Many of you know I published a book along with 31 of my friends telling of the challenges and triumphs of women. The book, "This is my story, but it is not my life", has done quite well selling in the thousands in a few short months. I am very proud of its success and many hearts it has reached around the world.
I have a passion for helping others. If you know anything about my story then you know I grew up with a lot of challenges and a lot of personal sadness. I have been receiving help from others for a very long time now. I think it is important to give back which has never created a problem for me, including now. I have decided to take 100% of the profits I have amassed from my book sales and give it to small black businesses in my community, especially those owned by women. Don't worry I have not gone crazy. I am sowing a seed and not doing anything I have not thought through.

The first business I identified is a small cupcake shop in East Point, GA. I only know it by driving by in a predominantly African American section of town. My mother loved to bake so I thought this first blessing would be done in honor of her. So very soon I will ambush this small cupcake shop with video in hand. I will learn more about them, hopefully fit in a tasting or two, then leave a financial love token. Of course I will share the video with all of you. Perhaps you will visit this small shop and get some cupcakes to take home.

My hope is what I am doing will spread. Perhaps this cupcake shop will pay it forward one day. In any case, I am trusting my heart. We all need to support one another especially now.  I am willing to do my part to get something positive and tangible going in a community I love and believe in. I will continue giving until my profits run out.

Won't you help me by identifying other small businesses who might need similar exposure and blessing? LADETRA@NOBLEINSIGHT.COM

To God be the glory! To whom much is given, much is expected.

Lately I have been looking at people differently. I hadn't planned to it just happened. I don't study them exactly, that's too strong a word. But I do examine their behavior and inevitably I bounce that behavior against the words they speak. I find myself doing this with almost everybody. My doing this has almost become a subconscious thing. I ask myself, how does their behavior compare to the words that flow from their mouth. I used to hear, it doesn't matter what you say it matters what you do. I mostly agree with this, but then again I prefer these two work in tandem. Now the really bad part of what I am about to say is this, people I know have disappointed me a lot. Words and deeds are incongruent. Or said more simply, one of them is lying, the words or the deeds. So I am left with, whose side are you on anyway?

I am tiring of social media for many reasons. Most noteworthy is when seeing the mismatch among so many in the words and deeds arena. The reason I am so disappointed is we are living in volatile times like none other in my lifetime. And it is times like these we need to know who to trust, Now more than ever I want to know who 's on my team and whose team I am on. Words like truth, loyalty, patience, defense, tolerance, respect, decorum, fairness, open-minded, love, and discretion need a team.

Recently I became aware of some back and forth in social media among people I know well concerning whose to blame for crime, police killings of young black men and the killing of police by blacks. While the subject did not scare me, the lack of respect and decorum in how it was discussed did scare me plenty. In full disclosure, I did not read the posts. By then I had heard enough and truthfully I did not want to go through that difficult process of ridding even more people from my team. Like I said, times are hard for all of us.

Now is the most critical time that we need to come together and create winning solutions. It is not the time for us to be questioning whose side are you on anyway? We are better than our greatest fears. We must always remember that.

His name was Troy. I know because I asked his name early on. Our conversation started innocently enough. Along with his wife, we talked about travel, our children, and just a slight bit about our respective careers. I learned their son, the age of my 17 year old daughter is a national debater on a winning team. Their daughter is an early college student traveling abroad to a place in Africa I had just returned from. We became comfortable talking. I liked that we seemed similar in age. I liked that he seemed to recognize my success and comfort in this all-white setting. Just when I thought our talk had hit its peak, he asked me “the question”.  His question was how did I feel about the climate in the country today. And without asking, he asked about Black Lives Matter (BLM).  I paused, not because I did not have an opinion. I paused because I was not sure he was ready for my response. So at first I danced with him. I started out slowly gauging where he wanted to go with this and then with a stride I commanded, I took him around the dance floor, careful to stay clear of his feet. It was my question after all and  I was about to do my honest best to answer it. I knew from the start the importance of this moment. I felt inside, he wanted me to lead. The dance would not be easy, especially if it was your first time to the floor as I imagined it would be for Troy. Troy is white.

I started this way….I motioned for him to look out in the distance in the direction of where my 13 year old son sat on a fishing bank, alone, secure, relaxed, and unafraid. He was the only Black male or female within 50 miles of us and where he sat, confident, focused and completely in his element. He looked liked he belonged to that bank and the only thing that should be afraid today is the unlucky fish who might happen upon his unrelenting determination to catch one. I answered him with, what I see out there is all that matters. And what matters today for me should matter to all of us. What really matters to me right now is that you found the courage to ask. That matters a lot. That's what matters to this country.

And then just after his wife intentionally showed me pictures of her son’s rainbow coalition of friends on a bus, I took a brief pause to let everyone catch their breath while also trying not to display my slight agitation of “so what” to her misdirected act of patronization. It wasn’t her fault really and I was used to this moment. It happens a lot. Once back on our feet I told him what I really came to say.

The country was not experiencing an urban problem. We have before us a defining Country Problem. It is going to take conversations like ours that begin in the suburbs to begin to fix it. It will take brute mutual understanding of the real issues on all sides to make things better, not for my child but for our children. What is happening in America did not start with Black Lives Matter and it will not end with them. What we are experiencing is an epidemic of untreated ignorance, bias, and oppression by a majority society on its minority population. The characterizations of organizations like BLM by majority audiences as threatening and illegitimate are immaterial to the discussions we really need to be having. By distracting ourselves with time spent defending our relative positions on their existence is belaboring the work that is really needed.

That work involves looking for ways to institutionalize real reform wherever it is needed. It will take Troy, La Detra, our children and everyone to punch their dance card in that discussion. If we don't fix what is broken our country will be like a house built below a sleeping volcano now awakened. Once awake, the lava which flows will show no favor.

I was born with strong impulses. The impulse to go against the grain is one of my more prevalent ones. When other kids colored in the lines, mine would be the paper that went just outside on purpose to see the response I would get. When everyone else showed their work on the exam, it would be mine that sparsely met the requirement. I usually had the right answer so what was all the fuss about? In general, I hated being boxed in on most anything. I relished the idea of bringing the unknown, the most noticeable, the slightly risky, to any given situation. Most of the time I got away with it. Sometimes, I was even rewarded for what was often called my "creative thinking" or among my Jewish friends in New York, my chutzpah or at home my "some nerve." I did things to elicit response, sometimes simply for the attention it got me, but more often because I hated to follow the road more traveled.

Along the way I have accomplished things in my life that leave people scratching their heads in dismay. When you look at where I came from it's no wonder they do. From living on public assistance as a child to being crowned a beauty queen to attending the best Business School in the world some would say, to becoming largely successful in my own right. I started with nothing and I ended up somewhere. Most of the time I was constantly succeeding, I was also way over-indulged in a state of trusting my impulses. When I failed and I often did fail, it was my impulse to pick myself up and try again that propelled me forward. Did I mention I competed in over 10 beauty pageants before ever winning or that I have lost hundreds of thousands of dollars in business deals over the years?

People like me, those who are driven by impulse meet a lot of people who are governed by restraint. Occasionally the intersection is helpful to both. Like when the impulse to run back into the burning building is met with that voice of restraint, "Are you completely cuckoo?" That voice of restraint has saved my hide more than a few times. It helped me resist the impulse to remain in perilous relationships, jobs, and business ventures over time. But here is where restraint and I part ways.

I have met restraint and seen firsthand the long term personal havoc it has reeked on others. I loath the site of it every time. For instance it is usually dressed up as insecurity, procrastination, doubt and fear.

People ask me all the time how I did it. How did I become so blatantly successful? What amount of luck was involved? My answer never changes. My answer is this. I got over and moved around that voice of restraint that was trying to make a home in my head. I fought against its attractive scent, its allure and its disguise which came clothed as a picture of peace and comfort. I looked outside of my head and I chose the road less traveled.