– [Interviewer] So it’s all about wisdom.
00:02
Wisdom and your own words.
00:06
– You can be the gangster on the street,
00:08
you can be the hoodlum, the I don’t care,
00:11
you can be the Wall Street guy,
00:12
you can be a Harvard, Yale boss, I don’t care.
00:16
As soon as you open your mouth and say,
00:17
“I love you”, I gotcha.
00:19
Those three words,
00:22
will never go outta style.
00:25
What you study, what you learn about yourself,
00:29
and about human nature is that,
00:32
life is basically a game of solitaire.
00:34
And so, you’re only playing yourself.
00:38
Something about being scared to death
00:40
is everything.
00:42
What is the similarity between a hero
00:44
and a coward?
00:45
They’re both scared to death.
00:47
It’s just one step forward,
00:49
and one step back.
00:52
My father said, “It’s the test, man.
00:55
“Are you gonna pass that test?”
00:57
And so to me, you know, be the experimenter
01:00
of the music and to dare the,
01:03
you gotta dare, you gotta dare failure.
01:06
“Three Times a Lady” in the middle of disco?
01:07
It’s pretty crazy.
01:09
(whistles) I didn’t know any better.
01:12
I went to Tuskeegee, and I figured
01:14
that probably I was not gonna be
01:16
this rocket scientist.
01:18
A lot of my life was consumed with clergy.
01:21
And so, I’m thinking,
01:22
“Well, I might be a priest.”
01:24
And I reached out for a couple of my,
01:27
dear friends’ ministers.
01:29
Make a long story short,
01:30
I joined the Commodores.
01:31
And one girl screamed on the front row
01:33
and said, “Sing it baby.”
01:35
Well, I called up the ministers and said,
01:37
“I don’t think I’m gonna be priest material.”
01:38
(interviewer laughs loudly)
◊♦◊
Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
◊♦◊
Talk to you soon.
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