Good Life Project - Sekou Andrews: The Power of Your Poetic Voice

Episode Date: December 21, 2015

Sekou Andrews defies every preconceived notion you might have in your head about the voice and role of poetry in business, society and life.In his words, when he "tells people that, before creating a new inspirational speaker category, he was a successful 'full-time poet,' you would think that he had said 'full-time mermaid,' or 'freelance unicorn' based on the reactions he gets."A former elementary school teacher turned musician, national poetry slam champion, Sekou discovered the power of delivering larger ideas, stories, missions and even strategies to audiences not by traditional keynote or slides or visuals, but by meticulously crafted spoken word performances.He calls this "Poetic Voice" and Sekou has now presented to everyone from the world's largest organizations to Barack Obama, Oprah, Maya Angelou, Quincy Jones, Larry King, Hillary Clinton, Norman Lear, Sean “P-Diddy” Combs, and Coretta Scott King and family and so many others.In today's episode, we explore Sekou's remarkable journey, his exploration of acting, music, teaching and poetry, how he unbridled words from beat to make the leap from musician to poet and how he literally created an entirely new speaking category and is now turning around and teaching others how to discover their own Poetic Voices. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Charge time and actual results will vary. With ghosts in my periphery, I keep my focus ahead. Born hopeless, the brokest. Fighting swarms of locusts in bed. See, I wrote this one dead and it resuscitated my breath in hopes I spit it loud enough to resonate in your chest. My girl's telling me to quit spitting about demons and blood. I said, you just remain my angel. Hush my screaming with love. I'm fiending for drugs in the form of over three minute hugs that suffocate till I'm exhaling crows and breathing in doves. When most people think about poets,

we think of, you know, sort of people who are struggling to get by, scribbling notes madly on pieces of paper, working three different jobs. You may even have sort of like the old beat generation view of wraparound shades and a hat turned backwards. Today's guest, Sekou Andrews, paints a very different picture of a modern day poet, somebody who came out of a world where he was obsessed with music and hip hop and lyrics. And one day took the stage and realized that there was a different way to share what was on his mind,

his ideas, his stories. And this started a really powerful deep dive into poetry, but he didn't just stop there. He decided that poetry needed to grace the larger stages, the larger stages of keynotes in business and life. And he wanted to turn it into a really substantial way to earn a living and make a really big difference. We explore that journey and listen to some really powerful words in this week's conversation. I'm Jonathan Fields. This is Good Life Project. So we're hanging out in New York City right now.

I was trying to remember where we first met, and I think it was, I don't know if you remember, but I think it was, we were both speaking at this kind of small, impromptu gig in a trailer in Vegas. Superhero U. That's what it was, wasn't it? Superhero U. Yeah. And you took the stage there, and my mind melted the moment you opened it up.

I was like, I've got to know more about this guy, like what he's up to. That's a horrible description of Superhero U, too. Right. No, it's actually like a really cool thing. Jim Quinn would be, would be appalled. Right, he's a good friend

of both of us. It's an amazing event, but there was just like this like spontaneous, like a pop-up version of it. That's right. Yeah, it was. It's like a makeshift stage.

Yeah, it was. It was like the, almost like a part external, but part internal to Zappos version of Superhero U in downtown Vegas. Yeah, it's like we had Tony Shane and his crew there, so we're kind of like doing this exclusive little thing. So it was really cool.

It was great. It was a great energy there. But yeah, so you took the stage, and I had no idea who you were before this, because I kind of just jumped. Jim's like, you have to be here. I jumped on, like Jim normally does. Yeah, that's right. That's right.

And you opened your mouth, and I was just blown away because I had no idea what to expect. I didn't know sort of like where you came from and all this stuff. And I was like, wow, this is just incredible. And I remember we talked a little bit after that and then I've kind of been following what you've been up to for the last number of years.

That's great. So it's awesome to be able to hang out with you. Absolutely. And jam a little bit. I want to take a step back in time. So right now, you basically travel the world, blowing people's minds on stage. And we'll talk about how. We'll get there.

And it's around poetry. Yeah. But you're not talking to, as a general rule, audiences of poets. You're talking to major corporations and organizations and stuff like that. Were you the poet laureate toddler? Where's this coming from? Oh, man. Well, you know, it's funny because I really am the apple right next to the tree

in the sense that if you think about my work, it is the sort of combination of art, education, and entrepreneurship. And both of my parents were artists. Mom was a dancer, choreographer. Pops is a painter, visual artist. Both of them were educators, college professors. And both of them were entrepreneurs and began their own businesses. And so I really just got all of that. But none of them on the poetry side. Like that really came from, I think my love of words came when I kind of fell in love with hip hop. And I discovered hip hop and acting at the same time and began to pursue music, both songwriting, lyric writing, performing, producing, all of that.

And then I'm also acting in theater and chasing film and so forth at the same time, like in middle school. So you're pretty young. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, but I think the creativity was always nurtured in me because my parents were artists.

The education was always nurtured in me. It was like, you know, you're going to go to college. Like you can do this play. Like when I was in DC, I went to a school of the arts, Duke Ellington school of the arts for the first year,

which I just learned that I just, someone just told me that Duke Ellington closed, which kind of broke I just learned that I just, someone just told me to do Kellington Clothes, which kind of broke my heart. But I mean, lots of cats came out of there. Michelle Ndegi Ocello and Dave Chappelle and like lots of, you know, brilliant folks came out of that school. But I went there for one year and at the time, D.C. ranked like 50th in the nation for public schools.

So my mom was like, okay, love the arts, but you can go do plays at this college prep school. So I ended up going to Georgetown Day to finish up. So it was that kind of real balance. And then the same thing with entrepreneurship. It was like, yeah, go get a job. I was encouraged to sort of, your mom recognizes that you have the gift of gab and she doesn't say go be a poet, she says, go be an attorney. So I was on the law school track, but at the same time, as I began to pursue my own path, it was very encouraged because she understood it. So really, I think it really came from them. And then it was just nurtured in me to sort of look for the possibilities. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting. It's funny. I've had the opportunity to sit down with a lot

of just beautiful creators and entrepreneurs and makers. And I've often wondered, you know, what's the dynamic with the parents? You know, like, do you come from really entrepreneurial, like, hyper-creative parents? And I kind of figured that that would be a pretty common pattern. But it's not necessarily. Like, a lot of big-time, like, creatives and artists and entrepreneurs come from, like, kind of very buttoned-down, mainstream, you know, like, workaday parents who, like, didn't have an entrepreneurial bent in there.

So it's kind of interesting to see that. Yeah. I hear that a lot. Even with your, whether it's your career blueprint or your money blueprint. I'll read a lot of books that just talk about you're either pursuing exactly what your parents, sort of how they defined money, how they defined career, or you're literally engaged in the exact opposite, rejecting it and say, I want nothing to do with that. And I want to be the exact opposite. And both of them can lead you to this place.

Yeah. It's almost like you're one of the extremes, but not all that often, just kind of like in the middle, washing around. So you're jamming on all this stuff, like back in middle school and then through high school and then keeping it going into college, it sounds like. But what did you actually study in college? Sociology. What was behind that? I was a social major and it was strategy. All right, break it down.

It was, I was on the law school track. I thought I was going to law school. You don't, you know, unlike med school, you don't necessarily have to major in one particular thing for law school. It's more about the GPA and so forth. So I said, well, let me just major in something that I enjoy so that I can keep my GPA up. And I liked sociology. I love people. And, of course, that comes into my work now as well and just looking at those systems and cultures and so forth.

So it was just let me do – I mean, if you think about it, it's all in alignment still with who I am, because even then it was let me go to my passion place. Let me go to the thing that pleases me. Let me go to that thing that I enjoy doing with my life. And if I can make a living, quote unquote, at that point, it was just I wasn't going to make a living as a sociologist, but it was an end to a means, you know, or means to an end. And so, you know, it was still that sort of strategy keeping me in my passion place. And I just ended up not doing either. Right. During that time, were you still acting and involved in hip hop?

And where's the transition to poetry come into this? Exactly. I mean, although it's a strong argument that hip hop is poetry, right? Of course. But where do you start to move more to sort of like what the outside world would consider? So was pursuing music and acting through middle school, through high school, through college, began to, I started directing, writing some plays, getting those put up in high school,

then in college out in LA. I was originally a Berkeley baby. So I went from Berkeley to DC for middle school and high school, and then came out to Pitzer College and was now in LA in the Clarem to Pitzer College and was out in L.A. in the Claremont Colleges and pursued music through that. I was constantly performing. I was constantly on stage taking acting classes. I started to learn studio production there. I was constantly producing my demos. And then as I started to chase the record industry and chasing

Hollywood, I just found myself having more opportunities pop up in music. So I began to pursue hip hop a lot more heavily. My pops passed right before I graduated from college and I ended up taking some of the benefit money that I got and using that to fund my studio. So I always credit my pops as like, you know, the biggest contributor to my musical career. And I, you know, got myself on a home studio set up and just began to pursue the hell out of music. And I found myself, you know, there was this pattern that emerged of like record executives that were like, dude, I love your lyrics. Like, I listen to this every day on my way to work.

And I know it all by heart. I share it with the homies. But it wasn't the formula, you know, the hip hop formula enough to sell it next to the, to sell it to the man next to the man next to the man.

And, you know, it wasn't bling and shoot him up and hose and, you know, the whole bit. So I was just like, all right,

well, I'm not that, you know, and so let me try to do it independently. Yeah, because you got to speak your truth no matter what the industry is telling you is selling.

That's right. And I just was like, that's not my truth. And I could do that in the same way that I can act. I can play a character, which is what a lot of those cats are doing anyway. But I was like, that's not my path. So let me do it independently. So that was when The Entrepreneur kicked in. And I started my record label, Blind Faith Records Records and began to just pursue the independent route.

And that led me to open mics to build a fan base for my music. And so as I started to go to these poetry open mics, I would a lot of emcees would deliver their their raps like a rapper, like they were still locked into the beat and i found myself going that's such a shame because a lot of times i can't understand what you're saying a lot of times because you're stuck to the cadence of the of the beat you know now you're free from that so why not deliver it in a way where you let your word shine and so i would deliver a lot of my hip hip-hop stuff spoken word style what would be like a short example sort of like to the beat style and then like a short example of breaking from an example would be what goes in my periphery i keep my focus ahead born hopeless the brokest fighting swarms of locusts in bed i wrote this one day and it resuscitated my breath in hopes i spit it loud enough to resonate in your chest my girl telling me to quit spitting about demons and blood i said

you just remain my angel hush my screaming with love i'm fiending for drugs in the form of over three minute hugs that suffocate till i'm exhaling crows and breathing in doves. Right. So that would be like. Right. So it's like compared to the beat. Right. Like as if the beat is still under.

Yeah. So I would get up there and go with ghosts in my periphery. I keep my focus ahead. Born hopeless. The brokest. Fighting swarms of locusts in bed. See, I wrote this one dead and it resuscitated my breath in hopes i spit it loud enough to resonate in your chest my girl's telling me to quit spitting about demons and blood i said

you just remain my angel hush my screaming with love i'm fiending for drugs in the form of over three minute hugs that suffocate till i'm exhaling crows and breathing in doves so that was the difference so i'm going to tell you what my experience of those two were. First one, I'm like kind of just kind of bopping along to the beat of my head. It's like, yeah, I'm just this like a natural groove that takes over my body. The second time he did it, I just got chills. There's something like there was, it landed with so much more emotion to me, which is interesting. And those chills are what ultimately made me fall in love with spoken word.

So somewhere along that way, as I was going to these open mics to build a fan base for my music, one email list at a time, I fell in love with spoken word poetry. And I found myself going, I love being appreciated for my words, being able to share my words with people. And I love that now that they're free from having to worry about the beat, the remix, who's on the hook, all the politics of the record industry, and the audience is just like, I want more of that. That got good to me.

So that was really that transition. But then it's like, well, now what the hell do I do with that? I'm going from the multibillion-dollar music industry to trying to do poetry. We don't even have a multiththousand dollar industry, you know. Right, there's a whole lot of examples of professional poets earning family-worthy livings out there in the world. Yeah, so it was very much the beginning of when the model's not out there, you have to create it yourself. Right. But in your mind, as you're doing it in the background, you're still simultaneously pursuing two roads.

You're still in school. You're getting a social degree. And in the background, you're still like, the real job is're still in school. You're getting a social degree. In the background, you're still like, the real job is going to be like, I'm going to be a lawyer. Sort of. So no. So during this time, when we last left our hero and he was on the law school track, I started working in law firms post-college.

So this is all post-college now. So I've graduated. How are you supporting yourself? But through what? Working in law firms post-college. So this is all post-college now. Okay. So I've graduated. How are you supporting yourself? Through what? Working in law firms. Okay. Right? And I'm sort of just exploring law, trying to figure out, make sure that it's the right

road and so forth. And I'm working in law firms and just looking at the hours that these attorneys work. And I'm just like, you know, you have to really either love the law or love money to work like that. You're talking to a former lawyer right now. Yeah. So you know. I know.

And I was just like, I don't love the law in particular. And I want to make money. But if I'm going to work these hours, I'd rather make money at something that I love. So after a few years of that, I decided law school is not for me. So now what? And I was still pursuing music. And I was looking for that job, that waiter actor job that allows you to go on the auditions, et cetera, et cetera. So I decided to do substitute teaching because I felt like I'd worked with youth before and I told myself, do not become a full time teacher.

I vowed to myself because I said, you are good at it. You will love it, but it's not ultimately what you want to do. And after about eight months of subbing, I got offered a full-time position and I sat and pondered with my then manager, you know, what's the benefit and should we do it? And we were like, oh yeah, you'll have all this off track time. Cause we were a year around school. So it was like, you know, four months off and four months on two months off, you'll have these two months, You can make music, travel. You'll have early days off. It was a beautiful plan that was just ridiculous

because you don't have any off time as a teacher. Right, beautiful on paper. That's right. And so I took the job. And by the time you come home as a teacher, if you're doing what you're supposed to do, like you're exhausted, and all you're doing, you're grading papers at night.

And by the time your off track time comes, you're burnt out and so it it was a failed plan for my music but it was a great plan for you know being able to impact the world in the classroom yeah what was the age of the kids you were fifth grade ah wow which is like a pretty cool age yeah yeah and it was exhausting and i had i was the only man on the fifth grade floor so a lot of the ladies gave me all the i need a father figure boys you know and so i spent a lot of the ladies gave me all the, I need a father figure boys, you know? And so I'd spent a lot of time classroom management and really, you know, mentoring as well. And so it was a challenge,

but I also knew that they really needed my 110% and I could not give that to them if I was out pursuing entertainment at night. And so after about four years, I'd been building my name. I mean, teaching is the kind of job that you can't just say, I think I'm going to quit in September.

I'm not quite ready. I'll quit in December. Like you have to finish that year, you know? So every year I couldn't quite see how I was going to make money at my art, which initially was hip hop and music. And then sometimes at some point during those four years, it became poetry.

So then it was like, well, now what do I do with this? So I was looking at a handful of the folks that were around me, a few of the poets out there, Talam AC, Shihan, Jahar, some of my peers that were just making a living. And I found myself going, okay, my name is building up on the scene quickly. I was getting some accolades. I'd won the National Poetry Slam Championship. My name was beginning to precede me. If I'm going to do it, this is the time. So then I felt like all of the strategy, all of the pieces had been put in place. And like every entrepreneur knows, the last piece is just the hold your nose, close your eyes, and jump.

You know what I mean? There is no perfect time. That's right. And so it was like I pinched my nose and took a breath and quit my job as a teacher. And I always tell the story of three, four days later after the last day as a teacher, the pivotal point that sort of convinced me, okay, it's time to quit was I decided to release my first CD. So I took all my tax money in February, upgraded my studio, started recording my new double CD from like February to June and then quit. And then three days, three, four days later, I did like a CD release show at a club called Fly Poet. Shout out to Fly Poet, one of the best venues in L.A.

If anybody's out there, monthly venue. And so I was doing a CD release show there. CD wasn't out that day. I was doing a CD release show there. CD wasn't out that day. I was freaking out. Distributor called me like, you know, that afternoon was like, OK, it's finally out of print. Come down and get it. I shot down that evening. I shot back to Santa Monica to the club, you know, got there 20 minutes before I was supposed to go on.

John Hensley, the producer's like, you know, where you been? I'm freaking out like you're on in 20 minutes. I'm pacing back and forth backstage. I go on stage. I do one of the best sets of my career at that time. I step out on the street afterwards and surrounded by the crowd on the street. And I make my rent in CD sales that night. And I remember when the crowd dispersed and I was just standing on the streets of Santa Monica by myself. And I remember looking up at the sky and just going, oh, man, I could do this.

Like, I could do this. And literally from that moment, it was like the next day I took off to D.C., I did a week-long tour in D.C., came home with a wad of cash. Three weeks later, did a week-long tour of Atlanta, came home with a wad of cash. Three weeks later, won the National Poetry Slam Championship, making me the sort of number one poet in the country. Three weeks later, joined the National Poetry Tour, traveling the route of the Underground Railroad, celebrating fallen firefighters from 9-11, and on and on and on and on, another tour, another national championship. And I always felt like it was almost like God saying, what took you so long? I've been holding all these blessings for you and just waiting for you to come get, my arms have been heavy, and waiting for you to come grab this. Here, thank you, take this. So literally, it hasn't stopped since. Yeah. I mean, that's amazing. And it's so

interesting too, right? Because so often, people just wait and wait and wait and wait and wait for all the stars to align. That's right. And never realizing that, like you said, you're the final star. So if you're waiting for that last one to set up, but it's hard because that moment is about faith. Yeah. There is never proof that it's going to work, ever. That's right. People are waiting for proof. That's right.

They're waiting for a sign from God. That's right. But your action is the sign. That's right. And it may not work. That's right. They're waiting for a sign from God. That's right. But your action is the sign. That's right. And it may not work. That's right. But you will never know until that final start just steps out and says, I'm hoping, and I'm going to do everything I can.

And when you think about just the beauty of the universe, if you go back to the beginning of my story, what was the name of my record label? Blind Faith Records. A little prophetic. Right, exactly. So, yeah, sometimes it's in you and you don't even see it yet, you know? Yeah, right. Looking for signs from your own past.

That's right. So you go from there. Actually, there's a question that popped into my mind that I want to circle back to, and then we'll kind of like zip back up to like where we are in the story. But when you were teaching, like when you're in the room as a teacher with those fifth graders, is any of this stuff filtering through to how to the classroom with them? Yeah. So yes and no. You know, on the yes side, I was doing music production with them.

I was doing contests. I had some of my kids competing in oratory contests and theatrical contests, and some of them got to the regional ranking place and so forth. And so there was always a creative element in my classroom. You know, they, you know, I remember when I first did HBO Deaf Poetry and, you know, I did a piece that was a satire on hip hop. And so it was very much filled with language and adult concepts, right? And when I flew back home and came to the class, they were like, oh, Mr. Andrews, we saw you on TV. You was

cussing. I was like, what the hell were y'all doing up? That poetry comes on at midnight. Y'all supposed to be in bed. So they were very proud of me. They were excited when I was shooting my music videos and I would show them like we share that experience. Absolutely. And I nurtured that in them. On the no side, I was a new teacher. You know what I mean? And when you're a new teacher, I mean, you're thrown into the lion's den, you know. So and I was a new teacher in inner city, South Central Los Angeles, you know, charter school, low income kids being brought into my classroom by the cops after pulling a knife on their brother type of, you know what I mean? Like it was you got to be in this. This is purpose work, you know.

So there was just me trying to keep up. There was just me trying to keep up with classroom management and the curriculum and learn how to be a better teacher. You know, that's one of the only regrets that I have about leaving is I left before I was the Jordan of teachers. You know what I mean? I wish I had left on top, but I also knew that I couldn't serve the kids the way that I wanted to if I was pursuing something else. And so I felt like, let me go pursue this. And if it doesn't work out, then I'll come back and I'll be able to be in teaching with my soul clear, in a sense, of any other distractions and just focus on the kids.

So yeah, that absolutely was an aspect of it that I brought in. And I still, to this day, I'll get kids that come up to me and are just like, you're one of the best teachers. And I always say the two words that make me feel oldest when I hear them on the street are, Mr. Andrews. I turn around like one of my kids is like taking my tickets at the movies or something, you know. That's funny. Yeah. So what's going on in your personal life at this time?

Because you're a family man from what I know now. I am a family man and looking to be, you know, working on trying to be even more of a family man. So, um, got married about three years ago and, uh, wife and I are actually trying to start a family now, literally. So, uh, you know, I'm, I'm laughing. I was just having a meeting with some friends yesterday and was just saying like, we're in that trying to get my travel calendar and her fertility calendar to play nice, you know, but really also looking at my business and looking at my career path and just saying, how do I structure this in advance so that I'm able to be not only the kind of artist that I want to be, which I've taken control over and the kind of

entrepreneur that I want to be, which I've taken control of, but also the kind of father and husband that I want to be, you know, and no reason why I can't take control of that and not just play victim to circumstance like, oh, I have to be on the road because that's where my money is. You know, no, I'm looking ahead now and sort of diversifying my revenue streams, changing my business model a bit. I actually just launched my first speaker training program last year and that is called Stage Might. I actually just launched my first speaker training program last year. And that is called StageMight. I'm really proud of it. It's basically looking at my career and saying, I have a successful speaking career, but I was never trained as a speaker.

I was trained as a performer. And I took all of that performance experience and I applied it to business stages. And that's what allows me to stand out on business stages. So as I look at executives and leaders that always look at me and go, man, I wish I could do that. And at first there was that disconnect. How can I create some of those connections by just getting them to train outside of how they think a speaker is supposed to be and learn the techniques of a dancer if you want to be more graceful or an actor if you want to be more authentic or an improv artist if you want to learn how to control a room better. And so it's having some great success. I haven't even formally launched it.

It's sort of been in beta soft launch, but folks are having some great success with it. So I'm able to serve my community in some new ways while also setting up a model for me to work from home a bit more when I need to. Yeah. And what's interesting, too, is that in a way, it's like you're circling back to being the Michael Jordan of teaching. That's right. That's right.

You know, but now you're like, you're doing it from a different place in a different way. Different classroom. Absolutely. Yeah. Let's fill in the story a little bit because, you know, we talked about you're really starting to explode on the spoken word scene. But what you were just saying now is, you know, you're in front of big crowds and big corporations. So how do you make the shift from sort of like the spoken world slash

entertainment world? You know, so, you know, they're national champion in poetry slam to stepping onto stages where you've got, you know, global corporations wanting you to be there.

And also why do they want you to be there yeah yeah so the process really came when or or began this this chapter of that process began when always being part entrepreneur and part artist, the entrepreneur, the same entrepreneur that started Blind Faith Records when I heard the nose from the record labels and created StageMite looking ahead to my future. At that point, it was, okay, I've fallen in love with this art form, but I also really think that it should be able

to do more in the world than it does. You know, I don't understand why it's just so relegated to open mics on, you know, a Tuesday or a Thursday night. I felt like it had an incredible power to communicate powerful messages. I mean, it's the oral tradition. It's the oldest tradition. When you bring people to some of the best, I mean, you mean, here in New York, you got New Eureka. In LA, we got the Poetry Lounge and Fly Poet. These cities have some of these iconic spoken word venues. And when you bring a guest to them, it's like their whole world changes.

They're like, oh my God. It becomes their church. This has always been here. And I was like, why can't we give the world that experience? And so I got really excited and driven by the mission to create a more viable, more commercially viable industry for spoken word in mainstream media that allow poets to make a purposeful and profitable living off their art. And as I began to look at how to do that, the first stop for me was the business world. So I started to hit a few business stages. Nike was actually my first client. And I began to

do work with Nike where I was helping to communicate messages, but it was still sort of being positioned and seen as the entertainment value. It was like I'd write an entertaining basketball poem or something. And it wasn't until I started going to business conferences and just constantly seeing this divide between, you know, I would eventually start to hit some business stages and start to bring some more of my business value. to communicate business strategy at the analyst meeting or the senior leadership meeting and have the response from the client be, wow, you captured and communicated our message more powerfully than half of our speakers or more powerfully than we were able to over the course of that entire day, and you did it in 10 minutes or whatever. And that's when I was like, yeah, because this art form does that. And so I became this huge advocate for the art form and everything that I was doing was driven by, you guys need spoken word and you don't know it. Part of the reason you don't know it is because we're constantly battling these preconceived

notions and this history of what people think when they hear poetry and everybody's got one. And they think, you know, beat poets from the 60s or whatever with the bass and the beret and the, you know, Mike Myers doing Harriet, you know, and they think, you know, revolutionary poets only, or they think slam poets yelling at them about something for three minutes, or they think literary poets that are, you know, doing some dense description of a daffodil or something that's not accessible. So by the time I hit the stage and people hear poetry, they're going, they think bathroom break. Right, like their defenses are off. That's right.

They think this is time to check Facebook. Like, I don't want to be here. I knew that I could give them a different user experience. And so that became my challenge. That became what I call my joyful challenge, the sort of uphill battle every day, but the joy of watching that conversion. And then when I would go to these business conferences, I would see this trend of this succession of speakers delivering the business content, followed by a performer that was meant to sort of lift the spirits and get the hearts open. Hearts open for what, though? To ready you to receive the information from the next succession

of speakers. And that's when I sort of had the pivotal moment of why is art the break from the content and not the vehicle for the content? And that was the pivotal question that really allowed me to go, OK, so what I want to do now is to move spoken word poetry to another level by creating a new category of speaking. And I call it poetic voice. And so poetic voice is the seamless integration of inspirational speaking and spoken word poetry. And so, and I emphasize seamless because a lot of times you have a poet that's talking or, you know, then they'll deliver a poem. If it's a poem doing, a poet doing a speech, they may deliver a poem, you'll applaud, they'll talk, they'll tell some stories, they'll set up the next poem, they'll deliver a poem. If it's a poem doing a poet doing a speech, they may deliver a poem. You'll applaud.

They'll talk. They'll tell some stories. They'll set up the next poem. They'll deliver that piece. You'll applaud. And it becomes sort of a glorified set. And what I wanted to do was create a seamless experience where you don't know when the strategic storytelling ends and the speaking begins and the theater ends and the comedy begins. So it creates this constant leaning forward effect, you know, where just when I think I'm ready to tune out, oh, crap, he's rhyming. Oh, what's happening? And it leaves you with that impact of having chills, like you talked about earlier, right? of a pivotal moment where then the biggest brands in the world began to take note because they began

to see we get in our opening presenter or our closing presenter or our keynote in the middle of the day, we get the business value of people walking away, our nurses at our healthcare conferences are taking his words and putting them up on their cubicles as their anthems. We get our senior leaders that are creating a video saying we need to have this message sent to our team. And they create it. You know, Apple creates a video of my work that makes me like a celebrity at the Genius Bar when I walk in to get my laptop repaired. Because everyone is like, your message is what has me in this job still. I was prepared to quit. But because of the way that you framed what we're doing and what we're a part of, I'm staying here.

So they begin to see the ROI of it. And at the same time, they were like, and you had everyone dancing in the aisles. You had everyone singing the message. You delivered the power of art. And we didn't have to choose anymore. We got both. And so that's why. So when you lay it out like this, I'm like, well, duh.

I mean, it sounds just like, of course. It's like the perfect blend of everything. But that's because it's now. That's right. That's because you've been out there singing the gospel or speaking the gospel around this and establishing a strong presence and a brand and awareness around what you're doing. But when you have that first conversation, you know, and you're trying to convince somebody that they should shell out real money and set aside, you know, like limited stage time,

often for like thousands of people that have traveled around the world to be in this one place. What's that first conversation like? You know, we don't have to go into the past. I'm having that conversation every day. Like, even though it's duh. I mean, you know, I mean, that's just the nature of innovation. You know, it's, of course, the iPhone now.

But you know what I mean? And yet you're still, if you, until the world on a mass level gets it, understands it, embraces it, and adopts it, it's still that uphill battle. And also, my work is so experiential. So despite the fact that I have a platinum resume, and despite the fact I have video and all of that, there's still that person whose job is on the line if they don't create an incredible experience at this event. And so I always joke about how I'm dealing with someone who they're visionary enough to get it themselves. And they go, wow, I'm looking for something different. We can't talk about change or innovation or any of the topics that we're

dealing with looking forward into the future to our customers at this event if we're not walking it ourselves. So Seikou helps us to walk the talk because if we start the conference or if we have in the conference, wherever it is, some experience that is so mind-blowingly innovative and experiential and next level for them, it says, we're doing this. We're taking the risks.

You take them with us. We're this kind of company. This is where you want to be. So I become the embodiment of their message. But it's still a risk. So I always have one person that's like, they're the visionary. They're turning to their bosses and their customers and saying, don't worry. He's going to be awesome.

He's going to be amazing. He's going to be awesome. Stop. Relax. Chill. And then they're turning to me and going, please be awesome. Please be amazing. Because I think a lot of people, I mean, I'm in and out of the speaking world.

Tune is certainly not nowhere near the level of Zoom. But one of the things I learned really early on, there's a spoken driver, which is we want somebody to come in and just do really something great, get our message, light people up or teach them, whatever it is. But then there's the unspoken driver, which is the person who's hiring you. Their biggest unspoken concern is if you mess up, they don't want to look like they messed up. That's right. So their biggest concern is, please, God, be good because it's going to reflect really badly on me.

That's right. That's where the business part comes in. That's where the businessman in me. And they're not used to that, to be honest. I'm working against those preconceived notions of poets, and they're not used to that, to be honest. I'm working against those preconceived notions of poets, poets that screw them, poets that, you know, that were only wanting to deliver their art the way that they wanted to deliver it. And they were very precious with it, poets who didn't understand how to nurture those business relationships.

And that's where I say, that's why I had to define poetic voice as something else, because I wanted them to understand when you book a poetic voice, you're booking someone who not only is able to deliver that message, but like the last client that I worked with, I was working with that intermediary company between them, the production team and the client.

And the client was all over the place. They didn't know what they want to do. They kept changing. And the production company kept coming to me, sort of apologizing, trying to buffer me, trying to insulate me from it. And I was like, no, you don't understand how I work. We collectively are all invested in making this right.

So if you're staying there till midnight, I'm staying there till midnight. And if you, until the client walks away saying, we're thrilled, I'm right beside you all, making sure and invested in this being right. But at the same time, you also have to not buffer me so much that you interfere with my process because you think that you're dealing with talent. You're not just dealing with talent. You're dealing with a speaker, you're dealing with a businessman, you're dealing with an executive and a leader and

a CEO of a company. So bring us all to the table. We'll figure out how to make it amazing for your client and we'll celebrate that, but let's handle it correctly. And that was a big part of breaking some of the preconceived notions of, here's how you deal with talent and artists that can't handle the business side. That's not this. Yeah. I mean, you're playing so many different roles. Yeah. So there's an interesting tension there, or just an interesting business invitation for you to sort of like dance and build that and sort of acclaim in a particular artistic community, is that the moment they become financially successful

or the moment they start to, in some way, take their art form and blend it with some sort of commercial element, the community they come out of starts to label them. You're a sellout. You're not the same person you were before. Has that been at all a part of your experience? Is it something that you think about, or is it just a non-issue? I'm sure people are talking.

I keep it moving. I keep it moving. I say that you know jokingly but it really is the truth I don't I'm driven by this and I believe in this

and I maintain a high level of integrity with it you know it's not I don't sell out the art form in fact the opposite you know a lot of times

I'm the one fighting for I believe that good spoken word by definition should live strong on the page and come to life on the stage and so i'm hard on poets it's hard to impress me i believe there's a lot of garbage out there you know and spoken word it's almost like the the literary poets argument against spoken word and slam sometimes is that it just dumps it down and you lose all the poetic technique and so forth. And the slam spoken word argument against literary poets is, yeah, but it's so inaccessible because you're so dense

and no one can understand it. And I believe the best spoken word poetry lives in that middle. It's accessible enough for you to get it and have a wow experience the first time you hear it, but it's poetic enough that it should make you want to hear it again. And every time you hear it that fifth and 10th time, you should be peeling away layers of meaning that you didn't catch the first time. So I'm very strict on making that process happen and not just turning it into prose and calling it poetry for the sake of, oh, somebody's giving me a check. But at the same time, I do really love the conversion factor. I love watching someone start off. It's like the slam poet in me, I guess, you know, that loves sort of the guy at the bar who's ready to give you a two until you wow him, you know, and you get a 10.

Like, I love watching those executives or those business audiences sit there and go, all right, I'm going to lean back and check my texts. And then you just see them putting the phone down. You see the eyes getting wider. And I'm looking at this person and going, okay, great. I got you over here. I got you. You just light bulb just went off on you. You're on the fence. Okay, you're hopeless. I'm not worried about you. You know what I mean? Coming back to you too. I love watching one by one, the audience just light up and turn into this bonfire. So that is our art form. And I think there's a respect that I have on the scene. I'm still, to be honest, I'm so disconnected from the poetry scene, the traditional poetry scene,

sometimes that I'm honored when I hear that my name still has merit there, you know? Last time I came to New York, I showed up to a venue, and I always, I try to maintain humility everywhere I go, so I never walk in like, I'm here, you know what I mean? So I walked in, and, you know, it was dark, and the host came by, and I was like, hey, is there any, you know, is there any room on the list? Can I sign up? And he was like, no, man, the list is full. And he kind of just walked on. And then afterwards, he came up to me when he was like, dude, what the hell is wrong with you? You don't walk into my venue and ask if you can get on the list.

You walk into my venue and say, I'm Sekou. Put me on the damn list. I didn't even realize it was you. So when those experiences happen, it's gratifying to know that my name still carries some respect in this art form that I came from and that I maintain a connection to so that I don't lose myself in this business world. But at the same time, I also want to be known for providing more opportunities for poets to have something new to do when they grow up. And so take me more into that. Into that mission. Yeah, yeah. So a big part of that is why I wanted to create Poetic Voice as a separate speaking category

so that I can begin to, number one, create and train. I'm just starting to work with some other poetic voices now, training them in this process, beginning to bring them into public-facing work. Part of the reason why I created the StageMight model was, or why I created the StageMight program was not so much because I was dying to become a speaker trainer, but because number one, it was a new way to serve my community and not just hold what I know, you know, and be able to share that. Making people more powerful storytellers is a great part of my mission. But number two, it also helped me to sort of understand how to dissect and codify my process. Because if you imagine, it's a very creative process and it feels like magic. So I

don't understand how it happens. So then when the next person is saying, hey, I want to get next to you and learn from you and do what you do. And I'm going, I want you to too. And I don't know how I do what I do. So I started to realize if I'm going to pass the baton. And I'm going, I want you to too. And I don't know how I do what I do. So I started to realize if I'm going to pass the baton, if I'm going to start sharing this, I've got to dissect that. StageMind allowed me to sort of get back into teacher mode, take something that I wasn't so close to, which is just how do you deliver work? Not poetic work, just any work and codify that process so once I did that and created that model

now I'm starting to understand better when I'm actually in the process of creating a piece how it is that I do it so that I can take and train someone else in it

and be able to allow them to number one you know experience sort of a next level of spoken word and eat off of it

yeah you know how hard has it been for you to get into that mindset where you're like and sort of a next level of spoken word and eat off of it. Yeah. You know? How hard has it been for you to get into that mindset where you're like deconstructing your own process? Oh, my God. It's been excruciating. Because I know for me, it's been brute. I mean, I do that.

We create programs and all sorts of stuff like this. And same thing, I see the value, you know, on so many different levels. But it's just not my, my orientation to, you know, to spend a lot of time on the process side like that. And the creative process is consuming. So in the same way that when you are in the studio, when you're in the writing lab, when you're in the, you know, innovation lab, whatever it is that you're doing, that's creative, it can be consuming and you look up and you haven't slept, you haven't eaten, you haven't,

you know, spent time with your family. So in the same way, you're not thinking, oh, I just had a brilliant thought. Let me stop that brilliance for a moment, write down how I reached that brilliance and then go back. The brilliance is like, hey, listen, you either take me right now or you lose me. So it really is tough. But it's exciting to start to get closer to that process now because it's taking this from something that is just connected to me and now preparing it to be something that's more of an industry. So I want to go even one step deeper into that because I'm really curious about this.

And I'm going to ask you a really specific question around it. So when you're deconstructing your process, do you do what you just said where it's sort of like i'm doing this and then i stopped taking it or do you sort of like almost record what you're doing or even just like you know like film or record or look what you're doing on stage and then sort of like you know roll tape and then observe yourself and like hit pause and take notes on the process and observe a little more and hit pause take notes on the process or is it something totally different well again separating content from delivery yeah delivery you know was much more stage mic so that was a lot more sort of looking at tape looking at the recordings recording you know those kinds of things and being able to say here's here are the patterns that i'm seeing emerge right but for content it's all internal it's

all in my brain so there's nothing to record. Yeah, there's nothing to film there. Right. So it really becomes trying to remind myself that when I do see the pattern of something that I typically do every time I'm writing, stop and at least write a one-word note that reminds me later of what that was because I won't remember.

But if I just have that note to jar my memory, then the second part of that process is dedicate some time to saying, okay, now this is not about writing. This is about identifying how you write. So I'm going to set today is not about, it's not my Friday writing day. It's my Friday curriculum day. And then I go back to those notes and say oh each time you do this you do this okay start to turn those into sentences into paragraphs into curriculum you know so it's like you'll while you're just doing your own like when you're in your own creative process you'll you'll stop long enough just to jot down something that becomes a trigger

but not long enough so it actually pulls you out of the flow of your own process. That's right. So you can stay in it, knowing that you're going to go back to that list of really short words that are triggers. Yep. And when you see the word or the phrase or whatever it is, that'll be enough for you to then say, okay, I'm remembering what that was about now. Now this is the day where I'm going to flesh that out and detail it.

That's exactly it. I love that. I love that. That's exactly it. That's a great way to go about it yeah so as we sit here today i mean you're hanging out in new york because you were here doing a gig and you're traveling around the world you speak like crazy you're building training programs to help people for a second i was about to you know say become seiko but um but that's. No. So, but I think some people may kind of like feel that. So why would I say that's not right? Like, let's talk about this a little bit.

Because, you know, so there's a phrase I use a lot when I describe stage might, and it's saying that when people would first ask, you know, how do you do that? I wish I could do that. And I would sort of dismiss it like, oh, it's just my magic. It's just my gift. It's just my genius. And then I started to realize that there's a point at which the magic ends and the mastery begins. And the mastery is teachable. And so that's that process of sort of dissecting and deconstructing what my mastery is, right? That helps bring out my magic. Well, if you take that process, it's not going to bring out my magic in you.

It's going to bring out your magic. Right. And so once I begin to realize that, then it's like, no, it's not about, then it became clear that I have to communicate to others. It's not about trying to make you Sekou. It's also for stage mind, it's not even about trying to make you a performer, right?

It's saying, what can you learn from performers that make you a better author or that's on your book tour or or an executive that's that's trying to inspire your team around your message or a mom who wants to kill it at the pta meeting you know like whatever it is that you're invested in we're all storytellers we're all speakers we all have some stage you, and you want to be effective on that stage. And public speaking is one of people's biggest fears. So that's why I call the program Stage Might. It's stage fright to stage might, you know, and really just looking at not only can we eliminate the stage fright, but how can we get you to be mightier than your mistakes? A lot of speaker training programs will have you do things like count your, you know,

count your ums. How many times did you say um? You said um 37 times. Well, I want you to be bigger than your ums. And that's good. I want you to count your ums. I want you to be aware of them. Don't let them be a detriment. But I also want you to be bigger than the ones that you still say. I probably said um a bunch of times in this interview. You know what I mean? I have my own little tics and bad habits when I'm on a stage, but I want the culminating effect to be mightier than any of those mistakes. And that's, to me, how rock stars take a stage. When Beyonce's heel breaks and she falls on the stage, record sales don't dip. You know what I mean? Like she's a rock star and she recovers from it masterfully.

How can you do that and be that rock star in any stage that you touch, formal, business, or informal or otherwise? And so for me, a big part of it was just understanding

the difference between the genius gift magic part of it for me and the part that is trainable and teachable. And that's what we have to share to others in the world. It's our own individual magic. But if you don't know how to bring out your magic, I always say a great story. Everybody has a great story, but a great story depends on your ability to tell it greatly. So if you can't communicate the great story greatly, then it's lost. And the moment that I can help you to communicate your great story, your great mission, what you do, your cause, how you're serving your community, your customers,

your cause, whatever it is, and to help you find your most powerful voice, then your great story gets shared with others and it becomes that much more impactful in the world. And that's not about being me. Yeah. It's not about mimicry it's about being being you that's right about being the most powerful you yeah i think that's one of the biggest things like somebody looks at you on stage and be like i could never i can never do that i can never be him like look at him on stage and the point is not to be you the point is to take whatever is like and i love the way you say like there's you know there's part that's just a magic, which is Seku, but there's also part which is process.

And it's like, if you can discover a process that allows everybody to identify the part of themselves that's magic and then unfold that in a way that makes a difference, that's pretty awesome. Yeah, it is.

And it's exciting. It's a new joy for me that I didn't have. I guess, like you said, it's sort of a return to the classroom. So I had it with fifth graders. I haven't had it for several years. And now I'm beginning to have it with adults and even teenagers and other folks that I'm just working with that are just unlocking something in them and going, wow, I knew this was there. And I knew I could do that. But I thought I had to do it this way. I thought this is what a speaker was. They had a very small, rigid box and just getting them to

learn from an actor or pull out an improv technique or write their speech like a songwriter and not a speech writer is just unlocking them in ways that they're like, this is cool. I love that, especially because as an adult, I mean, when you're working in the classroom with kids, with fifth graders, there's a lens of possibility that exists at that age, where by the time you hit adulthood, for so, wait, I've set it aside maybe for decades, but it's not actually gone. It's just kind of like dusted, and we're going to dust that sucker off. That's right. We're going to throw some polish on that, baby.

I mean, there's almost like a social impact to that, too. It's an individual impact, but you start to do that enough. It's your ripple effect. And then you think about, listen, there's a reason why I pushed my voice into healthcare a lot, probably, you know, close to half of my clients are healthcare clients. And, you know, when I'm inspiring folks in a particular sport or, you know, whatever, like something that's random, it's great because it's people's individual purpose. It's what they do is the impact that they're making on the world. But when I'm working with healthcare providers,

I always say like nurses, one of my favorite audiences, because not only are they just electric, they're the feet on the ground that know how to be real human beings. So they come to a room and they're vocal and they're electric and we have a great time. But also, like, you know, when care providers are inspired by my work, I know that the ripple effect of my work is having major impact on this world. You know, that really makes me proud. And I, you know, I just had I just spoke for one of the largest, no, for the largest health care system in South Carolina and inspiring them to sort of, the theme was Ignite.

And I had everybody calling each other Sparkies and we're going to light each other up and ignite this passion in us to basically create world-class quality healthcare and serve our community better. And it just so happens that there was a poetry fan of mine, a longtime poetry fan who is in that healthcare system, has been having some heart problems. He's been a fan of mine for years. He Facebooks me every once in a while and tells me what an inspiration I am to him. And for him to hit me up and be like, dude, my care providers are coming to me going, I know you do poetry.

We just had this poet who just sparked us. And he's like, this whole place is lit up. And I'm feeling the difference of what you did. And I'm going, yeah, I love him too. You know what I mean? And that like to me is the convergence of both of these worlds. Yeah, I love that.

I love that. And that, which is actually a perfect sort of like place to come full circle. So the name of this is Good Life Project. Yeah. So if I offer that phrase out to you, to live a good life, what comes up for you?

What does it mean? To live a good life what comes up for you what does it mean to live a good life is to live in your purpose with passion with harmony and balance of all the things that are that that feed you and the ways that you feed the world um it is really, really, really, really honing in on what makes you happy, what gives you the greatest joy and making sure that you don't compromise or sacrifice that for what you're

quote unquote supposed to be doing and the path that everyone lays out before you. And it doesn't mean that you create your entire life around it. You don't necessarily have to go and become a full-time poet because you love poetry, but you keep poetry in your life. You keep those things in your life. You find ways to make them your hobbies. You find ways to balance them. You find ways to make sure that... One of my peers and mentors and colleagues, Lisa Nichols, always says you should be serving the world from your overflow, you know, so you fill your cup first and you fill

it up so much that it overflows and then you serve the world from your overflow so that you're not sacrificing because if you're serving them from your half full cup or your quarter full cup because you're serving, serving, serving, serving, you're not serving them from your best place. And so find, I think that the best life that we have is when we can fill ourselves up with so much joy and happiness and purpose and passion that it becomes infectious and it overflows. And then we look up and go, I can serve others with this. Others want to drink this. They want to taste as well. That's the best life possible. Yeah, I love that.

Can you take us out with a little bit of spoken word? For sure. For sure. Let's sit here. A little bit of spoken word. How much time you got? How much you got? I know you got a car to catch.

I can go for hours, homie. I'll take you out with one of my favorite pieces. I'm doing a lot of work right now to sort of return to a public-facing platform.

So much of what I've done and built over the past several years has been internal to companies, to organizations, non-profits what I've done and built over the past several years has been internal to companies, to organizations, nonprofits, leadership conferences. And now I'm kind of returning to that, you know, B2C world of just saying, you know, I've had fans that have been neglected for years. Like, when do I get to see you're in New York and you're at another event that's closed, you know? And so I got some really exciting stuff that's on the horizon. I'm really working hard on doing a lot of things that are becoming the voice of organizations, public-facing-wise, doing things that are on entertainment stages. I have one big – can I share my super big dream with you? Yes, yeah.

So my super big dream right now is I want to be the first spoken word artist to perform on the Grammy stage. And I'm working heavily. I had a few meetings here in New York about that. If anybody has any ideas, any support that you can help a brother out with, holler at me. Yeah, please. Because that's, you know, it's one of those things where I've always been excited about doing something that spoken word is not doing right now, you know? And that's just one of those stages, me coming from a music background, me having a powerful, powerful new piece that celebrates the power of music across the board. And then just me looking to where are the places that I think spoken word needs to be.

That's one of them. So I'm excited about that. And I think that to get to those kind of big dreams and goals, you've got to stay in touch with your awesomosity, as I call it. And so I'll share a little bit of one of the public facing pieces that I created last year. This is the awesome anthem. And this is, I'm going to try to jump into an excerpt. So, cause it's a long piece. The moment I truly discovered the great I am is the same moment I discovered how truly great I am. And I am. Not perfect, but I'm perfect like I am.

I'm not beautiful like I used to be. I'm beautiful like I am. Like the scar where a breast once was. Like survival where a death once was. Like the better where a best once was. Every gray hair, a trophy, every wrinkle fold, a story, every pound of fat, a challenge. Reminding me there is always something to pursue and always something to celebrate. That's why I never smile for no reason. That's a concept I don't believe in.

You ain't never without a reason to show off your teeth a bit. Spread out your cheeks a bit. Let your gums breathe a bit. If you can learn to reach deep for it, you can take yourself a piece of bliss and make yourself a feast of it. Like when you go buy a smoothie and they fill it too full, making more than your cup can hold. But instead of letting it spill all over, what do they do? What do they do? They give you a little extra cup

and you feel like you just won the smoothie lottery up in here. Awesome. Like that perfect day when the stretch limo driver picked me up from the five-star hotel to transport me to my first class flight after my sold-out show and curiously peering at me through the rearview mirror, he asked, what do you do for a living? And with a pocket full of sand and an air guitar in my hand, I replied, I am a full time poet.

Now roll up the damn divider. Awesome. Love it, man. Love it. Thank you so much. It's a fun piece, dude. awesome love it man love it thank you so much it's a fun piece dude check it out awesome anthem dot com and it really

and the only thing that I ask is that you share it with somebody that needs to hear those words because that has been the biggest impact

of that piece and my work is when somebody comes to me and says yo my depression clients are watching this

and it's healing them my five year old son was struggling with this and it's healing them. My five year old son was struggling with this. And he now says your awesome anthem every morning before he goes to school. Like that's the joy of my life. That's the good life. Yeah. Love it. Thank you. Hey, thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you found something valuable, entertaining, engaging, or just plain fun, I'd be so appreciative if you take a couple extra seconds and share it. Maybe you want to email it to a friend, maybe you want to share it around social media, or even be awesome if you'd head over to iTunes and just give us a rating. Every little bit helps get the word out and it helps more people get in touch with the message. I'm Jonathan Fields, signing off for Good Life Project. Apple Watch ever, making it even more comfortable on your wrist, whether you're running, swimming, or sleeping. And it's the fastest charging Apple Watch, getting you eight hours of charge in just

15 minutes. The Apple Watch Series 10, available for the first time in glossy jet black aluminum. Compared to previous generations, iPhone XS or later required, charge time and actual results will vary.