Adam Torres and Michael Phillips discuss transforming communities.
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Show Notes:
In this episode, Adam Torres and Michael Phillips, COO of TD Jakes Enterprises, explore how TD Jakes Enterprises is making a difference, including the Good Soil Movement and a partnership with Wells Fargo.
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About Michael Phillips
Michael Phillips is passionate about helping people live a better life. His determination to drive social change with lasting transformational benefits to society, has led Phillips to become an innovator in social entrepreneurship. He serves as the Chief Operating Officer of TDJ Enterprises, a social impact holding company with an innovative portfolio steeped in Content Creation, Cultural Change, Community and Capital investments.
As an author and inspirational speaker, Phillips has become a champion for cultural change, economic empowerment, and generational impact. He is the Chairman of 50CAN, and serves as a board member of KuriosEd. His powerful message of collateral hope continues to transform lives, revitalize communities and generate growth. Michael Phillips and his wife Dr. Anita Phillips reside in Dallas, Texas.
Full Unedited Transcript
Hey, I’d like to welcome you to another episode of Mission Matters. My name is Adam Torres, and I’m proud to announce that I’m at the Milking Global Conference 2024 in Beverly Hills, California. And my guest today is Michael Phillips, who is the CEO of TD Jake’s Enterprises. I’ve been following TD Jake’s, the brand, the movement.
For many, many years. And it’s an honor to have someone from his team on, on the show. So first off, Hey, Michael, I just want to say, thanks for making some time for us, man. Great to have you. Man. It is such an honor to be here with you. It’s amazing. It’s been amazing all week. All right. So we got, we got a lot to cover here.
We got a Wells Fargo partnership. We got the good soil movement. We got obviously what you’re doing here today in terms of what TDJ and the company. So let’s just start with. What has been your favorite part of the conference so far? Oh my goodness. I don’t even know where to start. I know it’s a big one.
It’s the thinkers and the dreamers and the people that are here to help solve problems and looking for ways where their organizations can continue to have impact, but most importantly, how to collaborate to have that impact. I think it’s been absolutely incredible. I mean, I’ve met people from, you know as far as Australia you know, from all over the globe who are here to take this knowledge, this insight back to where they’re affecting the world and continue to have that level of impact, whatever it is they’re doing.
Yeah. Why, why do you feel it was important for TD Jake’s Enterprises and for his team to be here and to be at a conference like Milken? Man, I think, you know, to give context to that, because it would be unfair to you to just say, blurt out something without letting you understand how much of a disruptive thinker TD Jake’s is, right?
And one of the things he challenged us as an organization is to join him in that process Disruptive thinking to start looking for transformative, mutually beneficial partnerships that would bring disruption and change to our society in a positive way. And so we’ve been doing that for a while and now to be able to come here with parts of our team, to be able to do that has been absolutely incredible.
Yeah, it’s interesting. Like Milken Conference to me, I mean, I’ve been coming now, this is, this is nine years ago I came to my first conference and it was, it was not, it was amazing back then too. I was still starstruck. I’m like, wait a minute, what’s going on here? What’s this next? And that, that’s before I was even in media.
And I remember seeing, I see the buildup of the conference now. And I always tell the corporate leaders out there, I’m like, Hey, if you’re a CEO, you’re an exec and I don’t get paid for this. I’m not selling tickets. There’s no, there’s no effect. Affiliate code, it’s okay, but I’m just saying if you’re serious about what you’re doing, if you’re serious about your, your mission, your movement, if you’re like, this is where it’s happening.
Like the conversations that happen here, the meetings that happen here, people leave here and like things happen, but it’s not an accident. It’s not easy to get here. It’s not easy to, you know. Make the track, do all those things, but I say it pays off. Yeah, absolutely. And especially for leaders, right?
Because when you go and start something you know, you want your idea to not only be taken seriously, but to be ran down the road by the individuals who believe in what you’re trying to accomplish. Right. And sometimes as leaders, we, we have this vision into the idea that creates a moment. Right.
That might turn into a movement. But what happens is that status quo sets in. And that movement now becomes a monument. This is why you got to come to places like this so that your idea doesn’t become a monument. You want it to stay a movement. You want to stay fluid. And. I’ve ran into so many CEOs here.
So many different, it’s weird, right? They’re all here. It’s like, yeah, it’s amazing to me. It’s weird. Weird is the wrong word. It is amazing. That is the right word. It’s like to get in front of this many individuals, like in a normal course of business, not going to happen, not take you years to make this type of context that you make in a couple of quick days.
If you’re lucky, it could take you years. Listen, jumping through every gatekeeper, it don’t take you a long time to get further than these type of people. Yeah. I want to jump around, speaking of jumping around, I want to jump around here a little bit. So, transforming communities, I know TD Jakes Group, I know there’s a lot of different ways that, that you’re doing that, whether it’s through, you know, investments in HBCUs, whether it’s in, I mean, multiple other programs like, like, where do you want to start with that?
Talk about the organization overall and the idea of transferring communities, what that means. Our CEO started out with this vision and idea of having this type of disruptive impact. He really thought about, you know, what are, what are the tools that need to be in the hands of everyday people, right?
And a pathway to ownership became evident that we needed to be in that space, right? So if you want to start closing gaps, wealth gap, health gap, all those things, you have to start creating pathways to ownership, right? And so whether owning a home or owning a business, it allows you to be able to have a path.
Be impacted by other people in unique ways. So for example instead of just focusing on low income housing, which, you know, which is great and important, right? We’re focusing on mixed income housing because being in the atmosphere with people who are at different socio eco economic levels has a, has a direct impact.
Impact on the Children who are in those communities. Yeah, right. So for example, if you grew up in a household without a father, but you were in the mixed income community with somebody that you just see. That is a father, your life is impacted by that, right? And so we want to put people in proximity to possibility.
And so that’s why we’ve began to really focus on just almost like multi generational effort, if you will from everything from HBCUs to building and developing communities of mixed income communities where you have low income and you have market rate communities. All those things are available.
And so. It’s been an interesting journey to see our organization continue to build structure around that effort. And we’re, we’re, we’re moving it down the road, man. It’s amazing. And that concept of mixed income communities, I, I highly resonate with that. When I think about like where I grew up, so I grew up in Detroit in the eighties and where I was at specifically, I can think about it was like I was in the heart of Detroit and it wasn’t.
but I had the luxury of going to school downtown. So when I went to school downtown for high school, for example, at Cass Tech, it was that was my mixed income portion of it. When I went downtown, I saw a different lifestyle. So I had, so I benefited from that. And I remember my parents telling me, like even way before when I, like, I had an aptitude for business and my parents would tell me They’d say, well, Adam, I don’t know much about business, but but you, you can like, I have some friends that do, you go over there and this, then that’s when I started with some of my first internships and things like that, working in finance, which was my career before this.
And I, if it wasn’t for that, I wouldn’t be here. That’s for sure. Like that wasn’t, that was a complete, I lived it. I lived it. I benefited from it. I lived it. If it wasn’t for that, then I would not be here for sure. That’s right. So you take your lived experience and then understand that nobody, no person on this earth should be incarcerated by their zip code in any way that goes for their education, that goes for their opportunities, that goes for access to health care, all the things that, you know, are affecting us as a society today.
You know, not that we’re focusing on everything, but the specific things that we can do to help solve some of those problems, that’s what we’re doing. And it’s one person at a time, like when I see it, like myself, I see many others. I see how, how communities are raised and how people are able to do that.
Like that’s how it happens. That’s right. And that’s what I think is interesting. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. So, speaking of partnerships, speaking of amplifying, one of the things, our taglines, we amplify stories. So, when I hear about TD Jakes and the organization partnering with, with Wells Fargo, I mean, big name, big resources, lots of potential to help and to really create change.
impact. Yeah. Talk to me about that. Yeah. You know the Wells Fargo partnership has been absolutely life changing, not only for the people who are being affected by the partnership, but also I think for us too, because you know, when you set out to have a really big audacious goal of changing the world, here’s what happens.
You run into people who want to do the same thing. You run into people who want to do the same thing. Isn’t that weird? It’s weird how energy works. It’s amazing. It’s amazing. And so to all those dreamers out there, you’re not by yourself, man, you’re going to run into the right people and they’re going to help you fulfill that dream.
So Wells Fargo has come alongside of us in partnership to help us create pathways of ownership in, in business and in housing. And the housing portion of it. Is really related to helping to develop communities. It’s not selling a mortgage or anything like that. It’s just developing the community.
And they’ve been really great partners and have, have brought a lot to the table. And so we are in our infancy stages of that partnership, but it’s been going really great. Amazing. Yeah. So a little birdie by the name of of Jordan said that, I said that I might be going out to the good soil movement.
Like what’s going on with the good soil movement. Talk to me about this. Talk to me about this. Come on. I love Texas. Listen, you got to come down to Texas. You’re already coming. So we, I made it. I went too far West. I was supposed to go stop in Texas. I drove. That’s where I probably should have gone. Coast, get too much time.
Talk to me about what’s going on. Everybody’s moving back to Texas anyway. So come on, come on back, man. So listen, a year ago, just a little over a year ago, we, we started to look at some of the problems that were being faced by black and brown owners, founders of businesses. And so. We wanted to have a little conversation with them about, you know, like a focus group, what are some of the things that, that you need?
And what we, what we found out is that they all thought that there was some unique problems to, or barriers to them trying to grow and scale their businesses. And, and as we started to aggregate all that data, we found out, no, these aren’t unique problems. These are common. Not only they’re common to you, but they’re common to every entrepreneur and business owner.
Right. And those three main barriers that they all face were wealth, credit, and trust. You want to start your business, you got to have some money, usually your own, right. Or have a set of a network that can help you and, and put some money in family and friends, that sort of investment. Right. But you know for, for most minority owned businesses, you, you might not have cousins, nephews, uncles, aunts who have that type of money to be able to put in.
They owe you 5. That was my, that was my upbringing. I have many friends who it wasn’t. And they’re like, Oh, my uncle or this or that. I’m like, dang, I didn’t get the rich. You know, I said, started this. Let me tell you on a cell phone, on a cell phone and headphones. I didn’t even have earbuds and you know, over 6, 000 interviews later, built it from scratch.
So I didn’t start this with you know, with any of that. So I didn’t have an uncle and this, that, whatever. I had another, other co founders, Chirag, who was crazy enough to do it with me. That was that. Right. But yeah, so, you know, you know what it is that, you know, what those barriers look like. And you’ve probably had to use your name at some point to get equipment, you know, credit all those things.
But what was really interesting was that there was a deep distrust between them. Business owner, the entrepreneur and the business ecosystem, right? I can’t go to the bank because they’re going to tear me down. I can’t go, you know to venture because I don’t have the business plan, right? All those things.
And so what we’ve been able to do is launch digitally, a supportive ecosystem that puts the entrepreneur right in the middle of. Having financial partners, capacity building partners, that all too important peer to peer network, legal support and accounting support, all in your cell phone, right where you started.
Can you imagine what it would have been like if you could have just picked up your phone and increased your soul and said, Oh, I can’t have live plan. Do my business plan. Oh, I can have Zen business set up the structure for my LLC. You know, those type of things at the tip of your finger because of technology, we’re hoping is going to help grow and scale.
A lot of businesses. What can people that attend the conference, what can they expect? Oh my goodness. Here’s one thing. I want everybody to get this. Please, please, please don’t get this. There are so many organizations out there who are a compliment to what we’re trying to do. Great information, great insight.
That’s all wonderful. I’m not knocking anybody. But one thing that is. Continuing to happen for entrepreneurs is that you go to the event and then you leave or you go to the business accelerator for eight weeks or 12 weeks or whatever it is. And then you leave and you still find yourself almost in the similar position.
Yeah. So we don’t want you to come and be overcoached yet under capitalized. This is why we have a half a million dollar fast pitch competition going on at our event. Half a million dollars. Yeah. Yeah. a Dallas based business is going to walk away with 75, 000. And so we want to make sure that you understand when you come down to good soil, you’re going to get resources and tools, not just coaching, not just information, but you’re going to leave with some tangible things.
That’s going to help you grow your business. That’s amazing. And looking at do we have dates? Dates? Yes. June 13th through the 15th in Dallas, Texas at the AT& T performing arts center, go to good soil forum. com. Hit us up on IG at good soul form. You can download the app right into your phone free right now.
You can download it into your phone on Google or iTunes. It’s good. So HQ and man connect with us. Come on down. Awesome. I want you to, to close this out. Once you look in the camera, tell people how they can follow, tell them how they can how they can follow up. Absolutely. Listen, follow up with us at good soul forum.
com or hit us up on Instagram Twitter, or I don’t even know if it’s called Twitter anymore, but X, whatever it’s called any of those platforms at good soul forum. I am at Michael Phillips official. If you want to hit me up, if you DM me, I promise I DM you back all those good things. We can’t wait to see you down in Dallas, Texas, June 13th through the 15th.
