power is whether you are at the center of your own network or part of someone else's Network this is where the power is there's a beautiful beautiful African proverb that says when spiders unite they can tie up a lion when we connect because we are disconnected we're disconnected from those of like mine we're disconnected from the best practices in our community I don't care what it is that you want to do what profession you want to engage in what business you want to get into I can introduce you to brothers and sisters all over America that is doing they are doing it to death you just don't know who they are you are disconnected from them there is no power in disconnection okay when we connect we prevent Interlopers from coming into our communities and taking and destroying at will all right George try to open up the booker Washington delic testin in Chinatown and see what happens so we must connect we must connect the dots that must be the movement for our people in the 21st century we need a lot of us doing a little instead of a few of us doing a lot we need to get together to get ahead that is why we must Network 28 years ago I have pivoted out of leadership positions in Corporate America I spent 13 years in leadership positions with proor and gamble three years as Vice President of the United Way and then two years as an executive with for then at 42 years old after I had learned what I needed to learn there's you know there's a thought sometimes we have to do what we have to do so that we can do what we want to do so now I'm doing what I want to do but for 42 years I had to do what I had to do right and started a company called frasernet and what we are it's very simple uh we are a principal Cent ented Global Leadership network of 61,000 top black professionals business owners and Community leaders and we are committed to economic development through education training and empowerment for black people we have focused on achieving only two goals in the black community we've been working only on these two goals and this is what our conference is about for nearly 30 years it is my deep belief that it will take a 100 years to achieve these two goals so none of us in this room will see the completion of these goals just as when our forefathers and ancestors began their Fight For Freedom they did not live to see that come to fruition so we will just pass the Baton okay um those two goals number one to help black black people build wealth that could be transferred intergenerationally right as you heard me say we're not poor we're just broke right we are not passing our wealth on our children will not be better off in most cases than we are in other words that's what the article was about right because we're not there because there's really no intergenerational transfer wealth because we're spending it all up we're consuming it um uh uh uh uh you know we are we are not fulfilling our moral and spiritual obligations to Future Generations understanding that everything we do we do for our children just as everything our parents did they did for us so what in fact are we doing for our children so so we we focus on Education and Training around economic literacy because we are an economically illiterate people we absolutely we have no concept on why wealth is important right we need to fix that now I'm not talking about all of us I'm just talking about most of us there are many that do understand money how to leverage it how to use it but most of us don't or we simply would not be in this state that we're in so that's the first goal the intergenerational transfer of wealth people ask me all the time Dr Fraser can you give me an example of the intergenerational transfer of wealth right now sure let's say you have two children they're smart and they qualify to go to Harvard Yale moous of Spellman at 55,000 a year can you pay for your child's college education or will you stick your child with a $250,000 bill when they get out that's the intergenerational transfer of wealth right now you have two children your daughter decides to marry handsome successful young man can you do what Jewish parents do when their kids get married buy them their first home can you do that how about can you put a down payment for them forget about buying a home can you give them 20 grand right now 30 grand 40 Grand so they can help them buy their first home that's the intergenerational transfer of wealth right now so we don't have to wait a 100 years to understand why this is so important the second goal is to help black people become the number one employer of black people by the end of the 21st century that we must create work and jobs for our people because that's the only way to raise up the poor and every immigrant group that has ever come to this wonderful country has understood that but black people Jews are the number one employer of Jews Asians are the number one employer of Asians in fact they have solved their unemployment problem in the Asian Community with a simple solution you know what that solution is Right Chinese restaurants and who do they employ in Chinese restaurants their own people and there are millions of them and there are plenty of them in our own neighborhoods and we line up to buy Chinese food you ever see Chinese people line up to buy soul food I ain't never seen that anywhere in America they ain't thinking about you and what you offer they thinking about them and what they offer you and we and and most of us are just fine with that because we have no consciousness around doing anything to fix that so we must create work and jobs for our people now I am not suggesting to uh all black people that that we should resign from the public and private sector and go start businesses oh no no no no no this there's some Negroes out there that should not be within a 100 yards of owning a business right you know I don't know how long you've been black but I've been black for 70 years we have business people and we have business people and the job of Fraser net and the power networking conference is to put the bidet people out of bidet right cuz they're messing it up for those of us who are trying to do serious business now we have all met some black B people who ain't taking care of business they do not deserve your support yes I support um uh uh uh utilizing black businesses absolutely but but but I use the Jewish philosophy I learned this from Jews Jews do not support Jewish businesses just because they're Jewish oh no no Jews are much smarter than that Jews will tell you all things being equal quality value and service see I can tell you to buy from a black but you ain't getting quality value and service you ain't stupid you're not going to waste your money right but all things being equal same quality value and service I'mma year a Jew that's the tiebreaker but all things have to be equal first and then we are we are of the same kind you get my business yeah there may be a brother that that that is of equal quality value and service and you know Jews love black people but but but but no they're going to do business generally speaking with their own kind first all things being equal right so we help our people to chase excellence and not chase money you see money will always find excellence in fact when you become amazing and excellent and what you do you will not be able to get out of the way of money most of us have that ass backwards we are chasing money we are not honing and developing and and refining our skills we figured oh we got an education I got a high school diploma I may even have a college degree that's all I need well let me give you some statistics about brothers and sisters with college degrees I read this statistic I'm praying to God that this is not true but I'm going to give you the statistic as I read it 67% of African-Americans that have a college degree once they graduate from college never read another book in their life let's just say that's half true well if you ain't reading you're in serious trouble right you are not engaged in personal growth and development constant never ending Improvement and lifelong learning because education is the foundation but it ain't going to get you where you need to go you have to constantly reinvest in yourself I am 70 years old inducted into the minority business Hall of Fame I'm at the top of my game last year I spent $114,000 on personal growth and development conferences workshops seminars CDs books and I'm already in the Hall of Fame how much did you spend last year on you that's the most important on your mind not on your Creature Comforts once you look at the amount you spent on stuff and measure that up against what you spent on Education and Training that's called the E toe ratio your education to entertainment ratio is your education ratio triple of of your entertainment budget if you spent $1,000 last year on entertainment concerts those kinds of thing did you spend $4,000 a year on your mind your mind to get you where you need to go to compete in This Racist society that we live in because that's what you're going to need you're going to have to be amazing because if you're black AB medoc in America you better leave cuz you're going to be marginalized and you're ultimately going to be destroyed could you imagine a young brother 50% of our children are dropping out of high school high school but first and foremost responsibility of any culture race is to educate their children we're failing at that 50% of our of our children are dropping out of a high school can you imagine a brother in the 21st century without a high school diploma where is that brother going to jail they're already building jails for him right now they have predicted that so the ones that don't graduate or the ones that do graduate from high school half of them can't read at grade level most of our kids are graduating reading at somewhere between a sixth and seventh grade reading level that's a fact now if you if you have a high school diploma and you go to open enrollment of a let's say a historically black college open enrollment you don't really need SAT scores and you're reading at the sixth or seventh grade read level because it's open enrollment you're not graduating from college why because the moment the first day of college you're going to have four classes and you're going to have six reading assignments you're going to have to read all night analyze and then write and if you can't read you can't write and so pretty soon you're going to get behind in you're reading and that's why we have in many of our colleges 20 30 40 50 % dropout rate it ain't money they can't read we can't read why can't we read because we have some bad habits we have some very bad habits that and we have some habits that are that are totally unique to black people I mean why people do not have this habit I'm going to give you one of these habit white people do not have the only black people in America this habit neelon the people that measure television viewing came out with a huge report last year we ought to be ashamed African-Americans watch 72 hours of Television a week that's 10 hours of Television a day any negro watching 10 hours of Television a day needs their ass kicked really you you're right uh you ain't about nothing you're watching 10 hours of Television a day you're working eight hours a day and you sleep in the rest as you you ain't about nothing so here's a couple of things I'm going to say to you a stop it B you ain't about nothing you can't be and see we're just waiting for you to die because you're not contributing anything to your family to your own personal life right to our community right there's a litness test question that I've inserted inside of my mind um it's around Consciousness but it's something I ask myself all the time I do it with every sing single thing that I do now I had to train myself this I had to undo some baggage I personally had about us and about me right and finally I got to the point where I subconsciously every single thing I do I ask this question this is my what I call my litness test question is what I'm about to do good for my people good for my people so let me give you an example of this that of this kind of Consciousness how it's how it's manifested on a daily basis several years ago my wife and I we both drive lexuses right and we decided to get jean Alexis we buy them three years off leas we don't buy a new car we can afford to have any car we want but we have never bought a new car we buy 3 years off lease a luxury car 3 years off lease right so we went around the corner to my local Lexus dealer we found a car in in the lot that we liked and at about three years off lease at that time the Lexus we wanted for Jean was around 40 Grand and we decided that we would pay cash for it so I went into now now going now what's going on in my mind is what I'm about to do good for my people that's what's going on in my mind in a subconscious way so I walk in and ask for the general manager my guy comes over to me I said listen we found this car we love it stre is old it's beautiful it's clean it's pristine low mileage we would like to buy this car from you he said wonderful and I said we have a check here for about $40,000 once we add everything up um and we will give you this check if we can give it to an African-American salesperson well you could see the blood drain from this white man's head when he said uh we don't have one I said then I'm leaving and I walked out of there went to another Lexus dealer they had two and that's where we bought the car so six or seven months past and I just I wanted to go back just out of curiosity to see if anything had changed you know it did they had three black people selling lexuses right so that one conscious act by one person made a difference in three three black people's lives that's Consciousness but we don't have that kind of Consciousness I have it because I grew up on the main streets of bedy and Brooklyn New York in a time I as I said I'm 70 1945 so I grew up in the 50s 60s and 70s I grew up with Malcolm X in one ear and Dr King in the other ear and Smokey Rob Robinson writing the lyrics for my music instead of little Wayne have you ever compared the lyrics of little Wayne to Smokey Robinson there is no comparison I grew up in a time when James Brown wrote the iconic song Say It Loud I'm Black and I'm Proud when stokeley carmichel for the first time in the history of Africans in America put the word black and power together that was Stokely carmichel when Gil Scott Heron was singing the revolution will not be televised when the Panthers were on the move there was a whole black Consciousness we were wearing afro in dashiki that was the that was the clothing dour we were not sagging we were trying to find Our Roots and Roots was the biggest television program and by the way the final episode of roots watched by 77 million people was the most watched series in the history of Television so we were feeling ourselves right we have lost much of that and so we need a new Consciousness and the conference is about infusing into our people a new way of thinking and then giving them the training the coaching the mentoring and the tools to manifest their greatness their dream their business their personal Excellence whether it's in their own home at the job or in the community and that's the final thing I want to talk with you about is what I believe must be a new mindset and a new Consciousness now I've submitted all of this the stuff I'm about to say to you now to a business card we call it the Frog card and those of you that were at the conference last year you know we passed these out a frog card we call the Frog card because there's a little frog on it right and so what I'm about to you talk to you about quickly is a new mindset and a new Consciousness for black people for the 21st century and then some some new habits we need some new habits right I don't think we need any more strategies and tactics we don't need another book written about what black people need to do we know what to do right you want to read a book read um the destruction of black civilization by Chancellor Williams on the in the back of that book is a complete 125 page detailed summary of what black people need to do read um panomics by Claude Anderson an entire well-written book on what black people need to do economically read the Covenant by Tavis Smiley and Cornell West and 15 other authors including myself on what black people need to do it came out of the state of Black America seven or eight years ago so we got books on what black people need to do we just need to do it but we don't have the Consciousness to do the things that have been suggested in these books so we must change our Consciousness so I call this the Frog card because I use the the Frog what is called the boiling frog syndrome as a metaphor for the state of mind and the state of our condition in Black America the boiling frog syndrome is science this is actually truth if you take a frog and put the frog in boiling water it's hot it will immediately jump out you take that same frog and put it in a pot of cool water it will remain calm and then you can turn the water up incrementally and heat the water slowly and the Frog will adjust to the temperature in the pot until you are absolutely able to boil the Frog to death while he sitting there having adjusted to the heat I think that's where we are that's the state of where we are the heat has been turn is being turned up ever so gradually and then we adjust so I also believe that all that a person achieves and fails to achieve is the result of their thoughts and sooner or later you're going to act out what you really think and at the end of the day whatever we create in our consciousness we experience in our own life as a man thinketh so is he the great Dr John Henri Clark said it beautifully he said what a people do for themselves depends upon what they think about themselves if you think you ain't about nothing you ain't doing nothing if you think you are great and you feel great and you know that you are great you will do great things Maryann Williamson made famous by the great Nelson Mandela said it beautifully too she said we must first change the way we think before we can Master a new way to be we must change our thinking because right now this thinking ain't working for us there's no reason for us to be at the bottom of every single statistic that matters in America 400 years after slavery in spite of racism now I'm not poo pooing racism it is a hugely systemic organic thing and we're not going to fix racism we are not not in our lifetime just as I said to you earlier we're not going to fix white people we have to fix ourselves right so we have to succeed in spite of racism and my parents I don't know what your parents told you but you're going to have to be twice as good to get half as much you know I mean that's it was right then and they're still right right that hasn't changed it's not going to change for you right so we must succeed in spite of it we cannot use it as a reason to fail if you use racism as a reason to fail guess what you're going to fail because there is racism so therefore racism wins you lose I refuse to accept that and that's what Tony marrison said when Charlie Rose asked Tony marrison have you ever been victimized by racism Tony and Tony Morrison looked at Tony Rose and said M my father who's a preacher told me 50 years ago Charlie the white people are crazy don't pay them any mind and so she said I just decided to go on and wi me a pet prize and a Nobel Prize and all can be crazy if you want to I'm going to do what I'm going to do and you're not going to drive me crazy cuz I know what you're trying to do cuz I know you are crazy and so you see this is how we have to internalize that right they're going to do whatever they're going to do every day you pick up social media you see something crazy now this is not new right this is not new it's new to white people ain't new to us we've been talking about this we've been telling them this for Generations now everybody has a camera everybody has a pen and everybody has a platform so now we're going to put this in your face every day but it's not new new to you and for many it's appalling as it should be for many as they look at this they see the insanity in it we're out of time already a couple of new mindsets mindset number one black people need a narrower cultural Vision we must focus on making black people great first not Dallas Texas not the United States but making ourselves great first circle the wagons all hands on deck focus on certainly education personal growth and development and lifelong learning must focus on making black people great first you see China is not trying to make the world great do you know that China is trying to make China great and China will do anything necessary to make China Great including taking your jobs back to China for their people God bless them and China deeply believes that when China becomes great the world will become greater I believe the same thing I believe that when black people maximize their full human potential only then will America fully realize its greatness so a narrow cult cultural Vision now all these things are on the card and I'll give you a card if you want one now the second consciousness Consciousness is about how you think this is a tough one we must socially isolate and ostracize those black people of means that do not give back or reinvest in their own Community you see if you are a Jew of means and you do not give back to Jewish causes and Jewish issues you're out don't even come to the synagogue don't come to our party they are so a a Jew is socially isolated and ostracized if they do not do right by their own people but we do not have any such system in our culture so you could be Dr Dre get a billion dollars from Apple write a check to USC which you did not go to you not an alum for $40 million and not give one dime to a historic black college which is suffering this is why we this is why we love Magic Johnson Magic Johnson just gave 10 million for a jobs program in Chicago he don't live in Chicago Michael Jordan's given nothing what's up with that so if Michael Jordan were to show up here today or if Dr Dre were to be here today in Dallas Texas Not only would you not be able to get in this building you wouldn't be able to get on this block we still going to look love us some Dr Dre we're going to buy his be