80: How to Overcome a Poverty Mindset and Become the Best You

We grew up in housing projects in Chicago "I remember I wanted to play baseball and my family couldn't afford a car, so nobody drove in the family. My father when he went to work was always on the bus, on the CTA in Chicago…and I remember I wanted to play baseball, but 1) nobody could take me to baseball games and 2) we couldn't afford the uniforms. I remember I wanted to join the Boy Scouts when we were little. But again, nobody had a car and we didn't have the money to even buy the uniforms." The Shattering for me was when I went to college. See, Carey, you've got to understand, I grew up in a predominately black and hispanic neighborhood. If you saw a white person in our neighborhood it was like spotting a white howl or something rare. And, so when I get to college, well now you have everything. You have everything from people from the Middle East, caucasian, Asian, Latin American…and I remember I was having like a cultural vertigo. …I'm almost embarrassed to tell this story, but this story is real. I had a friend named Mike. Mike was white. One day Mike was telling me how poor he was. …And I said, but Mike, you're white, how can you be poor…you're white. Because in my neighborhood, that's what you were taught. White people have it all, us minorities have nothing. That was your belief system at the time. Well, Mike looked at me like I was an idiot. "What do you mean, I should be rich because I'm white? Is that your theory. As stupid as that sounds, that was the moment that the shattering began. 9:20 - It isn't until you are aware of the cage that you can walk out of the cage. …For me, that conversation with Mike made me realize that, man…I've put myself in this mental cage. 11:05 - It's amazing how freeing it is when you stop blaming other people for what you can't have. 20:10 - I can remember when I was at a family gathering and my cousin looks at me. He was a big tough dude and he says: Cousin: "You know what's wrong with you?" VA: "What do you mean what's wrong with me?" Cousin: "Yeah man, you know what's wrong with you?" VA: "Apparently I don't, what's wrong with me?" Cousin: "You sound white." VA: What? Cousin: "You sound white. Man look at the way you talk. You sound white. VA: I said, Thank you man, I appreciate that. I did that to lock him up. See I know what he was saying. He was saying, stop using proper diction, you're starting to sound like them. That was his interpretation. …And by the way, I have a lot of friends who've been educated that have been told the same thing. And that reminded me of the crab analogy. If you put one crab in a bucket it'll crawl out. But if you put a bunch of crabs in a bucket none will crawl out because they'll all pull each other down when somebody tries to get out. I wasn't trying to be like anyone. I just realized that unless you have proper diction and you're well read, it's hard to get ahead. 23:05 - It's too easy to be on the negative side, always blaming someone else. 26:30 - Lead by example - that's the basic. I think it's the thing leaders do quietly and consistently, when nobody's looking, that gets them ahead. Victor Antonio The Motivator Documentary Link: Victor's Book - The Greatest Gift Link: 36:15 - I went from making $300,000 + to making $17k 37:33 - I remember visiting a speaker I was aspiring to be. And I sat next to him at lunch. This is after me wining about how much I was not making and how the market doesn't understand me and people don't appreciate my skill set…blah, blah, blah. And then Randy looks at me and says. Victor, let me ask you a question - What business are you in? I thought that was an odd question - I just told you what business I was in, I said I'm a speaker. Randy says, NO … Ok, I'm a sales speaker??? NO … Ok, I'm a trainer? NO! Sale trainer? NO!! Sales consultant? NO!!! NO, NO, NO, NO, NO. Finally I said ok Randy you tell me what business I'm in. Victor, you're in the marketing business first, everything else second.

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80: How to Overcome a Poverty Mindset and Become the Best You is an episode from Caged Vision by Carey Rome.

This episode is 54:28 long.

This episode was published on Sep 12, 2019.

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