Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Derrick Phelps. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.
Derrick , so good to have you with us today. We’ve got so much planned, so let’s jump right into it. We live in such a diverse world, and in many ways the world is getting better and more understanding but it’s far from perfect. There are so many times where folks find themselves in rooms or situations where they are the only ones that look like them – that might mean being the only woman of color in the room or the only person who grew up in a certain environment etc. Can you talk to us about how you’ve managed to thrive even in situations where you were the only one in the room?
I have had a very long and diverse business career. One thing that I realized early on is that I am primarily a deal closer, a salesperson, and a career entrepreneur who has had to pitch or sell an idea for every endeavor that I have been involved in. Often, there have been situations wherein I have had to communicate business concepts, pitch proposals, or communicate an idea to a group or individual who is not African American.
The first thing that comes over me in that moment is something that my mother drove into my subconscious by repeating it to me day after day in my youth. She would say, “Remember, you have to be ten times as good as everyone else to get any recognition or gain any advancement in this world that we live in.”
I used to carry that as a burden, but eventually, it became a weapon until it was tempered into a tool. What I mean by this is that my initial energy was nearly dread in my youth because I felt that I had to earn the right to communicate my idea while anyone else had to earn their right to defend their idea. This might seem like a small difference but it isn’t at all. Because of the color of my skin, I often had to prove that I was intelligent or capable enough to have a voice or opinion at all. Then, if accepted, I was given the chance to expand upon my idea, and then defend or rebut. My white counterparts had already been entitled to the right to share and expand upon an idea and usually only had to defend or rebut objections as a secondary or tertiary function.
I evolved and embraced the mantra of my mother. I packed my vocabulary with overpriced words, explored the depths of any topic that I knew would be germane to my meeting or conversation, and aggressively engaged in overcoming objections before they were even posed. This was great until it became exhausting. Being prepared in such a way is liberating, but it takes a considerable amount of energy.
Finally, I allowed myself to believe that I belonged in every room. I used my mother’s voice as a reminder of where I had come from and it allowed me to relax, listen more, and humble myself to the opportunity. Humility and the willingness to lead from the front with a serving mentality turned my weapon into a tool that builds. I have developed decades-long business and personal relationships this way.
Great, so let’s take a few minutes and cover your story. What should folks know about you and what you do?
I grew up in Youngstown, Ohio. We didn’t have much, and for most of my childhood, I was raised by a single parent. My mother was amazing. She worked hard, loved hard, and was extra hard on myself and my siblings. But it worked. I didn’t realize how poor we were until I became an adult and looked back at the life that we had and the sacrifices that were made daily. I realized the things that were missing only after having them regularly as an adult. The things that we never did that I began to take for granted in my life as an adult. For instance, I don’t think I ever saw a charge card until I was a young man living on my own. My mother never had a new car. I can only remember shopping for school clothes once in my childhood and that was because I subsidized our household income that year by working at fast food restaurants, the produce department at our local grocery store, and cleaning yards in the neighborhood.
I did touch the abject poverty level for a few weeks when I first ventured out on my own. A friend from school had moved across the country to California. I was living in Las Vegas with a couple of roommates. I ran into him at a dance club and he invited me to move to California as his roommate in one of the rental properties that his father owned. Several weeks later, I took him up on the offer and had a friend drive me to beautiful San Diego. I was greeted at the new house by my friend. Within a few hours, his father walked into the house and told us both to get out. He had not given my friend permission to occupy the house. I was homeless with less than one hundred dollars in my pocket. I called my mother from a payphone. I explained what had just happened and her words to me were, “You’ll figure it out.”
This was the start to my life as a business person. I carried all of my things for a few miles until I arrived at a health club. I purchased a weeks-long pass and hid my things in the bushes at the rear of the building. I worked out during the day and slept in the locker room at night. One evening, the general manager approached me and told me that I could not sleep there. I asked him for a job. He said that he might have an opening for someone to clean the equipment each day. I asked him to give me a chance to sell memberships. He laughed at me. He said that his sales agents had been extensively trained. He said cleaning is all I have for you. I took it. Then I proceeded to collect names and phone numbers from the members that I spoke to every day. I went to the general manager after about a week and told him that I could outsell anyone on his staff. Once again, he laughed. I told him that I heard him congratulate one of his assistant sales managers for selling a company record of twenty membership upgrades in one week. I told him that I could accomplish that in one day. Again, as was his habit when engaging with me, he laughed. He then said that if I could do ten he would change my job title to sales agent. I asked him what would he do if I sold twenty. He said, “Don’t get ahead of yourself.” I told him that I wanted to know. He replied, “You can have the assistant manager’s job, but that will never happen.”
The next day, I sold forty membership upgrades. That night he gave me a manager’s shirt and told me that the other assistant manager had a spare bedroom that he wanted to rent to me for ten dollars a week until I earned my first commission check and got on my feet. In thirty days I was the top sales agent for the nationally recognized chain of health clubs with my own apartment and a great future.
Over the last several years I have fallen back to this foundational experience. I have spent several years increasing my vocabulary, and my understanding of psychology, sociology, philosophy, and the art of negotiation.
My many entrepreneurial endeavors and my willingness to understand people as individuals with pain points, objectives, fears, strengths, and desires have led me to develop a coaching platform to help couples regain the magic that was once the center and catalyst of their romance and commitment, one, to the other. My love for language, all of the experiences I have had, including my study of philosophy, and my creative nature have afforded me a gift for writing poetry. I have been developing my coaching platform with this way of communicating beautifully with your partner as its foundation. Allowing the muse effect to guide your steps. It is proving to be exciting and rewarding. I expect to do a Ted Talk by year’s end.
My love for fitness, overall health, and vitality, paired with my desire to be the best for my muse, prompted me to research the many natural tinctures, elixirs, and tonics that have been used all over the world to restore virility and male performance. I have just entered into production of my own men’s supplement called Dragonn Seed. It should be available online and in retail stores by the end of summer.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
I have three very strong skills that I have developed and curated over the last three decades of my life. They are patience, deduction, and initiative.
Patience in all things (not to be confused with settling or not driving toward your goals), especially in people. This has always been difficult for me, but I have settled into the understanding that my clock is abnormal. Everyone gets the same twenty-four hours, but our capacities are different. One person may be able to squeeze two days of productivity out of their twenty-four hours, while another may struggle to reach four. Having patience enough to let someone work through their problems and self-discipline to abstain from overcorrection have been growth responses for me. These skills have been crucial to my advancement in every aspect of my life.
Force yourself to listen to the stories of others in their entirety. Don’t be in a rush to offer your view, opinion, experience, or suggestions. Listen. Settle in. Go along for the ride and commit to seeing it through.
Deductive reasoning has been a strength of mine from birth. I have always been a problem solver. Being able to work backward from a circumstance and an outcome contemporaneously is one of my key strengths. I can arrive at appropriate starting points and benchmarks throughout the journey to resolution efficiently and with fewer casualties along the way. Start every problem-solving endeavor from the end, working backward to the condition. Along the way, pick out and benchmark the signposts of the failures that caused the problem along with what success would look like in those spots. Practice solving simple problems this way and apply this technique to watching films, planning meals, and eventually building personal peace and financial freedom.
Initiative, or a better descriptive word, action-taking, has been all at once a blessing and a curse. I have often stepped off of the curb into traffic simply because my nature is to launch the moment the idea enters my mind. I don’t allow time for doubt, circumstance, procrastination, or outside influence to slow the process of progress. I go. This is important for me and when I take on a new idea or project, this is how I create momentum. Challenge yourself to leaping headlong into low-risk projects. Take your first steps immediately and then refine your path.
But my biggest piece of advice has more to do with a perspective and behavior that you will train and exercise hopefully for the entirety of your life. One of my sons asked me what I thought was the key to living a good life. After a few days of thinking about it, and playing back my successes in relationship building and my failures in maintaining those bonds, I came up with this answer and I have tried to live by it since.
Live every day in such a way as to induce one thousand people to feel obligated to come to your funeral. How do you do that, one might ask. The answer is quite simple. Be committed to interacting with people in such a way that they feel better about themselves when they walk away from you than they did before walking up to you. The key is not to get them to feel better about you, but themselves. Feeling good about you will be a chemical, sociological, and psychological byproduct of this result.
Tell us what your ideal client would be like?
My ideal client is a man, woman, or couple that desires to save, strengthen, and maintain their relationship, or marriage and is willing to change their behaviors so categorically, that they become a new creature. This categoric rebirth is not necessary. But the willingness to do so makes this person malleable and open to ideas and actions that they have not explored. These are the best clients for my coaching.
Contact Info:
- Website:derrick-phelps.com
