If you're not the best version of yourself
how can you show up great in your family? How can you show up great at work? How can you show up great in your community
How can you show up great spiritually? If you're not your best version, how can I really up-level, uplift
and inspire those around me when I'm not the best I can be, right
So I always feel like this pressure of leveling up is a daily process
It's an ongoing process. Hello and welcome to another great edition of Black Enterprise Beyond the Hike
I'm your host, Alfred Edmund Jr., Senior Vice President, Executive Editor of Black Enterprise
And as I say every show, but I always deliver, man, do we have a great show and a great guest for you
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Today's guest is someone we were just talking before we came into the studio
We have known each other for a minute because our concurrent organizations are basically kind of extended family to each other
Of course, me at Black Enterprise and my guest who worked for 35 years at PepsiCo
he's on the path to entrepreneurship now. So that relates very much to his exposure to our late great founder, Earl Graves Sr
and his sons, including our current CEO, Earl Graves, Jr. But the timing of the interview is great
because we are leading into the Excel Summit for Men, what was called Black Men Excel
or the Black Men Excel Summit, soon later in the year. And we're celebrating the 55th anniversary of Black Enterprise
So all of these things come together for this guest to be a great guest. But here's the most important thing about this guest
that I think we have in common. people ask me what is it like to work for Black Enterprise
and I tell them three words it's an excellence no excuses environment
our guest today also not only came up in an excellence no excuses environment
through Pepsi and of course exposure to Black Enterprise but really that's been his whole life
so please welcome to the show the author of the new brand new biography memoir
Survive in Advance those of you who follow my Instagram know that I started reading this book about three weeks ago
maybe a month ago. Now you know why. I was getting ready for this conversation
Please welcome to the show none other than Derek Lewis. What's up, my man
Thank you, Alfred, for the opportunity, man. I really appreciate it. And we do have a long-standing relationship
so I'm grateful for that and excited to be able to have this conversation today. Well, you know, I was looking forward to it
because we've known each other for a long time again because we worked in kind of family-adjacent organizations for so long
and Pepsi was the sponsor of the Golf and Tennis Challenge, which is the precursor event to what is now the Excel Summit for Men
Like you say, we've been kind of in each other's worlds for a minute
But I want to take you back because, you know, the beginning of your book struck me because I identified with it on a bunch of levels
And let me say this at the top for our audience. In addition to, and we'll get into it later, his years at Pepsi
he's an entrepreneur he's a franchisor with uh big dave's cheesesteak um philly pizza
factory i was i said what i say pizza that's probably next but let me stay with the pretzel
factories right now yeah don't feel i love don't get me don't get me started man my mind start
well feel free to check me anytime you feel like it but uh so so again you gotta you guys
You have a range of experiences. But again, I'm going, I want to kind of start this conversation at the beginning, because when I tell people about excellence, no excuses, I say I grew up in an environment where excellence was my space of safety because I didn't have much of a margin for error
that I learned early on in my growing up. I'm the oldest of four siblings
raised by a divorced single mother. I was to her, you know, she had boyfriends
and, you know, but I was the one that she counted on to help her be what she had to be
And you learned early on getting it right, being on time. What we learned was excellence later
is a big part of that. So I really want you to kind of jump into that because it informed my career
just the way it informed yours and your life. The second thing is, you said
talk about your first job in Marion Barry's summer youth employment program
Around the time you were graduating from Hampton, this was my last cover story for the magazine I worked at right before I came
to black enterprise. Wow. Modern black men, a men's fashion lifestyle magazine for black men
And of the five cover stories I do, I was there. This was my last one that came out in March of 87
and literally, actually March of 87th, we got hired a black enterprise
So back in those days, you had to close the magazine three months
before it actually came out. But it's interesting how the confluence of events
and obviously we know just the great contributions Marion Barry has made on so many levels
We interviewed, butch graves had Don Peoples at the last year's Excel Summit for Men on stage
And he talked about the role that Mayor Barry played and Don Peebles becoming the success real estate mogul that he is today
So it's just interesting how these confluence of events when we're young men, teenagers, really does bring us full circle in so many different ways
But I mean, that was a struggle. That was a thing of the 70s, though, right
That was the era where we all were kind of going through the same thing, right? So my situation wasn't necessarily a unique one. Yours was a unique one
And if we all had a chance to compare notes at the time, we would all found ourselves very much in the same spot
You know, what happened essentially is the decisions, though, that we may continue to make after that time changed our past dramatically
Right. So we were on the certainly right side of the decision making curve
Others, through different circumstances and different scenarios, you know, didn't have those opportunities and ended up in different places
And, you know, our our conversation with people is that, hey, look, everybody has the chance to make the right decisions and be somebody they want to be
And but it takes that discipline, takes that commitment to do that early on, to recognize that if you can't do it early on, chances are you're not going to be able to do it
Of course, correct. You know, once you're in the midst of the storm, it's hard to kind of get out, get yourself out of it if you've gone too deep in that hole
The later you wait, the harder it becomes. It's not impossible, but the later you wait, the harder it becomes
I want to get up front because it really struck me even before I started reading your book
This quote that came with the book. Again I show it This is obviously your promotional book cover but the quote on the back is what I think really sets the tone for a lot of what I think we be talking about You say show your tenacity show your courage show yourself that you will be the one who won be defeated no matter what the odds
And that sort of jives with my upbringing, my mindset, my culture from when I was 10 or 11 years old
this excellence, no excuses environment that, that I just, I thrive in because it really
speaks to my value system. Talk about that in the context of not only your book and why that would be
the quote you lean into to promote your book, but your life. Yeah, no, it's a great question. I, you know, I knew early on, I was fortunate because I was in
a circumstance where I was the co-head of household that I had to make really an early
decision very early, probably than most kids on, you know, what do you want to be when you grow up
and how do you want to live your life, right? Do you want to live your life in the chaos that
you're part of each and every day, the stress, the anxiety, just to fight through the day
or do you want to set yourself up for some degree of normalcy, right? For me
I never really knew how high was high. I wasn't thinking really, really high when I was young. I
just wanted stability and normalcy is all I wanted. That to me would have been a massive
achievement in my life compared to what I was dealing with every day. And so recognizing that
I knew that one, and I say this to a lot of the people I, you know, end up speaking to
especially younger people. One is I had to bet on myself. You know, I had to make better myself
I could not rely on others to bet on me. I had to bet on myself first. I had to believe in myself
and I had to be myself, right? And so at a young age, I sort of figured out through grace of God
and just the gift of having vision on, if you're going to get out of this cycle that you're in
when you're older and you're going to have your own family and your own life. You've got to first and foremost be good with yourself
You've got to bet on yourself. You can't look at that as others. Two, I then realized that you've got to take some risks
You're taking risks now. Keep taking risks because if you don't take risks, you don't get better
If you don't take risks, you don't grow. If you don't take risks, you can't be the best version of yourself
You can't play the safe game when you grow up in the kind of circumstance we grow up in
You just can't play it safe if you want to break the cycle. So breaking a cycle meant you had to instill some confidence in what you were doing
You had to take some risks. And you had to realize that even if you fail on something, that it wasn't in the world
that you try and try again. Maybe you do it differently or you do something else
But don't look at failure when you take chances as something that ciphles you
You have to keep going and keep taking more and more risks. And I installed that myself in an early part of my life
And then I think this whole thing of being authentic. I wanted to always be who I wanted to be
I never wanted to be a version of Derek Lewis that somebody else manufactured
I wanted to be Derek Lewis who Derek Lewis wanted to be, not somebody else, right
And so I've stuck to those principles pretty much from the time I thought about this being
11 years old. Now, I didn't put in that kind of framework, but essentially that's what I was thinking
about when I was 11. And I've stayed with that all the way through today
And I will continue to live with that for the rest of my life, right? because I really do believe that's the formula that really drove me to saying
I have to be the best version of myself in order to do that. Those three B's were essential at being, you know, at getting there
And I stayed true to that and I would tell others to do the same
You know, when you're your best version, you can create so many more opportunities
not just for yourself, but all those around you. If you're not the best version of yourself, how can you show up great in your family
How can you show up great at work? How can you show up great in your community? How can you show up great spiritually if you're not your best version? How can I really uplevel, uplift, and inspire those around me when I'm not the best I can be, right? So I always feel like this pressure of leveling up is a daily process. It's an ongoing process. It's a process that you never really get to the top of the goal
Like the goal, the ceiling just keeps moving. As you move up, you set higher standards, expectations, because I feel like until the last day I'm here, I always can get better who I am
Always. I will never sort of go, you know what? I'm good, man. I'm checked out. I'm the best I can be
Everybody just has to sort of take it or leave it. No, I feel like I could always
And being better doesn't mean something like that's materialistic or something that is, you know, you look at me and go, oh, yeah, he's leveling up
It can be impacting other people's lives. And so, yeah, do I, the last day I'm here
want to be able to affect change and impact on others no matter how long I'm here, how old I am
Yes, 100%. And so that goes consistent with this whole leveling up process
of being the best version of yourself. I'm a few years older than you. You got out of college maybe four years after I did
But again, very parallel experiences. and I tell people it's resilience plus persistence equals performance and excellence, meaning
you're right. You're not going to be great every day. My mother used to always tell me
um, you're not being the best is not no excuse for you not doing your best. So you're always
going to be in environments or days when your best is not the best. And maybe your best wasn't
as good as it was yesterday but it needs to be your best every day um you know i'm heavy into
mentorship i've been mentoring people like really since i got out of college and i i didn't like
you said i couldn't put this into words when i was 11 12 13 years old um but i learned something
that i tell people is that your a game should be your only game that you should have a b game
and you know you know i'm speaking for myself more than for you but i suspect
i couldn't afford a b game when i was coming up i had to be academically um uh i was even
aggressive but successful because the things that i needed to do to like you said move out
of my current circumstance to a world that i never saw i didn't understand it like you said
success was a very, you know, stability is a good goal, but it's a modest goal that you had to be
excellent to achieve. And so, you know, when you live long enough, you can communicate those lessons
to those coming behind you, regardless of their background. This idea, what B game? What C game
What are we talking about here? So in that context, I want you to talk a little bit about
why this book and why now? I always ask that question that people kind of start telling this story
on a broader platform, like in a biography or a memoir. Again, you had a successful 35-year career of Pepsi
that began literally right after you got out of college. Again, you're a successful entrepreneur today
You advise other entrepreneurs as the founder, I guess entrepreneurs and others
and the founder and CEO of Levels Up LLC. So now you're at this stage
If you read the book, Strength for Strength, and if you haven't, I recommend it
I did, Arthur Brooks. Yeah, absolutely. I read that book right before I retired
That was a catalyst for me to take on my next chapter, to be honest with you
Very inspirational piece for me to get comfortable with taking that next step
Yeah so talk about that because I have to say your book does a lot of the same things in terms of framing your purpose framing your life as it changes and evolves
but still staying true to your values, growing. And you're not the same person you were at 20 or 25
but your values and the way you approach your life, which you said early on, is what carries you through that growth
So even as you evolve, the core, the authenticity part you talked about, the core Derek Lewis is still there and just getting more, being a better version of Derek
Lewis. So, but you know, let me, let me just talk about what you, what moved you to do the book
what moved you to do it now? And what is the, the, the message you want people to take away
from this book in terms of it? It was, it really wasn't, it wasn't my idea. I never thought in a
million years I'd write a book. Like I never, I never even came across my mind throughout my entire
life. But when I retired, when I announced it, the outpour that came from colleagues
students, you know, because I recruited a lot on campus, my Joe, my networks, the community
all just basically asked me the question, you know, you've got so much experience, so much
tenure, so much success. How are you going to leave any of that behind with us? Because you
seem like you're running away and you're just going to take all this knowledge, experience
and information and, you know, intelligence and go out to the sunset
We can benefit from some of that, all of that, any of that
Are you going to consider speaking engagements? Are you going to do a newsletter, podcasts
People mention, can you write a book? So I took, you know, about a week or two to, like, think about it
because it was really heavy. And, you know, I reached out to some people who were in the industry
and, you know, it didn't take me long after the conversations that the lights went off for me is
like, this project is exactly fits in line with your purpose because it's about others. It's
not about me and my book. It's my story. But the fact that this story that can be told can benefit
so many other people. Well, let me tell you, first of all, you did an excellent job
As you might imagine, I read tons of books. One, because I love reading books, but other because in
my role when I interview people or whatever, I don't believe in just talking to somebody and I
haven't actually read the book. But it's an excellent job of doing that. A couple of points
that hits on some of the things you said. First of all, let me be right up front. I'm very direct
with my audience. You know, if I talk about an author in a book, I shouldn't have to tell you
to go out and buy the book. This is a great book. Not a good book, but a great book. One of the
great things about the book um let me say this i would make this required reading for any
black person but certainly a black male who wants to navigate their way to leadership positions
and obviously the excel summit is focusing on black men and men in corporate america
but you really do a great job of talking about the nuances of navigating especially if you're
a minority a member of minority group or the only black person in your environment whether the
nuances of navigating that because they're not always the obvious ones that makes headlines and
and and you know you know sparks protests and all that stuff and pepsi was a company that early on
leaned into this idea that we had to be able to go back to 1940s exactly that said the thing that
you do really well in this book is you you give the lessons that you learned along the way without
it coming off as preachy. You know, you know, again, different books have different strengths
and weaknesses, but you're almost learning despite yourself because you do a really great job
of weaving in at each stage of your life, in each environment you're in, whether it was a negative
experience or a positive experience. What did you take away from that that fed into who you
became and who you are today? So you did a really great job of that because some books that are
well-meaning, it's hard to do that in an authentic way without coming up as either preachy or
like I said, I'm better than you or I'm different from you. It's a very natural way that you do that
that I do appreciate. And that's why it was important for you to really go back to the
beginning. I have to tell people all the time, you don't build a building from the penthouse. If you don't start at the foundation of where a person started, like you said, they see the
penthouse oh he's a top executive at a major corporation oh he has several successful businesses
oh look at Derek Lewis and look I want to be like him and what they're saying is they want to go
right to the penthouse but if you don't show them let me tell you the basement that I started out
with let me tell you the times I had to tear it down and rebuild it to get it to where I wanted
to be I had to redesign my life I had to change give up certain things that served me when I was
20 but didn't serve me when I was 35 and and this book I mean I'm I know I'm selling it I'm hyping
it because I believe in it. It really does, because of the way you told the story and
didn't focus on the highlight reels that we're used to seeing on social media
but you're like, no, this is what I had to navigate and this is what I took from it. And so I'm just saying, I appreciate that about the book. This is on my list of books that's
required reading for any black man that wants to succeed in corporate America. Let me just say that
that there's there's yeah I mean look I either way I look at it for you know modest fee you're
getting so much training in there that company can send you to a bunch of different training
development curriculums over your career and you still need that because it gives you
some some more strategic orientation that but this book for the value and for what you can get out of
it um I think it's tremendous right I think it's tremendous because I'm basically laying out the
playbook for you. You know, um, that, you know, not that my playbook is only way of, but it's one
version of the playbook. The good news is that like I did, I looked, I looked at other people's
playbooks and I took bits and pieces and, and then created my own playbook because you have to own
your playbook. So it's not like I use somebody else's playbook. Um, it's my playbook, but the
fact that I got to learn and listen and watch, you know, particularly a lot of the coaches that
are in sports, college sports, professional sports. I I'm, I'm a big sports fan. So I look at coaching
because I do think coaching and leadership are synonymous in what they do
and what they bring to the table for student athletes, for fans, for stakeholders, alumni, you know, leagues, sponsors, everybody
You are – everything revolves around your decisions, right? And so I looked at a lot of parallels there
But I can sit in an office told to be a head coach, head coach in the family, head coach at work, head coach of businesses
I'm still coaching, you know. Because coaching gives you that feeling that you're leading people
You're leaning into people. You're developing people. You're touching people. You're inspiring people
That's what coaching means to me. You have conviction about what you believe in and you're going for it
You're not playing it safe and just surviving and just trying to get by and checking the boxes
That's not coach. That's not what I consider to be a good head coach. Taking risk
Being resilient. Dealing with diversity in the right way. having principles, high
integrity, focus you know, all those things man really really matter making yourself be the
best individual you can be and look it hard like life is not easy it hard it still hard because the pressure I put on myself to create opportunities for myself my family but others in my community it requires a
lot of focus and discipline. And sometimes, you know, it just gets hard because you deal with
obstacles all the time. There are things that are getting your way. You know, we know some of these
things are getting our way, but it doesn't stop you from still dreaming. It doesn't stop you're
still pushing. There's always a way around the obstacles or the barriers. Brute force is not
always, you know, it really, I think is never the best way through a good way through. So you have
to be strategic. And as time goes on, your experience and how to deal with situations
you learn how to play chess better and how to play checkers. Early on, we're all checker players
We just want to go at it, use the energy, use the youthfulness that we have to go out and just go
go bang it, go hard, just go, go, go crazy at it. As you get older, you don't have, you know
certainly, um, it, the, the, the, the skill sets don't, um, work as effectively that way early on
it can work later on. You gotta be more strategic at how you navigate your life, uh, across all
spectrums. And, uh, I've been able to do that. I've been fortunate, able to do that. And so if
you can teach people how to learn how to be more strategic in their twenties and thirties and even
and 40s, man, the upside and the runway that's going to give you is tremendous
And I think some of those stories in the book helps you think about being a little bit more
strategic earlier on in your cycles or being strategic about everything. There's nothing that in life, any situation and strategy doesn't play a role in every
single situation that I deal with each and every single day. There's a strategic approach how you want to handle something
A relationship, a business decision, a financial decision, you know, all those things require they have to ladder up to something that's bigger and more important or I would not make that decision
You know, and so it really is the gift that I think keeps on giving
If you can always have a strategic orientation to the things that you're thinking about making decisions on is how they ladder up to that thing or those things that are really important in your life
And, you know, are certainly satisfying your long term goals and what you're pursuing
You know, a lot of what I would say this, your sport, if you will, is basketball
so a lot of the way you approach and see the world I would imagine is through the lens of great
gravity and basketball mine was football I wasn't built for it as much as I loved it
but you know but it was it's the way the lens through which I saw things even again even as
early as 11 or 12 years old even when I didn't realize that's what I was that was the lens I
was looking through and I bring that up for this reason we talk we're talking about winning we're
talking about not only excelling for ourselves, but being able to bring people along
and get them to buy into the vision that leads to winning. And Derek, I remember
I've told this story on my show before, so some of my audience will know this. I remember when I was 11, 12, 13
playing a lot of pickup basketball because, you know, that was the thing
And of course, I'm just under 5'7", probably about 5'5 back then
And I'm a very aggressive, but I wasn't built for basketball. Trust me, I was not
And I asked myself a question when I was around 12 or 13
and you could probably say it for the NBA, but I could say it for the NFL. I had asked myself, why in this league, there's these teams that never win
there's the franchises that seem to always win, and then there's this group in the middle that if they can make the playoffs every few years
they had a they had a good they had a good win right a good season and i started but they got
the same talent pool they're they're basically operating by the same rules you know but why are
these outcomes predictable in any kind of group and then i realized it applied to a whole bunch
of things and what what i learned from that when i was a teen and a pre-teen was when i played pick
of basketball and I knew the only way I could stay on the court was for my team to win. But I knew I
was a, I wasn't a basketball player per se, despite my love of playing. And I learned how to pick
teams that was going to keep me on the court all night. You know, right. Who's going to compensate
for my deficiencies? I cast myself. I'm the hustle die for the ball guy. I'm not a great shooter
I can block shots if I'm quick, but I'm not going to block a shot because I'm tall. but if I can get
the Steph Curry that's what I know is going to hit from the
three point line, if I can get the guy that's going to bang in the paint, if I can get the guy that can
handle the rock, if I can pick the right four other guys with me
I can stay in the game the whole night and how that translates into my level of mentorship
and I'm bringing it back to what you said about winning being defined is not just what
you're able to do on your own leaders find ways to create winners and then you can just win over and over and over again yeah you're gonna have
losing seasons you're gonna have lost games but eventually you build this culture that's where i'm
going to this culture and that's what i realized now that i that i couldn't put into words when i
was 12 or 13 that it wasn't the players it wasn't you know organization what's who didn't have stars
it was there are winning cultures and certain companies businesses people learn how to build
a winning culture. And I bring all that back because in the book, whether you did it intentionally
or not, whether it was in the home you grew up in, despite the challenges, whether it's you
navigating going off to college, and we could talk another hour about what I had to learn when I went
to Rutgers, and someone didn't really know what that environment was about, but then it found a
way. And this whole idea of creating culture to win, and I just think it's important as now with
everything that's going on. AI, you know, whatever you might feel about the current political economic environment
it's an environment that feels chaotic. But there's value systems that I saw throughout your book that you said, listen
if I could just stick to this, it almost doesn't matter what's going on around me
No, you hit it right on the head. And I do think, first of all, I'm a huge football fan too. I love college football
I'm so excited. College football is probably my number one go-to, right? In terms of
just excitement because Every game matters. And I'm one of those guys that every game matters
I'm like an every game matter kind of guy. I love the intensity and the fanfare
and just the fact that this game means everything. Our championship quest relies on how well we do
each and every Saturday. So this game, this weekend is very important
We got to win. You don't necessarily get that in necessarily all the professional sports
I love pro sports, by the way, too, by the way. So I'm not saying one or the other. But I love that, like the focus and the intensity
the competitiveness, and just the all-in that you have on Saturdays in the fall is just unmatched
in my mind in any other sport because it really is a, you have to deliver, right? And so what you
talked about, the teams that win versus don't win, there's a lot of parity on, I'd say, strategy at
winning. A lot of these schools have the resources. They want to have a championship mindset. They have
the right pieces in place, the right facilities, the right booster programs, the right engagement
with alumni and fans. They do all that right. They have really a great head coach
So I'd say leadership is good. Leadership from the president to the athletic director to the coach
very good across many, many institutions. I think the things that separate the teams that have the most success
high success, year in and year out versus ones that don't, isn't in really the strategy and the leadership section
It's in the culture and execution section. And I think the culture and execution becomes what separates the teams
that are always at the top, near the top, and the ones that aren't. And that's why I used the reference to Alabama and Coach Saban in my book
because no doubt, great strategy, no doubt, world class with his strategy on
And he was ahead of the trends, or he adapted to the new trends very, very quickly
So he was always very strategic in his approach to the sport. He obviously is a great leader. He has great coaches
He develops great coaches. He has a tree where, what, 17, 18, 19, 20 of his former assistants are head coaches
I mean, unbelievable development. So check those boxes. With separated Alabama, in my mind, from our biases, that culture of being elite and then the execution of being elite
Like that is different where every play, every rep in practice, every rep in the weight room
what you eat, you know, the disciplines of on the field and off the field
are measured at such a high level that when it comes down to game time
you're inherently are just bigger, stronger, faster than everybody else. And it's not because, you know
your coach is necessarily that much better. In this case, he was, pretty damn good at what he did
But the culture of the standard, the embracing of the process by the student athletes
and the whole community, by the way, embracing the process of being elite
And then that moment of execution, every play, every second, every moment
That's why he's going furious at the end of a game when even the outcome's already determined
the player's not executing what they were. They're pulling back. They're allowing for big plays to happen
on the other end of the ball. That annoyed him because the execution mindset never stops at Alabama
So, yeah, 59 and a half minutes, you guys did great, but the last 30 seconds you can't lay an egg
and let the other team score a touchdown. Or you can't give up a big player
You can't get slack at what you're doing because you think the game is over
The game is not over until the clock says zero. And in my mind, those programs that can really deliver the culture
and that execution moment every day, every moment, and I want to bring that to my business
So I thought about how do I bring this elite culture inside of the company
inside of my operating responsibilities, right? And so I instilled this mindset of we can actually be elite at what we do
Don't worry about your circumstances. Don't worry about what the competition is doing here and there
Don't worry about things that you can't control. Worry about everything that you can control
And how do we become the best version of ourselves each and every single day
And all of a sudden, things that were unimaginable became imaginable now because you go out and go, we'll never go get that account
Guess what happened? We go get that account. We're never going to get X number of ads with such and such retailer
We got those ads. You know, we got new contracts. We got new business
We got better distribution. We got better talent. We got people that went above and beyond the call of duty
All of a sudden, because everybody's bought into this culture. We branded ourselves
We had like logos created, you know, that were meant for us and our identity, right
That brought unity and focus and sort of commitment to a cause that was absolutely very similar to what Nick Saban and other great head coaches do across sports, right
I'm not putting myself in that real estate for sure, but I'm saying I adopted a lot of those philosophies and brought it into the business and to the team, into the culture
and it created next level results. The results speak for themselves. We, the team was able to thrive in big, big ways
and set records for the businesses because everybody was bought in. And there is something magical about
when you get everybody bought into the culture and the execution mindset
I think is really the game changer for high success versus moderate success
or low success, you know, I think. So, and culture, strategy, for lunch, as they say, right? It does. You know, so I can be very strategic and very good and have
these great ideas and mindset. If I don't have the culture of winning, the culture of being elite
and an executional excellence mindset day in and day out, forget it. And I want to be famous for
those things. I don't want to be famous for strategy. I don't want to be famous for being
even like a great leader coach. I want to be famous for culture and execution, man. Because
that is at the point of attack. And if you can do that better than the competition, you're going to
have a winning mindset and you're going to have winning results consistently year in
year out. Something that can deliver sustainable. Now I need the strategy and the leadership to keep bringing us winning programs and a
roadmap for winning. But man, being able to control the excitement on the ground and the buy-in from your associates
on the ground day in and day out and, and it's sort of running out like you're playing a football game every day man there nothing that beats that energy The answer I tell people to quote unquote chaos for me first of all recognize chaos is the standard
Like everything's changing all the time. That's the standard environment. This myth of the stable operational environment, if it ever existed, it doesn't exist anymore
So that's very important. It's constantly changing. In fact, I tell entrepreneurs I mentored, the way you know your idea worked is that it
changed everything and the idea stopped working. So you got to constantly, you know, keep going
But the other thing, and I take this back to what you said about college programs, and I want to
extend that to business and recruiting talent and motivating talent in general, is that you learn
early. Like, okay, everybody can point to the stars on a given team, but to achieve the culture
of excellence you're talking about, it's that person who, certainly on paper, doesn't look
like a star. But if you can get them to do their very, very best, they will outperform the more talented
person or team or company, whatever, who is, they're better, but they're not executing better
Like you said, their talent has taught them, I can afford to take this game off
The talent has told them, I don't need to get that territory. I don't need to fulfill that, you know, whatever, whatever the standard is
And I say that to say, when you talk about the urgency of college sports and why it makes it so fun, you talk about, you know, or every game counts
You know that 80% of the people in a college team, that's as far as they're going to go
They're like, no, every game counts because one day I won't be doing this again
And it's probably going to be very soon. And like I said, I love pro sports
I love pro football, too. But there's something about that person that says, no, this is, I'm playing for today
I'm not playing for the next game. I'm not playing for next season. I'm playing for today
And I tell people, if you can find something to do for a living, something to do for a vocation or a vocation that makes you think on a bad day
You know, I knew Black Enterprise was the right place for me because when I knew it was going to be a bad day when I got into office
but I still couldn't wait to go. That's that mindset of everything counts big or small
good or bad, because if you can make it habitual, then you don't even know
you don't even need discipline anymore. You're right by now. You're the way you are because you're the way you are
And as long as you stay true to who you are, you will continue to perform in whatever art environment you're in
And of course, now you're leading multiple businesses. Um, as well as I know you're doing board work, et cetera, et cetera
And you'd be surprised at how much people want, there are a lot of people that want that
They don't, they want an environment where I noticed that a lot of the associates, I'm
talking about managers and executives. I mean, I'm talking about like, these are, you know, executives that I'm dealing with
here, um, who really felt, you know, the opportunity to unleash their best version themselves
They always wanted to be challenged. And then once they had that opportunity, that moment, again, I'm in a take risk environment
So it wasn't like I'm saying we're going to win and you're going to do it
Just do it the way I want you to do it. I'm going to allow you to do it the way you think is best to deliver the outcomes that we need
So I'm going to give you the space. I'm going to give you the latitude. I'm going to give you the confidence
I'm going to give you the opportunity to fail even because I want you to always be dialed in
knowing you can be the best for yourself. I want to have your back, but I don't want you to do it
the way I tell you to do. I want you to be a robot. I want you to be an individual. I want you to have your own point of view. And so when you, when you empower people that way
and all of a sudden everybody shows up on the same page, it's unbelievable. As a matter of fact
people had reached the bar that I had set and many of them, many of them, if not all of them
exceeded the bar that I'd expect them to get to in the time frame I expected
They got there a lot faster. There was to a point where, you know, I'm always not sure for words of what to say
but there are moments where, man, these guys have already passed the threshold by a country mile
I actually had to find a message or a narrative so I continue to keep them inspired
But they had far exceeded anywhere I wanted to go to a person
And when you got like 100 people doing that job for you and you see it in the performance, you as a leader go, whoa, these guys are locked in
And now I have to find for me now, I got to take my game up now because now they have somewhat caught up to where I am
And I always, as a leader, want to be a step or two ahead because I want to still be able to guide, inspire, challenge you to get better
I want to be able to keep that momentum going. But there's a time when that gap was very, very narrow
and I'm going like, holy cow, I got to get my act together now. No longer am I the one that is sort of seeing it farther, farther than everybody else
These people now are with, they're totally right there in lockstep. So it's a great feeling at the moment, but as a leader who feels I owe them this opportunity
to keep it going, I got to get better at what I do. I have to now up level and uplift my thinking
And so it also inspired me to get better. And so I love this gift on giving where every performance is just driving the best of everybody day in and day out because when we deliver that we making every part of our lives better and improving Your personal life your professional life
your spiritual life, you know, your emotional health, your physical health. I mean, when you're feeling good, you're doing good, man
Everything is clicking when you're in that zone, I tell people, in that zone
And we were basically playing a college football game like with a rival, you know who our rival was
every single day of the year. So you had to get up and basically go, all right, I'm putting uniform on and I'm competing again
And it never stops. You know, if it's a holiday, the stakes got even higher
There's no light. I'm taking time off. I'm going to just chill. No, that game is a 365 day game because consumer consumption is going on every single day, every single moment of the day
And you have to either you're there or your competition is there. So we had to have that mindset to be there as much as we possibly can in a moment of consumption
we want consumers choosing our products, not the other ones. I want people in the new life I'm in
thinking about my product now. I'm obviously in a, you know, in a different segmentation of the
market in terms of the category of food. I don't have all things. Like we had all beverages for
all really all needs, but I want to create unique space for my, my businesses now where I want people
thinking about it, get their share of mine up so that I'm driving frequency, repeat purchase, loyalty
and a tremendous experience for what's happening day in and day out
So that's now my goal is how do I inspire people outside the restaurant
to come to the restaurant? How do I inspire my people inside the restaurant who are my associates
to be the best version of themselves, the opportunity for them to build a career
not just look at this as a job, but look at this as something where you're going to get access to a leader who cares about you
who does want to plan a future with you, whether that be inside my business or not inside my business
I realize that a lot of these associates have a big ambition. I may not be able to deliver to them
I want the best for them in their world of the pursuit of their dreams
And I can help them and will be responsible for helping them think through that and getting
traction on that, which is, I think, unique about my approach in my entrepreneurial journey
is really tapping into the best of all people, not sitting on top, just kind of looking down
at things and going, yeah, I run, I own these businesses. know that I'm involved in the people, the personnel, decision making
You know, I let them do what they do best, but I'm here to help the entity grow both inside the box and outside the box
You know, what you're describing to me, again, I've been on a similar journey in my own personal life and professional life
And again, we talk about the book Strength for Strength and one of its main points. And you said it earlier, what got you here won't get you there
I'm serious very much about health as a function of, and a driver of economic success
Longevity is a function of economic success. And like you said, it's all of the things
It's physical, it's brain, it's emotional, it's spiritual, it's financial. All of these things actually go together when for much of our
certainly our young adult lives and the generations before us, those were compartmentalized things
And now we know all of those play together. And when you get past what we'll call the magical milestone of 50, everything you've done up to that point, I tell people, is preparation, development, and growth
But now you're getting into mastery. You should be making your most money after 50
You should be having your biggest successes because now they're not you. It's after 50
And I make this point all the time because obviously as black men, you know, we have a shorter life expectancy
And I've seen it over and over again where there are corporate executives or entrepreneurs
Black men who reached a peak of their power either become ill or pass away before they really can deliver
Like I said, you get into the third quarter, fourth quarter when you really should be closing out the game with a championship win
And you can't push it past the fourth quarter. And so I'm just big on this idea of, yes, this is a great book for young up and coming people, because you talk about how you navigated that. But what I think that this book has in common with Strength for Strength is you're talking about now, and some of this was concurrent with what was happening with COVID and George Floyd and your decision to retire from Pepsi
is like, what am I going to do for this, the last two quarters? Because by the way
50 used to be the last quarter. Now it's really the halftime and this idea. So now I'm going to
say if you're, if you're 45 and older, this is not just a young person. How do I succeed? But
this is now I'm at the stage where I've had some success. How do I achieve mastery? Mastery is not
just being a star, it's being a star maker. The foundation that we talked about earlier
the basement you started from, it's still there. You're building on that, but you're not trying
to live in the basement. Now you are at another level. The history matters, but that's not where
we live. We're talking about where we're going. Right. And a starting point might be you're in
the kitchen now, you're in the ground floor, you're not, the basement is done now. We don't
want to talk about the basement anymore. Right. Yeah. You don't have to relive that. You don't
to have to relive that because that was already done for you. Now your starting point is here
but your ceiling is going to be much higher You going to be building a much higher ceiling than I was I might have grew up in a two stories might have been it for me you know you now three story four story 10 story 20 you you you have to move this higher so my mind the work doesn change the
grinding you know it's just it's just sort of positioned a lot differently than what it maybe
it was uh as as we were growing up so that you know that's the way I look at it it's one person's
opinion, but it's worked for me and I'm going to stick by, man, because that's who I am
So that's why I want to emphasize the beauty of this book. The generations before us
it was all about just the survival. Can we live to see another day? Can we get another generation
through? But we are well into, now we have to focus on not just surviving, but advancing
That's what your book does a great job of, because that's what we're talking about. Gen Z is not talking about just trying to survive. They're trying to, and they should be, right
They shouldn't just be thinking about survival. It should be about advancement. That's what makes this a great book
Please, as we wrap up, tell everybody, you know, when and where they should get this book
If they can follow you on social and continue to learn from you, that would be great
Just what's the best way for them to kind of continue? Well, the best way where you can follow me
on all social channels. So at Real Derek Lewis, on all the platforms
Twitter, IG, Facebook, LinkedIn. So love you to follow, love feedback from you
I love you to purchase the book. You can get on all the, again, retail channels, e-commerce so amazon uh barnes and noble um you know walmart target all the bookstore all the
indie a lot of indie bookstores at airports throughout the country as well so i look forward
to uh having the opportunity for you to read it i'm grateful and thankful if you get a chance to pick it up love to hear from you how your experience was with the book and i want to keep a dialogue
going and ensure that you know you can get everything out of it and then some uh with me
involved. So thank you for that opportunity to talk about it. So guys, first buy the book, then actually read the book
Some people buy books and they just... Exactly. And again, you've got an open invitation. Share your thoughts. You can leave comments
on social platforms. You can communicate on LinkedIn because it's going to be worth it
Again, especially if you aspire to lead beyond your current circumstances. Let me put it that way
This is a great choice, a great gift, and a great read. guarantee it
guarantee it man of his word listen Derek I am so glad
that we were able to get together for this conversation I'm looking forward to seeing you in person
hopefully soon just thank you for being the guest on Beyond the Hype
with Black Enterprise thank you for having me I appreciate it I love my relationship with Black Enterprise
it's long standing and we'll continue to be long standing anything I can do
to help contribute to the cause let me know I'm always here for you guys
and much love to the family thank you so much Guys, I promised, I delivered another great edition of Beyond the Hype with Black Enterprise
I'm Alfred Edmund Jr., Senior VP, Executive Editor at Black Enterprise. Remember, go to the Black Enterprise YouTube channel, watch the replay, share the replay, comment, subscribe
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Thank you for being here with this latest edition of Beyond the Hype. Take care of yourself, please, for real
And we will see you next time. I am doubly honored to receive the Earl Graves Senior Vanguard Award
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