Kwanzaa is an African American celebration, created during the aftermath of the Watts riots in the US. In tough times, I love the idea of elevating the best of people. So I decided to celebrate that moment to wrap up 2020, which we can all agree was, at best, a challenging year.
Over a period of 7 days, I will interview 7 special guests. Each interview’s theme will be based on one of the 7 principles of Kwanza:
1. Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race
2. Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.
3. Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.
4. Ujamaa (Cooperative economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
5. Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
6. Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
7. Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
Today, my special guest is Phalakone Mysay. He lives in Toronto with his wife and daughter. He is an Author and an Entrepreneur in Real Estate and eCommerce. He lives by his motto of “Make it Happen”. And indeed he has been making it happen for more than a decade. After arriving broke in Canada, he is a self made millionaire, who is only getting started. Listen to his original point of views on Creativity, Race, Negotiation and much more.
The Black Negotiator 