Have you read Think and Grow Rich? What Makes the Great, Great? The Wealth Choice? If you have, there is no doubt you are familiar with our guest for today. Just a head up: If you are looking for so much wisdom, tactical advice, boosting your self-esteem, reaching your full potential, and attaining life fulfillment, you’ve finally reached the perfect podcast. That’s because Dr. Dennis Kimbro poured so much in this conversation, you’ll feel you’ve graduated a whole new master’s degree!
Dr. Kimbro is universally characterized as one of the most insightful and scholarly writers in the field today. If you are looking for a mentor for human potential, entrepreneurship, and management, Dr. Kimbro is the man to go to. Be prepared to be encouraged to accomplish big things after you listen to this episode in full! Dr. Kimbro did not only shared advice to achieve your full potential, but he also showed us that in that process, you’ll face setbacks and you may need to pivot. He shared how he and his wife almost lost their house while he was writing the books he became famous for. He shared how he needed to pivot, setting aside a book he’s working for at least two years to work on a new project that was given to him. How we sometimes need to take a leap of faith and believe in ourselves. Why you and your partner should not quit together, and why it pays to live fearlessly.
This episode is also full of spiritual nuggets, and just the exact words that you may just need to hear for that little nudge to greatness. You’ll feel his love for the black community and how he tirelessly would love to lecture and give insights to the community. Not only is he successful in his career life, but you’ll also all get inspired by how great of a family man he is and how proud he is of show his children came out to be. As his father said: “The greatest compliment that a man could ever receive in life is for someone to say to him that his children are well mannered.” So, let’s dive into a chat that I’m sure will have a standing impact in each of your lives, our dream builders!
Here’s What You Missed
- How to live life with fulfillment
- Is your why big enough?
- On black wealth: history and current issues
- How successful people become successful
- What do the black community needs?
- What is level five leadership?
- Start now, how??
How And Why You Achieve Greatness?
Knowledge Nuggets
[4:48] Your life is all that you can imagine all that you can see. We’re not in this world to set it right, we’re in this world to see it right.
[6:05] The Bible says work out your own salvation. It means you got all the power. I gave you all the tools you go to solve the problem. This is your time to go up the rooftop and shout to the world I’m here, this is what I’ve been sent to do.
[8:03] Gladwell says any problem can be solved if only enough people care. The only reason why you have a problem is that you think you’ve got a problem.
[12:07] We’re all going to leave this world, not by dying, but by knowing the truth. What is the truth? As far as you can see.
[13:20] Whatever you put in the place every single day is going to, reinforce that one choice. It is a choice, and guess you can do that. And how can you do that? If your why is big enough.
[14:08] Peace is the absence of all negative emotions
[16:34[ Don’t you ever forget somebody survived for you. If you were African American right now, all you got to do is go back and look at your past generation and somebody survived for you.
[18:09] The middle class keeps score by degrees and titles. The poor keep score by cars and clothes, but the wealthy, they keep score by the bank account. So you get judged 50 million different ways, man. But the bottom line is your character and your integrity. It’s a sacred trust and you defend it at all costs.
[20:45] Progress is the key. Are you making progress? Are you making progress in every area of your life?
[24:16] On successful people: They got a dream and there are hungry and nothing is going to stop them. Once they hit their goals and objectives and they’ve got the same hunger they dominate and see conviction once you’re convicted that leads to the passionate, committed mind. That mind can never be defeated.
[28:32] On what the Black community needs: we need financial literacy. There are two sides. What you call recognition and being exposed.
[36:00] It’s your belief in your capabilities that make the difference. That’s all the difference in the world. Everybody is capable, but those that we call successful, those things we know are enamored with those that we want to emulate.
On pivoting: It is maintaining your strategy. But altering your tactics, maintain the strategy. And change the tactics, regardless of what you’ve got invested at that particular time.
[1:04:53] We are the only racial-ethnic group that doesn’t profile as black creatives, wealth creators.[1:06:54] Everybody should write down what are the five great events of your life?
[1:09:43] Father says the greatest compliment that a man could ever receive in life is for someone to say to him that his children are well-behaved, well mannered.
[1:13;43] The longer that you can project yourself into future circumstances, the greater, the chance for success. It’s the short-range goals that we dismiss
[1:17:22] What is level five leadership? People follow you not because you want them to follow you. They followed you because they want to follow you. And the only way they follow you, what do you stand for?
[1:19:00] start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough. I don’t care where it is. Start, where you want with what you have. if you’re weak, I can show you how to be strong. If you’re slow, I can show you how to become fast. But I don’t have an anecdote for low self-esteem. That is something that you have got to do on your own and the quickest way for you to raise your self-image, just to praise your God. Because when you’re praising you, God, you basically praising yourself.
Important Reads and Links
Books
The Country of the Blind Short story by H. G. Wells
The Negro Book by W. E. B. Du Bois
Think and Grow Rich: A Black Choice Book by Dennis Kimbro and Napoleon Hill
Dr. Dennis Kimbro Website: https://www.denniskimbro.com/
Dr. Dennis Kimbro Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/drdenniskimbro/
Dr. Dennis Kimbro Twitter: https://twitter.com/drdenniskimbro
Dr. Dennis Kimbro Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dennis.kimbro/
Dr. Dennis Kimbro LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dennis-kimbro-605a4131
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Download this episode’s transcript HERE
Click Here for a full transcript of this episode:Dennis Kimbro:
I’m in my study and right over there with. Okay. So you’re in my study. I wish I could show it to you. And I have two parts. You see the door close back there and back they are done my personal library, just rows and rows and rows and rows of books.
Here at my computer. I got it. Yeah. About 40 books that had a profound impact on my life. Got my mother’s Bible. I got a copy of The Underground Railroad. I got Marianne Williamson and I got all of Martin Luther King’s books. You’re looking at Simon Sinek. You’re looking at Malcolm Gladwell, Wayne Dyer and the likes. And then over there, I got the last 100 pages of Napoleon Hill.
Okay. I go on to say all that by far to me, his best book. Is The Master Key To Riches. That was two books before he, before he wrapped it up. Why The Master Key To Riches?, because he gets his personal definition of what is success. Somebody throws a dollar figure on succes, well Casanova. You can’t do that.
It’s not how much it’s not how big. It’s not how large it’s not how great. It’s not how rich it’s. How many lives did you touch? And that’s not me. That’s Nelson Mandela. he picked up on that. Nelson Mandela about to make his transition. One more interview, young journalists. Sure. What did, what do you want to know mr.
Mandela? What is the purpose of life? And Mandela says the only reason, the only way that I could answer the purpose of life is to be Socratic and ask you two questions. He says, sure. What is the question? Number one, have you moved from fear to fearless? And then number two, have you closed the gap between the potential and the performance?
Okay, so he does that in The Master Key To Riches, still talks about that, but anywho, going back to 1950 Chicago, he’s giving the presentation. After his presentation, he’ll opens it up for Q&A, I wanna ask a question. 1957 Chicago. And she says dr. Hill. These principles that you expose these principles that you highlight?
they work for anybody regardless to race, creed, and color and he’ll say. What do you mean? Anybody? Race, creed, color. He said, women, male, didn’t call black back then black, black, blah, blah, blah. And he’ll respond. He says, let’s get one thing straight. 1957 in Chicago. He says, there’s no such thing as race.
he was a different breed of animal and he focuses on the big four and one of the big four mindset soulset healthset. And that’s it. And you’ve heard this before. I’m mean, what is your life Casanova? Your life is all that you can imagine all that you can see. We’re not in this world to set it right, we’re in this world to see it right.
Big difference. Big difference. I want to tell you the listeners out there, and there’s only two books that you really need. you go to the top of these schools across the country and always make sure that my students read it and they will read it this year. Okay. Number one Country Of The Blind.
Country of the blind go online, HG Wells. You can read it online. As a matter of fact, both books, you can read online, you don’t even have to purchase, but if you’re like me, once you own copies, so you can highlight it, notes in the margin and the like. Country of the blind by HG Wells talks about sight. Most dangerous individual in the world is a man with, it was sight, but no vision, no vision.
And you see that right now. You see that right now? No, I’m not getting into politics. That’s how people, all lot of times I’m not Republican. I’m not Democrat I’m not liberal. I’m not conservative. I’m a realist. I know what works and what doesn’t and what works those men and women who have won most in life have relied mostly on themselves.
What does the Bible say? Casanova? The Bible says work out your own salvation. So what in the world was that? It means you got all the power. I gave you all the tools you go solve the problem. Why does that criest thou unto me?. You go solve the problem. Here it is. And you’ve already solved the problem. Why?
Because you’re here. Let’s come on. What in the world do you talking them? Okay. So why weren’t you born do you’re almost I was born in 1950, the world. Wasn’t ready for you. Just the fact that you are here. The stop signs left the room, the lights go from red to green, Hey man, this is your time to go up the rooftop and shout to the world I’m here.
This is what I’ve been sent to do. So work out your own salvation. So mindset, everything occurs to you twice in life. The inner, the outer of the thought, the thing, the mental, the physical. And those men and women who have won mostly in life have relied mostly on themselves. So that is the bottom line.
And what Stephen Covey talks about, make sure you keep the first thing, the first thing that’s really, your focus has got to be because we live in a society right now that it’s begging for your attention, right? Is that the number one rule of marketing? Let me take any marketing class. Number one, the first, first class in principles of marketing, what does it make your eyeballs move?
That’s the job of any market to you? I don’t like that. I don’t like that. I don’t like that. I don’t like now this ah, yeah, you got more of this, this I like. So the reason why this is the absolute best time. And I said it on George Frazier’s up podcast is because you’ve got the best thinkers. The best influence is the best game changer, the best STEM minds, whatever, all focused on one or two problems.
And one of those one or two problems, number one, the pandemic and number two racial unrest. And that’s not me. That’s Malcolm Gladwell. Gladwell says any problem can be solved if only enough people care. And when you said any problems well darn it, he meant any problem! The only reason why you have a problem is because you think you’ve got a problem.
You really don’t have a problem. It’s the thought that you think you got a problem? if you’ve got to think that you’ve done, go find enough people who care. And that is the bottom line right now. You have enough people who care. This is my third pandemic, man. This is the third time I’ve been through this.
I could show you right there on my arm when I got a Polio injection. I was about five, six years old. My mother takes me down to the board of health right there in New Jersey, in Jersey city. And all, I remember kids crying and all these guys walking around with white coats, man, and I got popped.
So that’s number one, the Polio. And when you think of, you got to think of Jonas Salk. you got to go online and read about Jonas Salk. You have to okay, so right now you’ve got countries. You’ve got Putin on one side, you’ve got Trump on another side, just throwing money into pharmaceutical companies.
This is almost like a race who can get the first vaccine because they’re going to be banking like kings. And Jonas Salk was a mind changer. He was a mind changer. When he came up with the vaccine for polio. They said, doctor Salk, man, you’re going to be rich and everything. He says, no, he says this vaccine belongs to the people.
Can you imagine that? So that’s number one, the Polio couple of, couple of years here comes pandemic. Number two, what it was tuberculosis. And back then parents had a choice. You can take your kid down to the board of health to be inoculated, or we will in school. I got inoculated in school. They took me out of class, marched me down to the nurse’s office.
Got popped, God bless, man. So this is number three. Now, why do I say that? Do you really believe we needed a vaccine? if you think you need one, go get that, that’s where you are in your thinking. If you got a headache and you think you need an aspirin, by all means, I’ve been a runner my entire life, more than 35 years of running marathons, half marathons, 10K’s, blah, blah, heaviest one, the heaviest I’ve ever weighed in my life.
And I’m staying right here. Looks like until I decide to drop a little gut on the scale this morning, 215, blah, blah, blah. But when I ran, I wasn’t an ounce over 175. So what happened? the 35 years of running Casanova. tore my knees up. I mean, my knees are gone had in 2010, 10 years ago, I had my first knee replacement five years later, got my second knee replacement.
But the bottom line is if you’re created in his image and his image, and this is the good news man, this, this is the absolute good news. We need to get on our knees, every day. And thank God we’re created in his image. He’s not created in ours. Yeah, but Dr Kimbro what the world you’re talking about.
You’re still talking about mindset. Well look at the world health organization, go to the website. They track the top 2000 diseases on the planet, the World Health Organization, top data go to CDC, they track the top 400. So between those two institutes of health on a daily basis, they track top 10,400 diseases. And not one was created by God.
Hmm, not what now am I saying they don’t exist now? Where do they exist? And then two, we get to that point of working out our own salvation. You do whatever you’ve got. If I wake up in the morning, my eyes are bloodshot. I’m not going to wear it. So I pop some Bazin. I gotta be like, I’m not gonna run anymore, but I like to walk.
I walk my five miles, I’m getting my knees replaced. But sooner, really sooner or later, you, me and everybody listening to this podcast, we’re all going to leave this world, not by dying, but by knowing the truth, what is the truth? As far as you can see, as far as you can see. I share that with you, you read Hill 16 books and is a big difference the way what he’s talking about, what he’s writing in law of success, all the way to the last one, a bunch of pages that I was given, because he was becoming more and more, more, and more and more metaphysical.
Casanova Brooks:
There’s so much to unpack there. And that’s why, again, I could not afford to interrupt you because you were giving so much wisdom. Let me ask. First thing, you said a couple of things that I do want you to tap into a little bit more. First off you talked about going from fear, or you talked about going from living in fear to fearless.
How does someone do that? Because I think right now that is very, very relevant. And that is enough to just know, or let me ask this. Can someone just make that choice or is there something that you have to put in place every single day? Is it all in the mind is what I mean?
Dennis Kimbro:
whatever you put in place every single day is going to, reinforce that one choice.
It is a choice, and guess you can do that. And how can you do that? Casanova, if your, why is big enough, again, going back to the Bible, the Bible says, “man cannot live by bread alone”. In other words, I give you all the money in the world. I can give you whatever you want and you could still hunger for something else in life.
And we see it with a lot of the affluent with the amount of wealthy man. He had everything blow his brains out, man. She had everything, man. Why did she hang herself in the closet? But no, she didn’t have everything, and again, going back to Hill, it’s not how much, how, what is it? Dammit it’s peace of mind! Hmm. And what does peace of mind?
The absence of all negative emotions. So to answer your question, yes. If you have a why now, I don’t know how long it’s going to take you to get a Why. I don’t know. What’s going to give you a why and I don’t know how it’s going to give you one, but you need a why. And what is motivation? Motivation starts with the next step.
What is motivated? His motivation is not inspiration. It’s not rah-rah. It’s whatever that’s going to get you to. Take the next step. Motivation is short for momentum, man. Here they come from. They just want to set the past and it just changed the momentum. How do we offset that momentum? We’re on defense now taking the next step.
Take the next step. I don’t know what it’s going to take, but if your, why is big enough, you know what I do in my class first day of class, I give them all my students index card. And number two, before I give the syllabus, excuse me, syllabus. Anything else? That’s kinda, when we go put it on this car, I want you to put your story on this car.
It might not still. Everybody the first day, the first thing you gave me a story, I didn’t even have to ask me a story. You told me all the obstacles that you’ve had to overcome. You told me, couldn’t find your father with a roadmap raised by your mother and your grandmother, that you were below zero on the meter.
You gave me the story. Now, going back to the why, you can use that story for momentum, or you can use that story as the reason why I can’t do this and can’t do that. As an angel. So it must do this. You only get one chance to use that story on why you did not succeed in my class. They bomb a test, or if they’re late on an assignment or I don’t allow them into the class because I don’t like the way they’re dressed it becoming you only get what I tell them.
Go and use your story. Cause this is it. Let’s go give me the story. And I’m a throw it in the trash. And that’s what we need. That’s what we need to see about past generations of African American. I love all these folks. You’ve got a whole bunch of it. Like I said, I’m not liberal, I’m not conservative, but I love all these conservative black conservatives right now, who, and not just say that, you can say whatever you want to say, you can take any political stance that you want to take but Casanova.
Don’t you ever forget somebody survived for you? Hmm. If you were African American right now, all you got to do is go back and look at your past generation and somebody survived for you. You take the stairs and you move on to somebody’s spot. Someone had to, put up decency. Tolerate the inequities look past the injustice, turn their cheek to the degradation, put up with all the nonsense and the chaos
you know, dust themselves off when they’ve been thrown off the bus, just for you. Wow. that’s a powerful, powerful pretext, so you can use it. But you’ve got to come up with a why. Why you’re doing it, Richard Branson. He said it all a couple of years ago, Branson gave up the reins, a Virgin Atlantic and Virgin music.
He was retiring, passing the Baton on to his children and a journalist asked him, he said Mr. Branson. Now that you’ve given up the day to day affairs to your children, how do you want to be remembered? How do you want to be judged and Branson said, well, I don’t mind. Judging people. And I’m certainly not in the judging business, but if you must judge me, don’t judge me by anything that I built here.
Virgin Atlantic or Virgin music, judge me by the character and integrity of my children. Casanova. What did I just expose to your head? Man, your brain, my brother level five leadership. And that’s what you seek in life. And you can lead without a title. You don’t have the degrees. As I say, in the wealth choice, the wealthy keep score, to me, the middle class keeps score by degrees and titles.
the poor keeps score by cars and clothes, but the wealthy, they keep score by the bank account. So you get judged 50 million different ways, man. But the bottom line is your character and your integrity. It’s a sacred trust and you defend it at all costs.
Casanova Brooks:
Yeah, no, I love that. One of the stories that I heard early on in my, in my real estate career, and I tell this story all the time when I’m speaking, but it was said that Warren Buffet was on a panel one day and someone asked Warren and they said, Warren, how do you know, or how did you know when you’ve truly, when you were truly successful in life?
And Warren said, you’ll never know when you’re truly successful. And so you die. And so I guess for Warren, he’s always been looked at as an atheist, right? He’s just more of a realist. He doesn’t really talk about afterlife God, all those things. And I’ve never had that conversation yeah. Withhim.
So I don’t really know, but he said, you’ll never truly know until you do it. And people are like, Oh my God, Warren’s talking about afterlife. And he said, you’ll never know until you die. And you see how many people come to your funeral. He said, but more importantly, you’ll never really know how truly successful you’ve been until you see how many of those people cry at your funeral, because those are the people who you truly touched their lives.
And when I heard that, I was like, man, like that’s, that’s something that’s always been huge, especially in the black community is because a lot of the times we live that same story that we tell ourselves. It’s I never got it. So when I get it, ain’t nobody going to get it from me. So then what happens.
Go down to generations and we never teach that level five leadership of just what you were talking about, because we have that story that we tell ourselves. And so it’s so important that people hear that and they understand yes. In the beginning you’re building your own foundation, but at the end, it has to become a switch earlier, rather than later that now it’s no longer about the.
The back of the Jersey, it’s more about the front of the Jersey. And what that means is that I’m building a legacy for those who will come after me, or even if I don’t live to have my own kids, my brothers, or my sisters, or my nieces or my nephews, or even my parents that can live that on. And I think that, that, that’s what I just heard from you.
And so I love it because. Feels like that. You’re talking about something that I already believe in my heart and whether I needed it or not. It’s an amazing affirmation to hear, to know that the way that I’ve been trying to do it is one that’s profound. And obviously you’ve been doing this for over 40 years.
Dennis Kimbro:
I like, Warren buffet. it’s, it’s, he’s emblematic of a corporate arena in general and I’m an old corporate hack. I was the first black male in the rotational program of Texas instruments. When I got out of my undergraduate degree in 72, 73, I was the first black male in the rotational program for SmithKline and French pharmaceutical in the corporate arena.
When you start talking about love, they freak out, you mentioned the word love, and in the corporate arena, they freak out. But the bottom line is, and I can, I can get a hundred people at Casanova and I could say, okay, if you were describing God, what, what’s the one word that you would use? 95% would say love.
Okay. But the bottom line is we see love, but we see the value of love all the time. If you are an entrepreneur and you love your customers, guess what? You get more customers, right? If you are a teacher and you love your students, you’re gonna be teacher of the year. If you’re an employee and you love your coworkers, you can be managed if you’re an employee, Oh, you love your job.
You get the parking space closest to the building. So w what is love? Love is empathy. Man. Love is caring, but Warren buffet is true and he got that from the, again, going back to the top business school. You go to Harvard and you declare yourself as a business major, one of the first assignments you let them be given.
Is to write you an obituary. You go to the stern school of business at NYU. And one of the first assignments they give you is write your own eulogy. And they tell you when you die, make sure that your obituary is on the pages of the New York times. Why? Because only people who are not, where do you get the old picture in the pages of the New York times, but Buffet is right.
The average, the average funeral in the United States is 270 people strong. So anything over 270 people. Yeah. You touched a lot of lives, but again, like I said, it doesn’t help much, it doesn’t help it. Isn’t how rich it’s progress. That is the key. Are you making progress? Are you making progress in every area of your life?
Are you making progresss? Like I said, we talked about mindset. What’s the next soul set,
pump the brakes on ego man, let’s, let’s push ego to the side and let’s talk about we instead of me. And that’s what this country is going through right now. This is no secret. This country has been in decline, but now it’s really being in decline.
People are really recognizing the last 18 months, last 20, many months. Man is this bad boy coming apart at the seams? Why? Because ego, ego is going off the meter. And I tell my students, “Dr. Kimbro it seems like there’s more people who hate and love”. And I said, no, that’s not true. You got more people who love than hate.
it just seems that there’s more hate, know those who hate, Casanova. They hate with a conviction. And what is conviction? Conviction is a force multiplier. The only reason why you’re successful in real estate. you probably have the real estate opportunity for weeks, for months and for years, and you never moved on it, but now lately you moved on it conviction, right?
And we see it as sports. Every time those folks take a Kobe Bryant, you take LeBron, James, you take a Beyonce, you take a Michael Jordan. Initially they’re hungry, man. They got a dream and there are hungry and nothing is going to stop them. And then when they reach the goals, unlike other folks who get hungry, reach their goals and.
You never hear from them. They maintain that hunger. And then that leads to dominance.
Casanova Brooks:
And that comes from having a big enough why
Dennis Kimbro:
that’s right. Once they hit their goals and objectives and they’ve got the same hunger will David, they dominate and see conviction once you’re convicted. And you, let me see you hitting your goals and objectives that leads to the passionate, committed mind. Napoleon Hill.
And what does Napoleon Hill say about the passion of the commited mind? It can never be defeated. Never be defeated.
Casanova Brooks:
I, I definitely agree. Let me ask you how big is exposure. In your world, because I feel like for a lot of people right now, especially in the black community, a lot of the reasons why we don’t take a lot of those risks while we’re not really to get an uncomfortable things like that is because we’ve never been exposed to it.
In a level from somebody who we feel like we can trust, It was the first time that I got exposed. It was through Rich Dad Poor Dad. At first time I got exposed to mindset was through Think And Grow Rich, A Black Choice. Do you feel like it’s because we don’t get exposed in the right way that the reason why we don’t actually get out there and become more fearless?
Dennis Kimbro:
Casanova, you’ve got to look at that historical context. you’re talking to a race for 400 years, has brains beat out and 250 of those 400 years, it was absolutely positively totally against the law for you to acquire wealth. So what in the world do you think is going to happen? Man, if I take a knife and I stabbed him in the back and I, puncture your back and put that knife in your back, nine inches and then I pull it out, six inches, three inches of that blade is still in your back.You can’t begin to heal until I take the knife completely out and you go ahead and cover the wound. they haven’t completely taken the knife out. the thing about. And if we got to talk just ever so briefly about reparations people, they got crazy different 50 million thoughts about reparations are spiritual. Reparations was invented by the Quakers and reparation.
There are two important parts to the context of reparations. Reparations is a spiritual act that requires two statements. Forget doling. And everybody’s going to get a check. We’ll forget now what we’re going to get some types of amenities and so many types of, whatever the compensate for what we’ve been alive.
Now, there’s only two things you need for reparation. Number one, you got to say, I’m sorry. Say, I’m sorry.
Casanova Brooks:
I’m sorry.
Dennis Kimbro:
Casanova. While you’ve had your back turn and you’ve had to go out and use the restroom. I went into the kitchen of your house and it was that last cookie in the cookie jar and I took it. I’m sorry, but number two would is critically more important than number one.
Number one, you say, I’m sorry, a number two, you say, and I will never do that act again. While this country may have said sorry, but they never say that they will never do that act again because. You look at all the dots. You look at all the obstacles. You look at all the roadblocks that came after the emancipation proclamation.
All right. So slavery ended, but you gave us Jim Crow, but slavery ended, but you gave a separate but equal slavery ended. Dammit, you gave us the black roads. Slavery ended. What’s the deal with the Tuskegee experiment. Slavery ended Brown vs. Board of education,
man. What’s up with mass incarceration, man. That is bullshit called red lining man slavery. Now who came up with subprime loans.
Oh, so when you talk about exposure, yes, right now what we need, we need financial literacy. Financial literacy. But There are two sides. What you call recognition and being exposed. When you look at buying habits, going back to marketing, talk to one of my marketing professors. There are five to seven different buying emotions and the buying motion.
Another one, the hot button for black America is recognition and they’re good. And this positives and negatives, when it comes to recognition and Casanova, you can always tell when a marketeer. Is using recognition to get to black Americans. you can just close your eyes and you can just hear the words that are being used.
Be the first on your block, be the talk of the neighborhood, be the envy of the neighborhood. If you don’t move now, you won’t be able to. what are the hot buttons when they use for white males? What about white males wants security? That’s why they’re electives, arms always spoke and just very, trying to stay secure barriers and one of the hot buttons close your eyes and just listen to the words that they use.
Keep your family safe, keep your finances safe and secure. You’re in good hands. it’s you got, you gotta be careful, but that, that is the pretext. So number one is financial literacy. Number two is restoration of the black male number three. there are a whole subset that we have to do, but going back to 1897 and I tell people all the time, I’m a Johnny come lately, man, 1897.
Your most prolific scholar W.E.B. DuBois Wrote that book called the Negro in business and two profound quotes in that book. Number one, the man won’t control or finances won’t control. Anything else? And number two. Nothing ever correct. And nothing positive will ever occur in a community that fails to circulate the stocks.
that’s the track that we have to run on, is a difficult, yes, but anything, any problem can be overcomed.
Casanova Brooks:
Wow, man. There’s so much that I never thought about that, those words, those key words. And I think that’s the power of having a mentor, right? Because you said I just got done talking to my professional and he talks about those words.
And now of course, anybody who watching listening, and I know myself next time, next commercial that I hear, whether it’s a big, especially with insurance companies, they use those types of words. All the time. They’re playing on it. And I’ve never been honest. I just, I was never even exposed to this.
So me now, knowing I’m able to decipher who are they really talking to? But I think that financial literacy, just like you said, is so critical for us. Now for a lot of us, we have a lot of debt, right? Are you a proponent of paying off debt first or starting to invest first and using whatever that capital cashflow is to then pay down your debt?
Which do you feel-
Dennis Kimbro:
Well, W. Clement Stone gave me a track to run-on when he was coaching me as I was writing this book and, seven years I call it hell financially, man. And everybody knows my story. I got behind on my mortgage. I was more than five months behind my mortgage, my wife, me and my wife. We just lost this house, but right.
Casanova Brooks:
The same house you’re living in now?
Dennis Kimbro:
Same house we’re living in now.
Casanova Brooks:
Wow.
Dennis Kimbro:
Got more than five months behind. And I was coming down to the home stretch and when I finished the book and threw it out there and, what was the turning point was success magazine and caught wind of what I was doing. Scott DeGarmo, who was the senior editor at the time he contacted me.
He wanted a series of articles and, an unknowingly, so many how naive I was. I said, Scott here, take the manuscript. Imagine this year in the manuscript of the book, take anything that you want. He said, no, Dennis, we like your riding style, right? It’s about three articles, blah, blah, blah. One of the articles that are wrote.
if a student, one of the magazines and Harvey Mackay, who at the time was number one in terms of speaking business, speaking, this, that never thing. He was in Dallas, Texas on a book tour gets the magazine jumps on a plane plane, landed. He called me up blind. I picked up the phone. It was good Friday and says, this Dennis Kimbro said, yes, is this the young man who wrote that article?
And as I said, yes, he said, I’m fascinated about this book. Blacks have grown rich, do you have a publisher? And I said, no. He said, do you have an agent? And I said, no. And he said, I’ll tell you what if this book thinks is what I think it is. I think we can do business together, but you’ve got to promise me that you won’t tell anybody about this conversation for 48 hours, if you would overnight the manuscript to me.
And if I like it, I’ll share it with my agent and you never know, but at least give me 48 hours before you tell anybody. I said, okay. And I hung up the phone Casanova. And I told my wife, this guy just called me up and said, 40th. I said, I know he’s not going to call me in 48 hours. Cause 48 hours Easter Sunday.
And so sure enough, I follow through to express it’s mail. We got it. Three o’clock beef. The Sunday he called me up. He was bouncing off the ceiling. He said, young man, do you know what you have written? And I said, okay, I guess so I, I think it would do well. He said do well. He said, I just shared it to my agent.
can you fly to Minneapolis and blah, blah, blah, and sign the deal. They took the manuscript that had countless rejections and threw it out to the top 12 publishing houses in the world. And they started bidding on it and the floor bid just to get invited in the room, just to be invited was six figures.
And so my lifestyle went from. From here to there, but again, it’s not about all that. And I feel look through that. And let me tell you another story Casanova. Yeah. Okay. So he was my agent. For what more than 20, 25 years. And then, he got out of the business. He didn’t want to do books anymore. He just wanted to do movies.
He wanted to represent entertainers. And so me and Harvey Mackay, and everybody else, we had to go find a new way. Now this is a blow you away. So I don’t know if you’re familiar with my fifth book, the wealth choice. Yeah. I had finished. All right. The goal was seven years, man, and I’m ready to go. And I had, I was looking at three agents and, to go ahead and I want one agents right there in New York.
And I sent the manuscript and she sent back and she said, this isn’t a good fit. And I said, why? She said, I don’t have the slightest idea what this book is about. And, I had grown by them, blah, blah, blah. Hi, goodbye. Next. Yeah, that’s all. you never know. That’s why it’s it’s it’s not your capability.
Everybody’s got capabilities. You’ve got capability capability. It’s your belief in your capabilities. That makes the difference. That’s all the difference in the world. Everybody is capable, but those that we call successful, those things we know are enamored with those that we want to emulate. We look up to, they believe in their capability.
That is the only difference. So I went on to say that, so there I am and the book went off the chart and this, that, and everything. But the bottom line is that yeah, we all have journeys and we all encounter highs and lows, ups and downs fast and slows and success. The bottom line is success. It’s like a roller coaster.
And people want to know when is roller coaster, roller coaster never ends until you get off, but that’s the bottom line, not in this world to see it wrong. like I said, we’re in this world to see it. And that’s the part of soulset: with your minds eye because your physical eyes will lie to you.
Casanova Brooks:
No for sure. And that’s what a really, I hear you, we are so much is there’s that old ancient story, and I’m sure you probably know of the Kingsmen and his horse. And it’s basically who knows what’s good or what’s bad. And, and I tell this story a lot. So I’m sure all of my followers, all of the people that are watching it probably heard a version of it, the Kingsmen loses the horse because the sons hops on the horse one day, It takes off riding horse bucks, the son off breaks his leg.
Next day, he comes back with a couple of different stallions. The neighbor comes over, says, Oh man, you gotta be so excited. And he says, ah, what do you mean? And he says, now your stallions have came back and continuously the Kings. Keep saying, ah, who knows what’s good or what’s bad. And so I think it goes back to one of your earlier points where you were talking about it’s all in the mind.
A lot of the times we don’t know what’s good, what’s bad. It’s only the emotion that we attach to it. And Nipsy Hussle, made so many references to this. And one of the things that I always love Nipsey, didn’t say this, but when people ask me how I keep going, I always say wins and losses comes with being bosses, right?
And we are all a boss of our own life. So it doesn’t have to be a boss in a corporate setting, but we are all a boss of our own life. And yeah, you can just understand that adversity builds character, so you’ll never get to where you want to go. It would just be too boring. You would never stay on the track if there wasn’t the up or, the down, because eventually we’re all human beings.
So we’ll just get bored. So you need that to keep pushing you and I love it.
And so I wanted to hear the second part of that story of The Wealth Choice, because that person says no. And it was, was it like the chip on your shoulder? It’s Oh, I’m going to show you
Dennis Kimbro:
or was it well, it wasn’t no, no, I, I don’t need that.
and it was the same to show you how my mindset had changed over the years. Okay. So I’m working on Think And Grow Rich, A Black Choice, and I caught, finished the book. But I didn’t have an agent and I didn’t have a publisher. And, we were beyond in debt. So we’re here in Atlanta and my wife said, and my wife and my mother said, if you can’t find that, a job in a language, go back up to New York, come back up to Jersey and this, that, and everything.
And I said, I did, my mother gave me a plane ticket. Yeah. I went up there. I spent three, maybe five days with her and always, going to search firms to miss that and everything. I knew off of fifth Avenue, I had sent the manuscript to an agent in New York and I said, one I’m looking for a job.
Let me go by his office. And maybe I can go ahead and talk to them about blah blah. So I went completely, totally unannounced. And I knew that he had my manuscript. And I went to his office and, announced my name to administrative assistant. And his administrative assistant said to me, let me see if he’s in.
So she walks back and she closed the door behind her, but the door cracked back open and I could hear everything. So she went back there and she said, there’s a gentlemen, blah, blah, blah. And I could hear the agent tells administrative assistant, “tell him I’m not in”. And so she came, she comes back out, which is, I’m sorry, mr.
Kimbro, but he must have slipped down for lunch. I said, no problem walked out. at that particular time and dammit, put me on my knees. So I was crying in my beer and I was ready to take my basketball, blah, blah, blah. But over the years I had grown and I said, no problem, because it’s not about me. lessons learned.
It’s not about me. It just means bigger things are going to happen and everything. And that’s a part of growth and development. There’s a sign in my classroom that reads. If you don’t read, you don’t study, you don’t grow. You don’t develop. You don’t go to the seminars. You don’t go to the conferences. You don’t go to the workshops.
You don’t read books. You don’t take good notes. You don’t sit in the first seat in the front row. Somebody else will. And the day you meet that other person you lose and life is about growth and development. Here we are. I’ve had a couple of seniors call and be lie “Dr Kimbro, man. So I’m trying to find a job in the pandemic and this, that, and everything”
and I said, you already got a job. And she says, I do. And I said, yeah, your job is continuous growth, personal professional, 24/7 24/7. Not being superior. But being better today than you were yesterday. What does the Bible say? The Bible says complete thy noble task, many are called, but few are chosen, many are called but few are chosen. What does, what does that mean?
many are called, few updated the resume, many, a call, but only a handful got a suit that fits many a call, but man only one or two set the alarm clock. Many have called the man was the only dude that filled out the application. So come on, my brother, complete thy noble task. Do what you’ve been set here to do.
Casanova Brooks:
I love it. The first thing that came to my mind, when you say you already got a job out and he was like, what’s that your job is to find it.
I never went. That word came, but no, I absolutely. I think that, most of the time we don’t think about that. So many people didn’t wake up. So many people have, do not have even a mentor do not have a dr. Dennis Kimbro to call you not know about podcast and where they can find free resources to better their situation.
More than there was yesterday. There’s so many people, just like you said, that don’t realize that they are still chosen, even though you woke up and the fact that you even you’re driving to work, or you just lost your job, but you can pop in that podcast and you can say, Hey, I’m going to be exposed to something that’s going to allow me to not go.
Cry in my beer. As you said that you did.
Dennis Kimbro:
Oh without a doubt. Without a doubt.
Casanova Brooks:
Keep on their path and they can understand that again, I’m still chosen. Maybe I wasn’t chosen for that path. And that’s the whole reason why it didn’t happen for me because you’re a prime example of that. You took a lot of bumps, you took a lot of bruises, but then in the end, it all worked out for you because the path that you were supposed to be on, eventually, if you just keep pushing, it’s like a maze, but you’ll feel.
Figure your way out. You might have to go back two or three times where you’ll figure your way out.
Dennis Kimbro:
Yeah. It’s called pivot. Do the same thing. That fortune 500 fortune 1000 companies do. When you look at the top fortune 1000 companies, what do they have in common? They at least on the road from a standing start to where they are right now.
They have at least pivoted twice. And I pivoted. I started off working on the wealtyh, excuse me, on what makes the great, great. And I was two years into that book when the Napoleon Hill foundation contacted me. And when I flew up to New York, flew up to what Chicago and had that meeting with w Clement stone.
My wife waited out in the car for more than two hours and, And I went back to the car and she said, what did he say? He said, man, they want me to write this book. They want me to put my book down and write this book. That was a major pivot and Casanova. I went home. I told him, okay. Yes, I’ll do it.
And I really didn’t want to do it. W Clement stone said young, man, if you have any sense, You’ll push that book aside and finish this. And so I said, I’ll do it. If you’ve helped me financially, I had to borrow money for the plane ticket. My wife is in the rental car. We don’t have a dime between us. He could have easily reached into his lapel pocket, pull out his checkbook, written me a seven, excuse me, a six figure check.
But he didn’t do it. And he said to me, if you really want to find the reason you don’t want one person succeeds, while another fail, while one individual rich, wealthy, while another was impoverished, it’s in this laboratory that you must find. So he said, no, I’m not going to give you a dime cause Andrew Carnegie didn’t give Napoleon Hill a dime.
So he said, but what I’m giving you is an opportunity. So I went back and I went home and I didn’t work on that book for nearly three months. I’m in my study and I’m still fine tuning. What makes the great, great wife comes in my study and she says, have you started working on the other book? And I said, Pat, no, I’m not feeling and I’m not.
And she said, you better tell them something because they think you’re back in Atlanta working on their book. So I sat down. And I wrote 90 pages, put it in an envelope overnight, send it to Napoleon Hill Foundation. And they opened up they read it and they threw the trench. I said, no problem. I’m a big boy.
I can take it this time. Casanova. I wrote 125 pages overnight. They read it through that in the trench, but after they did it second time, I got a phone call from Mike Rick, who is the executive director and says, Dennis. You said we received your writings. You’re an excellent writer, but do us a big favor.
Yeah. I said, sure, whatever, what do you want me to do? They said, take your doctorate, take the PhD, put it on a shelf. You won’t need it for this assignment. I said, what do you mean? So we want you to write this book as if you’re writing a letter to a friend. So I went back, changed all the wording, this and what they were telling me to do, make it timeless.
Make it where somebody who could pick it up right before the pandemict, but I’m walking off campus. I guess he had to be a freshman or something. I don’t even know if he was a business major, came up to me and he was holding a copy of the book and he said, man, what is this man? I’ve been reading this up and tell him my friends about it, man.
I don’t know if it was just published as a man. That book was older than you. And that was that’s what they had in mind. Make it timeless. If someone, 30 years ago, if someone read it now, There’s food on every page. Don’t have to start at three of the chapter. You can go with last for you right there.
But it all goes back to pivot. And what is the definition pivoting? It is maintaining your strategy. But altering your tactics, maintain the strategy, the strategy I’m on X, a million dollars by this particular day, I’m gonna do ABC XYZ. One, two, three. That’s the strategy, right? Nothing changed, but the tactics change.
And change the tactics, regardless of what you’ve got invested at that particular time. People they can’t do it because they said, man, I invested all this time and all this money for this man. I can’t change. Yes, you can change because I had invested everything that I owned into What Makes The Great Great and they told me to put that on the back shelf.
Man. I was giving them so much pushback and my wife, they must be out of the model, the folks that I interviewed and this, that, and everything. But what changed Casanova? If you looked at the a hundred pages that Napoleon Hill Goodwill, the foundation gave me, he only had three interviews and those 100 pages, none of them I could use.
He interviewed a gentleman by the name of James Brown at the time was the CEO, the founder of Crusader life insurance in Kansas city. He interviewed under secretary to the United nations, but he didn’t, but he had, he didn’t even have chapter pages. He had a hundred pages. And if he ever kept hitting on the same rock, I use that as a check.
You kept getting on right. Mental attitude. Okay. You kept hitting it, not financial literacy. I use that as a chapter. You can’t getting on persistence and I use that chapter and I just started all the interviews I had, man. I had more than 125 interviews, man. So I can just take them and place them wherever I want.
And I still have, interviews that I had with individuals that I never used, man. That I’ve never used in some interviews where Kathy Hughes of radio one, right? She’s a billionaire. I spent two days with her two days with a bill, with a billionaire man. And I was thinking, okay, I got up this morning and I checked my emails and I got an email about, Kamala Harris.
And it was like a sexual slur or something. That someone had said about her and what went through my mind this morning, Casanova, the interview twice, met her twice, had a real nice dinner. And you’re with Rachel Robinson, Jackie Robinson’s widow and the stories that she told me, what they went through, when this man was breaking the color barrier that she didn’t share with other folks, man, bullshit.
Yeah. and not only was, I think about Rachel Robinson, I met and I sat down and I basically had dinner with Billy Aaron, Hank Aaron’s wife. And she, she told me that 90 days out before he even wrote Peyton’s record, they couldn’t live in their house in Atlanta. For all the death threats, right? Yeah. He was 90 days.
Okay. The baseball season opens up in April. It wasn’t January and February. She couldn’t even live in our home for the death threats. So what was going through my mind? How much more nonsense man? Do we at the date they want from us? that’s all about pivoting, that was all about pivoting. yeah, but I had all these interviews and everything and wherever I said, this would be seamless.
Let me use this right here. It’s right there. And one of the benefits and perks of teaching in a lab is the lab is a hotbed and they call, you never know who you’re going to be. and so many times Casanova I’m walking off campus and going to the parking deck and literally the black excellence coming out of the parking deck.
how many times have I literally bumped into John Lewis? I mean, literally bumped into Bernays cane or, you name a mall. CT, Vivian, I’m trying to think, man cook all the black leaders at one time or another. I met or been in my class
we’ve been around and been a superstar in your own. for the last 20, 30 years. So when you see someone, do you still get. wildfire. Do you still go wow. or, or is it I don’t, I
don’t get Google eyed, but here’s the thing let’s, it’s about approval and I learned long time ago, Wayne Dyer, and it’s about approval.
Everybody likes aproval, I like aproval. Casanova, I like walking down the street and what the student did to me. Can you autograph this man? I going through the airport and someone comes up to me and I don’t know their name and said, dang, your book changed my life, man. I can’t begin to tell you the times where I feel that, that we’ll go to the bookstore at CAU bookstore book section, and they’ll see my book and somebody behind the cash register.
he teach us here. He tells us. Yeah. As a matter of fact, Oh yeah. Today’s Tuesday. He has class once, blah, blah. And don’t just come to my class unannounced. Okay. Can you order, walk into the class? Can you autograph? I’m saying look, look around,
but no, no, no problem. The last time somebody did this, a blow your way. He plays football for the Atlanta Falcons, Grady Jarrett. He’s a defensive tackle. Yeah. And I’m in class. And one of my teaching assistants comes in. She pulls me over. Dr. Kimbro. There’s a woman outside and she says, she’s not going to leave till you come outside.
And I went out there and it was Grady Jarretts mom. And I said, Oh, how are you doing man? Anyhow. So I’m in class. This is the last class or the spring semester before the pandemic. And who’ve walked into my class completely, totally unannounced. Okay. And I knew exactly who he is and what my students know, who we want.
And he walked in, he had aged put on a little weight, gray hair, this, that, and everything. As soon as I see them, I can’t believe I said, come on up, man. You’re officially teaching class, blah, blah, blah. And the other. So he comes up to the front of the class and I said to my students, that’s always this gentlemen, if they’re looking and they don’t, I said, you do know him.
I said, when I was your age, his post was in my dorm room. You don’t bond my bed. they look around. And then I said on the count of three, I said to my guests, I want you to strike a pose. I go one, two, three, and his head. And he puts up the blood. It was John Carlos, 1968 summer Olympics. As soon as he did that, whole blah, blah, blah.
And they just, Oh my God. Okay. And so I said, John, I said, ah, man, thanks for coming. Thanks for dropping in. Can you share a few words to my kids? And he spoken, then he opened up the QA, this will blow you away Casanova. So one of my students says, you talked about mentors and says, do you mentor any body?
And he says, yeah, I mentor folks. As a matter of fact, my number one mentor right now is Colin Kaepernick. And when he said that, Yeah, they connected the dots because Colin Kaepernick is going through what he went through. he was odd man out black, listen this Nicole on the same day. And they said, Oh wow.
Yeah, I can see that, man. So yeah, I speak to Colin at least two or three times every day. Carlos was from LA. And he said, we spoke, before, I got on the plane and then another student says, do you have a mentor and this’ll blow you away. And he says, yes, I haven’t meant as who’s your Metro. He said, Harry Belafonte.
And at that point I said, I ask, was that why Harry Belafonte. He says, Harry Belafonte doesn’t live too far from me. He lives out here in LA and he told me, he says, when the average actor, actress and entertainer wakes up in the morning, out here, Beverly Hills, the first thing he or she does is pick up the phone and calls their accountant to see how much money they have in the bank.
Harry Belafonte says soon as he gets up in the morning, first phone call he makes is either Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King. He said now who was going to lead a more fulfilled life? That’s the purpose of life. Wow.
Casanova Brooks:
So let me ask you that same question. I know we’re wrapping up here and this has been absolutely amazing.
Everything that I hoped for. Do you, who is that first phone call that you make every day?
Dennis Kimbro:
that’s a, that’s a good question. And I have been around this individual more times and he probably one of the reasons why I wrote The Wealth Choice. So I knew I was going to write the wealth choice because I had all this data.
On millionaires, particularly those that I knew and stuff, but the gentleman who sent me over the top is Andy young. And I’ve had so many opportunities to be with them. here’s a man who walked arm and arm side by side with Martin. And to give you a backflip story was Andy young years ago when I had first interview, I had with them when, I asked him who had the most profound impact on his life.
And I just knew. Casanova. He was going to say, doc King. he did. He said Benjamin Mays. And I said the school teacher and Morehouse who became the president of Morehouse. Why? Dr. Maze of all the people that you rub shoulders with, what was so magical about Benjamin Mays? He told me, you said, because you would always see, you always knew a student who had Benjamin Mays.
Yes. Professor Morehouse. You can see them running across the quad to go to his class because he only got two rules in this classroom. Rule number one, Benjamin Mays would always correct your English and the juniors and seniors say, man, that’s why is this guy correcting me? And dr. Mays would reply. Would you rather have me correct your English or prospective employer?
Correct English. And then rule number two Benjamin Mays said I don’t care in the catalog. I don’t care on the role. I don’t care on the syllabus that says class starts at one o’clock. If I get here at 1245, that door is closed. On time is late. Early is on time and late is fired. And the first assignment that every student had, the remember what’s that old poem.
I’ve only just a minute, 60 seconds in it. Forced upon me. Can’t refuse it. Didn’t seek it. Didn’t choose it. But I know that I must use it off suffering. If I lose it, pay account to buy abuse. It just a tiny little minute of my life is in. So he shared that the first interview I had with him, he was sharing all of it.
But I I’ve had so many countless interviews, but I got to share this. So we’re down in Fort Lauderdale, Florida. We were both down there and I didn’t know, he, he was going to be there. We were both getting these degrees and the business community we’re giving this real black tie affair. Real nice. me and my wife Pat was sitting there and I’m knocking down a few cause I don’t have to speak that day.
And he was just, He just got through swimming. And so he comes by and he says, ma’am, what’s going on? And I said, mr. Ambassador, how you doing, man? Give me a call, man. I love you so much, blah, blah, blah. And he just thought around and walk the store. He told me, he said, He was in town. it wasn’t Memphis, but it was getting close to Martin Luther King, the end of his journey.
And they were at a hotel and changed hotel rooms. The King called all his lieutenants together and they were all seated around the table. There was Ralph Abernathy. That was Hosea Williams. There was Andy young, Joseph Lowery, CT, Vivian, all the paragons that I had met. And Martin Luther King says, fellas, We must be out of our mind to think that we can change this country.
He says, but if we do change this country, no one seated around this table right now will live to see age 40. He said, that’s the bad news. He said the good news. Just think of the untold opportunities that generations upon generations will have just because of the work that we are doing. That is allegorical brother.
Powerful story that I don’t let this next generation or past generations ever forget. So that’s one of the benefits, man. And, I’ve had so many peoples speak of my class. Steve Harvey’s spoken my class, spoke of my class, tumble, spoke in my class, Tyrese Gibson, spoken back class. but arguably one of the bull that float them up class had a really profound impact on my students.
And that was usher’s mom. The singer Usher.
Yeah. Yeah. Just sound a couple of months ago,
Jonetta Patton blow you away powerhouse powerhouse. And she told the story. She played basketball when she was in high school. So she was athletic and she knew about sports and this, that, and everything. But, during the Q and a, one of my female students asked her, I said, what’s the toughest thing you’ve ever done in life.
And she said the toughest things. He said, yeah, what was the toughest thing? And she said, arguably, the toughest thing I’ve ever done alive is learn how to be the only black female in the room. Because she personally, every contract that usher has ever signed, she negotiate. She negotiated his first, the second contract is recording contract and the last contract that she negotiated, as he’s part owner of the Cleveland Cavaliers, she negotiated that comes from
Casanova Brooks:
wow.
Profound. Yeah.
Hahahaha,
Dennis Kimbro:
Jonetta should I sign this?
Casanova Brooks:
It’s great. I just heard usher. I was at the grant Cardone conference. it was earlier this year, obviously before the pandemic hit. And so it was the grant Cardone conference and usher came and spoke there and he mentioned his mom too. And he mentioned how profound that she’s been on his career. And, and that’s, I think the power again of mentorship, you don’t necessarily need a dad, but you do have somebody that’s in your corner right now. That’s always champion in you. And if they’re from afar, like dr. Dennis Kimbro, you utilize that, Or sometimes they’re up close for. There’s somebody out there that’s wondering right now, At everything, all the success that you’ve had or the people that you’ve met, or the relationships that you’ve built, if there’s one thing that you could change to speed up, or let’s say accelerate your journey of, your journey of where you are now, what would that one thing,
Dennis Kimbro:
belief, belief
Casanova Brooks:
you would have believed.
Dennis Kimbro:
Belief the only reason. I’m here right now and I’ve got a lot of help. I know my wife, my mother, my mother in law. my dad, the one thing that my dad did do, he did a lot. He was my hero, but, I shared this story several times. My father and my mother, they were both sticklers for education. And my older brother made a transition.
His transition a few years ago. he was two years older than me. And when we were small and elementary school, we had to do our homework and my dad had to check a homework before we go outside and play. And then the winter months is up in Jersey. By the time he got home was dark. Anyway, we couldn’t go out and we couldn’t watch TV on school nights, Casanova cliffs, and watch TV at school.
But my father made this one exception. It was this one show came on 30 minute, once a week and he sat us down. I had to watch the show and he quizzed us after the show. And the title of the show was Biography.
Casanova Brooks:
Biography
Dennis Kimbro:
biography and the host I’ll never forget was Mike Wallace and Casanovam talking about belief.
There were no black profiles, right? I was watching profiles at Winston church. I was watching profile Tom citizen. I was watching the profile of Eleanor Roosevelt. And then, I was watching a profile of a Charles Lindbergh. And then after that, 30 minutes of my father sent me and my brother down.
Okay. What did you learn? What did you see? Okay. What was so special about them? Do you think you could do that? Son do you have a dream? Do you have a goal? What is it that you want to do? And it was that type of thing. And really right now, here I am walking distance to age 70. My life has been biography. And when I talk about it, and even to this state, we, we are the only, we are the only racial ethnic group that doesn’t profile as black creatives, wealth creators.
We still don’t. You can go in a bookstore right now. And he said, can I go to the black business section? You might find one or two books. In 20, 20
Casanova Brooks:
crazy. Come on
Dennis Kimbro:
profile. Don’t you think untold generation wants to know? give us a track to run on. and I didn’t, I just said, Hey, listen, I was trained to do, and this was the best advice I got from one of my committee members at Northwestern.
When I was getting close to the door, he said, Dennis, he says, don’t look at your dissertation as fulfilling one of your requirements for your degree. Look at your dissertation. That’s your first book. And that’s exactly what I did because I was looking at wealth and poverty among under developed countries.
And then after they gave me that dr. Kimbro, I turned to my wife and I said, I know my first book. She says, what is it said, I don’t want to study poverty. I want to study countries. I’ll just want to take wealth, I’m going to take, African-Americans put them together. I got to solve the Rubik’s cube, Rubik’s cube at the time.
And so she said, what will it take? And I said, it’s going to be, rather than quantitative, it’s going to be a qualitative analysis. Face to face interviews. She said, how long will it take? And I said, you give me 18 months. And I’m through, 18 months was close to seven years. So there were some times that she got tired of it and she quit.
There were some times I got tired of it and not quit, but thank God we didn’t quit
Casanova Brooks:
together.
Right. Wow. Wow. Do you think, right now that if you, your time was done, do you think that you would die for failed,
Dennis Kimbro:
Or, I’ve, I’ve had, yeah, I’ve had some, life changing and fulfilling events and just like Richard Branson.
probably that I have what is called the five great events of my life. And I think everybody should write down what are the five great events of your life? And, I’ve got several of them, man dogs, just check them off one. I got my degree and my mother hung around long enough. She came down with the virulent strain of cancer.
When my first book was released, my mother never heard me speak, never heard me speak. And now she hears me speak all the time. My father, he died a year and a half before I completed my coursework. And after I was granted, the doctorate, went by as grade side and I said, pop, we did it. Cause he would always, my father would always say to me, he says, son, I missed my ship.
But you’ll catch you a boat, you ride on top and he would, he had, my dad is idiosyncrasies. Every Sunday night, he would do the same thing. He, he would collect silver dollars and he would Polish his silver dollars. He shined his shoes and my father always shined his shoes every as a black man gonna call all to me as, white American we’ll call it black man, who off from a job that wasn’t going to happen.
Never ramped up and over here was
Casanova Brooks:
ready. So I don’t gotta
Dennis Kimbro:
get red. We were both, both huge Yankee fans. And we came back from a Yankee game. Didn’t have a car back then. And we always caught the bus, from a Bronx back to our house in Jersey. And, the last two that got on the bus and the bus was packed.
So we got the last seat on the bus. And my father was holding onto the strap. woman came on behind.
Oh. Since she was right next to my father and she was holding onto the strap right outside of me. And so as the bus takes off, my father’s holding on the strap. I’m in the last seat and a woman is standing white woman standing next to him and my father. Turns to the woman and says ma’am would you like to sit down?
Would you like to see? And she’s good. Oh yes. I’ve had a hard day today. I would sure. to sit down. So my father needs me at golf, like this get up. And so I got up and I held onto my father’s waist. Like I was holding onto a tree shop and my dad. Says to the woman here ma’am you can sit down now. my father, my father, the woman says, Oh, your son is so well-mannered so well behaved.
And he says, thank you. Ma’am I didn’t think anything of it until that Sunday later on he’s shining issues and shining his silver dollars, he collects and he says to me, he says, boy, he says the greatest. compliment that a man could ever receive in life is for someone to say to him that his children are well-behaved, well mannered.
And I think anything of it, and he said to me, he said, boy, he said, you gotta be prepared because times like this won’t be this difficult on the negro back then he called the Negro and he says, one day. You go and get married and go on to raise a family. You got to promise that you’re going to raise your family the right way.
Well, Long story short last summer before the pandemic completely and totally unannounced. I’ve got three daughters, all college educated, all advanced degrees, all homeowners, all married, all doing their thing. one of my son in laws. Maritain oldest daughter. It was his birthday, so they all get together and they decide that they going to kick it for one week, listen to this Casanova one week in Barbados.
Let’s go kick it right in July. We all don’t beat down that big shot calls. We going to be on the beach, drinking big drinks, but they weren’t going to take the children. Greg is going to stay with us while they’re on. By the time, my wife, that they would throw her grandchildren under the bus while there.
She got online
best property on the Island. Soon as they get off the plane, they put that strap on the wrist
Casanova Brooks:
facts.
Dennis Kimbro:
So long story short, there we are on the beach and I had, I call them my team, my grandkids, my team, my wife, who is in heaven because she got her entire family got on the three. So lost three door, because very rarely now we have mobile like that. When the girls were all in college, I can put my hand down and says, alright, I need to see you guys.
You don’t roll on meeting in Florida before they got married. I’m taking attendance. I don’t care what you’re doing. But now I can’t do that anymore. When they all showed up, that was one of the five great events of my life that think back as we did it now,
my grandkids. And y’all go do your thing.
Casanova Brooks:
And that’s a memory that everyone body, regardless of the age, we’ll probably always remember. Cause just as you said, and there’s so many, but you can’t get that one time back where everything is just innocent. As you get older, they become so much more intention.
Why I gotta do this? I don’t want to be with them or whatever, but at that moment it was all innocent. You’re celebrating a special day, grandma and grandpa get to come. So that’s what
Dennis Kimbro:
And they had completely and totally forgot about it because they had one of the, I guess it was ever serving on the beach, take a picture.
We all got together. And they were taking pictures here on the blah, blah, blah. And I didn’t think much of it and blah, blah, blah, and Casanova with that was in July. that Christmas, we were opened up Christmas gifts and they, I had a big box. I gave you big box. I don’t know what it was. Metal. Maybe it might be gym equipment or big box small.
And then it was about this big and I open it up. And it was that picture framed glossy. And there is back there next to them. One of my, one of my right under one of my degrees, and I just said, Oh my God, the five great events of your life. So getting all my daughters educated, getting my terminal degree it’s to that particular moment with my family.
It’s three. I got two more, man. Five great best. And that’s what you’ve got to do. The longer that you can project yourself into future circumstances, the greater, the chance for success. It’s the short range goals that we dismiss Monday. I’ll start my diet. I’ll stop smoking tomorrow. okay, so today is Thursday.
I’ll tell you what, I’ll start working out Sunday. The short term that we dismissed, but it’s the long range goal before if you look in my study, I’ve got Napoleon Hill and bla bla. But I’m enamored with those individuals who motivated Napoleon Hill mentor mentors at the time, but somebody who he emulated at the time.
And I don’t know how many books that you have of this gentlemen, Orison Swett Moore.
Casanova Brooks:
I thought you were going to say Dale Carnegie. I didn’t all
Dennis Kimbro:
know. Wait, basketball, Orison. Swett Marden talking about late 18 hundreds, early 19 hundreds. He wrote 110 books and pamphlets Orison. Swett Marden of the 110. I got 65 of his books.
Casanova Brooks:
How’d you do that?
Dennis Kimbro:
Oh, his books were all outdated and everything. And I would go to old bookstores and blog and people knew that I was collecting his book and they would say, Hey, I just came upon a book. You want to buy button? I would go ahead. And the folks would give it to me. And, and, and, W Clement Stone was a big collector of Orison Swett Marden.
But so if he had duplicates you don’t, he gave me one and this, that, and everything, but. One of the crowning effects. again, success magazine knew that I was enamored with, Orison Swett Marden. Yeah, two daughters. And he had one of his daughters what’s this last living survivor she lived in long Island in success.
Magazine was really, was a crowning moment for me. Success magazine set up a phone interview that I had with her. And I was asking her, what was she talking about? She was a young girl. She came home. He always had somebody of, somebody at our report. No, where they in his book line study that he was interviewing.
So that was, that was a pretty exciting time. So I’ve had so, so many memorable moments right up there. The last two, and I promise we’re going to shut it down. When I received the H Naylor fits you award by the national black MBA, which is emblematic of one of the top business school professors in the country.
And then number two, true with Kathy before he died once a year, he had his prayer breakfast, his national prayer breakfast. it wasn’t a conference. It was just as national prayer, breakfast, workshop, whatever, when he invited. People from all walks of life to share their faith, that they wouldn’t naturally be sharing.
And I was the keynote speaker for this particular year. And I walked in there and I couldn’t believe how many corporate CEOs who, like me said initially about more hour, hour and a half ago who went in to share their faith. But in this particular setting shared their faith with their spiritual, like I said, There are 21 human values achievement all the way down the list.
And sooner or later, you got to identify the two values that you look for in others. And the two values that you absolutely positively failed to compromise. That is the only way Casanova you will ever attain level five leadership. And what is level five leadership people follow you? Not because you want them to follow you.
They followed you because they want to follow you. And the only way they follow you, what do you stand for?
Casanova Brooks:
Wow. This has been such a phenomenal, phenomenal. Conversation. I think that this is a hands down, been one of my favorite conversations because
Dennis Kimbro:
we’ve got your MBA.
Casanova Brooks:
Now I did stop in there. Now I’m going to become that guy the next time I’m in Atlanta, I’m running.
I’m not.
Dennis Kimbro:
And so he comes in
Casanova Brooks:
size. My book brother, you go to the class right now. I already know this has been great. The one last thing that I would be remissed. If I didn’t get this out, I think it would always leave a boy. There’s somebody out there right now. That’s very inspired by you. They want to blaze a path just like you’ve done.
And they want to make sure that their time on this planet is meaningful, but they have that little voice in their head. And that little voice says that they’re not strong enough. They’re not smart enough. Or maybe they just don’t have enough resources. What’s the one thing that you would say to that person to get them to just take action.
Dennis Kimbro:
Oh man. number one, it’s that little voice that’s telling you that tell that little voice to go to hell. All right to take action. The words of Booker T Washington say start where you are with what you have, knowing that what you have is plenty enough. I don’t care where it is. Start, where you want with what you have, how old was John knew the slave owner when he gets halfway across the Atlantic, finds himself in a, in a turbulent storm.
Falls on his knees. He gets us, the epiphany goes to the captain of the ship, says, captain, take this ship back to its original port and release this cargo. How old was when you did that was 24 years old. How old was Booker T Washington when he graduated and he gets the dream goal and gets the dream from Tuskegee and go door to door in the South in the early 19 hundreds and raises $6 million to do.
He was 24 years old. And I got to share this with you. I just, I had a presentation at the chipper school of business at Carnegie Mellon in Pittsburgh. And as soon as you walk into, into the business program, into the Tepper school of business, which is called palatial glass clear, super clean, first thing is a picture of Andrew Carnegie standing right next to Booker T Washington.
When he gave him a check. For more than $300,000 at the turn of the century, a $300,000 was at the turn of the century to go ahead and launch Tuskegee. if you’re weak, I can show you how to be strong. Casanova, if you’re slow, I can show you how to become fast. But I don’t have an anecdote for low self esteem.
That is something that you have got to do on your own and the quickest way for you to raise your self image, just to praise your God. Because when you’re praising you, God, you basically praising yourself.
Casanova Brooks:
Hmm. I love it. That’s all we got. This has been again so fulfilling to me. I feel like definitely, no matter what if I stopped my podcast tomorrow, I know that this episode right here will have a standing impact on many people’s lives.
So if there’s that one episode that I got to tell you, if you are looking for wisdom and you’re looking to boost your self esteem. And you’re really looking for tactical advice. I think that this has been all of that for anybody who wants to stay connected with you, I’m going to make sure that we have all of your lines.
Dennis Kimbro:
Oh yeah, you’re good. I’m on LinkedIn. I’m on Facebook. I’m on Twitter. I’m on www Dez kimbro.com. Okay. Cool.
Casanova Brooks:
we’ll definitely make sure we put that in there. Remember dream nation in the dream we test, but just as he said, we must take action. Just starting with where you are right now and understanding that it’s plenty enough, whatever you have, because if you do not take action, it will only merely be a fantasy.
We’ll catch you on the next one.