Couple Things with Shawn and Andrew - 59 Rita and Mirthell Onyx

Episode Date: March 31, 2021

This week on Couple Things, we got to talk to Rita and Mirthell Onyx. They've created an extremely successful YouTube empire with the help of their entire family. It was fascinating to learn how they balance it all. Here are a few topics that we cover: 0:00 Introduction Family advice Navigating having a content creation career with your family Making decisions as a couple against the norm How Mirthell and Rita Onyx met How religion plays a role in the marriage How to set boundaries for your family When it’s time to speak up The biggest priorities in teaching children Rita’s position as CEO Onyx family projects Advice for marriage and relationships Follow the Onyx Family here ▶  @Onyx Family  Follow them on Instagram here ▶ https://www.instagram.com/onyxfamily/?hl=en Check out their website here ▶ https://www.onyxfamily.com/ If you haven’t yet, please rate Couple Things and subscribe to hear more. Follow us on Instagram to keep the conversation going at https://www.instagram.com/couplething...​ And if you have suggestions/recommendations for the show, send us your ideas in a video format – we might just choose yours! Email us at [e-mail]. We're supported by the following companies that we love! Check them out below: Athletic Greens ▶ simply visit athleticgreens.com/EASTFAM and get your FREE year supply of Vitamin D and 5 free travel packs today! Betterhelp ▶ Visit betterhelp.com/EASTFAM and join the over 1,000,000 people who have taken charge of their mental health with the help of an experienced professional. Get started today and enjoy 10% off your first month. FAN MAIL ADDRESS: Shawn and Andrew East 750 N San Vicente Blvd., East Tower, 11th Floor, Los Angles, CA 90069 Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/ShawnJohnson...​ Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/ShawnJohnson​...​ Follow My Twitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/ShawnJohnson​​​​​​ Snapchat! ▶ @ShawneyJ Follow AndrewsTwitter ▶ http://www.twitter.com/AndrewDEast​​​​​​ Follow My Instagram ▶ http://www.instagram.com/AndrewDEast​...​ Like the Facebook page! ▶ http://www.facebook.com/AndrewDEast​​​​​​ Snapchat! ▶ @AndrewDEast Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you're faithful and if you know what you're about, you don't have to worry about where is your partner at this point in time. There's so much growth to take place. What's up, everybody? Welcome back to a couple things. With Sean and Andrew. A podcast all about couples. And the things they go through. Today we have an awesome couple who has, I feel like, done it all. Rita and Marcel Onix. That's right. You've probably seen this family on YouTube. They have over combined six million YouTube subscribers.

They get close to three and a half billion total views in all. And they're everywhere. They have a podcast called The Onyx Life. They have their hands on a lot of things, including a new cartoon. Yes, that's what I want to talk about on Amazon Prime. And it's scripted, illustrated, produced, and voiced by the entire family, including their children. Yeah. Which is amazing.

Yes. And when Sean says their children, she's talking about their four kids, all fun facts. have a name that starts with S. But we really enjoy this conversation. They have an interesting story, Rita and Marthel do. Marthel was a pastor for 17 years. And family therapist. That's right.

Which is awesome. And then Rita was actually a nurse that ended up switching to YouTube and kind of learning everything on her own and expanding the family business. Yeah. And we love talking with people and families who do a similar thing that we do. And so we enjoyed this conversation with them.

It was also interesting to hear their work relationships. So Rita is actually considered the CEO of all the different ventures that the Onyx family takes on. But we enjoyed this conversation, enjoyed getting to know them, and also enjoyed their mission and their philanthropy. They give a lot to HBCUs, historically black colleges and universities. And I just think they have a really unique approach and everything they do. So Rita and Marthel, thank you so much for joining us. If you want to learn more about them and their family will link their information down below. But before we get started, if you haven't yet, please. subscribe and rate the show on whatever platform you're listening on.

I prefer to watch my podcast, babe. I don't. You prefer to just listen? I like to listen. That's right. So we do have our show on YouTube. We also have it on all the podcast streaming platforms. And side note, if you're listening to this as your first episode, I just want to say my

voice does not usually sound this manly and deep. So sorry to disappoint moving forward, but I don't know what the heck's going on. But I kind of like it to be answered. It's weird. Anyway, side note, let's go ahead and roll into this episode with Rita and Marthell Onyx. Rita and Marthel, thank you so much for joining us. It is a pleasure to meet you. I know we're just right up the road from you here in Nashville.

We should have done this in person, I feel like, but oh, well. All right. Well, thanks for having us. Yes, thank you. I was saying earlier that I feel like we need all of your advice because I feel like you guys are juggling a million things and kids and killing it. And I feel like our life is just utter chaos and we only have one. Yes. It feels that way sometimes for us too. How many kids do you guys have? We only have one, but we have another on the way. So congratulations. Well, let me tell you,

it gets easier when you have more. Really? Okay. I'm not going to lie, you're the first person and first people to tell us that. Everybody else is like, oh, Lord, you better. No, it is so true. I mean, when you have one, that child wants your attention. And right and so, you know, you're their world. And once you introduce a new person, that person, they're like best friends. Join together and you can put them in a room.

Makes sense. Makes sense. I do feel like we have so much to learn from both of you because not only are we in the same world of YouTube and this content creation, but also, Marthel, I know you were a family therapist for 15 plus years, something like that. And so I'm curious your take, if we'll just jump right in here on, it is kind of complicated raising a family and also being YouTuber. So what is your advice to us, if you don't mind sharing?

Well, you know, raising a family, actually, I was a marriage and family therapist. Rita was a nurse practitioner and she had her own practice. at one point in time. I was also an ordained minister for 17. I saw that. Yeah. I feel like we could do 12 podcasts just on those resumes alone. Yeah.

Right. So you would think that as an ordained minister where the bulk of my focus was on marriage and family and family values, you would think that things would have been better or easier back then and we had more challenges back then. We were working on our jobs like it was a nine to five. And we would, we homeschooled our kids their entire life. But the challenge was is that we had to switch off. So because my schedule was a little bit more flexible, I would have the kids usually during the day.

She's going and doing school. And then after she does school, she would come back and then she would take over. And so we weren't spending time together. She was burnt out. It was very challenging. But now, from the time that we started YouTube, we have been able to spend time together. We've been able to work together more as a family.

So, I don't know. Ironically, it just seems to work out better. The best advice, I feel like, is what you guys are doing and what we do is to make it like a family affair. Right. You know, I think it's different when it's just like, that's mom and dad's work. Not that you have to bring your kids into it if you don't want to,

but more just understand like, hey, guys, this is like a family business so that if you want to or if you choose to, you can learn about it. And then it becomes an inclusive thing. Yeah, it is so interesting. We talked to Allo Black and his wife, and they had, he and his wife had different views on this. He was of the opinion that, hey, my craft as a musician is something that my kids need to learn. Just like if we had a farm as a family, the kids would help and learn how to, you know, plant

seeds and harvest everything. The kids need to learn what their dad and parents do. And then whether they choose to continue that on their own is a choice that they'll make later on down the road. But we certainly, as we navigate this, are just trying to do so thoughtfully. And I'm sure you guys are the same way. It's such a new phenomenon to be able to be in this world and share a family with millions and billions of people that there's no, I don't know if there's a right way or wrong way. There's only, okay, are we being thoughtful about this? and are we putting our family as a as the top priority, you know?

Right. And the thing, I really like that point. In fact, I've shared that point several times as a marriage of family therapist and now even within this context, there's been a longer time that society, in society, families have been working together. Far longer than we have not been working together. Tribes and we come together in villages and we come together as a family and agricultural societies were passing on our.

trades teaching them chickens cows whatever and so i totally agree with that that um that when we're doing youtube it allows us actually more to be able to pass on those values and not only to our children but also be an inspiration to others yeah and i do want to emphasize what you just said being thoughtful about the values that you have as a family that and also that you're sharing with the world is so i i think that that's oftentimes overlooked um as YouTube drama continues to unfold that they're like what are the what actually think about the values that you let dictate your life and that you're also kind of now sharing with the world so yeah I do want to ask though and this is probably going to be a very long answer so

please take as much time as you want coming from your respective careers before you got into content creation and the YouTube and everything within your family I feel like within in the careers that you guys had previously with the nurse practitioner and therapist, everything. You kind of got to see the best and worst of the world. Right. Now on the creator side, I feel like you still get to see that.

What have you first, in that transition, what were your biggest fears in raising and creating a family within the YouTube or the content creation side? And how do those differ? because I feel like society sees the traditional side so much better and they see the conduct creation as only negative, whereas there's so much positive to it as well. Wow. Yeah. I totally agree. I think that for me, as a mother especially, my biggest fear was

online comments, trolls, that negative energy. And so one of the things that I told them from the get-go, at first I asked them if they wanted to do it. Then when they said, sure i said i will only do this if you do not read comments like preach any comments i said they will it doesn't matter if you read 99 positive and one negative that will ruin your day your month or year so they said okay mom i will do that and to this day they don't read comments we don't read any comments on youtube except like if we pin a post a comment you might see the one right under and we do that not because we don't care about our fans but just for mental health it's just much more important. And I always tell them, I'm like, you know, prior to this social media age,

I loved, you know, certain celebrities. They never responded to me ever. Because we never had that option. We either watch Seinfeld or friends or whatever. You watch Marvel movies. And we don't expect them to be after every movie going, so what did you guys think? How do you like, they didn't do that. But we love them for their craft. And so I said to them, let your fans love you for your craft we'll have times where you can interact like meetups or um if we get like an email that's very different because it's almost like someone really took that intention i've maybe seen one or two negative emails out of like you know tons of positive ones and it's usually like requests for from parents and things like that so i i wanted them to understand that there's a difference

with interacting with your um with your fans in that way and i think that uh i also try had to teach them that in this day and age, everything is turning online. So just like you guys were talking about with passing on the values and even the trades, I don't personally believe you can get anywhere without knowing online skills now. Yeah. So no matter what you do. Yeah, no matter what we do. So even if you were, even if like, let's say I was still a nurse practitioner, I would know that a way to boost my business is to be online and is to have my business show like my practice or the things that I do like I'd always think about like the doctor pimple popper woman you know like totally boosted a career so I feel like um there's a lot of people right now who

see I think the benefit and I think when it comes to YouTube in general though because maybe there's a lot of young people on here who don't necessarily have I don't want to say they just don't have the wisdom yet you know they just have that young brain so they do a lot of things that maybe bring a negative connotation. But I think as society continues to age and mature into the social media, I just think the stigma will continue to gradually go down. Yeah. To your point about the comments, we did get advice from a mentor, a perspective change from a mentor who said, you know, first of all, Sean and I do think that as a whole social media provides a lot of positive value. There's a lot of good things about it. But to deal with so many people's not only

suffering not only, you know, the good things, but also so many people's opinions, the human heart and the human brain was not meant for that. You know what I'm saying? It's just you get overloaded and to scroll through hundreds of comments of people telling us different ways that we should be raising our kid is like, no, that's, yeah, you're supposed to lean on your immediate community, your family, the people who are in your neighborhood and society. Anyway, Rita, I'm going to take your advice because I'm the comment reader. And I need to not be. Oh, my gosh.

Yeah. We learned that fairly early. We just, we got married really young. She was, I met her at 18 and then we got married within the year. She was 18. I got married to her within the year. So she just turned 19. So we were really young.

And he was four years older, though. And I was four years older, but, you know, you know, us guys, we're not, we're not as mature. So we were probably at the same level, 19 year old. but um but then you know we homeschooled and when we homeschooled everyone was like well why are you homeschooling we're like because we feel that we should be raising our children and we feel that we should be the one that's passing on values and teaching them about life and so i can't fathom and we had the opportunities too and i like to emphasize that because not everybody has that option or even maybe the personality for it so i don't hold it against them like right

you must you know everybody has to do what's best for their family and for us especially because we moved around a lot with him being a pastor. So it was like from district to district and then to the seminary. It was constant moving. And so the one consistency for the kids could have been homeschool. So that was another reason why we did that. Right. So my point was sort of like we've always kind of like buffed the norm and not listen to how,

what society was telling us. We made decisions based on prayer. Right. Even when we left our, well, when I left as a nurse practitioner, everyone was like, how could you do that? You know, Rita, that's so, you'll have a job for life. And I let my certifications go because I was nationally certified, board certified, had all these things.

And I was like, well, I work for my, I work with my family now. This is my business. This is my calling. And they were like, but you should have, you should have that safety net. And I mean, that's wise. But I knew, too, that I would never go back. I just know, like, doesn't matter what YouTube and the algorithm does. I'll never bring that.

Okay, so, Murthel, you touched on this, and I would like for you to expand if you don't mind. You met, or you got married when Rita was 19. I know that Marthel has Jamaican roots, actually related to Vice President Kamala Harris. I read that. It's pretty insane. And you were also, you're Canadian. Yes. And Rita was born and raised in L.A.

How did you two meet? Yes. So we went to the same HBCU Out in Alabama And so And it's based off of our faith So our denomination And so we did share a lot of the values

Just for the fact that we're in the same denomination Christian denomination The challenge was There was challenges with culture You know you would think that Okay, two black Christians You know that there you go magic is going to take place here.

But Caribbean being of Caribbean descent, being raised in Canada, international influence on my life, and then her being raised as an African American out here, you know, we had our set of differences and set of challenges. But that's how we met. We kind of met in that way and we and got married pretty quickly, it sounds like. I was going to say. So two-part question to that.

how did you make that decision? I feel like we have so many different conversations with people who are of the mindset that you need to date for seven years before you ever truly know a person and marriage is scary and marriage is something you don't jump into. What is the opposite of that?

Because I love your, I love that you just know, it's funny. We had a conversation about how we make decisions. You want to talk about like the different decisions that we've made? that we made it by faith yeah yeah so yeah basically you know around that time i was i had gone down to to the hbc u with a full scholarship but i was super immature like instead of going to class i slept i don't know why i did that but i you know i you know that's the thing it's like i wasted

it on sleeping and i ended up losing my scholarship and um i had met merthel and i was trying to like thinking like what am I going to do now because my parents were like well you need to come back to LA obviously you're not mature enough to be out there on your own and I was like oh man you know I just started praying about what to do he was about a year away from graduating and I think for me I was like you know I know that he is the one and so I said to my family like no I'm not going to come back even if I have to stay out here and just work and and just figure out what I'm going to do I'm not going to go back. So we had conversations about where our future was.

And so I feel like for me, I said, you know, right now, I would rather be with you where you go. And he was a little older. And he didn't necessarily want to get married right away or anything. I wanted to establish, at least establish myself financially first. But me, I was like, hey, we're going to be together anyway. Let's do this together. And it was probably like a leap of faith.

Because, you know, I'm 19. I think, what's the problem? just marriage. And there's something to that. There's something to that because our first job together as a married couple, we were making like $5.50 each working at a burger joint on campus. You both worked there. We both worked there. Oh, you've been working together, huh? So we've been working together for 20 odd years, like 23 years. First starting making $5.50 each. So that's like about $11. Right. To now we're like, you know, now, you know, we're making millions, you know every year it just but but it just goes to show you if you're faithful and if you know what

you're about you don't have to worry about where is your partner at this point in time there's so much growth to take place yeah we grew up together we grew up together so all of our mistakes all of our challenges we just learn together so that's the upside of getting married young there is another side but that's the upside but yeah but to specifically say I would say this that I can honestly say I prayed about it, but I wouldn't say that it was the most well-thought-out, why is this decision to get married that quick, honestly? But for me, in my life and the decisions that I've made, I've made giant leaps of faith over and over and over again.

And that was just one of the first ones. And everything continues to work out. And although we've had our challenges, you can almost like, you know, you're like in a fork in the road. You're going to have challenges if you get married early. You'll probably have challenges if you have a, at that time, we would have had a long distance relationship and I would have gone back to L.A. So it was like, pick your challenge.

And for me, I wanted to be with him and I was able to go back to school. And that's the thing. I learned from my mistake. I went back to school. And of course, I got straight A's again because I was like, yeah, I'm not going to sleep this time. I'm going to go to court. I'm going to go to class. And that's the marriage for me, I feel, was what I needed to actually grow up.

And some people, maybe they don't need that. And that was just what I need. And I think God knew that. For me, I prayed. I prayed for my wife from the time I was young. I watched my father was a minister. I watched them have a great marriage. So I saw them dancing in the kitchen. Did go off on retreats. My dad was a marriage counselor. So he would have retreats with the church. And so I just grew up just honoring the concept of family and marriage and love. And so for me, I went there looking for my wife. And when I found her, some of our first conversations were so steep in her relationship with. God and mine, it was just like, yes, this is it. You know, I've been waiting my entire life for this and I'm not going to sit around and wait. Like, I know what I want. So that's huge. I'm

curious. So Sean and I just had a conversation about potential deal breakers and being of the same religion, is that a deal breaker or not, or being of a different religion? What denomination are you guys? We're 70th of Venice. Oh, nice. Do you feel like if one of you wasn't of that religion things like it would have been more complicated to navigate the relationship definitely i think so i think it's amazing one of the amazing things would be to have christ that that is a that is an absolute christ you know it is the absolute and so i think as long as the the common understanding of the role of christ in our faith if that's there that would be very helpful yeah but then there are nuances in certain denominations that are strong nuances.

They may not be Christ because Christ is the pinnacle, but there's still strong nuances. And so one of the things that we do is we keep a Sabbath. We keep the Sabbath, which is on Saturday, from Friday to Saturday. That has been so richly a part of our upbringing that I think it would be very challenging for us to be with somebody else that did not share that because of just our understanding. that was a big conversation we had within religion and deal breakers is beliefs aside if you are operating within your relationship under the same quote unquote rules and rule book it makes things very very complicated and if you don't have those understandings and those values

and you don't share that same pathway it makes it would make a long-term marriage very difficult to kind of navigate not not impossible but definitely maybe adds a layer of complications Right. I would say it would be impossible if there was no, Christ wasn't in the picture. That means the absolute most to me. And that, and that's a deal breaker for me. And I don't think I could, I could navigate past that. Because it's just, it embodies who I am as a person. So that, you know, that would be a deal breaker for me. But anything beyond that, I think it's workable because I believe that the Holy Spirit will be able to pull things together. Yeah. You're, you're speaking about your. young marriage got me thinking about and maybe I'm just like a senile old man now but I do believe that marriage and having kids is not for everybody but if it is for you then the sooner you do it the better but it's it's interesting to think that like at a young age there's so much immaturity to kind of work

through that can really you know cause conflict in a marriage but when you get older and I don't know what the age is maybe it's like 32 33 where you kind of get set in your habits and like you're kind of stubborn and and that also causes conflict when you're trying to look for a spouse because you have to bend all these you know rigid routines that you might have built up over the past 13 years post college or you know post high school and uh anyway just i don't maybe there's like a little sweet spot of no and we've had these conversations with people who have talked about how they met their person when they were 16 17 18 and they knew that they were like they wanted to spend the rest of their life with them but they couldn't get over this thought of oh i need to go live

my life first and then I'll come back to you right and it's just like there's something so beautiful in marriage and love about going through those rocky hard uncomfortable times yeah and getting you know into your 30s 40s 50s and being like look at what all we went through and it just makes it so much more fun it's definitely hard but it's fun I remember I remember there was a particular story where I was with my friends, I was in college right before I met Rita, probably the summer before I met Rita. And I went back home to Toronto and my friend brought me to a comedy club. And whenever I'd come in town, he would introduce me to the friend of a girl that he is with or whatever. And then I would go with them. So I went to this comedy club with this girl. I don't even

know who she is, but it was our first date, blind date. And then afterwards, we sat in the front of the comedy club and the comedian was like oh look at this couple you guys are a lovely looking couple and he's just you know he started to you know ask us questions and then he said um oh so you're probably can't wait to for this show to be over so that you guys can you know get it on he's suggesting and i said to him i said you know actually um um that's not going to happen i'm a virgin and i'm keeping myself for marriage and i don't know i mean i was so bold in Christ that I don't know what I was thinking, I'm in a comedy club. That man must have thrown out his entire dialogue, whatever he had planned. Because everything was about what on my body will be

blue and this and the people were cracking. They actually had a really great time. And but I, but I say this that at the end of the day, I feel like I get the last laugh because 23 years later I've been preparing for this. I've been preparing for a marriage that is till death do you part. And so for me, I feel like I got the last laugh. I mean, they had a good time and I'm glad for them, but I, you know, I was ready for this. So your kids' names all start with the letter S. This was strategic or no?

Not really. It's kind of like after the first one, you go, oh, maybe the second one should have something kind of like that and then you know you accidentally get pregnant a third and then fourth time you're like maybe just keep the s's yeah we were going to do the same exact thing so we get it yeah you're like you're like you're like let's just keep going there yeah let's just keep it like this we're parenting is intentional but there's a lot that's just kind of like you flow with it like for instance like paired with you guys about having more kids so the first kid that we had shalom we had we had bags we had strollers we had swings we had everything that you could possibly think of

and when we went out we packed a car with the entire room right yeah by the second child it was down to half yeah by the third child it's like let's just put it this way by the fourth child we had a plastic bag with maybe a couple like tissues that we'd just grab wipe the bum you know like It was just, like, it was just MacGyvering it, basically. That's hilarious. I think we're already there. We're like, what do we? I don't think we need anything new.

I think we're just good. And the first one, it was like, we need to go get everything they make under the sun for a game. Right. I do have a question, though, as it pertains to babies and you're like the content creation world. Because we've asked a lot of different people who live within the YouTube realm, how they navigate that world. And everyone says it differently. For us, we have, we've worked through five, six years of doing this to where we kind of have our rhythm and our guidelines and our boundaries.

How have you guys made it work? What are your, we don't go there. We don't talk about that. Kind of like you said, we don't read comments. What are your boundaries to protect your family and keep your family time sacred to you? Well, it's interesting. YouTube loves babies. So you having a baby.

your channel will blow up. You know, I'll take that. But maybe you want to deal with it because... Well, I think for me, the boundaries that I set initially... Well, we both actually said this was that we wanted to give children an escape with family-friendly entertainment. We did not want to get political. We did not want to get spiritual.

We did not want to get into just anything controversial. And we just wanted people to come and relax, smile. You know, we want to be people to be able to come to the channel and just do reruns, like how I do when I want to laugh sometimes. I just go on and I watch friends or something and just laugh. And so I just wanted to give children that. So that was basically our main boundaries. And we've been able to, I think, to stick with that. And although we do feel that there are moments though where our family may be called to say something and speak on a topic. So of course, last summer, we made sure that we were also a part of the whole movement.

And I think just highlighting the topic of racism, see, for us, we feel it every day. You know, we're black. So it's not a trend for us. It's not, yeah, it wasn't something that was highlighted for us more. It was just, yes, this is what we're going through. So what we did last summer, though, it was we added our voice to it to say, yeah, I have to give my children the talk when they're driving. I have to think when I moved to a city, how will it be for, you know, especially Shiloh, my son, when he's driving around. I have to think

about a lot of different things that maybe someone else doesn't. And so last summer we were able to talk about that, especially on our social media channels. And I felt like that was an appropriate time. But we don't necessarily like to do that, you know, with all of our videos or anything like that because again we need to be a safe space for kids to just be kids there are so many agendas out there and even even within the race topic like we fully understand that there are some people that really do not care about whatever dilemmas or challenges that are out in society they just simply are using it as as bait to get society pitted against one another and we don't want to be a part of that we we're not interested in that at all but like like rita said like um so

when there are moments that we can use our voice in a responsible way, not getting a part of these agendas to tear down society, then we try to use our voice in that way. But ultimately, you know, like for instance, like today, I felt a connection with you guys. So I talked about my faith and with Christ, but we really don't even, we don't really share with that because we think that

that there needs to be a safe space for kids to not feel like they're being pushed in a direction. Because that's what I want for my kids. Right. And they go, that's what I want. It's such a fine line. Well, first of all, I appreciate you opening up and sharing that. But with us, our contents for like 18 to 35 year olds in the dating, engaged, you know, newly married or new parents.

And it's interesting when we have these conversations or bring people on the show who may share the same values as us or may not. My perspective is, I think to some degree, it's our responsibility. responsibility to like vet whoever's on the show to make sure they're not pouring anything toxic you know out and using our platform to do so but also there's a certain level of responsibility that we give our audience to know like hey we can have a healthy conversation with someone who doesn't share our same perspective or doesn't come from the same background but it's a fine line between you know uh opening up a platform to to maybe something that someone else can't deal with and trying to teach people how to have a healthy conversation.

So this is a constant battle that we have. I'm not saying we do it right or well at all, but that's our intention, you know. I'm not quite sure if we answered the question, though, because I felt like the question was about you having a baby and how does you incorporate the baby into the, is that, was that the question? Boundaries in general. First, our questions are always up for her interpretation.

So I always love how people take them. second no I love how you answered that and how you guys guide your business and guide because I think that speaks to your family and your family values and what you've taught your kids okay um to no I think you answered it exactly how we asked okay great yeah loaded question though as CEOs and business operators of of kids content you guys are constantly on a mission to like you said put out content for children that is that puts a smile on their face but within that you're teaching so much so much good what's the number one thing you want kids to learn hmm that's an interesting

question well our mission is tell the story feed the soul make them laugh heal the heart and we really believe that laughter is a medicine we strongly believe in that and so a lot is guided by making sure that we're entertaining them, entertaining the children so that they have a safe space to laugh, a safe space to hear a story and be entertained by that story. And then stories have always moved people toward some type of action or whatever. But it's moving them inertly. So it's not necessarily the story is telling you that you must do this, but it's inspiring the best out of us when we hear a story. A story generally does not direct you to do exactly what the story says. It really inspires you to be the best of yourself and how that plays out is going to be different for each one of us.

And that is our target. Our target is to inspire each child so that the best comes out of them, just like the way we parent our own children. We're not here to, we're a guide to our children, but we're not here to dictate to them what they must be. And we believe that there is something inert in each one of us that kind of guides us towards, if we've found, that guide, which is our giftedness and the things that are inside of us, we will be able to find ourselves doing things that are richly rewarding as opposed to just having a nine to five, we would be in a purposeful living. Well, yeah, I hope that the kids who watch our family get two things, that family togetherness, you know, I was raised like an only child. I have siblings,

but I wasn't raised with them. They're like half siblings and I was raised by my grandparents. So when I had kids, I was under the impression that they would always want to be like always together all the time because that's what I've dream jumped of. Like if I had a sibling, it would be like a sleepover every night. But they're just like, no, mom, like we do our thing and we come together, you know, at times. And they're very, very close. And I want kids to watch our family to see that family togetherness, but to also be inspired for entrepreneurship. Because these kids, from the time we started, I taught them how to do, how to record, how to film, what the best settings on the camera, search engine optimization, how to make thumbnails, like everything about the

business, we included and we taught them and we also made them official like partners in the actual company so that they own it. So that I want kids who see them to say, wow, you know, I can maybe work with my siblings and maybe we can do something like this, you know, if that's something that they want to do. So, you know, entrepreneurship. family togetherness and inspiring them to just be their themselves to use their talents i got to say on the on the topic of laughter i was watching the no phones at the table video and it's gold it is i was dying laughing so thank you for that but i saw i think it's on your website rita you are officially the ceo of the company yeah can you talk about that arrangement because i don't know if it's official in our

but Sean, without a doubt, has the final say. So how have you guys operated with that whole working together thing? You know, well, it's a funny situation because it was a transition for us. Being a pastor and I was a sole breadwinner for some time, I played the role of provider. And the assumption is that somebody that plays a role of provider is the head. It's synonymous. Soul provider, head, whatever. Yeah. But like I was talking about, God has given each one of us giftedness inside. I believe that each person has some giftedness inside of them that drives them to be the best that they can be.

What we discovered after I had transitioned from ministry and I went to support Rita with nurse practitioner and then eventually the medical company that she had established kind of was, it was really difficult. We didn't see some things that we didn't foresee some things that would be challenges. And so that's when we transitioned to YouTube. it brought out the absolute best in Rita as far as her skill set and her ability to be really great. And I had to respect that. I had to respect that because it really was her giftedness. And so we had, I think we had some challenging years, to be honest, we had some challenging years where it's like trying to figure out what does it mean to be the head of the household. What does it mean to? Yeah. Because he says that YouTube dominates so much, or I should even say in YouTube, but just this family business dominates so much of our time that if I make decisions about the

business, it affects everything. Everything. So it could be from worship to, you know, going to the park to what we're, like everything because you're doing so much around the business. And so we had some challenges with that. But it really came about because it was some, it was my research and my idea. And basically, I basically structured everything from, you know, from idea to, execution and I continue to basically help map out the future partnerships, contracts.

It's just something I naturally do. And he's just an amazing support. And he's more like he likes to say, I'm the mind of the business. You're the brains. The brains of the business. And he says he's the heart because we do like the charity and the out and all those types of things. And for me, I'm very much like, you know, all about the business side. And I do all the cooking. I always have really done the cooking in the house, you know, and feeding the kids. We're lucky. So we have a situation where we honor if there's a head.

If there's a head, then the head is God for us. And then we honor the giftedness inside of each other. So I respect and submit to the giftedness that I see in her. And she respects the giftedness that she sees inside of me. and we honor that. And it works very well for us. It may not be traditional and it may not always make sense to some people's theology. But when we see the God in each other and we see that giftedness, we honor that.

Well, I respect us so much. And I think that we've had so many conversations with couples who come in with these very rigid marriage roles that a husband and wife would play. And one person feels slighted or kind of dominated over because the, they're not able to fully flourish whatever their, uh, whatever their talents are. But I, I think that that's such a big part of that first year of marriage is kind of

understanding what the expectations are for, uh, you know, the, the marriage roles, trying to learn how to communicate those and like, work through the frustrations anytime there's not an agreement. And then also understanding that gosh, it's,

it's actually way more fun to let Sean like, we're, we're pretty much the same way. Whereas like, I'm totally fine letting Sean, be the mat or you know be the rudder of of everything because i'm able to then do what i'm best at and there is there was a certain process of me letting go of that like oh the head honcho she's still called sean johnson you know it's like for me i never thought that my wife it's always she's going to take

my name but i yeah you work through that and you realize oh it's okay and you know she can do her thing and i could i could still be a man that like one of our favorite things to talk about about marriage is understanding from day one that things change and those roles will go up and down and change over time as people evolve and become parents and mothers and they work and they don't and it's the same like your marriage just changes it does and you go through so many different phases but that's what makes it cool and if you accept that at the beginning then all those like rigid rules and kind of boundaries that you've put up right kind of just dissolve and and it becomes this fun thing to just work through.

I think things got much better for us when we felt safest in each other's presence and each other's relationship. Feeling safe, feeling loved, feeling mutual respect, mutual submission. When it was a safe space, then we felt like, whoa, I can accept anything about this woman.

I can even accept her heading the business because I feel safe, I feel respected, I feel loved. Yes, I respect that so much. Speaking of the business, I would love to hear about some of the projects you have going on. I know you have the Onyx family YouTube channel. You have the Onyx Kids. You have Onyx Mom and Dad. You have the Onyx Life podcast.

And you mentioned you alluded to the cartoon that was bought by Amazon. I would just tell us about it. I'm so curious and excited for you guys. Oh, thank you. You know, that's always been a dream of ours to have an animation of our family. So we actually partnered with Pocket Watch. I don't know if you know that studios. We partnered with the Pocket Watch, and there's a man named Alvey Hecht, who used to be the head of Nickelodeon.

So he's like the executive producer on the project, same with Doreen Spicer, who worked on the Proud family. So in working with those greats and the studio with Pocket Watch, we were able to do all the voiceover work. My daughter wrote the theme song and all the episodes and all the songs in each episode for both seasons. And our other daughter wrote help to write. And then, yeah, and one of our other daughters wrote a few scripts for each of the season. So we have a season one that is out on Amazon Prime right now. It was released in December. Yep.

And we already have season two. That will be out in the fall. Yeah. Let's go. Yeah. And it's called Onyx Monster Mysteries. And it's just about our family basically helping to save the monsters from humans who basically would too scared or too...

Right. Like Bigfoot or the Sasquash. Hunting them down. And it's kind of like we give them a safe space on Atlas Island where we live. And it's just fun, silly. And we try to hear their story and understand why is it that everybody's so scared of them. Yeah. You know. And just, it's just, it's one of those things where it's like what we said, bringing a smile to a kid's face. And the music

is really fun. And it's just, it was just a really nice project. And we really enjoyed doing it as a family. It's just another project that we could do. And it's just really cool to see our faces in animation. What is the that is the animation is beautiful, by the way, well done. What is the message you're hoping to share with kind of learning about these monster stories and why people might be scared of them? Right. So the interesting thing about it is, is that I grew up in the era and in a culture where very rigid, like couldn't even watch Scooby-Doo. You know, even though Scooby-Doo, it was always fake. It was always like that the monster is not really the monster.

Neither must watch it. You know, we were not allowed to watch, you know, things like that. With this cartoon, I think that we are so quick to demonize so many people. We are so quick to demonize others, to call them and give them characterized names without really getting to know their story, without really getting to know them. and um cancel culture and on the other end there is always um kind of pointing the finger at there's always a demon there's always this bad guy and this is the bad guy and him and all these other people like him there's that us and them and we feel like this cartoon says no it's not us and them get to know people's story right get to know get to know understand each other because i even said

this, that even if somebody hurts you, I have learned over the course of my life that you love your enemies. You pray for those that persecute you. Why? Because they have a story. So we're not really fighting against one another. There is a tension and there is an antagonist that is spiritual and that is at another level. And so we have to look at each other as human beings even if we feel that we've been hurt by other people. So listen to people's stories, get to know them, because we have more in common than some people would like us to believe that's trying to divide everybody.

Yeah, man, what an important message. And gosh, I just think the more and more heroes and kind of cultural icons that fall, I just think the more and more we need to realize that everybody, whether you're famous or not, whether you're a great athlete or not. Everyone has amazing qualities about them, but they also have,

we're all human. We all have bad qualities too. And just like realizing that no one is, it's not black and white. Like there, a lot of people do a lot of good and, and a lot of bad. It's like it's just confusing.

It's complicated and it's not always that simple. I would love to, before we close out, if you could share, I know you do a lot of work with historically black colleges and universities tell us about why that's important to you well we find that we are a product of historically black colleges and universities so we're sort of giving back to the community that has sort of like

given us our own opportunity and so that's really important so we we are constantly trying to give back to institutions that I think is really trying to do something for the culture we have some unique challenges within the African American culture and so we want to be a part of the solution and we believe that education is a major part of the solution of you know giving people the skills and the and the resources to be able to get from where they are to where they need to be and one of the things about education is it means that you're partnering with someone it's not a handout um you have to actually study you have to you have to learn how to develop your own mindset and and so it challenges people to just be not to have a victim mentality but rather to

have an empowering mentality that I can do it, that I have the ability. And so we think the framework of education is a great institution to be able to give back to our culture and our community. You guys have so much wisdom. I feel like, again, like I said, at the beginning, we could do 12 more podcasts with you guys, just on every topic. Another kind of just question to wrap it up, even though I don't want to go yet. My mind is racing. With everything that you guys have learned within your marriage, within your parenting, all of it. What is the one piece of advice you would give or have been given that you would give to someone else who's thinking about marriage or relationships? For me, forgiveness by thought. It feels so good to

be forgiven when you've messed up and I've messed up before and Rita's messed up but I can talk for myself. Is that true? Has Martha? I know right. I'm like, I'm like, I I'm just saying like it just feels so good to be forgiven and when I talk about forgiveness it means that you don't necessarily deserve to be forgiven but that you know the whole process I love the whole process of building back up the trust you know recognizing whoa man that was dumb like I don't even know where my head was but I'm sorry and now I have to do the work of building back up the trust and just to watch whatever was torn down now is being built back up that person's actually giving you the chance and it's like that feeds into your deeper commitment

to making sure that you never make them feel that way again. The whole thing is just brilliant. And I can't think of anything greater when I think about love than the concept of forgiveness. It's just a pinnacle for me. Yeah. I think for me, one thing I've learned, especially getting married so young, is that who I am at, who I was at 19 is nowhere of who I am where I am now. And I have changed several times, the wisdom, the experience, Murthal has changed. Our marriage has changed. Like, I think my advice is don't get so stuck on how you feel right now. Try your best to just stick it out, get through it.

Because, man, with time, like with age, things just, they just tend to mellow out. You tend to learn things about yourself and about your partner. And it's just not that deep. Because I remember we used to just go, like, toe to toe with arguing. I don't even have the energy for it anymore. So it's like, you know what? No, we're going to get along right now. I don't care what's going on.

We're going to move on. And so that's, and that is coming from someone like me that I was, I used to have like just a hair trigger, like, just be like, oh, you said that and just be ready to go. And I already know it's going to 4 in the morning. I already know. I got to preach. I got to preach the next day and it's just forget it, trimming out the window, man. That's great.

Well, Rita, Murthel, thank you so much. for giving us a time and the wisdom. Look forward to continuing our relationship. And congrats to everything you have going on. You guys too. Congratulations. Thank you. Appreciate it.

We will link the cartoon. And I'm going to link the phone video as well as your YouTube channel down below. But it was great to meet you guys. Nice to meet you too. Nice to meet you guys. Have a good one.