Are We There Yet?

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Don't Be Silent in the Face of InjusticeIn these remaining few more days of Black History Month and beyond, let us not forget the message of unity, love, and justice of Dr. Rev. Martin Luther King. Dr. King was a servant leader, fully aware of the injustices, and yet was able to work towards justice in a spirit of love. He was truly a voice of conscience that rings beyond the grave. By his example I learned that while I must be aware of the goings on in the world, at the same time not let it steal the joy in the moment. Ignorance is not bliss and neither is anger or hate. We must be aware; be sensitive; speak out against injustice; be loving even to our enemies, be encouraging to those who are grieving or being persecuted, and most importantly, we must DO what WE can to change the world.

This week a Facebook post really got to me.  It was of a young African-American being harassed, beaten, restrained, and kicked.  He kept screaming, “Why are yall doing this to me?” He was being treated like an animal. Evidently he’d stepped off a bus and was immediately accosted by two police.  I was so visibly moved that I wrote the following FB post.

This made me cry for two reasons!!!! 1) Because this is still happening. 2) Because it’s a reminder of when one on my son’s on his Spring break from college had something similarly humiliating done to him! Handcuffed, made to get on the ground, cops being verbally abusive, and yes he was scared to death. Yes! And he was innocent, and NO he didn’t have his pants hanging, and NO he didn’t have on a hoodie, and NO, he doesn’t drink or smoke AND IT DIDNT MATTER! It’s hard for wounds to heal when the scab keeps getting ripped off! The only difference is he kept quiet. BUT, some caged birds have to scream though!!! If you scream though, it makes things worse, as you see in the video links below.

Why was this man being harassed for just stepping off of  a bus? Thankfully someone recorded it. Two other police come to the scene and one ends up putting his foot on the guys face while he’s on the ground and is kicking him in the face. And it appears like one is almost sitting on the guy’s head. The poor young man is screaming, “Why are you doing this to me?,” but to no avail. Bystanders are watching and walking by, but feel helpless to help.  This is the police; what can they do? Are we there yet? Watch the Video and You decide!!!!!! The language is foul, but so is the indignity put upon this young man.  Then I learn that this is routine for NYC if you are Black or Latino. They missed one young man who videoed it, but not this one, eight cops just arrest him for videoing the atrocityy.  Are we in a police state? Where are our freedoms?  What about due process, human rights, and human respect?

“An analysis by the NYCLU revealed that innocent New Yorkers have been subjected to police stops and street interrogations more than 4 million times since 2002, and that black and Latino communities continue to be the overwhelming target of these tactics. Nearly nine out of 10 stopped-and-frisked New Yorkers have been completely innocent, according to the NYPD’s own reports.”

“We will have to repent in this generation, not merely for the vitriolic words and actions of the bad people, but for the appalling silence of the good people.”

It looked like something out of Dr. King’s era. I can only wonder if we are breeding an endless cycle of hatred. What came first the chicken or egg? I’m thinking about those kids being harassed day after day and wondering if they are going to grow up loving or hating whites. In some places those chickens will one day come home to roost if they ever get in a position to return the hate that has built up in them from so many years of being powerless. In other cases led by the example of numerous people of every color disgusted by the old guard and preaching and demonstrating love and peace, (like many Bahai’s and others I know), the system will slowly but surely be changed for the better. We are one human race and there is just one planet and one people. I have to keep in mind always that while there are many horrific examples of humans at their worst, but I’m happy to say, I do see so many examples of humans at their best too!  Thank you Dr. King for showing us how to love our enemies, to stand up for justice, and to not remain silent, yet we be guilty too.

Another message that matters from Barbara Talley

Don’t Work for Money!?

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Money or Happiness with Barbara Talley

Money or Happiness. Barbara Talley invites you to ask the question.

SAY WHAT???  What if we instead sought happiness, first?  I know what you are thinking, Maslow’s Hierarchy (which has been challenged)? We can’t even think about happiness until we have enough money to pay for our basic needs: shelter, education, food, insurance, healthcare, clothes, transportation, travel, etc.

I too was once conditioned to believe that the primary reason you go to work is to make money. But Bob Proctor made a statement in one his ‘Science of Getting Rich’ program that caused me to rethink this commonly held paradigm. He asserts that the primary reason to work is to make a meaningful contribution by DOING WHAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. (He also asserts that trading time for money is the worst way to earn wealth too, but that’s another article, and that wealth is not acquired by WHAT you do but instead by HOW you do what you do.)

On the surface it makes sense. Who wants to work for, with, promote, or even be around someone who is chronically unhappy and apathetic? It’s clear that we need money to have a quality life but couldn’t happiness derived from offering a worthy service be the first or at least an equal consideration?  Happiness puts us into a frequency that attracts more of what we are thinking about to us.

I do not believe that I am Pollyanna or naive in my view either. I know we have to have money to survive but should “making money” become the sole or  primary motive for working. Remember we are trading our lives for this money, so it should fulfill us!  I guess we have to think about what’s the MOST important, money, happiness, or both?  So few feel that they even have the choice.  They say, “I have to work, not I choose to work!”  They don’t believe they have a choice, so they never ask the question about what would really make them happy!  If you chose to have both, then you are among the minority.  A recent article in the New York daily News reported that “an alarming 70% of those surveyed in a recent Gallup poll either hate their jobs or are completely disengaged, and not even incentives and extras can extricate them from the working man’s blues.”How can an economy or society progress with this level of unhappy employees at this level of disengagement?  Everyone at some level is seeking happiness and you can’t give what you don’t possess yourself.

Here’s to your happiness.  At the very least, allow yourself to ponder the question, “What work or service would make me really happy?” I’m Barbara Talley, the poet who speaks and inspires.

35 +7 More Tips to Build Wealth from Dennis Kimbro

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moneyHow do we address the wealth gap? A few years ago I wrote an article entitled, 35 Wealth Secrets from Black Millionaires and Billionaires, and that got me to thinking about wealth.  For so many years, I was focused on my craft: speaking, writing books and poetry, or taking care of my six kids.  So I made money, but did not accrue wealth.  Wealth means that you do not have to lower your lifestyle  if you choose to or have to stop working.  Sadly, I had not been taught the art of building wealth, and yes, it is an art. One has to study those who know how to build wealth and to learn to do what the wealthy do.

A leadership principle that I have been teaching called Appreciative Inquiry strikes me as a better way to address this problem of financial inequality.  Traditional problem solving models would have us focus on “what the 14 million are doing wrong“.  But appreciative inquiry would lead us to instead focus on the 35,000 black millionaires in America who figured out how to achieve wealth despite their challenges.  The only benefit from focusing on the poor is to become more knowledgeable about how poverty works.  Instead focus on wealth, become rich yourself, and teach the poor to do the same.  Charity, helps them once, teaching the poor about wealth empowers whole families and generations to come.

I’ve learned that what I think about multiplies in my life, so instead of studying the poor, I’ve chosen to focus on the 35,000 who got it right and to learn to do more of what they did.  Dennis Kimbro has made that easy for me because he interviewed over one thousand millionaires over a seven-year period and reported their success strategies in his book, The Wealth Choice: Success Secrets of Black Millionaires. His seven Laws of Wealth are:

  1. Wealth begins in the mind and ends in the purse.
  2. Decide that you will not be poor.
  3. Believe in yourself when no one else will.
  4. To thine own self be true. Find your unique gifts.
  5. How may I serve thee?
  6. Own your own business.
  7. Make your money grow.
Warren Buffet advises us to have multiple income streams.  Speaking, authorship, and training are my staples.  Additionally Talkfusion is allowing me to benefit from a disruptive technology poised to be the next billion dollar brand. Inbox me for more information or to bring me in to speak to your group, train your employees, or to learn more about Talkfusion. If your life would be different if you had been able to be part of the beginning of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, then email me.  I’ll direct you to an on-line presentation that explains it all.

Barbara Talley
To your wealth
barbara.talley@gmail.com

How Did 35,000 African Americans Become Millionaires?

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madame cj walkerLearning my history has inspired me to dream bigger. Success does run in our race as George Frasier puts it. African-Americans like all other cultural groups also have a history of building wealth by uniting and working together, remember Rosewood, Greenwood, and Durham? Individuals also confirm our ability to achieve wealth, Madame C. J Walker, Oprah Winfrey, Robert Johnson, Tiger Woods, Russell Simmons, Michael Jordan, Magic Johnson, and Will Smith are names you know. But what about Don Peebles, Quinton Primo III, Ulysses Bridgeman, Jr, Kenneth Chenault, Stanley O’Neal, Richard Parsons, and Linda Johnson-Rice.  Many throughout history have brought wealth to others and did not seek the fame and fortune that went along with it. George Washington Carver and Frederick McKinley Jones are a couple of names that come to mind.

I know that it becomes a limiting and self-fulfilling prophecy of poverty when all one sees around them are failures or those barely surviving.  If that’s not the case, we see it in the news and every statistic would lead even the most aspiring young African-American person to think that achieving wealth for them may be a long shot. Yes, it would be easier if there were no financial, cultural, or discriminatory barriers. Yes, it would be easier if there were more willing and accessible role models.  Yes, it would be easier if we had access to more capital.  Yes it would be easier if we had the encouragement we needed to not give up.  And, Yes, it can be disheartening when we realize that 400 billionaires in America have more wealth than the entire 14 million African-American households combined.  But, no one ever said that it would be easy, just that it would be worth it.  And according to Dennis Kimbro who has studied over a thousand  African-American millionaires, none of these obstacles can keep anyone from becoming wealthy if they make the right choices. Click here to review his seven principles.

Warren Buffet advises us to have multiple income streams.  Speaking, authorship, and training are my staples.  Additionally Talkfusion is allowing me to benefit from a disruptive technology poised to be the next billion dollar brand. Inbox me for more information or to bring me in to speak to your group, train your employees, or to learn more about Talkfusion. If your life would be different if you had been able to be part of the beginning of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft, then email me.  I’ll direct you to an on-line presentation that explains it all.

Barbara Talley
To your wealth
barbara.talley@gmail.com

Why African Americans Need to Learn Strategies for Building Wealth?

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This is Black History Month, so I’m focusing this article on African Americans but the knowledge contained herein can benefit anyone.  The wealth gap is widening and African Americans need to learn new strategies for building wealth. “Median black household income was 59% of median white household income in 2011, up modestly from 55% in 1967; as recently as 2007, black income was 63% of white income.” [Source: PEW] It is often said that African Americans are a nation of consumers instead of creators. However, our survival depends on us changing from primarily being consumers to being the suppliers and creators of the products and services we consume.

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African Americans have a projected buying power of $1.1 trillion by 2015. That’s a lot of dough to be distributed. Wealth is not a dirty or evil word reserved for those who are lucky, greedy, or lazy and seeking to take advantage of others!  Wealth is a vital birthright that offers the freedom to make choices that allow us to live joyful and fulfilling lives. Everyone has the right to life in dignity and to pursue their dreams.  

Watching my stepmother get denied medical services at age 85, and watching her toes blacken and almost rot off as she screamed in pain, taught me a very valuable lesson. Poverty is not pretty, spiritual, or dignified. She could not afford the care she desperately needed to live in dignity and I was powerless to help her. It takes money to help those you love, to choose the medical care of your choice, to buy the materials, training, and resources we need to excel in our crafts, to invest in our businesses, to give to charity, to tithe generously, to eat healthily, to travel, to vacation, to be there mentally for our families, or to live in safe and beautiful neighborhoods.

Growing up, I had only been trained how to trade time for dollars, which rarely if ever, builds wealth. At times my father was an entrepreneur, and during those times we worked even harder. I realized that if I kept following that old paradigm I would be destined to end up like those written about in a recent Forbes article, The Greatest Retirement Crisis in American History, which dismally projects that 75%  of those now approaching retirement have less than $30,000 in savings. And, that paltry amount won’t last that long, with the average nursing home stay (God forbid) being around $248.00 a day or $90,000 a year. So for that reason,  as well as, the dollar declining since 1972, and the cost of living projected to double over the next decade, the vast majority of people today are forced to delay their retirement. I did not grow up around wealth nor did my parents talk about wealth or teach me about it. They taught me to work hard, so I know how to do that. They worked hard their entire lives and still only barely eked out a living and died practically penniless.  They could not teach me what they did not know.  They did not know that the only way to build wealth was to have money work for you or people work for you.  That explains why the majority of small black entrepreneurs fail to build wealth either. They are primarily sole proprietors and thus still trading time for money.  To continue to part two, click here.

Warren Buffet advises aspiring wealth builders to have multiple streams of income.  Speaking, authorship, and training is my passion work.  I love doing it! But, I’ve learned that if I stop speaking or training, the income also stops.  I too want the freedom that comes with wealth, to be able to work with populations who can’t afford me, to be able to help my children and grandchildren, and to not have to worry about retirement after raising six children and working over 50 years already. 

Email me for more information about how to bring me in to speak to your group, OR train your employees. Luck has very little to do with wealth, but timing has everything to do with it. What if you had been able to be part of the beginning of Google, Facebook, and Microsoft?  How would your life be different now? You missed them but you haven’t missed them all. Email me to learn more about Talkfusion, a disruptive technology poised to be the next billion dollar brand. I’ll direct you to an on-line presentation that explains it all.

Barbara Talley
To your wealth
barbara.talley@gmail.com