As you probably notice, this month, we're bringing you our Life of Purpose series and revisiting

some of our most transformative episodes. Tune in to explore expert insights and practical

strategies on help, performance, and community well-being, all aimed at helping you achieve

personal and professional fulfillment. If you sign up for the newsletter, you'll not only get

recaps of the key ideas in each interview, but at the end of the series, you'll receive our free Life of Purpose ebook. What you have to do is go to UnmistakableCreative.com slash LifePurpose. Again, that's UnmistakableCreative.com slash Life Purpose. Donnie, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thanks to much for taking the time to join us. Thanks for having me. I'm excited to be here. It is my pleasure to have you here.

As I was saying before we hit record, I found out about your work through ShareHale, who is

literally the only publicist that we have never once said no to. She has a remarkable track record

with us. Anytime my friends ask, who should I hire as a book publicist, she's the person

that I say they should go to. I'm absolute pleasure to get in here. Before we get into your work,

I want to start asking you, what did your parents do for work? And how did that end up shaping the

choices that you've made throughout your life and career? My dad was a postal worker for 35 years after the Air Force, and my mom was a nurse's aide,

the working class family in Pittsburgh.

And in terms of how it shaped my upbringing, lots of ways, some of them invisible that I couldn't even tell you, I'm sure,

but the ones that I'm super aware of have to do with work ethic, for one.

My parents worked very hard and encouraged me to work hard and to be consistent and reliable. And also, I guess an offshoot of that

was the notion of integrity, being honorable and being true to your word. And some of that

certainly got reflected in the workplace, but they also wanted it to be reflected in how I treated other people, how I showed up in the world as a young black kid in a world that wasn't necessarily built for a young black kid.

Those are some of the ways that I think what my parents did for living and how they invested

themselves in work and honor and integrity.

I think those are things that informed who I am.

Yeah.

With your dad as a postal worker and your mother doing what she did, these seem like very

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