The Breakfast Club - INTERVIEW: Monique Rodriguez Talks 'The Glory in Your Story,' ‘Mielle Organics,' Hair Loss Controversy + More

Episode Date: May 27, 2025

Today on The Breakfast Club, Monique Rodriguez Talks 'The Glory in Your Story,' ‘Mielle Organics,' Hair Loss Controversy. Listen For More!YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BreakfastClubPower1051FMSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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The Breakfast Club. Morning everybody, it's DJ Envy, Jess Hilarious, Charlamagne the guy, we are The Breakfast Club. We got a special guest in the building. Yes indeed. We have Ms. Monique Rodriguez. Welcome. Thank you.

How you feeling this morning? I'm great, how are you? Doing well, doing well. She's also got a new memoir out now. The Glory in Your Story, Activating a Fearless Faith to Change Your Life, Your Career, and the World. Yes, yes.

Now you turned a kitchen recipe into a multimillion dollar brand. Yes. What was the moment you realized you weren't just selling products, you were actually building a movement? Well, you know, I went into this knowing that I was building a movement.

You know, I created this brand out of necessity. You know, I felt that there was a lack of relatability in the haircare space. There was a lack of great products, healthy products for women that look like me. And I wanted to fill this void, but I always operated with a multimillion dollar mindset. I operated with the mindset of like,

I'm gonna be on the shelf with these bigger brands one day eventually. And the day that we launched, which was May 23rd, our anniversary, is actually next week. And we sold out of every oil that we had, and we had a small amount of inventory, about 100 bottles, because I was a small business, didn't know that it was gonna take off the way that it did,

and the day that we launched, we sold out of every single product, and I knew at that moment, like, I'm on to something, because I knew that it was a need for it. I love the multi-million dollar mindset. Explain that to people, for those who may not have one. Yeah, you know, I think success is, when I talk about like activating fearless faith

to change your mind, success is all about mindset. And you know, I grew up basically in the hood, right? You know, I didn't come from a lot, but I always dreamed big. And I would look at other successful people and say, oh, they're successful because they're lucky. And I knew that I had to change my mindset and shift from thinking that, no, they're not just lucky,

they worked for it, right? They had to step out and be bold and go after their dreams and pursue their purpose. And I shifted my mindset from thinking that I didn't deserve success to thinking that I do deserve it. And I realized that once that started to shift my level of thinking and I operated from a level

of abundance and not lack, more things flowed to me. Now in 2014, you were a registered nurse. Yes. So what made you say, you know what, this is not for me and what puts you in a mind frame to actually create these products, right? Because people could say, you know, they could take a product and sell it,

but you actually had to make it. You had to try it. I'm sure it didn't work right away the first time. I'm sure your daughter was sitting back there. I'm sure you burnt her hair a couple of times trying it out. I don't think I burnt it, but you know, she was definitely a guinea pig.

A guinea pig. So talk about that procedure and how that came about. Yeah, so actually, so I was a labor and delivery nurse, and I was a nurse for eight and a half years, and I became a nurse because my mom encouraged me to be a nurse. She was very traditional, you know, go to school, go to college, do what you need to do, get a real job so you can survive. My mom was basically about survival. She had that mentality, which no fault because most of our parents' generation, they came from that type of generation. And even though when I was younger, like I've always had this dream and passion to be in the beauty space,

my mom would always tell me like, it's cute, but you know, that's not a stable career. So I kind of like put my dreams to the wayside and pursue what my mom wanted me to do. So it was never something that like I saw myself doing. So when I did graduate college and I started working labor and delivery, I knew, I'm like, this is not a career path that I wanna do for the rest of my life.

And unfortunately, after doing that for eight years, I was pregnant with my third child, my son, and unfortunately, it was a high-risk pregnancy, bless you. Thank you. And he passed away from complications. And when you go through pain and something, thank you, something that's so traumatic,

it catapulted me to live life on my own terms and not to live my life on someone else's dream, which was my mom, because you only get one shot at life. And my pregnancy was high risk also for my life. And I decided to pursue my dreams, do something that I love, something that was purposeful, something that I can wake up and feel like I have fulfillment

and joy doing. And I went back to that love as a child, being in the beauty space. And I started creating. I'm a creative by nature. And I would just go in my kitchen and mix together like different ingredients and study and research like what ingredients

work well on our hair and I started posting it on social media and while people were following me and thinking like well what is this girl doing? Like she's posting all these recipes. It was really a creative outlet for me to express myself and to take my mind off of grief. The grieving process. Yeah, and that's how My-L became what it is. Where did My-L come from?

The name. The name, oh, so that's a great question. I love answering that question. It's actually a combination of my kids' names. So I have Mia, Gabrielle back there, McKenzie, Ariel. My son's name was Milan. It's a combination of all their names and their middle names, L, so they're my Ls.

Did they charge you? They did because I'm still paying for it today. They are always asking for something, right? But they get paid well. How did you go, I feel like I'm skipping steps and I want everybody to go read the book, The Glory and Your Story. Yes, please.

When you go from the kitchen to actually getting your products on the shelves, what were the steps? What did you do? Yeah, so my way of going into retail was not a traditional way. I started in 2014. We entered into retail in 2016,

which number one is very rare for a brand, a small black-owned business, to start and not have any type of momentum or leverage and to go into retail. So it was very risky and my goal was to go into retail year five. I wasn't even expecting to go into retail the year that we did.

But we had built up so much momentum and we had built up this great community and it got the attention of the retailers. So our first retail partner was Sally Beauty and they heard about us on social media and of course retailers they want to be a part of brands that can add value to them. So you can't just go into a retailer saying, oh, I want to put my products on your shelf and expecting them to do the marketing for you. You have to have something that you can bring value

or add to their shelf. And we were a brand that was a disruptive brand and it caught their attention. And then they called us to have a meeting with them. And it was so divine because when we got the call to have a meeting with Sally's, was so divine because when we got the call to have a meeting with Sally's, their headquarters is in Denton, Texas. We were actually there in Dallas

for my daughter's gymnastics competition. So we were not there for any business meeting. And I actually almost turned down the meeting because we were there with our kids and we're like, well, we don't have a babysitter to go into this corporate meeting. And they wanted us so bad, they were like, bring your kids to this meeting.

So they were like five and nine at the time. And they did. And I told them, like, you guys better not say anything. Go in there, sit with your hands folded, like don't move because this is a really big deal. And I went in there with no presentation, just talked about my love and passion for this space. And they tested us in 95 stores and they said,

we're gonna test you out because you're a new brand, and we'll see how the brand goes. We launched in February, and every store that we were selling in sold out in less than two hours. It was just because of social media? It was just because of social media.

Instagram at that. Wow. Yeah. When you were in your early stages, that early grind, what was harder, getting capital or getting people to believe a black woman could dominate the beauty space? Yeah, actually both. Those were some of the challenges.

I say this all the time. My challenges were I'm a black woman and black women don't have access to capital. And we actually bootstrapped our company from 2014 until 2020. So we had no big name investors, no one that was, I didn't have a rich uncle, no one was handing us money. We built this from the ground up and we took everything that we made and invested that back into the business. And when you are a small black owned brand,

you know, we have to like earn our trust with the community and being someone that had no celebrity status and I was a regular everyday person, a nurse working, so it was hard to convince people to believe that what I was putting out there was actually a real legit product that did well on our hair. But I just kept focused on the people that did support me, the people that wanted to know more,

that wanted to be educated on their hair routine. And it grows from there. Your community and your evangelists are the best marketing tool that you can use. And that's how the company grew. We didn't have any money to invest in marketing. We really focused on serving people and being purposeful in our mission and serving

people were like great products and I think that people also felt my passion and knew like okay she's a nurse like she's not gonna do anything to to damage or to to harm us and like we can see the results on her hair so like we can trust but it took building a relationship I think that when you are building a brand, it's all about, you're in a relationship with your customers. You have to date them, you have to get to know them, you have to know their needs,

and understand who they are as the consumers that you're serving, and then you over serve, right, with your brand, and that's how Myelle soared and disrupted the industry. And did you, why did you decide to sell it to P&G, you know Procter & Gamble? Yeah that's a great question. So when we decided to sell it was all about scale and global infrastructure. When you are growing a brand in order to scale it's all about access to capital and having

the great infrastructure and people to help execute your vision. And so the thing is like we didn't need to sell, we wanted to sell because we wanted to invest in innovation, we wanted to have global reach, and we wanted to be able to create more accessibility for the consumers that we serve. You know, when you look at the texture hair care aisle, it's a small space. And our community, like, we complain that we don't have access to great products. And my whole goal from the very beginning of building my own was to build a global empire. And I know that as founders, we did our best to take the brand as far as we could with

our resources. And this is a normal trajectory of business. The goal of building a brand is to either IPO or exit. And I've accomplished that goal and the great thing about it is I've been able to negotiate my contract to where I'm still on board, I'm still making the decisions,

I'm still running the company, I still set the vision for it. So it's a very unique structure that not everyone sees and I know the community tends to be scared of brands that are acquired, but it's really a great win for us, especially as a black brand, a black girl from the south side of Chicago, right? To even have the opportunity to have a conversation,

a seat at the table with the conglomerate like a P&G is a huge win of it in itself. Because we don't get opportunities like that often. We don't see it all the time. And I wanted to show the possibilities of what's possible. Like we can take the heat, us as founders, I can take the heat of breaking glass ceilings because I know that I'm also paving the way

for my daughter's generation so she can build a brand and create something great and have a successful exit because we build thriving communities when we build brands, scale them, exit, we build generational wealth, not just for us, but for the community we serve. For each Monique, but let me tell you something. One of the hardest things to do in life

is to explain business to people who ain't got it. Who don't understand business. That's right. That's the hardest thing. And I don't expect them to understand. How did that affect your business, right? Cause people see it differently. Where did you lose a lot of people?

Were people hating on it? Did it mess business up? How did that affect y'all? No, when we sold it, it didn't mess business up. And that's the thing, like, when we made the announcement, you know, I really took the time to try to educate the community on the why. Like, why businesses scale up, why, you know,

we become acquired and this to create generational wealth and so we can have more access to help our community. So I put this whole message out to explain, and while we did have a huge amount of support from the community, I mean, you know, like the bigger you are, the more eyeballs are you, you're also gonna have people that don't like it, that don't understand it.

And I feel that if, you know, there's so much access to information out here, right? So if you really want to know how business works, you can research it, right? And you can take the time to listen when someone's trying to educate you. and if your business works, you can research it, right? And you can take the time to listen when someone's trying to educate you. And I say this all the time, ignorance is a choice.

That's right. You can choose to be ignorant when you have information in front of you. And if you just choose to not pay attention to it, then that is your choice and you have a right to your choice. But I'm gonna choose to focus and educate those that wanna be educated, that wanna understand the why. And also those that want to start a business,

have an idea, and what is the trajectory of that? I wanna show that by example, because it's not normal in our community. We have to normalize this, because when I did my deal, it was, oh, you're a unicorn. Yeah, that's almost great, but it's not great, because we don't wanna be unicorns. We want this to be a normal conversation for us.

And so it didn't hurt the brand, but I think it also comes with the territory. And I say this all the time, two things, if you don't wanna be copied, if you don't wanna be great, I mean, if you don't wanna be copied or criticized, then don't be great. That's right. It was, did you say, I'm sure you saw the TikTok trends of people saying that they lost their hair

after you did so to P&G silently, you know, did they have something to do with the formula? They said, this is not the same, this is not the same formula. And people, you know, it was, it was a lot of people. I know a lot of cops and they get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes, but there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no.

Across the country, cops called this Taser the revolution. But not everyone was convinced it was that simple. Cops believed everything that Taser told them. From Lava for Good and the team that brought you Bone Valley comes a story about what happened when a multi-billion dollar company dedicated itself to one visionary mission. This is Absolute Season 1, Taser Inc. I get right back there and it's bad. It's really, really, really bad. 21st and episodes four, five and six on June 4th. Add free at Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcasts. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater Podcast Network, hosted by me, writer and historian Dan Flores and brought to you by Velvet Buck.

This podcast looks at a West available nowhere else. Each episode, I'll be diving into some of the lesser known histories of the West. I'll then be joined in conversation by guests such as Western historian Dr. Randall Williams and bestselling author and meat eater founder Stephen Rinella. I'll correct my kids now and then where they'll say when cave people were here. And I'll say, it seems like the Ice Age people that were here didn't have a real affinity for caves. Stephen Rinella, So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th, where we'll delve into stories of

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Sir, we are back. In a big way. In a very big way. Real people, real perspectives. This is kind of star-studded a little bit, man. We got Ricky Williams, NFL player, Heisman Trophy winner. It's just a compassionate choice to allow players all reasonable means to care for themselves.

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MMA fighter. Liz Karamouche. What we're doing now isn't working and we need to change things. Stories matter and it brings a face to them. It makes it real. It really does. It makes it real. Listen to new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season 2 on the iHeartRadio app, Apple

podcast or wherever you get your podcasts. the new episodes of the War on Drugs podcast season two. On the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts are wherever you get your podcasts. And to hear episodes one week early and ad free with exclusive content, subscribe to Lava for Good Plus on Apple podcast. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans. I started this show because unexpected change comes for all of us, and there's no set playbook for how to deal with it. I have all of this psychological baggage that I'm carrying with me, and the last thing I

want to do is to pass that on to my daughter. So I have to figure this out. This puzzle of my trauma, I have to figure it out, So I have to figure this out. This is this puzzle of my trauma. I have to figure it out and I have to figure it out now. Join me this season when I talk to Amanda Knox about her choice to reconnect with a prosecutor who helped put her behind bars. This is not about him.

This is about me and what I am capable of giving. And I know that I am capable of being kind to this man. And by God, I am going to do it and no one can stop me. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Saying that they had lost their hair behind it, what would you say to that?

Yeah, and you know, hair loss is traumatic in and of itself and I can empathize with anyone that has suffered with hair loss. I myself have suffered with postpartum shedding, hair loss, right? And I think I want people to realize, this is the reason why I created the brand. I created this brand to serve women

with healthier products for their hair. When I made the decision to partner with P&G, it was very intentional. A lot of thought went into the decision making process. This was not a fly by night decision. It was a lot of due diligence done on both ends, my end and their ends. And we have to realize when you think of P&G,

a lot of the products that are in our household are by P&G. They are a brand that's been around for hundreds of years that creates longevity, sustainability across generations with their brands. So I would never sell to a company that I knew that I thought would harm my creation. Like, my L is my baby. My L was birth out of heartbreak. Like, this is something that's near and dear to my heart.

I would never sell to a company that I thought was gonna ruin, you know, my brand. So, and the thing is like, people have to realize that I'm also a nurse, right? Like I lead with empathy, I lead with compassion, I lead with caring about the community that I serve. We would never put anything in our products that are going to damage or disrupt any woman's hair.

And the people that are saying the formulas change, the formulas have not changed. You know, if people would actually take the time to see our products that were in 2020, right? And you look at now since after the partnership, the formulas are still the same. So the thing is like misinformation, it spreads like wildfire.

And people don't take the time to like do their homework and do their own due diligence before coming to their own assumptions. But I can confidently say that our products do not cause people's hair to fall out. And also people just be hating. You mean to tell me that after you get acquired by Procter & Gamble for an undisclosed amount,

they know you got that cake all of a sudden, it's just all of these TikTok videos online, people saying, yeah, the product make my hair fall out all of a sudden. Yeah, it came out of nowhere. Come on, man. And it's the same product. We not stupid here. Yeah. And it's like, product. We not stupid here. Come on, come on.

And it's like, I use the products. My daughter, she use, look at her hair. Her hair's beautiful. Like, we, my family uses the products. Like, this is, like, I don't take this lightly. And this partnership has always been led with honesty and transparency. And I'm gonna be honest with you guys.

What people also don't realize is that when you are a smaller brand, a lot of the things that you do can go under the radar because you don't have a lot of eyeballs on you, right? I've seen brands that are smaller that have products out and they don't even have the ingredients listed on their products, right? When you are a bigger brand, you can't do that. So the level of compliance and processes and the level of strictness

that we had to be in compliance with to even talk to P&G, the safety regulations were like through the roof. So people have to understand like this is a large company, they operate with the highest level of safetiness, right? And they've even helped us operate even more safer. So people can trust like these products are good to use, nothing has changed. We operate with the same level of integrity. Everything's the same,

other than we just have access to more. And you know, I would like to see all the brands that Procter & Gamble has, just my stuff makes your hair fall out, allegedly. The black woman owned product just makes your hair fall out. Right, the black woman. Procter & Gamble been around for years. I would also say that every hair product's not for everybody.

Like what you use in your hair that might work for you or your daughter might not work for me or my daughter. You know what I mean? That doesn't mean that it's all in people's hairs are different. Like yours, like there's nothing that could work for you. All I'm saying is Procter and Gamble has been around forever and nobody's made those complaints.

But now all of a sudden, come on man. Of course. Do you think the black community puts too much pressure on black owned businesses to be perfect? And they'll give grace to like other billion dollar brands that don't ever even show up for us? Oh, absolutely. Like, I mean, we can see it all the time.

Like we see millionaires, billionaires that build companies, exit all the time and we celebrate it. That's the point of business like you said earlier. That's the point of business, but when a black person does it, like we tear them down. And the thing is like, we gotta choose our heart.

We gotta pick our battles. We complain as a community that we have a lack of access We complain as a community that we have a lack of access to capital, mentorship, expertise, but then when we're trying to create these avenues of creating wealth so we can create access to capital, expertise, and mentorship, there has to be more of us to do it, then we tear it down.

So either you don't want the access, or then when we do get the access, you can't tear us down for getting that access. And that's why I say we gotta choose our heart as a community because we can't have it both ways. Because what happens is we stifle our community when we tear black brands down for doing what other cultures do all the time,

we stifle us because now it causes fear in investors, it causes strategics to say, oh now you're more risky so now I'm going to devalue you. So me, if I was a different culture, my value could have been more if that risk wasn't there. So all we're doing is we're setting ourselves back because the next Monique Rodriguez that comes forward that tries to do this, they're gonna ask the question because they asked me, how is your community gonna feel about this? And now we have to come up with a whole strategic plan

on how to relay this message in an educational way. When I asked them back, do you have to do this with any other cultures? Their response was no. I need you to expound on that, Monique, because I think what you're speaking to is whenever something like this happens, right, like you do get acquired by P&G,

the backlash from social media can be so bad that it makes these companies be like, whoa, should we have done that situation? And they'll think about doing that to the next person. Right, and that's why it's important that when black brands scale and are exited, we have to show up even more as a community to support those brands because now they're looking

at these brands as a case study. They're looking at Myell now as a case study of like what happens when you're acquired and does the community still ride for you? Does the community still support you? And again, if we don't support and they start to see sales and again, if we don't support and they start to see sales drop off,

then it stifles opportunity for a next entrepreneur that wants to scale and that's the part we have to realize and again, to your point, we can't expect people that's not in business to understand business but again, we are creating platforms like this to help spread the word and to educate, right? We're taking the time to educate you, so you should say in your mind,

I'm gonna support this black founded brand. Let's not just say we support black owned, let's also support black founded brands, right? Because we're all in this together. In order for us to create these thriving communities, we gotta support us, right? Things that are made by us, created by us, not just owned by us. Because you should have the freedom and the opportunity to do whatever it is that you

wanna do with your brand. If you wanna stay small and local, you have a purpose to serve. You should be able to do that. If you wanna stay online and serve just online consumers, you should be able to do that. If you wanna scale an exit and be acquired or IPO, you should have the freedom and flexibility to do whatever it is that you wanna do with your brand without being criticized.

I was gonna ask, besides Procter & Gamble, were there other companies trying to acquire you? And why did you choose Procter & Gamble? So we were a hot commodity, so we had lots of strategic companies that were chomping at the bits trying to acquire us. What made us choose Procter and Gamma was because, you know, one of the biggest thing was that

there were people that looked like us, that were in high C-suite level executive positions and decision makers. So people that had an input or a say in what we were valued at, had an input to say like, yes, this brand should be acquired, or people that look like us. And we also need those type of advocates

on the other side of the table that can stand up for us and say, yes, this is a great investment. That was one thing. And then their mission of being focused on good and their employees, the longevity of the people that has been in that company for many years, right, also shows that this is a company that has great value.

And they respected us as founders. They did not wanna take away from the DNA of the brand. They didn't wanna disrupt the authenticity. And they even put in our contract, we wanna keep the MyAIL magic. You guys are gonna stay on board. You guys are gonna see this vision through because we didn't have to stay on board.

That's another thing. Like I want people to understand like we could have sold the brand and left, but because we are passionate about what we do, we wanted to continue on our legacy in this vision and they allowed us to do so. So they did not, you know, say that we, that you guys have to sacrifice

who you are in order to grow. Growth does not mean you have to lose your authenticity. And that's what stood out with them amongst the many others that we had talked to. You know, I think there's a lot of people who feel like, well, a lot of founders get pushed out when the big money shows up. So they just wanna make sure that y'all still calling

the shots and it's not just a black face on like a white boardroom. Yeah, no, like I'm on Zoom calls pretty much every day, still talking about Myel and product innovation and development and marketing and different events and activations and how we can show it for the community. So, I mean, of course I am the face of the brand.

I created the brand, but I'm more than just a face. I'm also the strategic vision behind it as well too. So I have, I make the final decisions on everything that touches the consumers. And I do it because I made it that way. So we put like those safeguards in place to protect our brand, to protect our legacy. And you built it with your husband, right?

I'm sorry, I was just saying. And it frees up a lot more of your time so you can do things like write your book and then I'm sure delve into other business endeavors and things like that because what P&G also is is like good partners for you. Like they take on the bulk of the other thing. You had to do all this by yourself at one point.

You know, I'm sure you had a team, but that's the part that they take on as well. They make it, I don't wanna say easier, but a little bit more easier to run the whole ship. Yeah, they free up a lot of my mental capacity. So I can have the mental capacity to make the hard decisions, the decisions that matter. And you mentioned something about manufacturing.

We still manufacture our own products. So manufacturing was not even, P&G doesn't manufacture our products. That's why I'm saying, everything is still the same. We still manufacture in Chicago, where I'm from. So, yeah. And you built it with your husband, right? Yes, so my husband, we've been together

since I was 16, known each other since we were 12 and 13. And so, we've literally grown up together. And when I had this dream, he supported it from the very beginning. He operates from a very logistical finance operations mindset. And I'm the visionary, the creator. And when you just merge those two different sides

of the brain skillsets, we've been able to build this amazing company and be this dynamic duo because we both add different value to the company and different skill sets. A lot of people say don't mix business and marriage. What you say to that? I say the wedding rings says it all.

That's crazy. Crazy. Yours is too. Thank you, you know I thank you girl. Thank you. You said about mixing business with- Yeah, people say don't mix business with marriage. What do you think about that?

I mean, I don't, I think you have to know what works for you and your marriage. I've met some married couples that are like, well, we can't work together and they're happier not doing so, and that's totally fine. I don't think there's no wrong or right answer for us. It works well for us because the things that he does for the company,

I honestly don't even want to do. And of course he knew nothing about hair care and products, so he couldn't really operate in my space. And I think if you want to make it work, you have to like take your egos out of it. You know, you can't be in competition with your spouse. And my husband, he was always big on like, pushing me to the forefront.

He's like, listen, this your time to shine. Women, you guys have been held back for so long. Like, I'm okay with putting you out there and letting you be at the forefront and I'll just help and support you on the back end. And I just think that it takes a real man to say, you know what, I'm okay with being behind the scenes and you being out there. And I'm gonna just support your vision. And him not feeling like, well, I'm the man, I'm the protector. Like, you can't be out there, and I'ma just support your vision, and him not feeling like, well, I'm the man,

I'm the protector, like, you can't be out there. Like, he was very comfortable saying, I'm just gonna support you. And he's done just that. And, you know, my mentor told me, she's like, there would be no Myelle if it wasn't for Melvin and you, or you, like, you guys had to build this together. And, you know, I think it works for us

and you just have to know like what works for you and have respect for each other. Respect each other's roles and lanes and you know, just be aligned with your vision. And truth to Melvin, he's also a black man too. He's also a black man, yes. So where did Rodriguez come from? So his mom is Puerto Rican.

Oh, I was gonna say, how you black, he black, but all right. Yeah, right. Yes, yes. Listen, great question. Pick up the book right now, The Glory in Your Story. Yes, man. You are an inspiration, Monique. Thank you.

You and your husband, Melvin. I really respect what it is that y'all are doing and have done. And I wish and pray for much more success. Absolutely. I appreciate that. Thank you so much. It's Monique Rodriguez. It's The Breakfast Club. Good morning. Why is a soap opera western like Yellowstone so wildly successful. The American West with Dan Flores is the latest show from the Meat Eater podcast network. So join me starting Tuesday, May 6th,

where we'll delve into stories of the West and come to understand how it helps inform the ways in which we experience the region today. Listen to The American West with Dan Flores on the iHeartRadio app,, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. I know a lot of cops. They get asked all the time, have you ever had to shoot your gun? Sometimes the answer is yes.

But there's a company dedicated to a future where the answer will always be no. This is Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated. I get right back there and it's bad. Listen to Absolute Season One, Taser Incorporated on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I've seen a lot of stuff over 30 years, you know, some very despicable crime and things that are kind of tough to wrap your head around. And this ranks right up there in the pantheon of Rhode

Island fraudsters. I've always been told I'm a really good listener, right? And I maximized that while I was lying. Listen to Deep Cover, The Truth About Sarah on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Dr. Maya Shankar. I host a podcast called A Slight Change of Plans that combines behavioral science and storytelling to help us navigate the big changes in our lives. I get so choked up because I feel like your show

and the conversations are what the world needs, encouraging, empowering, counter-programming that acts like a lighthouse when the world feels dark. Listen to a slight change of plans on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. You're listening to an iHeart Podcast.