TYRA BANKS - SELF-EMPOWERMENT

Hi. It’s me again. Welcome back to In A Word. A while ago I had the chance to talk with Tyra Banks. As you all know, Tyra’s an entertainment icon. From Paris to New York, from Dolce & Gabbana to Yves Saint-Laurent, she’s walked the runways and posed for all the industry greats. Through the years, she’s pro-actively cultivated a very commercial, mainstream appeal, garnering contracts with giants like Covergirl, Pepsi and Tommy Hilfiger to name a few. GQ and the coveted Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue both famously featured Tyra as the first black woman to grace their covers. Next, she landed the Victoria Secret contract that made her a household name. And, most recently, she’s become executive producer, host and head judge of the hit TV show America’s Next Top Model and host of The Tyra Banks Show. As busy as she is, she took the time to share her word with me. Here’s an excerpt from our talk…

KUWANA: Obviously, it takes much more than just a beautiful face to achieve the level of across-the-board success that you have. So tell me, if you had one word to describe yourself, your life, and your legacy what would it be?

TYRA: My word would be self-empowerment.

KUWANA: That’s a great word. Tell me about what it takes to be a self-empowered woman in your industry, someone who’s been able to successfully transform herself into a business savvy media mogul.

TYRA: As a model, it’s important to transform yourself. That’s the difference between a good model and a great model. A good model is going to look pretty in clothes. A great model is going to transform herself into the character that she’s portraying. Great models are silent actresses. I’ve been modeling since I was fifteen years old. When I first started, I was a high fashion, very intimidating type of model. But I started to realize that that kind of girl was temporary. They are the girl of the moment. Its fun while it lasts, but then the industry moves on to the next.

I didn’t want to be that girl, someone not in control of her life or her career, at the mercy of the whims of the industry. I looked at Cindy Crawford and I said, “Wow, she’s not a model of the moment. She’s been around for more than ten years and she’s still successful. She has Cindy, Inc., her own company where she calls the shots.” I’d never really seen a black model do that before and I said, “I want to do that.”

Also around that time, I started to gain weight. Designers called me fat and said that my breasts were too big. That’s when I began to change and transition out of high fashion. I came back to America and told my agent to call Victoria’s Secret and Sports Illustrated. I did Covergirl and more things that I thought were more related to the masses. That was the beginning of getting away from high fashion. Because that high fashion stuff is so not me. All those expensive designer clothes and stuff—that’s not really how I live my life. I’m a girl who loves Target and who loves to go buy toiletries with my Mama and stay in Target for three hours. I love to go to the movies and do all the normal stuff so I wanted my career to reflect who I was.

KUWANA: How were you able to make those kinds of decisions and call your own shots in an industry where the women are generally perceived to be beautiful accessories to someone else’s vision?

TYRA: I always looked at my modeling career as a business. My mother really pushed me to be a business woman in that sense. When I lived in Paris, the other models would go to work, come home, get dressed and go to the party. I would go to work, come home and study my French books. Or I would come home and buy every magazine on the news stands and study all the local French photographers. I learned that kind of work ethic from my mother.

My mom is a really big influence for me. She was a single mom raising my brother and I. She always kept her eye on the prize. When my parents divorced, we moved into a one bedroom apartment. But my mom was always trying to take extra jobs and save her money so we could get another bedroom. My mom would save up and she’d go, “Ok, now we’re moving to two bedrooms!” A couple of years later we got three bedrooms. That was her mission—to always improve our lives. That whole bedroom thing for me has continued. And it’s not just a monetary thing. It’s constantly improving, being self empowered and not depending on anyone but myself in order to succeed.

KUWANA: That kind of strength and commitment is critical to creating a sense of self empowerment.

TYRA: I think self empowerment is so important because I feel as women, especially women of color, we’re put into a box that says, “This is what you’re good for. This is as far as you’re going to get and you need to just accept that.” That’s something that I’ve heard as both a model and a woman of color. So every day on my talk show I try to get out that message that even though we’re put into these boxes, it’s up to us to break free and to prove people wrong.

I remember when the idea for my talk show came up. I was sitting at lunch with my manager Benny Medina. He wanted to make sure I was happy with all the career stuff we were working on. At one point he said, “Tyra, what do you want to be? If you were to walk into this restaurant and everyone were to turn and look at you, what would you want them to think?” I said, “Wow, Benny that’s a good question. You know, I’m not interested in being hot. I’m not interested in Oh, yeah, Tyra’s the hotness. She’s the new Porsche driving down the street. Ain’t she hot? That kind of thing fades. As fun as it is to be the girl of the moment, it goes away quickly. I’m interested in longevity, in being relevant, in being a leader and having power.” He said, “Oh, money? We can make money.” I said, “No, that’s not what I’m talking about. I’m talking about the power to make change.”

Because people are going to constantly tell us that we’re not good enough, that we cannot do something, that we cannot change the way things are or accomplish our goals. It is a fight to stay confident and empowered. It is a battle. And we cannot let those negative people win. We must fight to stay true to who we are and what we believe in.

MICHAEL BECKWITH - POSSIBILITY

Hello everyone. Kuwana here. Many of you have seen “The Secret” on DVD or read the bestselling book. I recently sat down with Michael Beckwith, one of the stars of The Secret (who just happens to be my godfather) to ask him to share some of his insights.

Dr. Beckwith is the founder of the Agape International Spiritual Center, one of the world’s largest ministries devoted to the teachings of New Thought-Ancient wisdom. He’s appeared on Oprah and Larry King Live, among many other shows. But long before The Secret, he was internationally recognized for his spiritual and humanitarian works. In 2004, Dr. Beckwith was awarded the Africa Peace Award. Previous winners include Nelson Mandela and Bill Clinton. An internationally known speaker, peace activist and author, he’s led panels with world leaders such as his Holiness the Dalai Lama and continues to speak and teach around the world.

KUWANA: Rev. Michael, In A Word, what is the one quality that has allowed you to prevail over the most challenging obstacles in your life’s journey?


DR. BECKWITH: Possibility.

KUWANA: How has being aware of possibilities helped enable you to achieve goals and dreams that others said were impossible?

DR. BECKWITH: One of my favorite inspirational quotes is: You’re pushed by pain until you’re pulled by a vision. More than twenty years ago, I had a vision for a space where people of all ethnicities, classes, sexual orientations and religious persuasions could come together to worship the One Presence together. I saw a place where differences were not merely tolerated, but loved and appreciated. I saw a place that was a prototype, an energetic, a living picture of the possibility of how we can live together in this world. Though we may try to distance ourselves, the reality is that this Presence, this God, is everywhere and lives within us all. We are all connected by It. I knew that I was here to create a place that would help break down false boundaries and allow people to come out of beliefs that separate into a practice of the Presence that binds. That’s how the Agape International Spiritual Center was born.

Agape started in 1986 with twelve people sitting in my living room. But in those first years, it flourished beyond anything I’d dreamed of. Then, about six years in, we came to a crossroads that put everything that we believed in, including the future of the church, on the line. We had to vacate of the buildings we were in. The lease was up and the landlord wouldn’t rent the space to us anymore. So we found a building in Culver City but we had to pay for construction work to bring the building up to code. We also had to pay for rent, security deposits, permits, staff and the hotels that we’d be using to keep the church going while we were doing the construction. The money dwindled down to nothing and we were still weeks from completion.

We had two flyers designed. One flyer said that Agape would have its first service in the new building on a particular date. The other flyer said Agape would no longer exist. We had to decide which flyer we were going to put out.

KUWANA: How did you decide which flyer to put out?

DR. BECKWITH: I called an emergency board meeting with the contractor and we discussed what could possibly be done to speed up the process and get the funding we needed. Mostly people said things like, “What you want is impossible. We don’t have the man power, we don’t have the time, and we don’t have the cash to do this.”

I started asking them if there was a possibility. The contractor said, “No this is impossible. I’m sorry, but you’re going to have to start over.”

I asked again: “Is there a possibility?” And again most of the board members said no. We don’t see how it can be done.”

I said, “I’m not concerned about whether you see how we can do it. All I’m asking is: is there a possibility?”

I locked the door, took a chair, put it up against the door and had someone sit in it. We’re going to go around this circle until we can agree on the fact that it’s just POSSIBLE. I’m not concerned that it’s probable or how we can do it—just that it’s possible.”

It took a very long time, but finally everybody said it was possible. It can’t really be done, but it’s possible. When I got 100% agreement that it was possible and I said, “That’s all I need.” We prayed, I let everybody go and then put out the flyers that said Agape would open as scheduled.

KUWANA: That took incredible courage. Were you able to open as scheduled?

DR. BECKWITH: That week, two things occurred. We’d put in for a loan at the bank for about $400,000 to complete the rest of the building. But the bank hadn’t done its due diligence yet, so there were still a number of weeks before the money would be available. The individual that had our portfolio was looking over our file when one of the owners of the bank walked by and said, “What are you working on?” The loan officer said, “The Agape loan.” The owner said, “Beckwith? Give him the money.”

“They don’t have any collateral,” the officer explained. “I haven’t done my research, or finished my interviews, or completed all the paperwork—”

“I know him,” the owner said. “Give him the money.”

When the loan officer called and told us what had happened and that we had the money, the contractor decided to step up as well. He said he was so moved by what he saw at Agape and what the people stood for that he was going to pay his workers out of his own pocket and put on day and night crews until the job was finished.

So within a week, what had been totally impossible became a reality. The space opened up primarily because we got an agreement about the possibility of it. We didn’t know how, but we all agreed that it could be done. That was enough.

KUWANA: What spiritual principle was operating through your agreement at that point?

DR. BECKWITH: Agreement opens us up and allows something beyond the conscious mind to take over. What I would call the super conscious mind now comes into play. Often times we live from a very limited point of view and we use very little of our resources in terms of our brain power, in terms of our spiritual dimension, because we only operate from our history and ways we’ve done things successfully in the past. But relying on past success can actually be a hindrance when something unprecedented is seeking to express through you.

When you get into the past or into “how,” you then operate primarily through historical patterns. It leaves you less open to spontaneity or anything beyond the narrow confines of conventional thinking and “the way it’s always been.”

But when you transcend prevailing beliefs and agree to do something that’s never been done before, that agreement sets something in motion in the human spirit, which then allows for that new height to be replicated by others. Your willingness to step into greatness adds to the evolution of our planet.

MC LYTE - FAITH

I had the pleasure of chatting with the infamous MC Lyte. Check out this video episode.

QUINCY JONES - INNOVATION

Hello and welcome to our first edition of In A Word. My name is Kuwana Haulsey and though I’ve written books for a number of years, this is my first blog. Each entry I make will feature a celebrity sharing his or her inspirational thoughts, specifically the one word that sums up their life’s journey. Eventually, all these stories will end up in my next book, also called In A Word. Let me know what you think!

Today, we’re talking to Quincy Jones, one of the greatest living legends of the music industry. As a record producer, musical arranger and film composer, Quincy has more than 25 Grammys to his credit. In the course of his sixty year career, he’s worked with everyone from Duke Ellington and Frank Sinatra to Miles Davis and The Beatles. But perhaps Quincy is best known for producing two of the biggest selling records of all time: “Thriller” by Michael Jackson and “We Are The World.” Here’s a piece of our conversation…

KUWANA: Quincy, if you had one word to describe yourself, your life, and your legacy, which word would you choose?

QUINCY: Hmmm… Let’s see… It would have to be innovation.

KUWANA: That seems like a natural word to describe what you’ve done for your entire life in the entertainment industry. What does innovation mean to you?

QUINCY: When I was thirteen years old, I used to play hooky from school and go down to the Palomar Theater and see all the greats come through. You know, Billy Eckstine and Billy Holiday and all those people. One day while I was down there, I met Count Basie. I guess he decided to kind of adopt me, become my mentor or big brother, whatever you want to call it. This was way back in 1947 or 48.

The first thing he said was, “Youngblood, sit down. Let me tell you what’s going on. Here's the way it is, especially in the Black music business. There're two things: hills and valleys. Anyone can handle hills. But in the valleys, that's when you find out what you're made of. It’s important to develop the foundation to survive the valleys."

And boy was he right. You see, it’s in life’s valley that you learn the greatest lessons and discover whether or not you have what it takes to make it against all odds. Each of us has that power, that brilliance, inside of us waiting to break out. But usually, it’s not until we’re walking alone through the valley that we realize who we truly are, what we’re capable of, and how much we have to give the world.

KUWANA: Being a child, how were you able to process that kind of adult advice?

QUINCY: At thirteen, I already knew more than I should have about life’s valleys. I didn’t have much of a childhood. I came from Chicago, in the biggest ghetto in America. We’d moved there during the Depression, and left when I was ten years old to go to an almost all-White area in Washington. I think my brothers and I were the only three Black kids in Bremerton back then. We had to figure out who we were real quick because we didn't know who to follow. We were kind of thugs, you know, probably because being a thug was something we could control. Coming from Chicago, we had a good background in that area 'cause that’s where the best gangsters, black and white, came from. Machine guns, ice picks, switch blades—that’s what we were used to seeing everyday.

I will never forget the day when, at the age of eleven, we broke into this armory in Sinclair Heights to steal some pie. After we got through with that, we decided to break into some offices too. The country was in the middle of the World War II and the armory, which was our recreation center, was right next to an army camp. I broke into the office of a woman named Miss Aires who worked for the superintendent. She was a real sweet lady but, you know, thugs don’t care about stuff like that.

As I opened one of the doors, I saw a piano and a spinet inside the room. I almost closed the door but something made me walk in there and go over to that piano. I hit one note. Just one note. Right then, I felt in every cell in my body that this would be the rest of my life. I just knew it. That’s when I started playing.

KUWANA: You discovered your passion and purpose. How did you then move from being a child with a dream to being a musical prodigy, as you were universally considered by your peers?

QUINCY: During those early days, I made it a habit to just watch and listen. I know I talk a lot now, but back then I used to shut up and listen. It's very important to have that kind of situation going on in your life, where you've got mentors you respect and you're smart enough to shut up and listen to them. Young singers come up to me today and they say, "What do you think- what advice could you give me as a young singer starting out?" I tell them to imitate. Find the five or ten people you just admire, the ones who really crumble your cookie and all that, and copy everything they do. The young singers don't understand this. They say, "But everybody tells me I'm supposed to be original." I say, "You don't even know how to be mediocre yet, much less be original. But if you walk in the shoes of giants, then you’ve got something to work with.”

Clark Terry used to tell me, "You must imitate, then assimilate. This will ultimately lead you to be able to innovate." And it's so true.

You walk in enough of those shoes, and it taps the mind of your own originality. But you’ve got to listen to the people you think are the very best in any field. I don't care what it is—movie director, trumpet player, singer, whatever it is. I think apprenticeship is the most powerful form of teaching on the planet. It's an amazingly fast way to get to an advanced state rather than sit around and try to recreate the scale or something like that. A lot of people that I meet think they're going to re-invent music. But they can forget it. There's only 12 notes, baby. If it's a diatonic situation, there's only seven. However, if you walk in the shoes of giants, you discover an incredible way to succeed, not only as an artist but as a human being. It builds your character.

KUWANA: How so?

QUINCY: You see, God's gift to the artist—or to any human being—is their talent, their ability to change the world through innovation and creativity. And your gift back to God is your development of that talent and your commitment to taking it to its highest. You have to be obsessed, I think. It’s all just step by step—a lot of giant steps and a lot of small steps too. You just keep making sure your feet are going forward. You must feed the flame inside that says, “I don't care what anybody says, nobody's gonna stop me.”

The great Jazz musician Knotty Belanche used to tell me, "Your music can never be any more or less than you are as a human being." You have to live your life in a way that allows you to have something to say. You have to make sure you have a well-rounded emotional palate, so to speak.

Personally, I had a lot to work from, the number one thing being desperation. I desperately wanted to get out of the situation I was in at home. There were eight kids and a stepmother and my daddy who was making fifty-five dollars a week to support ten people. So for me, the transfer of the darkness to light was through the love of music. You have to turn toward something greater because if you turn on yourself, you get bitter. We all have so many things to deal with. I dealt with poverty, bigotry—all kinds of stuff.

KUWANA: What did you learn from those encounters?

QUINCY: There were times I remember being in a band and driving all night because we couldn’t stop in white towns. There were times we slept in funeral parlors. There was a time I remember waking up at sun rise as we were driving through a small Texas town and seeing a church steeple glowing in the light of dawn with a black dummy hanging from a rope at the top of the steeple. I will never forget these things. And I wouldn’t want to. From these incidents, I came to understand that nothing external had the power to stop me.

How you process things is very important because it’s your experiences that create the music of your life. You begin to realize that you're just a terminal. The higher power is in total control. It's like when Michelangelo said David was always there, he just had to get the rock out of the way. It's true.

You must let whatever it is that you’re called to do come through you without judgment. Just let it pour like a water faucet. That way, you don't sit there and get all hung up and constipated—emotionally constipated—with judging yourself. You just keep letting it roll because what you're doing is opening up to a much higher power, which is where your gifts originate from anyway. Sometimes you turn on the water and it gets too hot or too cold or you just get it lukewarm. But you keep letting it come. It’s all part of who you are. Sometimes, especially when you’re scuffling, you have to go deep inside to find out who you really are. I did. And that faith and determination has brought me to places that I could never have imagined.