I
We ever know you should make up your mind
Take you back to my shrine And I'ma need a whole night And a little bit more
Let don't know how you like it
I'ma need a whole night and a little bit more
Let don't know how you like it
I'ma need a whole night and a little bit more
I got the feeling you've been here before
You needed tonight like a weekend ago
You in there, you out there, you playing the folder
We ain't need of a moment
Are we ever gonna know
You should make up your mind
Take it back to my shrine
Don't you fade them on mine
Let them be, let them grow
She was made for my eyes
We escaped the times
And I'ma need the whole night
And a little bit more
That don't know how you like it
First of all, thank you for coming
To the launch party of I'm Judging You to Do Better Manual, my first book
So I'll be sharing a stage with Emile Cambry who owns Blue 1647, so shout out to him
Emile is real chill, real understated, but he's a boss
He's a real boss, so
So yeah, we're gonna talk about my book and we might do some questions and then we will start the party
I hope you came in comfortable shoes
Yes
Okay, and hopefully some of y'all brought some singles because I'm expected to be sprayed
I'm saying, okay, you got me? That's what I'm saying, Mojin, yes
So yes, uh
So hey everyone, I'm Emile Cambry, founder of Blue 1647
I'll just give you a two-second introduction to who we are if you haven't been here before. Has anyone been here before?
Okay, I feel like I'm at home now
So we're a network of technology and entrepreneurship centers
We're about increasing technology, entrepreneurship in communities all over the country
We're in seven different cities and also in Haiti
So it's really important that we get people together to talk about culture technology
Entrepreneurship and working together to make move things forward
So I was really excited to be able to be here today to have an opportunity to share the stage with such an amazing woman
So welcome home
It's good to be home
So how does it feel?
It feels surreal because I have been to about seven cities in the last two and a half weeks
Uh, I have had about
I think I've had about six events and I have done about 20 different
press events
But Chicago is where I'm doing the party
So it was only right that I did it here
Well, tell tell us a little bit any good stories from any of the other launch events that you've had
Uh
one of the launch events that I had so
um
on
Tuesday, I
spoke at the smithsonia national museum of african-american history and culture
It is a very black year and uh, it's black history year
So I was actually the first author to speak there and um
Three days after the the opening of the museum and when I walked in to
Start my program a woman stops me and said she flew in from atlanta to from dc uh to atlanta and um
Her and I back back in the day. I used to do
Branding and marketing coaching one-on-one. I stopped doing it because I had less time
so she said in 2011 she did a session with me and uh, she said it changed her life
Because it gave her the courage to quit her job
Start her own business and now her business is prosperous. So she came to thank me in person
So it was like dog tears and it was amazing. So yeah
Well, tell us about the book. I mean what how did you get started? What's the whole process?
I always wanted to write a book, but I never had the time like
Talk about the process
So fun fact this cover that you're seeing is the next edition of my book that has the new york times best-selling badge on it
And chanda rhymes blurb is on the cover around the judgy pop
This is the first time i'm actually showing it publicly because it's going to print any day now
I think I already went to print so the next
It's like a wave of people who order my book are going to get that cover and adds a different back to um
So the idea for this
So um the idea for this book came two years ago august 4th 2014 at 6 56 p.m
And everyone's like what I remember that because I got plagiarized some journalists took three paragraphs of my work
He dropped it into his piece of work. Did not give me any credit
So I go on you know, I went in I went in on twitter on facebook on my blog by the end of the day
He had no edges left and
He emailed me was like, oh my god. I'm very sorry. I did this. I didn't know I wasn't supposed to do that
I was like
Talk about it. Okay. So I was like well, um
And I tweeted did some of us
Not get a limited edition handbook on how not to suck as humans
And then I was like, that's the book I need to write
And literally that's the book I wrote
I have the exact moment when I came up with the idea
A book agent emailed me two months later out of the blue and was like, hey, I read your blog
I think I it's great. I want to talk to you explore some opportunities
We get on the phone and he's quoting my blog to me from like two years before and I was like, oh, he's about that life
And he's like the skinny white dude
And I'm thinking, okay, there's no common ground here, but there was common ground. He loved my work
I signed with him and he was like, okay. So what are you gonna do? What are you gonna write?
And I said, I'm gonna write this book called I'm judging you. I thought they were gonna be like, nah
You can't call your book that but they were like, no, we love it
So I wrote my proposal in three and a half weeks. I gave it to my agent. He gave me edits back
I sent it back to him February early February 2015
I turned it into him finalized and he's like, okay, I'm gonna ship it out to editors. See who's interested
So a couple of weeks later, he's like five editors are interested
So I went to New York for like a couple of days took a whole bunch of meetings
I went to Kenya on vacation
My crew is here who went with me
Yes
We went to Nairobi for a week in early March 2015
I came back from Nairobi. I went to the white house because I'm for his gump
um
The day after still jet lagged. I woke up exhausted. I opened up my email and my agent goes you have a book deal
And uh, it's with Macmillan Henry Holt and I was like, oh
And the first person I called with my mom and my sister I put them on three way
And they know when I do that it means I have some amazing news
Ha so when I was like
I have a book deal and they're like, oh my god, that's great and I said it's with Macmillan
My mom goes the people who published my textbooks? Ha, I was like, yes, she was like, oh, that's impressive
So literally a month after I turned to my proposal. I had this book deal, which is completely atypical
um, my agent tells me that doesn't really happen often because you know, jesus favors real
So I saw the offer. I was like, this is good
Got the contracts back and forth for two months. I signed my
uh book deal on may 10th 2015
And um, I was like, okay. I guess I need to get to work on this book. So
between may 10th and october 15th
I wrote 80 000 words
um
across six countries four continents
and um
Yeah, and I saw october 15th was the date on my contract that said I had to turn this manuscript because I told my agent
I wanted my book to come out in 2016
So he said for that to happen you need to make sure you give your book
Manuscript by october or september and I was like, okay october
He looked at me funny because he's like you're gonna write a book in five months. I was like watch
So on october 15th, I turned in my manuscript at 4 45 p.m
And I celebrated and then I realized that it was a year to the day that the agent had emailed me
To say he went to represent me
And uh, look at jesus
Get up
One thing I always admired about you is your grind and people don't really understand just how hard it is to go from
Doing something to something amazing where everybody shows up. Can you talk a little bit about just the balance of?
Working on your blog writing your your book and all your other obligations other things that you have to do as well
Uh, there's no balance
I think I think the concept of balance is false
Because if you're grinding really hard in one way you're dropping the ball in other ways. It's just why I was going to work
so
Like it means so when I was traveling those five months when I was writing this book
My blog was still up, but I kind of was on hiatus, but nobody really really understood that I was on hiatus
I was just posting up old stuff that I'd written
And everybody's like yes, I'm like I didn't write that today
Did not write that today. Um
Um, I remember so basically I would be writing on airplanes
I would go on an excursion. I remember when I was in dubai
I went on this like sand excursion and I came back to my room
There's like sand all over everything and I'm like writing and when we were in morocco
Um, we had gone shopping and I was sitting on I was sitting on the balcony of our hotel
Uh, and I was like I have to write part of my africa chapter in here and I sat there and I wrote a piece of my africa chapter
So it means I was always working even when I was on vacation
I didn't take true vacations because I was always doing something. So there is no balance even now
I barely have balance. There's no balance actually zero. There's even less than before
Um, it means sometimes I sleep four hours in the night as I go, uh
Catch a flight fun fact it caught up to me yesterday
I show up to WGNTV and I was like, hey, yeah, so I'm here and they're like
You're scheduled to be here next Thursday. Oh
And everybody was like getting assistant. I have to okay like
And it literally caught up with me because I was like, oh the one thing I didn't put on my calendar. So
Yeah, I dropped some balls. I I do like there are emails that are sitting there
I think my best friend sent me an email and it took me five months to reply to her
And I literally was like, I don't even have an excuse besides the fact that I just dropped that ball. I'm sorry
So I've already written up a blog post to apologize to everybody that I'm going to be a sucky friend
sister
Like everything for the next three months as I'm on tour. Just don't look to me to be on point
I'll be back. I'll be back in january. But before then I will be absent. So I'm sorry
So what are some of the main takeaways that you have with the book?
I know there's so many and you've got favorite chapters and favorite stories and other things
Anything you want, uh
Taking away
I want people to actually do better in general. So
It sounds so simple
So fun fact is everything about this book is basically 80 90 of what I turned into the in my original manuscript
including the order like the order of this book is originally what it was
Don't the the last thing that I changed was the tagline the do better manual because the tagline before was going to be life and lessons on
side eyes
On life culture social media and fame. But honestly, I think I just want people to do better. So I call it the do better manual
um, what I want people to take away from this book is
That it is an
It's not an obligation
It is an obligation for you to leave the world better than you found it
Because I feel like it would be a little bit less sucky if people were committed to the idea that it is your job
To make somebody else's life better. So I
My last chapter is called do something that matters for that reason
So and I think I got that from my mom though and I so my mom is like here
I wanted to like make her stand up
She's too shy to stand up. Ah
So I mentioned her throughout the book and I was there's a story that I told in the last chapter
that it's kind of like indicative of
how I was raised and um
For those who haven't read the book
So when I was like four three or four, I had this doll that I really loved that looked like real
like it looked like a real baby that I used to just like carry everywhere is my favorite thing and um
One day my mom had like a visitor and she brought her daughter and her daughter went to play with my daughter and I was like no
Not at all. This is me
And I was like real like no this is not gonna go down like this
And when they were about to leave my mom takes the doll from me and gives it to the girl
Yo, when I tell you heartbroken
Like wept okay sobbed because I was just like why would you give her and the the woman wanted to give the doll back to me
But my mom was like no, this is hers
And when they left she was like look, okay, you have more things that you know how to do it like so give it to somebody else
It's not going to kill you and I'm gonna be like but it will
But I think that's like that is really the point is if we have some things in abundance
We can we can stand to give away some things and we can stand to like
put some put our voices on the line and
Look, I ain't got no jobs. I can say whatever I want to say
So I'm so I was at a conference last week and I
Won this award and when I got on the stage it was like all these white people in the audience like
So I said okay instead of my regular speech. I want to thank I thank three people and then I was like okay
Now here's what I want you to do white people who are in here
And one of the things was I was like I need you to donate to anti-racist organizations. I was like because you got money
The whole place is like y'all you right
There's like we do have money yes
And I was like you can give that money to people who are actually doing work and after the fact
Um the the senior VP of Microsoft comes up to me while he actually said it on stage
He was like I'm gonna I'm charged to do what love you just said
And his staff came up to me was like I appreciate that and I was like look I can say that because I ain't got no job to lose
So those of us who don't have our livelihoods to lose
We can give stuff away. You have extra food. You're not gonna starve. Give it somebody who needs it
You you have extra money. Give it to BYP 100 shout out to BYP 100 that's in here. Okay
So
Yeah, that's about it
That's it
But um, yeah, so what was the hardest part about putting this together because I'm sure you have so many ideas
It's two o'clock in the morning. You say, you know what? I need to add this in I need to take this out
What was the hardest part about putting this?
Self-editing the entire way because if you edit constantly you're never going to finish it
So I was just writing I'd leave a chapter alone not come back to it for a couple of months
But the hardest chapter for me to write was a racism chapter
Out of all the chapters that I wrote that's the one that took me the longest
Because I I was like, okay, there's a bunch of stuff I could say
um, I remember when I
Sent so every one of my friend well not every one of my friends
So none of my friends got to read more than two chapters of this book before the book itself come out
But I remember when I sent my racism chapters one of my friends
She literally was like you just came out the gate with no chill
And that's because the first sentence
Of the racism chapter says
When your empire grows out of soil fertilized with the blood of a people it must sustain this power with their continued bloodshed
And she was like you ain't even chill
And I was like, no, there's no chill here
So that chapter was really hard because I end up writing it. I wrote a little bit of it the night of the charleston shooting
Because I was compelled to write
Because I was so angry and I was like, all right, put it on paper. So
Honestly throughout this book. I sometimes I actually tell you where I'm writing these words. So there's in this piece
I'll tell you that I'm writing this as a church is burning in South Carolina. Um, so
Just knowing exactly what's wrong. I do know one chapter that I left out and it was called don't do math
I felt y'all knew that so I shouldn't put that in there
So where else do you get your inspiration from that helps you kind of guide your style and some of the things that you work on and
I know you're very topical as well
Things that are, you know, taking place every single day and you know the benefit for your platform is you have a love
A lot of people who love you, right? They cheer for you to support you. Shout out Love Nation. Yeah
Turn
Um, I get inspiration everywhere shenanigans. Um, I'm a fan of shenanigans. Okay, so
Random videos that people send me on the internet
um
I read twitter all day. Well not all day. I'm trying to be on twitter last because
um
I get I get inspiration from everywhere honestly, so I can be watching tv or I could be having a conversation with my friends
And a lot of times the conversations I have with my friends end up becoming blog posts
Okay, we'll start in gchat and I'm like, oh, I should write about this
I actually used to have a group blog with my friends called. Um, was it house of ignorant?
Yeah
We used to have a group because so people ask me like, um, where did you find your voice?
Um, and I tell them I didn't find my voice
I've been this person since high school. Shout out to Whitney Young Dolphins that are here
Okay, yes
Wait, wait, wait though should have been a dolphin
Okay, see
So like a bunch of my high school friends are here
Who can attest to the fact that I am I was this person in high school like we used to be in the hallway
Acting a complete fool and that's who you see now. Like I still act a complete fool. So, yeah
Anything else you want anybody to know about about this? Okay, so
I gotta read my acknowledgements
Okay, I'm gonna read some of that. Um
Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Let's see. Okay
Um
Meanwhile, so the people who will have to put up with me and my new found important as a top flight author of the world
must be thanks
My family's my backbone and I love them dearly. My mom especially deserves gratitude
Not just because she gave me life, but because my side eye was passed down from her
I've been on the receiving end of it all my life and he's taught me how to also tell people to have a seat without words
I high-fived heaven for my first home. Yummy. Shout out to my sister Kofo my biggest cheerleader and my partner in patty
She ain't got no behavior
um
Thank you for always lifting me up and thanks to my brother deli and my sister cousin mariah
My blood squad is amazing. I love y'all like Nigerians love white rice
My chosen family is the shit too. If you think I have no chill you should meet my friends
Not one of them has behavior and this is partly why I keep them around
They've allowed me to practice my shadiness over the years, but also they celebrate with me and our love is real
It was in antonio's apartment that I've read the email saying I got my book deal
Yes
Sheena was who I called first
Takara saw me right after I signed with my publisher patrice got to hear me do a jig when I finished my manuscript
And therefore out of so many dope folks to name. I love y'all. We are gonna be 90 and still cackling like drunk seals
And we would chase young folks off our lawns
And this book is dedicated to love nation in my online community and in real life community because y'all are here
I unfortunately have built an incredible base of chill deficient
intelligent brilliant thoughtful hilarious life affirming people have come to regard as the cousins. I've never met some of y'all
I've met now
And where the comment section of most websites on the internet is the den of iniquity mine is a black hole of brilliance
Thanks to the folks who read my blog this book is for them and because of them
Last but not least like the cliche christian that I am
I have to thank god
I firmly believe that my path has been littered with god's grace
And it's elevated and propelled me forward
I am thankful because my life is a testament to something greater than myself
And for me that greatness is god and god is good
All the time
If I've left you out blame it on my head not my heart
And on the word count that I need to respect
So you can blame it on my editor allison
Uh, she told me to erase the amazing paragraph that I dedicated to you if you didn't get a paragraph in here
Throwing people under the bus in my acknowledgments terrible, but thank you for supporting this book because
Me making the new york times best-selling lists
I didn't just make it in one category
Okay, so the I came out the gate number five in paperback nonfiction
Which is one of the hardest categories to break into because
The people who are in that category have been in there for weeks for years for decades
So me hitting the list
Is not a small feat. I also hit it in um
E-book sales
And combined print and e-book
Okay, so that was already majoring itself and then
Wednesday the list this week's least list came out and I'm still on it
And my agent who is not impressed by anything
Mike is the most even kill I have never heard this man be excited
Even when he told me I had my book. He's like you have a book deal. Congrats. Love you and I was like, thank you Mike
Mike calls me this week and says
I just wanted to let you know that this is a big deal that you're on the list for the second time
Because what that means is
New sales momentum and people kept on buying your book
so
My goal here is that my book doing well
Makes it easy for a black girl who loves to write to walk into a publishing house and say hey
Lovey's book did well
So mine will because in publishing here's the thing if we fail we are the rule
If we excel we're considered more. So I had no option to fail. There was no failing in this because somebody else would have failed
So to everybody who is here who
Has bought this book who has told people to buy this book who has bought
multiple copies of this book
You are the reason why i'm on the list
So I just want to say thank you
And
With that being said we are going to move the chairs to the side
Because we are about to kick it and what that means is turn up. Okay. Thank you
The roof
Oh
Lovey, I'm so proud of you. You're an awesome amazing woman that
Thankfully the lord I get to see
People more often than most
God bless you and all your success
Congratulations. We love you so much. Congratulations on all your success. Thanks for all the clothes. Thank you
Thank you. Keep them coming girl. Thank you for coming
My advice
Love it. We'll see you next christmas. Love you lovey. Lovey. Um, congratulations on all of your success
This is only the beginning. I'm so proud of you
I'm judging you, but I'm not judging you. This is my bookmark. I'm reading it. It's in a process. I'm loving it so far
Congratulations again, and uh, winny young dolphins should have been a dolphin
Lady
Are you sure you can take this love
Lovey congratulations on your book. I am so so proud of you. This book is hilarious is awesome
And I would don't expect anything less but great things of you in the future. Congratulations. Caleb says hi. I love you
This is cofo. I'm not drunk, but
I love you. I am so so proud of you. So proud of you. Keep it up. We all love you. Hello. My name is opa femi
um
Come on teeth. Congratulations. Love you on teeth
Good work on this book. My name is Alayah Michelle, and I am loving. I'm judging you by lovey ajai
I'm so excited for her
Success and I it's just been great to follow her journey. It's such an inspiration to
A nigerian american like myself who's out here trying to help people
She's just such a huge inspiration, and I wish her nothing but the best in life. Congrats. Lovey
Hey, lovey. It's me jenna boo. Just want to say congratulations on all of your recent success is well deserved
If anyone deserves this rise to the top it is you you have a heart as big as your shoe closet
And I just wish you so much more success. I love you very much girl. Take care. Lovey look
It's no secret. I love you. You are one of the most inspiring
people women nigerians
Black women that I've ever met. I stand so hard for you. I write so hard for you
Because what you do I'm sure is not easy, but I want you to know that look we have your back
We love you. You're an inspiration to me to a lot of people
And yes, keep winning. Get them in Sawinia, Dolphins, we represent that squad, Michelle Obama, Skulls. You should have been a Dolphins!
Squad. Squad. Give me your thanks. This is the universe.
Give it a little way. We're saying congratulations. Lovey. I'm judging you.
All right, so this has been a situation. This is my birth launch party in Chicago
I had to do it big because this is home
And I've gotten so much love. It's been an amazing night
I wanted to thank my family for their support. I want to thank my friends for coming
My high school friends, college friends, Ampersand Wine Bar for providing the alcohol
Um, basically this has been dope. The game come true
I'm judging you. So buy the book if you haven't bought it. I'm judging you book.com buy the judgey pen
And thank you for supporting my work. This has been amazing. So thank you
If you let me talk, you need to let me love you to the moon
Mom, mom, you can let me love you
Mom, mom, you can let me talk to you
Mom, mom, you can let me love you
Mom, mom
And if you want me and if you let me love you now
It's true. What I need is more for love me right now
It's true. I'm afraid because I love you now
