#182 King Randall, I - Rescuing a Lost Generation from Gangs, Crime and Chaos

King Randall, I is the founder of The X for Boys, and a mentor to hundreds of young men in his community. Randall's organization is a charter school in Albany Georgia that aims to teach boys the true meaning of masculinity, manhood, and how to be protectors and providers in their communities through various programs including automotive repair workshops, construction training, and a book club. The school focuses on traditional academics, trade skills, firearms training, and the science of family and manhood. Randall's work has gained national attention, and he continues to advocate for male youth development through his organization and school. Shawn Ryan Show Sponsors: https://ShawnLikesGold.com | 855-936-GOLD #goldcopartner https://tryarmra.com/srs https://patriotmobile.com/srs | 972-PATRIOT Head to https://lumen.me/srs for 20% off your purchase. https://ziprecruiter.com/srs https://ROKA.com - USE CODE "SRS" https://babbel.com/srs Upgrade your wardrobe and save on trueclassic at trueclassic.com/srs #trueclassicpod https://betterhelp.com/srs https://drinkhoist.com - USE CODE "SRS" King Randall, I Links: The X for Boys - https://thexforboys.org LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/king-randall YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@NewEmergingKing Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/newemergingking Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:01Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 0:30Speaker 01

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake up call at 5:55 in 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 1:05Shawn Ryan?

  King Randall, welcome to the show, man.

• 1:07Speaker 03

  Man, thanks for having me. Glad to be here.

• 1:09Shawn Ryan?

  It's my honor. I love, love, love what you're doing down in Albany. And I've been really looking forward to this interview, so...

• 1:17Speaker 03

  Yes, sir. I appreciate it. You got a lot of fans in Albany, too. I mentioned it to a couple of people and they were like, "You on where?"

• 1:22Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 1:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, got fans down there. Yes, sir.

• 1:25Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, that's cool to hear. That's cool to hear. Well, I'm gonna start you off with a introduction here.

• 1:32Shawn Ryan?

  King Randall, you graduated culinary school at age 17. You are a former United States Marine, a leader in your community, and a role model and mentor for many young men. And you're only 25 years old. In 2019, you founded the X for Boys program to fight back against the high crime rate in your community by stepping up to mentor young men. This is the only rehabilitive program for juvenile offenders in South Georgia. That's surprising, man.

• 2:03Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:04Shawn Ryan?

  In August 2022, you founded the Life Preparatory School for Boys, the first free all-boys boarding school in South Georgia. The school's motto, "Let's Make Men Reflect Your Vision." You earned the 2019 Larry Sanders Legacy Award, the 2021 B1 Education Award, and the 2023 Dreamstone Award from Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s family.

• 2:30Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm. Yep.

• 2:33Shawn Ryan?

  Wednesday, tomorrow, you'll be going to the White House.

• 2:37Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 2:37Shawn Ryan?

  And most importantly, probably out of every, not probably out of everything, you're a father to three boys.

• 2:44Speaker 03

  Yes, yes.

• 2:45Shawn Ryan?

  So, man, and you're a Christian.

• 2:47Speaker 03

  Yes, absolutely. Born and raised Christian.

• 2:50Shawn Ryan?

  Really?

• 2:51Speaker 03

  Grandmother was a preacher. Grandfather, down in Florida, my dad's father preaching. I played the drums my whole life, from about, my grandmother used to have church at home. So, we used to have people come to the house, and my grandmother had me this little drum set, and I started playing the drums there. This was before my grandmother could afford to get us a church. And I started out playing the drums there, and I played the drums all the way up until I was about seventeen or eighteen, right when I went to the Marine Corps. That's when I stopped. But other than that, I spent my whole life at church.

• 3:21Shawn Ryan?

  You still do it?

• 3:22Speaker 03

  Play the drums?

• 3:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 3:23Speaker 03

  Nah, you know what? I've been wanting to get back into it. I've been considering buying a drum set. I've been missing it lately, apparently, but, uh, because I find myself still doing it a little bit. But I played my whole life, man. And it's weird for me to go to church now. It's interesting. It's so weird for me to be at church. I literally spent every second at church behind the drum set. So, it's so hard for me to actually just sit at church and pay attention because I'm used to listening for cues. Like, we, we had to worship differently. We couldn't just sit there and just pay attention. Like, we paid attention, but we worshiped in our own way. So, I'm used to listening for cues. I'm watching the musicians, seeing what they're doing, watching the number chords they're calling out, because I'm listening, watching the bass player, because that's the guy I had to watch, you know, calling numbers out, calling hits, all that stuff. So, I'm-

• 4:06Speaker 03

  I'm used to that. So every time I go to church, it's like super weird because I'm like staring at the musicians the whole time. So it's just, it was just interesting, man. Uh, it's very weird for me to be at church now, but I, I love it. I love it.

• 4:17Shawn Ryan?

  Do you take, do you, do you take your kids to church?

• 4:19Speaker 03

  Absolutely. Yeah, they go to church. So, uh, their grandfather on their mom's side, he's a pastor, uh, in Cupbert, Georgia. And, uh, they love to go see him preach. Um, and he'll bring him on the pulpit, uh, because they want to sit by him, uh, before he's about to preach. So his name, uh, Pastor Vaughn. And they love him. I love him too. He's a great man. Um, but my sons love their grandfather, uh, their, uh, maternal grandfather. They love him to death. So, uh,

• 4:43Shawn Ryan?

  Oh, that's cool.

• 4:43Speaker 03

  They listen to him preach often. Every Sunday on Saturdays, they're like, Dad, can we go to, uh, my granny's house so we can go to church with them? They ask every Saturday, you know, to go to church. They ask, they beg to make sure they're going. They get mad if she can't come pick them up or something like that. So it's pretty, pretty neat.

• 4:59Shawn Ryan?

  Right on. You know, we, we'd had a conversation downstairs about fatherhood and it sounded, it sounded like maybe, I don't know, maybe your audience or somebody sounds, it sounds like the way you raise your boys is maybe a little controversial.

• 5:12Speaker 03

  Yeah, man.

• 5:12Shawn Ryan?

  Certain people's eyes. What, what's, what, why? I wanted to save it until we were on the podcast.

• 5:18Speaker 03

  Yeah, man. So, uh, my son's very good at baseball. Uh, he's six years old, but dude is like the best six-year-old baseball player you ever see. But we spend a lot of time practicing. My sons are also homeschooled too. Um, they're homeschooled. I have a private teacher, um, for them also. My mom takes turns, uh, you know, teaching them different things. So they're very intelligent and he also boxes, um, and he does gymnastics, my oldest son. Um, my younger son does gymnastics also. He's just not old enough to participate, but he's already training in baseball. And so they'll see our videos. I also post the videos where they're crying and upset also because I'm trying to show the part of fatherhood that's just not the sweet stuff. Uh, for example, uh, my son was about to get ready to, to spar for the first time.

• 6:00Speaker 03

  He'd been boxing since he was, since he was four, he was practicing. Um, he's just, you know, doing, uh, they're teaching him everything, all the punch numbers, et cetera. So he's been doing that since he was about four years old. And so this is the first time to spar. He's going to spar his 10-year-old kid. And he'd never been hit in the face before, never been punched, never had any competition. in front of him so I we got home I put his gear on at the house in the garage I got on my knees and I put my gloves on and I'm I told him to put his hands up and I told him to remember everything that Coach Dino had taught him uh during practice so I I hit him in the head not hard but I hit him in the head and he he was like dad you're punching too fast he just starts crying he's just ah you know he's just ah just crying and I'm like put your hands back up you know focus I'm teary eyed just thinking about it but I'm like put your hands back up son

• 6:43Speaker 03

  you know and he put his hands I'm like remember what you were taught son and so he started remembering the different moving out the way and and throwing punches I'm like this is why you were taught for this whole year you know this is what you were learning this is to put into action now and so then he started getting confident he started getting aggressive like he started punching back and moving out the way and and you know dodging and weaving so we get to spar the next day and he got a couple great licks off the ten year old he's a good ten year old boxer not saying he was like really fully boxing him but to get a couple licks off of him like some really good licks I posted the videos and he was so happy that he was to he did it he was like that was easier than I thought he was like I didn't know I could do that and so I posted those videos and people just like oh this is too much he just needs to have fun and

• 7:27Speaker 03

  oh you're not letting him have fun and fun fun it's everything everybody says just see fun fun I'm like but what if this is fun to him he enjoys baseball he enjoys practicing does he enjoy every practice no does he always want to practice no but I teach them also that I asked him a question I'm saying son when do we work he always say when we don't feel like it exactly that's when we work but then we'll go to the baseball field and we out there with the other kids and he'll notice that he's better than everybody else he enjoys that he is now proud I teach my children not about happiness but about being proud of themselves because being happiness to me being happy to me is where the devil resides because being happy is uh hanging out with your friends and going to do little stupid stuff it's it's fleeting but when I'm proud of myself when I do something that I could accomplish you know and I and I

• 8:12Speaker 03

  accomplish a goal like I'm like okay I wanna he's like I wanna hit a home run this year okay

• 8:16Shawn Ryan?

  he's six years old

• 8:17Speaker 03

  he's six he's six yeah and he's like

• 8:19Shawn Ryan?

  when did you start this I mean when did you

• 8:22Speaker 03

  start baseball

• 8:23Shawn Ryan?

  I think it's I mean it's intense

• 8:26Speaker 03

  yeah

• 8:27Shawn Ryan?

  it's intense but but I mean I I like it I mean You're pushing your kids to the limit.

• 8:34Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:34Shawn Ryan?

  You know, at age.

• 8:35Speaker 03

  I do.

• 8:35Shawn Ryan?

  At age six and.

• 8:36Speaker 03

  I do.

• 8:37Shawn Ryan?

  You're teaching them that, hey, if you want to accomplish something, it takes, it takes a lot of work and.

• 8:42Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:42Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, it sounds like we both can agree. I mean, you just see people today and.

• 8:47Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:47Shawn Ryan?

  That they think everything's a fucking handout.

• 8:49Speaker 03

  It's not.

• 8:50Shawn Ryan?

  And, you know, and, uh, and they don't want to work for it.

• 8:53Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 8:54Shawn Ryan?

  Very few people. So, I mean, what, hold on. So, when did this start? Does it start at age six? Did it start at four?

• 9:01Speaker 03

  It started about three, four. Um, my son knows a lot of my, I call my quotables. Um, he'll tell people my quotables too. Like, for example, uh, like, we don't try, we do. I always tell him, I know, we're not gonna try anything, we're gonna do it. Um, so he, he tries his hardest to, to do everything and also like do things like make him keep his word. For example, I don't allow him to change his mind often. If he says something, I'm like, well, you gotta do it. No, that's what you said you were gonna do. So you have to do it now, you know, because you're, you're gonna be a man one day and your word is your bond. So you have to keep your word. So that's what you said. So he'll remember like, ah, so he'll think about things before he say it now, you know, and that's important because you're teaching them to think through things before you just say it.

• 9:38Speaker 03

  And so now he's thinking about what he's, he was like, he was like, mm, never mind, you know, he'll think about the things he says versus just blurting something out or just saying anything. And so that's very important to instill a lot of these little character traits now. So when they get older, they won't miss it. Like, he knows, like I said, a lot of my quotables. Um, he'll tell people my quotables and say, well, my dad says, you know, X, Y, Z, and this is why we do X, Y, Z. Um, this is why we practice. I always ask the question every time we go practice on the baseball field. You see anybody else out here, son? No, sir. Why? Cause they don't, they don't want to put that work in. That's what he'll say. They don't want to put in the work.

• 10:12Shawn Ryan?

  At age six?

• 10:12Speaker 03

  At age six. He, he will tell you that. They don't want to put in the work that. And so again, he'll go out there, you know, to the field when everybody's there. We just had evaluations the other day. He destroyed evaluations or whatever and, um, and to me, you know, he'll still critique himself. I teach him about accountability also. For example, like he'll hit off the tee, right? And, um, I'll think it's a good hit. And then he'll say, that was a thumbs down because I hit the top of the tee a little bit. So let's try that one again. I taught him about critiquing himself because I shouldn't always have to be here to. Tell you what you did wrong. You should critique yourself. You know right from wrong. So I put these videos up and people just like, oh. Well, what about fun? I'm like, he has fun all the time.

• 10:51Shawn Ryan?

  Damn dude, most twenty five year olds, what's your twenty five? Most twenty five year olds don't even get this concept, I feel like.

• 10:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I but I tell them, I'm like, I teach them to earn everything.

• 11:01Shawn Ryan?

  Are you a perfectionist?

• 11:02Speaker 03

  No, I'm not. And I and I wish I was, but I I wish I was a perfectionist. My my chef told me back in school, he say, man. He said, King, you'll be fantastic. He said, you good, but you be fantastic if you learn how to finish. Cause I'm just not, I just. Like, I'm just not a perfectionist. And I'm trying to get there because I want to make sure that my sons see that we gonna finish everything that we do. So it's like my sons are. Making me be better too. I critique myself often, you know, with them, um, being, you know, just so young and they remembering everything. They're watching everything you do. I'm watching him with my mannerisms and stuff. So it's like, I have to be almost perfect to make sure that my sons, you know, are following in the right footsteps. Uh, so that's important to me. So even teaching them to earn everything, like for Christmas, he got the shoes, the toys, et cetera.

• 11:45Speaker 03

  Ask my son, when can he play with that stuff? When you give me something, you have to do something to wear those shoes. So my son, for example, uh, I get up every morning at six thirty and go work out in the gym, every single morning. Um, they'll hear the music. For the first couple of times I started doing it, they would be like, Dad, what you doing in the morning? I'm like, Daddy's working out in the gym, you know, early in the morning. And so they were like, well, can you wake us up so we can come watch? I'm like, why not? Okay. So I got out, I get up in the morning, I go wake him. I'm like, hey Daddy's gonna go work out. And they'll get up, they go put their clothes on, they go brush their teeth, and then they'll come outside. Um, and come in the gym and watch me, uh, work out. I I turned the garage into a training gym. And so then after a while, he starts saying, Daddy, can we do the workouts too? Why not? You know, so I have him doing things with their, you know, pushups and pullups or whatever like that. And so.

• 12:28Speaker 03

  Uh, my son is, you know, very, pretty strong now and, uh, he he got, he went viral on, uh, Instagram during, uh, he was learning how to swim. And they were talking about his physique. He got like a six pack and he looked like he's been to prison, man. He's six, you know? And so, uh, people were talking about his physique. They're like, how's he get like that? I'm like, bro, just like to work out. He likes to to do pushups. He can do more pushups than I can. You know, um, so it's it's really cool to to watch it, but kids mimic what they see. But it's fun to him. He enjoys it. And so like when we go out of town or we go to Chuck E. Cheese or whatever like that, he just has to do something for it. So he has fun all the time. We just don't give, he always will tell you what I say. We don't have fun for free. We earn it. He always will tell you.

• 13:06Shawn Ryan?

  What age does that start? What age do you start making him earn it?

• 13:11Speaker 03

  As soon as they understand right from wrong, and that's early. Even my younger son, William is three right now, but he also understands right from wrong. So when he wants to watch TV or play a little video game or something like that, okay, son, you have to learn how to read better because he wants a Nintendo Switch like his brother. And so he tries, he plays it with him sometime, but he wants his own. I said, okay, cool, you need to learn how to read this book by your birthday, which is May, and I'll get you Nintendo Switch. So he's working at school, like trying to learn how to read better because he really wants to learn because he has trouble playing the game because he can't read everything that's on the screen or like, you know, play now, continue, whatever, he's not understanding everything. So he's working now to read better because he really wants that game. So I'm just making him earn it all.

• 13:54Speaker 03

  I mean, I think that's important because if you just give them things, I believe it's important for me to create hardship for my sons. They're not gonna want for anything. I do well, they do pretty good. They're not gonna grow up in the hood like with me like I did or whatever like that. So I have to create hardship for them. So I do that through sports. I do that through making them earn things. I do that through saying no. I say no often. I say no for sport. And I say that because no is a character building word. You're not gonna always get what you want. So I don't care what sad face you, I don't care if it's just something simple. Dad, can I get a bag of chips? No. Like, no. For what? What you need a bag of chips for? No, no. So I say no often. And I used to cry and get upset, but now it's just like, okay, that's it, no, whatever. You know, like that. Or, Dad, can I get something to drink? They try to trick me sometime when they ask for something to drink. They really want a Juicy Juice.

• 14:39Speaker 03

  I got the little Juicy Juice drink, so they're like, Dad, can I get something to drink? I'm like, yeah, and they'll go in there and go get some juice. They're like, you didn't specify which drink you were talking about. I'm like, you know I meant get some water, son. Don't play with me, you know. So now I'm just like, you can go get some water. And they're like, never mind, I don't want that drink anymore. That's what I thought, you know, like, but go drink some water anyway. So it's a lot of different things that I do with them and it's very particular because it's building those little small character traits, even with training, practice for baseball or boxing. If the coach tells to be to practice at four o'clock, I'm like, sometime we're going to practice three. Yeah, like he'll he'll he like we have to get there an hour before everybody else does so we can get some extra warmups in and get some extra practice. He knows this already. He'll tell his mom the same thing. His mom take him to practice? He like, uh, Coach said we gotta be there at four, but we need to get there at three so I can get out there and hit off the tee a little bit.

• 15:24Speaker 03

  And I can get some ground balls in, uh, before prac- before practice actually starts. So he's already warmed up when everybody gets out there, but he knows, he internalized it already. So he doesn't understand it all the way. But he's internalized that now. So when he gets older, the work ethic is gonna be crazy. You know, cuz work ethic is in his system now. It's I hadn't given him fun. People try to wait till they're like ten and eleven to to just to get on them. I'm like, no, you need to get on them as soon as early as possible. At one year old, nothing's cute anymore for me. I start disciplining at one. You know, after that, nothing is cute. Everything you do wrong is not cute anymore. I don't do the, oh, he threw something, ha, ha, ha. No. I'm gonna say, no, you don't do that. Or he hit me today. No, you don't hit daddy. You know, like it's I discipline early. It's nothing's cute anymore.

• 16:08Speaker 03

  After one year old, start raising your child. That's what I believe in.

• 16:12Shawn Ryan?

  Damn. Were you raised like that?

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Uh, to, yeah, my grandmother was pretty strict.

• 16:16Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah?

• 16:17Speaker 03

  Uh-huh.

• 16:17Shawn Ryan?

  We'll get into that. We'll get into that.

• 16:24Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 16:59Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra because it's not just a superior light beer. It's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 17:28Speaker 01

  College football is back. So Hilton called to me, the superstition concierge, to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching band wake-up call at 5:55 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for the stay.

• 18:02Shawn Ryan?

  How do you see your oldest treating your younger ones?

• 18:05Speaker 03

  My, they love.

• 18:07Shawn Ryan?

  Is it rubbing off on them?

• 18:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, so William and Baby King, which is my oldest, William is very different from Baby King. They're like night and day. William does not like school. He's not fond of it. He's his own child. He does not get excited about things that Baby King gets excited about. We go to amusement park or something, William's kind of just sitting there. Like the other day, we went to this ice cream shop with nitrogen ice cream, where you can get like the dragon's breath and stuff, you know, to breathe the little smoke and stuff. He was like, I don't want to do that. He does not like the pool. He does not like the beach. He does not like, he's super like, he doesn't deal, like, for example, Baby King, he come here, shake his hand, you know, introduce himself. William does not, he will not talk to you if he doesn't know you. Like, he just, unless I tell him, say, son, introduce yourself, and he'll say something, but he just like, mm-mm. Like, so they're like night and-

• 18:50Shawn Ryan?

  Very standoffish.

• 18:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, very standoffish. They're night and day. But I will say something different about them both. I've had to teach Baby King what I call that dog. I have to, I have to teach him aggression. I'm like, son, you have to learn how to turn aggression on and off. So sometimes during baseball practice, I would purposely frustrate him so he could see how good he does when he's upset. When he hits that ball, when he's upset, I'm like, that's the furthest you ever hit a ball. See how you're using that aggression right now? He'll cry. I'm like, okay, now use that and hit the ball. Get mad at the ball and hit it. And he's like, oh, I didn't know I could hit the ball that far. I said, exactly. So make your angry face and hit the ball and turn it off. I said, daddy could get angry right now. And I could turn it off. I said, you have to learn how to control that aggression. So he's learning about controlled aggression early. William hadn't had to teach aggression to him. When he go hit the ball, he's angry already.

• 19:36Speaker 03

  When he's, when he's- Bro is already angry about it like he's in there practicing with his brother. So he watches his brother often. They get into it like, you know, normal siblings about sharing stuff or whatever like that. But for the most part, Baby King is always leading. He's like, no, William, you need to brush your teeth right. You need to make sure you're getting the back of your teeth. You need to make sure you're doing this right. William, put your shoes on the right foot. Grant, William has always listened to him. He gets upset with him like, no, leave me alone, you know, whatever like that. But he's always leading him. I taught him about that. I'm like, listen, your brother looks up to you. He might not want to listen all the time. He'll participate in the bad stuff you're doing, but he don't want to participate in the good things that you do.

• 20:11Shawn Ryan?

  What about, what about, I mean, are they observant of other kids?

• 20:16Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 20:17Shawn Ryan?

  In the work ethic and, I mean, six years old, damn dude.

• 20:20Speaker 03

  He, so he does.

• 20:22Shawn Ryan?

  Taking notes.

• 20:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, he watches, um, the other kids at practice not go as hard as he does. So, uh, next year, Baby King will be playing up in baseball. He's going to this eight-year-old team, uh, next year. Uh, a team called about him because they've been watching his videos online, so he's gonna play up next year. Um, but that's only because the kids his age are not giving him any, you know, competition. And so, but he watches the kids his age, and it's not no fault to the kids and not even necessarily to their parents. It's just that we all raise our kids differently. And so like during the games, you know, sometime people will be like, oh, just, well, why he going so hard about it or whatever? I'm like, well, this is why my kid's great and your son suck. Like, because we, we, we, we're, we believe in what we're doing, you know? And, uh, like I just, uh, it's, it's important to believe in what you're doing. If we're gonna do something, we're gonna give it our best.

• 21:07Speaker 03

  We're not just doing anything just for fun. Like, if we're gonna do anything, I don't care if we're making our bed. We're gonna make our bed the best way we could possibly make our bed. We're gonna brush our hair. We're gonna brush our hair the best way we possibly can brush it. Like, do it all the best. I'm like, you wanna be the best at it all. And if you are the best, find somebody else that's better and then go after them. So like last year during baseball, he wasn't the best on the field yet or whatever, last year, because like I said, we've been practicing. And, um, we found we want the kid who was the best. And so when he came to the plate, I'm like, Baby King, get him out. And so he hit the ball, he caught it, he played second base, he caught the ball, threw him out, and he was so excited about it. I'm like, that's what I'm talking about. Care nothing about that. Like, we don't care about him being that good. We, we wanna find the best and we wanna, we wanna beat him. That's what we wanna do.

• 21:48Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, dude. I love what you're saying already. We're only like, what, 10 minutes, 20 minutes into the interview?

• 21:55Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 21:56Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, so.

• 22:00Shawn Ryan?

  This is fantastic.

• 22:01Speaker 03

  I appreciate it.

• 22:02Shawn Ryan?

  I'm serious, Ben, but you know, something that you're describing how I think all the time. I think if I'm not working, somebody else is, they're gonna be better. I think it came from the SEAL teams. If you're not training, the enemy's training, and they're gonna kill you.

• 22:18Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah, absolutely.

• 22:19Shawn Ryan?

  And I've carried this mindset into business. I've carried it into my whole life. And now I'm hesitant to...

• 22:31Shawn Ryan?

  With that mindset comes a tremendous amount of pressure that you put on yourself. It can be debilitating. It's very... It's a life of stress.

• 22:39Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah.

• 22:40Shawn Ryan?

  And so I've been careful on... I don't know if I want my son or my daughter to carry the amount of stress and responsibility and that I feel that I have. And so what...

• 22:58Speaker 03

  I guess...

• 22:58Shawn Ryan?

  Do you think about that at all?

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Yeah, I could push back at that a little bit, actually. Stress to me is good. And not necessarily saying like the stress you put on your body or something like that. Stress, worry, doubt, etc., it causes you to work a little bit more. When I'm worried about if I can't take care of the light bill this month, I might go do a little extra work to make sure that I can take care of that. But why am I not thinking like that all the time? It's like we'll get comfortable and then we'll stop doing what's needed or whatever. We'll get comfortable and stop doing what we could be doing. So it's like I don't ever want to get comfortable. I'm like, okay, there's children, like for example, again, talking about my son. There's this kid that we interact with on social media.

• 23:44Speaker 03

  His social media is called Sense Diapers. His dad's been training him in baseball since he was literally almost a newborn. He's got the videos. This kid is five years old now. And I kid you not, this kid is sliding, doing all types of crazy catches. Like he's world's better than my son. So when people see my son on the field and they're like, oh, he's fantastic. I'm in my mind thinking about Malik. I'm like, no, Malik is gonna destroy my son. He is great with it, so we plan to have them practice together and stuff like that to make each other better. Or whatever, but I'm always thinking like, just like you said, the enemy's always waiting to kill you. You know, and, and not just, you know, in regards to sports, just in life in general. There's somebody making the money that I wanna be making. There's somebody successful, more successful than I am, you know.

• 24:27Shawn Ryan?

  Real fat and happy.

• 24:29Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 24:29Shawn Ryan?

  The next guy's training.

• 24:30Speaker 03

  Yes, the next guy's training.

• 24:31Shawn Ryan?

  He's innovating, he's developing.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  The stress is important. You, you need it. You need the, the worry. You need it because it, it causes you to wanna work a little bit harder. Um, and so even like working out in the mornings, I ain't gonna lie to you, I hate working out in the mornings, it gets on my nerves. But I do it anyway because I need to put myself through something to, I can accomplish in the morning, makes me feel, makes me feel great. I did this thing I really didn't wanna do, and I know my sons are watching me too. So even though I don't wanna do it, I do it anyway because I know they're gonna get up in the morning and look for me. The morning that I don't get up, like there's some mornings I may not do it or something like that, maybe every once in a while. I get upset at myself because my sons come and ask me, "Hey, why you didn't wake us up this morning to go work out?" To me, I just told them that it's okay to, to, to, to not do something. I just told them it's okay to not do what you're supposed to do.

• 25:17Shawn Ryan?

  Put the pressure on yourself.

• 25:17Speaker 03

  Yeah, I do. I do. I critique myself. It's, and it's important, but I don't mind it because I'm proud of the results in the end. The results is what make it all worth it. Um, and it makes me, that's what makes me happy. After I see the results, after I see that I've gotten a little bigger, or my, or my suits are getting a little tighter, I gotta buy new suits or whatever like that. I'm getting, training better, I'm doing better in boxing. Yes, annoying at the time, but once I finally see those results, I'm like, man, like, now I wanna do it some more. But all that success you're looking for is gonna come through the, the dangerous, the treacherous, going through the, the, the minefield. It's gonna be the treacherous, uh, going through the crazy river, just to get to the other side. Uh, so as a man, I like being Batman to my kids. I like being Batman to those around me. Like, man, King's always doing all this great stuff.

• 26:02Speaker 03

  People think I do fantastic. I think I could be doing more. I'm just like, I just left Nigeria back in August. And those kids are out working everybody I know. You know, their dreams are to come to America, but I'm just like, when I got there, it almost removed empathy for me. You know, for anything that, you know, people claim they're going through. These kids don't even got sewage and and running water, barely eat every day, and they are working circles. Around us, so it made me wanna come home and do even more. So when people are impressed with me, I'm not impressed with me at all. Like, I'm like, this is nothing. You know, I'm like, I could be doing a whole lot more. I could still be getting up a little bit earlier. Like, I still critique myself about that. Like, why am I getting up at six thirty? I could easily, I wake up at five o'clock in the morning and I just sit there and scroll on my phone. Why don't I get my butt up and go go on the computer and do something?

• 26:44Speaker 03

  You know, do something else other than sitting here scrolling on my phone. Like, you know, I could be making other things happen. Um, so, Elon, et cetera, all these billionaires, et cetera, we got the same twenty-four hours in a day. And it's all what we decide to do with it, and it's gonna come with with the pressure. So, if I'm comfortable in in sitting around and nothing's happening, I feel like, I feel like a failure, cuz I'm just like, something needs to be happening. Something needs to be shaking right now. Something needs to be moving. I critique myself for not training my son as much sometime. Like, I feel like we could train more. We only train like an hour a day sometime. But a day we miss training, he ain't thinking about it. But me, I'm like, dang, like, it's another kid somewhere training right now, and we missing it. Like, you know, it's it's it's interesting, so. Who picked baseball? Say it again? Who picked baseball? He picked it?

• 27:27Speaker 03

  He picked baseball. He asked me, I had never played a, uh, listen, I had never caught a baseball in my life. I had never played, I played football my whole life. And um, I stopped football in high school cuz one of my friends got paralyzed on the field. I was I was I was very good. But um, of course, I was running back and short. But anyway, uh, man, he asked to play baseball, I remember he was four. And uh, he was like, damn, I wanna play baseball cuz he got his little T, this little T for his birthday. And um, I was like, sure, why not? So I signed him up for baseball, and me, when we do something, we're gonna be the best at it. So I had to learn how to coach him cuz I didn't know what I was doing. Like, I had to go watch videos, like, cuz at first when I was just rolling them balls, I'm thinking that, you know, he's catching the ball right and stuff like that. We was doing everything wrong, so.

• 28:08Speaker 03

  I'm watching all the videos, I'm doing it. So we've, you know, traveled to different places uh, to get some coaching from other coaches. So, they'll coach him and I'm coaching myself, watching them. I'm watching them coach him, so that way, okay, that's what we can do when we get home. So I'll go, you know, train with these coaches, you know, in different uh, cities or whatever like that, we'll train with them. And I'm subconsciously watching what they're coaching, so I can go back and. Coach at home or I'll watch what the boxing coach is doing and I can do it at home. So now we don't necessarily need y'all all the time. We can do this at home. Um, so it's very important. Uh, the training is very important for me, uh, but he picked baseball and so I told him if we're gonna do something, we're gonna be the best at it. Or, uh, boxing. He's had times where he said he wanted to quit, no doubt, because he asked me to play, but he didn't want to do the work at first. He's just like,

• 28:52Speaker 03

  oh, we gotta go practice, you know, whatever like that. Now he wants to practice at six because he understands that he's good now. He, he likes being good. So now he likes to practice, but before when he was like four and five, he like, I don't, I don't want to play baseball anymore. I want to play something else because he thought it was easier. So I let him try, uh, another little sport out, but we went and practiced a lot with that. And he like, dang, I thought this was gonna be easy. Nah, ain't none of it easy. Even gymnastics. I got him doing pull-ups in the house, you know, like, because he had to pull up on the bar and stuff like, all of it is hard work. I don't care what sport you choose, whether it's school, whether it's reading a book, etc. You have to put the work in to be the best. Because if you want people out here beating you, because he hates to lose, I'm like, well, if you hate to lose, you gotta be the best. You gotta practice.

• 29:33Speaker 03

  And the only thing that's gonna keep you winning is practicing. And so now, you know, as he's coming of age, he's understanding to practice now. So, he'll get in there like at six thirty in the morning, we got the tea and the net in the, uh, gym, uh, made it for him. And while I'm in there lifting, he got the tea and he's hitting off it before school every morning. And before he goes to school, he's in there hitting off the tea in the morning times. Yeah, so I, I love it, but he picked baseball, man. So I never played at all. So I just take, I take him to the games, let him watch the other players. He loves Shohei, that's his favorite guy. Um, he loves Shohei, but we go to the Braves games, etc. He loves it. Um, so I just try to hone whatever he asked for. He asked to do that, so we're gonna hone it.

• 30:10Shawn Ryan?

  Wow, that's, that's fantastic. That's, um, well, we're gonna get into your story too here. So,

• 30:18Shawn Ryan?

  we got a Patreon account, Patreon, it's a subscription account. There are top supporters and a lot of them have been with us since the beginning. And it's turned into quite the community over the years. One of the things I offer him is to ask each and every guest a question. So this is from Eric Aldger.

• 30:37Shawn Ryan?

  How do you handle the unseen pressures that come with being a young leader in a world that often doubts people of your age and background?

• 30:45Speaker 03

  Um, for one, through God, and then for two, um, through the work.

• 30:52Speaker 03

  Um, is you, at first, when I first began, it was a lot of, oh, you're too young. Um, how are you gonna teach boys how to be men, et cetera, et cetera? I was 19. So people had stuff to say, but once I started doing the work, it's like, there's nothing you can say, because I'm doing everything that I said I was gonna do. I said I was gonna open the school. I said I was gonna start an after-school program. I said it was gonna all be free. I said I was never gonna charge. I said we was gonna take care of kids. We were gonna make sure they got haircuts. We were gonna make sure they got uniforms. We were gonna make sure they got clothes, deodorant, toothpaste, toothbrush, underwear, et cetera. I said I was gonna do it, and people didn't believe it at first. People were like, where are you gonna get the funding? Where are you gonna get the capital, et cetera? I don't know where I'm gonna get it from, but we're gonna do it. And I said it over and over again, and as I've done it, people started getting quiet. And as I'm working, I've really asked people, name somebody else,

• 31:37Speaker 03

  you know, that's doing the type of work that we're doing, for free. You can name the Boys and Girls Clubs, et cetera, et cetera. They're not doing the type of work that we're doing, not in mindset changing. Most other programs are aimed at giving children something to do. I'm not aiming for that. We're aiming at trying to change their minds. I could put 30,000 basketball courts in the city of Albany, and they're gonna kill each other and fight each other on the basketball courts, because there has been no mindset changing. So our goal is to actually fix and train the minds of the child. When we say let us make man, making the man ain't about, uh, teaching them how to fix cars or painting the house or whatever like that. Sure, that's great stuff to know, but for us, making that man is all entail in their character. I always say, uh, we, we, we make habits with them. We make them do things over and over again.

• 32:22Speaker 03

  Uh, just like when we were in Marine Corps boot camp. I always say, uh, habits build character, and character makes the man. Uh, routines build habits. And so we make routines, which forms a habit, which forms their character. Uh, so that's how we, you know, make that man, you know, teaching them to hygiene, clipping their fingernails, um, making sure they smell decent, uh, asking them why they didn't, you know, have this today, or why they didn't, you know, it was something, why you smell funny? I ain't got no deodorant at home. Okay, cool. We send you home with a whole package of soap, um, deodorant, underwear, et cetera. I had kids, you know, have holes in their underwear, holes in their socks. What's going on? My mom ain't been able to buy me such and such. Okay, cool. We'll take care of that for you. People don't know, we take, help moms take care of, uh, like, light bills, et cetera. But it's incentives for that. If you make sure your son is coming after school on time,

• 33:07Speaker 03

  if you're making sure he's doing his work, if you're making sure he's studying, if we see you trying your best and doing good with your son and making sure you're raising him, we will incentivize that and I'll say, "Hey mom, we gonna take care of your rent for the month." Easy work. We do that through our donors that help us take care of that, but it's important for morale too, because moms need to see that somebody believes in them. Mom needs to see that somebody sees them trying, and it helps them with raising their sons because today, she may not be as angry when she gets off of work, you know, and actually wants to come watch a movie with you. You know, it's all these little tiny things matter. We don't post that. We don't say those things. We don't, you know, readily post whose funeral we helped take care of. Like, "One of my student's brother passed away in a cold murder." You know, we paid for his funeral or whatever, but

• 33:51Speaker 03

  we didn't share that. We took, uh, we, we, we talked to the family about it, but it took her to share that online, you know, on her own, because she was just like, "This is what this program means to us." Like, this program is, is, is, is for families. Like, yeah, we help boys, but we've helped so many families, uh, it's, I mean, I could go on and on. But that's how we combat that. And to a point now, I've had so much negativity said about me. I mean, it just rolls off my back. I'm, I'm used to people having something to say. Yeah. Even like now, like, we record everything we do, uh, with my sons. Like, we record our whole lives. Me and my mom, um, we have, we have it out sometime. Um, and she's upset with herself because she didn't take as many pictures growing up. So, we have a few photos and things like that, but we don't have many pictures of anything. I don't have any photos from playing football, no videos or anything.

• 34:37Speaker 03

  I played football my whole life. My mom's just like, "I'm so mad" because my grandmother used to force her to take pictures all the time. So, she thought she was doing me a favor by not forcing me to take pictures all the time and things like that, and she didn't realize what was happening. So, we have footage of my sons from when they were like one, two years old. We record every single thing. So, the guys posted online the other day when we were out at evaluations, you know, I got the cameras taking pictures of my son or video, and they like, "Imagine having some egotistical guy out here taking pictures, you know, and y'all out here trying to play baseball." I'm just like, so when you go to the MLB game and they got cameras out, you can't watch it then because they're recording it? I'm just like, it's the same thing. I'm just like, but people just want something to say. But I'm just like, we post this stuff and for my son's brand, because this is gonna help him as he gets older.

• 35:19Speaker 03

  You know, people are watching him already, you know, watching his content, etc. So we're building on that early. And plus, we just record their content anyway. So when they get older, we just got all this stuff we could watch. You could sit down and watch old family movies, whatever, um, just from conversations in the car. I mean, we have everything. Sometimes my videographer will send me stuff. I don't even remember he recorded. Like, he'll send me like old videos of me holding them when they were babies. He's like, hey, man, I was just going through the vault, looking at some old stuff, or old videos of us in the after-school program back when I was like 20. You know, reading the Bible to the kids or something. He'll send me that. I'm just like, man, this is cra- I don't even remember this day. You know, but he's sending me, you know, this content, and it's important. But yeah, that's, that's how we combat it. We just keep doing my work. Um, and we let God do the rest. Um, eventually, people just have to be quiet, because, I mean, what more can you say? So, mhm.

• 36:05Shawn Ryan?

  I guess, you know, they say if you don't have any critics, you're not doing it right.

• 36:08Speaker 03

  Correct.

• 36:10Shawn Ryan?

  Well, got you a little gift. I'll get you some more for your kids.

• 36:13Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 36:15Shawn Ryan?

  We do unsleep gummy bears.

• 36:17Speaker 03

  Love it.

• 36:18Shawn Ryan?

  I swear, some people just come on the show just to get those.

• 36:21Speaker 03

  Really?

• 36:22Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, I'm done.

• 36:22Speaker 03

  So like, are they like special gummy bears, or?

• 36:25Shawn Ryan?

  No, there's nothing weird going on. There's no cannabis. There's no CBD. It's just candy.

• 36:29Speaker 03

  You know, it's funny, I love, I love gummy bears.

• 36:32Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:32Speaker 03

  Yeah, I got some in my bag right now. I love gummy bears.

• 36:35Shawn Ryan?

  Nice.

• 36:36Speaker 03

  So this is gonna be a hit for me. So if they good, I'm definitely just gonna order some.

• 36:39Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah.

• 36:39Speaker 03

  Yeah. I am a gummy bear fan, man.

• 36:42Shawn Ryan?

  Cool, cool. Well, let's get into your story. So where did you grow up?

• 36:47Speaker 03

  I grew up in Albany, Georgia, uh, born and raised. Uh, born July 1999, so technically a 90s baby, almost made it to 2000. But, uh, July of 99, I was born in Albany, Georgia. My mom, uh, had me when she was, uh, I think like 18 and a half.

• 37:03Shawn Ryan?

  Let's, just real quick, Albany, Georgia.

• 37:07Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 37:08Shawn Ryan?

  High crime rate, chance of being a victim of crime is 1 in 43. The neighborhood scouts, the neighborhood scout ranks in the top 100 most dangerous cities in the US.

• 37:19Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 37:20Shawn Ryan?

  So, yeah, can you, can you tell us a little bit more about, other than just statistics, you know, what Albany is like?

• 37:28Speaker 03

  I love, I love the city of Albany. Um, I think the city of Albany is what you make it. Uh, it's, it's, it's important to mention also the population. It's only, well, now it's only about 66,000 people that live in Albany. So, when you hear about the high crime rate, it's, it's, it's off of the, the ratio of people there. Um, so it's not like somebody's dying every single day or anything like that. But there is murder pretty often, I would say. Um, we do have a lot of murder happening, stabbings, a lot of domestic, uh, issues. Um, and I tell people, I attribute that to, you know, it being impoverished, um, because you gotta think, you know, cause people always talk about, you know, all the kids that are in Albany and people just constantly having children, but also the domestic issues. I'm like, gosh, let's, let's, let's be honest here with ourselves.

• 38:13Speaker 03

  If people are broke and don't have any money and there are no jobs, there aren't any many jobs in Albany, if their people are broke and don't have any jobs, what all they have to do all day? Argue and have sex. That's it. So, that's what's happening in Albany. You constantly got a lot of children, you know, being had in Albany, but also a lot of domestic, you know, issues. Because it's woman, mo-most of the time it's always some woman stabbed the guy, or the guy shot the woman, or it's just some domestic stuff. It's always domestic disputes. It's never like a stray bullet or no, it's always domestic stuff, never, we get some gang related stuff here and there, but it's mostly girlfriend, boyfriend, boyfriend, girlfriend. Uh, these guys arguing about something, like it's always domestic stuff.

• 38:54Speaker 03

  And I attribute that to, again, being impoverished, even like, um, mentioning how people raise their children in the city of Albany. If somebody, like, let's, for example, me. I look at some of the things that I get mad at and I don't get mad at based off of what I'm able to afford. For example, like, my sons sometimes wanna draw on their shoes. I don't have a problem with that. Have fun. I don't care. Draw on your shoes. Whatever. They wanna make little... It's, I, I see it as them being creative. Now, specific shoes I don't let them draw on, but other shoes I'm like, have fun at it. But then I can also understand why one mom would wanna spank her child for riding on his shoe. Because for one, she's, maybe, to be frank, she taking out a little of her frustration on him. Being for real. She taking a little frustration on him, but also, dude, I paid forty bucks for those shoes.

• 39:37Speaker 03

  I barely had that forty dollars, and you drawing on your shoes? Like, oh my god, and she's ready to kill him, you know, like, about that, and it's just so much happening around her. You know, she's doing it by herself, dad's nowhere around, vice versa. With, you know, maybe a couple of guys just raising their sons by theyself, or raising their kids by theyself. I know there's one guy, he got like nine kids, bro, just got too many kids, but he raising them all. Moms are nowhere to be found. He's frustrated all the time. The moms make him upset, he goes to jail. He calls me, Mr. King, you know, it's one of my students' dad, his mom. He, he calls me, Mr. King, can you help me? You know, I went to jail. One of kids' mom, you know, made me upset, and I did such and such, or whatever like that. You know, he's barely making it, and I'm just like, guys, like, this is why this is happening. People need jobs here.

• 40:21Speaker 03

  And so this is why I started getting into the politics of the city of Albany. Uh, cuz I, at first, people know me, people, you know, hear me saying this now. But back when I was younger, I would say, man, bump politics. I don't care about politics. We just need to do for ourselves. Do stuff for our community, and everything will be fine. We bump the politicians or whatever like that. But as I got older, I started realizing, notice, some of the stuff that they're passing, and, and, at the mayor, and the city councilman, and the commissioners, they're passing stuff that's directly affecting these kids. And not only passing stuff, but not doing stuff to actually affect people having money here. People need money. How did you get involved in politics? Um... I started uh in Albany uh maybe in this last year trying to figure out politics in my hometown.

• 41:06Speaker 03

  Because I'm seeing stuff not happening in my hometown that should be happening. Stuff that seems common sense. And so I'm just like, okay, let me just start going to these meetings. You know, all the meetings are open for the public to come to. Nobody's there. The ma- the mayor is in there meeting, they're having meetings about all this different stuff that's happening in the city. Sixty seven thousand people live there and nobody's there. The last mayor election, only seven thousand people voted, you know, for the mayor. And we have sixty seven thousand people there. And I'm just like, how exactly, you know, are we expecting the city of Albany to change and we don't know what's going on?

• 41:41Shawn Ryan?

  What are some of the things you see that's affecting the, affecting the community?

• 41:45Speaker 03

  Well, for starters, you know, mentioning uh the lack of jobs. There are no jobs there and on top of that, they're not attracting people to want to come to the city of Albany. And I will mention that our city sucks at marketing and and just in general from and and I I'm a big fan of the school system. But the school system does not do a good job in marketing. The police department does not do a good job in marketing. Fire department, the city of Albany, etc. They do not do a good job in marketing. The reason I say that's important is because everything you hear and see about Albany is always negative. If you go type Albany, Georgia in on Google, it's always negative. It is important that people in the city know that these people are actually doing their jobs. I told them this before, our police department is doing a fantastic job. But all you ever see online about people talking about them is just negative stuff.

• 42:29Speaker 03

  But these people actually are solving murders, they're actually taking care of things, they're making things happen for the citizens, they have these new equipment, etc. They're really doing good. But I had to go take a private class to learn about our uh police department. I'm like, why aren't you guys posting this stuff? Like, people should know that you guys are doing your job, that you are trying to make things happen. Or our our school system. Our school system is doing a phenomenal job and I I have to almost apologize for the things that I was saying about them previously because I didn't know what was happening. Not because I wouldn't go in to look, but also because they wouldn't say anything about it.

• 43:03Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm.

• 43:04Speaker 03

  Our school system has, uh, health clinics, dental and vision clinics, et cetera, for the students to go to for free because the parents in Albany cannot afford the insurance for those kids. They've gotten the grants to make sure, the clinics are at school.

• 43:18Shawn Ryan?

  Man, you never hear anybody today.

• 43:20Speaker 03

  No.

• 43:21Shawn Ryan?

  Props to the public school system.

• 43:22Speaker 03

  No, and I'm gonna do that because they are doing, they are trying. I've had them tell us stories about kids who didn't even know, this kid didn't even know what a toothbrush was, going to the dentist. Like, these are real stories. And so, I'm listening to them tell us, I'm like, why aren't y'all talking about this? So I offered with my team to do a, a small documentary on the school system and the, the things that they've changed in the city, especially since COVID. They also have this program called Level Up. The Level Up program is where they have parents sign up for the program. They'll go pay for these parents to go to school to get their forklift license, nursing license, bulldozer, whatever. They'll pay for them to go to school to, to get these licenses. And they'll say, oh, well, I don't have any care for my child.

• 44:05Speaker 03

  They'll go get your kid from school and pay for the daycare and everything for your child while you're in school getting your license to go get whatever degree you're trying to get or go get whatever certification to get a job. So this in turn, turns into these parents now being able to parent their children because they don't have to work three and four jobs anymore and they don't have to keep sending the kid to the auntie's house. And, and sending it to whoever's house to, to be raised by god knows what. Where they can raise their own children now because now they have a livable wage job. This is impactful. Like, I'm just like, why aren't you guys saying anything about this? Like, wh- where is the marketing team? It's important that people know because all people hear is the negativity surrounding the city of Albany.

• 44:47Speaker 03

  And it's important that people know that, like, the commission I'm on now, I just joined Historic Preservation Commission. It's important um that people know about the history of Albany and why these buildings are important and what happened here and things like that and they're just like we wish people would you know get involved with the Historic Preservation Commission etcetera I'm like okay well you guys should probably make like a Facebook page and explain what's going on make some TikToks make videos etcetera so me being the youngest person on the five different boards I just joined is gonna help the city out a whole lot because they've been looking they're like hey how can we market like your marketing listen let me help take care of those things for you so we're gonna show these different stories that the Dorde County school system has helped with these parents and their kids and in the free dental envision I also didn't know that our school system has a hydroponics garden

• 45:33Speaker 03

  where they are growing all of the green vegetables for the entire school system they are feeding these children No kidding fresh vegetables from a garden that the students manage Wow And I'm just like why aren't you guys showing this stuff online because all people do is talk trash about our school system in Albany, Georgia in- including myself at one point and I didn't know all these things were happening I didn't know that they were answering the questions that people ask at the school board meetings I went to the school they're in there answering the questions they're in there saying hey no they're like oh the kids can't read here but what they're saying is look covid stopped us these kids couldn't come to school but as covid has you know left or whatever like that they're showing the trajectory going up from the

• 46:17Speaker 03

  statistics I'm like these people are trying these people are trying to do their jobs granted everything ain't perfect but this is something that needs to be shown why aren't you guys showing it I've even spoken to the the city about it they're paying this company uh in our hometown I won't call them out but it sucks I was at the city commission meeting they're paying this one video company six figures over six months to for marketing for the city of Albany I go on their city of Albany webs uh pages the couple videos that they've done maybe got one like if any or some got no likes no views etcetera I'm like so they're older so they don't understand how social media and marketing works so I'm like have y'all asked them for any deliverables asked them how many people have seen this stuff y'all paying them six figures and this is maybe

• 47:02Speaker 03

  Third time doing it and they've only done like maybe two or three commercials for like the hospital or something like that. Who, who, why are y'all paying them all this? My team don't even make that much money and we're pushing out more content than y'all ever have. Y'all releasing one or two videos every couple of months and y'all paying them six figures? So why haven't y'all asked them for any metrics? How many people in the city of Albany have seen these things? You know, the regular person in Albany doesn't even know who the mayor is. They don't know what ward they live in. They don't know their commissioner. Not saying it's completely the citizens fault, but I think it's, it's the mayor's fault. I think it's the city commissioner's fault. Why aren't you in people's faces? Cause people still thought that our mayor from two mayors ago was still the mayor the other day. They don't have no clue that we had a new mayor. And I'm just like, why aren't you guys trying to show people who you are?

• 47:47Speaker 03

  I talked to our city commission about this because I think that you guys maybe are just doing stuff that y'all don't care for the public to know about. That's what I think. I think you don't want people involved, so you can just keep passing little stupid stuff up here. That's not causing the city to advance. You're just giving contracts to your little contracting companies that you know and passing little stuff for people that you know and your homeboys and your family and your affiliates. And people don't know what's going on. So I've been at every meeting, so I can just keep jotting down notes.

• 48:15Shawn Ryan?

  Is that happening?

• 48:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, it's happening. So I've been at every meeting. Um, and I've joined five different boards. I am on the historic preservation commission now. I'm on a planning commission now. I'm on the southwest Georgia housing task force. I'm on the Albany Police Department civilian review board, so I know all things happening with the police department. Every, and mind you, every board I'm on, I'm the youngest person there. Everybody else there is extremely older. But mainly because they don't even get applicants for these boards and people don't know these boards exist. So I'm telling people, these boards are actually making decisions too. The historic preservation commission is so important, they make decisions that the mayor can't make. We make decisions to say, hey, you cannot do this certain thing in this historic district. You cannot do anything over there because you're gonna mess with the historic preservation of this building.

• 48:58Speaker 03

  Or you can't do this thing to your house because you're gonna mess up the historic district. Like, it's important. The planning commission is important because everything that comes through us is what people wanna rezone something for. Do I wanna open a liquor store over on this side of town? Or if I wanna open up a new Bar over here, whatever, we have to approve of those things. But that's important because we can think about then, what's the demographic on that side of town that you're trying to open a liquor store on? I don't think that side of town needs a liquor store. We don't need another liquor store on that side of town. It's already high crime over there. We're gonna give them more liquor over there? That don't even make any sense. You know, whatever. So they're trying to monetize, you know, people that's coming into town, they were trying to open business. They're monetizing the Dubahtery in our hometown. They're monetizing that people are drunks in Albany. They're monetizing that people are obese and overweight in Albany.

• 49:41Speaker 03

  So they're opening tons of restaurants on the worst sides of town because they know people can't afford to go buy healthy food. So they got Popeyes and all these, this stuff that's causing people to die. I want to talk to the coroner not too long ago. I asked, I said, "Mr. Coroner, why are people dying?" He said, "Heart disease, high blood pressure, um, strokes." He said, "I'm picking people up every day for it." He said, "Because people, he said, "Because of the food. People don't want to get up and exercise because they scared to walk in the neighborhoods, etc." He said, "This is why people are dying every day." Nobody knows that. And I'm just like, this is stuff that needs to be talked about. And so this is why I'm even having your platform. When we share these videos and stuff, I'm gonna share it to our city. Because people need to know that our school system is trying their hardest. They are doing their job there.

• 50:24Speaker 03

  Granted, some things could be better with maybe disciplining the kids in certain ways, etc. But that's free hea-, free health, dental, vision. Y'all giving kids glasses, etc. Y'all trying to make a way for these kids to just even live, you know, for free. Giving, making sure their parents got Fort Live licenses, etc. They graduating kids with, uh, truck driver simulating, all this. I mean, it's crazy what they're doing and nobody knows about it.

• 50:53Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends, like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior-like beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  This episode is brought to you by Michelob Ultra. Good times mean competitions between you and your friends. Like seeing who can throw some pigskin the farthest, or rush the field the fastest. Winner gets an ultra. Because it's not just a superior light beer, it's also giving fans superior access to their favorite sporting events. Superior is worth playing for. Visit michelobultra.com/superioraccess to enter. Enjoy responsibly. Copyright 2026 Anheuser-Busch InBev Michelob Ultra Beer, St. Louis, Missouri.

• 52:02Speaker 03

  What kind of jobs are there right now? In Albany? You mentioned there's not a big job market. I wish I had my phone with me, but I mean, it's, it's gas station jobs, McDonald's, these $10, $12 an hour jobs, for the most part. And if you're like me, or maybe just a regular person who probably needs a lot more money than that, you either have to drive an hour away to go to another city that, you know, does pay a livable wage job and then come back home, or whatever like that, or eventually just have to move to there, which is why our population's declining. Over the past 10 years, our population's dropped 10,000 people. Because people are leaving. Because there's no growth happening in the city. But there's no like, no factory jobs, no like, we got factories. Have you ever tried the Combos, little crackers? Little Combos food?

• 52:47Speaker 03

  Those are exclusively made in Albany, Georgia. They are made nowhere else. Eminem Mars makes Combos in Albany, Georgia. And they have a secret little recipe thing and everything. I love Combos. But they're, they're all over the country, but they're exclusively made in Albany, Georgia. Why isn't that a thing? Like, that's a, people eat Combos all the time. I go and they're sold out. Why aren't y'all talking about that? But, but these are like the little small jobs we have. Factories have left. We used to have Bob's Candy, they left. We do have a marine base in Albany, the logistics base. It's probably one of the most important bases for the Marine Corps. But if, lo and behold, they ever decide to move the command somewhere else, we'd be effed, to be frank. We're one factory away from Albany becoming like, some real bad town. We do have Procter and Gamble, like they make tissue and things like that,

• 53:32Speaker 03

  and, you know, laundry detergent and stuff like, so we do have a couple of factory jobs, but most of those factories have people that work there that come from other cities to come work, because they won't live in Albany. So, I mean, What would you bring then? Uh, I would think about, so this is, this is long-term what I would think. I would think about trying to bring car manufacturing, uh, or something like that to Albany. The reason I would do that is because we have so much open land in Albany, so much space for factories, warehouses, whatever. Even closed, you know, factories, we got just some just abandoned, just sitting there, or whatever like that. But I would do that because for one, we could bring a livable wage job to some of these, uh, people that are in Albany. But also, these jobs require you to work a long time. They require you to work at least nine to what, to twelve hours.

• 54:15Speaker 03

  These kids out here on the street that ain't got no job, and y'all could do the training onsite, you give they but a job. They working nine, twelve hours, making livable wage, but also they ain't got time to go do nothing stupid outside. You working them to the bone, and now they sleepy and ready to go home and, and maybe eat some food. And that's it. They not getting into any trouble because they sleepy, they tired. How, have you thought about how you would incentivize an auto manufacturer to move there? Only way I could do that is selling the city of Albany. And at this point, if a, a manufacturer were to look at the city of Albany online, they like, absolutely not. This is where relationships come in. This is why I'm grateful for my traveling through, uh, the country. Uh, talking about the extra boys and building relationships before I started working in the city of Albany like I am now.

• 55:00Speaker 03

  I have so many different relationships now. I'm, right now I'm in contact with a, a professor, uh, from Yale. Um, and we're working on this private project that he and I are working on to bring to the city of Albany. Because they're like, Albany is the perfect pilot project. But, they would have never known that Albany was a great place for this project, I can't talk about it, but the, for this project, unless it, if it weren't for me. Going to talk to them about it. And I'm like, dude, Albany has so much potential. I have, I call Albany Potential Incorporated. We have so many empty spaces, so many, uh, downtown's beautiful, no businesses at all. It's like all these empty buildings down there. So much history, so much rich history in Albany. From Dr. King, uh, coming to Albany during the civil rights movement, to all these other different things that happened in Albany.

• 55:44Speaker 03

  Uh, like, they don't preserve a lot of things. Uh, the, the house that Dr. King used to stay in in Albany is currently boarded up. I'm like, why isn't that like some landmark or something that y'all add to like? Like some tour people do. We have radium springs in Albany. It's a natural spring. In Albany that has like this fresh water that comes out of it or whatever like that. It's just, it's really cool. But I'm like, why don't you guys do like boat tours or something down here? Like it's just, my brain is turning. I'm just like, why aren't y'all monetizing? The true good history in the good life city. Ray Charles is from there. We got a Ray Charles Plaza, but that's it. Like, we don't really do anything for Ray Charles. You got a couple NFL players from Albany or whatever. Granted, they won't come back or do anything or whatever like that, but we got a lot of things that have happened good from the city of Albany.

• 56:26Speaker 03

  But why aren't we like pushing those things? Why aren't we showing people how great the city of Albany can be? We have a lot of great mom and pop restaurants who make great food. But why aren't we showcasing them on TikTok and through the city of Albany website or through the city of Albany social media pages or whatever? I've made this stuff mentioned, but again, you know, these people are older and they don't understand. We don't even have an app, you know, like most cities got an app you could download, you know, to, to, you know, talk to your commissioners or, you know, report stuff or whatever like that. We still gotta dial three one one to call.

• 56:55Shawn Ryan?

  What was it about your childhood that, that just got you into this? I mean, you started, was it seventeen?

• 57:00Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:00Shawn Ryan?

  Professional chef?

• 57:01Speaker 03

  Oh, yeah. Uh huh. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

• 57:03Shawn Ryan?

  You know, so you're only twenty five years old.

• 57:05Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 57:06Shawn Ryan?

  What, what was it about your childhood that motivated you to kind of start turning the city around, becoming a, basically a father figure to all these people? Young men.

• 57:16Speaker 03

  This is gonna be a, a, a long-winded little part. When I was younger, when I was a kid, my grand, my grandmother's been very spiritual my whole, my whole life. Uh, she's been preaching, having Bible studies, prayer lines, et cetera. She's, she's big. She's huge into God. She's, I mean, she does it. When I was about three years old, I'll never forget, we were riding in her car. She had this old green Lexus she had when I was like three. And I remember the car seats at the time were these little things you had to pull over your head and we, I had to learn how to strap myself in. It's this little circle inside my car seat. I was to play with all the time. I remember, just remember little things. I remember we were riding on this street, uh, called, uh, I think it was, uh, Johnny W. Williams Road and we turned to South Madison. She's still on South Madison Street.

• 57:58Speaker 03

  And we got to the stop sign. I told my grandma, I said, grandma, I said, you know how it is? Like when something's about to happen, like you feel like something in your stomach like that. And she was like, yeah, I know, you know, like what, what you mean? And she, I told her that I was here to finish what Dr. Martin Luther King started. And um I told her um at like as I got older that I don't know if we like maybe watched a Dr. King video at preschool that day or something like that. I don't remember anything from that day but that conversation. I I remember it vividly. I never forget it. Um but as I got older, I took my grandmama would always tell me that often. And I'm like grandma like can you stop saying that like cuz she would like tell like people at the church what I said and stuff like that cuz like as a testament I'm like grandma can you stop saying that like I'm like I was a kid I'm

• 58:41Speaker 03

  like whatever like I I was maybe watched a Dr. King video or something like I'm not trying to do that I wanna cook like cuz my my my biological father was a great cook. He would cook at like different restaurants. He you know had didn't it wasn't like a professional chef or anything but he would like cook so I wanted to cook because that's what my real dad did. I just wanted to be like my real dad. I I didn't spend a whole lot of time with him. Um my stepdad raised me but anytime I interacted with my father, I just wanted to do things with him. And my mom, uh thank God for her, she purposely fostered our relationship to the point where I never hated him even if he wasn't around. And so my mom would literally go buy me Christmas gifts, go bring it to my dad, pick me up and then bring me to my father to as if he gave me the gift. Um like my mom is that's that's something special.

• 59:25Speaker 03

  Um so I loved my dad. I still love my dad, you know, my biolog- even if he ain't like just there all the time. My biological father, I love him. I'll call him. We'll talk maybe every couple of months. Uh he's been sick lately. I just visited him in hospital. He had he had an enlarged heart or something but um uh I love my real dad. So I started wanting to cook because of that. And so um I I joined a culinary team at school. Um we had a culinary team in high school uh in this culinary class with Chef Sly. He's gonna watch this. He's he's a big fan of yours too. Uh but Chef Sly, he taught me uh everything I know about uh cooking. And um I started with him and I started cooking things at home. I started uh baking different things. I would sell like different uh things to bake at home. I would sell to the community. I made like cupcakes and everything. I was really good at it.

• 1:00:07Speaker 03

  And then I also did this program called Move Woman Ready where you could take college classes in high school. Uh so I took the college classes at the culinary uh school that we had in Albany, at Albany Technical College. So I was there. Every day, I was cramming classes. I went to high school in the morning times. And then I would leave there at about 12 o'clock. My grandma had bought me a car when I was younger, but she eventually started driving it. And I would drive to the college and go take those classes. They would allow me to leave school to go take the college classes. And I took those classes and people don't realize culinary classes are long. These are six to eight hour long classes because you gotta think, things have to bake, things have to cook. It's not a quick class. Then we also did catering events.

• 1:00:50Speaker 03

  So I would sometimes go home at like one or two o'clock in the morning, like 15, 16, because I'm out. Wow. Cooking and my grandmother would just make sure I was okay, make sure I had everything I needed, make sure I ate food. And I'll tell a little story about her later. But, um, but yeah, she would make sure I had everything I needed, you know, since my grandmother, if I opened my phone up, I got prayers every single day. She's sending me these long scriptures I read every morning. I don't text back all the time. She knows I read them. She'll send me these videos, motivational videos, but that's what she used to do when I was in high school, same thing. Would send me prayers, make sure I'm okay, call, make sure I'm good. And I graduated college before I graduated high school. I walked across the college stage first because he had spring graduation. And then, yeah, and then I graduated from high school right after that. Yep. Wow. Yep.

• 1:01:33Speaker 03

  Were, I mean, were you always a straight and narrow, motivated kid? For the most part, until I got to eighth and ninth grade. I tell everybody, you have to go through your first heartbreak. When I was in eighth grade, this girl I was dating in eighth grade, I had planned my whole life out with her after I like started dating her. And when we were about to get to high school, she broke up with me the summer when we were about to go to high school. And I was confused. I didn't know what she broke up with me for. She was just like, well, I just want to go explore. At that time, I didn't know what that really meant. I'm like, what you mean, want to go explore? She was just like, I just, you know, I don't want to just, you know, worry about each other. Mind you, I had, we'd named our kids and everything. I'm like, want to go live my whole life with you type deal. She was all I thought about, you know, like, that was my first like girlfriend, girlfriend.

• 1:02:16Speaker 03

  So I was, my whole ninth grade year, she would like going to talk to these other guys. And I'm like seeing this stuff. I'm just like. What? So my whole ninth grade year, I I I chased her. Like I just chased her. I was just trying to figure out what I could do to get her back and I would, you know, get mad at the guy she was talking to and things like that. I tried to meet her at a locker and like leave her letters and stuff like that. And I'm just this lover boy kid. Like I'm just trying to get my girlfriend back. I spent my whole ninth grade year doing that. I lost all my grades. I was so upset. I just, I lost all confidence in myself. On top of that, you know, I was, I was trying to find myself in the ninth grade. Like I was trying to dress like everybody else, because when I was in middle school, I'll tell this story too. I was in middle school and um I'll get back into the first question in a bit.

• 1:03:00Speaker 03

  But I was in middle school and my uh my sixth grade year, I wore a suit to picture day. I I love suits. I wore a suit to picture day. I always did in elementary school too. I wore a suit to every picture day. I wore a suit to picture day in uh uh middle school in sixth grade. I got to school, everybody picked on me the entire day from front, like top to bottom, because I had on a suit. And all they picked on me the whole day. Like, I mean, just picked on me. I I took my jacket off, like to just try and alleviate some of it. Like they picked on me from like my shoes, everything. I had a cool, I had a decent suit on. It was a pretty nice suit. And all they picked on me the whole day. I never wanted to wear a suit again, ever. Like I just, never doing it again. Uh so every, every picture day after that, I just wore regular clothes, you know, like everybody else did.

• 1:03:43Speaker 03

  And um people would pick on me still because I didn't wear like the different name brands that they were wearing. Like I would wear Beverly Hills Polo Club. That's what I wanted to wear. My mom wasn't like poor or anything, so she could afford to do things. She drove trucks sometime. My stepdad worked at a marine base. So, you know, it ain't like I needed for anything. So, but I wanted to wear Beverly Hills Polo Club. So, everybody picked on me for that for a long time. So then I started buy, I had my mom buy me some of the uh merchandise that they they were wearing. I get to school, everybody's like, well, about time you finally buy some, you know, this stuff. They still talking about me. So, I get to ninth grade, I'll never forget, there's one of the cheerleaders, uh I still remember her. I'll never forget. I always thought I was maybe ugly or something like that, because nobody ever wanted to talk to me.

• 1:04:24Speaker 03

  She was a senior cheerleader and she told me I I looked at sexy one day and I was like you talking to me? And she was like and she was like, yeah, you you look good. I was just like, thanks. From that day forward, I got all my confidence back. Never forget it. She probably doesn't even remember that right now. Or whatever, but I'll never forget. They say many remember all their compliments because we don't get many. But I I I got all my confidence back. I started back wearing suits. I wore a suit to school every single day. From eleventh eleventh and twelfth grade year, every single day. Every single day? Every single day. A suit. And if I didn't have if I didn't have a suit on, I had on like some type of nice sweater with a tie on. Like if it was too cold or something and I had a briefcase. I never had a binder. I had a briefcase. All my schoolwork was in my briefcase every single day.

• 1:05:05Speaker 03

  Um, I cut my hair off. I had uh like a box, but I cut my hair. So I had a low haircut. Um, and at that time, like I was like the school mascot at the time, like my. My uh principal would allow me to go speak at different schools. Like they were so impressed like just how I carried myself. Like my principal like, hey, can you go speak at, you know, this elementary school on behalf of Westover and things like that? So. He'd always announce me over the intercom like, hey, we're gonna have King Rondo go speak at, you know, the elementary school, you know. Let's congratulate him for a job. Well done. So I would do that, be going to do my college classes. It was great. So I I found myself. So I left high school, I graduated high school and I got married um to my son's mom. And um we got married immediately out of high school. I went to the Marine Corps right after that.

• 1:05:48Speaker 03

  I originally wasn't gonna do that, but um I found myself like not having anything to do. I just I just didn't feel accomplished in life. And my best friends at the time. You didn't feel accomplished graduating college before you graduated high school? I didn't feel accomplished. I was working at Chick-fil-A. I was working on trying to find a good cooking job, but I just didn't. It nothing was hitting for me. Um, it just it just wasn't what I wanted. So. My best friends, uh my best friends had went to the Marines, every last one of them. All of them went at the same time. And so I'm just, they writing me letters, I'm writing them letters, but I'm just like, let me go see what they doing. So I'm on YouTube looking at bootcamp, you know, I'm just like. I could do that, like, um, why not? You know, like, I ain't doing nothing else. So I went to the recruiting office, talked to the recruiter, and, uh, off I went to the Marines. I got married, off I went to the Marines.

• 1:06:33Speaker 03

  Um, I met so many brothers there that we are still, you know, super close to this day. Um, I was a reserve, so I was able to be stationed back, back home, um, with thirty fifty one supply. Uh, but anyway, I got back home, um, after combat training and things like that. I get back home and my grandmother, while I was in boot camp, was sending me those letters, reminding me of what I told you previously about me finishing what Dr. King started. Mm-hmm. So I took a second to sit down. I said, okay, let me just figure out what exactly that's supposed to mean. So I did research on Dr. King for like a month straight, every single day. I had deleted all social media off my phone. I had no social media at the time, anything. Like, I was just studying, studying, studying.

• 1:07:17Speaker 03

  I'm like, what exactly did Dr. King, like, I'm, I'm not understanding what's happening. So I'm studying, I'm listening to speeches, I'm reading books, I'm going through stuff. I'm, I'm trying to figure out what exactly did Dr. King not finish? I don't get it. Like, I'm not understanding this. And I don't tell this story often, because people think it's weird. But I always tell the story, uh, privately, but I want to share this with you. So, I'll never forget, um, I was studying him, I'm listening to speeches, I started listening to Malcolm X, and I'm listening to Malcolm, and it's like, this sounds like two thousand twenty, like, well, two thousand nineteen, two thousand twenty. Like, this is crazy. It sounds like now. He's basically advocating for us doing for ourselves and opening up, opening up schools, and opening up banks, and opening up stores. And I'm like, why aren't we doing that?

• 1:07:59Speaker 03

  You know, so, anyway, I went to the Dr. King memorial in Atlanta, because I'm like, well, maybe I'll find something here. I went there, I'm looking at all his old cuff links, and they got old shirts and stuff, and old letters he wrote, and I'm just, and they're looking around, just, nothing's, it's not, nothing is hitting. I'm just like, I don't understand. Like, I really didn't understand. Like, why would I say that? Because I remember saying it. I can't lie, I say I did, and I remember saying it. And I'm like, I don't understand, like... I don't get it. I'm going through the uh, the museum still. And I get to this room in there, uh, uh, my, my, my ex-wife at the time, she was with me. And I'll never forget, uh, we, I get to this room where the carriage, uh, carried, uh, the casket that brought him through Atlanta, you know, when he was, uh, in the casket.

• 1:08:44Speaker 03

  And in this room, just like this one, it has on all over the walls, uh, newspaper articles from when he was killed, all the headlines from Dr. King.

• 1:08:54Speaker 03

  I was walking through there and I was looking at the headlines and I'll never forget, um, there was this, uh, newspaper article from the Pittsburgh Courier, April 20th of 1968. It said, "Will a new king emerge?" And at that moment, I realized that Dr. King didn't train any replacements. And that's where I had the idea that we need to work with young people. And before I ever decide to figure out what it is that Dr. King was trying to finish, as I'm still figuring it out now, I'm in the city that Dr. King failed in for one, and my name is King. Um, if you look at all of my social media handles, they all say "new emerging king." And, um, I reached out to the Pittsburgh Courier because they're actually currently trying to find that original newspaper for me because I'm gonna put it up on my wall. Um, but that meant something to me. And so that's when I started working

• 1:09:38Speaker 03

  with kids. I originally started taking them on field trips.

• 1:09:41Shawn Ryan?

  Now, hold on, how old were you?

• 1:09:42Speaker 03

  Uh, I was like 19.

• 1:09:43Shawn Ryan?

  19?

• 1:09:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was 19, mhm.

• 1:09:46Shawn Ryan?

  So basically the motivation came from your grandmother?

• 1:09:51Speaker 03

  Yeah, mhm.

• 1:09:51Shawn Ryan?

  Telling you, you need to finish what Dr. King had started.

• 1:09:55Speaker 03

  Yep, I told her that and she never let me forget it. I told her that, I think I was about three years old. Yep. So I've known for a while what I was here to do. And living in Albany, uh, Dr. King mentioned Albany and, and the failures that he made in the city of Albany. Um, and till this day, he mentioned the mindset of the people of Albany and still the same to this day. And, um, I mentioned on the video yesterday, I hadn't released yet, but as I've been maneuvering through the city as of late, um, I've been going to different volunteer workshops. Um, I've been, you know, going to different, you know, smaller things in the city to show my face. The reason I've been doing that is because ever since I've been maneuver, I used to not like go out to the grocery stores unless it was early in the morning or like never go out to eat because people

• 1:10:39Speaker 03

  would see me. But I've watched people in Albany almost look at me like they don't believe in anything else, but they believe in me. And it's been so special to see, like, just going to the grocery store and people just like, King, like, it's so good to see you, like, I love everything that's happening. You inspiring me to be a better father, you know, to my kids, or, you know, mom's just like, I really want my son to join your program, or kids who are even recognizing me, like, that's Mr. King Randall, like, he be on Instagram, like, helping the kids, like, it's, it's, I try my hardest, like, I've been all over the world, I've spoken to the biggest celebrities, whatever,

• 1:11:21Speaker 03

  and I never want people to feel like that I've gotten too big for our small hometown, ever. I still go volunteer at the smallest places, I still go to all the mom and pop restaurants that I've always frequented since I was younger. I all, I still give a hundred dollars to every waiter that I run into in Albany, every last one. Even if they did good or bad service, because I don't know why they gave me bad service, they maybe having a bad day, their mom could have died, anything. You know, and I, I do that, and so people, you know, remember me for a small stuff like that. I've never, and speaking of the waiter thing, I was going to get my, I got a pet snake, my kids wanted a pet snake. I was gonna get him a, a gerbil to eat, or whatever. And, um, the lady that was working in there, she said, you look familiar. I'm just like, you know,

• 1:12:04Speaker 03

  um, of course, I mean, most people, you know, remember as King Randall. She was like, you're that guy that gave me a hundred dollars two years ago when I was waiting at the Fire Grill, which is one of our mom and pop restaurants. She was like, I, she was like, that like, meant so much to me. She didn't even know my name, but she remembered my face. I have no clue. I did not remember who she was, I don't remember giving her the hundred dollars, but I know I did it because I do that for every waiter. And even if I don't got it, I won't go out to eat unless I got a hundred dollars to get a waiter. Um, because I remember when I used to be with my ex-wife, we trying to get pennies up in the car to go just, have us a little ice cream date, like, just, we don't even have money, like, just go get some ice cream, we getting fifty dollars, you know, trying to figure some stuff out, you know, so I remember all that stuff. Or, like, now I give to local businesses now.

• 1:12:48Speaker 03

  Um, uh, I do a scholarship now for, for kids in Albany because they can't afford, you know, like, to go to school and stuff, so I do my own scholarship just for kids in the city of Albany. The only condition is they have to remain in the city of Albany. You have to- Put back into our city, um, because that's what I believe in. Um, but I give to local businesses. I've given to some of those mom and pop shops or whatever, um, that have, uh, fed me, you know, for so many times. So most times people are trying to, you know, it around all being, they wanna give me discounts on things like my tailor, um, before I got here. Um, the guy who tailored these pants before, um, he did, he used hem and tape. And so when I was about to put them on, the hem and tape came off and it, uh, I didn't have a hem on my pants anymore. And this was like one of the only suits that I could fit into my new suits come in, cause I've been working out.

• 1:13:32Speaker 03

  And so, um, uh, and I had this new shirt that came in. I was like, I need a tailor, like, I gotta go tomorrow, like, I need to tailor a couple. I said, I got you, but he tried to give me a discount. I'm like, no. I text him, I said, listen to me. I was like, don't give me, ever give me a discount, ever, because I'm just like, I, I want you to have all your coins. If you go and charge somebody else, you know, that's not me,

• 1:13:51Speaker 03

  charge me the same thing. And I still tipped him. And I'm like, and I'm, I said, I told him to make sure you add where they could tip you on your little square account. And I tipped him too. The guy who washes my, uh, my cars, or whatever, he's a great guy, or whatever like that. I tip him every single time he washes my vehicles. And I tip him, you know, nicely. And he's, you know, just always grateful for it. And, um, just, I do small things for so many people I never just share. But I really love my city and people believe in me like no end. People believe in me more than I've seen them believe in themselves. Um, and that's a charge I got. So it's like now I'm like, okay, let me do what I can to help fix my own city. Um, even this older lady, we're about to help her fix her house in the historic district. She called me when I got on historic preservation commission.

• 1:14:36Speaker 03

  And she was like, I've been trying to get somebody to come help fix my house for a long, she's like eighty something. I go to this lady's house, it's the worst house I've ever seen in my life. And she doesn't even have pipes under the ground. The water she runs goes straight to the ground outside. The house is so unlevel, like you're, it's walking like this. She's cooking and her food is like this. Um, it's insane. So, and then she can't even get in her tub, because she's had a hip replacement, so she can't get, so she's having to sponge bathe, because she cannot actually get in her tub. Um, and I get to this lady's house and I'm like, how long you been living like? The house is sitting on some two by fours, like it's sitting on some wood. And the wood's gonna rot. I'm like, this, this house could fall in like at any time.

• 1:15:19Speaker 03

  You know, and um, so I called my contractor friend. I'm like, listen, can we get this fixed up in any way? He like, yeah, we gotta start with it. Cause at first he called me just about the bathroom, just so she could have a walk in shower. I'm like, sure, why not? We get there. I'm just like, the contractor was like, dude, we can't do nothing until we like, first of all, get some plumbing in here and also level this house out. So, you know, he gave us a quote for that and you know, I was able to, you know, share it on social media like, but when I get there, this lady's like, Mr. King, like, it's so good to see, I see you on the TV sometime, like on the news, like doing the things with the kids. And she was like, I didn't know you were so young. You the commissioner on the historic president? I'm like, yeah. She's like, I didn't expect you to be so young. But these people believe, you know, in me. Um, and it's heavy sometime. It is. It's a little pressure, you know, here and there.

• 1:16:02Speaker 03

  But I don't mind it. Bruce Wayne got a lot of pressure, you know, to keep the city fixed. Everybody don't like Bruce Wayne either. You know, um, but my son loves Batman and we love the Joker. So we always, you know, use that, but I, I have a, I have like a call and there's this old Baptist song, you know, when I grew up in the Baptist church. Uh, you may not know it, but it's an old devotional song called A Charge To Keep. I mean, it's a charge to keep that I have and a God to glorify and to serve this present age. Like that's the song that we sung all the time growing up and I never understood it. But now it's like, I have a charge to keep in this present age, you know, uh, to fulfill for God.

• 1:16:41Shawn Ryan?

  How did you decide that you were gonna go after the younger generation?

• 1:16:45Speaker 03

  There's this one time where I did try to work.

• 1:16:47Shawn Ryan?

  I'll tell you what's interesting.

• 1:16:48Speaker 03

  Go ahead, go ahead.

• 1:16:49Shawn Ryan?

  What's interesting is it doesn't sound like you grew up in a, in a poor, broken home.

• 1:16:55Speaker 03

  No.

• 1:16:55Shawn Ryan?

  It sounds like you grew up in a very, in a very good home.

• 1:16:58Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:16:58Shawn Ryan?

  With good parents, good grandparents, maybe surrounded by people that weren't as fortunate as you.

• 1:17:04Speaker 03

  Mm hmm.

• 1:17:05Shawn Ryan?

  And so.

• 1:17:08Shawn Ryan?

  Where did the vision come in? Is it who you grew up with? It made you wanna go after the younger generation?

• 1:17:14Speaker 03

  So going after the younger generation, I'mma mention what I started out doing. When I first started working in the city of Albany, I originally started working with older men, like actual men, not kids. But then-

• 1:17:30Shawn Ryan?

  Like what age? 20s, 30s?

• 1:17:31Speaker 03

  Just men. I always, I just invited men to come to these different barber shop events I would have.

• 1:17:36Shawn Ryan?

  At age what, 19?

• 1:17:38Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was 19, uh huh, yeah, I was 19. And so I started out working with these men.

• 1:17:43Shawn Ryan?

  How do you start out working with men at 19? How do you influence older men? I mean, you're dealing with egos-

• 1:17:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, yeah.

• 1:17:51Shawn Ryan?

  You're dealing with people that don't believe you.

• 1:17:53Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:17:53Shawn Ryan?

  I mean-

• 1:17:54Speaker 03

  That's why I stopped working with them. So originally, it was, I was working in the barber shops and I'm telling them like, "Look, like, we could do all these different things to try and help fix the city of Albany." But for one, because there's this kid who's telling us what we could be doing with the city of Albany. So I stopped working with the men 'cause they stopped coming to the events that I was doing, trying to, you know, encourage us to go do things. I took these kids on a field trip to the Center for Civil and Human Rights and African American History Museum in Atlanta. To hear these kids asking these questions, to hear them not wanting to be in their condition, that's where I knew I had to work with kids. And immediately after that, I started working with them. I started doing oil change workshops. I started doing brake repair workshops,

• 1:18:38Speaker 03

  teaching them how to work on cars, et cetera. And these workshops were a hit. But I was still working, driving a forklift at the time. And I'll never forget,

• 1:18:50Speaker 03

  my job told me that I fell asleep at work. I was working a graveyard shift. They told me I fell asleep at work and everybody was trying to call me over to intercom, et cetera, and I wouldn't answer it. I don't remember falling asleep. But they said I fell asleep, so they let me go. I asked my wife at the time. I say, "Can I do a summer camp at the house?" She was like, "Yeah, you can do a summer camp at the house." I was like, "Okay, cool." And mind you, Baby King wasn't even one yet. My son was a couple months old. So I posted this flyer online and I said, "I'm gonna be offering to teach kids how to grow their own food." And I learned that this is growing up, by the way. So I'm teaching them how to grow their own food. I'm teaching them how to work on cars. I'm teaching them how to work on houses. We're gonna do math, we're gonna read, et cetera. I found a couple tables. I turned my dining room into a-

• 1:19:32Speaker 03

  Classroom and I got this little small dry erase board from Staples for like twenty four dollars. And um, that's where I started teaching. Um, they brought their kids to me every single day. I was still nineteen. I had twenty parents bring their kids to me every single day.

• 1:19:47Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty parents, right off the get go?

• 1:19:49Speaker 03

  Right off the get go. And I've never.

• 1:19:51Shawn Ryan?

  What's the literacy rate in Albany?

• 1:19:54Speaker 03

  Um, if you wouldn't ask me, I could have been able to tell you. I will say that um, our kids that came to work with me, maybe seventeen out of the twenty of them could not read on grade level. And I had maybe like five of them who couldn't read at all. And I'm sure these kids were eleven. Starting out at eleven, eleven to seventeen was the group, the age group. And I mean, I had a kid who couldn't read CatDog. And I'm like, son, how exactly are you in the sixth grade? And you can't read at all? Who exactly passed you through school? Not being able to read. That's where I got the idea at the time. I said, well, I'm gonna open up a school one day. So I don't know when I'm gonna do it, but I'm gonna open up a school. I don't know where we're getting money from, but we're gonna open up a school.

• 1:20:37Speaker 03

  But that's when I started uh, truly working with kids. Um, after I discovered that kids don't wanna be in their condition. They just want somewhere in an atmosphere where it's cool to do the right thing.

• 1:20:47Shawn Ryan?

  Hmm. And how did you, how did you find twenty parents right off the bat?

• 1:20:52Speaker 03

  Facebook. I just posted the flyer online. People, yeah, I think when school's out, we have a lot of uh, poor parents and and and stuff. They can't afford these summer camps. Um, they can't afford to send their kids out. So they, kids are just stuck at home.

• 1:21:04Shawn Ryan?

  It was a summer camp?

• 1:21:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was a summer camp. So their kids were stuck at home. So the moment I, somebody's online saying, hey, you could bring your kids over here. They don't really care at that point. Where, they just want their kids somewhere where they think something constructive's going on while they at school. I mean, while they at work. Uh, or going to school, whatever they're doing. They just don't want their kids just at home. So that's where we got the twenty parents from.

• 1:21:24Shawn Ryan?

  How many hours a day were you spending on this?

• 1:21:25Speaker 03

  Nine to three.

• 1:21:27Shawn Ryan?

  Nine to three?

• 1:21:28Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:21:28Shawn Ryan?

  How were you making money?

• 1:21:30Speaker 03

  Um, I was-

• 1:21:31Shawn Ryan?

  Do you have a, do you have an occupation?

• 1:21:33Speaker 03

  Yeah, I was a skilled tradesman. Um, so my brother, um, came to live with me when he was about twelve or thirteen. Um, he was losing himself at the time. He's in military school now in Marion, Alabama, at a military institute. Oh, Marion Military Institute. But, um, with him, he and I would go around and fix people's cars. Um, off of, I learned how to do that off of YouTube. I had previous experience working on cars, but obviously, you know, working on different cars. Um, you have different things. So when people would say, hey, I need my car fixed, I ask them, you know, what exactly need to be done? I need my starter changed. Send me the year making model. I got a two thousand nine Chevy Malibu. Cool. YouTube. YouTube, how to change starter on a Chevy Malibu. I basically determined what I felt like the labor costed and I tell them, I'm like, hey, this is how much I'll charge for that. We'll go and do it. That's how I got a life bill paid.

• 1:22:17Speaker 03

  Then I learned how to cut hair while I was in the Marines, uh, while I was in the barracks at, um, uh, camp, uh, what was it? Camp Johnson? I think I was at Camp Johnson. But, um, I learned how to cut hair in the barracks because the base barbers were trash and everybody got tired of their haircuts being janky. So I was like, look, how about y'all just let me practice on y'all head? I watched a couple YouTube videos and I went and bought some little cheap clippers from Walmart. And everybody would just come like, I don't care if you practice on my head, to be frank, because it looks like they practicing, so why not? So I eventually got good at it. I got, I got really good at cutting hair. Um, and so that's when I started doing the city of Albany too. So whenever I went fixing somebody's car, I would do house calls. I didn't care what time it was. I would have to go out at twelve o'clock at night to go cut somebody's hair. Um, and I would do that because I didn't have a regular job.

• 1:22:59Speaker 03

  So I had to go put up somebody's door or go, uh, put in a window frame or go change a ceiling fan or go paint somebody's, you know, wall. Because that's how I made money. That's how I funded our field trips to take the kids different places. When I wanted to take the kids somewhere, I would find something to do. I mentioned to Wyatt earlier, uh, the way me and my brother made our first thousand dollars. Uh, granted, it was cheap at the time, but we made our first thousand dollars, um, we were at Home Depot. And, um, this lady, uh, while we were in there, uh, we were actually looking for some paint for someone else's, uh, the inside of somebody's house they wanted a room painted. So we were looking for the color paint they wanted. And, um, this lady came, um, up to us and she said, hey, do y'all paint? We were like, yeah, we paint like that. And she was like, well, do y'all paint houses?

• 1:23:40Speaker 03

  I'm like, yeah, we paint, yes, ma'am, we paint houses. She was like, she's like, I mean, like the outside, like y'all paint the outside and stuff. I'm just, I looked at him, he looked at me. We had never painted the outside of our house before and I was like, yes, ma'am, we paint houses. Uh, we, we paint houses. Can you just come get you a coat? She was like, yeah, come by my house. This is the address and this is my phone number. I said, okay, cool. We hadn't painted a house a day in our life, but we went out there because I wanted to make sure the house wasn't too big. Like it wasn't nothing crazy. It was actually a nice, small, perfect home that we could paint. It was perfectly square, not no crooks and crevices. It was perfect. She wanted to paint it a completely different color. Um, so we said, okay, cool. Um, we'll charge a thousand dollars for it. And that's because we didn't have no experience. Um, so we sat on YouTube for like three hours.

• 1:24:22Speaker 03

  Watching videos of people painting houses from all the equipment we needed, etc. We went and rented all the equipment. So we got, had her give us a deposit. All the deposit went to all the equipment, basically. We didn't know how much equipment cost it. So we went and rented a paint sprayer from, uh, Bob White Rents and all. Benny, they got to rent all this stuff out. So we rented a paint sprayer, etc. We painted her house in maybe like a week. And, um, that's how we made our first thousand dollars. And from then on, you know, we started pressure washing people's driveways and, because we had to pressure wash the house first. And so I had to learn how to operate a pressure washer. So then I started, hey, we can pressure wash the drive. We can pressure wash the house. Like I just made it work. Me and my brother would just hop in my grandma's truck and we would figure it out. Like that's what we did. My grandma would allow us to borrow her truck to go put stuff in the back.

• 1:25:03Speaker 03

  And we figured it out. So I did, I never got a regular job. I just wanted it. And that's what I believe in.

• 1:25:09Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. So nine to three, you're teaching kids how to grow food, how to do math, how to read, how to write?

• 1:25:16Speaker 03

  Yep.

• 1:25:17Shawn Ryan?

  And then three to whenever you're basically an entrepreneur.

• 1:25:21Speaker 03

  Yep, absolutely.

• 1:25:22Shawn Ryan?

  Whatever you can.

• 1:25:22Speaker 03

  Yep, I did whatever I could because I didn't want, for one, my son was a baby baby. Um, and I never did like my wife working or anything like that. She had to go get a job. And I didn't like that. Um, like I just, it just messed with my psyche and I was at home with a kid. You know, so like it's kind of just messed with me a little bit. Um, and that was for a very short amount of time. Um, I literally picked up my business fast. I started posting on Facebook about me fixing cars or whatever. And people started booking me to come do their different things. And so she eventually was able to leave that job after like a little while. And, um, so she could get back home and I was out with my brother. We were again, you know, just. Doing whatever we could to make some money.

• 1:26:01Shawn Ryan?

  How fast did you get twenty people to show up to your program?

• 1:26:04Speaker 03

  Uh, originally?

• 1:26:05Shawn Ryan?

  Twenty, twenty parents. How many kids?

• 1:26:07Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was, it was twenty, it was twenty kids. So when I say twenty, they all had parents. Uh, so it was twenty kids. Uh, but yeah, it was pretty fast. Um, I probably had that post up maybe about two weeks and we had everybody signed up in that tw- twenty, uh, yeah, that two weeks, yeah.

• 1:26:20Shawn Ryan?

  Did you think it was gonna happen that fast?

• 1:26:22Speaker 03

  Nah. Everything that you've seen happen for the X-Boys program outright, I've never thought would happen as fast as that.

• 1:26:28Shawn Ryan?

  Did you have a curriculum lined up or, or were you just winging it?

• 1:26:31Speaker 03

  I winged it for the most part. I had like an idea. I had a, like a layout. Okay, I'm gonna teach this today. And on Tuesday, I wanna teach this and Wednesday, I'm gonna teach that. And we, we grew squash and cucumbers and all that stuff, you know, during that time or whatever. I just did what I thought was best for that time, you know, during that day. Of course, I matured a lot. I've learned about, you know, everything. I didn't have LLC done profit. I didn't know nothing about any of that stuff. I'm just helping some kids.

• 1:26:54Shawn Ryan?

  Strictly volunteer, right?

• 1:26:55Speaker 03

  Yeah, it was strictly volunteers. Like, I, I just did what I could, you know, with the kids. And, um,

• 1:27:00Shawn Ryan?

  What age group? What spread?

• 1:27:02Speaker 03

  It was eleven to seventeen at that time.

• 1:27:04Shawn Ryan?

  Eleven to seventeen. So you're, so you're teaching, I mean, how do you, eleven to seventeen, that's,

• 1:27:11Speaker 03

  I attribute,

• 1:27:12Shawn Ryan?

  It's a big range.

• 1:27:13Speaker 03

  It is, but I attribute the discipline that I was able to give them to the Marine Corps. I believe if I never went to the Marines, I'd never, the program wouldn't be as successful as it is. People have asked me, like, how am I able, like, I used to have, I had forty kids at one point and it was just me. Uh, and people are like, how do you control them? Like, how are you able to get them? I said, you gotta think, we had like three drill instructors and like ninety kids. Like, you know, but I remembered what they did to, to control us. And so I did the same thing with them. So when we'd go out, they're just like, man, they're so mannerable. And they saying, yes, sir, no, sir, they giving the proper greeting of the day, et cetera. Like, how are they doing this? I'm just like, I just attribute it to what I learned in the Marine Corps. I just taught them that. I don't allow a lot of mistakes. When they mess up, they get in trouble for it. High knees, mountain climbers, pushups, et cetera. That's how we did it. And they respected me.

• 1:27:58Speaker 03

  For one, because I was younger. A lot of them didn't know I was nineteen at first. I didn't tell them till around the end of camp. And they was like, Mr. King, you nineteen? Like, I had a-

• 1:28:04Shawn Ryan?

  You're mentoring kids who are only two years younger than you.

• 1:28:06Speaker 03

  Seventeen years old. You know, one of them turned eighteen while he was there. But they respected me so much because they saw I had my own house. I had my own car. I was raising my son. I had a wife. You know, like, they, they saw all of that. So they obviously thought I was older. But then it became inspiration to them because, man, I could be young and helping people and doing okay for myself.

• 1:28:25Shawn Ryan?

  Is that uncommon in Albany?

• 1:28:27Speaker 03

  Yeah. Mm-hmm, it is, it's uncommon, yep. It is uncommon.

• 1:28:35Speaker 03

  How fast did it spread? X for Boys program? Yeah. Fast, um, after that summer camp, um, we became the most popular program in the city. To this day, we're still the most popular program in Albany. Where'd you come up with the name? The X for Boys, X equals unknown, um, and so we're trying to give these boys the unknown variable.

• 1:28:56Speaker 03

  What are some of the success stories out of the, out of there? You know what, this is, I was, I was, I was hoping you got here, I probably have, out of maybe a couple hundred kids that I've worked with, I probably only have like four success stories, true success stories. You only have four? Mm-hmm, absolutely, this is why I dig into the failures of the program, so, um, for the past six years, I've worked with kids at ages eleven to seventeen, and I'll dig into the success stories in a second, but I have to talk about it while I talk about their success. I worked with kids ages eleven to seventeen, more teenagers than off, than, than not, um, but during my time working with these, in the program, I had this rule, like I was like, I'll never kick a kid out of the program, I'll, you know, we're gonna do what we can, even if they don't wanna be here, we're gonna try and make them do it, and different things like that, I'll never turn a kid down, et cetera.

• 1:29:41Speaker 03

  So during that time, I had many kids that I was working with that just didn't wanna be there, they were constantly unruly, didn't wanna be there, messing up the, the experience for other kids, et cetera. And, um, at the time, I didn't realize, you know, that, that was actually affecting, you know, teaching, because I spent so much time disciplining versus teaching, I didn't realize I was, I was wasting a lot of time of those kids who actually wanted to be there, because they gotta get in trouble too, cuz they acting up, they can't go somewhere because they acting up, they can't get to teaching because they acting up. So I spent years doing that, thinking that I was doing the right thing, like by just trying to make them do it and trying to discipline them as much as possible, et cetera. And I'll never forget when I realized it all.

• 1:30:29Speaker 03

  I had a student named Bryston. I had started allowing some younger kids to come in, like just because. And I was still having the older kids come in too, but I had some younger kids start coming in also. And I'll never forget Bryson's a great kid, honor roll student, whatever. And he told his mom, he said, Mom, I love the program. I love Mr. King. But it's not, I don't know if I can stay that long because some other kids so bad. And I thought about it for a second. And I realized that I got a whole lot of kids in that, in that room. Who want to be there. And I've spent half of this class period fussing at kids who didn't want to be here. Who were unruly, who have said they don't want to be here. And I should just send them home.

• 1:31:10Speaker 03

  From that point on, every kid who didn't want to be there, I told their mom they didn't have to come back. Because I have children here that we are messing the experience up. We're ruining the experience for those children who could actually be changed. Then I realized, it hit me again, that I don't have that many success stories. Because all these children, they have had to get punched in the face by life. For them to call me and say, Mr. King, I appreciate you. But they have already made mistakes. They have already had a child too early. They already, you know, have went to jail. I've had kids call me from jail and say, Mr. King, like I hadn't talked to you in two years. Mr. King, I appreciate everything you're trying to teach me. I realize it now. Life had to hit them in the face first. Our program-

• 1:31:55Shawn Ryan?

  I would say that's a success story.

• 1:31:57Speaker 03

  Yeah, I, I can, I can say it's success, but what I mean by success is-

• 1:32:01Shawn Ryan?

  You definitely impacted hundreds of kids.

• 1:32:03Speaker 03

  Yes, I impacted them, yeah.

• 1:32:04Shawn Ryan?

  Now, to the degree and what level they achieve in life, that's, you know, that's, that's out of your control, but you've shown them, I believe you've shown them in, in, I mean, look.

• 1:32:19Shawn Ryan?

  You've rerouted the, the norm.

• 1:32:22Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 1:32:23Shawn Ryan?

  You've rerouted the norm, or shown them that the norm, that the, you know, the normal path in Albany, New York can be rerouted. And there is a whole nother side of life. If they choose.

• 1:32:35Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:36Shawn Ryan?

  Right?

• 1:32:36Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:32:37Shawn Ryan?

  And so, I mean, I would, I would say-

• 1:32:39Speaker 03

  Oh, that's gotta be a lot more than four. Yeah, so, impact and success. That, thank you for mentioning that, cuz I can start using that, cuz that's, that's important. So, when I mention success stories, I have about four students, um, who embody everything that I've taught, you know, in the past sixty years. The reason that they embody it is because I had students that I allowed to be blessed in the program if they had older brothers. So, if they were younger, the only way they could come into the program is they had an older brother that was there. Those kids started out maybe seven, eight years old. Those children now, literally, live by the rules of the extra boys. Because they started almost as a baby in the program, watching me tell them to get a proper green today,

• 1:33:24Speaker 03

  watching me tell them to keep their hygiene up and make sure they bathing, et cetera, et cetera. So, now, these kids are like thirteen, fourteen years old. And their teachers are calling like, "Hey, I just wanna tell you, I appreciate, you know, this student because he said he's been in the S Voice program and this is why he says yes, ma'am, and no, ma'am, and, and comes in every morning and tells me good morning and, you know, does his work and tries to make sure he's doing the right thing." And it's, it's four of them, I got one of them painted on a mural outside of our building. His name's Bryson Pitts. And, um, he, he is the number one example of our program, uh, Bryson Pitts. Um, he's a fantastic kid. He's, you know, playing trombone at, uh, his middle school. He's about to go to high school soon.

• 1:34:05Speaker 03

  Uh, but he is fantastic, you know, he does everything correctly, he keeps everybody in line, et cetera. I can't say the same auto, you know, all the way for, you know, his brother or whatever, or even, um, Kendarius, uh, he's one of my other success stories, great kid. Can't say the same for his brother either or whatever, because, again, I started with him for so, so late. And I, I can say that about him cuz I call their brothers and tell them the same thing. I'm like, "You know, you could be doing a whole lot better. I taught you so much, so why aren't you doing, you know, what I taught you?" But, you know, again, that's life, you know, but their brothers, fantastic. Um, so, those are some success stories that I could talk about, but that's why we've shifted our age range now to seven to nine. So, we begin again in March, um, next month. You've shifted the entire program from seven to nine? To seven to nine, yep.

• 1:34:51Speaker 03

  So seven to nine or seven? Oh, ages seven. No, ages seven through nine. That's it. That's it? That's it. No kidding? Yep, we have switched it now. Because I believe that those children now, well, children now are losing themselves a lot sooner. I've had third graders smoking. Like, this is what's happening now. And being in the city of Albany, these kids are learning so much from other children. Just from what's happening in their homes, even from molestation, et cetera. That's a huge issue. That I've run into that a couple of times working with kids. The molestation and family violence. Huge issue. And these children are losing themselves a lot sooner. And I believe that, again, so many kids are hearing moms say,

• 1:35:36Speaker 03

  "Make sure you do the right thing." And everybody's saying, "Be good." And the teachers are saying, "Be good." But everybody's punishing you for it. "I'm being good and everybody's picking on me." "I'm being good and everybody's not want to be my friend." "I'm trying to do the right thing. I'm trying to do my work and everybody's being mean." They need an atmosphere where it is cool to do the right thing. And so, they need somewhere they can come, where they get praised for great grades. They need somewhere they can come and be praised for having, you know, intellectual conversation. They need to come somewhere where they can be praised for, you know, making sure they keep their hygiene up, et cetera. Like, kids will pick on you for, like, because all the other kids don't know how to iron their clothes. They'll pick on you for looking nice. Like, it's, again, you know, so we want to give them an opportunity in an environment where it's cool to do the right thing. And if a child does not want to be in our program, they don't have to be there.

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• 1:37:03Shawn Ryan?

  I'd like to invite you to gain access to an exclusive experience on Vigilance Elite Patreon. Our patrons are the driving force behind the success of this show and their support allows us to keep doing what we do. Depending on the tier you choose, you'll get access to benefits like behind the scenes footage before each interview, early access to episodes, end of the month live Zoom calls with me, exclusive merch, and more. Join us and become a patron starting at just $5 a month by visiting patreon.com/vigilanceelite. That's patreon.com/vigilanceelite.

• 1:37:44Shawn Ryan?

  We talk a lot about generational trauma on the show and stuff like that. I think, I mean, you gotta, you can't make light of showing people that there's another option. Because people get, they get stuck in the same cycle. They see their parents in it. They see their grandparents in it. They see the people, you know, younger than them in it. They see all the families around them in it. And so even if, even if you just have planted a seed, you know, in that community that shows them like, hey, there are other options out there and I'm showing you, look at what's happening here.

• 1:38:20Shawn Ryan?

  This is, this is another option. This is a way out of that generational curse that so many people are stuck in. I mean, don't make light of that, man. That's, that's a big success story. Even if it doesn't happen right off the bat, when you look back, even if it's 10, 20 years from now, I mean, you've planted the seed in there. They, they know.

• 1:38:45Speaker 03

  Yeah, I just critique myself a lot, you know, so it's just.

• 1:38:49Shawn Ryan?

  Not everything has to be a grand slam.

• 1:38:51Speaker 03

  Absolutely, but you know, if we're gonna swing the bat, we're gonna swing it hard. So definitely. But yeah, I appreciate you even saying that because I could, I could definitely use that from now on.

• 1:39:00Shawn Ryan?

  Absolutely. I mean, what's the response from the parents?

• 1:39:05Speaker 03

  Response from parents is always great. Granted, I ain't got the best reviews from all the parents because again, I discipline a different way and I hold kids accountable. So I've had parents accuse me of lying on their kids. Like I'll tell them, hey, your son did such and such. No, my child didn't. He didn't do that. You're just lying on my son, et cetera, et cetera. I'm just like. That's fine, ma'am. I don't see what reason I have to lie on your child. I'm like, what does it benefit me? You know, but whatever. But for the most part, parents adore, you know, the program. Again, we've done so much for parents. We've done workshops for parents themselves. You know, parenting workshops. I had people come in, helped them repair their credit, different things like that. I just try to help, you know, parents as much as possible. And because they have to go home to these parents.

• 1:39:47Speaker 03

  So I could be giving them teaching all day, then they go home and go right back into the stupid stuff. So we try to incentivize parents also teaching the same discipline at home. You know, we try to make sure we incentivize them, making sure they're doing the right thing at home, too. Because even though we have them for quite a, you know, bit of time, we want to make sure those kids are doing the same thing at home. Because we hate to have to keep reteaching the same thing, because you're allowing them to go back into, you know, who they used to be. But the sponsor parents is always great. We've had a lot of videos with parents giving testimonials and different things like that. So I'm definitely, you know, happy about the parents who truly support our program.

• 1:40:24Shawn Ryan?

  Are they, are the parents pretty receptive to the information you're teaching them?

• 1:40:29Speaker 03

  You would think not, but they are. Mm-hmm. I haven't had any parents that got mad at me for like telling them they should do better with their children. Because I will tell them, I'm like, listen. Like, I remember one time this parent came to me about her son's attitude. She was like, oh, he always, you know, turning his nose up at me, and he doing this and that, etc., etc. But while she was saying that, I'm looking at her face, and she's doing the exact same mannerisms that he does. I said, as soon as she finished, I said, hey, ma, I said, um, listen to me. I said, you were just talking to me about him, and you were doing everything that he does. He gets that from you. You should stop doing that stuff, and maybe he'd stop it, because he's only watching you. And she didn't even recognize it until I told her. And she was like, I didn't even realize that, because I am doing the same movements. I am turning my face up.

• 1:41:12Speaker 03

  I'm like, exactly. He does that here, and he does that at home. But he's doing it because you do it. And so it caused her to critique herself and caused her to stop.

• 1:41:22Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, here's some stats that we got from you. Point zero one percent recidivism rate, eighty-two percent proficiency in general contracting, eighty-six percent increase in reading comprehension, ninety-one percent improvement in grades, and ninety-three percent proficiency in automotive repair. I mean, dude, this is a huge success. This isn't like... Four wonder kids out of hundreds that.

• 1:41:48Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:41:49Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, you gotta give yourself more credit.

• 1:41:51Speaker 03

  I, I, I will, I just.

• 1:41:53Shawn Ryan?

  Like what?

• 1:41:54Speaker 03

  You know me, you know, I mentioned mindset earlier. And like I said before, yeah, I mean, yeah, the kids, you know, we've done firearms training. We've done all types of different training, welding, et cetera. So, yeah, they've learned how to do a lot of different things, I think, are beneficial for their lives. But at the same time, you know, I'm bigger on fixing their mindsets and the character that they have. Because I could have a kid, you know, who's, he could, he could do all that stuff on the list. He could go change the oil for you. He could paint a house. He could, you know, do firearms training, et cetera. But he could still be a terrible person. Um, and, and it's important for me to make sure we're creating the better people. Um, and that's what I believe in. So, yeah, definitely, you know, we, we are big on teaching the trades, just showing them that there are different ways to make money, no doubt. But we wanna fix on that character.

• 1:42:39Speaker 03

  Um, that's, that's the bigger thing in let us make man.

• 1:42:42Shawn Ryan?

  I mean, what do you think some of the problems stems? I mean, we talked about fatherhood at the very beginning. Do you think fatherhood is a, is a major problem in that area?

• 1:42:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, yeah, absolutely. Uh, the lack of true male presence is, is probably one of the bigger, the bigger issues. In order to be a man, you gotta see a man. Um, that's, that's it. Um, and people will try to say, oh, well, my mom, you know, raised me by herself and, and I, I was a good man. I said, your mom raised you by yourself and you became a good man is because you was on a football team. You had a gym coach somewhere. You had male presence in your life. Your mom wasn't the sole person raising you completely. You never ran into any other men that had any impact on you and you, no, absolutely not. And most, and moms will be honest about that. But I'm like, just do not sit here and tell me that your mom never put you on a football team, never let you play basketball. You never had a male teacher anywhere. You never had no male presence at all and you became a great person?

• 1:43:33Speaker 03

  I believe you have to have that balance. Any single moms that have raised good men is because they put them around good men too. Yeah, they might have done it by themselves, but they also put them on football teams. A lot of single moms will make sure their kids are in sports. They will make sure their kids have some type of male around them, you know, good moms anyway, to make sure that they become something successful. Because most moms who refuse to put their men, uh, I mean, put men around their sons, usually end up, uh, some gang banger, et cetera. Like, I, I guarantee it and I've seen it. And I can say this because I've worked with children for so long. I can guarantee that what, that's what's happening, like, every time. And, um, again, some parents. They don't want to parent. They don't wanna be a parent. They're just having sex and having kids and don't want to parent.

• 1:44:16Speaker 03

  Some people try to use us as a second parent and so they don't have to do nothing. Granted, I try to, you know, do what I can with their sons, but it's hard because I need your assistance, mom. Like, I really need your help, you know, with him. You know, you can't just throw him off to me because the program's free. You know, you can't just throw him off to me, but, you know, coming now in March, we will have rules for parents. And a- as much as I don't want to, we will kick some children out of the program because of their parents. And because I want the parents to be accountable also. And I have to be a little cutthroat like that. As much as I may love that child and much as I may have built a relationship, if that mom does not assist us with her child in a, in a meaningful way, we will let them go from the program.

• 1:44:59Shawn Ryan?

  Wow. Well, I mean, so with the lack of fathers, where are the fathers? Where are they at? What are they doing?

• 1:45:06Speaker 03

  Let's, let's, let's get into the realness. We got a lot of moms also that, that have fathers that do wanna be dads, but they are so vindictive and bitter with the dad that they'd rather their son fail than have the father in the child's life.

• 1:45:21Shawn Ryan?

  Are you serious?

• 1:45:22Speaker 03

  I'm dead serious. I am dead ser- I've had conversations with moms where they tell me, I'm like, where the daddy at? I'll make contact with the dad. Dad say, you know, I live in North Carolina or I live in this city, but she never wanted me. They'd have moved on, got kids of their own with their new wife or whatever like that. She never want me to see him. She never, I'm like, mama, send that boy to go stay with his daddy. He don't need the Ace of Boys program. He needs his dad. Send him with his father. What are you doing besides sitting up here complaining about you doing it by yourself? It's like moms have this new thing now where they proud, they, it's like they have to say, I'm doing it all by myself and I'm trying and, and I love my child and putting them on Facebook and pretending you was a parent at graduation. And they turn out to be some terrible person because you was too proud to keep their father in their life.

• 1:46:07Speaker 03

  I've run into that so many times with moms who didn't just want, just send the child to stay with his father. You don't need him. You don't need to be trying to raise him by yourself. Send him with his dad because he needs his actual father. He don't- Need somebody trying to get to play father. He needs his real father, but because they are so bitter and the court system, which I hate. You know, uh, benefits mothers more than fathers who wanna be dads. Um, it, it, it, it, it hurts kids. It hurts children. They send, you know, these kids to stay with moms or like I, I never forget, it's a few cases where mo- moms will be on drugs. And they'll give it to the mom before they give it to the father. Like I watched these court cases and I have said before that, um, uh.

• 1:46:49Speaker 03

  Custody court needs to be a jury. I have said that over and over again. It does not need to be a judge. Because it's based off of how this judge feels today. What if they don't like you today or what if they mad or whatever? It needs to be a jury. I believe a jury of our peers needs to decide where custody goes. We need to be able to prove why I'm a fit parent. You know, for my child. I have said, if we having a custody battle, let's talk to the jur- a jury about it. It does not need to be one judge. I'm trying to prove to this judge while I'm a good dad, etcetera. I don't understand why that, that isn't a jury trial. That's something I wanna fight for because I've. I ran into that issue, you know, in, in divorce at, at one point or whatever like that, like, uh, the, the lawyer. Was telling her to keep the kids away from me. And so because she didn't have any knowledge. She, you know, thought she was doing the right thing because that's what the lawyer told her to do.

• 1:47:34Speaker 03

  And she told the lawyer she was telling me after it was over. She was like, well, I told him he was a good dad and everything. I didn't understand what he was telling me to, to keep the kids fro- for, but I was doing it because. That's what he told me to do. I said, don't you ever in your life, let somebody tell you to keep your kids away from the dad. Like she said, that's what the lawyer was telling her. And, and I was like, well. Why wouldn't he be looking out for the best interest of the kids? Cause I had already offered, you know, multiple different things. You know, when I got a divorce, you know, for her to be okay, I left the house, left her the car, etcetera, like every, I just, you know, I just wanted out, you know, at that time. But, um, I just wanted to make sure I had, you know, proper custody with the children. Cause I wanted to make sure I'm raising my sons. And he was telling her to try to get full custody, etcetera, etcetera. And so of course we, we ended up working it out privately. Or whatever like that. And, uh, we eventually, you know, worked out our own custody agreement or whatever like that. But I'm just like, man, imagine if.

• 1:48:20Speaker 03

  I wouldn't able to afford a lawyer. Imagine if I wouldn't able to afford, you know, these different incentives for her, etcetera, like that. The regular guy get railroaded and can't see his kids for no reason. It, no matter what happens in a marriage, etcetera, etcetera. If both parents are fit. Both parents should be able to see their kids at, at an equal amount of time. It shouldn't be. Oh, well, you can't see him because this was the judge decided like, that's insane. You know, so, uh, it's, it's. It's a little delicate, uh, line to walk. So who are these kids?

• 1:48:49Shawn Ryan?

  Who do they look up to then? If there's, if fatherhood's a major problem, who do they find as role models?

• 1:48:56Speaker 03

  If they have any, um, they look up to, uh, whoever's close to them, uh, around them, whether that be mom or grandma, you know how that turns out. Um, or they look up to their football coach, they look up to the basketball coach, you know, as much as they can. They don't have that, they're looking up to the rappers, they're looking up to the gang members. Who, the gamers come around with the cool cars and the nice chains, whatever, like, hey, how you get that? And so they get them into their lifestyle. Now they wanna be gang bangers of it, cause they think this is the life to live. Or whatever, well, this is how I'm gonna make money, this is how I'm gonna take care of my family, you know, I gotta sell a couple drugs, sell drugs or whatever like that to make some things happen. I'm like, bruh, do you see me selling drugs? I'm like, cause I had a, I had a red Corvette, uh, I just sold a little, a little while ago.

• 1:49:34Speaker 03

  The reason I bought the cor- car originally was because I wanted the kids to see that you could just be a giver, be a great person, be a great father, and get what you want still, or whatever. And so I showed them that, and the kids were like, Mr. King got a cool car, you know, like, it was, it was cool for them to see, like, it was interesting, um, to just witness them, like, have a, it's like their mindset shifted when they saw me with the car. Granted, I'm still the same person, I'm still the same Mr. King, I'm still the one who feeds you all the time, but when I got the car, it's like,

• 1:50:04Speaker 03

  so I can make it.

• 1:50:05Shawn Ryan?

  So you're finding what these kids value.

• 1:50:07Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:50:08Shawn Ryan?

  What, what, what, what, what, what they look up to.

• 1:50:11Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 1:50:12Shawn Ryan?

  By, by possessions or whatever.

• 1:50:15Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 1:50:16Shawn Ryan?

  And, and you're showing them that they can get these possessions by doing, by taking a different route in life.

• 1:50:22Speaker 03

  By trusting God, which is, we do Bible study, you know, all the time, by trusting God and giving. I tell them, you're gonna receive by giving as much as possible. Um, cause that's what I do. I give as much as I can. Like, I, I never stop giving, I give every single day. Um, but that's how I keep receiving. So I keep telling people, I'm like, how are you so blessed? Because I give, I give as much as I can. Like, I, I never stop giving. I just help random people. I sometimes have to stop myself. Like, I, I'll help anybody who needs it. Um, and that's important to me. Um, but yeah, that's, that's how I figure out, you know, what the kids love. They look up to people, they look up to, to possessions. Um, unfortunately, that's, that was for the older kids. Now, the younger kids that I'm start about to start working with, they're not really interested in possessions at the moment because they're just living life.

• 1:51:05Speaker 03

  You know, they're just alive. They're not, they're not like, oh, I need to have a cool car to look cool or whatever. They're just elementary school, young kids. But teenagers, all they care about is the scat packs and the cool cars and this and that. That's all they care about is. Literally, that's all they talk about coming in. Oh, I seen a scat pack yesterday, y'all. It was cool. It was purple. Like, they come in there talking about. That or some NBA young boy or some beef. They got some rappers they saw on YouTube or some streamers or whatever like that. That's all they talk about. The teenagers, but the young kids, they just be talking about toys or talking about playing like they, they're young in the mind. So it's like, I don't need a cool car to impress them. I don't need none of that. They're not even trying to be impressed. They just, they just want a cool environment to be in.

• 1:51:46Speaker 03

  And so as, as, as I hone that and I'm never talking about cars and they're talking about the cool stuff, they're not interested in it. Like my son, they don't, I mean. They seen cool cars and whatever like that or they see, but they know every day, they just wake up, put some t-shirt and some gym shorts on. And they out the door. Like, that's me. I wear a t-shirt and some jogging pants every single day or some, or some shorts in the summertime. Blank t-shirt, nothing on it. I got cool shoes. I wear them every blue moon and that's only for the kid, was only for the kids to see. The cool shoes because they like them. So I'm like, okay, let me get some cool shoes so they can see that Mr. King got on some cool shoes today. You know, so they can understand that Mr. King's not rapping and I got the cool shoes that the rappers got, you know, like, so. That's, that's why I would do that stuff, but I don't have to do that anymore because like the kids are younger now. So.

• 1:52:28Speaker 03

  It's like I could be me and I could show them like, you know, this is a cool way to live life and that's what I believe in now. How are you funded this? You, you don't take any government funding? I refuse. I won't apply for any grants. I won't do anything that's tied to government. I won't do it. Our do, our, uh, donor base is completely private donors from social media, et cetera. Um, we have been exclusively funded from the inception from private donors. Um, and I am wholly grateful for everybody that has watched us, that have shared videos. I tell people all the time, they're like, well, I may not be able to give. Give or share, give or retweet. This is just like giving because again, everything that we've done has been funded exclusively from donors.

• 1:53:09Speaker 03

  Every single thing. We have an Amazon wishlist. When Elon Musk shared my video, maybe like a couple of months ago, um. We had an Amazon wishlist, they went and bought every single thing off the wishlist. We got all, we got like twenty different tables and whole bunch of chairs and we got uh tools, equipment we needed, etc. They bought every single thing off the list. Camera equipment, everything we needed, pencils, calculators, tape measures, markers, kit stuff for the toddler classroom, etc. Like, they bought everything off the list. So again, this is why we share everything we do. This is why we always got a camera with us, etc. Because we want people to see where their money's going. I wholly believe in, you know, not being one of those nonprofits that you never know what's happening after.

• 1:53:54Speaker 03

  Nope, we post, when we were renovating our school building, I posted receipts for the toilets. Like, I posted everything that people could see because it made people want to give. And the wishlist is different too because it's not like they're giving money, they're giving an item. Uh, so that encourages people to want to give too. So we have an Amazon wishlist and we have just like people that can regularly donate.

• 1:54:14Shawn Ryan?

  Damn, man. Alright, let's talk about the Life Preparatory School for Boys that started in 2022.

• 1:54:20Speaker 03

  Sure.

• 1:54:21Shawn Ryan?

  This is a totally separate thing?

• 1:54:23Speaker 03

  Yeah, mhm.

• 1:54:23Shawn Ryan?

  What is this?

• 1:54:24Speaker 03

  This is the school that I opened uh outside of our after-school program. We originally opened in 2022. We were completely boarding, completely free. Um, we fed them every day, obviously. We uh, it was very, very particular what we did with our students um at that time. Um, every day I ran it almost just like Marine Corps boot camp. Had to get up at a certain time of the day. You had to make sure um-

• 1:54:47Shawn Ryan?

  They live here.

• 1:54:48Speaker 03

  Yeah, they live, they live there, mhm. We had to make sure uh they brushing their teeth, they had to make sure they iron their clothes. I had kids who didn't even know how to put on a belt. We had to teach them how to put on a belt, we had to teach them how to brush their hair, etc. Like, teach them how to bathe. I had to show them, like, teach them, like, this is what you do when you get in the shower, like-

• 1:55:02Shawn Ryan?

  What age group is this?

• 1:55:03Speaker 03

  This was uh all sixth graders. They were all age eleven at that time. They were all age eleven, and so it was a beautiful thing when we first started. I I miscalculated how much funding we were gonna need to keep that operation going. I did my best to fundraise and we kept it open, even with us being in the red, I kept it open. But then the summer, um, after our school opened. We came, uh, we had a summer camp going, uh, with more kids and we came to the building to play basketball. Uh, we had a big, uh, school building, uh, we purchased. We came to play basketball. I remember I opened the door. And I looked in and it was stuff everywhere and I'm like, what in the world? Somebody broke into school? Cause we hadn't been there, it was summertime. So we hadn't been in there.

• 1:55:46Speaker 03

  It was stuff everywhere. I come in there, it was doors ripped off the hinges. It was our uniforms were ripped up, our, uh, school, um, shield on the wall was ripped up. Um, from, I mean, we, it was sinks torn out the walls. Like doors were like, like beaten, ripped in half. I mean, they had like, took a couple of things. But all the glass in the building was destroyed. Like, uh, they pulled all the wires out of the, uh, out of, uh, the power box. Like, so we could, it was no power in there. I mean, the, the destruction that was, I was floored. So of course, you know, I was pulling my weapon out, um, immediately, cause I'm just like, what the world?

• 1:56:29Speaker 03

  Like, this is crazy. So I pulled my weapon out and, um, you know, I had my videographer was recording, like, it was insane. Pulling weapon out and we caught, uh, two people in there, uh, at the time. And, you know, I held them at gunpoint, called the police, you know, they got there extremely fast. They took them to jail and they were just trying to figure out like, what was the reasoning, you know, behind this?

• 1:56:49Speaker 03

  Like, why? And at the time, you know, we couldn't get insurance on the building because the building was old. And, uh, we didn't have the funding to get certain things fixed that they wanted fixed before they insured us. So we looking at. A million, two million dollars worth of damage on top of the stuff that we already had to fix, you know, in general that we were working on by project. And so, right now, the building's boarded up. We ended up having to turn the after-school building into school. But we eventually closed, we shut down the school portion last year. We shut it down last year because we just weren't able to keep it up as far as funding. But this last year, as I was, you know, having an after-school program,

• 1:57:31Speaker 03

  after Elon shared our video, we did have a donor reach out to us and basically just asked what all did we need to take care of for our after-school program in the school. And so, I just told him everything. I was just like, this is what all, you know, we would need to really thrive. I said, "We need vans to go pick the kids up." I said, "I never had vans, so we've never been able to go offer pickups for kids because that was a big problem we had. The kids weren't able to be picked up. I don't have any staff." I said, "Every time I have to go somewhere, the program has to shut down." Like, I have to, everything has to close. We can't do nothing. Everything's closed until I get back. Like, I don't have any staff. I don't have any, you know, back of the house staff at all, anything. So, they were just like, "Look." So, they called me back and was like, "Look, we're going to give you this small amount of funding,

• 1:58:14Speaker 03

  small to them, a small amount of funding to take care of everything for the entire year of 2025." So, we just hired an operations manager to operate the program while I'm not there and three new staff members. They told us to get 25 kids. They've already signed up. They bought us two vans and made sure they were completely fixed. And they renovated the inside of our after-school building to make it more school-friendly. And they're currently being renovated right now while we're sitting here, actually. So, they basically told us, "Look, you deliver on this year. If you deliver this year, this will determine whether I'll continue funding y'all more in the coming years. But show me what you could do this year. Give me the data. Show me what you're doing with these children. Don't just talk about it. Show me numbers.

• 1:58:59Speaker 03

  Show me what you could do." And then this will determine whether we're able to continue funding the program and reopening the school and rebuilding the whole school, you know, in the coming years. Wow. Yeah, so, social media. 25 kids you have? Yep, we just signed up 25 kids. They start in March. And they live there? No, this is for after-school. Oh, this is the after-school one? This is after-school program, yep.

• 1:59:25Speaker 03

  Man, you got a lot of stuff going on. Yes, a lot of stuff. I just started head coaching my son's T-ball team now, so that's gonna be fun this year. What's your, what's your daily routine? I mean? Sure, I, I love to go into that. I wake up at about, I wake up, my eyes open about five, but I don't get out of bed, which I should though. But um, I get up, my trainer gets to the house, he comes to train me, uh, it's a nineteen year old kid. Well, he just turned twenty actually, but he uh, he's a bodybuilder. He uh, he trains me every morning at six thirty. I get, I get up, wake my sons up, they go put their clothes on, um, he, Baby King goes in there, does a little baseball. I lift to about eight o'clock, go take a shower, um, take them to their teacher at about um, nine o'clock. Um, they're in school from nine to three, um, during the day. Depends on um, which commission I'm on, um, I may have to go to a historic preservation commission meeting,

• 2:00:09Speaker 03

  may have a county commission meeting, may have a city commission meeting. Um, depends on, you know, what's happening, may have a task force meeting, I'm on the YMCA board of directors, may have a meeting. Those meetings are in the afternoon. But anyway, um, I go to whatever meeting I have to go to, I go check our P O box, I go uh, deposit checks that, you know, donors may uh, send, I send over the addresses to those donors to my assistant, so she could send thank you letters to those donors. Um, after that, I may go get me some food. Um, and uh, right now, I've been going to check on the building right now, every day, uh, as they're working on it. Um, I pick my sons up at about three o'clock, uh, we go do some training, whatever it is that we're doing, whether it be gymnastics, boxing, or baseball, uh, we go do some training uh, with them, uh, for maybe an hour or two. Um, I get home, uh, make sure they got some food.

• 2:00:53Speaker 03

  Um, remember I told you I support everybody around me, there's this new guy, um, in our hometown who, who's been cooking, and he cooks really well. Um, so I've been uh, having him come cook uh, for us sometime during the day, when I don't have time to, to get food. I have him come cook for me and my sons, um, just to support his business, and it also gets him content too, um, so he can, you know, share for people to uh, continue uh, supporting him. Uh, so he'll come cook for me during the week, um, and after that, I get the kids in the tub, maybe about seven o'clock. The reason I do that is because we're big WWE fans, so we watch wrestling on Mondays and Fridays. So if it's a Monday or a Friday, they get in the tub about seven, wrestling starts at eight o'clock, and we'll watch wrestling until it's time to go to sleep. And uh, they got their own rooms, and they go to bed, and um...

• 2:01:38Speaker 03

  Repeat, just depending on what I gotta do for the next day. Um, and then I'll, you know, go over my calendar or whatever just to see what I gotta do. Uh, so some days are busy, some days are not. Um, but yeah, for this past couple of days, it's been extra busy. So, uh, yeah, that's kind of what a daily schedule looks like. And then right now I'm about to coach the D-ball team. So that's about to turn into getting practices together for them. And on weekends, I do, we do a lot of practice with my sons. Um, I, I take weekends to give dedicate to my, my children. Um, so we'll go to the baseball field and we'll get it in, you know, we're just out there just getting it in. Doing IQ, learning about the bases, what to do, your different assignments, et cetera. Um, boxing.

• 2:02:14Shawn Ryan?

  Wow.

• 2:02:14Speaker 03

  They enjoy it.

• 2:02:15Shawn Ryan?

  Is your middle, is your middle son boxing too?

• 2:02:18Speaker 03

  He just started, yep, just started. He's about to turn four, but he, he was already practicing, watching my, uh, his brother. Um, so when he was practicing, um, uh, the coach was just like, well, I can, I'm just gonna get started with him. Cause he's already watching the punch numbers and he would go practice on the little, uh, mannequin thing. So he would just be over there just doing his own little thing over there. And, um, so he just started with him too. Um, I'm gonna get them in jujitsu soon. Um, only things my, my kids don't have a choice in is doing self-defense. And, um, uh, yeah, any, any self-defense, they don't have a choice. Uh, everything, every other thing they have a choice with sports, whatever they can, they can choose. But self-defense, they have no choice. You will box, you will do jujitsu. Yep.

• 2:02:58Shawn Ryan?

  I think earlier you had mentioned you traveled to Nigeria.

• 2:03:01Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:03:02Shawn Ryan?

  Not too long ago.

• 2:03:02Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:03:03Shawn Ryan?

  What prompted that?

• 2:03:04Speaker 03

  Uh, so it's, it's a co- uh, foundation called the Mega Impact Foundation. They sent me an email, uh, originally and just asked me to do a little, uh, video. Cause their, their students had saw me, you know, online. They just sent me a, a video. I mean, excuse me, a, a email and asked me to send a video over, um, via Zoom. So I could interact with their students. Something in me, I'll never forget, was just like, go, ask them, can you come? And I'm like, ain't no way. I'm like, absolutely not. I'm like, I never wanted to come. Like I never just wanted to go to Africa or anything like that. Like, not saying I wouldn't go, but I just never was like, I'm gonna go to Africa or something like that. But something was just like, go. And, you know, my conscience was like, absolutely not. Like, no. Anyway, I sent them an email. I was like, is it possible for me to come? So they thought that maybe they didn't reach the right person, cause there's no way, you know, this guy wants to come Nigeria.

• 2:03:49Speaker 03

  So they wanted to set up a Zoom call. So they set up a Zoom call with them and, um, the, the, uh, the leaders of the organization. And they were surprised it was actually me. They was like, we thought this was gonna be fake. Like you, so you wanna come to Nigeria? But they needed me there in three days. So. I was just like, look, this is what I'm gonna do. I said, if I'm meant to come to Nigeria, everything will go right in these next three days. My videographer didn't have a passport, um, and we need to give him a passport overnight. And it's possible to do that, you just have to go to where one of the overnight passport place is. Only appointment they had was Buffalo, New York. We flew to Buffalo, New York to get him his, uh, passport. Mind you, everything has to go right. We cannot miss a flight, cannot be delayed, everything has to be done on time.

• 2:04:30Speaker 03

  While he was getting his passport, we was in Buffalo, we had to get overnight visas to even go over there. Um, cause we had to get visas to even go get into Nigeria. So we had to get visas, God knows approved. Um, I forgot, we had, we had to do some other stuff, can't remember, uh, just off the top of my head. But everything went right. I, and I, I was hoping something messed up, I said, please, God, something needs to mess up, cause I really am scared to go. Like I just, I was, that's my first time really being afraid of something. Cause I, I didn't know what to expect, I'm like, why am I going to Nigeria, God, like, wh- why? Or whatever, so, uh, he, uh, got his passport squared away. Um, flight was ready to go, the only thing that happened was our flight was delayed by like nine hours, we was just sitting at the airport. Well, other than that, um, we flew to Nigeria.

• 2:05:13Speaker 03

  Um, everything happened right, we was able to get straight through customs, et cetera. And, uh, the stuff that I saw in Nigeria, it changed my life, man. It changed my life, we were there ten days. Um, I did, they wanted, I led the whole little, uh, summer bootcamp they had there. Um, the kids were so excited to see me, um, because, you know, to me, I'm fa- to them, I'm famous or whatever like that. So I got there and they were just ecstatic, asking a whole lot of questions and they were so articulate, so well read. And, um, just the questions that they were as- it's like when, adults here wouldn't ask those questions. Like they were really well thought out questions that they were asking me in regard to the sessions I was teaching. And I posted those sessions online for people to see on Instagram or Facebook.

• 2:05:55Speaker 03

  But I posted all those different sessions and, um, just teaching them about character and, um, uh, you know, just proper greetings and how to shake hands. Some of those issues they were having, you know, there, like how to shake hands, looking people in the eye. You know, uh, talking to people, you know, in a stern voice, you know, uh- Confidence. Yeah, confidence, making their presence known. And so I taught them a lot of that stuff and, you know, as I've left, they were sa- sharing how the kids were, you know, still are trying to do what I taught them. So I'm supposed to be going back in May, um, but I told them I would come once a year, uh, to come see them and, um, you know, just interact with them and do the little bootcamp thing they, they had going on. But, man, uh, we rode through Benin, Nigeria, we weren't supposed to go through there originally. We were supposed to take a flight from Asaba straight to Lagos, Nigeria.

• 2:06:35Speaker 03

  But the flight, our flight from Delta got delayed, so we ended up having to drive two and a half hours through Benin, Nigeria, to get to Lagos. Benin, Nigeria was probably the poorest thing I have ever seen in my life. I had, I felt like I was in a movie or something. I didn't believe it. But the one thing that was weird was I had every bar while I was there on my phone. I had service the entire time. Didn't understand how. But, so I was sitting in my family, like, video and pictures, and it was scary. And to the point where I'm like, how, like, the roads were so bad. I'm like, are we gonna make it all the way there? They was like, yeah, we're gonna be fine. Like, I, I, it was crazy. I had kids that are younger than my son, like, my middle son, out selling stuff on the side of the road. Wow.

• 2:07:19Speaker 03

  Like, actually selling, like, trying to sell stuff to get money on the side of the road. Wow. It was crazy. And I'm like, I'm like, what they do? Like, were they selling things, you know, to, to get some money, you know, to go get food and stuff like that? I'm like, okay, well, their parents, their parents are probably working. They probably won't see their, their parents maybe, but seven days at a time. I said, so they don't see their parents like every seven, like, yeah. So what, so they just by themselves? Like, they just sleep by them? Yeah. They take baths, they, well, they may, they may, you know, try to bathe wherever they can. Uh, they, they may or may not eat. They may see their parents, you know, in, in a week, you know, because they gotta go work to make money, to make really pennies. And I'm like, are you serious? I couldn't even imagine my three-year-old selling something to make. I, it was insane to me.

• 2:07:58Speaker 03

  Um, riding through there, I mean, it was, I don't, I don't know how to explain it. I just only can have video, I got videos, but I could only just talk about it. It was, it was insane. Um, and it made me so, so grateful. Like, when I got home, it took a minute for me to even just register that I was back. Um, because I was just grateful to just go get some water from the fridge. Like, we had to organize to eat while we were there. Like, it wouldn't just, you could just go grab a snack. Yeah. Or go, just go get an apple or eat a banana. You had to, we had to organize to eat. Like, it had to be a thing. Like, we had to make sure everybody was spread away, et cetera. And of course, it's not a lot to eat there either. Like, you have to, kind of eating the same things over and over again. So it was, it was a little harsh, man. Like, it was, it was a little harsh there.

• 2:08:40Speaker 03

  Beds were so hard, um, like, and we were at a nicer, you know, hotel for them. I mean, I feel like I was sleeping on a, a metal box, like, it was bad, you know, like, my back was killing me the whole time I was there, but I was just grateful to see those kids, man, they made me so happy and we were racing, had a little barbecue the last day. Uh, we were racing and, and having a good time playing soccer with them. I got all this on video, it was the most beautiful experience I ever had, um, just interacting with them, but the-

• 2:09:07Shawn Ryan?

  You think you'll be back?

• 2:09:08Speaker 03

  Yeah, I'm gonna go back, I'm gonna go back once a year, it'll be better this time, I'll go with a team and stuff like that this time, it was just me and my videographer last time, which was not the smartest thing, but God told me to go, so I had to go. Uh, but this time when we go, we definitely gonna have like a full team, you know, and stuff, you know, just for protection and things like that, you know, just to make sure uh, things go okay, but, um, it was definitely an experience and I'm actually excited to go back, uh, not because of the experience, but because of seeing those kids.

• 2:09:34Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah, yeah, I'm, you know, we're wrapping the interview up here, but do you, do you plan on expanding your, your vision, what you're doing outside of Albany, you gonna stay in Albany?

• 2:09:46Speaker 03

  Uh, I, people have asked me that so many times, I don't mind, um, giving advice, I don't mind, um, giving people inspiration, but, uh, my job and my goal and my duty is to fix the city of Albany. Um, I never wanna stray away, I have been offered to come other places, I've been offered money to open the program somewhere else and to move. I won't do it, uh, the city of Albany is my charge, um, and I believe I'm responsible for fixing it. And so, uh, while I believe that I'm responsible for fixing it, I'm gonna do my hardest to make sure I do that. Um, that's what I believe in, people believe in me in the city of Albany, people have hope in me, people see me in, in, in, they think I'm the hope, um, and I believe in Jesus, and so I guess God's working through me, um, to help fix our city.

• 2:10:32Speaker 03

  That's what I'm planning on doing.

• 2:10:33Shawn Ryan?

  It's amazing what you're doing, and then, you know, I, I have another question.

• 2:10:37Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:10:38Shawn Ryan?

  You know, we've talked a lot about being a father, becoming a man, it's, it's the lack of, the lack of male role models in, in, in, actually, everywhere.

• 2:10:49Speaker 03

  Mm-hmm.

• 2:10:50Shawn Ryan?

  And, um, you know, and so, I'm just curious, you, I, you really resonate with me, especially at the very beginning, and, um, what do you think are the most important attributes to becoming a man?

• 2:11:06Speaker 03

  We have different pillars in our organization. Accountability, courage, commitment, consistency. We have, I think, three more. But those are the main ones. And I think all of those are what makes a man. Being able to be consistent, being able to be accountable, having courage. All those things are important. And really just being able to have endurance. Pain is gonna be a gift, and I have to explain it all the time. You know, it's a gift for pain. Pain is what teaches you. You learn with pain. So what we say, pain is weakness leaving the body. You know, so that's important to me.

• 2:11:51Speaker 03

  And if we teach, I teach the kids, you know, that when you're going through things, you're just being built. And so it's almost like always looking at the glass half-full as a man. We cannot afford to be sitting around feeling sorry for ourselves or not wanting to go through something. No, what you're looking for is through that pain, through the stress, through the worry and through the doubt. You have to get through it in order to be proud of yourself in the end. And continuously setting goals. That's important, I think. Not setting goals and just wanting to be stable. And I will say, maybe everybody don't have a big target. Everybody don't have big visions and things like that. Some people do wanna just live the American dream, have their kids, you know, have a wife, barbecue on the weekends, go on vacation once a year. Some people do wanna live that life.

• 2:12:36Speaker 03

  But for those, you know, men who are aspiring to do a whole lot more, there's gonna be trial, there's gonna be tribulation. And I promise you, a lot of those people that you believe in and you have seen their successes, they had more failures than you can count behind closed doors. They've been through a lot behind closed doors. I have been through a ton behind closed doors. Especially just having this organization. From personal life issues, bad decisions I've made, et cetera. I've had to learn on my own just what I'm doing now, so. Uh, really being able to be teachable too. And uh, being able to look at the glass half full. Cause you have to learn that stress and pain is a gift. I promise it's gonna build you. And I look for it. I, I, I look for the pain. I look for the stress because I understand on the other side of that is the gift that I was looking for.

• 2:13:21Speaker 03

  The goal that I was looking for. So I know when I come up with a new vision, I already know, here we go. It's about to be some hell, I gotta pay to get through there. Um, because God has to teach you, you know, in that time, we be thinking, we be ready for something. God knows we not ready, so he gonna put you through the trial and tribulation to get there. We can't just put the meat in the oven. You have to season it. You gotta beat it. You know, so you gotta tenderize it. You gotta season it. You gotta get rough with it. You know, et cetera. Same with a pizza. You can't just throw the dough in the oven. You have to make the dough. You gotta knead the dough. You gotta beat the dough. You gotta toss it up in the air. You gotta turn it all, types of, you gotta put it through the fire. You gotta put all this stuff on top of it. And then you finally get the nice pizza. You know, so uh, it's, it's very important to realize you just gotta go through it. People think you don't gotta go through it, man. You're living the wrong life. Um, but as a man, that's what I believe in.

• 2:14:05Speaker 03

  You gotta, you gotta go through the pain. Pain is a gift for you.

• 2:14:08Shawn Ryan?

  Yeah. Yeah, you said something else at the beginning. I think this is one of the most important attributes, attributes, if not the most important attribute. And you know, be a man of your word. Say you're gonna do something, you do it.

• 2:14:20Speaker 03

  You gotta do it.

• 2:14:21Shawn Ryan?

  Cause if you're not worth your word, then you're not worth shit.

• 2:14:23Speaker 03

  Absolutely.

• 2:14:24Shawn Ryan?

  And um, I think that is one of the, one of the main things, if not the main thing.

• 2:14:31Speaker 03

  Yes.

• 2:14:32Shawn Ryan?

  Well, King, man, you are a very impressive man.

• 2:14:38Speaker 03

  I appreciate it. Thank you.

• 2:14:39Shawn Ryan?

  And uh, I'm, I'm just so thankful we met and uh,

• 2:14:43Speaker 03

  Me too.

• 2:14:43Shawn Ryan?

  I hope to see you again.

• 2:14:44Speaker 03

  Yeah, I would.

• 2:14:45Shawn Ryan?

  I wanna see you again.

• 2:14:46Speaker 03

  I would love to come back and maybe when my son's a bit, maybe like seven, probably or eight. Uh, he's done a few interviews before, uh, but I think when he gets a little bit more competent to be able to give an interview, I would love for you to sit with both of us and uh, and talk to us. Cause he's gonna give some gems and he's very intelligent.

• 2:15:01Shawn Ryan?

  That would be, that would be amazing. I'd love to do it.

• 2:15:04Speaker 03

  Yes, sir.

• 2:15:05Shawn Ryan?

  All right, King. Best of luck.

• 2:15:07Speaker 03

  Yes, sir. Thank you so much. Thank you. I appreciate it.