Be Fearless: 19 Keys’ Advice to Black Men on Winning in America

One global leader aims to help his followers take control of their spiritual, mental and financial lives.

19 Keys is a leader in the Black Community with a popular podcast on the YouTube channel, Earn Your Leisure, centered on wealth creation, with a focus on educating the younger generation. Conversations include entrepreneurship, holistic wealth, metaphysics, artificial intelligence and financial literacy, which has earned him the No. 1 podcast on the YouTube channel.

To even get to this status in helping people and confirming his core values, 19 Keys thanks his parents for a strong upbringing.

“My parents taught principles at an early age, affirmations and things to live by. But there are some (things) I’ve just picked up off the cues of my environment because I’ve always been very observant and astute even as a young child,” 19 Keys said in an interview with The Quintessential Gentleman. “One of the greatest quotes I love to live by is ‘where there’s a will, there’s a way.’ For me, it’s a possibility at all times. If I can think it, it can be done. … And so I’ve always utilized that thought process in everything that I do. … It’s like a superpower…”

This superpower allowed 19 Keys to understand what’s going on in the environment he was brought up in – Oakland and St. Louis, or what he considers “the hood.” He believes this environment has caused spiritual deprivation among those raised in these situations.

Still, in a family that includes nine siblings, he was able to overcome his circumstances despite catching a court case. 19 Keys said his family was able to give him the resources to overcome those obstacles, and his record is clean to this day.

“…There’s a deep part of ourselves that we need to unlock and that’s that savior part of ourselves where we learn how to save ourselves,” 19 Keys shares. “And so, if I studied the wealth standard of everybody else’s community, they learn how to create principles that become guides that become standards towards building wealth.”

After reading Revolutionary Suicide by Huey Newton, 19 Keys realized the importance of taking care of your younger siblings. The reading sparked an epiphany that the Black culture doesn’t have the habits to produce financial wealth, and unity, among other goals. Additionally, this reading helped 19 Keys move forward despite his surrounding circumstances.

One characteristic that 19 Keys said Black men in America need to have is to be fearless.

“You can’t win in America if you’re fearful,” 19 Keys said. “As a Black man, you have to be educated. You cannot win in America if you’re a fool. As a Black man in America, you have to develop the characteristics of a man. As a Black man in America, you have to be in solidarity with other Black men. You cannot win in America by yourself…”

The popular podcaster said it’s important to have direction. And ultimately, it’s important to create a plan to save ourselves because the numbers say that if that doesn’t happen, it will be easy to fall into the trap. But ultimately, this plan needs to be with a group of like-minded individuals.

When folks come together, 19 Keys said the mentality should be to work together in unity, from a horizontal perspective, rather than the top-down approach. For instance, instead of disrespecting someone’s abilities, it’s all about bowing down to that other person and recognizing that this person can do something that you can’t – and vice versa. It’s about tribalism, not individualism, which Western society glorifies.

One way to get folks to switch to this mentality, 19 Keys said, is to have lyric reform. According to 19 Keys, "beats put people in a suggestive state, and when folks hear those beats and it's about sex, drugs, murder, death, violence and revenge, the subconscious puts folks in a triggering state, which can be detrimental to one’s focus, eliminating emotional resilience."

“…Understanding the awareness of what the music is putting us into, the state of the music is actually training our brains into. So that you can understand where you’re at. And by that awareness, you’re not allowing your brain to sleep,” 19 Keys said.

The renaissance man isn’t big on any kind of standstill. In a recent tweet from him, he alluded to the notion that it is better to find work ethic than it is to find your purpose.

In a tweet that was posted in response to seeing too many traditional quotes, 19 Keys said folks who always speak on purpose are often too lazy and use purpose as an excuse to hinder development, which is what it’s all about.

“Work is how you develop your purpose. Purpose is not found, it is developed,” 19 Keys said, “…So your purpose can develop, it can change as your functions develop and change. So focus on the function of who you are, what you do and purpose will follow, but you can’t do anything without working.”

Check out the full interview.

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Photo Credit: T Evans