they got their check

after they finished eating. So, because we looked at, me and my boy looked at the table, and we were just like, they got, they just finished eating, and they got their check. Was your friend Black, too? He was Black, yeah. We both in black, yeah.

We both are still transiting. But to her, you guys fit a profile. We fit the profile. Deist, and my boy is funny, so he used some choice words when he was, you know, in his response, but we ain't going to. steal we got money we can't come in and steal your food so let me let me let me ask you man because

i um i don't really hear too many people talking about they're talking about the right and the wrong and what police need to do that how do you feel because i know how i felt when i came to america and literally like the third week we were there my dad's getting yelled at go back your own fucking country you foreigner you're taking all american jobs and i'm six years old looking like this guy's going to punch my dad yeah what the hell's going on why is you like yelling at him like this, right? And who wants a paper route at two in the morning? He had a paper route. He was, like we were talking about, I think we were talking

about offline about the Jamaicans that have all the on set, on, what's that? In living color. In living color, right? The show where the Jamaicans had like 10 different jobs. My dad was like a modern day Jamaican. Like he had he was washing dishes at a pizzeria, delivering newspapers and then

pumping gas. Like what exactly were any of those three jobs that he was taken away from Americans? So I know how I felt like I didn't belong. Did I I actually started lying and I started telling people that were French and not Armenian and not communist because I figured French has a little more sex appeal to it. I don't know. But as a kid, you try and figure out, like, because you go Armenia, we don't even know, they go, you're just a foreigner. But it's like, well, French, like, that's, I don't know, sounds royal to me.

But anyway, I know how I felt. How did you feel, how do you feel as a black man in a restaurant or in the Best Buy? I'm just, I want people to understand this. I want to understand this. Yeah. Well, for me personally, you know, I hate the victim mentality. Yeah. You know, so.

No, but I mean, it could be rage. Like, do you feel anger? Do you feel like, hey, listen, lady, I'm a fucking seal. I've gone and fought for you. Or what are you feeling? There is a moment of anger. But then, for me, there's a moment of understanding. I understand that this is the country I've been in, you know, most of my life.

I understand that this country has been this way for going back to slavery, right? So there's a, and then there's a point of, inspiration or I say motivation I was having this conversation other day about suffering and a talk and I was talking about how you know the good thing about suffering is there are so many lessons that come out of suffering that you will not be able to get in any other by sitting in the classroom right and so for me the lesson it comes out of a situation like that is I need to be more vocal I need to not to that person but I need to figure out a way to penetrate into

this side of America so that I can use my platform to initiate change. I'm the type of person. I'd like to be a problem solver. I see a problem, which to me, that's a problem. Okay, I don't like it, but I ask myself, what are you going to do about it? And that was one of the reasons why I wrote my book, you know, because I know that, you know, me being a seal, I know that there's a whole lot of people in middle America, white America, a black America, every spectrum of America that's like, ooh, Navy SEAL cool. I want to read this story. And as you know from reading the book, the majority of the book doesn't focus on the team.

No, I think it was like chapter 23 and 24 or something like that. Exactly. So, you know, I did that because I wrote this book with the topics that are in the book as a solution to me walking into a store and somebody looking at me, right, and say, man, this dude's going to. Because I wanted some, I wanted that person to one day, oh, see this book on the book? Oh, Navy, see? Oh, I'm going to read this book.

Get through it and get a different perspective. I get you. Does that make sense? It does. That all black people aren't going to rob you. All black people aren't huddle them. You know what I mean? Like, for me, the answer is how I feel is I need to come up with a solution to this problem.

Right? But there is a moment of anger. But then at that. You do realize, like, that's. us problem solvers. Like every entrepreneur is a problem solver. All an entrepreneur is, is they identify, hey,

this person, like, due to the created Uber, he's like, cabs smell, they take a long time to come. Mrs. Jones is driving around town. She'll just get an app and, like, that's a problem. Yeah.

He solves a problem. Like, all on, so, but that's like half of one percent. Yeah. So we can't condition society to become problem solvers. Yeah, true. Again, like, like,

what we can do is they can learn problem solving through books. Exactly. Right? Through books, through examples. But here's a crazy thing. Would you normally think that Asians are dangerous? Like, would you think that Asians are dangerous? Me personally, no.

Yeah. No. No. Right? Could you believe that for a long time, I had, I would get PTSD when I would see a group of Asian dudes. And I'm going to tell you why. When I was 19 years old, I used to carjack.

I did stupid shit. I used to carjack people. So I saw this Honda Civic, and certain Hondas in certain years, the parts are worth a lot of money back in the early 90s. And so I went to carjack this Asian kid. Little did I know that he was in an Asian gang. And the carjacking went wrong. He got away.

I went to visit my friend at a place called golf and stuff, like a mini golf place, right? To tell him, like, man, you know, I'm like, I lost probably a few hundred bucks. on parts you know just and I played some video games like that's a very different life that I have today yeah and I'm I'm stacking up karma points right now in hopes that I make it to heaven one day there you go but anyway so all that said um so that dude obviously realizes that I'm at the golf and stuff because he follows me I don't even realize that he comes in with 13 other dudes

and they beat the dog shit out of me and put me in the hospital carmic justice at the highest level I had it coming. Years after, like, up to like two, three, four years after that, like I would see a group of Asian dudes. Like, they could be like science kids. And I would start freaking out. Like, my body would just go into, right, self-defense. And interestingly enough, when we moved to the United States,

my first friend, he's African-American. His name is Dwayne. And he taught me English, and we played Atari, and we played a game called Snake in the Grass, and he introduced me to all the neighborhood kids. And so, like, Dwayne, was my door into the American youth experience, right? And then, of course, a few times where we lived in Section 8 housing,

there was a fair amount of African Americans in Santa Ana in the, in 80s, 82, 83, 84. And one day my brother got in a fight with a tow truck driver. And everyone stood around to watch. And this African American lady came out of, and my brother got floored. Like the dude hit him with tire iron and he just hit the floor. And I was a kid watching. My brother's 14 years older than me. So this African-American lady comes out with the pillow, puts it under my brother's

head. And so, interestingly enough, I grew up with a very different perspective. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? My first friend is African-American. This lady helped my brother out. And yet, as all this has happened, I was just doing some introspective look. I'm like, holy shit, man.

I was tripping out when I would see groups of Asian dudes because of what happened to me. And so when you really think about going back to what you're going back to what said with cops and there has to be more background checks more what was the words you used screening screening thank you because if you had especially in those formidable ages man when you're a kid if you had a bad experience with a black dude a mexican dude uh i tell people i'm armenian and they go oh shit you're part of high power the the armenian gang in glendale i'm like no no no no yeah i'm not i'm not that my dad kept us away from hollywood in glendale so that we can assimilate Yeah.

You know, but... Right. Yeah. Which is crazy because people immediately would see me as a threat when they hear on me. And I was like, no, no, not like that. So it's crazy the experience that you have as a kid in a formidable years, you grow up and you will show prejudice, maybe not even knowing. Yeah. You know, and I don't know if there's a solution to that, but that's just the example that came to me.

I think there, I mean, like, I mean, going back to my story, you know, like, I hated cops as a kid. Why? Because of the things that I saw. You know, I would be riding the train or go to go ride the train and you would see four cops beating up somebody because they jumped a turnstile. You know, you would, I would see, you know, cops going to local bodegas and stores and collect money, you know, from the owner. And I just, I saw a lot of things. And then that had stuff happen to me as a young kid, you know, and then, you know, getting thrown in jail for something stupid or, you know, getting racially profiled by the police officers. But the NYPD in the 80s and the 90, I mean, they still have a lot of things they need to work through to get better.

But it was bad in the 80s and the 90s, like really, really bad. And because I kept on witnessing this as I walked down the street to the Bronx, as I went to the train station, I was just like, all cops are bad, all cops are races. I can't stand them. I don't want to, I will never talk to a police officer. I will never comply with a police officer. and what changed my perspective was after I joined a military, right? Because, and one of the reasons why I didn't want to join the military was because I associated anybody in the uniform as a police officer, right? And so-

But that's, again, your experience in the form of the year, carry over. Exactly, exactly. And so what helped begin to change my perspective and say, okay, all police officers aren't bad. All police officers aren't racist is when I, I got into the military and I began to get around people of all cultures and all backgrounds. And I began to talk to kids from Minnesota, Hispanic kids from California and hear their experiences. And they would say their father was a police officer and they don't stand for any of that kind. And that's when I begin to realize all police officers aren't bad, which that's the reality.

There is a, there is a, there are bad apples in every bunch, right? while in New York in the time were a little bit more than a bad app normal. Yeah. Which by the way here's another human behavior to address that you brought up so perfectly. I mean, would it be fair to say that when you were young and you saw cops going into the bodegas

and collecting money, you know, getting paid off and beating up a dude, four cops, beating up a dude who jumped a turn style? Would you say at least less than 50% were bad cops? Is that a fair, fair statement? Yeah, I would say, oh yeah, for sure. Right. Probably 25.

Right. I would guess. Right, which is still a high number compared to today. Which is still a high number. Yet your mentality was all cops are bad. Exactly. Right? Exactly. And here's something else. I'm trying to get down to the human behavior of what's happening here.

That we've got a software called FitPro Newsletter. It doesn't matter. Just it's a software. And there's about 1,600 members in it, users of it. And our software support dude one day comes running into my office. He's like, man, FitPro Newsletters freaking out. It's got massive problems. Everyone's complaining. Yeah.

How many complaints did you get, man? He goes, five. Five out of 1600. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But what happens is when you get, and there was a glitch in the software, but five out of 1600, man, customers, it wasn't all. But when you get more than you're used to, it seems like all. Yeah.

When coaching clients of mine telling me, man, man, I tried everything. marketing system and nothing works. Like what did you try it? Well, I tried Facebook ads and Instagram ads. Listen, there's YouTube, there's Google, there's fucking billboards, there's direct mail, there's call centers. You can't say all. And we're so, the human mind is so easy to go to all. Exactly. Right? Yeah. And again, I don't know the solution. I just want to bring that to the surface and go, all right, so we're watching the news and we see that a dude got arrested and he's black. Yeah. Then we go, oh, shoot, maybe they're all bad. He's Hispanic, shoot, maybe they're all bad.

Or here and, well, when I say here, Lake Elsinore, they're making, I don't know, what's it, meth, that shit that blows up if things go wrong. And it's typically, every time that happens, it's a white dude on the screen. So whenever I see a scraggly white dude, should I think that you're a crackhead?

Yeah, yeah. And yet my mind does go to that, like, oh, shoot, maybe they're all making meth somewhere, right? I'm like, whoa, dude, easy. Like, that's, and it's a human behavior just trying to put people in a box. You know, 100%. You know, it's like we gravitate towards

the negative. You know, I have a saying, you know, it's so much easier to find a curse in a gift than it is to find a gift in a curse. Within a curse, right? Because, you know, it's just so easy to have a gift and just be like,

well, that part of the gift is so bad and then the whole thing is bad than it is to be in the middle of a bad situation and have this glintomere hope and see it. You can't, so often, can't see it. And that's just the way, you know, life is. And media definitely doesn't help, you know. Right. Yeah. And let's not forget, the media's job is to sell ad space. Oh, yeah, make money. To make money.

To make money. Well, for me, like my opinion on now, I was going to touch on this, is twofold for me. It's one money and it's two political interests. Agenda, yeah. Right? Agenda, political. Because whoever is able to spin the news in their favor the most and get the most amount of people to be attracted. it to that spin, then that equates to certain people getting voted into office. That equates to, and then that equates to power, right? Because political interests, when you have somebody in a position of political power that's going to advocate for your political interests, then that means more power for you

and your group, right, and your tribe. By virtue of getting that person elected. Exactly. Yep. Yep. And I don't know about you guys watching and listening to this, but it ain't often that you hear people get excited and get glued to the TV about the fireman who saves the kitten from the tree. Yeah, yeah. Right? It's usually about the dude that lost a leg in a car accident

or a house that caught fire. And that's just, we're primarily wired for self-preservation. And so we want to see the fear so that we can go, how do I protect myself from it? Yeah. And that's how they keep us hooked, because there's got to be a lot more good happening in the world than just all bad. But bad news makes money. Good news don't make anybody anybody. So Remy, let's shift gears for a moment and, you know, 34 minutes of talking about this. And again, if I'm not looking to come up with a, hey, here's the answer how we're going to stop racism. But I really love the fact that you took a hard stand on this. And I wanted to make sure that we gave you a voice. And also, let's talk about your book and your crazy ass life. Your crazy ass life. Your dad was a chief?

Yeah, he's a chief in the Yorba tribe. Yes. Tell me how that works. So Nigerian, you and your brother were born there. Yep. Well, my brother was born in the States. I was born in Nigeria. Got it.

Yeah, yeah. Got it. Your brother was born in the States. You were born in Nigeria. Your mom is a New York? Is it a New Yorker? How did it? I tell people all the time.

My mother and my dad stories are real coming to America story. It is. They stole it. Remember my mother and my dad, they were at the Metropolitan Museum of Natural History at the same time. There was an art expo on Yurba art. And my dad happened to be in New York for a business meeting. And so he found out that the Met had this show on. So he went, my mom, always been into African art.

So she went, they met. And then they got married five months later. And my dad, it's funny because my dad, he had, you know, growing up in Nigeria, but being educated in his later years in London, he had this smooth British, you know, accent as well. Oh, I bet he's sweating right off. And so he swathed my mom. And it's funny because my mom was like,

he was telling me he was a prince and this and that. My mother was like, you ain't no prince, you ain't nothing, too. She got back to Africa, and she was exposed to this, this rich, lavish life. Wow. Wow. So your dad's got this amazing life, does really well for himself, and he took massive pride in the home country. Yes. Right?

Yes. In Nigeria. Yes. His priority, he would tell my mother all the time, my priority is my country. He hated the kind of, you know, I get a lot of who I am from him, obviously. and he was a problem solver. When he saw a problem, he wanted to come up with a solution for it. And one of the problems he saw not just in the UK, but all over the world,

was this false impression of Africans, that African people were a bunch of uneducated Bush people who don't know how to speak and they eat on their knees or whatever, right? And so because he hated that narrative, he went back to Nigeria to establish his businesses. But his primary goal was to essentially build this business, sector, this business within Nigeria, this big area called the Lagoon Development Project. People from all across the world could come to and do business and exchange ideas and, you know,

do all the things in my diet had planted. Is this where he asked for the piece of the water? And they were like, why do you want piece of the water? He's like, just give me the piece of the water. Can you tell that story? Yeah. So in the 1970s of my dad, he bought this massive plot of land called Maracle. And it was a landfill.

It was trash. It was garbage. And he bought it because he wanted to take that to develop this city on, this business sector on. But unfortunately, towards halfway through the 1970, about 1975, the Nigerian government stripped it from him. They took that from him and said, you can't have it. I don't know all the history behind it, but in short, they took it from him. And my dad went to court for 10 years and fought the Nigerian government for the land back. And finally, they got tired of my dad.

and they said, okay, we'll give you the money back. My dad said, I don't want the money back. He paid $8 million for it, right? So they asked him, they said, well, what do you want? And my dad said, I want the lagoon. And the lagoon was just a body of water, and they all laughed at him. They said, the lagoon, why do you want the lagoon? He said, don't worry about it.

Just give me the lagoon. And my dad being an engineer, he hired, you know, he hired Dutch engineers to come and dredge the foreshore to develop because he wanted to develop that island. that he wanted to develop that part of water into land. Because my dad's mindset was if I create something that was never there, no one could ever come back and say what they said with Maricoe that this was ours. So that's why he took the water, dredged it, and created the island which exists to this day

in order to be able to say this is ours forever. Talk about a problem solver. Yeah. And by the way, that's what they did in the United Arab Emirates, right? Yeah. Also, Wade, Palm Islands. I even think part of Heathrow Airport, from what I understand, has been dredged.

A lot of that has been dredged to create the parts of the airport. So, yeah. So now we're really diving into what the Empire show is about. Like, there's a man who, he was born in Nigeria. Yep, born in Nigeria. He was the firstborn son to my grandfather. There you go. And it is a corrupt government.

Very, very corrupt. Very similar to the Armenian government, which was another thing we taught. When I read about the part in your book, where some politicians who would blow the taxpayers money and then in court they would say a snake a lizard or a squirrel whatever came in a fish a snake a fish and something else to stole it and that was the answer and it went into the books is that's what happened that's bananas how do you even to this day a policy a person will run for office

get elected and they will come out a billionaire or somebody will go in and become a general rise to the rings, become a general, put over some specific position of influence in the military and come out a billionaire. Like how does that have? Where's that money coming from?

Where is that money coming from? You know, the minister of oil, she's been investigated because I think it was something like $20 billion or something like that that disappeared. Billion with a B. Bill, B, with a bill over the course of,

B, sorry, a billion would it be over the course of her tenure as the minister or so. And these are all cases you can look up. And every time I talk about corruption in Nigeria, people say, well, there is corruption in America. And yeah, there is corruption in America. However, the corruption in Nigeria is at a level that is far surpasses.

Yeah, it's in your faith. And it's ostensible. As soon as you get off the plane, like I was in Nigeria, as soon as I got off the plane, custom officers were just like, do you have a gift of me? If you do not have a gift, it would be my type to go back. What do you mean a gift? A gift, you know, gift, gift, gift.

They mean money. You get bribed as soon as you enter into the country. Question. Yeah. Obviously, they know that you know the culture, the tradition. If I went there with my white American wife as a tourist, would they be hitting me up for gifts? Oh, yeah, absolutely. Really?

And if I play dumb and like, I don't know what you're talking about. At some point, they do back off, you know, but yes, you will. Would you get pressured more because you're supposed to know what's up? Well, because I'm Nigerian and then I have an American accent even more so. Gotcha. Right. So now it's like because when they see a black American, they're just like, oh, if you're black, you're from America. You're loaded. Right.

You have money to be able to come here. So I mean, on the drive back to the airport on my way out, we got stopped at gunpoint. Right. Because the driver, we were trying to get to the airport and the driver, you know, he shifted into another lane illegally. I mean, technically, you know, as it relates to the driving laws. and a police officer stopped him, pulled up his AK-47, and it ordered for him to get out the car.

And I was mad, I was hot. Me and my brother in the car, and my brother's like, Remy, listen, man, Dave you see something going to work here, man. Keep your mouth shut. And my other brother's like, yeah, the cop's just going to bribe him. And they negotiated back and forth.

And the cop ended up, we ended up giving him, like, I don't know, like, ended up equated to like $20 in order to get off. But it's systemic from the police. from the policing. I mean, we talk about police problems here. Police problems there, you know, like, so the end of corruption was bad,

and that's what essentially led to my father's downfall. Yeah. And so ultimately with the way your father died, he was bit by a dog. Yep. Yep. And that led to him getting on some medication, that there was some complication between the- Bad medication.

They gave him some bad medication. Yeah. And it was supposed to, like, an anti-rabi medication. Yeah, it was supposed to be an anti-rabi medication. It was something else, and he ended up taking it. and he ended up dying. And now at this point...

And at the same time, he was battling the Nigerian government in court to regain the island that had now been developed that they had, that the Lego state government came in and said, this land, now this island that you develop doesn't belong to you because the federal state government that said, okay, what do you want? And when you ask for the foreshore, the federal state government was never allowed to give you that body of water. It belongs to the Lego state government. That foreshore belongs to the Lego stage government. that's what they used, but they conveniently waited until an island was developed to say, oh, sir, you are wrong. Yeah, yeah. I love in the book when you do the accent.

I'm looking for the audio book and we just start busting out with the accent. Yeah, yeah. So, so this happens. And, of course, now all of a sudden, and your mom was used to, like, having servants drawing a bath and a chauffeur and horses. Horses. Compound, lavish parties. And all of a sudden, dad passes. away and mom is asking your older half-brother.

Yep. Am I right? Yep. John? Yep. Like, hey, so what's the deal with the money? Like, how do I live? I've got the kids.

Yep. And effectively, there was no more money left. Yeah. My dad had put everything into that island. He already started signing contracts with McDonald's, Marks and Spence. I mean, he signed contracts with, with restaurants. Wow. and other department stores,

I mean, he had leveraged all of his money because he knew as soon as I start selling off this office space and this is up, I mean, that island now is worth billions of dollars. Oh, I'm sure. Is it fully developed? It's fully developed. It wasn't, they made it residential. Okay.

So it's called banana. Have you been on it? I've been on it. I went in, when I was in Nigeria, I went there. How did you feel when you were on there? It was sad. Yeah. It was sad that my dad had put so much effort into this,

and now his kids can't even claim it as their own. Has your mom gone back to it? No, she never has. She doesn't even want to go. She has no desire to ever go back to Nigeria. I would imagine. Is your mom with us today? Yeah, she's in New York.

She's in New York. How's her health? Look up on Instagram. My mom, she's a fitness. She's a fitness. Oh, okay. All right, good. She's like, she's about the 70,

but she looks like she's like 45. She works out every day. Oh, good for me. Post-workout videos every day. You bring on staff. Yeah, yeah. She's hired. She's right, yeah.

She's hired. That's great. So at that point, do you remember any of that, like the conversation of like, hey, we're broke? No, not really. You know, and one of the reasons why I don't, because when we fully transitioned to the states permanently, my mom did a fantastic job. I'm asking the reality of what had happened. Okay. You know, because my mother knew.

As a matter of fact, I remember when my mother told me that my father died, I'll never forget it. She took me and she put me on her right side and put my brother on her left side. and it's on this red chair. Sorry, who's older? My brother's a year older than me, Matthew. And she said, you know, your dad's gone and he's not coming back. He has died. And she said it in such a way, such a calming way, that me and my brother were just like,

because we're young, I'm five. My brother's six. We don't fully understand death of what that means, right? We just said, okay, and we went back to playing, right? And so that's just a snapshot of how my mom carried herself throughout that period, throughout that transition period. I never saw her cry. I mean, during that time, during that season,

I never saw her breaking down. She held it together because she knew if I break down or if I lock myself in my room, who's going to take care of these kids? And if I'm breaking down, then my kids are going to break down and it's going to create this never-ending cycle. So people ask me all the time,

Remy, where do you get this level of perseverance to overcome the things that you have overcome? And I say, you know, I had a living example of it every day of my life, you know, and my mother, going back to what we talk about, about later how people are the way they are a lot of the way I am comes exactly from my mother and so I didn't really exceed it wasn't until I was about eight years old that it

really hit me that my dad was gone and we are in poverty what happened then like did you process through it did you cry do you rage out do you freak out do you ask your mom what happens I cried through it I cried through I was I'll never forget I was I was in my bedroom and me and my brother we had this pull-out bed it was like one bed on top and then the second bed that I slept on we were pulled out and that's how we slept and we had this lamp in the corner the shade was off of it I can't remember my brother broke the shade so it was just like this skeleton of a lamp and there was a picture of my dad on top of my dresser and I

just remember just looking around my room and our lack and you know having seen at this point you know my mother's making me my brother wash our underwear and socks out with ivory soap because she couldn't afford laundry detergent you know we're going to the rent office with her and seeing her plead for extra time to pay the rent. And so all of these things that I have began to start seeing, you know, co-ease, so to speak, with that situation, I just broke down. And I was just like, man, if my dad was here, we want to have this life that we have, we would have a better life. And I just remember staring at my father's picture and realizing that. And my mother came into the room and she said,

what's wrong? And I said, ma, I miss my dad. I wish my father was here because if my father was here, we would have a better life. And, you know, she threw her arms around me and said, we're going to make it we're going to be all right and I would say for me that's when I made the decision to find a father or you know find something that would fill that void in order to get me through and that's when I think I decided and I could be all but that's where I feel like I decided that I don't know what I'm going to do but I'm not going to be broke I'm going to be somebody whether I do it illegally or whether I do it legally I'm going to be somebody I'm going to be like my right around the age of eight right around age of eight

This is bananas. Yeah. I'm going to tell you why. And then we're going to come back to perseverance and problem solving. Dude, this is crazy. Yeah. Again, the shit that happens to us in our youth is so powerful. The trauma, the suffering, all of that is so powerful because as you're describing this,

I'm like, this is a parallel to my life when my sister comes home crying. So I'm the oops baby. I wasn't supposed to be born. My brother's 14 years older. My sister's 16 years older than me. And so they kind of raised me along with my mom and dad. So I had two sets of parents, both beat all of me. Because the Armenian culture, they just slap you around.

But that's a whole different story that I can talk to my therapist about, not you. So one day my sister, so we came here in 1980. It's probably, so it's probably 82, 83, because I'm eight or nine years old. My sister comes home crying, working at the pizzeria, same pizzeria. My dad worked at. And she's crying. My dad says, what's going on? What happened in Armenian?

And she says the owner of the business took a sip out of her paper cup, like about every hour takes a sip. And she's disgusted because that's like her water. But he wanted to make sure that she wasn't drinking seven up from the Spencer, the vending, right? Because it's the restaurant because she was a waitress there. And so she's just like, I don't want to work there anymore. And my dad's like, look, you know, we're all paying for this rent at Section 8 housing. We still have to all work to be able to make it. And being the youngest one, my brother's working multiple jobs, sisters working multiple jobs,

dad, it's just me and my mom at home. And I'm hearing all this, I'm like, shit. And I remember telling my sister that when I grew up, I'm going to be rich. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And she'll never have to work for that guy. Yeah. Today she works for me, and Joan will tell you, she works for me from home. She does all my customer support.

Awesome. And she had to remind me this four years ago, because she's been working for me now for four years. She goes, do you remember when you were eight? and I was crying and it was the only thing I could do was like I'm going to be so rich that you're going to work for me and not for anyone else. Yeah. And it's bananas how an experience like that that you had that I had shaped us. Yeah, shape this. It's like a little seed that becomes that tree. Yes. No, 100%, 100%. And I think, again, you know, people ask me, I get this question often. If you can go back and change any part of your life, you know, what would you change?

And my answer is always the same, nothing. Because it was all of those, those heartaches, those sleepless nights, the rejection, the pain, the mistakes, you know, selling drugs, you know, all of those things that I did that made me. the man than I am today and I wouldn't be who I am and I wouldn't have been the person that I was five, six, seven years ago if it wasn't for that kid. Yeah. Eight, nine, ten, eleven, twelve, thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, don't forsake small beginnings. That's something I try to tell them all the time because it's just so much within it. It's valuable, it's valuable. Yeah.

Dude, you mentioned perseverance and you said, I get it from my mom. Yeah. And then you mentioned problem solving, you said I get it from my dad. My brain goes to, because I'm always thinking about this, is it nature, is it nurture? like what made me so driven and I think it's combination. I think it's common. Is it?

I think it's a combination. I think that, you know, and the reason why is because, you know, I own a consulting firm on the side and I've been doing this for years where I train pro athletes, collegiate athletes, Olympians, and even corporations at times,

at times on not just seal principles, but military principles that translates into business, you know, mental toughness, teamwork, communication, leadership, of that sort of thing. And one thing that I found specifically with the athletes, a lot of these athletes that I work with, they just gifted.

They're just naturally gifted. The things that they could do with their body, it's obvious that it's nature, right? That genetically they got exactly what they needed and wanted to be the studs that they have. But they're missing so much more because they don't have it up here. And they never had to work hard to get to that next level and because they never really had to work hard,

everything that's come so easy. they can't they will probably never get to that next level right and that's the difference between the michael jordan's of the world and i'm not going to say another athlete's name because i don't want to seem like i'm putting them in a bad light but and other athletes right michael jordan i don't he i truly believe that it was part of it was nature but then a lot of part of it was nurture and a lot of part of it was him putting in to recognize that hey i'm gifted but i need to stay in a gym extra you know spend that extra time in the gym and so you know again i see this a lot with athletes where they have it from you know, from a genetic standpoint,

but in order for them to get better, they're missing some components, whether it's a mental toughness component, whether it's the ability to work with other people, whether it's the ability to reason and think through things really, really fast, they're missing that piece, right? Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.

There you go. Right? One of my favorite quotes. I love that. I love that. So now all of a sudden you grow up and you, obviously, you've made this commitment around the age of eight that, like, I'm going to make it, matter how and I'm going to do well for myself and that was the shoe job before the

selling phones or was the phone which one was first yeah the phone the shoe was first all right first yeah I love this and guys if you're like hey B why are you talking to him about like his scams that he was doing at a shoe store in Manhattan I'm going to tell you why because one of my one of my good friends he back in the day maybe about 10 years ago if you're reading Maxim magazine or Playboy magazine and you see the full page ad for the penis enlargement pills. Yeah. My friend started those,

that company. Okay. And he went literally from zero to $100 million a year in one year. And as I was Vincent. And I said, Vincent, what's the secret to marketing? Because he's a brilliant marketer. He found a, basically an insecurity that men have. Yeah, yeah.

And he just pushed that fucking money. Right? And I said, Vincent, what's the secret to making money to like great marketing? And we're talking. And he says, you have, he says, a good marketer has to have the ability. has to have the ability to con someone, but the ethics not to. Yeah, yeah.

And so now here, we're about to give an example of you, maybe doing some shady shit. Yeah. Right, making money. But guys and gals watching and listening to this, I want you to take another layer deep,

go deeper and deeper and see how brilliant some of the schemes are here. Because truly, when Vincent said that to me, I'm like, oh, shit. My whole lot, dude, I would walk through the grocery store with my mom. Yeah.

And I would see a lady's purse on her shopping cart and I would like here's how I would steal it and she would never know and here's how I'd go out and I'd be gone and I don't even know why it's not like I needed the purse yeah right but my mind would go right into conning someone yeah finding the easy button for money but anyway so

that said the shoe store tell us tell us the story of how you figured out how because you were making like $4.95 an hour 425 an hour minimum wage minimum wage like 90 what's that $96 95 I can't remember and you get a little commission when you sell a shoe

A little commission. How much was that commission? Nothing. I mean, it was like a percentage of the shoe. Like, I don't know, maybe 8% or something. Oh, okay. So, so nothing. If we're talking back then, I don't know how much for shoes. Yeah. 15, 20 bucks, 30 bucks. Maybe if they're Jordans, maybe a little more. Yeah. But it was trivial, the commission. Yeah. Yeah. And so Remy, of course, needs money. I need money. I need a lot of money. I'm going to start it off and you're going to finish a dude comes in in a hurry, so I need a pair of sneakers. Exactly. So I was in the shop by myself. The manager was downstairs at the time, tending to the stock. And this guy rushes in and he's just like, hey, my shoe, I can't remember exactly what happened.

But what I do remember is he's just like, I need shoes right now. And he looked at the wall and he pointed out really quick, pick the shoes, just give me this and this size. I run downstairs, I get him in the shoe, I come up. And he's like, how much? I told him, he said, here's a cash. And he gives me the cash. He says, I got to go. And he gave me, I was like, this is more, this is more than what it costs.

He said, keep the change. Don't worry about it. So he gives me the cash. I give him the cash. shoes, he bookes out. Well, he takes off his shoes and he puts them in the box that, you know, because he put on the brand new shoes. In the brand new shoe box.

In the brand new shoe box. Copy. And so I go to the register and I said to myself, this dude just gave me the cash. I have a box that we can put in our lost sale section or damage or whatever section. How about I keep doing this? You know, and I can reduce the price,

keep the cash, and make money. Nobody's got, this is a, this was athletes for it at the time. So this was a big sneaker chain back in the day. Nobody's going to be missed 10, 20, 30 shoes here and there. And once I figured that out, that's what I began to do. So when customers came in, I would whisper to them, of course, and I would just, if the shoes were $80, I would say, hey, if you can give me cash, because credit cards had just started, some people were coming in and trying to charge other credit cards, and I would tell them if you can give me, if the shoes were $80, if you give me $60 or $50 cash, just give it to me and

you guys, you could boogie out. And they would do that and it just started building from there. And you're just pocketing all that cash. Pocketing all that. Well, I wasn't doing it with every client because I didn't get too suspicious. But I started to pocket the cash. And then I was in high school at the time. Everybody wants new shoes.

Everybody wants fresh shoes. Everybody wants Jordans. So what am I doing? So they all come see Remi. They come see Remi. I'm the sneaker man. So now I'm making even more money and I'm able to kind of space it out. So I'm being smart about and I'll learn that, you know, growing up in the streets

and doing some of the things I was doing early on. I learned that you can't, you can't be as ostensible. You can't, you know, be selling every sneaker because you're going to eventually get caught. You need to be smart about it. So I learned the system of spacing it out. And there were times when I would ask for extra hours and then I would get extra hours. And I would work on a weekend.

And part of what I did was I had my, that was my sneakers game. I made a lot of cash. And you quit that job and you moved on to selling. Well, from there, from there, from there, from there, like, that's where I got a good enough seed money, good amount of seed money to go buy product, enough product to be able to chop it up and sell it. Okay. So you would cut it up and then sell it. Yep. Yep. And I had realized again from a lot of my business mindset came from my dad. You know, these were things that I wasn't educated on. This were just things that intuitively I kind of figured out and, you know,

growing up in the Bronx, it's like a drug deal on every corner. And so I realized, you know what, I'm not trying to get in competition with anybody. So I went up to New Pultz, upstate New York. York went to the campuses and I would sell up there and make money and you know it was less threatening you know from a police standpoint and I would do what I did and then I would come back down wait a minute you can't just breeze over that there is a tremendous I just sound like Trump right there tremendous it's going to be tremendous it's going to be beautiful China huge uh huge yeah we've got all the Trump bunch wait a minute this is awesome because our friend Jesse Isler calls it, like have another flavor of brownie.

Like, you know, make a different brownie. If all the brownies are the same, you better have a different brownie. Your brownie better be different. And effectively, it's what differentiates you. So it's easier to stand on any corner in Bronx and sell, what was it that you were selling? Or maybe you don't want to say it. Sell drugs. Yeah.

Sell drugs. We'll talk about that often. I keep a generic mom. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's easy to stand on the corner and sell drugs. Yeah. There in your neighborhood, but you're like, one, I don't want to compete with everyone. One, there might be a price issue if you compete, right?

And so it creates price erosion. Like, hey, he's selling it for this. I mean, I got to sell it for that. Or the other thing might be territory. Territory. Which means now risk, right? And so you went to where? Upstate New York.

Upstate New York. There was a college out there in New Piquelt's area. Okay. I would go to New Ports, the area and I would sell up there. And so less risk. obviously free market. And I had a place to stay, a good friend of mine I grew up with. We went kindergarten together, Dominican Cat.

You know, him and his parents moved out the Bronx and gave him a better life. So I would sleep in his basement. So I would go up there, me and my buddy, Rod, who's actually in prison right now. We would go up there, sleep in his basement, do what we needed to do for the weekend or a few days and then head back down. Okay, got you. So it would make your money and Poughkeepsie and come back down. Brilliant. Guys, understand how smart this is.

that there's always, and we talk about this on many different episodes where when everyone else zigs, you got a zag. Yeah. You got a zag. And so that's a great, great lesson there in marketing. And so at what point you decide to leave the drug game and go and sell those cell phones illegally? Yeah. Well, I kind of still stayed in the drug game while I was doing the cell phones, but it was getting

really, really hot. The risk didn't out, didn't outweigh, no, the risk outweigh the reward, right? And because when you go to an area over and over and over again, at some point, somebody's going to realize that, recognize that pattern. And then the police are going to come. Sure. Then you're going to get too hot. And so I got this, I took this job at a company called MCI WorldCom. So I started out as a legitimate job at the same time while I'm still hustling, selling drugs.

And I was, you know, I would go places and cell phones and I would set up tables in front of Columbia University. university and other places and you know this is my cell phones just first came out so i would put the put the box on the table and have all the paperwork to fill out yeah that wasn't working out too well for me and then uh finally one of my co-workers at the company you know he pulled me aside and he said hey he showed me what he was doing so why do you think he did that i mean there's there's there's got to be a lot more reps there i think one he he knew that he one he knew i was struggling two he knew i was a young kid that was trying to make money right and i think he I also think that he didn't think I would be one to snitch or say anything.

I think he knew that I was so impressionable that he was like, you know what? I'm making all this money over here. He's not throwing his money. He'll bring this kid under my wing. And he did. And essentially what he taught me, and I'm not advocating for this by any means. So, you know, disclaimer. Right.

You know, he would get people's information, Data Berg, Social Security card number, full name. Didn't really need address, but he would make up addresses sometimes. And he would run the line of credit. And if the credit checked out, you could activate up the three phones. And so once he showed me that, I kind of took that process.

And I had a buddy of mine in high school. Well, I met him a little bit later. His girlfriend worked at a hospice. So people would dying all the time. And his girlfriend would give him the information. I would pay him for each sheet of paper. And each sheet of paper had, I can't remember, like 10 people's information on it.

And then I would activate. And each one of those pieces of information information was one phone. Oh, three phones. That's right. Each person's information was three phones. And one phone was good for three months before it was shut up. The phone was saying, you have the phone, first 30 days, you don't get your first bill until after 30 days. After, well, you got 30 days and then you would get a bill, right? After you got your bill, then you had like 30 days to pay it. And then if you didn't pay it, then you had 30 days before the company turned it off.

Right. And so the phones were staying on for 90 days. And so what I started doing was I would go back to the drug dealers, I would go back to, you know, all the people that, you know, I knew I grew up with high school, people in streets, some friends, and I would just sell them. I would sell the phones and I would sell, and, you know, you didn't have to buy the phone because that was part of the plan, right? So if you activated the phone, your, your, your phone, what you were paying for the actual phone was built into the phone bill, right? And you got to remember at this point, cell phone bills are 20, the plans were like

2999 a month. I remember that. But if you went over, you only got to. got like 30 minutes or 45 minutes something ridiculous and then after you went over that time I mean it was like a dollar and change a minute right and so I started selling these phones and I was selling for about 500 depending on what type of phone it was sometimes 300 I was selling the highest ones were 900 those were the Motorola Star Tech phones that was super to look like the tick tack they were shaped like that and they flipped up and they were staying on for 90 days and I was making tens of thousands

of dollars a week and the risk was really low because at the time there wasn't really much there wasn't much oversight because you gotta remember this is this is 2000 you know 2000 and one right so there wasn't a lot of oversight and cell phones were becoming popular and I was I was just making tons of money and then at gradually I was just like I don't need to do drugs anymore right right because you're making more money at a lower risk yeah and at what point did you get those two warrants one in New Jersey one in New York I got that was during that time period so I got I got I got one in in late 2000 and another the one in middle of 2001.

And how old are you at this point? At this point, I'm 19. 19. Okay. Yeah, when I found out I had the warrants to go join the military, I was 19. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. But years before, when you were a kid, you wanted to be a Navy SEAL?

Yes and no. So I saw two films. There were two films that really inspired me. One was bad boys, and another one was The Rock. And the Rock was when I really found out, yeah. That was when I first found out. out about the Navy SEALs and as a kid as a teenager at that time because this was 96 it came out I said to myself if I ever turn my life around that's what I would do so it wasn't like this thing

where every day I was like I'm gonna be a Navy SEAL right it was just like you know what I could do that right if I ever turn around turn my life around I'm gonna do that it was just one of those things and then that dream obviously you know that idea kind of faded away because it wasn't rooted in anything deep yeah but it was it was an idea that lay dormant yeah but but it was it was an idea that laid dormant but I believe still took roots man yeah because then when you decided to straighten your life out yeah you went back to that idea

yeah I went back to that idea and I think a part of that a part of the reason why I went back to where there was a few few reasons why I went back to the idea one was pride um as you know from the story I was big into music and you know I wanted not only that I want to be a rapper but I wanted to be a music mogul

the reason why I was doing what I was doing with the drugs and with the cell phones because I was investing that money into my record company, right? And so at the time, the pinnacle, the highest thing that you could do coming from where I came from was be like a music mobile in the music industry, right? And when that dream kind of fell apart because all the, you know, you know the story, so everything shut down, I won't give it away people can read in the book, but when all that stuff kind of went away, I was just like, and I kind of had to go into the military, I was just like, okay, if I'm going to do anything, it's going to be the pinnacle.

I'm not knocking anything else in the Navy, but it was just like, music mogul, Navy SEAL. Yeah, and there are two different categories, right? They're both the tip of the spear. Exactly, exactly. So part of it was pride, and another part of it was excellence. You know, my mother, from the time I was a young boy, my mother always preached to my brother and I excellence.

Whatever you do, you do are right. Whatever you do, you try to be part of the best. You know, I remember there were times when my mother would make my brother and my brother and out washing dry the dishes, and she would come and inspect them afterwards and if they weren't near perfect she would make us to put all the dishes in the sink and make us start all over again and she would do the same thing with reports and writing she would make my brother and i read New York Times articles and books and and all kinds of literature and then we would have to write reports on them and if they weren't near perfect she would make us do

all over again so my mother was always about excellence excellence excellence excellent so I had when I found out that being a Navy SEAL was I was excellence personified that you know that along with I wanted to be part of the best I wanted to do something as great as what I thought at the time was great, which I'm not knocking it, but that's great. That's what I was going to do. Gotcha. Of course, you walk into the recruiter's office,

and you're like, hey, I'm a record company mogul. I got my own record company, right? Record company. Right? You bring the pride along with you. Yeah, I was trying to find a swabba. It was going from New York, and she's like, yeah, from New York.

And I'm trying to run game on her. And she's like, all, all, fool. Let's see if you got what it takes. Because she was from the Bronx. So, um, okay. So she really took a liking cue, didn't she? Yeah, she did. And I later found out you'll find, I mean, she died.

She died two years after that was going to ask you. Yeah, yeah. So she died two years of really rare autoimmune disease. And as a matter of fact, in the back of the book, I put a link in the back of the book because John Hopkins Institute, they created like a farm people could donate to in order to help because they still haven't found a cure for the disease that she died of. And, uh, but she was from the Bronx. and she knew that kids like me wouldn't get a chance

and didn't have a chance if we stayed in the streets. And I later found out from her brother that she would drive around the Bronx and go to old friends who were on the street selling drugs and say, listen, I see where your life is going. If you don't turn your life around, you know, where you're going to end up and she would try and get them in the military.

You know, she even did that for her brother when he got a misdemeanor. She came back home and helped get him into the Air Force. And so she was like a robin hood in the hood. Sure. No, she took that job as a recruiter because not only did she want to, you know, part of her job was to get people in the military, but she wanted to get specific people. She wanted to be able to get people a second chance. And it was a blessing that I ran into her. She really was your angel like you described. Absolutely. Absolutely. And in that way, she said, hey, you got two warrants. We're not taking you anywhere. Yep, yep. But, uh. Yeah, yeah. When she ran my background and she told me I had those warrants, I got up and got ready to run out.

Went out the office. I got ready. So, I mean, you knew you had the warrants. I didn't know I had the warrants. I didn't know. I didn't know. I didn't know I had to want. Got it. Got it. Okay. The whole time I'm thinking, Remy, why do you walk into

a recruiter's office with warrants, man? I thought I was, I thought I was clean. Gotcha. I thought I was clean. So you were as shocked as she was,

like, why is he here? So when she said you got warrants, I was, I thought it was for the stuff I was doing with the cell phone. Got it.

Because people were getting locked up and going to federal prison. Right, right. People started getting caught out of the office that I was working out of and that's one of the reasons why I left.

Okay. And so I was like, this is it. I got caught. I'm going to federal prison. There's no defense because of the stuff that I was doing. And so when she said that, I went to go buggy out. And then, you know, she stopped me and said, what are you doing? And I said, I'm not trying to go to jail today. I at least want to go home and get some things settled. And she told me to come back the next day, you know, and I said, for what? She said, just come back tomorrow, listen to me and come back tomorrow. And she asked me If I had a suit, she said, no.

She said, do you have a collar shirt and some nice pants? I said, yes. She said, I came back the next day in a collared shirt and some nice pants. And she was in her dress uniform. And she took me to both judges, the judge in New Jersey, judge in New York, advocate on my behalf, say, hey, this kid has made some mistakes,

but he has potential. He's trying to turn his life around. I know he's not perfect. Can you expunge his record? Wow. You know, both judges unanimously expunge my record. And by this point, 9-11 had already happened. 9-11 had already happened.

Yeah. And so, and I think that was another reason and why the judges judges were more keen on expunging my record because they was like, okay, if this guy's going to do this after an act of war and he's super patriotic, you know, and I wasn't patriotic. You know, I didn't, you know, I wasn't patriotic at all. I mean, I was just trying to get out, get into the military, get out of the situation I was in. Are you patriotic now? Do you consider yourself patriotic?

Yeah, I'm considering myself patriotic now because I've been to other parts of the world. And I've seen how people in other parts of the world live. And yes, we do have our faults and our issues here. in America, but at the end of the day, I'd rather be in America than some of the other places I've been in. And I'd rather be in America than the country I was born in because of the way things are there. And so I would consider myself definitely patriotic now because, yes, we have a whole lot of issues that we have to work through. But I tell you what, I wouldn't want to be anywhere else. You wouldn't want to be anywhere else. I've been to those places.

I mean, I've been to those places. And, you know, come. from where you come from, you know. I mean, in Nigeria, it's illegal to be gay. You could be killed for being gay in, in, in Nigeria. I mean, there's so many things in Nigeria that's, that you can't just do, right?

And there's other places you can't just speak out against your government. There is no freedom of speech. You know what I mean? And there is no, a due, there is no nothing, period, right? And that's why I love the fact that we can go protest And I'm all for the protests, right? But you go protests in some of these other countries that I've been to.

You're going to get whacked. You're going to get smoked. Yeah. Yeah, you're going to get smoked. And so that's why I would consider myself patriotic because I've been on the other side. You see, you know. And when you've been on the other side, that changes your perspective. Yeah.

And that's why everything that I try to do now is I understand we have problems, but I want to be, I want to be an agent of change. Because I know that there is so much potential within this country. where we can be that great, that absolute great nation, not just for one group, but for all groups of people. Right. So, Remy,

what should I have asked you that I haven't asked you yet? Man, I think we kind of covered. I think that was the perfect. I really do. Guys and guys listening to this, I'm telling you, I don't have a list of questions.

I just sit here and I told Remi before the cameras went on, I said it's two dudes sitting at a bar, drinking, and I'm just going to ask you a lot of questions because I'm interested in your life. One of the reasons was there's so many parallels to my life that made me reflect. And obviously, the times that we're in now, today is, John was today, the first. First, you know, what, a week ago now, George Floyd passed away.

And so the timing was just right. You were speaking out on social media, and I wanted you to come out here. And we just went full circle from where we started to have you sit here at the end of this episode and say, look, man, I wasn't patriotic when I went into the military. I went because I wanted to get away from what was surely going to be probably a life of either death or imprisonment

or just always looking over your shoulder. None of those three are interesting to me. Not at all. Right. Right. And in the process of going and experiencing the world, you're like, I would rather be in the United States than any other country I've been to. Any other place.

That's powerful place. Well, Remy, brother, I really appreciate your time. Thank you, more, brother. Thank you so much for coming out, Tchino Hills and braving the vicious COVID virus. Yeah, I know, right? Guys and gals, here's what we're going to do. I got two copies here of transformed, one for me and my bookshelf and one for one of you guys. And I want you to do me a favor and take a screenshot, whether you're watching on YouTube or listening to any of the

podcast platforms, take a screenshot, and I want you to tag me and Remy as this episode comes out here in the next few days. And about three days in, I'm going to take all the names, all of you who have tagged me. I'm going to pick one of you, and I'm going to send you a signed copy of transformed Remy's book here in the mail. So I appreciate you all listening, watching. Remy, thank you for your time and your service, my friend. Yes, sir. All right. And as always, be good to each other. listen, give us a five-star review, share this episode, don't bust my balls about being political and racial and all that shit.

It's all a part of I've got a platform. I'm going to speak my voice. Exactly. And if it doesn't sit well with you, feel free to unsubscribe, unfollow, and block me. And I'll see you guys later.