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Derrich Phillips is the Founder and Chief Mentor at Mentor Select, a great resource for mentorship and career guidance. Derrich shares personal stories of overcoming adversity, and highlights the power of building mentor relationships with kids from hard places. Derrich recently released a book titled Poverty Powerball to help people overcome a poverty mindset.
Show Notes
Episode: 9
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WELCOME
WELCOME
You Can Mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others.
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SHOW NOTES
Derrich Phillips is the Founder and Chief Mentor at Mentor Select, a great resource for mentorship and career guidance. Derrich shares personal stories of overcoming adversity, and highlights the power of building mentor relationships with kids from hard places. Derrich recently released a book titled Poverty Powerball to help people overcome a poverty mindset.
Mentor Select: Website | Instagram | Email
Gary, Indiana
Poverty Powerball (Amazon)
Mentor Select: Website | Instagram | Email
Gary, Indiana
Poverty Powerball (Amazon)
Creators and Guests
What is You Can Mentor: A Christian Youth Mentoring Podcast?
You Can Mentor is a network that equips and encourages mentors and mentoring leaders through resources and relationships to love God, love others, and make disciples in their own community. We want to see Christian mentors thrive.
We want to hear from you! Send any mentoring questions to hello@youcanmentor.com, and we'll answer them on our podcast. We want to help you become the best possible mentor you can be. Also, if you are a mentoring organization, church, or non-profit, connect with us to join our mentoring network or to be spotlighted on our show.
Please find out more at www.youcanmentor.com or find us on social media. You will find more resources on our website to help equip and encourage mentors. We have downloadable resources, cohort opportunities, and an opportunity to build relationships with other Christian mentoring leaders.
You can mentor is a podcast about the power of building relationships with kids from hard places in the name of Jesus. Every episode will help you overcome common mentoring obstacles and give you the confidence you need to invest in the lives of others. You can mentor.
Speaker 2:Hey, welcome to another episode of the you can mentor podcast. My name is Steven, and I'm here with Caroline Cash
Speaker 1:Hello, everyone.
Speaker 2:And a special guest today, Darich Phillips.
Speaker 3:What's up? Happy to be here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for coming, man. We're glad you're here. Darich is an author, an entrepreneur, a speaker, a veteran. I I mean, what aren't you? I mean, you're a father.
Speaker 2:Right. I mean, you you got all the things. If there was a checklist, if everything is manly, you you have it. Darich, I wanna share just kind of your biography a little bit because you just came out with a book that's a series of books that's gonna be coming out.
Speaker 3:Yeah. It'll be a series.
Speaker 2:Okay. You're coming out with a few more. Okay. Darich wrote a book called poverty powerball. Darich was born and raised in the city of Gary, Indiana.
Speaker 2:We need some subscribers in Gary, Indiana to
Speaker 3:pick up this podcast. 219.
Speaker 2:If you're out there in the 219, please come. He earned a master's of business administration at, Grand Canyon University and a bachelor's degree in occupational education from Wayland Baptist University. Darich currently works as the founder and chief mentor at Mentor Select, and that's in Dallas. Right?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Dallas, Texas, with his wife Raquel, and now daughter. Is she hired yet? Is she a part of the team?
Speaker 3:Yes. She's already put her to work. She's she's already marketing my book. Alright, man.
Speaker 2:That's good. How did you meet your wife? And tell me that whole story.
Speaker 3:I moved to Dallas in 2008. Originally from Indiana, as you know now. But my wife, she's from Ohio to the Ohio, and she moved here in 2012. And we actually met online, a dating website.
Speaker 1:Wow. That's awesome.
Speaker 3:We caught plenty of fish, so we're one of those success stories. But, yeah, we met in 2012 October 2012, and first date went well. We had tacos at a went to the taco diner. Just talked for hours, so we certainly had that chemistry immediately. And, yeah, it's been the rest is history.
Speaker 2:Okay. Cool.
Speaker 3:Now, yeah, we, we just had our baby first. So that's exciting. Actually, my wife, she's hosting well, she she has a YouTube channel. She does weekly videos that's called the Phillips family journey, and she talks about our journey of going through fertility issues. So that's just That's really Okay.
Speaker 3:She's she's doing her thing too on the on the media side.
Speaker 1:That's cool.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Man, that's some meaningful work that y'all doing. So what church did you say that y'all were going to?
Speaker 3:Shoreline City.
Speaker 1:Me too.
Speaker 3:Big shots. Small world.
Speaker 1:Sort of like 6 people in that room.
Speaker 3:Wow. I love that church.
Speaker 1:It's it's awesome.
Speaker 2:Because everyone at Forerunner goes to Shoreline. So
Speaker 3:Steve, do you have kids?
Speaker 2:No kids. Mhmm. So I've been freed up. Though I did have a dream that Katie and I had a baby, and the day was May 26th.
Speaker 3:Wow. So
Speaker 2:now that this is recording I
Speaker 3:mean, the date
Speaker 2:I am, I mean, we have a record of if it happens, we'll look back at this recording. So
Speaker 1:Wow. It's
Speaker 2:special. So yeah. So I'm, like, looking at what is 9 months. Yeah.
Speaker 1:I was about to say, are you counting back?
Speaker 3:I'm not. It's
Speaker 2:coming up. We got
Speaker 3:a special date night. I got romantic.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's funny.
Speaker 2:But, yeah. Date. So okay. Well, we are excited to have Derick on the podcast. We read his book this week, and we're super encouraged and challenged by your life, man, and your own personal experiences that you've walked through.
Speaker 2:As you know, our podcast is about mentoring kids from hard places, and so we want any stories that that we have on the podcast to encourage mentors and understanding the experiences of the kids that we serve as well as growing in an understanding of the the culture and the life that are around our schools, around our neighborhoods, around us in life. And I know Gary, Indiana probably looks a little different than Dallas. Maybe you could even hit on that. What what's different about Gary than Dallas? Like, as you've kinda moved over here.
Speaker 3:So Gary most people that hear Gary, they think about the Jackson 5, Michael Jackson. Okay. That's that's where they grew up. So it's automatic to think about that. Gary is about 26 miles east of Chicago.
Speaker 3:So it's close to a big city if you think about the proximity from Plano to downtown Dallas, kind of just that close.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 3:But when I grew up there, I had about a 120,000 residents. So it's a small city. But other than being home of the Jackson 5, during the nineties, it was the murder capital of the United States just based on the size and the number of murders per year.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:So it it truly was like growing up in a war zone, had several friends shot and killed before I graduated high school. Unfortunately, witnessed some of those, murders. So there's a lot of trauma, a lot of drugs. Crackle came. It was a huge epidemic there.
Speaker 3:It was it's a rough city, but just like, you know, I'll say kids from rough places. That's that's one of those rough places. Because if you think about Gary's just view it as a suburb of Chicago.
Speaker 2:I'd love for you just to explain, to our listeners kind of a little background about, the context you grew up in, what was life like, what was school like, what was family life like? Could you just kinda paint a picture for our listeners as they, yeah, just listen to your story?
Speaker 3:Certainly. I think the the best place to start, I think, when I was 11 years old, and, looking back on that, that was it was kinda like the the worst period of my life. Over a period of 6 months, my mom, 2 sisters, and I, we all we went from, being evicted from our house to living in a homeless shelter to living out our van for a couple of months. Then so with all of that, then we finally landed in another house. And within a couple weeks, it's on this particular day, it was my sister, Taylor, she was 2 years old at the time, and like I said, I was 11.
Speaker 3:We're in the front yard just playing, and I remember 2 cars pulled into our driveway. 1 was a police car. 1 was a Nissan Maxima. And initially, I immediately thought like, oh, man. What did I do?
Speaker 3:I'm in trouble. Because at the time, I was already still and already hanging out with gang members just really going down the wrong path. Oh. And So
Speaker 2:you're 11 years old and you see a police car, and you're like
Speaker 3:Busted. Someone snitched on me. Right? So as the police officer gets out of his car and the lady gets out the, Nissan Maxima, they start approaching us. My initial reaction, like, officer, I didn't do it.
Speaker 3:Just that was my mindset. Like, I'm in trouble. And, also, he kinda laughed. He's like, I'm I'm not here for you. I need to see your mother.
Speaker 3:And at that time, the officer went to our house, and then the lady she introduced herself is I'll never forget her name, Carol, and she was a caseworker with Child Protective Services. So she instructed us to go to the car with her. And as my sister and I are sitting in the car, of course, we're confused. We're afraid. By the time, I think we're both crying, and we see my mother come out followed by a police officer.
Speaker 3:And by this time, my mother, she's screaming and cursing at the police officer. And Carol explained to us, like, your mom is sick, and we need to take her to get a mental evaluation. So that was the first time it really dawned on me. Like, I realized that all that those hardships I mentioned about getting evicted, being homeless, that that was taking a toll on my mother because she went to she started smoking cigarettes a lot, like, 2 packs a day, and she would just, like, talk to herself and just going through all that. But being 11, I didn't quite understand what was going on.
Speaker 3:But even then, I know I had to kind of step up and fill that void and help take care of my little sister. Wow. And so that day, we end up going Carol took us to the child protective services. Once we arrived, my older sister, Unique, was there. She's 2 years older than me.
Speaker 3:And my sister kinda had a better understanding of what was going on and explained to me that, yeah, mom's sick. She's gonna get help. But I also realized, like, okay. Our lives will never be the same at that after that point. But we kinda wonder, like, okay.
Speaker 3:Are we gonna stick together? Are we gonna be sent to a group home? What's gonna happen? And over the course of a couple hours, my little sister, Taylor, her father came to get her, so she left. Then at this point, it was just my oldest sister, Unique and I, and, we have the same father.
Speaker 3:So my older sister our father showed up at the Chapsack service offices with his mother, and they took Unique. And but they didn't take me.
Speaker 2:Wow.
Speaker 3:So that was I was kinda confused, like, what's going on? And Carol after he left, Carol explained to me, like, that, my father's name was not on my birth certificate, so I could not go live with him. Wow. So at that point, just a lot of thoughts going through my head, like, then who whose name on my birth certificate? Like, who is my father?
Speaker 3:Is this man really my father? Who am I? So I felt like that was probably my lowest point. Like, I completely, like, lost half of my identity because who I thought was my father now, at least from the paperwork side from birth certificate point of view, he's not my father. And, like, being at that lowest point, I spot, like, a familiar face.
Speaker 3:My uncle Tommy, who's my mother's older brother, he was 20 years older than my mother, he comes in into the room and lets me know that I'm going to live with him. In hindsight, would end up being the worst day of my life worst period of my life, end up being the best day of my life at the same time because my uncle Tommy, he was stable. He had financial stability. He, worked for a living, and he he pretty much was a positive influence. And he feel that that father role at a point where I needed the most.
Speaker 3:Yeah. So I end up staying my uncle Tommy had been my legal guardian up until I graduated high school and joined the army. And my mother, she ended up being committed to essentially a mental hospital for about 4 years. No. Up to my sophomore year is when she actually was able to get out and live on her own.
Speaker 3:K. But it's kinda summery. Yeah. You got a little little tip of the spear.
Speaker 2:Well, I mean, it's just so much to take in Mhmm. As an 11 year old in, like, the course of a few hours, it seems like.
Speaker 1:So many emotions
Speaker 2:too. And Don't know if you're gonna see your sisters again. What's going on here with mom? Who's my dad? Like like, even an adult could not
Speaker 1:Right.
Speaker 2:Like, contain themselves on, like, trying to deal with all of those issues at the same time. And, I mean, that I mean, could could you even just kind of explain more about, like, before then, your relationship with your father or the man you you thought was your father. I don't know if you figured out if because I thought I read something in your book where, like, you look like him or something like that.
Speaker 3:Right. So the man who I was told my father and I've accepted to this point that he is my father, So we look identical. This is one of those things, like, you don't need a DNA test.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:But what's ironic about that is growing up, he was even though we live in the same city, and I describe it as a small city, he was all but absent. Like, I knew he was, and I have, like, a handful of memories of going because he lived with his mother, going over to his mother's house. And just like a handful of times, never any time, like, us really just hanging out or father, son. None of those type of experiences. But the the recollections I do have is times where he would communicate to me or my mother that, oh, I'm gonna come pick pick pick them up
Speaker 2:so
Speaker 3:we can hang out and spend some time together and, like, being so excited and just so anxious and just waiting for them all day to come, and you never show up. Mhmm. And things like that happen over years. Up until I remember right around right around age 10 or 11 where I finally realized, I thought all that disappointment, I don't wanna be let down. Like, he's not coming.
Speaker 3:He's he's a dead being let down, like, he's not coming. He's he's a deadbeat. He's not going to be in my life. He kinda accepted it, but at the same time, there's so much anger and resentment with that that I carry for a long time. And there was a 1 Tupac, he's one of my favorite rappers, and it was during that time period.
Speaker 3:He came out with a song called Dear Mama. And one of his verses, he says, they say I'm hard and I'm hopeless, but all alone, I was looking for a father. He was gone. And my anger wouldn't let me feel for a stranger. So that's how I kinda felt from that point when I decided, okay.
Speaker 3:He's not gonna be in my life. My father, he's essentially dead to me. I felt like he was a stranger and it but it was so much hatred towards him. But even then, when I was 11, being in that child protective services office, I still wanted to go live with him. I still wanted to be with my older sister.
Speaker 3:So it was it was a lot of emotions to process, but I guess kind of a happy ending what it is. About a 2 maybe a year ago, 2 years ago, I was reading something, and I came across a Nelson Mandela quote. And he talked about how when you're holding that anger and resentment towards someone, it's like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die. Yeah. And it really clicked for me.
Speaker 3:Like, all those years I've been drinking poison, have that anger towards my my dad, and was calling, like, my sperm donor. I wouldn't even call him my dad. I couldn't bring myself to call him my father or dad. I'll just say it's my sperm donor. And it dawned on me like this.
Speaker 3:I'm drinking that poison. I'm carrying that that hate to help, and it's it's not hurting him. It's hurting me.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:So that that just in that moment, I'm okay. I'm a let go. And it took took time for me to get to the point, but about 3 months ago, I actually called my father. I hadn't talked to him. Can't remember.
Speaker 3:Maybe it was since I was 11, 12, that time period. Wow. Called him, and it was he was happy to hear from me. He was we just had a regular conversation. It was pointless for me to say, okay.
Speaker 3:Why wasn't he there, like, grilling about it? It was just, hey. Let's move forward. Let's what are we gonna do now as far as rebuilding this relationship? And so now I realized that the greatest part of it is open the door for him to be a grandfather, for him to be in my daughter's life.
Speaker 3:Happy about that.
Speaker 1:So much forgiveness had to take place, and we've talked about that a little bit on here before of just, like, the need for forgiveness when it comes to working with kids from hard places. There's not a lot it's hard to process hard things that go on and to get to that point where you're able to forgive. And so for you, I know that that wasn't like an overnight decision or it just didn't it didn't happen in a day. And so what were some of the resources or relationships that you had in your life from 11 till now that kinda got you from anger and resentment and where to where you now where you were able to actually forgive and move forward?
Speaker 3:I'll say the biggest one was really accepting God in my life, and really definitely my spirituality. Because even though I was raised in the church, my grandmother's really religious. I used to go to church every Sunday, choir practice, all of that. But, actually, once I moved my Uncle Tommy, he wasn't he was religious, but he didn't make us go to church or anything like that. So I kinda didn't really wasn't involved in church.
Speaker 3:And then once I became an adult, I just kinda carried that over. But getting back involved in church, which happened recently within the last couple of years, it kinda opened up my heart and I realized just how important forgiveness is and how no one is perfect. And just you just there's no point in dwelling on the past. Yeah. It just it I think, what's her name?
Speaker 3:Mahalia Jackson. She talks about how the greatest gift you can give is forgiveness. Forgive everybody. And it's a gift to yourself. So that's something that really dawned on me.
Speaker 3:Like, yeah, any anybody that I'm not forgiving, that's just the gifts that I'm withholding for my myself, and it's taken up space in my heart that I can be using for something positive. Cool. But other than god, definitely family, friends, people who have forgiven me when I've made mistakes.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And just I don't don't wanna be a hypocrite. I know that so, again, no one's perfect, and I wanna be forgiven, so I need to be able to forgive others.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's awesome. Well and it and it sounds like usually for for most people, they'll look to their their dad as their mentor, like someone who would speak into their life and, like, help them through difficult challenges and help them emotionally mature and, like, all of those things. And, I mean, just in in your process of walking through not just forgiveness, there's a lot of other emotions that I I feel like you've experienced.
Speaker 3:Wide
Speaker 2:range. Many of our mentors are committing to investing in the life of a a boy or a girl who's had one of those primary relationships bail. Why whether that was their own volition, they decided to leave, or the relationship with mom didn't work out, or they passed away, or they were incarcerated, or, I mean, just fill in the blank. All of the societal issues that create the environment for children to lose those primary relationships. What encouragement would you have to a mentor who's coming into that 11 year old's life and trying to help them process their emotions.
Speaker 2:Do you have any advice for a mentor that's kinda entering into that space?
Speaker 3:Biggest advice I would say is that when you look at change in the world, sometimes people get discouraged by that. When you say, okay. You can change the world. At the end of the day, it really comes down to changes one person's life. You change one person's life, you've changed the world because you they're gonna pass it forward.
Speaker 3:It's just gonna be a domino effect. So that's what the opportunity mentors have. Just they can have that impact on one person life that mentee, and it can be whether it's for a year, whether it's for a month, for a lifetime. You just don't know what encounter that is gonna have on that child's life. And I've had a lot of mentors throughout my life where it may have been for a really short period of time, but just for them taking time out of their busy day, just showing interest in me, loving on me, just being that shoulder to cry on, someone to listen to, listen to me.
Speaker 3:That that made a huge difference. And you for a mentor, you just you you can't put a price on that.
Speaker 2:Yeah. I
Speaker 1:think that's good. Like, even just hearing from you as someone who has experienced trauma, for you to say, even mentors that were in my life for a short period of time made some difference in my life, I think is really encouraging to our mentors, especially as we, we hear a lot about mentors where their kids might move to another city or another part of town or switch schools or where the relationship becomes, more difficult in the sense where they either physically can't reach them anymore or communication ends for some reason. But the fact that that was not lost, like, that relationship, whether it be a super long period of time or a very short period of time, that relationship was not, for nothing. And there is differences that can be made. I just think that's a huge encouragement.
Speaker 1:So mentors out there, tune in seriously.
Speaker 3:Definitely. Some good stuff. Because it's not all or nothing. It's it's long as you you your heart's in the right place. You're genuine.
Speaker 3:You you show interest in that child. Yes. The it makes an impact. There's no one says how long it needs to be, but it really makes the impact. An example of that is so I told you all the situation about my uncle Tommy becoming my legal guardian.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:What what was ironic about that, it really came full circle. Once I I was discharged from the army, I was 22 years old. Within a week, my little sister at the time, she was 13. Taylor, by this time, she came to live with me in Phoenix because she was in the exact same situation where she didn't have that stability, and I was the best option for her. And even though I have any kids at the time, I wasn't married to take on a 13 year old.
Speaker 3:I didn't think twice about it because uncle Tommy did it for me. So and I knew the impact it had on my life. I would change the trajectory. So it's like, okay. If I can do this for someone else, then I have to do it.
Speaker 1:Yeah. That's awesome. That's good, man.
Speaker 2:I wanna even, Mike, ask you a question about you joining the military. You go into Iraq and Afghanistan. What kind of led you down that path? Tell me what was kinda going through your head when when you were making that decision.
Speaker 3:Really, the biggest influence was, on September 11th. I remember it was my senior high school. I was getting ready for school watching the news, and I remember watching that second plane flying to the towers and seeing everything that unfolded after 911. And the biggest impact it had on me was seeing how the country united came together, and I realized, like, I don't wanna be on the sidelines. I want to be Wow.
Speaker 3:Just how those first responders is running in those towers and running into the Pentagon to save people, putting their life at risk. Like, wow. That's something so noble. It's all requires so much courage and just selfless service. Mhmm.
Speaker 2:Like, why
Speaker 3:are we gonna be a part of that? So that was the biggest influence. And then the the secondary influence was my uncle Tommy. His both his sons were military. He had a son that retired from the marines, another son served in the navy.
Speaker 3:So they would come home for just leave vacation and tell me about their stories and me seeing them traveling around the world. So that appealed to me as well. So it's a combination of those two things.
Speaker 2:Wow. Wow. Because what I pick up from what you just said is that in your own, like, headspace, you're seeing a purpose. You're seeing people live out a purpose, a meaningful life, a heroic lifestyle, and then also you're seeing it in the family of of the man who took you in Right. And his sons.
Speaker 2:And so in essence, like, the mentor Tommy, who took you in, who really wasn't a mentor, he's a father figure
Speaker 3:Absolutely. To you. And he still serves in that role today. 72, still my father figure.
Speaker 2:But his relationship, him entering into your life created an environment where you saw opportunity and purpose and a future of I could I could do this because they've done it. And so
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:I think that's really powerful. Mhmm. Because I I don't think our mentors, like, you're I don't know. Maybe some guy doing finance downtown or, like, consulting. They're probably not thinking, like, their kids like, man, I could be a consultant or or something.
Speaker 1:Probably not.
Speaker 2:But you definitely see it when one of our mentors who's a firefighter shows up, and they recognize these men are serving in our community. And, like, you just see these kind of light bulbs going off where they're connecting to futures and dreams more than they ever would if they didn't have a mentor kind of displaying a future, if that makes sense.
Speaker 3:Right. So It's definitely a great sign of putting on that uniform and just just comes so much respect comes with it because of the people that serve before you. Mhmm. But also the mentors who don't have those type of careers, they're in uniform or doing something that seems so heroic is being a mentor really is heroic. So just realize that it doesn't matter what you do long like I said, long as your heart's in the right place, you you're there to you have that that kid's best interest in mind.
Speaker 3:You're just as heroic. You're just as courageous. We all serve in different capacities.
Speaker 1:And Yeah. All you finance consultants down there.
Speaker 3:Heroes. Heroes. You you're manly man.
Speaker 1:Maybe maybe one kid that you mentor will get really passionate about consulting. PG. Oops.
Speaker 2:Come on for you.
Speaker 1:They they need they need people. They're always looking.
Speaker 2:Man, well, I I'd love to even just talk a little more about your book because I feel like your story connects to, something I haven't spent a lot of time even thinking about. One of the quotes I pulled from your book was that all blessings are not obvious. Many are disguised in the form of adversity. And I just love if you could unpack what you're saying in that because I I think you're even when we started this podcast, you're sharing a really difficult situation with your family. Right.
Speaker 2:And then the next sentence, you're like, well, you know, it actually worked out. And that connection, I'm like, well, where's can you draw the the line between those two statements?
Speaker 1:Because that's not natural for me.
Speaker 2:So yeah. Like, your blessings disguised within adversity. Can you unpack what you're saying there?
Speaker 3:I think I got that from my grandmother. She's always say about blessings in disguise and really realizing that the hardships you're going through in adversity, there's always something to be taken from it, to be learned from it. Even all the time, you saw it say you don't lose, you learn. So just that that that mindset. And with the book, what really gave me the framework for the book is on Jay z quote that I have in there where he says, since I made it here, I can make it anywhere.
Speaker 3:And Jay z was talking about growing up in Marcy Projects. His father left when he was 11 years old. He turned he turned selling crack cocaine, but he realized by the time he's 19, hey. I've I've developed a lot of skills, transferable skills from these hardships that if I made it here, make it in the boardroom, make it into music, make it in whatever I set my sights on, it's gonna be easy. So that's that's how I kinda had that mindset growing up, especially once I left Gary realizing that, hey, I came from a really hard place, but that's given me a competitive advantage because it's made me so mentally tough.
Speaker 3:It's made me so resilient. You can't you can't buy that. And a lot of times, people who haven't had hardships everyone has hardships, but in the context of those type of hardships, they don't know how they're gonna react when they're under stress, when they're hit when they're hit with some type of adversity. So that gives them some insecurity. But if you've what we call the military, if you're battle tested, you've been through battle and you made it out, You you're ready.
Speaker 3:You just you're you're mentally, physically ready for whatever you're gonna face. So that's how I approach life. Like, there's I've already been through battle. I've already been through so much. It's nothing I could think of that I'm, be afraid or and it's okay to be afraid, but it's nothing that I'm not gonna face because, I've been through it, and it's and I'm thankful in hindsight of all I've been through because as I point out in the book, each hardship, I can highlight a very valuable life lesson I learned.
Speaker 3:I call it my winning ticket, and it's been my competitive advantage. That kinda is where I got the whole concept for the title poverty powerball because if you think about the lottery, most people to play a lottery are in poverty or poor, and they're really looking for external sources to for wealth to get them out of that that situation. And it's my mindset that that wealth is already existing them. It's through their experiences, those hardships that they're enduring, have endured. Mhmm.
Speaker 3:That's wealth. That is value there. Just like Jay z realized, he can transfer that wealth, transfer that value to something legal. You don't have to stand on the corner anymore. Now he can hustle CDs.
Speaker 3:Now he can things like that. So it's it's really helping those kids realize that what they've gone through isn't for waste. They didn't lose. They learned a lot, and they're so much stronger as a result. So, you know, that's that's my philosophy.
Speaker 1:It's cool.
Speaker 2:So So we're trying to figure out what's the dynamic of acknowledging pain, acknowledging hurt, and emotional brokenness while at the same time seeing what you just said of, like, you didn't lose, you learn. Like, you don't lose, you learn. How how does a mentor kinda walk that line of acknowledging a a kid's past while at the same time not feeding into this victim mentality or, like, thinking that they have they need something from without.
Speaker 3:Like Right. Right.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 3:I was about to mention that that victim mentality is toxic because once you start feeling sorry for yourself, it's it's all down. And then the role of a mentor, like you mentioned, it's just really a matter of getting to know that kid, building that trust, and then opening up more and more to you. And as they open up more to you and you learn what they've overcome and you as the mentor identify, okay, what what did they learn from that? What what strength did that build and help the mentee see that? Because a lot of times, these kids from hard places, they don't realize just how much value they have as a result of all they've already overcome.
Speaker 3:They don't realize how strong they are. It's natural to them. It's like and they don't think twice about it. It's just a survival instinct. But they don't realize how many people who came from different environments, whether they were middle class or wealthy, don't have that strength, don't have that resilience, who wish they could pay for that resilience.
Speaker 3:So it's just a matter of bridging that gap. And I guess as a mentor, helping them see, like, yeah, you have this skill, it can be utilized in this way. So just yes. Matter of connecting the dots, helping them see that, hey. These skills you have, you don't have to just be, do something legal, steal, sell drugs, whatever.
Speaker 3:You're not limited to that. You you can these skills are valuable as a CEO. These skills are valuable as whatever they decide to be entrepreneur, you name it. These skills are transferable. So it's really helping them see that because a lot of them, they don't.
Speaker 3:And another one I'm a big fan of quotes as you know. But Oprah, she says, where there is no struggle, there is no strength. And that's so powerful. I mean, because and everyone I quoted in my book, they came from poverty, but now they're they're they're millionaires. They're billionaires.
Speaker 3:And it's they realize that they they realize that's the secret. Like, wow. Resilience is it'll take you so far being able to get knocked down and get back up. And Oprah is a great example of that. She had such a hard childhood, but by her not having that victim mentality, by her really changing her perspective on how she viewed it, seeing it more as a competitive advantage than a disadvantage, She was hey.
Speaker 3:The rest is history. She was able to thrive. Mhmm.
Speaker 1:Wow. So you've now made a career out of mentoring, and helping other people with Mentor Select, specifically in in their careers. Correct? And so how how do you when you are meeting with someone or talking with someone about their passions, how do you draw that out of them? Like, do you what are some good questions that you ask or conversations that you strive to have with people that you are mentoring?
Speaker 1:Even if it's in the direction towards a career, but how do you kind of draw out other people's passions? Because I think all of our kids have passions. Every single person has a passion. And as a mentor, it's our job to ask good questions. And so you, as someone who has made a career out of this, what are some good questions that you like to ask?
Speaker 3:I I think I still is from Simon Sinek where he says, start with why.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:And I think that is so important because a lot of times, kids are conditioned to say, okay. They wanna choose a career based on how much money they they think they're gonna make. Yeah. That's not their why. That's not if it is their why, it's gonna be short lived.
Speaker 3:And I actually followed that path. So after getting out of the the army, in a matter of 6 months, I went from making $18,000 a year to making 6 figures, thanks to a mentor. I'll read that up if we have time. But but for a period of about 8 years of doing that, it was all about the money. And I I got to the point I realized there's so much so much stuff I can buy.
Speaker 3:There's only so many trips I can go on. It was still that void.
Speaker 1:Like Yeah.
Speaker 3:I'm doing this for me. Even though I'm still helping my family and friends, it just was more about me. I was the center of it all. That was the driving force, how much money I can make. But once I made that transition to, okay, what is my why?
Speaker 3:Who do I wanna serve? What legacy do I wanna leave? Then that puts it all into context. Like, it it makes it crystal clear at that point. So I think mentors really need to help mentees realize that if they're following their passions, if they're walking in their purpose, the money's going to come.
Speaker 3:I don't care what you're doing. You can make a lot of money doing it if you're serving a lot of people. So just help them not focus so much on money and more so on the impact they're gonna make and more so on how many people they can help with their unique gifts because I believe everyone has unique gifts. Mhmm. And it's just a matter of identifying them and aligning them with the calls that you're really passionate about that you like, I'm sure you all, you love what you're doing.
Speaker 3:You you love coming to work every day, and the just the impact you're making on these kids is priceless. So it's just kinda help mentees really understand that. There's a lot more to it than money. And you think you think about, like, the richest people. A lot of times it's gonna be athletes and entrepreneurs, whatever.
Speaker 3:But I'll use LeBron, for example. He still works so hard every day practicing every day to get better and better. And I remember thinking before I found my passion, thinking, like, if I have that much money, I'm I'm not gonna work that hard anymore. I'm just gonna be on the beach chilling, having a good time. But once I found my passion, once I found that purpose, that higher calling, it was like, okay.
Speaker 3:How much money I have? This it'll never fulfill what I'm getting from serving others, making other whose lives better. And that's what when we look at you see rich people like that who are still doing so much more is because the money's not they're not doing it for the money. It's it's about their legacy. It's about who they're who they can help.
Speaker 2:Did you ever feel when a mentor relationship ended, like, that that was difficult? How did how did, I mean, closure happen with your mentor relationships?
Speaker 3:So after I, joined the army, I also realized, like, my my uncle Tommy set that foundation. He told me a good work ethic. He told me what it means to be a man. Those those qualities I needed. But even as a young adult, I still desperately needed mentors.
Speaker 3:So I was fortunate where I had mentors step up and pretty pretty much take that baton from my uncle Tommy. And one of my first mentors when I was in the army, he was a command sergeant major Gary Tole. He he really taught me what it was like to well, how important is it to be professional and everything you do to excellence, things like that. And till this day, I haven't seen, seen him since 2003, but we stayed in contact. Yeah.
Speaker 3:We stay in contact via email, phone, things like that, and he's still one of my closest mentors. And then from there, once I got out of the army and, was working in Iraq as a contractor, another man, Terrence, Baker, he stepped up. He took the baton from Gary Tole and continued mentoring me. He teach me about how to build wealth and how to make sure my finances are in order. And it's just that that I think that happens throughout your life where where one mentor, for whatever reason, falls off or you're just in a different phase of your life, another mentor can can take over.
Speaker 3:And it kinda goes back to what you're saying where if a mentor has to have to leave and leave town or whatever where they can't maintain their relationship, that's where other mentors can take that baton for them
Speaker 1:and Yeah.
Speaker 3:And fill that gap. So one another one of my mentors, her name is Anne Barup. And me once I told her about mentor selecting what I was doing, she's like, oh, you gotta meet you gotta meet Zach. He's he's doing great things before I run a mentor. I want you to get involved with him.
Speaker 3:And she sent me I think I went on y'all's website, or she may have sent me the information to sign up. And I remember reading, like, the criteria to be a mentor was you have to be belong to a church. And at the time, I was I didn't belong to any church. So it kinda rubbed me in the wrong way. Like, wait wait a minute.
Speaker 3:I know I can be a great mentor. I know I have all this to offer kids, but that's a disqualifier for me because I don't belong to a church. And I responded to Anne. I emailed I remember emailing her and saying, it's not gonna be a good fit for me for running mentor because I don't belong to a church. And I expected her to kinda preach to me or be like, you just kinda really poke me about it, really prompt me about it.
Speaker 3:But I remember her responding, like, pretty much like, okay. I understand. And then, like, 6 months later, I was I was meeting with her, and she invited me to church. She goes to watermark. And at that point, I was more open to going to church, and it really made an impact because I also used to with Christians being really aggressive.
Speaker 3:She wasn't. And my wife and I went to watermark with her. I hadn't been to church in, like, 10 years. Went to watermark with her, and after that, I realized, like, I wanna I wanna get back involved in church. And now I'm I'm a member of Shoreline.
Speaker 3:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:Like, every mentor doesn't just have to be authoritative and assertive. Like Yeah. They can just be a voice and an invitation. And
Speaker 3:It's like that seed. Yeah. That's what she did.
Speaker 2:Mhmm.
Speaker 3:Because if that that day, when she if you responded back, like, no. You need to go to church with me this Sunday, it should've been, like, the typical aggressive that I would've shut down. Right. Most likely I would've never never came back to as far as finding God and Jesus, it it was shut I would've shut down. But by her not being that way, by her, like, okay.
Speaker 3:I'll give you more time to think when you're ready. And she she sensed it. Like, I was ready.
Speaker 1:That's awesome.
Speaker 2:That's so good.
Speaker 1:Just a good word just to be in tune with the people that you're interacting with. You know?
Speaker 3:And some I noticed when I was listening to Zach's interview, how he mentioned, like, some of his mentors where they they wasn't trying to change him. They accept him for who he was. That's I just gotta reiterate that for mentors. You you're not there to change them. And you you have to accept them for who they are, and you you plant no seeds.
Speaker 3:And most importantly, leading by example. So once they see how you're you've been a leader, you're being Christ like, they'll eventually come around. You you can't force it. But, yes, just just lead by example. Don't don't try to change them and set them for who they are.
Speaker 3:Let them know that who they are is perfectly fine, and it it really is gonna open up that that level of communication and that trust.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Mhmm. That's good. Love it, man. For real.
Speaker 2:Oh, it's so good, Darich.
Speaker 3:It's been fun.
Speaker 2:Yeah. Well, I I just think, man, how awesome it is that now in life, you you get to be the guy that is helping people find their purpose and and a meaningful thing to give their life to. And mentoring is so valuable for our own purpose. Our purpose is helping others find their purpose and drawing out the gold that's within each person that we mentor, and it's just so good.
Speaker 3:Definitely.
Speaker 2:Could you do you have any other, practical encouragement for a mentor who is maybe they're they're about to just start mentoring, a kid, from a hard place. What are what are some practical encouragements you have for them as they're kinda jumping in to that relationship to build relationship and what their mindset should be walking into it.
Speaker 3:Definitely start off telling them congratulations. This is gonna be a it's gonna be an experience where it's not one-sided. That mentor is gonna learn just as much from that mentee and gain just as much from that relationship. So be open to that. Don't approach it as a one-sided.
Speaker 3:You're just pouring it to them. They're gonna pour into you as well. So it's just it's like you're saying, it's a priceless experience. They're gonna make a great impact for no matter how long they're involved in that mentee's life. And who knows?
Speaker 3:Decades later, your mentee is gonna be on a podcast saying the impact that you made or writing about you in their book or it's you just never know. And, for me, I have to thank today, I'm a what I'm most proud of is being a husband and a father. Mhmm. And without mentors, that woulda never happened.
Speaker 2:I
Speaker 3:know without a doubt, I would without uncle Tommy, I would be dead in prison without a doubt just because of that environment. It was it's very little room for error in that type of environment. You have any direction. And just as being mentee by all those great mentors, being able to say that, it's just like, that's the greatest payback for me being able to and then also being able to pay it forward. That's the biggest thing where knowing as men mentors mentor, they're going to they're still in those those c's where later down the road, their mentees are gonna become mentors, and it's just keep passing it forward.
Speaker 3:So this it's just the the greatest thing we can do in terms of, like, that's Christ like here on earth is being mentors.
Speaker 2:Yes. That's awesome. So good.
Speaker 3:And something you all mentioned in terms me listening a couple of your your shows is for mentors to realize that you don't have to be an expert on mentorship. That your doctor is in it, or you just have to be genuine. You just have to really care. That's the criteria. You care about that mentee, then you're gonna make a difference.
Speaker 3:You're going to share your life experiences with them, and that's all you need.
Speaker 1:Thank you for sharing with us. Yeah. It was so good.
Speaker 2:Thanks very much. How can people connect with you? You wrote this book, poverty, power ball, boo. What's other ways people can connect with you?
Speaker 3:So I have my website up. It's darichphillips.com. So you can check my website. Also, my podcast, Mentor Select. It's on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play, all of those.
Speaker 3:And, you can go also mentorselect.com as well. So certainly check out my podcast. Subscribe so I can have 10 listeners and 10 subscribers as well. Or You got a
Speaker 1:couple more books coming out too in the works
Speaker 2:at least?
Speaker 3:I do. So, just released poverty powerball in May. The next book I plan on writing and I'll release the name I wanna hear with you all. It's, exclusive. It's called father figures.
Speaker 3:And the whole concept behind the book is for boys who father is not in the home for whatever reason, helping them realize that there's so many father figures around them that can teach them how to become a man.
Speaker 2:Yeah. That's awesome. Wow. So good. Okay.
Speaker 2:We'll put that stuff in the show notes. Mhmm. Clearly, Darich is all over the Internet, so please connect. Everywhere. Man, thank you so much for joining us today on the podcast.
Speaker 3:Thanks for having me. Y'all doing great things. I love what you're doing, and I'm just happy to be a part of it. Well, hope
Speaker 2:you enjoyed today's episode. If you like today's episode, please share on the social medias somewhere. You can tag us. You can mentor. Let us know if you have any feedback about today's episode.
Speaker 2:Leave us a review on iTunes and go check out Darich's podcast, Mentor Select. Thank you so much for listening today. And if there's anything you picked up from today's episode, let it be this.
Speaker 1:You can mentor.