Transcript
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On June 17th 2015, I lost my mom in a racially motivated mass shooting where a young man named Dylan Roof, who conspired a plan to murder people in a church in hopes that he would start a race war in our country, and that's what he did.
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He didn't start the race war, but he took nine lives, and my mom, unfortunately, was a victim in that shooting, in that mass shooting, and so I lost my hero that day, and so, for the last seven and a half years of my life, I've devoted my life to do the exact opposite of what my mother's killer wanted to do.
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He wanted to divide us, and now I promised my mom and my church family I would try to unite people.
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Hey everyone, welcome to the Sugar Daddy Podcast.
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I'm Jessica and I'm Brandon, and we're the Norwoods, a husband and wife team here to demystify the realm of dollars so it all makes sense while giving you a glimpse into our relationship with money and each other.
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We are so glad you're here.
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Let's get started.
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Our content is intended to be used, and must be used, for informational purposes only.
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It is very important to do your own analysis before making any investment based upon your own personal circumstances.
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You should take independent financial advice from a licensed professional in connection with, or independently research and verify any information you find in our podcast and wish to rely upon, whether for the purpose of making an investment decision or otherwise.
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Hey babe, what are we talking about today?
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Today we are joined by Chris Singleton, and I know it's going to be a great conversation because Chris is such an inspiration and he is just putting himself all over the country with his speaking engagements and his message about love and unity.
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So, chris, we are so excited to have you today.
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Thank you.
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Thank you for having me on.
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I am grateful to be hanging with you guys, for sure.
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I love it.
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Let's get into this bio so that everybody knows who Chris is and why we wanted to have this conversation with him today.
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And I also feel, as though, like you know before we hop into the bio, that if the name doesn't ring a bell right off the top of your head, trust me, you know who this individual is.
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Yes, yes, unless you live under a rock, which is Some of you might.
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I don't know.
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All right, let's get into this bio.
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I'm sure you will recognize the name.
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Chris Singleton is a former professional athlete drafted by the Chicago Cubs in 2017.
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Following the loss of his mother in a racially motivated mass shooting in Charleston, south Carolina, in 2015, chris has now become an inspirational speaker and bestselling author, who has shared his message of unity and racial reconciliation with the NFL, nba teams, as well as multiple Fortune 500 companies across the country.
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He shares with over 100 organizations and over 30,000 students annually.
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His most recent offerings are coaching consultations and professional coaching development.
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He resides with his spouse and his two sons in Charleston, south Carolina.
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Chris, thank you for being with us today.
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Yes, thank you so much.
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Absolutely.
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And one more thing I'm also about to have my first daughter, oh yeah.
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Congratulations, congratulations.
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Oh, you all have all this time to make babies because you are just traveling.
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Hey, you know you got to make time for what you want.
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You know what I'm saying.
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You got to make time, no doubt that's right.
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I love it.
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I can tell you this we have one of each.
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Daughters are definitely different.
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Daughters are different.
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But they have like for fathers it's a special place in your heart, but they are definitely different than boys.
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Oh, I mean, obviously you're such a wonderful father, but I can already see that you are just going to be wrapped around her finger.
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It's going to happen.
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Absolutely no questions asked.
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Congratulations.
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When is she due?
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Due July 15th, but she's usually 10 to 15 days early, so we're thinking like July 1st or July 5th, because my birthday is July 5th, so we'll see.
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Right around the corner.
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Well, oh, maybe you guys will share a birthday.
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I know, then it becomes her birthday, only I know.
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Exactly, yeah, pretty much.
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I'm glad you already know that.
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Oh, I'm so excited for you guys.
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Congratulations.
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That just made me so happy.
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So, oh, wow, I love it.
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So we're going to start off.
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We have a lot to talk about because you are so dynamic and you have done so much in really a short amount of time, because you're not old.
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So we want to get into all the things that you're doing to inspire and unite people across the country, but we want to start with your first money memory.
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Do you have one?
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But we want to start with your first money memory.
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Do you have one?
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Yeah, my first money memory, I guess it would be asking for quarters at the barbershop so I can get some bubble gum.
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I guess you know you got the little gumball machines and so you need money to be able to do that.
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Because you try to do it, like why is it not working Right to do that?
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Because you try to do it, you're like why is it not working?
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And I'm thinking my first memory is asking my pops for some quarters so I can get a gumball and a gumball machine.
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So that's probably the first memory of money that I've ever had.
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I love that.
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That's so cute.
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I just got a visual of little Chris turning the silver dial right and it's like nothing's coming out nothing's working.
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I love it.
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One of the reasons we love asking that question is because we believe that the way that you interact with money as an adult is very much influenced by how it was growing up, whether or not you know you didn't have enough money in the household, or if you guys had enough money, whether or not you were having conversations around financial literacy.
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However, that situation you know occurred 100% filters into how you are as an adult and it's just always so interesting to hear you know people's memories and then how that equates to how they interact.
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You know now when it comes to money absolutely.
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Yeah, I think you know a lot of households.
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You you've probably heard this before, but you know you ask your mom or your dad hey, how much this costs?
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You go, you go and buy it.
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Why do you need to know how much it costs?
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And so as a kid, you know, in my household I didn't really know how much anything costs, and I pride myself on telling my son how much stuff is now because I want him to know hey, you know this costs a lot of money.
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You know $6,000 if we want to go on a Disney cruise.
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I want you to know how much money.
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that is so I have those conversations, even though he's only five.
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We have one planned for March.
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March 2024.
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Yeah, so y'all know.
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It's going to be.
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Yeah, it is going to be expensive.
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We haven't told our kids because it's going to be like a Christmas surprise for them, but we do.
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We talk about money just all the time anyways, but our kids waste a ton of food and it's really infuriating.
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And so a lot of times, you know, we say like, hey, these strawberries are expensive, you can't just take a bite and not finish it.
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Or you know they have a plate full of food for dinner and they're just picking and playing.
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They do just enough to it to where, like putting it in a Tupperware and putting in the fridge feels disgusting you know, so then it goes in the trash and I'm always like gosh, we were wasting so much food and so we have to talk to them about that.
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Yeah, I hate wasting food, but I am not eating after my kids.
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Oh, they're so gross.
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Oh man, it's funny you try to.
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You know my one year I got one and a half year old son, and anytime you let him have some of your drink you might as well just give it to him, because he's going to be back watching there.
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So you're like, hey, it's yours now.
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You got floating around, you got floaters.
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What is that?
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What just came out of your mouth?
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Yeah, disgusting.
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That's funny.
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I think that's a great money memory the gumball machine.
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Do you remember what your dad would say after you asked for money for the gumballs?
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No, I do remember getting it.
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I had to be less than five years old, but I remember getting the money and for the first time, realizing oh okay, well, that's why I wasn't working, I didn't have any money, that's why the thing wasn't working.
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And so he definitely gave it to me.
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And I think barbershop memories are something that I really hold dear near and dear to my heart.
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Heart because I remember those times where my dad was doing well and, you know, things were good with my family life, and so the barbershop was a good spot.
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We go to my Uncle Cory's you know my Uncle Cory was a barber.
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We go over there.
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We'd have some barbecue wings right after we get the haircut, and it was a great Saturday morning, you know.
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So I remember those memories pretty well.
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I definitely believe that like barbershop, especially for black men, like that childhood memory definitely holds something, because I remember telling my wife I was like I'm so ready for when our son is old enough, you know, to get his first haircut, and we're ready to go ahead and take him to the barbershop, because I wanted to build those type of memories with him.
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That's good.
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No, that's cool.
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I mean we have a guy that comes over our house now.
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He's been my barber for the last 10 years or so, and so he's been coming over to my house and my son, my wife, our one and a half year old son hasn't gotten a cut.
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She's like I want him to have long hair.
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I'm Brazilian, I want to see what his texture is going to be, all this stuff, and so I know you love that, right?
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I know you love it, and so she's been doing that with our one-year-old, but she finally let him get a lineup, and so my five-year-old, our barber, comes to our house, cuts my hair, cuts my five-year-old's hair, and he finally we got the video of my son getting a lineup for the first time, and it's a great memory, man, something you're going to.
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I cherish it for sure.
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I also live my, as you could tell, I live my hair dreams through my child, since my hairline has seen better days.
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A few weeks ago, roman, at like six o'clock in the morning, brandon was telling him to go do something you know probably go get dressed or get ready for the day and Roman, straight up, looks at Brandon and goes you're just a boy with no hair, like the ultimate diss, you're just a boy with no hair.
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And it was so funny, but I will say so.
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Roman also has started going to the barbershop and the last time somebody knew cut his hair and Brandon didn't like the cut and he said he was a younger guy.
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He just wasn't like personable.
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And Roman, who's three and a half, said next time I want Dennis back.
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And Dennis was the guy who's previously been cutting his hair and so even at three and a half he was like I don't like this guy cutting my hair.
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You know, it is he chose his barber.
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He chose his barber.
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It's his barber now.
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Shout out to Dennis.
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Dennis is the barber, and I mean, who knew that a three-year-old could be so particular?
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Well in the house, well in the barbershop, you know it's sacred who you go to.
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When you go to one guy, you have him, you stay with him and you don't go to other people in the shop.
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That's a big no-no.
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Yeah, big rule.
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No for sure, Especially as you start to get a little older, because, you know, mess you up.
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You're like man, I ain't no coming back from this one, right?
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You know, we try to hang on as long as we can.
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So I'm like, hey, man, you know you might have to go light over there because it don't grow in too much in that section, you know, and he knows, because it's been 10 years, you know.
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So that's, that's pretty cool.
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I want to mention something that you guys talked about with the food.
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You guys talked about with the food.
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For me, I think it's been like six months since we've been doing this.
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But my family, we sponsor 10 kids in Guatemala.
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It's called Food for the Hungry.
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It's a nonprofit and at first I was doing it because I was at church and I felt like I was called to do it.
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Something was telling me I need to support these kids.
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But then now, with my five-year-old son, who's super picky and eats half of everything, it really puts things into perspective for him.
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Hey, we sponsor these kids.
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You know, I think it's $48 a month or something like that per kid and it feeds them for the whole month.
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It's supposed to feed them for the whole month and it's like, man, you're throwing away this, like we're paying for kids to have food because they're really struggling where they live and where their school is at.
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So I think that's an easy way to kind of get it in their heads Like, hey, you know, teach them that they're privileged and blessed to be able to throw away food, you know.
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Right, Absolutely, we have to.
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We always say that as soon as we keep wanting to take them to the food bank, because Brandon and I volunteer at the food bank but they don't allow kids under five.
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So I guess we could take Aston now.
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But just to help them.
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You know, realize a serving and giving back is so important, you know so that we're giving back and helping but it's also so good for our soul.
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But then also realizing, you know, not everybody has things in abundance the way you do, and so those are definitely lessons that we want to instill.
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So I've made a note Food for the Hungry.
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We will link it in the show notes.
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We will look into it as well.
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So thank you for sharing that.
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We want to get into the work that you're doing, because you just talked about church and you know serving and giving back and we know that that's so much of who you are and what you do day to day.
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So we want to understand, for our listeners who don't know you, the background of why you do what you do and what that message of hope and unity and love really is that you share all over the country now.
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So can you walk us through that?
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Yeah, so growing up, I didn't have a dream of being a professional speaker or an author or anything like that.
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Like most young kids that had parents that are athletes, my goal was to play professional sports, and so I played all the sports growing up, but my freshman year of college, where I was playing baseball, there was a really horrific event that happened, and at the time, this was like one of its kind.
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Unfortunately, terrible things have happened since then, and so, unfortunately, we've seen it happen over and over again.
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On June 17th 2015, I lost my mom in a racially motivated mass shooting where a young man named Dylan Roof, who conspired a plan to murder people in a church in hopes that he would start a race war in our country, and that's what he did.
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He he didn't start the race war, but he took nine lives, and my mom, unfortunately, was a victim in that shooting, in that mass shooting, and so I lost my hero that day, and so for the last seven and a half years of my life, I've devoted my life to do the exact opposite of what my mother's killer wanted to do.
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He wanted to divide us, and now I promised my mom and my church family I would try to unite people, no matter where they're from, what they look like, what their first language is, what their faith is.
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I'm trying to let us live in harmony.
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We don't always have to agree, but we can agree to disagree respectfully, and I do that in schools, I do that with corporations, do that with sports teams and I do that through literature.
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So that's what I do now and it's all to make my mom proud.
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I have this hashtag.
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It says hashtag can't let moms down.
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Which means every single day of my life, I live my life in a way that people will say man, this young man is raised the right way, and when they say that, that's a huge compliment from my parents.
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So that's what I'm trying to do and the story happened and now I'm just trying to do some good with it.
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How did that happen?
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Because I'm just going to be honest you turned something so tragic into something so beautiful, and you were really young when this happened.
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Which cause I remember, um, I remember when the event happened because, uh, you know, jess and I both graduated from the college Charleston and so we had a tie to Charleston.
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You know, I'd walked past that church hundreds of times.
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And I remember seeing you in the news and thinking I can't believe that someone that young is that poised and has such a positive message during what I could only think of as like one of the worst things that could ever happen to.
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You know, if it was to happen to myself, that could happen to me and I, just, I was thinking, I was like I't, I can't believe that he is able to do all this, you know, while dealing with this tragedy.
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Yeah, I think you know, first and foremost, I think there's some things that are hard to describe in worldly terms and you know, I've never heard like the voice of God.
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You know some people were like hey, god told me to tell you this, I've never heard a guy speak in my ear before.
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Personally, right.
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But I do think there's certain instances where I can't describe how I was given strength.
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I can't describe how I was able to forgive my mother's killer without saying that something out of this world put that on my heart, and I know that for a fact is what happened in that instance.
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Because some people say, hey, this is my gift.
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My gift may be to play sports, or my gift may be to I'm a great artist, or my gift, I feel, was to go through immense pain and still be able to see the good in the world.
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My gift is getting through that pain and now trying to help other people get through it, and I know that that gift was given to me.
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It's something that I feel like I was born with and I had no idea that's what my true gift was in my life.
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I thought it was playing baseball, robbing home runs and trying to hit them.
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I thought that was what my gift was.
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But after I went through that tragedy and I forgave my mother's killer, then I realized the power of forgiveness, after it was placed on my heart, then I realized what we can do with our pain.
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Most people we don't share our pain.
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We keep it deep down.
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We don't talk about it, especially most men that look like you and I.
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We don't talk about it, we keep it suppressed and we just live our lives in hopes that it'll go away.
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But we have vices that we do or we use the hope that will numb the pain.
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And for me, I finally opened up.
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I started to cry in front of family members, which was new for me, because everybody said I was so strong, and I started to study.
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How do people get through their pain?
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How did I get through it?
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And in doing that, that's how I can help other people, and I speak from a place of experience.
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Most times when you meet somebody or a person that's a thought leader for lack of better words it's like well, how do you become an influencer or a thought leader?
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It's usually hey, they're super smart, so they got seven different degrees, they're doctors, such and such, they went to all these universities, or they're super famous and so, because they're so famous, you want to follow what they say, or they've been through it and after they've been through it it's like, hey, I can help you get through it because I've been where you're at and I'm the latter.
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I've been where people are and I share things that I wish I would have known when I was faced with this immense tragedy.
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I just remember too because, like Brandon said, we lived in Charleston and we had walked by that church a hundred times.
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And you know, I saw something the other day.
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I'm kind of pivoting.
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I saw something the other day that, uh, was basically like a conversation between two people and one person said did you see the about the shooting in Texas?
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And the other person responded which one?
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Right.
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And that's kind of the state of where we are.
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It's like every day there's a shooting right and there's so much talk around proper gun laws and gun safety and all of that.
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But when the shooting at the church happened in 2015, it really did feel out of the ordinary.
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It felt, oh my gosh, how did this happen, right?
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How did this person get their hands on on this weapon?
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And so I'm wondering, out of all of that, you know again, you were young and you were, like Brandon said, so poised and you just it seemed like you just went into action, that you, you were like I've got to do something, I've got to write books, I've got to channel this into something positive.
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I know some people are like, oh, my overnight success took 10 years, right?
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Because people don't see the behind the scenes or trying to grieve, figuring out how to grieve and becoming vulnerable to when you were able to actually have these conversations without breaking down and I mean you talk to thousands of people every year.
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Where or when did that turning point happen for you?
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Yeah, I would say, you know, initially I made a mistake of pretending like I wasn't destroyed by it.
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And the reason why I say pretending is because after I said love is stronger than hate, then the very next day I had all these social media followers.
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Everybody was on the CNN, I was on the Today Show, I was on throwing the first pitch for the Yankees, tom Brady's calling me to come up to the hangout with the Patriots.
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Cam Newton, the quarterback, is coming to my house.
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So all these different things are happening and I didn't give myself any time.
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And right after all that, the first initial wave kind of slowed down.
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I did an ESPN documentary called Love is Stronger Than Hate on ESPN about me and my mom, and so there's a new wave right, and I never gave myself time to fully grieve.
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I think when you go through true tragedy, I don't believe you move on.
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You can work through it, and I will never have my moms here to see my kids, so I can never move on from that, but I do have ways that I work through it now and so that's kind of what I learned.
