With the cia and ops outside the u. S. At 7 45, comedian turned mayor of reykjavik, iceland, john gnarr, discusses efforts to stop the u. S. And nato for using reykjavik for military purposes. Then Daniel Halper discusses clinton, inc. And at 10 p. M. , beth macy reports on the Bassett Furniture companys decision to not move production offshore. And well wrap up at 11 30 ian with paul kengor and his recent book, 11 principles of a reagan conservative. Next on booktv, from the 2014 harlem book fair, Tracey Syphax discusses her memoir, from the block today boardroom. Its an hour. [inaudible conversations] good afternoon, everyone, and welcome once more to another panel by the harlem book fair. T i want to thank Max Rodriguez once again for putting on this event year after year. The Television Audience cannot see outside of this auditorium, but if they could, they would see the street is filled with people, books, theres enthusiasm, its just a wonderful day, and thank god thf sun is out. Thank god the sun is out. I am5cn elizabeth nunez, but bee i introduce myself, id like to introduce my copanelist, Tracey Syphax. Just want to do a quick introduction. My name is Tracey Syphax. Im a 20year entrepreneur. I wrote a book titled from the block to the boardroom that basically has chronicled my life story, and im just here to share with you all this morning. I am also just a recent, just as recent as two weeks ago, one of the white house champions of change for this year by president obama wow. [applause] and i spend a lot of my time, thank you, i spend a lot of my time speaking on mass incarceration and using proper reentry tools, and ill tell you a little bit about why i do that later on. While we may seem strange partners on this stage here [laughter] the thing that binds us is that we have both written memoirs. And for me, its my first memoir. Ive written eight novels. Some of you may know some of my titles, in between boundary boundaryies, etc. I really am an academic. I have been teaching in the City University for many, many years and am currently at hunter college. And this is my first memoir, not for everyday use. So the first question i want to ask tracey is a question that a lot of people ask me, actually, is how do you get the courage to put in print some really true and hard things about yourself . Because when youre writing, when im writing a novel, i can hide behind the fiction. When youre writing a memoir, youve got to put it all out there. Yes. And be thats a good question, elizabeth. A question that i get quite often. In my book i take people to my lowest point in life, and as a 20yearold 20year Business Owner, a lot of people have asked thatni question, why would you do that . And you own a business, i own a construction and real estate could i just ask you, what, why did you do that . Yes. Theres a reason why. Its because as i said even though im a 20year Business Owner and, as i said, i was honored by4 the white house a couple years ago, i also made history aspirinston chambers entrepreneur of the year. Princeton is princeton, trenton is trenton. First africanamerican in the 51year history to ever win that award. So the reason, and to answer your question, the reason why i wrote the book is because i wanted to encourage anybody else thats trapped out in that lifestyle to let them know they can not only come out of that, but they can prosper. I wanted to take people to my lowest point in life and then to bring them to where i am at today as a respectable Business Owner in the community, a community activist, to show them that theres a way up and a way out. Could you talk a little bit about that lowest point in your life . How old were you, and what were the pressures on you to go into that life . Yeah. You know, and i say this all the time, a lot of our kids, we grow up, we dont have an opportunity to choose our parents. We dont have an opportunity to choose the environment we grow up in. It is what it is. I grew up in a single parent household, mother on drugs. I was first introduced to drugs by my mother and her thenboyfriend. Wow. A lot of my family members would go to jail one year, come home. So i grew up thinking that going to jail and coming home was normal. Thats what we did. Only to find out later on in life that thats not what we do. So being able to take people to those lowest points, i started using drugs at the age of 13 wow. Very young. Started selling drugs at the age of 14. And i just grew up in that lifestyle until i was 31 years old. And i finally said enough is enough, and i made a vow in 1993 when i came home from prison, i made a vow to myself and my god that i was going to change my life around, and i was not going back to prison, and i was not going back to that lifestyle. My last conviction was from 1988, and ive been free ever since. Wow, wonderful. Like going on vacation, i guess. What made you after all those years say enough is enough . Well, that was easy for me. In 1988 when i got sentenced the last time, i went back in front of the same judge that i got sentenced in 1980 under. And he told me pointblank, he said, listen, ive seen you twice since ive been on the bench, 1980, and here it is 1988, and youre doing the same thing. He basically told me, threeng times a charm fore, you. Next time youre eligible for an 18year sentence, and i can double that up and headache it 36 years. Make it 36 years. So right there a lightbulbake moment [laughter] aha, i realized i could not comf back before him and expect to get out of prison. I sometimes, you know, i really should be talking about my memoir, too, but [laughter] im just fascinated by your story. Because, you know, i think people have children, and they dont realize my sister used to say to me, she said, you knoi what . When you go into labor, have aai good time. [laughter] because that is the least amoung of pain youre going to have. Its a lifetime thing, and people have children, and they dont realize what this precioug thing responsibility, yeah. Is in their hands. Ont re the pressure is in their hands, they could shape it one way or another. You are seeing the other way. I tried to do Something Different with my kids. As a father, me and my wife celebrate 30 years of marriage this august. We have been together for 30 years so we met in the eighth grade. I am telling you my story, everything i have gone through, my family has gone through, a whole chapter in my book where she talks about the experience see had to go through being with the person that has a drug problem, been in jail, trying to get something together says she has a whole chapter in my book, the name of the chapters from that perspective and talk about that. Why didnt she it did affect her quite often. We used to call it our seasonal breaking up where she said enough is enough. Why didnt she go into that life too . She has never been involved with drugs. I did a lot of things from her. Is ironic now that here we are celebrating our 30th anniversary, my wife is a corrections officer. My daughter is a corrections officer, my son is in prison. Talking about how we as parents have a responsibility to our children. My son and my daughter grew up in the same household, my son is in prison and as a man is my responsibility to raise my son right. My wife does all she can, but i say this all the time, a woman cannot raise a man, cannot raise a boy. Take a father to do that. My daughter, corrections officer at the age of 23, she is a 7 year correction officer and as a whole career in front of her and my son, starting to realize the rap he took was the wrong one and he is getting himself together and i had high hopes that he was going to do the right thing. Two she huge questions and you have questions too but one of them, i forgot the name of the woman but she had done the deal and said most of the women were in jail are there because they because of their connection to a boyfriend who pulled them into their life so my question is your wife was important. She pulled away. What was it that had her pulling away and not pulling into the life . You said you got pulled into the life because of your mother and her boyfriend and the Community Around you but there she was. What made her so strong . My wife believed in her children more. Loved me that loved her children, more than she loved me and she told me that. When we broke up the last time she set i have to leave. You are not doing right. I have a son and daughter and my responsibility is to raise my son and my daughter in an environment away from what you are doing and i understood that. Living the life i was living i understood that some my wife is i have been with her 38 years. She is a very grounded woman and very strong woman and i thank god being able to have someone like that in my life, to have that to fall back on because the same relationship i had with my wife for 30 years is the same relationship i had with her mother who is another strong africanamerican woman who is like my mother so these two strong africanamerican women that have been part of my life for 30 years basically set the standard how to conduct my life and brought me from a dark time in my life to who i am today. Why is it your son is in the households with a mother who is a strong woman stands up against this. Why is it the daughter goes one way, what happens to the sun . Before i get there i want to say there was something you said it struck me which was that your wife loved her children more than she loved you. That is pre courageous for a man to say, for a husband to say. That was the passage in beloved that got me, when she says that her husband, you know, he fell apart when he saw what was happening to her and she said i went on and the reason i went on is i had two children and the baby needing my milk and i couldnt just in other words, she was raising my children over my husband and i say that because would you believe i am going to mention my memoir . That is one of the hardest things for me in my memoirs. My mother loved her husband more than she loved her children. I felt always that my mother, my mothers choice she had to make one was always with her husband and i recall a scene in my memoir that my mother had six children ranging from ages 9 to 2 and my father got a scholarship in london and i remember i was 5 years old and i remember seeing my mother crying crying crying every single day. She was useless, she couldnt take care of us, she couldnt do anything. U. S. Couldnt hold it together waiting for letters from my father eventually my mother took that ship from trinidad to england. I am talking long ago. And stayed with him for quite a few months. It just was something that stayed with me for the rest of my life. My friends who didnt have that situation and even in my family, there were 11 of us but i could tell you something at as i got older, all my siblings left the home and my parents died in their 90s, they had a very long life and healthy long life. They were not sickly or anything like that. I began to appreciate that they loved each other more my father loved us too. If they had to make the choice it would have been each other. I resented it growing up which i talk about in my novel but in the end i got to feel they didnt need us. They have a good time. So let me get back to your son, what happened . My son made bad choices. I am talking about the influence, what influences someone to go one way or the other and we are saying parents have a great thought because you were saying that is what happened with you that your mother had a great part in your going that direction. As i said, my wife was very grounded in her beliefs and strong in her convictions and that is why i said it is hard for a woman to raise a boy into a man. It takes a real man to do that and for the better part of growing up i wasnt there. I was in prison. My wife raise my daughter and my son and my absence and my daughter like i said is has a career in corrections and my son is in corrections. I take ownership of that. That is my fault. I also know that my son the last time it was just bad choice. My son my son just went to jail five years ago so he went to jail when i was at the height he was working for my company. Things he did he didnt have to do. He made the choice, people telling him being influenced by that crowd and ending up getting shot and spending time in prison. I want to ask about those choices when it comes to blackmail and it just seems to me, what is it that makes them make those wrong choices . Is it a kind of hopelessness, a kind of like i dont see a future, seeing the future with you. That is a question. One of the things i talk about in the book i grew up in the 70s and 80s in trenton, new jersey. Dont know if anyone hears familiar with trenton, new jersey. There was a street in trenton, new jersey two miles long which in the 70s and 80s was 1112 african americanowned businesses and i grew up in that area so i grew up at a time where i got to see on a daily basis what an africanamerican entrepreneur looked like. I looked i worked for two of them for a couple of years so i grew up knowing what that looked like. A lot of our kids to they grow up and dont see that. They dont see themselves as entrepreneurs and i have been involved with a program for 17 years, Johns Hopkins university, the Business Program and what we do in that program is going to Public Schools and teach six fort seven how to run a business. Africanamerican and Business Owners were part of the program so once again our kids are not getting the opportunity to see themselves. I have been involved for 17 years. I have to be the example of what they can be and i wanted to say this real quick. In trenton, new jersey, i am the only second private citizen in the history of that town to have built a private residence in that town. And i did that for a reason. Number one, once again, kids growing up need to see that image. My office is located on Martin Luther king boulevard like any other Martin Luther king boulevard across the country. One of the most challenging areas in trenton. A nice office, we renovate it. Once again, it is because i can have an office anywhere. Once again, our kids in our Community Need to seek fissions. Not just drug dealers, not fancy cars, clothes, they need to see visions of central entrepreneurs look like them so they know they can aspire to exactly what i believed for many years because i have been a professor in the university and i believe when i stepped in front of that classroom i dont only teach a subject but when the students see me it i give them an idea of what they can be because at this point i had written nine novels and i can tell you that i spoke my first novel at 42, why did i wait so long to write my first novel at 42 . That was because i never saw anyone like me writing a novel. I never saw a black woman and i have to say john oliver kilns, the great africanamerican novelist, a hero, came to my college as a writer in residence and eyes that look at these papers and he said you are a writer, elizabeth. Without that role model, without one who looked like me saying it was possible, i wouldnt have had this career. People talk about diversity as if making different colors in a room but it is not about that. It is about giving young people, older people, if you dont see some things that is possible it is hard to do it so right now i actually i give workshops in my room to residents there. I do it free of charge. It takes a lot of work. I am paying back early. It leads me to the other question about leadership, black leadership. Could you talk a little bit about that and before you do that tell us about the business you run . I believe black leadership myself, i speak for myself, i have an obligation. I have an obligation as a present that grew up in a city neighborhood that has been able to accomplish something in life and be successful. I have an obligation, my obligation to reach back and do more. I wrote this book not and trust me 16, not like getting rich selling these books. I wrote these books to be able to be that with the lot of young folks need. On the daily basis are losing hope. How are they going to get the book . I am speaking as an academic. One of the big problems is they are not reading. I understood that when i wrote the book. I did it if you get a chance bill on youtube and go to the board rob the boardroom and the video will show up. Of very positive message describes this book and the reason i did that is because once again just like you are saying a lot of our kids are visual and audio. I need them to see themselves in this book so i did the video young man out of trenton, new jersey, up and coming rap star and i knew this guy had talent because i gave him my book and said i need a theme song for this book. He did that theme song in one take. If you listen to it it has 10,000 hits on youtube. It is phenomenal that this young mind could create with rap music that song in one take and i didnt have to say take this out and put this in and the video itself when you go to youtube he directed the video, we shot the video in 12 hours in one day, we start in the morning and end at 9 00 or 10 00 that night. The talent that our kids have is there, just needs to be cultivated and brought out. I am going to tell you and you may tell me i am totally wrong, you are unique in this sense, it seems to be that most people when they get theirs, take pairs out of dodge. That is why i am asking about leadership. I just feel i dont understand when someone helps you get somewhere that you finally get there and you dont feel you have a real responsibility to get directly to that person, the community as you are doing. That is not what we see all the time and that is part of the problem we have. I agree and you can talk about that to athletes and entertainers. Millions. I tell you that i am really offended. I turn off the tv when they show programs of People Living in houses where they cannot possibly for a whole month, what do you tell me . The values you are asking me to have. I just feel come john, what are you giving back . It is important. I am very grounded in my faith and my religion and what i believe in and i got that way. It didnt just happen through my addiction to drugs and i say this in the book. I got shot in 1988 and i have but 102yearold grandmother and chief is sharp now. She told me 20 some years ago, i cant tell you to get out of the streets but i will tell you something. God is going to find you in your darkest hour. Only then will you realize what you truly are glitch that happens to me in 1991. I was in raleigh state prison, spent 20 hours in latka for something i didnt do. For years separate. Explain that to us. 23 our law. You dont the come of the cell for 23 hours. In half an hour, like in a yard like this where the walls are so high all you see is the sky. I did that over some things that i didnt do. I had a cousin who was locked up, the correction officer, tried to break it up and he went to the hold and got charged with assault. I got charged with assault. He got shipped to state prison. I got shipp to raleigh state prison. They gave him a street charge. They gave me a street charge. They dropped might street charge, the administrative charge is the prison system charge so i spent a year in a cell that is no bigger than the average sized bath room. That is good. God has a way of doing some Amazing Things to wake you up and smacked you around and he did it then because i remember sitting in that cell, i read the bible from start to finish and found out who i really was and i knew then that i wasnt the guy that landed me there. When i came out of raleigh in 19 around the end of 1990 i was shipped to camden, new jersey, to riverfront state prison and i was a changed man. I was a changed man. I was not the same person that went in. Stuff like that, i really believe, i get this question of a time. If you go back over your life would you change anything you went through . I got a bullet lodged in my spine. I tell people all the time i would not change one thing i have been through because what i have been through is because god wanted me to go through that. He wanted to put me where i am today and do the things i do today and to be an example of what you can do. You made the choice. God put you in the situation but you made the choice. It was a hard choice. You couldve gone either way but you made the choice and that is admirable. Tell us about low award you got from president obama. Lets june 30th, now i can remember this date for the rest of my life. In 2011 when i became a entrepreneur of the year as prison chamber of commerce as the first africanamerican in the 51 year history and the first acts offended but they didnt know it. I thought that was the top. Once i am gone, i was going to be there but a month and a half ago i got an email from the white house. As i said, i developed programs which i talk a little bit about, i also speak in prison and drug rehab stories and Halfway Houses around the country on ending as incarceration for nonviolent offenders and on capitol reentry to entrepreneurship for folks coming home from prison because ive learned this from 1985, october of 1985, i attended the million man march and if you dont have a charge you dont have a job your charge was to go back to your community and create one and i started my business three months after that. Fast forward to june 30th when i got the email from the white house, actually missed it became on tuesday on election day in trenton and i was working on getting a friend of mine of elected mayor and ironic when i was trying to get elected mayor the former police chief, best friends of the day, i talk about him in my book also but he didnt win, and checked on thursday and the white house had hidden email, and was nominated as a champion of change 2014 and i had to respond and i didnt so i responded that thursday and i was done. So she said listen, give as information by the end of the day and you are still in there. This was unprecedented. Thousand nominees from across the country. I was one of 16. [applause] went to the white house and was on some panels with attorney general eric holder and i believe we are in a good position, attorneygeneral older doing things are revamping the Justice System and criminal laws and all these laws that are continuously incarcerating africanamericans at alarming rates, incarcerating more people in america than any country and it is as immoral that as free as we say we are, it is mainly africanamericans and as free as we say we are we have laws right now, as was written so eloquently in the new jimcrow, we have laws, dont care if youre a convicted for one year in jail or ten years in jail you are convicted to a lifetime when you get home because you will never be eligible for housing, for a job, youre voting rights. All those things you need to reintegrate yourself back into society or strip for the rest of your life. I put my old state number 226926 as a reminder in my book. If i was ever to go back into the job market next week guess what . I will still have to check on the application i have been convicted of a crime. We worked in the state of new jersey and this is why i wanted a chance just recently i announced because it happened two weeks ago, the state legislature of trenton pass a law i worked on tirelessly for three is with the new Jersey Institute social justice called ben the box, which stops employers from discriminating against people with criminal records. It is not the you are going to be asked about that criminal record, just that we want you to release the second or third interview. We thought you could at least a we offered him a job, now we need to hear back before we give you this job and that is giving them the opportunity to get their foot in the door because if you check the box on the application your application only goes in this pile over here and that piles is to not hire a you could be listing your best employes, over 20 years in business during the height of mike company, 18 employees might best jobs are ex offenders because of a comment, 18 employees, some of the best employees i ever had. Looking for an opportunity. I got guys to come to my office on a daily basis a guy cant go back to jail. I just need and opportunity. I will sweep up, i will do anything. I cannot go back to jail. I have a son. When somebody tells you that and you have been through that and you know where theyre coming from is not something you can walk away from. Not something you can just ignore. Winning the award of being a champion of change in the area of reentry into mass incarceration is not something i take lightly, something im going to work on until the day i die because it is such a very important issue. My father used to say there for the grace of god go i. Limited too hard on ourselves, there for the grace of god go i. If you were in gods situation what would you do . I am sure you have a number of questions to ask so we are going to maybe exchange one more question here and if you would line up the microphone so we could go right into your questions while we are doing that. How is your son now . My son is in north new jersey at Anne Hathaway house so he is on his way home. This is my sons second bid. In the first one we sent to north carolina. We fly and my wife takes another airplane and listen. You were young. He came back to new jersey, got locked up again. As a parent you say that but do you really mean it. I am doing it again but like the judge told me, third time is the charm, i am telling him i am not doing it any more. For me as the person being locked up to go into the prison system i dont mind going back. I do at all the time. I will be speaking to the inmates at trinity state prison on september 12th which is my birthday i told him was my birthday. I will be spending my birthday in state prison talking to the inmates for the naacp to have a branch inside the prison because i believe it is such an important issue. This is it, i am not doing it anymore. I think he understands you will be there every single time. I used to say just dont let your children here several hits against the grounds. And under them, this is the last time it takes that sliding for you if you do it again. Tell us your name and your question. Lets go to questions rather than comments because we have a wonderful opportunity. My name is Chris Johnson from albany, new york. The question for Tracey Syphax is what role did the memoir play in your healing process from when you finally came out of hell to where you are today . I talk about it in the book. I was abused as a young kid, 8 years old. My mom moved to texas and when we got to texas she got locked up and i was in a foster home and abused by a young lady that was there. Something i never talked about. I talked about it with my wife. My mom didnt even know. When i wrote the book i talk about it and a lot of my family members found out about its only then. So writing this book, i had a ghost writer that wrote the book so you are talking a lot of full conversations, taperecorded conversations to atlanta. It was almost like on long caps being able to remove my whole life. I start to where i am today. I have a great opportunity to cleanse myself of a lot of things i held in. A lot of things other people did know about and did very well. It was good for me, good therapy for me to do the book. Cspan i will take your question too because the memoir has a kind of cathartic release and you find yourself facing some things you would not ordinarily face and one of them i have to tell you, when i was having my son in hospital in brooklyn which i will not name, the night before i was to take him home the night before, i am getting myself ready because in the morning i am taking my son home. In comes this doctor. He was a young doctor. Along with social Service Person with a clipboard in his hand saying they reported me and i said reported me for what . You know what. Giving your son macedonia to calm him down. I was a professor. I had a ph. D. I had written of book. But i was okay. I dont know what they are talking about. I cant connect. I didnt know what that was. He told me i was the heroin addict. And i said how . Immediately in front of everybody, i didnt care. I said find it. Find where i injected myself. It is in my memoir. It is a hard story for my son to read because it happened on a friday and they have already reported me and therefore the bureau was locked up. I couldnt get my son out until monday and of course at this point the hospital is afraid i am going to sue them so when i come on monday to get my son they have all kinds of excuses. Cheese spitting up, he is this, he is that, you cant take him, i can close my eyes and see myself ripping through that hospital and taking my son and i said i dont care what form you want me to sign he is going out here with me. It is a hard thing and people dont realize, they talk about racism but dont realize the extent to which it affects us. Almost in tears, you kind of hide that from your son because it is like once people believe it is absolutely not true but people believe it. I dont even know what it is about. You hide it and i wrote it in the memoir and is a hard thing for my son to read because the next thing in my head when he gets to go to college and looking for a job they have a hard thing, is an unbelievable thing that happened and that was 1976 missing a long time ago for some of you but that was yesterday for me. Lets take another question. Good afternoon. I am from new jersey, the brunswick area. I have a question regarding your daughter. You mentioned your daughter is doing well in her career and had a Strong Foundation with her mom. Strong africanamerican woman. How is your daughter able to establish a healthy relationship with african black men since there was such a conflict in her life with her father not there and her brother being incarcerated. That is a good question. My daughter has done very well in her relationship with other men. As far as i know my daughter is 30 years old now. I can only remember three boyfriends in her life. Her daughters father who she is not with now and the person she is with now who they are looking to get married in 2015 so i think she has done very well and i think once again i attribute that to her mother. To you too. She talks a little bit in the book also. My daughter will tell you that i am not the father that i used to be and she remembers but also remembers even in my addiction i had my daughter. You know what i mean . I played with my daughter, have a lot of pictures in my addiction, meet with my daughter, laying in the bed with her, so we had that father daughter relationship. She remembered that but she has done very well now. As i said i am an epidemic condition and academic and one thing i always told my female students, sex with a boyfriend, two children, you can be met with your boyfriend all you want but that is the childrens father so no matter what happens you keep this relationship, let them have a father. Was a lesson i applied to myself too. My son has a great relationship with his father. He hasnt got a clue. He hasnt got a clue with what happened in my life. I think when i told him i was getting divorced, everything seems fine, what is going on. It is two different things. I learned it from my parents the same way. Your child is entitled to a father or mother. No matter what your little problem is or your big problem is. Before we get to the question, with my father also, i didnt have a relationship with my father, i lived in trenton, new jersey, which is a 50 minute ride. I took a buzz from trenton to asbury, got beach and went back to trenton. Even today, a relationship i had with my dad is beautiful. My dad supports me in everything i do. I have a great relationship, my dad had challenges growing debt but he got clean the law earlier in the newseums to work for the federal government. He did well for himself but he had some challenges growing up also that he had to overcome. That was my relationship. We have the beating aside, totally against that. 1,000 this is in the early 70s. Selling that out, just the fact that she is not doing that, and that was love. I am from and eddie and eddie amityville and i have a question about my relationship with my sister. She is an entrepreneur, and she entwines all these things and gets caught up with unsavory elements in our environment so she has been incarcerated most of my adult life back and forth. Since i was 15 years old. In the frost this of differing times she has impersonated me. I am counselor and the work and different boards and that live in the town of babylon to assist in opening a silver home and i have been awarded certain things. As a veterans they allow me to start my own business and i think that mean i have one major challenge and that is how do i at this age find healing and forgiveness for my sister and be able to help her because literally she is asking for my help. Let me have tracy answer the question. I have to be fair, i have to give her a chance but where and how do i start . It has to be a way that i havent been manipulated in the past. That is of very important question. I have a lot of family members in prison. Just recently, my cousin that i got in trouble with that i was locked up with, that same cousin is locked away for murder, and i still write him, send him money, support him even though he is still in prison now and may be in prison for a long time. I think it is a way you can support from a far. It is hard these are my brothers and sisters, these are my cousins, my cousins are like my brothers. We are always that close. I try to support him and support them. Another cousin, his brother actually who came home from doing 17 years, has a job and lost the job so i am trying to help him get another job to keep him from going to survive, family is family. You dont let them bring you down and stop you from doing what you need to do. Family can do that also. You have to support your sister, that is never going to change. You have to support her but you dont want her to hamper you from doing what you wouldnt do for yourself or your family. I appreciate your time. I dont know how much time we have. I need a timekeeper. We have eight or so minutes. Ten minutes. Lets have your question. Right on time. I always find it a privilege to be in places like this. How is it that you havent found your darkest period . That is what your grandmother said, you will be found in your darkest moment. You were able to recover to a point that you flew to the heights that you did and open a business and have people who come to you to be employed with the same background you have. And your people are pursuing and the people before me. Where did you find that you can pass on to the next person to do the same thing . It is less god for me. They dont like to talk about religion but they help me, that is what helped me. My faith and my belief in god. And that would be the cornerstone. When you start reading the bible and the talks about the first will be less than the last will be first and i look at myself and was rejected. And what you really believe in is nothing that i believe even with all the stuff you have, all the convictions, prior addictions, everything i have my still believe and my faith allows me to believe this. There is nothing that i cant do. People say you should run for mayor or senate. In my mind, and if i wanted to, not something im interested in right now but when people say that to me, it is not farfetched for me because my faith allows me to believe that anything i want to do in this lifetime is impossible for me to do and do is cut and dried with me. I grew up in trinidad in the tropics where we have a lot of bats at night and my father would say to us you are not a bad. When you fall you dont fall on your head and get knocked out because you are not a bad. You dont fall on your head and get knocked out. You fall on your feet and jump up. The piece that a lot of people need to tell lot of young people again, here i am as the teacher, it is about hard work and persistence. They missed the idea of hard work. People say to me he elizabeth, how come every time i look around you have written another book . This morning at 5 30 in the morning i was on my computer. I knew i had to get here. From 5 30 to 9 30, how many hours is that . I got four hours of riding the morning i just started. It is persistence and doing the work. When students come to me and tell me, when i start, if you coming at 10 30 when you better go to somebody elses class. Because i have to model it. I have to be fair on the dust at 10 30. When you and your papers, the next class i have to have your paper corrected. I want you to give me back. So you models that. There are no exceptions and it always interests me that students come to my class the next semester, you know what you are into. Sometimes when you say you wish it, i want it, i wish it, i want it, that is fine but young people have to understand people who reach where you are, wishing it and dreaming and imagining it, it is by working, putting hard work, i say to my son all the time, and that is important. And it started early and end very late. And i believe in hard work. I believe like you said from being on time, doing what you say you are going to do. If you cant be on time, the early. That is something we have to live by. I also believe no excuses. I dont believe in making excuses for anything. I believe in results. My dad always told me for every problem there are Ten Solutions and as you walk away at you get harder and harder but you have to figure it out. I really believe that. People have to understand. What i tell you i stopped at 9 30 my granddaughter who is 7 years old had not finished her chapter in the book yesterday and i told her parents at 930 she comes over to my house at 9 30 and says can i look at tv . I simply 10 minutes. You have to finish the chapter. I am saying to you you put that with generations, you let somebody i let her know if you are going to finish this and you didnt finish it today you finish it tomorrow even if it is you finish it. And i think we need many more years that i want to tell you but i know really my students who have done well who have achieved and some of them i just, you know, i was walking down lewis avenue and this man comes to me and practically bows in the streets and everyone is walking him and he says do you know who i am . He is a doctor ought some prestigious hospital and he says to me i was in your class where i teach thousands of students, cant even remember, when i heard you call yourself a doctor elizabeth nunez, what is that . Talking bout modeling and i am not american but it is that and the sense of knowing is not just a few can dream it you can achieve it. That is not it. You dream it that is the first the. If you work hard you can achieve it. You have a question. My name is david. I wanted a quick question. How can we address the mentality young black males in our communities, get them, find some way to get them out from that mentality and getting themselves in trouble realizing that is not really a thing . I got to get them to read my book. That is the reason i titled it some students i teach in my Business Program didnt know anything about it. I dont want you to experience that. I want you to go straight to the board room. And how to get there and allow our kids in the inner city and the young man who did the introduction to the book said it so eloquently, it is a walking beautifully with god, hard work and opportunity and those three things, i dont believe in good luck, i never wish anybody good luck. I believe we all have the ability to create our own version of lock through hard work and opportunity. I try to spread that message wherever i can. I dont believe if you dream it you can achieve it. When you dream you got to wake up. Do something to make that happen. I am tired of hearing that, you have no idea. This is the first time i met you but i am inspired by you, i am inspired to get more