What up guys! Oh my god, today's episode is a must listen. My guest is a unique one. I sit down with the New York Times bestselling author, Devon Franklin. He's been named on Oprah's Super Soul 100 list of visionaries and influential leaders and his author of many bestselling books, including The Smash Here, The Truth About Men. For as you know, I don't often interview other guys, but not because I don't want to. I focus solely on bringing on guests that we can all relate to. Guess we can identify with and or guess that we can learn from. With his new, audible original, it takes a woman. We go deep on how his life and relationships have been shaped by the incredible power and strength of the women in his life. With his father dying at young age and growing up surrounded by a tribe of supportive women, he shares his insights into the key to communicating with the opposite sex. He also shares why we should strive for progress instead of perfection. How he overcame his struggles with feeling unseen. How to move on from a failed relationship and how seeing the sack of vices, the women in his life made, taught him the importance of self-prioritizing. Guys, this whole tale of how amazing women banded together to raise a young boy, comes with some freaking amazing, powerful lessons we can all learn from. So if you want to know and connect more with the opposite sex, as well as those closest to you, then get ready for today's episode of Women of Impact with incredible, divine, franklin. And guys, if this brought you it, please please do subscribe, like, share, comment,

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how this impacted you.

And without further ado now, onto the episode. So... The Vaughan, welcome to Women of Impact.

Thank you Lisa, thanks for having me.

I am so honored to have you and the where I want to start is with one extremely powerful quote of yours. We never fully come to terms with a loss that cuts us to our soul. Now you said that in, it takes your book, it takes a woman. How well women in your life able to help you overcome that cut to your soul?

Yeah, I mean, you know, that cut that I'm referencing is the death of my father. So when I was nine years old, my father died of a heart attack when he was 36. And that, you know, most of my life, that my memories of him, he was an alcoholic. And I'm the middle child of three boys. And so a lot of, you know, our upbringing was just trying to navigate, you know, the ups and downs of when he would be around and what state of mind he would be in and you know

we just never knew. So at nine years old, when he died, that death was so traumatic to all of us, me and my brothers and my mom, the day that he died, my mother picked us up from school and we were supposed to go to the hospital. And then she got the call that he had passed. hysterical, drives go to the hospital and then we got the call, you know, she got the call that he had passed.

You know, she's hysterical, now it drives us, you know, to the hospital and picked up one of my aunts along the way and so I start the book, you know, with that, that moment of my mother saying, you know, walking us into the morgue at the hospital, at Highland Hospital in California and she says, kiss your father goodbye. And so I talk about, you know, you don't know what cold is until you've, you know, had the

cold of the kiss of death.

And so I talk about, you know, you don't know what cold is until you've, you know, had the cold of the kiss of death. And so that pain and that trauma and that, you know, loss is really what inspired that quote. And so having that wound, you know, I think that, you know, the women in my family, my mother and my grandmother had seven, had seven sisters. And so, you know, it really was a lot of, you know, women in our village, so to speak, that really surrounded us. And I think what they saw was, here are three young boys who have a void, you know, losing their father has created this void, and we want to help them as much as we can. And I think that that desire to not want to see us

a statistic, that desire to say,

hey, Paul, let's can't do this on her own.

That's my mother's name.

Let's come in and help as best we can

to just give them the support that they need.

And so I think that the women in my family

were really galvanized to do that

because of the pain that they saw us go through.

And they were also in pain too. Losing my father was devastating for everybody.

I mean, yeah, so your mom had three boys. So just like that, she becomes a single mother overnight with three boys. And to deal with her kids trauma, as well as her own trauma, to have to go through that takes a strong, freaking woman. And that's one thing that you really talk about in your work and you have your family around you who also talk in the audible

About the experience that they go through and the one thing that you hear time and time again in the audible as you interview your mom and your aunt is tremendous strength. Yeah, tremendous strength now. They also show their vulnerability though. Mm-hmm And as a result, it's not just their internal work. They've done. It's the work they've done to actually impact other people That's right. You want yourself.

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