How Can Superstars Be Broke? When I first heard that TLC could sell millions of records and still end up broke, something about the story did not make sense to me. This was not some little group struggling to get somebody to play their music. TLC was everywhere during the 1990s. Tionne “T-Boz” Watkins, Lisa
A Strong People Must Be Strong Everywhere The words attributed to the Honorable Marcus Garvey that a strong man should be strong everywhere carry a message much larger than one individual. When I think about that idea, I hear a challenge concerning the condition of African people wherever we happen to live. Garvey’s Pan-African vision
As the Mother Rises, So Do the Children: Marcus Garvey and the Strength of Africa Read More »
Most of What We Say Is Not Really About Information The older I get, the more I realize that much of what holds relationships together looks almost too small to matter. We spend a good part of the day saying things that carry very little important information. We ask, “How was your day?” even when
The Little Things That Quietly Hold Us Together Read More »
Reading the Room Without Losing Yourself There is a certain kind of wisdom in being able to walk into a room and quickly sense what kind of energy is moving through it. Some places feel open, thoughtful, warm, and easy, while others feel tense, shallow, competitive, or drained. Learning how to read those differences can
Do Not Shrink Yourself to Fit the Room Read More »
The Principle That Made Me Stop and Think The deeper I looked into Hermetic philosophy, the more one principle kept pulling me back, and that was the principle of mentalism. There are traditionally seven principles presented in The Kybalion, but mentalism is placed first because the others can be understood through the way we perceive
The Mind Behind the Life: Understanding the Hermetic Principle of Mentalism Read More »
When I Started Digging Deeper The more I started digging into the private life of Grover Cleveland, the more I realized the history I had learned barely scratched the surface. I knew him as the twenty-second and twenty-fourth president of the United States, the only president to serve two nonconsecutive terms until Donald Trump repeated
Grover the Good: The Women Behind a President’s Carefully Polished Reputation Read More »
Why Words Matter More Than We Think Some people know how to speak in a way that leaves others feeling respected, even when the answer is no. That skill is not about being slick, fake, or overly polished. It is about understanding that words can protect both the relationship and the boundary at the same
Knowing What to Say: The Quiet Power of Emotional Intelligence Read More »
When a Season Starts Feeling Like an Identity There are seasons in life that become so important to us that we slowly begin to confuse the season with who we are. A marriage can become more than a relationship and start feeling like the whole definition of a life. Motherhood can become so consuming that
You Were Never Meant to Live Forever in One Chapter Read More »
The Chains Changed Their Sound The chains do not always clank anymore, and that may be one of the hardest lessons to recognize in modern America. Sometimes control arrives dressed in contracts, endorsements, public relations, sponsorship agreements, and carefully managed careers. A successful Black athlete can earn more money than generations before him ever imagined,
The Chains Do Not Always Clank: Power, Protest, and the Price of Standing Alone Read More »
The Distance Between Us Life has a way of carrying people we love in different directions, sometimes before we are ready for the separation. Family members move away, friends begin new chapters, and people who once lived around the corner can suddenly be hundreds or thousands of miles from us. As I have grown older,
When Love Travels Across the Distance Read More »