# Overcoming the Odds: A deeply personal exploration of fatherhood, addiction, and resiliency from Craig Melvin, news anchor of NBC’s Today show.

An episode of [Money Making Conversations Master Class](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1264705641), 14 Jun 2024, 30 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/b1db7263-d1a3-4d00-8976-af62012aab44/6be53878-d156-4bfe-b3cb-b181016ae5c3/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=35a10561-3e1b-4d05-a529-af62012aab6a

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Craig Melvin. For Craig Melvin this book is more an investigation than a memoir. It's an opportunity to better understand his father; to interrogate his family's legacy of addiction and despair but also transformation and redemption; and to explore the challenges facing all dads--including Craig himself, a father of two young children. Growing up in Columbia, South Carolina, Craig had a fraught relationship with his father. Lawrence Melvin was a distant, often absent parent due to his drinking as well as his job working the graveyard shift at a postal facility. Watching sports and tinkering on Lawrence's beloved (but unreliable) 1973 Pontiac LeMans were two ways father and son connected, but as Lawrence's drinking spiraled out of control, their bond was stretched to the breaking point. Fortunately, Craig had a loving, fiercely protective mother who held the family together. He also had a series of surrogate father figures in his life--uncles, teachers, workplace mentors--who by their examples helped him figure out the kind of person and father he wanted to be. Pops is the story of all these men--and of the inspiring fathers Craig has met reporting his "Dads Got This Series" on the Today show. Pops is also the story of Craig and Lawrence Melvin's long journey to reconciliation and understanding, and of how all these experiences and encounters have informed Craig's understanding of his own role as a dad. Money Making Conversations Master Class with Rushion McDonald is America's premier entrepreneurship, business leadership, financial literacy, and wealth-building podcast featuring successful entrepreneurs, executives, founders, celebrities, and industry experts sharing actionable insights for professional and financial success. Business Podcast Entrepreneurship Small Business Business Growth Financial Literacy Wealth Building Black Entrepreneurs Minority Business Leadership Executive Leadership Business Funding Marketing Strategies Personal Development Startup Advice Sales Training CEO Interviews Founder Stories Professional Development Economic Empowerment Business Success Networking Brand Building Innovation How to start a business Small business funding Entrepreneur success stories Business leadership podcast Wealth building strategies Black entrepreneur podcast Minority business development Marketing for small businesses Business growth strategies Startup funding opportunities Executive leadership training Financial literacy education Success mindset podcast See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: If you're about to make a change in your life
[0:03] Speaker 1: and you feel uncomfortable, that's the best feeling you can have.
[0:08] Speaker 2: Because for the first time in your life.
[0:09] Speaker 1: You're making a decision that's going to be best for
[0:12] Speaker 1: you and not what somebody told you to do.
[0:16] Speaker 2: And that's when all bets are off.
[0:18] Speaker 1: Welcome to Money Making Conversation Masterclass. I'm your host, Rashawn McDonald.
[0:22] Speaker 1: Our theme is there's no perfect time to start following
[0:24] Speaker 1: your dreams. I recognize that we all have different definitions
[0:27] Speaker 1: of success. For you, it may be the size of
[0:29] Speaker 1: your paycheck It's time to stop reading other people's success
[0:33] Speaker 1: stories and start living your own.
[0:34] Speaker 2: Keep winning.
[0:40] Speaker 1: My next guest is Craig Melvin. He's the co-host of
[0:42] Speaker 1: the Today Show and the author of the book, Pops,
[0:45] Speaker 1: Learning to Be a Son and a Father.
[0:48] Speaker 2: You may know Craig.
[0:48] Speaker 1: He's an award-winning news anchor, as I said earlier on
[0:51] Speaker 1: the Today Show. You also have seen him on MSNBC
[0:53] Speaker 1: Live and a host of Datelines. He's on the show
[0:56] Speaker 1: discussing his book, Pops, Learning to Be a Son and
[0:58] Speaker 1: a Father. It's the story of all the father figures
[1:01] Speaker 1: in Craig's life. And that includes inspiring men from his
[1:04] Speaker 1: program or his series called Dad's Got This Series on
[1:08] Speaker 1: NBC News Today. These experiences and encounters have shaped Craig's
[1:12] Speaker 1: understanding of his own role as a dad.
[1:14] Speaker 2: And I'm sure I can be related. We'll have a
[1:16] Speaker 2: nice conversation.
[1:17] Speaker 1: He has two young children. Please welcome to Money Making Conversations,
[1:21] Speaker 1: my man, Craig Milven.
[1:22] Speaker 2: How you doing, Craig?
[1:23] Speaker 3: Sean, I'm well. I'm well.
[1:25] Speaker 4: Thank you so much for having me. I always enjoy
[1:28] Speaker 4: your conversation, so I like to be a part of one.
[1:31] Speaker 2: Thank you, Romain. Southern boy, South Carolina, okay?
[1:34] Speaker 1: There you go. You know, when I see people on
[1:38] Speaker 1: TV and you're so articulate, there are no y'alls, there
[1:41] Speaker 1: are no accents.
[1:42] Speaker 2: How does a man come straight out of Columbia, not no.
[1:45] Speaker 1: Columbia, because Steve Harvey and I used to go down
[1:47] Speaker 1: a lot performing at the town center. selling that place
[1:49] Speaker 1: out all the time. So I'm very familiar with South Carolina, Charleston,
[1:52] Speaker 1: that whole low country.
[1:54] Speaker 2: There's no low country in your tone. What's going on here?
[1:58] Speaker 2: How you break that low country accent, low country accent?
[2:01] Speaker 3: Oh, it's funny because I never had it.
[2:03] Speaker 4: My mom, you'll appreciate this, growing up in Houston, the
[2:09] Speaker 4: way that you grew up. My mom grew up in
[2:11] Speaker 4: the projects and first in the family to go to
[2:14] Speaker 4: college and first in the family to get a graduate degree.
[2:17] Speaker 4: So when we came along, she wanted to expose us
[2:23] Speaker 4: to things and places that she had not been exposed to.
[2:27] Speaker 4: And consequently, I think I was probably 14 or 15,
[2:31] Speaker 4: and she had us take part in these oratorical contests.
[2:36] Speaker 3: Right. And that was kind of how it started. So I.
[2:42] Speaker 4: Took some public speaking classes and then these oratorical contests.
[2:46] Speaker 4: And then the next thing you knew, I had what
[2:49] Speaker 4: they like to call in the business a nondescript dialect.
[2:53] Speaker 1: Yeah.
[2:54] Speaker 3: You can't really tell based on listening to me where
[2:57] Speaker 3: I'm from. It's a blessing now. When I was growing up,
[3:01] Speaker 3: it was always, he's talking white. Absolutely. He talks like
[3:05] Speaker 3: a white boy. So it's, you know, it was a curse.
[3:10] Speaker 3: Now it's a blessing.
[3:11] Speaker 1: Well, you know, it's interesting because I knew in my
[3:14] Speaker 1: middle school, I remember my teacher used to always ask
[3:16] Speaker 1: me to read, used to always ask me to read. And,
[3:18] Speaker 1: you know, people talk about bullying and, you know, when
[3:21] Speaker 1: you people talk about They call you Snowflake. That was
[3:24] Speaker 1: a form of bullying. And then so it's popularized now
[3:27] Speaker 1: because people are willing to talk about it. But we
[3:29] Speaker 1: all grew up in some form of physical or mental
[3:31] Speaker 1: abuse from high school kids or people in the neighborhood.
[3:35] Speaker 1: And I remember this girl, she made such.
[3:37] Speaker 2: A big deal that I was always asked to read.
[3:41] Speaker 1: That it almost, I have to say traumatized me because-
[3:44] Speaker 1: I went exactly the opposite. I wanted to talk. I
[3:47] Speaker 1: wanted to say ain't. I wanted to slur my words.
[3:49] Speaker 1: I wanted to fit in. And so with you, I
[3:52] Speaker 1: bring that story up because you talk about it because
[3:55] Speaker 1: you was hit with it. You was hit, you know,
[3:57] Speaker 1: talking wide. You didn't want to act wide. You were
[3:59] Speaker 1: calling it a snowflake. What kept you focused? What kept
[4:03] Speaker 1: you from veering off like I veered off? I veered
[4:06] Speaker 1: off and I said, hey, man, I want to fit
[4:07] Speaker 1: in and not be me.
[4:09] Speaker 4: You know, I think it was, when I write about
[4:11] Speaker 4: it in the book, my mother, my mother really, Rashad,
[4:15] Speaker 4: I mean, she kept us on the straight and narrow.
[4:18] Speaker 4: At the time, we resented the strictness. I mean, my mom,
[4:24] Speaker 4: she knew all of our friends. She knew all of
[4:27] Speaker 4: the parents. We weren't allowed to stay out past, you know,
[4:31] Speaker 4: during the week, maybe nine o'clock, maybe on the weekends
[4:35] Speaker 4: when kids were going to parties and having fun. I
[4:38] Speaker 4: was doing oratorical contests and activities. And I went to
[4:44] Speaker 4: in high school. I think I probably went to maybe
[4:47] Speaker 4: three high school football games on Friday night.
[4:49] Speaker 3: I just I didn't I grew up on a very
[4:51] Speaker 3: tight leash. Right.
[4:53] Speaker 4: And part of it was my mother overcompensating for my
[4:56] Speaker 4: father not being the kind of dad that he should
[4:58] Speaker 4: have been. But part of it was mom knew she
[5:01] Speaker 4: knew back then, I think.
[5:03] Speaker 3: Kind of what it took. She was a school teacher.
[5:05] Speaker 3: Then she went into administration. She knew what it took
[5:09] Speaker 3: to shape and mold young black boys, especially. Right. And
[5:14] Speaker 3: that was it.
[5:15] Speaker 4: Had it not been for her, had I grown up
[5:17] Speaker 4: in another house, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now.
[5:20] Speaker 1: Well, you know, in writing your book, you know, the
[5:22] Speaker 1: book we're talking about, interviewing Craig Melvin, his book, Pops,
[5:25] Speaker 1: Learning to Be a Son and.
[5:26] Speaker 2: A Father, is it because.
[5:28] Speaker 1: the fact that your father wasn't there, that she may
[5:31] Speaker 1: be overcompensated and wanted to make sure you didn't, you
[5:35] Speaker 1: had a better life or you pursued the options, even
[5:38] Speaker 1: though I knew she went to college and I think
[5:39] Speaker 1: at the age of 22 is when she became pregnant
[5:42] Speaker 1: with you. But talk about that in the middle of this,
[5:45] Speaker 1: because as we talk about trying to shape you because
[5:48] Speaker 1: of the fact that you've been shaped by a lot
[5:49] Speaker 1: of people, especially the stories. We're going to talk about
[5:52] Speaker 1: the prison incident when you was out at Camp Grace,
[5:54] Speaker 1: how that really kind of like, started you in this
[5:57] Speaker 1: direction of humanizing all men, especially men who are incarcerated.
[6:02] Speaker 1: Talk about your mom and her role versus your dad role,
[6:05] Speaker 1: because you mentioned it just a little bit, but that
[6:07] Speaker 1: centers around us getting into the story and your father
[6:10] Speaker 1: changing his life at the age of 67.
[6:11] Speaker 4: Yeah, mom had to play the role of mom and
[6:16] Speaker 4: dad for the better part of my childhood. It was
[6:22] Speaker 4: a role that she was Yeah, she was fortunately well
[6:25] Speaker 4: prepared for it because she had to take care of
[6:28] Speaker 4: her three younger siblings when she was in college.
[6:32] Speaker 3: And her father.
[6:33] Speaker 4: skipped out on the family, ended up essentially dying on
[6:36] Speaker 4: the streets in squalor. But no, a mom, because my
[6:42] Speaker 4: father was not physically present as often as I would
[6:47] Speaker 4: have liked, and my younger brother would have liked, and
[6:49] Speaker 4: my older brother as well, mom stepped in to fill
[6:52] Speaker 4: the gap. She filled the void. And not just being
[6:56] Speaker 4: present in the sense of Little League games or soccer
[7:00] Speaker 4: games or concerts, not just physically present, but emotionally present,
[7:07] Speaker 4: spiritually present. I mean, the relationship that I have with
[7:11] Speaker 4: God is because of my mother's relationship with God. So
[7:17] Speaker 4: it was divine intervention. Had I had any other mother,
[7:21] Speaker 4: things would not have gone the way that they did. But,
[7:27] Speaker 4: you know, it's also, and I write about it in
[7:29] Speaker 4: the book, as you know, and I do appreciate the
[7:31] Speaker 4: fact that you read the book. You'd be surprised how
[7:33] Speaker 4: often we talk to people about books and they haven't
[7:35] Speaker 4: read word one. But I can tell you read.
[7:39] Speaker 3: The whole thing. And I write about it in the book.
[7:42] Speaker 4: My father, I asked him during the course of my
[7:45] Speaker 4: interviews with him for the book, I said, Pops, what
[7:47] Speaker 4: was the most money you ever wasted? Mm-hmm.
[7:50] Speaker 3: Without missing a beat. He said it was about $ 1, 500
[7:53] Speaker 3: back in 1986. I said, well, that was a lot
[7:56] Speaker 3: of money back then. What'd you spend that money on?
[7:58] Speaker 4: He said, that's how much it cost to put my
[8:00] Speaker 4: daddy in the ground.
[8:02] Speaker 3: And in that moment, I realized.
[8:05] Speaker 4: That while I had been frustrated by the lack of
[8:09] Speaker 4: relationship I had with my dad, it was exponentially better
[8:12] Speaker 4: than the relationship he had with his own father. He
[8:15] Speaker 4: didn't even know who his dad was until he was
[8:17] Speaker 4: almost a teenager. So it was wholly unrealistic of me
[8:23] Speaker 4: to expect him to be the kind of dad that
[8:27] Speaker 4: I had come to idolize. He couldn't be it because
[8:31] Speaker 4: he hadn't seen it. And you can't be something. Scratch that.
[8:35] Speaker 4: It's really hard to be something if you haven't seen it,
[8:40] Speaker 4: if you haven't been exposed to it.
[8:41] Speaker 3: So that's what my dad was up against.
[8:43] Speaker 1: Well, you know, when I read the book, you know,
[8:46] Speaker 1: I heard Shotgun House. Okay, I was born in a
[8:50] Speaker 1: shotgun house, two-bedroom shotgun house. A lot of people, if
[8:52] Speaker 1: you listen to shotgun house, Open the front door, shoot
[8:55] Speaker 1: a shotgun out through the, go out.
[8:57] Speaker 2: The front back door. Don't hit anything. That's a shotgun house.
[9:00] Speaker 3: Okay.
[9:01] Speaker 2: You referenced pig feet. Grew up with pig feet, my man. Hey,
[9:05] Speaker 2: I wouldn't touch them now, Greg.
[9:06] Speaker 3: I wouldn't touch them now.
[9:09] Speaker 1: But pig feet were part of my lifestyle. And so
[9:12] Speaker 1: that's the Southern. I'm from Houston, Texas. I'm from the South.
[9:15] Speaker 1: It was a lifestyle that was normal to me, but
[9:17] Speaker 1: it was also a community lifestyle that of people taking
[9:21] Speaker 1: care of each other.
[9:22] Speaker 2: And that was really important.
[9:23] Speaker 1: Not only your dad, even though there were some missteps,
[9:26] Speaker 1: there were still people there to take care of him,
[9:29] Speaker 1: you know, to make sure he was focused, to shout
[9:31] Speaker 1: at him as he became an adult.
[9:33] Speaker 2: There were people in the community.
[9:35] Speaker 1: That's really important in this book that no matter what,
[9:38] Speaker 1: there's some form of family tied to your story and
[9:42] Speaker 1: the people in your life.
[9:44] Speaker 2: Talk about that.
[9:45] Speaker 4: You know, it's funny because long before people started talking
[9:50] Speaker 4: about it, taking a village to rear a child, I
[9:54] Speaker 4: had a village.
[9:55] Speaker 3: You know, it wasn't called that back in the 80s
[9:58] Speaker 3: in South Carolina, back in the 80s.
[9:59] Speaker 4: And 90s when I grew up, but I had a village.
[10:03] Speaker 4: And yes, there were a number of men who played
[10:07] Speaker 4: the role of dad along the way. My Uncle James,
[10:09] Speaker 4: my Uncle Jake, my Uncle Frank. But there were also
[10:14] Speaker 4: a lot of women that played the part as well.
[10:18] Speaker 3: I was disciplined, and I think that's the politically correct term.
[10:23] Speaker 4: I was disciplined by more women growing up than men,
[10:27] Speaker 4: whether it was my mom or one of my aunts
[10:30] Speaker 4: or my grandma. I spent a lot of time with
[10:32] Speaker 4: my two grandmothers growing up. And they really shaped me
[10:37] Speaker 4: in myriad ways that I didn't fully appreciate until I
[10:40] Speaker 4: was older.
[10:40] Speaker 3: Right. And then after that, I had coaches along the way.
[10:44] Speaker 4: I always... God always blessed me with people along the
[10:50] Speaker 4: road that gave me a little part of something that
[10:55] Speaker 4: I was able to take and build on. It's difficult
[10:59] Speaker 4: for young Black men especially, it's difficult to learn how
[11:03] Speaker 4: to carry yourself in this world. without examples of it.
[11:10] Speaker 4: And I had lots of examples, thankfully, along the way.
[11:14] Speaker 4: But the reality is, as you know, Sean, A lot
[11:17] Speaker 4: of kids don't have that.
[11:18] Speaker 3: A lot of kids don't.
[11:19] Speaker 4: They just, you know, through no fault of their own,
[11:22] Speaker 4: mind you, they don't have a mother or a father
[11:26] Speaker 4: or an uncle or an aunt to take their hand
[11:30] Speaker 4: on this journey of life. And so they end up
[11:33] Speaker 4: finding role models that should not be held up or
[11:38] Speaker 4: that should not be on a pedestal.
[11:40] Speaker 3: And they begin to emulate them.
[11:42] Speaker 1: You know, the thing I really like about your book
[11:45] Speaker 1: is that Sometimes, because my father was a truck driver,
[11:49] Speaker 1: you know, so, you know, when he wasn't driving trucks,
[11:51] Speaker 1: you know, he wasn't really connected to me. I can
[11:56] Speaker 1: tell you he was my father. I can tell you that.
[11:59] Speaker 1: My mom was there for me. My mom pushed me.
[12:01] Speaker 1: My mom always felt I could be somebody special in life.
[12:05] Speaker 1: When your father showed up for your ball game, that memory,
[12:09] Speaker 1: you don't know if you got a hit or home
[12:10] Speaker 1: run or you got struck out every time you went
[12:12] Speaker 1: up the bat, but you remember that moment.
[12:14] Speaker 2: And then when your mom rescued.
[12:16] Speaker 1: You, when you thought you had entered early fatherhood, you know,
[12:22] Speaker 1: those are two moments that really, I bring up those
[12:26] Speaker 1: two moments, Craig, because despite of all the things we
[12:28] Speaker 1: do in our life, there are always memories that really,
[12:32] Speaker 1: some haunt people, some inspire people. Your father showing up
[12:36] Speaker 1: for your game and your mom, basically coming to the
[12:40] Speaker 1: rescue because she did something that enabled you to relax, right?
[12:44] Speaker 1: Talk about those two key moments of parenting. Even though
[12:47] Speaker 1: your father wasn't there, that was a key parenting moment
[12:50] Speaker 1: that he provided for you that stays with you today
[12:52] Speaker 1: and probably carries into your parenting with your children today.
[12:56] Speaker 1: And then your mom being there for you at a
[12:58] Speaker 1: moment of doubt, frustration, fear, but both of them were
[13:01] Speaker 1: there at different times.
[13:03] Speaker 4: I mean, you're talking about the part of my book
[13:06] Speaker 4: where I almost became a teenage father. I was almost
[13:11] Speaker 4: a statistic at the age of 14.
[13:13] Speaker 3: No less.
[13:15] Speaker 4: I made a bad choice.
[13:19] Speaker 3: I made a bad choice. And you know what?
[13:21] Speaker 4: I write about it because I wrote about it because
[13:23] Speaker 4: I wanted people to understand there but. For the grace
[13:28] Speaker 4: of God, go I. And I think a lot of
[13:32] Speaker 4: folks can relate to this idea that, you know, there's
[13:35] Speaker 4: that night or sometimes that day, but usually it's that
[13:38] Speaker 4: night where you went left, but you could have gone right.
[13:42] Speaker 2: Right.
[13:43] Speaker 4: And had you made a different decision, it would have
[13:47] Speaker 4: altered the course of your life in a dramatic way.
[13:52] Speaker 3: That almost happened to me. I got lucky.
[13:54] Speaker 4: And at that point in my life, I didn't have
[13:58] Speaker 4: much of a relationship with my father. I was afraid
[14:02] Speaker 4: of my mother, definitely afraid. So I couldn't talk to
[14:06] Speaker 4: her about it. And it was a situation where, you know,
[14:10] Speaker 4: this young lady was convinced she was pregnant.
[14:13] Speaker 3: And I like I had to I had to do something.
[14:16] Speaker 5: Please don't go anywhere. We'll be right back with more
[14:20] Speaker 5: money making conversations masterclass. Welcome back to the Money Making
[14:27] Speaker 5: Conversations Masterclass hosted by Rashawn McDonald. Money Making Conversations Masterclass
[14:32] Speaker 5: continues online at moneymakingconversations.com and follow Money Making Conversations Masterclass
[14:39] Speaker 5: on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
[14:41] Speaker 3: This was not one of those situations where inaction was
[14:44] Speaker 3: an option.
[14:45] Speaker 4: Right.
[14:47] Speaker 3: And I write in the book about how I went
[14:48] Speaker 3: to my aunt.
[14:49] Speaker 4: And it was my aunt that finally convinced me that
[14:51] Speaker 4: I had no choice but to talk to my mother.
[14:54] Speaker 3: Right. But my mom has always been.
[14:57] Speaker 4: long before we started calling people fixers, my mom was
[15:00] Speaker 4: a fixer. Like it was, it was that, that obviously
[15:04] Speaker 4: was an extreme example, but there were so many other
[15:06] Speaker 4: times in my.
[15:06] Speaker 3: Life where I thought I was out of options. I
[15:10] Speaker 3: didn't know what I was going to do.
[15:11] Speaker 4: And I prayed to God and put trust in Betty
[15:14] Speaker 4: Jo Melvin and, and Betty Jo Melvin always came through
[15:17] Speaker 4: and still does now, mind you, in a different way.
[15:19] Speaker 4: My dad, you know, wrote about that, that, that part in.
[15:22] Speaker 3: The book with Sean Webber. He showed up at my
[15:25] Speaker 3: little league game.
[15:26] Speaker 4: And the memory stayed with me because it was so
[15:29] Speaker 4: rare to that point. My dad, and again, now looking
[15:35] Speaker 4: back on it, knowing what we know about addiction, about
[15:37] Speaker 4: it being a disease and not a weakness, I understand
[15:41] Speaker 4: why he wasn't there. I understand why he had walled
[15:45] Speaker 4: himself off from our family and society at large.
[15:47] Speaker 3: But back then, I was a kid.
[15:50] Speaker 4: I was a kid who wanted my dad to be
[15:53] Speaker 4: proud of me and see me and certainly watch my
[15:56] Speaker 4: Little League games. And so when he showed up that
[15:59] Speaker 4: evening and I saw him down the third baseline there
[16:02] Speaker 4: on the fence, it's a memory that stayed with me
[16:05] Speaker 4: because it was so rare. That being said, now he's everywhere. Like,
[16:09] Speaker 4: you know, he was up two weeks ago. My son
[16:11] Speaker 4: had a soccer game. My dad was right there with
[16:14] Speaker 4: me on the sideline. And 30 seconds in, my boy
[16:18] Speaker 4: hadn't scored a goal all season.
[16:20] Speaker 3: 30 seconds in, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, dribble, shoot, score.
[16:25] Speaker 3: First goal of the game.
[16:27] Speaker 4: And me and my pops are high-fiving like he had
[16:29] Speaker 4: just won a green jacket at Augusta.
[16:31] Speaker 3: Yes. You know.
[16:34] Speaker 2: The book is an emotional book.
[16:37] Speaker 1: I say emotional because I told people, when I get
[16:39] Speaker 1: a book like this, I have to slow read it
[16:41] Speaker 1: because sometimes it'll hit points where I go, oh, I'm
[16:45] Speaker 1: about to go there.
[16:46] Speaker 2: Let me finish this moment.
[16:48] Speaker 1: Because I remember a moment with my dad, 1992, when
[16:51] Speaker 1: I owned a comedy club. And my dad had never,
[16:56] Speaker 1: ever been to anything I had been. And he just
[16:58] Speaker 1: showed up at the comedy club. And it was sold
[17:01] Speaker 1: out and I looked in the library.
[17:03] Speaker 2: I said, what you doing here, dad? He go, I
[17:04] Speaker 2: come to see my son.
[17:06] Speaker 3: And he looked around. He looked.
[17:08] Speaker 2: Wow, this you? This you? This you? And I went, yes, sir. Yes, sir.
[17:13] Speaker 2: Because I always say sir to my dad. And he said,
[17:17] Speaker 2: I'm proud of you, son.
[17:20] Speaker 1: And like I said, because that's what the book did
[17:24] Speaker 1: to me as a dad. Because when you start talking
[17:27] Speaker 1: about incarceration, And you talk about, remember you said earlier,
[17:31] Speaker 1: right turn, left turn, those turns. I always say that
[17:35] Speaker 1: when I was in college, you know, you played as
[17:37] Speaker 1: a fraternity. I played Jamaica sci-fi. And you always do
[17:40] Speaker 1: stupid things. I remember the big brothers said, we want
[17:42] Speaker 1: some plants.
[17:43] Speaker 2: Well, we didn't have no money. And so I remember this.
[17:47] Speaker 1: Giant open field where they had plants back in the day.
[17:50] Speaker 1: And me and my line brothers, we went and stole
[17:52] Speaker 1: these plants, man.
[17:53] Speaker 2: I mean, if you look.
[17:54] Speaker 1: Back on it, Craig, From the freeway, you would have
[17:57] Speaker 1: seen us running across this field with these plants, okay?
[18:00] Speaker 1: So anybody could have went, what are those black dudes, boys,
[18:04] Speaker 1: doing running with all these giant plants? And I had
[18:07] Speaker 1: a little Fiat X19, which is a two-seater, and the
[18:11] Speaker 1: truck was in the front.
[18:12] Speaker 2: So I had to put the plants in the front,
[18:15] Speaker 2: and it was blocking my windshield.
[18:16] Speaker 1: So all along the way, I could have stopped and
[18:19] Speaker 1: stopped by the police and been incarcerated. And my life
[18:22] Speaker 1: could have changed on that right turn, left turn that
[18:25] Speaker 1: you were talking about earlier.
[18:26] Speaker 2: You are meeting men who've done.
[18:28] Speaker 1: Something far worse than what I've talked about, but they
[18:31] Speaker 1: have made a mistake. And sometimes because they've made a mistake,
[18:34] Speaker 1: we don't give them a second chance because we feel
[18:36] Speaker 1: that they are unworthy of that second chance. And then
[18:40] Speaker 1: in your book, you talk about, guess what? They are
[18:42] Speaker 1: fathers too. Let's talk about that journey of you doing
[18:46] Speaker 1: a story. I think basically changed your life. And it
[18:50] Speaker 1: started with Camp Grace.
[18:51] Speaker 4: Yeah, it was one of the most impactful stories I've
[18:54] Speaker 4: ever done. There's a, and I don't even remember how
[18:57] Speaker 4: we found out about this camp, but I was probably
[19:00] Speaker 4: reading some article in an obscure publication about this summer
[19:04] Speaker 4: camp at a maximum security prison in California, Salinas State
[19:11] Speaker 4: Valley Prison is the name of the facility. And for
[19:15] Speaker 4: one week every summer, they bring in about a dozen
[19:21] Speaker 4: or so kids to basically have a camp experience with
[19:25] Speaker 4: their dads. I mean, you know, arts and crafts and
[19:29] Speaker 4: they play games and they sing songs and.
[19:31] Speaker 3: They do all the stuff that you would do at
[19:33] Speaker 3: a camp.
[19:34] Speaker 4: I mean, these kids are between the ages of, you know,
[19:37] Speaker 4: seven or eight and 15 or 16. And the guys
[19:42] Speaker 4: who are part of the program have to exhibit good
[19:46] Speaker 4: behavior for a full year. The camp is a, privilege.
[19:51] Speaker 4: And I went out and spent some time talking to
[19:55] Speaker 4: these guys, and it ended up being great. just an
[19:58] Speaker 4: emotional day because these are men, first of all, most
[20:01] Speaker 4: of them are not going to be getting out of prison.
[20:03] Speaker 4: I mean, some of them have been convicted of doing
[20:07] Speaker 4: some pretty heinous things. But the two women that started
[20:12] Speaker 4: the camp, both of their husbands were incarcerated and consequently
[20:18] Speaker 4: weren't really a part of the child's lives. they would
[20:23] Speaker 4: get the occasional visit, you know, on a weekend and
[20:25] Speaker 4: you've got the glass and, but they weren't able to
[20:28] Speaker 4: really be a part of the child's life.
[20:29] Speaker 3: So they came up with this idea for a camp.
[20:31] Speaker 4: And I talked to one of the guys out there
[20:33] Speaker 4: and I asked him the question, I knew a lot
[20:34] Speaker 4: of people were going to be asking when they watched
[20:36] Speaker 4: or read the story, how can someone accused of some
[20:43] Speaker 4: of the things these guys were accused of, how, in
[20:46] Speaker 4: what universe do they deserve the right to spend.
[20:51] Speaker 3: Time, with a child.
[20:53] Speaker 4: Yes. And without missing a beat, he said to me,
[20:57] Speaker 4: tears in his eyes, they might be right. I may
[21:01] Speaker 4: not deserve it, but you know what, Craig? My kids do.
[21:05] Speaker 4: My kids deserve to know their father. They didn't do
[21:08] Speaker 4: anything wrong. They didn't make any bad choices. And his
[21:13] Speaker 4: larger point, and I think this was just as valid,
[21:15] Speaker 4: if we're serious about stopping the prison pipeline that we always.
[21:20] Speaker 3: Talk about, then we need to make sure that kids...
[21:24] Speaker 3: of incarcerated individuals, have relationships with them.
[21:27] Speaker 4: He spent a fair amount of his time talking to
[21:29] Speaker 4: his daughter about.
[21:31] Speaker 3: Choices, making good choices, not ending up where he ended up.
[21:36] Speaker 3: It's a fantastic program and it moved me.
[21:38] Speaker 4: It also moved me, Rashad, because my grandmother, and it's
[21:42] Speaker 4: the first line in the book, not to give away
[21:43] Speaker 4: too much, but my grandmother, now when I knew.
[21:47] Speaker 6: Her, She was going to church, at church, or coming
[21:52] Speaker 6: home from church. She only loved the Lord. Apparently, long
[21:57] Speaker 6: before I came along.
[21:58] Speaker 1: I'll tell you what, Craig, let's just say she's a bootlegger.
[22:01] Speaker 1: I don't want to give away no more than that.
[22:02] Speaker 1: Just say she's a bootlegger.
[22:03] Speaker 2: I don't want to give away the earlier part, okay?
[22:05] Speaker 2: She's a bootlegger.
[22:06] Speaker 3: She was a bootlegger. She was a bootlegger and got
[22:10] Speaker 3: a second chance. Yes, she did.
[22:12] Speaker 4: And had she not gotten a second chance, who's to
[22:16] Speaker 4: say whether I would be here right now, you know?
[22:19] Speaker 2: But here's the thing I want to point out about that.
[22:21] Speaker 1: Now, his grandmother was in the same jail that Martha
[22:25] Speaker 1: Stewart was in. So she got how many chances that
[22:28] Speaker 1: she's got, okay?
[22:30] Speaker 2: But in the same facility now.
[22:32] Speaker 1: And so when I read the book, and like I said,
[22:37] Speaker 1: it's an emotional journey because it's your story. But it's
[22:39] Speaker 1: a relatable story because I remember when my younger brother
[22:42] Speaker 1: was incarcerated in California, and glass talking. And I was
[22:47] Speaker 1: in tears. And he told me he couldn't cry. He said,
[22:52] Speaker 1: I can't cry. He said, I can't. And my nickname
[22:56] Speaker 1: is Ricky. He said, Ricky, I can't cry. Because they
[22:58] Speaker 1: see me crying out here, I pay a price when
[23:01] Speaker 1: I go back inside. And in that book, you know,
[23:04] Speaker 1: the gentleman you interviewed, he said, look, he said, thank
[23:06] Speaker 1: God I have a cell by myself. Because now I
[23:10] Speaker 1: can cry. And so I love the fact that you
[23:14] Speaker 1: were humanizing people because we see the violent sides and
[23:18] Speaker 1: nobody's trying to downplay that.
[23:20] Speaker 2: But we have made mistakes. There are people on the
[23:23] Speaker 2: other side of this that have to deal with it emotionally.
[23:25] Speaker 2: These are kids.
[23:26] Speaker 1: And like one of them said, look, it's all right
[23:30] Speaker 1: early on when you're playing cards and you're playing catch.
[23:33] Speaker 1: But when they become teens, the conversation becomes different. And
[23:37] Speaker 1: that's what fatherhood is all about, which leads to your
[23:40] Speaker 1: whole life of being a father growing. being connected to
[23:42] Speaker 1: your dad and now being a present-day father.
[23:44] Speaker 2: Let's talk about that, Craig.
[23:46] Speaker 4: You know, I think that you can be shaped by
[23:53] Speaker 4: negative examples just as much as you can be shaped
[23:57] Speaker 4: by positive examples. In fact, I think in some instances,
[23:59] Speaker 4: maybe even more so.
[24:01] Speaker 3: So, you know, growing up.
[24:03] Speaker 4: I didn't know the kind of man that I wanted
[24:06] Speaker 4: to be.
[24:07] Speaker 3: I didn't certainly know the kind of father that I
[24:09] Speaker 3: wanted to be.
[24:10] Speaker 4: But up until a few years ago, I knew I
[24:11] Speaker 4: didn't want to be anything like my dad.
[24:14] Speaker 3: Yes.
[24:15] Speaker 4: And that was what motivated me personally and professionally, probably
[24:20] Speaker 4: to a certain extent, now that I'm talking about it.
[24:23] Speaker 4: But no, it's funny because I have to remind my
[24:28] Speaker 4: kids sometimes that I have a job. And consequently, I
[24:33] Speaker 4: cannot be at their beck and call.
[24:36] Speaker 3: Day and night.
[24:38] Speaker 4: Because, you know, when my dad was there, when we
[24:40] Speaker 4: were younger, it was big. Like it was a wedding
[24:43] Speaker 4: or funeral or graduation or that little league game that
[24:47] Speaker 4: I write about that I remember because it was so weird.
[24:50] Speaker 4: Dad didn't show up for stuff, in part because he
[24:52] Speaker 4: worked third shift at the post office, but in larger
[24:55] Speaker 4: part because of the addiction issues that he had.
[24:59] Speaker 3: So as a result, I've gone to the other end
[25:02] Speaker 3: of the spectrum.
[25:03] Speaker 4: So, you know, I'm there for soccer games and my
[25:06] Speaker 4: daughter had a gymnastics recital last Sunday morning. And, you know,
[25:10] Speaker 4: I'm physically present as often and as much as I can.
[25:15] Speaker 4: You know, I do school pickup and I try to
[25:18] Speaker 4: do it all because, you know, my dad didn't do
[25:21] Speaker 4: any of it. Now, the problem that you create when
[25:24] Speaker 4: you do that, and it took.
[25:26] Speaker 3: Me a while to figure this out, I've created expectations. Yes.
[25:30] Speaker 4: So if I'm not there, it's like, oh, daddy's got
[25:33] Speaker 4: to travel for work.
[25:35] Speaker 3: Well, daddy, why can't you, can you take a later flight?
[25:38] Speaker 3: Can you go tomorrow?
[25:39] Speaker 4: And I've had to say a few times, You know,
[25:42] Speaker 4: it's the job that pays for all of this. You
[25:47] Speaker 4: don't get to go to dance or you don't get
[25:50] Speaker 4: to go to soccer if daddy's not hopping on planes.
[25:53] Speaker 2: Absolutely.
[25:55] Speaker 3: So that's the unfortunate part. But they're starting to understand.
[26:00] Speaker 3: But it's funny as you become a parent, how you
[26:03] Speaker 3: at some point become.
[26:05] Speaker 4: you become the kind of, for me, at least the
[26:07] Speaker 4: kind of father that I used to mock.
[26:09] Speaker 3: Yes.
[26:09] Speaker 4: I hated when my dad would talk about, you know,
[26:12] Speaker 4: how much something costs. You don't have money for this.
[26:15] Speaker 3: And when we were younger, We didn't.
[26:19] Speaker 4: Like, he wasn't lying. Like, we knew we didn't have
[26:21] Speaker 4: a lot of money. We knew we had enough. With
[26:23] Speaker 4: my kids, you know, I've said a few times, we
[26:25] Speaker 4: can't afford this. And my son without missing a beat
[26:28] Speaker 4: will say, yes, we can.
[26:32] Speaker 3: We can. And I'm like, and then you find yourself
[26:35] Speaker 3: trying to come up with a new excuse.
[26:36] Speaker 4: Like, well, maybe we can't afford it, but we don't
[26:41] Speaker 4: need it.
[26:41] Speaker 3: You don't need that. Right, right, right.
[26:43] Speaker 2: You know, so it's... It's hard.
[26:46] Speaker 3: It's hard.
[26:47] Speaker 1: I know we're about to wrap up, but I want
[26:49] Speaker 1: to bring up a very fun moment as a parent
[26:52] Speaker 1: that I want to share with you because you wrote
[26:55] Speaker 1: about it when your son climbed in the bed and,
[26:57] Speaker 1: you know, kids when they sleep, if you don't have kids, children,
[27:01] Speaker 1: you got a very young child, when they climb in
[27:04] Speaker 1: the bed, they forget you in bed. Kids are the
[27:08] Speaker 1: worst sleepers in the world, especially when they get that
[27:10] Speaker 1: six to ten years of age.
[27:12] Speaker 2: They're the worst sleepers.
[27:13] Speaker 3: And so.
[27:14] Speaker 1: When you say that in the book, you say you
[27:17] Speaker 1: may miss that. I remember when I talked to my
[27:20] Speaker 1: daughter when she was like 17. I said, hey, won't
[27:23] Speaker 1: you hop in bed and watch a TV series? What
[27:24] Speaker 1: you talking about? I said, you know, can we not
[27:27] Speaker 1: watch a TV? Can we not watch TV together? Remember
[27:30] Speaker 1: we used to go, I don't.
[27:31] Speaker 2: Do that no more, Dad.
[27:32] Speaker 6: Uh-uh.
[27:33] Speaker 2: No, no, we're not doing that.
[27:34] Speaker 3: So I will.
[27:35] Speaker 2: Tell you this, Craig. That moment brought laughter to me.
[27:39] Speaker 2: It brought back memories.
[27:40] Speaker 1: As your book, the amazingly good book, Pops, Learning to
[27:43] Speaker 1: Be a Son and a Father, man, it's a great read.
[27:47] Speaker 1: Like I said, it slowed me. When I say the
[27:49] Speaker 1: word slowed me, because I was becoming emotional. Because like
[27:52] Speaker 1: I said, my father was a beer drinker. My father
[27:55] Speaker 1: worked hard as a truck driver.
[27:56] Speaker 2: My father, like I said, was.
[27:59] Speaker 3: He in my life?
[27:59] Speaker 2: I don't know. But did he shape me to be
[28:01] Speaker 2: the man I am today? Yes, he did.
[28:03] Speaker 1: Because he had a role in it. And that role
[28:05] Speaker 1: has made me to be the man I am. I
[28:07] Speaker 1: like to believe I'm a good parent to my daughter.
[28:10] Speaker 1: a good husband to my wife. And those are the
[28:13] Speaker 1: things that the stories that you tell out of this book,
[28:15] Speaker 1: from the incarcerated to individuals who raised you as a family,
[28:19] Speaker 1: the community, and whether teachers who shaped.
[28:23] Speaker 2: You as third grade teachers who shaped you as you
[28:26] Speaker 2: go through life and you went to school and you.
[28:28] Speaker 1: Didn't want to shame your uncle when you didn't pledge
[28:31] Speaker 1: Kappa Alpha Psi.
[28:34] Speaker 2: But it was all good, man. I love your book, Craig.
[28:36] Speaker 3: I want to.
[28:36] Speaker 2: Appreciate you for putting it out there, man. Thank you.
[28:39] Speaker 4: Thank you for your time. I've enjoyed this conversation. You're
[28:42] Speaker 4: very good at what you do. Thank you for having me.
[28:44] Speaker 2: OK, we talk soon, man.
[28:46] Speaker 3: Be well, OK?
[28:46] Speaker 2: All right.
[28:47] Speaker 3: Bye bye.
[28:48] Speaker 1: If you want to see or hear any of my
[28:49] Speaker 1: interviews on Money Making Conversation, please go to MoneyMakingConversation.com.
[28:53] Speaker 2: I'm Rashawn McDonald. I am your host.
[28:59] Speaker 5: Thank you for joining us for this edition of Money
[29:02] Speaker 5: Making Conversations Masterclass. Money Making Conversations Masterclass with Ruchon McDonald
[29:08] Speaker 5: is produced by 3815 Media Inc. More information about 3815
[29:13] Speaker 5: Media Inc. is available at 3815media. com. And always remember to
[29:19] Speaker 5: lead with your gifts.

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