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Once you experience the money running out, that shit stays with you. And sometimes we just need a little encouragement to get us through. This week, X sits down with her good friend and fellow actor Tarek Ali to bring us some good money vibes! Tarek talks about how he’s learned to worry less about money and the sacrifices he’s made to follow his dreams, including the tough decision to sell his hard-earned Tesla!

This series was created in partnership with Flourish Ventures, an early-stage global investment firm backing mission-driven entrepreneurs and industry influencers working toward a fair finance system for all. Learn more at flourishventures.com.

Stay up to date with us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram at @LemonadaMedia.

You can find Tarek on @itstarekali on both Twitter and Instagram. His show, THAT Conversation with Tarek Ali, is available on Youtube @TarekAli and wherever you get your podcasts. Check out his mental health initiative Leap Into Healing at leapintohealing.com.   

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To follow along with a transcript, go to lemonadamedia.com/show/ shortly after the air date.

Transcript

SPEAKERS

Speaker 4, Tarek Ali, X Mayo, Speaker 5, Speaker 1, Speaker 3, Speaker 2

Speaker 1  00:01

Do you feel like you have enough money?

 

Speaker 2  01:36

No, I mean, you can always do with some more money.

 

Speaker 3  01:40

Do I feel like I have well, do we ever feel like you have enough money? I’d say, right now I’m comfortable, but yeah, I could use more like.

 

Speaker 4  01:44

I recognize that I’m a lot more fortunate than most people, but it’d be great to just swipe or hand the cash and I think about it.

 

Speaker 5  01:59

Immediately no I just don’t believe that I have enough readily available all of the time.

 

Speaker 1  02:07

Praise the Lord, everybody. Praise the Lord. Welcome back to another Sunday service at the non denominational, but ever sanctified Church of The Dough, I’m your pastor and host, X Mayo, and today I’m ministering to you and your wallets. Today’s message comes from First Financial Revelations, chapter one, verse three. Sister Yolanda, did you find it okay? Amen, I want you to turn to your neighbor and say neighbor. To say it Okay, great. I want to say, Neighbor, let he who is without debt cast the first quarter roll. Yes, okay. Now y’all know, I try to keep it cute and secular here on this pie, but make no mistake, I am a believer in every few episodes it slips out. I know y’all hear it, so I want to take y’all to church with this episode. Now you don’t have to believe in a higher source to receive the money blessings I’m about to bestow with this next guest. But I do believe it takes a little bit of faith, whether that is in God, source, the universe, or even yourself, to overcome bad financial circumstances. As the Good Book says, there is a season for everything, a season to cry, a season to dance and a season to go to Beyonce cowboy Carter. Can you? Do you feel me? Okay, well, one thing I know that’s true is once you experience a season of the money running out, that shit stays with you. Oh, sorry, church. I didn’t mean to cut. And sometimes we just need a little encouragement to get us through. So joining us today is an amazing guest preacher at the Church of the Don. I want y’all to stand up on your feet and show him some love. Tarek Ali , he is an award winning writer, content creator, actor and host of that conversation with Tarek Ali. He’s chatting with us about his experience overcoming hallelujah childhood poverty while chasing his entrepreneurial dreams. Hi, Tarek, welcome to The Dough.

 

Tarek Ali  04:07

Hi, my baby. I’m miss, you look so good.

 

Speaker 1  04:11

Thank you. I showered just for you.

 

Tarek Ali  04:14

Not you same.

 

X Mayo  04:18

Okay, so Tarek, we start every episode, asking guests, where the hell their money went this week. But I wanted to change this question for you. What have you bought in the name of self care this week?

 

Tarek Ali  04:28

Do you know what’s so funny? God is hilarious that I am doing this podcast with this topic, the dough baby today, because I am broke as a joke, and I’ve been so frugal, the most frugal I’ve ever been in my life, because of just everything going on. But yesterday, I wanted to go to Stevie’s Creole soul food restaurant by my house.

 

Speaker 1  04:52

You stay over there?.

 

Tarek Ali  04:53

Yes.

 

X Mayo  04:55

You know Stevie’s raised us, baby, that fried chicken, that Kool Aid and that gumbo, right? That’s me.

 

Tarek Ali  05:00

I just needed it, and I had it. I’ve been working, working. I just got back from New York, doing red carpets. I was at the GLAAD awards, and I was like, you know, Tarek, you’ve been frugal, you’ve been smart, you’ve been, you know, in in the work and in the dream that I was like, I deserve this meal. So I took myself to Stevie’s, and I spent $60 I hate LA. I spent $60 for my meal, and now I have $11 in my account. Oh, I got the, uh, chicken seafood combination. So I got white meat, shrimp and catfish nuggets and macaroni and cheese and collard greens, and then I won’t done I also got the peach cobbler. A la mode Okay, ice cream. They got the best peach cobbler I’ve ever had. And that’s a big title, because I’m a southern woman, so yes.

 

Speaker 1  06:00

I feel like, I feel like my cousins can beat it. She’s a Mississippi girl, I feel like, yeah, well, I support that. I love that for you, listen, times get like that. Times are hard, for sure.

 

Tarek Ali  06:12

Oh yeah, because I literally even tweeted, you know, everyone is broke, and it went viral. So I said, Okay, look, now we are in a recession. Oh, Country, donating all this money for war. I just Ciao. I just need girl.

 

Speaker 1  06:27

Beyonce came out with Renaissance, then a tour and a coward. When have we heard from her this much? She needs money too.

 

Tarek Ali  06:35

Okay. I mean fragrance we shampoo.

 

X Mayo  06:40

Child, what else can we? Did get out here? Jay Z, you need to sell some weed. Blue’s gonna, is gonna package some oranges.

 

Tarek Ali  06:48

Like she doinga movie. I mean, we put the whole family on the label line child.

 

X Mayo  06:55

Okay, so it is not, it is everybody from the top on down. Okay, so we know you blew up on Vine, and when vine shut down, you went over to YouTube, and you grew a massive online presence there with creating videos around your personal experiences with mental health and trauma. So I’ve been volley for a long time, and I would love to know, did you have like, the foresight to see like, oh, social media is a source for making money when you first got into it. Or you would just, like, listen, like, I just, there’s just another outlet. Because I know that you’re like an actor, like a traditional actor and performer, so I didn’t know if that was like another medium. You’re like, oh, let me play in that.

 

Tarek Ali  07:31

Yeah, so absolutely not when I started, you know, you didn’t, there wasn’t really a influence of Mark market, like it is now. So I was doing plays and acting and show choir and musical theater all my childhood. But like I share my content like I was homeless and juggling through homes, living in the hood, whatever. And there was a lot of programs and internships for you to go and learn about STEM but there was not a lot of programs for you to do, like acting and stuff. So I did acting at the church. I learned that.

 

X Mayo  08:05

Period okay, now, what was your first role? What was your first role? I’m gonna tell you mine.

 

Tarek Ali  08:09

Oh, my God. So I did my first it was grease. We did a reenactment of Greece at something called the Hura players in Southern Virginia. And then at my church, I think it was A Raisin in the Sun, something, yeah, raising the sun, I think so. And then I just did a lot of different like church we had, like a lady a drama ministry, and she was a playwright, and so she would just write all her plays, and we would just keep reenacting. It was like her own personal, original play.

 

X Mayo  08:34

Yes, no, that’s who I was. I was that lady. I had my I started producing at 19 oh, I love yeah, my first play was called chosen generation.

 

Tarek Ali  08:41

Yes, so when I got on, when I got online, it was really my aunt Nicole took me when I was 15. And my aunt is a pharmacist, and my uncle is a business owner, and I was from the hood, right? So they was trying to put me in things to get me out, you know what I mean? So eyes healthcare, and I got really serious in school, but so I did YouTube really as an outlet of my creativity, and then over the years, God made it a vessel and a way to provide for me over the years, but I never knew that it would get me to the point of, like, having a Tesla and having a three bedroom house in LA and all of that, so now.

 

X Mayo  09:17

so when did you start getting checks from content creation and like it was finally enough for you to start being able to pay your bills.

 

Tarek Ali  09:26

Took me six years. I did not make any money from YouTube for six years, I was all the money that I would make like people. People think that like the ads on YouTube pay you down. But girl, no, like the ads will give you a look like, if being I made good numbers, like, I would get every video 50 to 100k every video, like, in that first five years. And like, if you post consistently me, I was in college and I was a bio major, so I was in labs from like five to 9pm like I was in the library till 3am so I only had Saturdays to record. So I would post, like, maybe two to three videos a month. And that would get me like, two 3k a month. And so I would use all of that money to invest back into YouTube, so to get a better a better DSLR camera, to get studio box lights, because the more you just went up in your production, the more you know your audience just love to see that growth. And when they see you’re taking it serious, they start treating your work that series as well, and they’re willing to invest more into it. So I just was just pouring all of my money back into it. So I really wasn’t making any money like for myself until six years in, and that was like 2017-2018 yes.

 

X Mayo  10:48

Hey, y’all so is offering time, okay, my favorite time? No, put your wallet away, close your cash app. I’m offering you these ads, baby. Go spend your money there, and when we get back, Tarek is going to talk more about how his mindset changed on the journey to becoming a full time creator.

 

X Mayo  11:14

So Tarek, you said your major was biology. Is that to be a doctor?

 

Tarek Ali  11:46

Yes, I was studying to be a doctor. I did internships ever since I was in 10th grade at Howard University, Columbia University. I did research at NIH for three years. Um, yeah, I was for my resume. Is colored girl. I was a whole doctor. I graduated with a bio degree, but I decided not to go that route. And I decided to go to Hollywood, because this was my dream my whole life. Like, this is what I always wanted to do.

 

X Mayo  14:37

Okay, what was the moment when you realize you’re like, absolutely not. I will play a doctor on TV, but I will not be a doctor in real life.

 

Tarek Ali  14:45

I think sophomore year of college, because I sophomore year of college is when my YouTube really started blowing up, and I had got an offer for my content and for. Me to be on television when I was in high school for my vines. But my, you know, this was before content creation, like was popular and the way that it is now. And people knew that it was a market at the time. I saw the market it was becoming because I was one of the pioneers. So my parents didn’t understand it, and they I had got an offer, I think, from revolt, revolt to like, be on they were making something, and my parents would not let me do it. They said no. And I remember crying my butt off, because my entire life, my dream was to be on television. And so when I got to college, and I was in my sophomore year, I got an offer to be on television from MTV, and I that’s when I had my first TV segment, and I was so happy and passionate about my creativity, and I was just going to class, just because, one I needed that refund, because that refund started to be my income girl, and I love learning, but it wasn’t where my heart was. Like, I was so excited about my YouTube, my creativity, doing campaigns with like Calvin Klein, directing my own stuff. Like, I was like, yeah, this is what I want to do. So in sophomore year, with that mindset shift, I was like, okay, so school is just my job now, and YouTube is the dream that I’m just working on on the weekends, so that by the time I graduate, I can go full force in this so I saved all of my money. When I started making money from YouTube, I saved all of it. I didn’t spend any of it because I knew I wanted to move to LA when I graduated, and I saved $60,000.

 

X Mayo  16:34

Oh, I’m so proud of you. And we do have some challenging stories about money, but then we have some successful ones like this. I love that. Oh, absolutely to you, absolutely.

 

Tarek Ali  16:47

I’m really open about finances and all of that, because I, like I said, I was homeless, I suffered with poverty consciousness a large part of my life, and I had to heal a lot of that. And so I’m always just honest about money. So when people know that money does not have to be, you know this rope around your neck, and it doesn’t have to control your life. Money comes and goes, and you are not defined by it. It’s just a compartment and a tool to use for the things that you want. So I’m just like, yeah, I had it here. I don’t got it here, but you go have it there, like it’s just the more we talk about it, the more our people can have liberation from it, because that is how they control us and get us to do things that we don’t necessarily want to do, because we got to make our means, you know so.

 

X Mayo  17:29

Yeah, I feel like there’s still a thing, a scarcity mindset, a poverty mindset, that we inherently have as people that come from the bottom, and even when we do get a level of financial security. It’s that mindset like, Damn, I’m always operating from a place of like, lack or if I am, I gonna lose this. I would love to know what ways that you’ve overcome, or are still overcoming, that mindset, um, of like, being poverty, mentally, being like, mentally.

 

Tarek Ali  17:58

Wow, um, it’s a continual work because, you know, I think it, you’re gonna get me to get into my psychology bag because, because it really, it really depends on the conditioning you experience as a child, right? And and growing up, money was a determining factor of everything, like, if we went on vacations, like my vacation as a child was to go to my aunt’s house that took me when I was 15, just because they had a bigger home. I had never been on a plane. You know, if what you were able to do in a house was it, do you pay bills? And like, Do you got this kind of money? Everything was about money, and so it also was a determining factor of where I lived. So me and my family, my siblings, we got split up because my parents didn’t have the means to take care of us and the money. Also, there’s been days we didn’t have food, and there was days I slept in a car. So it was like, money was my livelihood. It wasn’t just money. Like, some people’s like, you know, some people can say it’s just money, but when money determined if you could have a relationship with your siblings or live in the same home with your siblings or your mom and dad, is going to have a way bigger weight on you. And so for me, money is always my biggest fear. Like when I went to therapy and, you know, she asked you, when that anxiety comes up, like, what is your biggest fear? My biggest fear is to be homeless again. And so that will always keep me driving, and that’s that’s a part of that poverty consciousness, right? Because that’ll have you holding on to something that’s not good for you, just because you’re afraid to lose money. But really under that, it’s your livelihood, your well being. It’s what your body has accepted that this is what I need to feel happy and safe and to have the things that I need. And so for me, God, the way that he is always building me and growing me is putting me in these positions where I am having to make a choice and choosing my faith and what he tells me he’s going to have for me and. Or what’s here right now, and me holding on and attaching to things, and so even right now, like, you know, something that was really, really this is me being very vulnerable. This is something I’m really like talking about with myself. And God, this morning, my Tesla, like, when I was in college, I would go to Linux mall and sit in a in a Tesla and tell, I told myself, I’m gonna have this car. When I moved to LA, I’m gonna have this car. I even have videos on my phone of me doing it, like taking pictures, like the people at Tesla was irritated with me in the first year.

 

X Mayo  20:39

This is your job, Marvin, this is your job. Okay? I could sit in this Tesla. I could take a picture. I can’t stand when they be doing that. I can walk. I don’t care if I’m on Rodeo with $0 you work at Neiman Marcus. Your job is to show me these things. Your job is to service me as a potential patron. I want to try on this jacket of crank it out in multiple colors.

 

Tarek Ali  21:02

Because and I definitely got it. So you better be happy I came in there and I sat on that damn car. So, yeah, I would go back in Linux mode, go to Auntie Anne’s, give me a cute little pretzel, and said about Tesla.

 

X Mayo  21:16

I love that Tarek, yes.

 

Tarek Ali  21:18

And when I moved to LA. I was going through a lot, and I remember the very first week I crashed, I got in a car accident because I had a panic attack while I was driving, and I had I hit, the exact car I asked God for it was a white Tesla, and,.

 

X Mayo  21:36

Wow.

 

Tarek Ali  21:36

God, what are you trying to tell me? I just let go of medical everything. I have a colorful resume where it’s safe, right? And I’m following my dreams. In the very first week, I crashed a white Tesla. Six months later, my income tripled and I got my white Tesla. And now fast forward four years, I am scaling again, right? And I’m asking God for another big dream. My TV show is about to sell. You know, I’m doing so many big things. My podcast is nominated for a glatt award. I have a tech startup that I’m about to go into preceding like, uh, so much harvest is coming, but I’m so broke, and I am going to have to sell this Tesla. And I think that it’s full circle, because it’s.

 

X Mayo  22:19

Oh, thankyou, Jesus.

 

Tarek Ali  22:20

God is wow. I just gotta stay attached.

 

X Mayo  22:27

Wait a minute. I have to sit in that.

 

Tarek Ali  22:31

Because if you stay attached to what I gave you, but before, you can’t, you can’t, you can’t receive these new blessings that I have for you. You want to go to new heights. You have new dreams. Your ask before four years ago was to come to LA, okay, boom. You’ve been here for four years, and now you want this TV show. You want to be a boss. You want a company, a tech startup, and you want $4 million for pre Oh, these are new ass. So what you had before, those gifts have to be the seeds for the new plants. So, oh, girl, you got me here. Girl, like finances. That’s why I said, God is so funny. This podcast doing it today, because this has been today. I’ve been he’s been putting that seat in my brain for a week. I’m gonna have to sell my car. I’m gonna have to sell my car. I never been in a position where I had to sell my car. And for most people, that would be embarrassing. You know, you saw me in my test.

 

X Mayo  23:21

No, but when you know whose you are.

 

Tarek Ali  23:23

Come on.

 

X Mayo  23:25

When you see because I don’t know what the future holds, but I know Who holds my future. You hear me so I don’t care what these articles say, I don’t care what the numbers are for who’s not selling what show. Because if I walked by that and lived by that, then I would be concerned. But Pastor Carlton Pearson says something that I believe so wholeheartedly, I gotta get it plastered. I need it painted all over my wall when he said, everything is my friend, nothing is my enemy, unless I assign it to be my enemy, amen, because if we really believe that all things work for my good, that even those of you who mean for my bad, you working for my good. Amen, right job. He was tested, and the devil was like, listen, he gonna turn on you. And God was like, okay, cool do everything do? Let’s see. He was like, he will never turn on me, because that’s my son. So that’s what I’m saying, that Tesla, eyes have not seen Tarek, ears have not heard, nor has it entered the thought of man, it ain’t even in your brain. You think you have a dream right now? That Tesla child, the Lord is like baby.

 

Tarek Ali  24:34

You ain’t even gonna care about that damn […]

 

X Mayo  24:39

And it’s the trust,right? Are you gonna really trust me? If I did this before, and I gonna do it again.

 

Tarek Ali  24:46

Yeah.

 

X Mayo  24:47

All right, let the church say, Amen, whoo. We need to take a little break before I begin to tarry. Okay, because I call on his name, ah, and when we get back, it’s time for the altar call. Tarek will be giving advice on how. Allowed to be financially free.

 

X Mayo  27:21

I would love to know if there is, and if it is, what would the sign be for you that you’ve personally reached financial security?

 

Tarek Ali  27:48

Oh, that’s so I love that question, because I would answer it differently in my past seasons, and now I understand financial security for me is using finances as a tool for the things I want in life. That is literally what financial security is for me. And so because I think financial security for me before was having enough money to pay all my bills and a little bit more so I could have some play, and I can always at my place in my life right now, like, Yeah, I’m struggling financially, but, girl, I have a biology degree, a very colorful resume. I could get a job, yeah, I could get a very well paying job. I could do so much to make money, right and then. But that wouldn’t change anything from me being financially free, that would make me financially able, but I just for me.

 

X Mayo  28:46

Okay, wait, that’s the bar.

 

Tarek Ali  28:48

Okay, come on, because God will give me a download and I’ll just keep moving, slow me down.

 

X Mayo  28:52

Financially able, but find not financially free.

 

Tarek Ali  28:56

Not financially free, because am I spending my time doing what I want and fulfilling myself for the reward and the finances that comes with that. No because really I’m selling my soul, but selling my time, my energy, putting all of me into something that God does not intend for me. So really I’m missing the mark. I’m really I’m sacrificing myself so that I can meet these needs of bills and stuff. But if I want to be financially free, I want to have the finances for those things and also feel free. So for me, it’s really like, before the money was like, the money kind of determined, you know, what class I was in, and this and that, and yeah, the politics of it, the business, the taxes. But for me, I when I just got to this place where I was making a lot of money and I wasn’t happy. This was a couple years ago. I was making so much money from influencing and from YouTube and just Instagram or whatever, and I wanted to write. I wanted to work on my television shows. I wanted to act, I wanted to do all of that, and so I had all this money, but I was depressed, and I was like, my therapist told me. She was like, Well, why don’t you stop doing the influencer stuff so that you can go and write? I said, But how am I going to make money? She said, Well, Tariq, you said you have this much in your savings. What are you saving for I said, oh, what.

 

X Mayo  30:24

Baby you preaching to the choir? This was me and my business manager during the strike. I said, No, it’s supposed to just stay there. Girl, do you know I have made more money than all nine of my aunties and uncles put together? Like, do you know? Like, what I this is no, what are you talking about she was like, this is why we say, yeah, no, I totally feel that.

 

X Mayo  30:44

And that is that, that is that poverty consciousness, like holding on to it, right? Because this is going to keep me safe. Oh, I’m keeping this just in case something go wrong. We’re waiting for something to go wrong. And I think financial freedom is not it’s freedom. Nothing is going to go wrong, and if it does, you’ll be fine. You’ll use your money as a tool. So I, in that moment, was like, okay, so what do I want? I want to write. I want to do this. So I use my money as a tool. So I stopped working for an entire year to teach myself how to screenwrite. And that is financial freedom to me. And so, you know, that’s what financial freedom is to me. Is using my using money and finances as a tool for the things I need. And right now, with my car, my Tesla, right? I could easily do a lot of things to make money. I could even do Uber I could do Instagram. It’s so many things I could do, but that would take me away from the time I need to be doing, the things that are going to bring the harvest later, right, and the things that I actually really want to do. So I said, okay, I have this Tesla, I can work from home. I work from home. I don’t really, I use that car to go, you know, where I just want to go. I said, oh, this is money. This is a tool to help me, because I just need a couple more months. I really just need money for a couple more of us, because that’s what you know. When nobody gonna come. We know TV, it’s slow, it’s all like, it’s just time, right? And so God, he’s like, You, I keep asking him to bring me something, and he keeps looking at me like, you have everything you need, and that is money to use it as a tool for what I want in my life. And that is financial freedom to me, even if I don’t have money incoming and abundance in the way that I need it right now. Does that make sense?

 

X Mayo  32:28

Oh, my God, it makes perfect sense. And I just, I just want to applaud you for not only your transparency, but also for being so raw and honest and vulnerable about how it really goes, you know, I think might have mentioned this before on the pod, but Vin Staples did an interview, I think, with rap radar, and you talked about how, you know, all of his money that he had got from his deal, spent it all in three videos, had to go back, make another hit, get that money back again, you know, then he was schoolboy Q’s hype man, and kind Of like, Assistant, you know, and then, like, Schoolboy Q, like, gave him some free game about, like, this is what you’re doing wrong with your songs to help him make a hit, you know. Like, I don’t think people talk about the highs and lows of entrepreneurship enough. So I just want to say thank you, and I feel so honored to be in the space and create a space to where you feel comfortable to share that, because I feel like a lot of people will be encouraged and inspired and potentially freed of, kind of, like, the shame, you know, of like, I have to sell this. I have to do that. But like, the risk is worth the reward. As as artists, as entrepreneurs, there hasn’t been a risk that wasn’t worth it. Every risk that I took you know, I would love to know my last question, what would you say to encourage listeners that want to pursue their creative outlets full time but are scared that it won’t pay the bills?

 

Tarek Ali  33:57

Hmm, don’t worry about the bills. And I know everybody was a hoof, but literally, don’t worry about the bills first. See if this is, I believe in the seed mentality. Okay, and so whenever you have a dream that looks like a garden that looks like a huge plant, that looks like it’s gonna bring you so much fruit, so whatever the fruit looks like for you, right? And that’s just a yielding reward. It takes time for a garden to become a garden from a seed, right? And so if you have that seed, which is just the want, just the dream in your head. I want to do this. You don’t have to go from seed to harvest. Not only you don’t have to, but you can’t go from seed to harvest. And so you need to just start with the seed. You don’t need to be worried about no bills with this art right now, you don’t put your all into a seed. You just water it a little bit. So just, start doing it first. Just start. That’s the first step. You just need to start. You don’t need to quit your job. You don’t need to do this full time. You just start it. Just do a little bit, maybe do two hours a day. Then that’ll become a whole day. Then that’ll become every Saturday, grow the seed and start with the sprout, and then go to one plant and then let it spread. You don’t have to have it all figured out right now, but you do need to have figured out is what you are passionate about in your art. You need to start where that is with that passion for that art is what to keep you through the struggles. And that’s what’s keeping us right? X, and so it’s like, you, you got to really focus on the art first, and you got to really make sure that that art fulfills you. Because if it doesn’t, you’re not going to get to the hardest. You’re not going to make it there. You’re not going to make

 

X Mayo  35:53

Yeah, yeah. I’d like to add, you got to get to your why. You got to get to your why. Because the thing is, too, I know so many people with amazing and wonderful, million, billion dollar ideas, but they lack the self discipline. Like, you know, you and I, we’re self starters. There’s nothing that nobody needs to tell me to do to get my work done. There’s nothing I don’t need someone to, you know, I don’t need a manager agency. But like, hey, you need to say, like, girl, no, like, I am so dedicated, overly dedicated, like KDA said on getting the dreams and the ideas that I have in my brain to fruition that it literally keeps me up at night. So I would say, to get to your why, and if your why is just financial security, that’s not enough to do.

 

Tarek Ali  36:37

It’s not enough.

 

X Mayo  36:39

It’s not enough.

 

Tarek Ali  36:40

It’s not enough.

 

X Mayo  36:41

So where can we find you? On socials, Tarek?

 

Tarek Ali  36:44

Yes, you can look me up. You can put my name in T, A, R, E, K, A, L, I, on every platform. It should come up. It’s it’s Tarek Ali. You can also go to leapintohealing.com. It’s an initiative I started to heal the world through media and technology. I’m meeting with filmmakers, psychiatrists, healers, therapists, you name it, to just bring healing to the people that need it the most. You can find my podcast, that conversation with Tarek Ali on all platforms, and, yeah, you’ll see my TV show very soon. So I’m excited about all that.

 

X Mayo  37:16

Yes, I love that. Oh, we need black queerness all over the world. It was such a pleasure speaking you with Tarek. I didn’t think that we was gonna go to church when we did, but we did go to The Dough, Apostolic Church tabernacle. Holiness is right. We did go there, Tarek.

 

Tarek Ali  37:36

God is God has just been strong in me. So I just he we’re.

 

X Mayo  37:41

Also church babies. We’re church babies. We can’t help it, but I thank you so much for coming on the pot. I look forward to following you and also supporting you in real life as well as on the socials. Okay? Thank you so much, Tarek.

 

X Mayo  37:58

I hope this conversation with Tarek blessed you all today, as it did me. And for any non believers out there who are listening without judgment, I hope you got something out of this conversation too, because no matter what or who you believe in, sometimes you have to sacrifice or give up something in order to bring in your abundance, whether that’s selling your Tesla like Tarek so you can have the money to work on your passion, or giving up your daily star b, so you can budget for that new couch you won’t be without money forever. So don’t let it hold up your dreams. Speaking of my dreamers out there, we all need to take the risk and move forward with our creative passions, even when our bank account is saying, Oh, hell no, sorry church, I cussed again, excuse me. Just trust me, the money will come and you can use me as living proof, baby. I have way more than $80 in a suitcase. Now I have $81 and with that, go in peace.

 

CREDITS  39:04

There’s more of The Dough with Lemonada Premium subscribers get exclusive access to bonus content, like blooper reels from our recording sessions. Subscribe now and Apple podcast. The Dough is a Lemonada original. I’m your host X Mayo. This series was created in partnership with Flourish Ventures. This series is presented by the Margaret Casey Foundation. Our producers are Claire Jones, Rachel Pilgrim and Tony Williams. Kristen Lepore is our senior producer. Mix and Sound Design by Bobby Woody. Original Music by Pat Mesiti-Miller. Jackie Danziger is our Vice President of narrative content. Executive Producers include me X Mayo, Stephanie Wittels Wachs and Jessica Cordova Kramer. Help others find our show by leaving us a rating and writing a review. You can follow me on IG  @80dollarsandasuitcase and Lemonada @lemonadamedia across all social platforms, follow The Dough wherever you get your podcast or listen ad free on Amazon music with your Prime membership, thanks so much for listening. See you next week, bye.