Yo, what's up people? I'm your host Jay Will. This is Inspire Guys, people to podcast where we balance faith in business to guide you to your purpose. Welcome to episode 188.
Today I'm gonna be kicking it off kicking it with Ralph Mossman from Mossman Community Development. And we're gonna talk a little bit about developing the community in general, but we're gonna learn about Ralph and his background being from the East Side of Detroit. He's the founder and president of his organization and I've kind of said back, I know Ralph a little bit, you know what I'm saying? We've been around each other a little bit on the church scene.
I think we hooked together maybe two or three times in the past. Always been a cool dude and somebody that I've kind of watched from afar. You know how you watch somebody and you just seeing them grow and you're like, man, quietly, just kind of doing this thing. I've always kind of respected that he seems to be a person that's about to work and he seems to do it the right way.
So for me, as much as I do these interviews so that you can learn about people and be inspired by them, I'm also inspired by the guests that we have on the show. And that's gonna be no different today. We're gonna talk about developing the community. We're gonna talk about his story.
He has some interesting things that I read in his bio just as it relates to his college experience. So if you're a person out there that is either a business professional, maybe you want to get into community service and development and nonprofit organizations, or maybe you just want to learn like how to go from wherever you are in your community to impacting your community. And I think that's an important aspect of what we're gonna talk about today is that you know, so many people focus sometimes on like, if you're from a less fortunate or urban area and you constantly get reminded of that. And sometimes those reminders kind of keep you in a space where you're not growing beyond it.
So today that's what we're gonna talk about developing the community, not just the infrastructure, but the people. People are the most important investment in the world. That's why Jesus died for what he died for people. Jesus didn't die for your car to go to heaven.
He ain't got your money to go to heaven. People are such an important investment that Jesus Christ gave his life. So today we're gonna talk about developing the people developing the community. If you enjoy this content, even if you don't enjoy it, go ahead and share it.
And you know, like it, subscribe. We're on YouTube if you don't know. We've been doing a YouTube thing for a few months now, trying to grow that community. So it's just at Inspire Guys people.
If you're on Facebook, feel free to comment, all that good stuff. I'm gonna be quiet. So we can get it to an amazing show episode. One 88 of Inspire Guys people to podcast.
Very first episode of 2023. Yeah, man. So we gonna make sure that it is a great one. Guys people, we are back.
I got my man Ralph Mossman with me. Ralph, how you doing today, bro? I'm great man. I appreciate you for jumping on the show episode one 88.
Like I was telling the people we know each other a little bit. Been around each other a little bit on the church scene. Hooped a little bit. Have you been hoping lately?
It's been about a month. Oh, I mean, yeah, you hooping. I probably been hoping since the last time we hooped together and I was probably four or five years. So, yeah, I ain't got out there, but I told my wife I was walking around the kitchen today.
You know how you you know, saying I'm like, yeah, like, actually might still have it, bro. So we had to see man. I have to get out there with my brother Darius. I know we used to hoop with Darius a little bit.
But he's been trying to get me out there. I've been playing. So, man, I appreciate you jumping on the show. I'm excited to get to know you a little better.
Get to know a little bit about your background of your organization. Let's kind of start a little bit with like just growing up on the east side of Detroit, right? I'm from the east side. So I got a special appreciation for anybody who makes it out of where we made it out of and makes something out of their life.
And it's a lot of people doing that by the way. But just talk a little bit about that experience like, you know, growing up in Detroit. So the people who you were growing up as a kid with that experience was like, growing up as a kid. I was a goofy, silly guy, really into sports.
You know, on the east side, if you drive them down a block, you'll see basketball range in the street. One of those rams was ours, always hoop in the street doing our very best to stay out of trouble. I know our circumstances typically permit us to stay in trouble, but with a good family household with parents and church. We were able to survive on the east side staying out of trouble.
We've seen many family members, friends going to jail, ended up on the other side of life. Very unfortunate circumstances, but for my brother and I, for us to be extremely fortunate to make it out of the east side and make something of ourselves to continue to impact people. I would say the east side made me. That's a quote that probably everybody will say, but it's what did it make you?
And for us to feel the impact of what made us people who aren't even from the east side are now able to say a piece of the east side has impact in some way. What did it make you like? All right. So you then are you dropping bars early?
I love it. What did it make you? So let's unpack that a little bit because one of the things that's amazing about social media to me is that it kind of shrunk the world. I mean, it took, you know, you have all these connections.
Like I'm connected with people just simply on Facebook from all different walks of life. And sometimes we see each other as avatars. That's part of the purpose of this podcast is for us to see people as more than an avatar or a post that we agree or disagree with. So when you talk about, you know, you mentioned a couple of things about growing up on the east side and you said, as an example, you know, you've seen whether it be violence or people lose their life.
You know, it's it's a crazy thing when there's somebody multiple people like I could probably think of just off the top of my head. Seven to ten people that either went to school with lived in a community with and they died like they literally were murdered into, you know, at the hands of some type of violence. And I don't know that we ever stopped to think about what that does to young people seeing and experiencing that because for some people they only see or hear that on the movie. And you don't have to be a person that was into the violence to be surrounded by.
So can you just talk a little bit about that? Like what was that like for you like seeing different, maybe crazy things in your life growing up or do you feel like because you grew up with your family, like you said church all those things that she did you can just shed a little light on that. So it's a crazy people I mean, people would never believe what some people actually go through by just looking at what they are now. But to my first cousins like my brothers, we live in the same zip code, walking distance from each other, both lost their lives at early age, one at 13 and one was actually six years ago 2016.
And the biggest difference between my house and their house was on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Sundays we were going to church and they weren't. We went to the same schools, we were at the same family dinners like these are my first cousins, you know, first cousins are always like siblings sleepovers at grandma house. One was tragically hung itself when we were 12. I mean, the other one lost his life to gang violence just six years ago.
And to it hit so close to home because a cliche phrase was so true like that literally could have been me. And to feel the impact emotionally. One thing I would say that had that made me so aware of life, how how quickly it can be taken away, how quickly people can take things for granted. That at an early age, it made me so aware of my surroundings of the east side is not just another part of the city.
It's truly dangerous out here. And me at an early age taking that word of awareness and applying it to my life now will get into it. I would say what the biggest thing of the east side that made me was aware and it's caused me to be aware of so many things that are surrounding me. No, that's that's well said man.
First of all, I started hearing about your cousins and those are exactly the kind of things that you know when you say what did it make you. You know, a lot of times we try to like, you know, maybe you hear people talking about where they came from, but you don't hear people talking about what it made them. And maybe we hear too much of when it makes someone something negative, but a lot of times like you say it made you aware and awareness is an amazing thing because I've been there. Where when you're taking life for granted, you're not really aware of life.
You're not really aware of the fact that like I could literally go outside and not make it back home. But you learn very quickly growing up in the communities that we come from that it is literally a matter of life and death. And I don't know that people can really wrap their mind around when you're a young teenager and you're going out in the community and literally understanding like, yo, this could be life again. I'll tell you this.
When I was about, I don't know, it was somewhere between 15 and 17 and I was trying to decide if I was going to get a gun. You know, like just by gun somewhere illegally off the street, I guess. First of all, I didn't really know how to get a gun. So that was a good thing.
But the thing for me was when I was going out in the city, it was like, okay, I had this moment where I had to decide. Am I going to let this city turn me into it, my environment so that I could survive in it or am I going to rise above it. And thank God I tell, I decided, you know, really like I can't get a gun. I don't know where to put it.
I got younger siblings. So I decided against it. But those are real decisions that we have to make every day growing up in that environment. So for you, in Detroit, you end up going to Bowling Green University.
What was that like going to college? And I know you had some financial issues and maybe had to kind of take a pivot or call an audible in college. Can you just talk a little bit about that experience of going from the city making it to college, which is a success just to make it there? And then dealing with the ups and downs and what you dealt with.
So it was fun. I definitely say that it should have been a lot different than what it should have been for me. Both my parents are educators. My whole life, she was a principal and 90% of my life, my dad was a principal.
He was a regional vice president of a charter schools. The whole nine. And it's funny. It's a graduation.
I had not applied to any colleges. Oh, you are. But it was the crazy part is it was never talked about our house. Wow.
And not I don't realize it until 2021, literally why it was not talked about in our house. But to know, I mean, my teachers at school, the counselors, everybody knew who my parents were. And then the same district with them, but they knew my parents were educators, parents from the conferences to the basketball game, whatever the case may have been. And they like, Oh, so where your acceptance letter is like, how many schools get into them?
I'm like, I haven't even applied nowhere. Like, why? I really have an answer. Yeah.
I was like, I don't know. I'm talking about my parents. Nobody ever mentioned this. So applying last month at Bowling Green, thank God I had the greatest course to get into the one school I applied to four months before classes started.
Whoa. And at the, I didn't have a plan at the time. I knew Bowling Green was top 10 education schools in the country at the time. It was close to home.
Good place to apply to. I started my team here when I was 16. So I never even thought about going to school and living on my own. That's heavy.
But when I got there, there were so many people from Detroit that I was so comforting. Quite a few people, I knew a couple of guys I went to high school with also went there with me. So it made things a little more comfortable. I would say I was mature enough to live on my own.
I had great independent living skills, but I was totally unprepared for the educational system that came college as far as like study habits, being responsible enough to go to class, having to wake yourself up on time. I knew how to feed myself, I knew how to cook, but that stuff is half the battle when you talk about going to college, especially away from your parents. So thank God I have financial issues. I probably would have been wasting money and not having the grades.
So he got blocked it and sent me home earlier. He was like, no, you're not ready for this battle. But I was super grateful for the experience living with my roommate was of a different ethnicity. We were able to learn about each other's different backgrounds or one to come from.
That helped expose me to a lot. I wasn't ignorant to other races, if you will, but to gain so much more knowledge on, let's say, how the quote unquote Caucasian household works, how they operate in a family dynamic. He was also a Christian, so we were able to compare different Christian values and where we come from and just to see how different things were in the church where I come from and the church where he comes from. It was a super fun experience.
One thing I'll never forget is my roommate had a lot of useless knowledge is what he called it. So he could have told you who, and he literally told me this before, who Biggie Smalls girlfriend was in 10th grade, who he lost in Virginia too. I'm like, why do you know that? He's like, I mean, I study art cultures, all current events, facts and things of that nature.
And when I left, he ended up being the school broadcaster for all the sports. I'm like, this is why he was doing that. Career took off amazing broadcaster and sports right now. That was just so enlightening to us at the time, at 17 years old, it was useless knowledge, but he was definitely preparing himself for what he wanted to do, one college ended.
I love that. You said a couple of dope things. So I'm going to circle back to the roommate, which I want to unpack there. But you said some earlier about your parents were educators.
You didn't even apply to college until four months before school started. And you said it wasn't talked about in your house and you didn't realize until 2021, why it wasn't talked about in your house. Can you unpack out a little bit? Why was it not talked about in your house?
At the time, my parents had their own issues and they were hitting. They did a really good job. They never fought in front of me. My brother and they were arguing.
I never even heard them say a bad word. So they really masked the issues very well. But when things, when the cover came off, there were so many things that me and my brother hadn't had done that you would expect children of educators to have done. Got it.
Whether it's have financial literacy knowledge at an early age or just me assuming what it should be. Because it's what I plan to do with my kids. I feel like I should have been prepared to go to college. Yeah, it's an interesting thing.
Hearing it from this side, there's two sides of it to me where I definitely could see where, even seeing what you're doing now, seeing a person that you have grown to be and seeing to be growing to be, and you said you started just seeing your high school at 16. And you also mentioned that you were prepared for the living and taking care of yourself when you got to school, but you weren't prepared necessarily for the educational requirements and everything. I think what I will say with those type of parents is that you probably even indirectly learn so many valuable lessons in life, even though you might not have gotten some of the important things that you didn't. And I find myself wrestling through that when I think about growing up and understanding what my parents dealt with, not necessarily.
They didn't have nothing I'm aware of, issues in their marriage. But just thinking about growing up in the hood, as an example, I remember talking to my mom and telling her some of the stuff we used to see. Oh, yeah, these gang people cornered me over here. Oh, somebody put a gun out on me when I was walking down this street.
And the crazy thing is my mom, like, we didn't know that. Like, you know, like they were, they, I guess when you're just doing what you got to do, you're not thinking about every aspect. So that's interesting. Now, back to the roommate and the point you made about your roommate.
What's cool to me is you mentioned you all learning about each other, being of different ethnicity and having that experience. Did you have much of that before college or was that your real first opportunity to kind of build a close relationship with someone who wasn't black or from your community? So I was fortunate enough to be able to develop that before going to college. I went to Warren's Fisher over high school and it was not predominantly black.
So I was, I had a close relationship with at least eight people from eight different ethnic groups. So when I got to college, it was so organic to where he thought I probably went to maybe an all white school and didn't grow up in the hood. Got you. But knowing how to flip the switch on and off depending on who you're in the room with.
A small tidbit. My granddad is actually white. He's Jewish. Oh, cool.
So my dad has six siblings who are 100% Caucasian scanned. Oh, got you. So I've been able to blend my learning and my comfortability around different ethnic groups. It definitely made me living.
I never lived with a white guy. So that definitely was different. Right. Got you.
The dorm rooms were actually pretty small. So that definitely was another level of relationship for sure. But it was so cool. So fun.
I would go back and do it all over again and come back home early again. That's dope because one of the things that I always tell people is like, you know, growing up in Detroit, Detroit is one of the most segregated cities in the country. Last time I checked was probably three years ago, the numbers were something like the city of Detroit is 88% black. And when you think about it being from our city, you know, people have to make the decision to like, you know, do you want to move outside of the city and kind of go away from where most of the black people are, or sometimes, you know, you can live in a city and there's more opportunities for that now.
So that's a decision that we have to often make because it's so segregated. I think it's dope that you had that opportunity and always tell people, you know, one of the reasons I think all this racial tension and misunderstanding exists today is because we are willingly segregated. So even though segregated segregation isn't a law, we still see a lot of people are going to segregate ourselves in so many minor ways. You know what I'm saying?
So I think it's cool that you got that and I can see where that worldview, having those experiences, can you maybe talk a little bit about what advantage did those experiences give you specifically? So you talk about having friends from high school from maybe eight different ethnic groups to your building this relationship with your college roommate, what did that prepare you for? Why was that an advantage or something that someone should seek to do? I think that it definitely prepared me for what they call corporate America.
If you're working, let's say you're working in a job and there is all black people. Most black people will feel so when at home, you're going to say some things, you probably wouldn't say otherwise if you were in a workplace with people other than black people. So it definitely prepared me on how to, I'll say, carry myself differently depending on who's in the room, not necessarily not being myself, not really faking it, but kind of just chilling out on the culture. And I've seen a lot of people lose their jobs, lose their spect, lose opportunities on promotions and races because they don't know how to flick the switch on and off.
I think that was a huge advantage for me to kind of be comfortable around other groups of people, knowing how to diversify conversations, diversify interests, diversify food groups. If you can't, let's say a group of people who aren't black, want to go out to lunch and you're not into their food, you're looking on the outside, looking in, when this was a great opportunity for you to continue to shelter and cultivate more relationships in the workplace. So for every aspect of life, it allowed me to diversify myself. Nobody asks you to not be black, that's going to be totally impossible for you to change who you are, but to continue to learn and grow for the people around you.
And living with that guy, it made me view Caucasian people differently, some pros, some cons, dealing with the people I dealt with in high school from the Cal DN friends that I had. I got to learn business early on. It's so crazy that different ethnic groups are putting in still in these values and their kids, knife and temp grade, and I was cool with them. So from the business side, I was learning so much at an early age and didn't even realize it till later on in life as a grown up.
Like I was doing this and that, I could really apply that here. And it's really changed my life for real. I had it. I'll go ahead.
I'm sorry. And seeing other people in my family who didn't go to schools outside of the city of Detroit, who are kind of stuck in one specific bubble. And they're like, well, why can't I go here with you? I'm like, because I'm going to hear what a different type of people.
You know how I go. You're not going to act right when we go to this. You don't know how to turn your stuff off. So that definitely has allowed me to diversify myself and still different values in me and learn about different groups of people just so that it provides me a comfortable situation when I'm around those different types of people.
And I think you touched on a couple important things. And I think the first thing is we have to learn how to be adaptable. I do think it is something that is very uncomfortable in the beginning. And so we got to embrace that.
But what I like about this type of conversation is you're kind of dealing with both sides. We know, like you mentioned, it doesn't mean you're not black. I think sometimes the black community, we limit ourselves so much because we've been so segregated. You know, like we have almost in America exclusively been segregated even when it's willingly.
So what happens is like you saying you don't know how to operate in these other circles in these other rooms and the reality of it is especially because we are a minority. It's less of us. So you're going to have to you're going to have to learn how to be adaptable and find who your true self is within that adaptation. But there's a lot of judgment in our community where the moment that you are not like you saying like completely like acting whatever BET black, you know, I'll call it that like you're not acting black like BET people quick to call you a sellout or something.
But what happens is for people who want to go further in life. The Barack Obama is the best example I could give you. Barack Obama ain't walking in with his suit, not tailored and talking crazy. You know, we give him a lot of credit for having like a swag and all that.
But if you really pay attention, that's corporate. That's, that's, you know, that's refined swag. So we should, we should be like that, you know. But I think we hold ourselves back so much and it's important to be able to go in those rooms because that's how you make stuff happen.
And that's how you better yourself, you know, and you get to learn about people and you also said something like, Hey, good and bad. You learn about different ethnicities and you, it is important to learn that people are not all bad. You know, there are literally some people, you know, in Detroit, we, you know, we'd say like some people never crossed eight miles. I mean, you never left the city.
Um, and they think all white people bad. And it's like, well, if you, if you limit yourself to a box where 88% of the people look just like you, that's easy to say. Absolutely. Same for white people who limit themselves and wherever they are, there's no black people.
You never had that experience is very easy to say. So I think that's the hope you said that. Um, I want to know a little bit about, you know, where does someone with your background kind of get, you know, interest in community service and development? You know, is that something that came when you were younger or what point in your life on this journey of being from, from Detroit going to school in warranty and bowling green, you know, where in the process does this desire to get involved in community service?
Come here. So it all started when I was 10. That was the first time I became a junior Deacon at church. Okay.
And in what people, I see you put on the screen, what did you become interested in community service and development? The one thing when you read that, what's the one word that sticks out to you? Service. That's it.
People say, oh, you're so involved in the community. Oh, you're so focused and driven to develop people. When the thing that really drives me is the service, serving, I've always grown up in church serving, being an editor, armor bearer to the youth pastor on up to the pastor. I was always trained and service wasn't still in me.
So as I began to grow throughout life, I always made it my priority to serve people. And that has taken off to serve in the community, serving the church. I think that allows me to be the most outstanding dad and husband because my priority is to serve my kids and my wife. If you can put, I wish we could make that sentence when you become interested in service community because the service comes before anything.
And if you can train yourself to serve, I think you can be successful in any area of your life. I know a lot of people, they call it kissing up or teacher's pet or this and any other, is because they haven't learned the value. They don't learn. They don't know what's on the other side of the equal sign after the word serving.
And serving equates to so much more than getting a sticker on your homework sheet or whatever. Or getting a pat on the back from the pastor for carrying his iPad in his cup of water. And if you can let that word resonate in your life for two thousand dollars, you'll be successful. Just because giving and serving is a skill, is a gift.
And it's one of those very rare skills and gifts that has to come directly from the heart. Wow. All right. So you talked about understanding what service equals, what's on the other side of the equal sign.
Can you unpack out a little bit? What is on the other side of the equal sign of serving? Because I think when some people think of service, it's almost a negative word to them. Because what they're hearing is sacrifice and sacrifice again, another positive word against a negative connotation.
Because ultimately what someone is thinking of, I think is they're only thinking of the side of the equation and what they give up. They have to end. So the service side represents, hey, yo, I got to do what? I got to do this.
And like you said, they don't understand the equal. So can you talk about what service equals and unpack that? So what I'm going to, what can I do is I'm going to mix it in to what we do as an organization. What a lot of people don't know what we do.
The Boston Community Development is an organization that serves, this is our mission statement, that serves individuals ages 14 through 26 who struggle with some sort of disability. Now when people see that, they're like, I thought you'd be doing the cold giveaways in the community. I thought that you'd do the back back giveaway and back food drive. But the programmatic side of our organization is our main component.
We serve generally high school students with disabilities, helping them transition out of high school and into the real world. Now the portion of our organization that you see the cold giveaway, our has-loved-in-love event, all of our community event, that's my wife and I donating 30% of our salaries to make sure that children in the community don't go with our resources. But we do trainings for students, like resume building, we do out of town college tours, giving them independent living skills. We employ 60 plus high school students every summer with internships, helping them get those job skills.
So that's what we do. We serve high school students with disabilities. Now on the back to your question, on the other side of that equal sign, I'll give you a story. Last fall, we launched a new component to our program called the Spirit Time Program.
It's using the game of bowling to help students with disabilities redirect their spare time. And we serve these students. And there was a young lady in the program. Each individual person that comes to it, they have their own learning plan that specifically serves to their learning and abilities, if you will.
There was a young lady, she was suicidal. And one day, it was Tuesday. She was down at the Detroit River, standing on the ledge, getting ready to commit suicide. Getting ready to jump into the Detroit River.
And as she's standing on the ledge, this is last year. She calls my wife while she's on the ledge to say, am I still going to be able to vote tomorrow? Can I come vote? My wife like, yeah, why won't you be able to come vote?
What are you talking about? And she got to lead the police arrest in her and was able to take her into custody and get her some help. That's on the other side of the equal sign impacting a 12 graders life through the game of bowling, serving her in a way that she's never been served. On the other side of the equal sign is her being able to breathe another day.
You know, service is a lot like faith to me. When I hear you say it that way, because when most of us are thinking of the part that we don't know, we are not considering the impact of what we don't know. So, you know, I call it the hope of the unknown. So one of the things that keeps me going in my life when I have doubt or when I struggle and, you know, feel like, hey, is it worth me doing this or whatever?
It is the hope of the unknown. And it is the fact of like, just like you just outlined, there may be something about any podcast, any conversation that is said, not just by me, by the guests like yourself, that could literally change someone's life. And that is the part of the equal sign that maybe I don't know it today. But then when you get the testimonies and emails or phone calls like that, then like you said, it makes it much harder to not keep going.
You know, it's harder to quit when you start seeing the other side of that equation. So, no, that's a powerful example and story. You know, we talked a little bit earlier, you mentioned you had to take a break from school because of some financial issues and you even said like, you know, I really wasn't ready. You know, he said, God blocked it.
So, how did you transition to getting back into school? What was that like? Was it a long timeline or what did you do in that time? And then how was it transitioning and going to another university to get your degree?
So the transition was kind of smooth. My journey from the moment I left Bowling Green, I left when I was at age 19 and God made the transition so ridiculously smooth. A month after I came home from Bowling Green, I was a middle school math teacher. And the year after that, I was a kindergarten teacher for two years.
And the midst of those three years of teaching was no degree. Just college credits. I wasn't like a long term sub like I was on salary as a teacher, which is God in itself because that's not supposed to happen. I started after school program at the school and it was just like homework help, helping kids, giving them something to do after school, not go home, get make sure they stay out of trouble and never like maybe like seven kids signed up.
So, okay, we got seven kids. We gave those kids a t-shirt. I'm not sure if you remember years ago, I was doing the rise. I remember.
Yeah, rise. So, that was what it was when we originally started. Once those seven kids got a t-shirt, literally the next day, there were 60 kids who wanted to come after school just because they were going to get a shirt. Because I think we got this many shirts right now.
But that was a driving force to book where we are now to know that a lot of things are incentive based. We pulled teeth trying to get kids to do things where something as small as an I'll call it a clean t-shirt, as opposed to one they had on or a piece of pizza after school really drove these kids to be something completely different. So, after the after school program there, I mean my partner at the time, we were like, we first put a curriculum together and try to branch out. Literally like four months later, DPS was like, oh, we like this.
It was like, you guys are just starting out your new. We're going to give you eight schools. It was like, what? Whoa.
That's not for new people? Right. At the time, I'm 20. So, I'm like, I don't know how to run no full after school program, but I'm trying to get myself together.
Right, right. I think I was eight schools, totally mind blowing the type of things that I was beginning to learn at such an early age with the organization. Long story short, the next year, we had first, I got my first six-figure contract with school to do in school intervention and after school programming. That following summer, two schools had given me their full summer school budget, a key to the building the alarm code.
They said, this is what you have to do. You have to hire all the teachers, recruit all the students from summer school. You have to take care of the records and lunch program. Here's the key, here's the alarm code.
Good luck. Wow. I was 23. I just started dating my wife at the time.
I'm like, hold on. This is just too much. Like, what? That's crazy.
But I was successful with the help of my dad, him being in the game, and knowing what's wrong, I needed to take, you know what I'm saying. He was a huge mentor for me to get into where I am now. And it was just so amazing that to look at, I don't often go back down memory lane, but when I do, it's like that's so crazy that a district manager would hand over all these resources and stuff to a 23-year-old kid from the east side with no degree. It makes no sense.
Absolutely no sense. But I tell you what did make sense. The next year when I was test scores, it was like, okay, this may have worked. And we sat down and had a conversation, and they were trying to figure out how did I do it?
What did you do to do this? And I used this to my advantage to this day. I was like, I related with the kids. They from the east side, I'm from the east side.
I'm not coming to work with suits on them. I got to pull them on us in Jordan's. I got to teach her on some Yeezys. Yeah, they sit rise on it, but you are able to cultivate the students and capture their attention early on by just looking like them.
And then you start talking like them. And they was like, man, these kids really like you, Mr. Monster. I was like, yeah, I know.
Thank you. And for them to not know what it was, I mean, they still couldn't figure out. They'd be like, that's not enough. Like, just because they look like you and talk like you, and they don't talk like you.
And then they don't come from where you come from. So you don't even have the stories from the door to get to the conversation that we're getting with these kids and getting to the root of the problems of why they're acting out in class and why their grades are so low and so on and so forth. But to where we started and where we are now, it's literally, I would obviously, a top list of credit got all his favor. I wouldn't be anywhere without him.
But I would credit me being me, me looking the way I look acting the way I act, knowing that the East had made this has impacted thousands of students across Metro Detroit area since 2010. Authenticity. It's something, you know, it really goes back to what we talked about earlier, right? That adaptability.
People don't realize that goes, that goes multiple ways. So I'm gonna give you an example. Let's think this through. Let's say Ralph, you are from the East side and you remain BET Black for the rest of your life.
And I just mean, stereotypical, like some people literally, they're only experienced with Black people. Even Black people themselves, like the only people you think of is BET, movie Black people. That's not a good thing. Like, we are much more than that.
But what happens is, like, when you really think this through, if Ralph stays BET Black and doesn't, you know, become well-rounded, what people don't understand is you don't build even the skill set to be able to leave and come back and be valuable to your own community. It's hard to be valuable to your own community if you haven't changed anything about yourself or learned anything or grown anywhere. You end up really being a nuisance to the community. Always tell people, like, we talk about on this show being a contributor or a consumer.
And a consumer mindset, they just take, take, take from the world, whether it be your community, your household, whatever it is, you're just always taking and consuming things. But a contributor finds a way to add value to their household, their community, their church, whatever it may be. So, man, I commend you for the work that you're doing and you started doing when you were young. And I want people to miss the fact of, like, this all happened when you have financial issues at school.
And you talk about growing up in the house of educators, and I would say that's where that value really showed itself and talking about your dad as well, being a mentor. So before we get close to getting out of here, I got a couple more questions for you. I want to know how challenging was it for you when you started your own organization in 2016, I believe, is the year that you started. You had rise.
You said I was like 2010-ish, that's starting. You get to 2016 and you're starting your organization, Boston Community Development. And what were the challenges of launching your own? And after having six years of experience, I'm sure that we're valuable, but for the people out there listening who are thinking about starting your own business, what are some of the things to watch out for as an entrepreneur, especially in early stages?
I would say one thing to watch out for is non-genuine people. People would definitely want to cling to you because they see you have something good. And they kind of just want to piggyback off the mission, piggyback off the success they may see that comes down the line. So I would definitely say just be careful of the people who are out there, who may not be as genuine as you.
I like to think that I have an extremely pure heart, and I ran into a whole lot of people who didn't. And thank God I always had my parents until I was married. So I always had my mom and dad go back home to just ask questions. Like did you run into this?
What do you think about this? Using my discernment to try to seek through to is this a good situation I'm about to get into? Is this a good deal? Is this a good contract?
One thing that was a huge blessing was I was one of the founders of RISE. So when I kind of branched off from my partner into MCD, it was a smooth transition. It was just like, hey, I'm cutting off from you. I'm going to keep the same connect that we've always had.
Hopefully we can figure out a way to work out these contracts where maybe we can split the contract between RISE and Boston Community Development now. So that as far as propelling my organization to the next level, because I already was doing youth development, it was not a super difficult transition. But knowing a lot of the work was going to be on me now because I didn't have a partner. That was definitely challenging.
Knowing that I did also have a life outside of this, I got engaged in 2016 as well. Knowing I was about to be married the following year, we want to kids soon. I was going to have to find some great balance in being the family man in the business man at the same time. Knowing that I was a full time entrepreneur, and this was going to be the way that I was going to have to provide for my family.
Now you got to go ahead and finish that up. I definitely would say that just be careful. Everybody's not as genuine as you want them to be. Everybody's not going to be as helpful.
I've run into so many cases, Jay, with so many cases of people who obviously you knew me, we grew up together. I get 10 calls a week. I'm trying to start a nonprofit. Can you help me?
I want to start a business. Can you connect me with the people who do your grants and this and that? As I answered, everyone knows calls. I would be homeless because I would never have time to build what I'm building.
Definitely something to watch out for. You have to guard yourself, guard your business principles, your business material. Train mark would need to be trained. Mark would definitely protect yourself, protect your peace.
Because when people need something, the last thing on their mind is making sure they don't bug you too much to get what they need. You know what, man? That's so impactful because a lot of times people don't understand the responsibility of running a business and how you have to think through those things. So you talk about the emails or calls that you get from people to grow with you.
And I want to unpack that a little bit and focus on that for a minute because what people don't understand is that let's say about 2016, you have put in six years already of hard work, dedication. I'm sure some long nights. I'm sure there were some challenges with some kids, maybe challenges with their parents. And you had this experience and this knowledge because you had done the work.
And when you do the work, you understand the value of the work. And I think when people don't realize when they call you and they're trying to cut through, like when you're trying to shortcut, you're really robbing yourself of understanding the value of the work. And so you want me to give you confidential information, right? So there is literally confidential information.
I mean, I can't call Apple because I was cool with Tim Cook and say, hey, tell me about the patent for the upcoming Apple Watch that does some new trick or something. They can't give me that. It don't matter if I'm his cousin or his brother. It doesn't make him fake because he's protecting his business.
So I think that's something important to talk about with people that they understand because, believe me, I get the same. I get so many questions. You know, how do you do this? What for a podcast this?
And a lot of times, you know, I answer some, but sometimes I have to like ignore it because, like you said, I have to keep my peace. But also, I'm actually trying to help the person by not giving them the answers to the test that they haven't studied for. I had somebody recently, inbox me. I had somebody recently, it has my recently inbox me and literally asked me to help them develop a business that would provide the same services I provide.
And when I told them, like, you know, let me see when your gras you wrote, he was like, that's not, you're not being a real Christian. I was like, you kind of, you're going real far now, man. You're supposed to help your brother in Christ when he is like you, you quote the whole bunch of stuff I never read. Ever.
You're not about to say that's in the Bible, God said help your brother build a business. It's like, so you can see, I didn't read that one. No, it's not, it's a different book. So to that point, I think it's important for Christians to realize that, like, we are too quick to accuse somebody of not being a Christ like because they're not falling in line to our manipulation.
Correct. Because at the end of the day, if you call a business owner who has worked like crazy, I mean, sacrifice more than you can ever sacrifice, give him more effort than you could ever imagine. When you call that person and try to get confidential information out of them, you are a manipulator. And I'm telling people this so that they realize it because I don't think they're aware of it necessarily.
But, you know, why would I give you like all the answers to the test so that you can go and try to put me out of business? That doesn't, like if people actually stop and think about it, it just doesn't make sense for Shake Shack to give Chick-fil-A the recipe to their chicken tenders. That's right. It don't make sense.
No, I'm actually happy that you brought that up. And Maloie said the Ray Crock said the world, the founder is one of my favorite movies of all time, The McDonald's Story and Ray Crock. And he was a savage guy, but I do think that as Christians, we have to become more savvy, not savage, but we have to become more business savvy and understand some of those dynamics and also kind of be respectful of people's work. Before we get you out of here, Ralph, what advice, I think this is maybe a perfect follow-up to what we just talked about, what advice would you give someone who wants to get involved in community service and start their own organization?
Where should they start, right? Not giving them the answers to the test or, you know, like most people want to get all your personal, I meant, who writes your grants? I'm not even in that business and I can tell you that's the most personal question. Like you could ever ask somebody, like, you don't do that.
But what advice can you give someone who's looking to start and maybe whether it be learning about, you know, how to start an organization, books to read, you know, resources, whatever. Where would you tell someone to start going down that path today? I'll definitely start with telling them to figure out exactly what they want to do and get out there and do it. And I'll impact that.
Some people want to start like a tutoring company. Social media is at our disposal to do whatever we want. If you feel like you have what it's to start a tutoring company, everybody thinks they want when I start, I'm going to be on my road to Six Figure Business. I'm going to have 1,000 clients.
When it's like, no matter if you have one client or 20 clients, you know you're still a tutoring company, right? And if your main objective right now is to be a tutoring company, just start being just that. And I think people, especially our generation, since we're the microwave generation, everybody wants to go from start to finish by pushing the one on the microwave and it being done. And it being hot.
But it's like, that's not the case when it comes to business, when you can literally just get out there and do anything because your goal is to start. You're not saying, hey, what do I need to do to finish a business? You ask me what you need to do to start a business. And in order to start a business, literally just, I think Nike, I don't know how they did it, but they hit it on the head with just do it.
Because all you have to do is get out there and just do anything. If you want to start a clothing line, if you want to start like a portable clothing closet, like you may have to get rid of some of your own clothes that you really like. And notice, jumpstart your business. People are, I mean, some of the one thing that people, I see a lot these days that I never even thought about when I first started was who's, where's all the money up for the first time business owners?
It's like most of these people who started the business were using their own money out of pocket. Like you're going to have to, if you think you're going to start off with somebody else's money, you don't even need my help because you already got to put in. I don't understand it because it's like just watch Shark Tank. If you literally just watch Shark Tank, you can get lessons on how business works.
Meaning if you want someone who has money to give you money because you're starting or have a business, there's a whole lot of questions you got to be able to answer, a whole lot of value that you got to be able to prove. That's the reality of business. Once people get to Shark Tank, once they're finally asking for like big real money, they've already been running a real business. They already have patent products.
They've already served the community in a very, very high regard or if they wouldn't even be on the show. So there's so many different steps that are going to come into play that, back to what you said earlier, one where we, that you see VC serving as sacrifice, you have to be willing to give up a lot in order to not just run a business or start a business but actually succeed and live off of a business. It's not the, you playing the middleman between you and Office Depot, putting flyers for somebody. Like there's so much more to the business than that.
And I think once people start to realize that or once people start to realize you're not going to hell because you're working out of fire because that's what, that's really what's happening in the world today. People are getting shunned for not being working in corporate America or working in a job. Everybody needs to have a business. It's like, okay, that's not the case.
If it has a business, there's going to be no workers to run these businesses. This is going to be a ridiculous revolving door. 100%. I couldn't agree more, man.
This has been dope. I've enjoyed having you on the show. I want to, before I get you out of here, just, can you just share, A, how to find you, follow you, support your organization, any events or things that you have coming up that people can support and so on and so forth. Absolutely.
Our website is www.mcdimpact.com. Our Instagram handle is at mostondevelopmentmostyndevelopment. Our Twitter handle is at mcdimpact. And on Facebook, we can be found in the Monster Community Development.
Our next big event, you heard it here first. This has not been released to the public. Let's go. Thank you.
In April, April's Autism Awareness Month. We're doing a huge campaign for autism awareness, making the cause cool. Kids with autism are often pushed to the side of the corner at the large table. We've forgotten about that since Autism Awareness Month is in April, we're doing a huge campaign.
You can see my shirt, Jesus Plus sneakers. Some of you may know, Bree Wheeler, the owner of the brand. We're actually partnering in April, you'll see autism plus sneakers making the cause cool. Yeah, Bree was just on the show last month.
So they're familiar with Bree, if you were listening to the show. When that merch drops, please let me know. I'll be looking. I definitely want one.
Y'all got to sell off-trip. I need that ASAP. Amazing cause. I love what you and Bree are doing, man.
Look, Ralph, I just want to publicly appreciate you, man, the work that you do. Again, you have been someone that I'm an observer just because I don't have time to necessarily follow everything, but I am always looking and admiring people who are doing the right thing in the community who love God. I just want to publicly make it your flowers and say, it's amazing the work that you're doing. Please keep it going.
Don't hesitate to reach out to me and inspire guys, people, ever. And I just pray, man, much success for you, your wife, your family. I appreciate and inspired by people who are doing things like you're doing that. Thanks.
I appreciate that. I appreciate it. Alright, Ralph, man, it's been fun. I'll let you brother.
Alright, sounds good. Alright. Guys, people, man, like that was Ralph Mossman from Mossman Community Development. He's a president and founder and hopefully you found value and enjoy today's show.
Thanks, Malloy. Yeah, that's a super dope initiative and campaign. It's a couple things I want to talk to y'all about that was touched on in an interview today. Y'all know I like to kind of do a recap and maybe expound on some of the thoughts, but again, appreciate Ralph.
Check out his organization, mcdimpact.com. Love what he's doing. So a couple things me and Ralph talked about. Hey, can I just say what's really dope is that we just had Brie Wheeler on from Jesus and Sneakers, Ralph is on the show and you see how they're collaborating.
And one of the things that Ralph talked about was people who want to ask you, who want to shortcut to success in business. Let's call it what it is. People want to call your phone. How do you do this?
How do you do this? Well, it's like, well, hey, have you tried Googling it because Google is one of the greatest creations in human history. Literally, you know that, right? I would say Google, YouTube, these are some of the greatest creations in the history of mankind.
You can literally Google right now. I stained a door last summer. I changed the door in my office. I wanted a glass door.
I went to Menart's bought a glass door, got it delivered, went and uninstalled the one door, put the new door up, stained the wood on the door. I never stained nothing in my life other than a white shirt. And so that's all googling with YouTube, bro. So you got to put in an effort.
But the reason I'm pointing out Ralph and Brie is that what happens is when you are a person that's out doing work and handling business and someone else is out handling business, people see that. That's when you can collaborate. One of the things that's really important in business is for you to be honest with yourself about where you are. So at Aspire Guys People, I am not at the level yet to reach out to Tim Cook at Apple.
Ask him if he wants to do a co-branding, you know, a co-branding, co-branded Apple Watch. Like Tim Cook, can you do a co-branded, Aspire Guys people, Apple Watch, because I'm a Christian and I love God and I have a good heart. No, in business, you got to be real with yourself about where you are. I am not on Apple's level.
I am not ready for that type of partnership. Neither do I even understand the dynamics of how to make it successful. So we rob ourselves when we try to have shortcuts in business because you're looking for someone to give you answers to a test that you aren't willing to study for. And some of the questions, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying all questions are bad, but you got to know, am I asking this question because I'm lazy or am I asking this question because I've read three books, watch two podcasts and six YouTube videos about it, and I just can't figure it out.
Because if you are a hard worker and someone else is a hard worker, they see that. And that's when you can collaborate because you're bringing additional value. Exactly. That's when you can kind of network.
Celeste, Sotomayor, what up? Kentucky really needs people like him here. There's none for all homeless people, shelter. Yeah, man, that's, you know, you never know.
Hopefully with someone like Ralph, I wouldn't be surprised if we look up in a couple of years and he's branched out into other communities, other cities. And hopefully, you know, his story and seeing the work that he's doing will inspire someone else to start it in their city. And again, that's where we can collaborate and network when you're doing the work and I'm doing the work. But I'm going to tell y'all, man, business, you know, you think about money as always a good example, because I was listening to a podcast the other day where a gentleman was saying, he was talking to his friend that had just made $250 million on a business acquisition.
So he had sold his business for $250 million. And the guy was still staying at like the standard Marriott hotels. And he hadn't, you know, he had the money. I don't know how long I don't want to lie about the length of time.
That's not important. But what's important is that he had $250 million, but he was still standing in Marriott. And part of that is because he understood the value of getting a $250 million. So the last thing he wants to do is start uselessly spending to lose it.
And to us, like me, I never had $250 million. So $250 million sounds like so much money to me that I could just go waste a million and stay at the best hotel's ever. And that may be true, but I haven't put in a work to earn $250 million yet. So I don't know that.
And the point I'm making is this. People with money a lot of times are much more financially aware or frugal than people who are broke. I know broke people who stay at the Ritz Carlton with their rent money because they think they deserve that because they don't understand the value of the hard work to earn it. And again, no disrespect to nobody.
But my point is people with money don't like giving people who are broke money just to give them money. People with money, that's why they donate the charities because what they're looking to donate their money to is a cause where the money will have return on the investment. Again, the return might not be the return to their personal wallet, but it may be a return on the impact, a return on the purpose. What's my point?
If you are a person out here that creates value, the money will follow you. Money follows value. Again, if you are in the workplace and you're trying to figure out how do I increase my salary, increase your skill set, increase your value, increase your networking, increase your leadership skills, read a book. But for me personally, every single year I try to get better.
I spent a lot of time over the last couple of weeks from a business perspective thinking about where have I fallen short, where have I maybe gotten a little lazy or maybe have some blind spots. And I'm constantly trying to read books about leadership. Right now it's like I'm waking up every morning and reading a Wall Street Journal. I subscribe to that because I want to become better.
That's it. I want to be better. And I believe that if I create enough value, then success has no choice but to find his way to me if his guys will. If I create value, do it with integrity and character, I don't have to worry about money.
I don't have to worry about having a nice car or something or silly stuff or nice shoes or fat. Like you won't have to worry. What's my point? Even the Bible says, seeking first the kingdom of God and all his righteousness and all these things will be added unto you.
Now my point is the principle of seeking first, right? Seeking first the substance, seeking first the most important thing. Ralph talked about the fact that his organization is about serving and doing what you do. If you want to if you want to tutor kids, don't it doesn't matter if you only have one kid to tutor.
You are tutoring and we have to understand the value. The true value is our purpose. So if your purpose for instance, let's just go with the tutoring. If your purpose in life is to tutor and help students.
It is your purpose in life is to tutor a million students. It's not that your purpose in life is to make 20 million students students. If your purpose is to tutor students, I promise you, if you bring enough value to students, consistency over time, dedication, sacrifice, service, integrity, character, create enough value and things will be added. Money will come, contracts will come, partnerships, collaborations.
You will get the answers to your question as you will get the answers to your test. But life is interesting. You have to be willing to make the sacrifice first. That's why faith is such an intriguing topic and idea to me because it requires you to give something before you get something and it requires you to give something that you don't necessarily know what you're going to get.
So you're putting faith in the fact in the substance or the source of the fact that I know I'm going to be rewarded properly. And some of us, if we being real, we don't have the faith to walk in our purpose because we want to know that it's going to work before we do it. Guess what, y'all? You listen into this podcast right now, there has been no guarantee given to me that this is going to be successful.
I have received nothing in writing. There's been no prophecy. There's been no sign and wonder that, hey, if you put this effort and time into inspiring guys, people, which you have publicly said that it's your purpose, it's to inspire guys, people, then you're going to get A, B, and C. No, so you know what I have to do?
Not be worried about, is it going to work? Is it not going to work? Is it going to get 100 views or 1000 views or is going to get 10 comments or one comment? Those are the things that we tend to worry about when what we should worry about, in my opinion, is doing the work.
Do the service. Live in the purpose. Live in the purpose. Some of the ways say he prophesied it.
I will, hey, and I received that prophecy, brother, because guess what, by the grace of God, that's what I've been doing. That part has been happening. That's actually a good point. I love that you worded it right there.
I don't know if you did that on purpose or not. You prophesied the purpose, not the outcome. And you didn't prophesied it. I was going to be a millionaire or whatever.
That's what people like to do, right? People like to get you excited by promise you the things, but you've never first seek ye first the kingdom of God and all his right. Seek ye first. Seek ye first.
Seek ye first. Seek ye. How can I make it a song? You can be people who will arrive with it.