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If you enjoyed this episode, please stay on after the show to learn more about the Braving
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And now, let's get the show started.
Well hello there.
Hi there.
How are you?
Happy post Thanksgiving.
Post Thanksgiving.
The tryptophan coma has finally worn off.
How are you doing, buddy?
Yes, I'm okay.
I'm you know, I actually I fell off my bike like a week and a half ago.
I don't know if I talked about it in the last episode.
I may have.
Right.
And so this weekend was my first time getting back on the bike since then.
And then I woke up this morning.
I felt okay.
I went 30 miles, which is, you know, it's a lot, but not a huge amount.
And then drying my hair this morning, I threw up my back.
I don't know how the hell that happened.
So I'm sitting a little a little off to the side if that's why I'm not, you know, sometimes
when people sit to the side, it's good.
They're passing gas.
In my case, it's just I threw up my back.
Oh, you remember I'm I'm what five years older than you.
So it doesn't get better.
Just so you know, it doesn't get better.
That's fantastic.
Bruce, have you ever have you ever hurt yourself doing something?
Not not too much.
Like just, you know, lazily yourself.
Absolutely.
And recently, as of yesterday, I was on a plane that had three layovers and I was sitting
for hours and hours and hours and hours on a crap plane.
Thanks to coach.
And yeah, I wanted my left hip is a little inflamed.
So I'm walking like a little crazy, like I had hip surgery.
Oh, my gosh.
But I trust that it's just tendonitis, though, you know, and I'm doing my little physical
therapy and stretches.
So I'm pretty healthy.
So I anticipate that it's going to be nothing.
All right.
Well, it's just age.
You know, it's God likes the best a little bit.
The older we get, we think we're getting wiser and we are.
And then we also get broken down quite easily.
Like racehorses.
We look like racehorses still.
Actually, all three of us.
You look amazing, Bruce.
And yet, you know, under the surface, there's a little rust.
What can you do?
You know, that's how it is.
Oh, sorry.
Let's let's introduce our amazing guest.
We have one of our best guests, maybe ever, and I'm excited to talk to him.
I know I am.
I am, too.
I just want to say it's almost like this is the geriatric version of the Braving Business
podcast.
All right.
So today, today, we have the incredible Bruce George on our podcast.
He is a visionary entrepreneur and acclaimed poet, a social activist who is best known
as the co-founder of the award-winning Russell Simmons Deaf Poetry Jam on HBO.
With a career spanning over four decades, Bruce has made significant contributions to
the arts through his writing and performance, earning prestigious accolades, including a
Peabody Award and a Tony Award.
He is also the founder of the Genius in Common Movement, which empowers individuals to recognize
their inherent creativity and self-worth.
We really will get into that deeply today.
Bruce's work not only showcases his artistic talent, but also reflects his commitment in
uplifting communities and fostering self-esteem among youth.
Today we're going to journey through the verses of Bruce's inspiring journey of perseverance
and vision.
And did you see what I did there?
Journey through the verses, right?
That's my tribute to poetry right there.
I also will say, I also will say that I won't belabor this, but I did.
I teach myself all the lyrics to Cool Modis, I Go to Work, off of a cassette tape, which
really tells you how much time and focus I put into learning that song.
Anyway, that's all my poetry right there.
We're going to be exploring how Bruce continues to impact lives through his passion of poetry
and activism.
Bruce George, you are a legend, and we are so very honored to have you here on the Braving
Business Podcast.
Well, first and foremost, I want to thank you, BJ and Brother Tall, for having me on
your show.
I want to thank Leah Henderson George, who is my wife, who connected us together.
So we're very, very excited to be here.
She's here in spirit.
And I'm excited to be on your show.
Well, thank you.
It's really a true honor to have you on.
I'm a fan of your work.
And I think we should start with Deaf Poetry Jam, which was a moment in time, I think,
that brings me back.
So it returns me to some seminal moments in my life.
But I'd love to understand, what was the moment when that concept went from an idea to something
real that had momentum behind it?
Good question.
And first of all, thank you very much for your support.
Because of your support and others, we wound up getting a Peabody Award for six seasons
in HBO and a Tony Award for the Broadway version.
And I was the town executive at HBO and executive consultant to the Broadway show and the rest,
as they say, is history.
I was blessed to be one of the founders.
Danny Simmons, Russell Simmons, and Deborah Poynter are co-founders as well.
And so it was a very seminal moment.
We caught the world in a very reflective state around that time.
This was around a quarter of a century ago, around pre-911.
And so we caught the world in a very reflective state where people started to think, why do
they hate us?
So what's going on with America?
Or what's going on politically and socially?
So it was a good time for the poets to be able to use their poetry, use their politic
to speak to a captive audience, an audience of people that were very, very reflective.
Because it really kind of slowed the world down and make people think and reflect, like,
what's going on here?
So yeah, the show was a shout out to HBO for pushing the poetic license.
Richard Peppler at the time was the president, and he was the one that, in a sense, retired.
But I want to thank him for taking a chance and green lighting the show.
We want him getting six, what, six seasons?
Yeah.
And it turned out very, very well.
So we're very excited about that, and I want to shout out all of the poets.
And Danny Simmons, Deborah Poynter, Russell Simmons, Stan Lathan, and all of the poets
that were on this show, and everybody that tuned in.
The ratings were through the roof.
We had, and HBO kept it to this day close to the belt, the most highest anticipated
show in HBO's history.
We have spoken word artists all around the world tuning in to this thing, like it was
a super bowl of poetry.
Right?
And you know, one of the interesting things about it is it was one of the, it may have
been the first poetry spoken word shows I think I've ever seen on television.
And it was profound.
I mean, and you know what, I think it ended up inspiring.
And I know there were always poets speaking at presidential inauguration, but many of us
remember the poetry, the young poet that spoke at Barack Obama's first inauguration.
To me, that's a moment that Deaf Poetry Jam enabled.
That moment was about what you did ahead of it to create that path.
Amen.
Amen to that.
You know, I mean, the poet has always been the cajola of history.
The poet has always been the flamethrower.
The poet has always been the truth bearer.
Right?
You know, and so when Napoleon came to power, the first thing he said was kill all the poets.
And why did he say kill all the poets?
He said kill all the poets because the poet has always been the troublemaker.
You know, the poet has always been the flamethrower and the truth bearer.
You know, and so the most dangerous person on the planet, I tell people this, is a writer
and a poet.
That is amazing.
How did you, just real quick about you and your history, how did you get into poetry
and what made you come up with this incredible concept of working with Russell Simmons and
creating a Deaf Comedy Jam?
How did that go?
A poetry jam?
Okay.
Yeah, you know, great question.
My mother, my late mother, God bless her, was the first published poet in our family.
Amazing poet, amazing writer, just an amazing creative, you know, quilting, you know, art,
just amazing and off the hook.
So she would always use these exotic words around me.
She would never goo goo gaga, goo goo gaga me, right?
So she would always use these million dollar words and she was just so poetic in the way
she would express herself.
And that made me actually fall in love with words, right?
And so I started writing poetry, you know, roses are red, violets are blue and hiding
it and all that stuff.
And you know, and then one thing led to the other.
And then anybody that's into astrology, I'm a Virgo, which is ruled by Mercury and that's
dealing with words and communication.
And I'm a Virgo in four of my houses.
So go figure, right?
And so I've always loved words.
I prayed over, I prayed to God that He give me the gift of conversation, the gift of gab,
and He blessed me with it and I praise God for it.
You know, not only my lover of Christ, a believer in Christ and a knower of Christ, I want to
thank the good Lord for blessing me to be here before you.
That's amazing.
Thank you.
So you've, you have worked in your past, you know, and throughout your career, a wonderfully
long career.
You've worked with some incredible people, but also you faced some significant obstacles,
financial constraints, among many other things.
Can you share a story of a time when resourcefulness and collaboration seemed to be the brake
through for you that made all the difference?
Yeah, Ozzie Davis said it best.
He said, being an African American, however, implies that something at the core of your
existence is in crisis mode or will be at some point in life.
He also said all struggles between the power to resist and the power to oppress, right?
And it was Baldwin who said to be black in America is to be angry all the time, right?
And so the thing about it is when you are born a person, a so-called person of color,
your playing field is not level.
So you have to kind of like pivot and work in a way and be creative in a way that is
unorthodox, right?
Because you have a system that is designed to keep people down.
And so, you know, you have to learn how to pivot through that and with that comes creativity,
you know?
And so I was able to use my creative genius to be able to actualize different things like
Deaf Poetry Jam and the Genius as Common Movement, which we're going to go into later on.
I'm also the founder of the Bandana Republic.
It's a literary anthology by gang members and affiliates.
Poetry Pro, short stories and quotes and interviews from gang members, gang leaders, those affiliated,
never been done before.
It's the one and only anthology.
Salsco Press is the only press that had the cooners to publish it in 2008 out of Brooklyn.
And yeah, I mean, when we had the book signing, it was like a sign out of the Warriors.
It was nothing but gang members that showed up because the general public was too afraid
to show up.
Right?
And so it was like, it was crazy.
All of these different gangs coming to, you know, to the book signing because they were
in it.
And I basically used the psychology of no one wants to be left out.
I was the managing editor and founded the Bandana Republic.
And Luis Reis Rivera was the co-founder and editor.
And I come out of gang culture and all due transparency.
Luis Reis Rivera who passed, he came out of gang culture.
I've been in several of them.
I used to be in the herb business.
Now I'm in the healing business.
And so this is a way of me giving back to my community.
And you know, I put pain in my community.
This is a way of striving to make amends.
And you know, and getting all of these gangs that come under one umbrella, right, was very
important because you can't shoot somebody and write a poem at the same time.
You know, I want to go back for a second because you started your answer to PJ's last question
by reciting, I think, three or four quotes from memory.
And that is actually one of your one of your giant strengths.
You have a legendary memory of quotes.
And I've come across that in other interviews you've done.
And it's fascinating how you can pull a very applicable quote just out of the top of your
head.
It's mind blowing.
So first of all, how did you develop this talent?
And you know, is there a quote that, you know, has guided you through some of the tougher
times that really resonates with you?
Great question.
And thank you very much for the accolade.
The person that got me into quoting is Ralph Waldo Emerson.
He's one of my mentors.
Not fond of his poetry.
Sorry, Ralph.
But at the time, I was going around quoting other people, right, before I became a master
quote-ologist because I'm a master quote-ologist.
I've been a quote-ologist for over 40 years.
But I was going around quoting other people until I read a quote from Ralph Waldo Emerson
who talked about people who quote.
And the following quote is, he said, they are cowards and would rather quote a saint
or sage than to say, I think.
So he actually cussed me out.
So from that point, I took that as a marching order to start writing my own quotes.
Now in reference to how I'm able to have a vast memory, it's almost like getting his
book of records, right?
Of course, it is because of the fact that I tap into the Holy Spirit.
This is where my faith comes into play.
And I give God all the praise and all the glory in reference to that.
So for instance, if you and I were talking about how challenging relationships are, then
Bob Marley would ping my spirit.
And the quote is, the truth is, everyone's going to hurt you.
It's about finding the one worth suffering for.
Or James Baldwin would ping my spirit.
Love is so desperately sought but so cunningly avoided.
Love makes us take off the mask.
We know we can't live without and know we can't live within.
So you know I have to give you at least three of my quotes.
One of my quotes, I said, no matter how low you keep your wickedness, karma knows how
to limbo.
That's a great one.
I'm trying to digest the first one, and then it's super profound.
And then the second, which is like, wow, that is also profound.
And then the limbo one, which is a great image.
I use a lot of personification in my quotes, because I'm a writer and poet and all those
look at things.
And so I've conducted a lot of creative writing workshops.
So I use a lot of double entendres and all these different things.
So I'll give you one of my quotes I said.
So how can the English language be proper after it had fellatio with Germany, minas
etoises with France and England, lap dance with Spain while getting sodomized by Greece
without Greece?
Right?
Oh, no.
Gosh, did you get that last one?
Were you paying attention, PJ?
Sodomized by Greece without Greece?
Without Greece.
Yeah.
That's that's good.
All right.
So the English language initially is not for children.
That's all right.
We don't get that many children listeners.
Oh, my God.
What is Bruce, do you have do you have a life a life quote, a life mantra, something that
you follow for?
You know, I mean, the Bible, you know, is my life, you know, you know, I studied the
Bible and, you know, the beginning was the word and the word was regarding the word was
God, John one, one, you know.
And so to me, it's just scripture is all about life and how to live it, you know.
So I don't necessarily draw from any one person in terms of life quotes, you know.
You know, but, you know, one thing is a plan is in Shakespeare to buy an own self be true
that thou cannot be false to any man.
Right.
You know, and Hamlet, you know.
And so to me, that I live by that, you know, is being true and authentic, you know, because
there's a quote that says nothing so much prevents one from being natural as a desire
to appear natural.
Right.
So by you trying to appear natural, you become, of course, being unnatural.
Right.
So the amount of quotes that have the memory is like staggering.
I can quote for 24 hours nonstop in conversation with you and every quote will be relevant
to what we're speaking about.
And I cannot quote and it has to be relevant.
I can't just throw a quote in there that is not relevant to what we're speaking about.
And that gift won't allow me to take advantage and use it.
I'll draw a blank.
It's amazing.
I mean, I have seen interviews with this man where he is able to do this for two hours.
It's remarkable.
And every quote is exactly relevant to what's being discussed.
It's astonishing.
It's not just the ability to recall, it's the ability to pull out of your library of
recall the right quote for the moment.
It's something I've never seen anyone do.
It's astonishing.
And I recommend if you people have the opportunity, if people listening have the opportunity
or to go look up some of Bruce's work, it's crazy.
I appreciate it.
If you go to Google and put in hashtag word engineer or hashtag quoteologist, you'll see
a lot of more quotes come up.
I want to pivot to talking about the business.
So one of the interesting things about you is your journey is a mix of art and activism
and entrepreneurship.
How do these three things influence each other?
How do they interact with one another?
They all go together.
The Black Panther Party said the best, they said that the art is an indispensable tool
of revolutionary struggle.
People of color, we were never given the luxury of art for the sake of art.
Art for us has always been a way for us to survive, right?
A way for us to really level the playing field.
So we weren't given the luxury of art for the sake of art.
Everything was all about us being able to maintain ourselves and still be here, right?
Whereas other people, they have the luxury for the rabbit for us and they can just write
art for the sake of art.
But for us, we weren't given that luxury.
With the Topsy Turvy dogs, when we were enslaved, when our overseers were around, it was a white
dog.
When it disappeared, we turned it upside down and it was a black dog.
So we had to play the game and do things in a way that kind of forced us to be able to
survive because it's all rooted in survival.
Like tap dancing, people think that tap dancing is just this benign whatever.
No, that's sending signals and all these different things.
Certain dances, quilting, certain quilts had built into the quilt ways for people to go
north, right?
So if you look at the quilt, it will show you how to escape north.
So art has never been, we were never given the luxury of art for the sake of art.
So it all, and to answer your question, it all goes together actually because of our
person of color.
It actually all goes together.
Absolutely.
Yeah, that's very, very, very cool.
I wanted to talk about, if you don't mind, this fantastic movement that you have, the
Genius Has Come movement, just even the title is such a powerful message.
What inspired you to create that and how has it evolved since its inception?
Absolutely.
Well, thank you for that.
The Genius Has Come movement, metaphorically speaking, is the first movement that put the
word genius on trial.
We're the first movement to tear down the Berlin Wall of the word genius and put it
in the minds of the people where it belongs.
So you take a young lady from a housing project that micro braids hair like Picasso painted,
that's a genius.
Dave Chappelle is a genius of a comedian.
Bishop T.D.
Jakes is a genius of a bishop.
So we're the first movement to let the world know that they have been lied to in relationship
to the word genius.
So when they say you're only a genius, if you have 130, 140 IQ and Mensa, it's pure
nonsense.
That was an arbitrary number.
They made up a Stanford University to make you 1% of the population, which is rooted
in elitism.
What they don't want you to know is that the true origin of the word genius doesn't just
apply to intellect.
Even Einstein said we're all geniuses.
And if you were to judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, you'd spend it so light believing
that it's stupid.
Buckminster Fuller said that every child is born a genius, but the process of light de-geniuses
them.
Arthur Schopenhauer said that talent is a target that no one else can hit, but geniuses
are talking that no one else can see.
So we're the first movement to let the world know that the true origin of the word genius
comes from the word genie out of Northern Africa.
That ain't so wrong.
And the genie is the guiding tutelary spirit within each of us.
So the genius in us is the genie in us.
And the genie in us is the god in us.
We've been lied to.
Look at the words genie and Genesis.
Genesis is beginning.
There's so much to unpack about this movement, which is an astonishing movement.
Again, our audience should Google this, search it.
It's so obvious.
And yet, as Bruce said, it was him who introduced something to the world that should have been
obvious, which is genius is indeed something that is not limited to a select few.
All individuals possess some unique version of genius and our individual job and our job
collectively as a society is to try to help individuals find that genius and then be able
to celebrate that genius again, individually and as a society.
One of the great things about this movement, in my opinion, is that it uplifts people regardless
of where they are in their lives, what they've accomplished in the traditional sense of the
word, right?
To find from any moment in time that you are alive, you are able to, if you embrace these
principles, stop and recognize what your genius is and then change the direction of your life
to walk closer to that genius and further away from things that are not casting light
on yourself or on the world.
And I've read about this.
I find this fascinating.
I mean, I think it's, I command you on coming up with it.
I think it's amazing that it's taken off.
What was the journey like?
I mean, when you came up with it, who did you talk to about it first and how did you
go about making this more than just a-
Okay.
Thank you for that.
And I couldn't have said it better myself the way you just spoke about it.
The geniuses coming movement, by the way, we're the first movement to decolonize the word
genius ever since the set of biology.
So that's huge.
We're the first movement to take the elitism out of the word genius.
So that's huge.
So you can only imagine the amount of self-esteem we've raised.
And so my geniuses coming movement, it got started from one of my quotes because I would
go around the country and ask the youth, when you hear the word genius, what image comes
to mind?
And it would always say Einstein or a light bulb.
And every now and then I would get a Jordan and they troubled me.
And I said, you know what?
Let me write a quote about that.
And the quote is, not withstanding Einstein, geniuses coming.
Then that turned into this slogan, geniuses coming, which turned into an entire movement.
As we speak, we have a presence in all 50 states, 19 countries, 49 ambassadors with
106 celebrities that actually did geniuses coming video jobs.
Our main website is geniusescoming.com.
And then we have a business directory, geniusescomingbusinessdirectory.com as well.
And so look at the geniusescoming movement like an amalgamation of geniuses in every
genre you can imagine, right?
And all coming together, coalescing in one movement.
And then we even have a youth entrepreneur division and it's a YouTube-based movement.
So we have over 1,400 geniusescoming videos on our website from children as young as three
years old.
That when they said genius is coming, it sounds like they were saying Jesus is coming.
Jesus is coming because he is.
So it's groundbreaking.
And we're in a cusp of breaking mainstream any day, hour, a month now, like Black Lives
Matter and Me Too, respectively.
Wow.
So let me, I have two questions for you.
The first one is before this becomes totally mainstream and you absolutely demystify the
word genius, can you call my kids and tell them that I am a genius?
I would really appreciate that.
Absolutely.
We'd love to do that.
But also, so you hit on it.
You want to get this mainstream.
This is one of your focuses now.
So what is your biggest dream for it?
And what would success look like?
Look like?
Okay.
First of all, the geniusescoming movement, we're 10 years in, it was downloaded into
my spirit in a latter part of 2014.
And as a believer, we declare and decree a thing.
Before we even had a website, before we even, it was a twinkling in the eye of anybody.
This is what I said and I've declared it as a decree and it's starting to come about.
I said the geniusescoming movement is about to become a part of the American lexicon,
like Nike should just do it and Sprite obey your thirst.
And it's on its way to becoming that, but actually by God's grace.
And so people have always told me when I onboard them into the movement, the first question
I ask them is what are your geniuses?
And then there's this pregnant pause and pregnant silence because they're like, no one has ever
asked me that before, number one.
And number two, they've been bamboozled to not realize that your gifts and your talents
are your geniuses.
Those are your geniuses.
We all have a genius seed.
Some call it God which I do, some call it source energy, but it's a seed that needs
water, right?
And so we all have a genius seed, as Tal alluded to earlier, that we all have these gifts.
We just need to find what the gifts are and tap into it, get tapped into it.
And when we get tapped into it, the paradigm shift, the way we think about the word genius,
which will paradigm shift the way we think about ourselves.
And it's just so explosive in terms of how the movement has raised the self-esteem of
so many youth as well as adults.
So healthy.
Very healthy.
Yeah.
I mean, and you know, it's, you've been a champion for creativity, for self-worth, you've
been really invested in youth, particularly as you said, youth that come from backgrounds
where they've not had a lot of people invest in them, and particularly men for that matter.
What's the most surprising reaction you receive from someone who you impacted with your work?
I wouldn't say it was surprising because I'm real clear about the power of the movement.
But what is surprising to me is the amount of people that have not really tapped into
what their geniuses are.
And the amount of people that really, they're very one trick ponyish, right?
They just have blinders on and they just really can't see beyond that.
And the reason why is because they've been socially engineered to be that way.
You know, the so-called powers that be, you know, William Cooper talked about the notion
of sheeple, right?
Chomsky talked about, I love Noam Chomsky, by the way.
Shout out to Noam Chomsky.
He talked about the notion of hurtism, you know, and Emerson said it best.
He said, this piece, The American Scholar, he says, society is a conspiracy against the
manhood of every one of its members.
It holds conformity as its greatest virtue and self-reliance as the enemy.
So it was an essay called Suffer the Lines by Robert Waldo Emerson.
I'll deploy your audience to read that essay.
You know, so whenever you try to break off from the status quo, you try to break off
and do your own thing, the way the system is set up is designed to herd you or sheeple
you with everybody else so that's where they can control you, right?
So when you color outside of the box, then you're an outlaw, right?
You're going out of the bounds, you know, and it's the same thing with critics.
You know, the critic is the gatekeeper to the state, which is the gatekeeper to the
ruling class.
So if it's a fashion critic, if you're whatever fashion, whatever type of clothing that you
have designed, if it doesn't support the status quo, then it will get two thumbs down.
Big ups to see Schoo and Ebert, right?
I think one of them passed.
And so the bottom line is, it's the same thing in music.
If you are playing hip hop music, that's all about kill, kill, kill, murder, murder, murder,
kill, kill, kill, and you're going to get a gold platinum.
But if you talk about the data CIA killed a mumba in your lyrics and your conscious
rapper, then you're not going to go platinum, you know, and you're going to get, you know,
censored and everything else.
And so yeah, I'm a firm believer in activism.
I've been an activist forever before it's fashionable to be one.
Service is the rent you pay for being on earth, right?
So everything I do is out of activism.
That's that is amazing.
So we have, you know, the show is, um, we just have the best listeners in the world
and we have people who are like, you know, they're very well seasoned entrepreneurs.
They're the others who are just starting out, just trying to figure out what their dreams
are and all that kind of, you know, wonderful things.
But a lot of times people feel stuck.
So if there's someone today that's listening and they feel stuck or they're unsure about
their own potential, right?
A lot of times we're, we are our own worst enemy.
We get in our own way.
Um, you know, there's a lot of imposter syndrome out there.
What's what's one piece of advice or story that you may have from your own life that
might help them give them that, that little oomph that emboldened them to take that next
step forward?
A great question.
As a believer, we are taught lean not towards your own understanding, acknowledge him in
all your ways and he would direct your path.
So what I would say to them is to listen, listen to that spirit, listen to that voice,
that subtle voice that says, don't go left, go right.
Don't go right, go left.
Right.
And follow that.
You know, God has a way of bread crumbing us.
The Holy Spirit as in us will have as a way of bread crumbing us to go in a different
direction.
Right.
And a lot of people are not spirit led, they're money led.
So my advice to you is no, no, don't be money led, be spirit led.
Because if you're money led, that's not your calling.
A lot of times you'll get into something that is not your calling and it goes against what
you were born to do.
Flipping, I mean, Jeremiah 1.5, before I formed the inner belly I knew thee and I ordained
thee.
Right.
So we were all ordained to do something before we were even born.
God instilled that in us.
Right.
But if, so when God bread crumbs us and the Holy Spirit bread crumbs us, don't just eat
the bread crumbs and go in a different direction.
Eat the bread crumbs, follow the bread crumbs and follow what your spirit, the Holy Spirit
in you is saying.
But most people don't do that.
They'll eat the bread crumbs and go in a different direction because their money incentivized.
You know, money is an incentive for them.
Yeah, you make a whole lot of money, but you'd be miserable doing it.
Right.
So a lot of people are making a whole lot of money, a ton of money, but it's not their
calling and they wonder why they're not happy.
Right.
So I say to people, follow your spirit, listen to your spirit, sit upon your bed, meditate,
and just listen to what the spirit is telling you, which direction to go in and follow that
direction.
And when you follow it and you put the necessary work in, you will see the results.
You know, Frederick Douglass said, power can seize nothing without a demand, never did
another will.
Demand of your time, demand of your money, demand of your energy.
You know, Dr. Miles Morose said it best.
He said the fastest way, the longest way to success is the shortcut.
There are no shortcuts.
You know, you have to put the work in and you have to be willing to bring 100% of yourself
to the love table as an entrepreneur.
Right.
Don't look for shortcuts.
Go the long, sometimes you have to go the long route.
Let me go to where you just went.
You have to go to the love table.
There's a book that I came across earlier this year called The Mastery of Self by Don
Miguel Ruiz Jr.
I don't know if you've had a chance to read it, Bruce.
I think you would love it if you haven't.
I'm familiar with the four agreements.
That's his father.
That's his dad.
That's Miguel Ruiz Jr.
Oh, okay.
This is the son.
And the premise of The Mastery of Self is that most of us are walking through fog.
We are experiencing our life as if we're in a fog.
It actually would, I think the sheeple word used before is another way to describe what's
being described in the book as the fog.
And the book is phenomenal.
It's a short book.
I mean, I recommend buying the print version of it and highlighting it in old school.
And one of the main takeaways from that book, and I actually think even though it's not
a book about business, it's a book that anyone who is considering starting a business or
is running a business should strongly consider reading because success, I think, you know,
Bruce said it better than I ever could.
But I'll put my spin on what Bruce just said.
A lot of people chase dollars instead of purpose.
And one of the things we've tried to do with this podcast, and I think hopefully one of
the reasons we've been a very popular podcast is that we are bringing guests on who do a
couple of things.
One, they talk, as Bruce has, about things that are difficult.
Being vulnerable.
Bruce talked about being involved in gang activities as a young person.
He doesn't have to tell us that.
This is a man who's one of Tony.
He's one of Peabody.
He doesn't have to tell us that.
So vulnerability is one aspect here I think that is worth calling out.
And the other is recognizing that success without love is worthless.
And I don't mean love.
I mean, I mean it in every sense of the word.
Love the people you work with.
Love the people you work for.
Love the community you service.
Love the purpose you have.
And if it's missing, what do you have?
We only, you know, we are here.
We have a purpose.
Our job is to go find it.
We have a genius.
Our job is to uncover it.
I think that's what Bruce dedicates his entire career to.
And many people can benefit from reflecting on it just a bit.
And trying to take something from that into their lives.
You have to.
I mean, Zig Ziggler said it best.
He said, do what you love and the money will follow.
Shout out to Zig Ziggler who passed away.
I think he passed away like about five years ago.
He was one of my mentors as well.
And he said, do what you love and the money will follow.
You know, you have to do what you love, right?
And if you don't love it, then it's crazy.
It reminds me of a line Billy Dee in Lady Sings the Blues.
He said, what a success without the one you love to share with, right?
So yeah, you can have all the success in the world.
But if you don't have anybody that you love that you can share that with, then it's for
naught.
You know, what a success to me is about being able to give back.
It's about being a provider, being of service, being philanthropic, right?
That's where happiness is.
Happiness is not in consumption.
Happiness isn't giving back, right?
But a lot of people think happiness is in consumption.
It's never because there's never enough.
You agree.
The more you get, the more you want.
One is too many and a thousand is not enough, right?
And so you would never be happy in consuming things because again, the more you get, the
more you want.
And you get to the point where you're so rich and in money that you start buying things
that are real silly and stupid because you're so calcified in terms of, you know, and blinded
by money that you're buying things that is meaningless, right?
So you start buying $5 million paintings where the painter, all he did was take one stroke
across the canvas and has a name for himself, Picasso, whatever, and you're paying like
$9 million.
And all he did was take a one stroke across the canvas.
You know, it's crazy.
Well, I'll tell you, I'll tell you what, there's a real story.
This is a real story.
You can Google it.
This happened last week.
A vendor, street vendor outside of a auction house in New York sold a banana for 25 cents.
That banana was then taped to the wall by an artist and sold for $6.25 million.
That's my point.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Looked that up.
The person who bought it bragged about it on X and also said that he planned to eat the
banana three days later.
And so if it sounds absurd, it's because it is.
And I think, you know, that's part of the that's part of the I think the thesis here,
OK, is that we if we deviate too far from what is of real worth of real value, which
is people and connection and we're worried about consumption.
And I would say there's maybe one place where I think consumption is justified and it's
consuming information, consuming knowledge, specifically knowledge.
Go out there and acquire as much of that as you can.
You want to be a consumer of knowledge, go for it, but then apply it as Bruce does for
common good.
And that's not to say, listen, you know, I'm an entrepreneur.
I've spent my entire career starting and building and selling businesses.
I'm not knocking capitalism at all.
I'm a capitalist to my core.
But I also believe that at its underneath, that is a an essential need to remain human.
Think about our humanity and think about the humanity of those who are around us.
And by the way, humanity and let's include animals and other living things and do our
very best to.
Enable others around us to live their best lives, not just us living our best lives.
Right.
Not everybody is able to be a capitalist and have that sense of humanity.
And that's why Lord Acton said the best.
He said power corrupts and, you know, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.
Right.
And so a lot of times, you know, you get these venture and vulture capitalists that they
don't care how the money, where it comes from and the child slave labor.
Right.
And how many people have died making those products.
All they want is a return or ROI on investment.
Now, when you tap into those waters, then that's dangerous spiritually, economically,
your moral compass.
You know, Dante said the best, he said the hottest places in hell are reserved for those
who are in a position of moral crisis who maintain a neutrality.
Right.
So, I mean, real talk.
You know, you have to have some type of moral compass in life.
And God says in the Bible, for what would a prophet man be getting the whole world and
lose his own soul?
So yeah, there's nothing wrong with making money.
I'm not anti-money.
God says in the Bible, money answer for all things.
But don't let the money, which is spiritual, by the way, rob you of who you are.
Right.
Don't let it turn you into somebody that you're not.
And I think money has a tendency to...
People allow money to do that, to turn them into someone or some person that they're not.
And then that's when it goes against you and it bites you in your butt because of greed.
You know, Gordon Gekko, right?
Gordon Gekko and then Wall Street, right?
So, you know, we saw that role, a perfect example of how money and greed...
He said greed is good.
No, greed is not good.
You know, greed is why, you know, the sewage plants and people are dying like crazy and,
you know, landfills and all these different things in these, you know, different so-called
third world countries, how we're just giving them our garbage and man-filling their countries
and rick and ship policies and all these different things out of greed.
And it's shameful, you know, whose trade organization?
I would implore your audience to read the book, Whose Trade Organization by Patrick
Woodall and Laurie Wallish.
It's a comprehensive guide to the World Trade Organization.
And you get to see how they are just...
So, Jocone and how people in corporate America just, you know, and for the sake of making
a profit, how they ship and trip, you know, ship and rip third world countries of their
natural resources and then turn them into debtor nations, right?
So it's crazy.
Well, I, you know, I don't want to end on a down note because there are plenty of things
in the world that need correction and I call on, I implore members of our audience to find
new ways to contribute.
I think one of the beautiful things in what you do is that it's generally a message of
optimism, right?
I think the whole concept of genius is common, is about each of us finding our genius and
collectively we push forward towards a better future.
And you know, this is an episode that included a lot of significant wisdom and, you know,
members of the audience, there was a lot of it coming at you, hard and fast.
This would be the kind of episode you want to listen to again, I think, and maybe with
a pen and a pen.
And you know, I would be absolutely remiss if I didn't, you know, just mentioned how
much I appreciate everything you stand for, how much value I think what you do brings
and how I feel the world needs more people like you.
And I'm a big fan.
I think you're doing amazing work and I'm really grateful that you came on our podcast.
No, it's an honor to be on your podcast.
You and PJ are doing an amazing job with your podcast and I'm going to spread the word.
Definitely.
We appreciate it.
Our guest today was Bruce George, the visionary entrepreneur, the acclaimed poet, the social
activist, a winner of a Peabody Award, a winner of a Tony Award, the founder of the Genius
is Common movement and one of the most inspiring people out there.
I encourage people to look for the Genius is Common movement.
I think the website is, can you repeat the website, Bruce?
Yeah, it's geniusescommon.com in the business directory, Genius is Common business directory.
And also I would be remiss if I didn't say that I was awarded with the Presidential Lifetime
Achievement Award 2024 under Biden, the real one with the medallion and the certificate.
Yeah, so I want him getting one of those as well.
I'm sorry we didn't have that in our bio.
It's a missed by our staff.
We should have absolutely called that out.
So thank you for telling us about it.
No, I appreciate it.
No, you're good.
Congratulations.
That's an unbelievable accomplishment and well deserved.
And I would just love to say really quick, you've already got a Peabody and you've gotten
the Tony.
So if you can get your Emmy and your Grammy and your Oscar, you can have a Peabot and
you'd be the first Peagot.
I know, the Presidential Lifetime Achievement Award, all of these different things.
That is great.
That's a Peapie cat.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
God is great.
Thank you very much for having me.
This is fun.
Bruce, it's been a pleasure.
Thanks so much for coming on.
So great.
Thank you so much.
God bless you.
Peace.
And that's a wrap, folks.
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