About
Embarking on a journey that began in the military, a man's path took a serendipitous turn due to love, steering him towards a noble calling as a teacher. Embracing the transformative power of his experiences, he ultimately found his true passion in the realm of writing. Now, he delves into the depths of religious topics, weaving his diverse experiences into insightful works that explore the intricate tapestry of faith, human emotion, and the quest for understanding.
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Alternate Titles For The Algorithm:
From Classroom to Scripture: A Teacher's Journey
Chalk Dust to Holy Writ: Transforming Visions
Lessons Beyond the Lectern: Faith's New Chapter
Educating Souls: The Path from Teaching to Preaching
Blackboards to Blessings: A Life Redefined
The Teacher's Quest: From Adolescents to Absolutes
Divine Syllabus: The Educator's Leap of Faith
From Grading to Grace: A Story of Enlightenment
Scripture after School: Teaching, Learning, Believing
Homeroom to Holy Rooms: A Spiritual Awakening
The Scholarly Saint: From Classroom Conversations to Sacred Texts
Beyond the Bell: Journeys in Faith and Writing
The Educator's Pilgrimage: From Secular to Sacred
Chalkboards and Chapels: An Educator's Evolution
Lesson Plans to Liturgies: The Transformation of a Teacher
Teaching to Testimony: Bridging Knowledge and Belief
Curriculum of the Soul: A Teacher's Divine Discovery
The Enlightened Educator: From Public Schools to Pulpits
Apostles and Assignments: The Dual Life of a Teacher-Writer
Pedagogy and Piety: Charting a New Course in Faith
Show Notes
00:00:01
Hey y'all this is your host, Elyse Robinson with the nobody wants to work through podcast season 2. I hope the stories inspire you to switch careers. I have done all kinds of interesting things in my life and I'm.
00:00:12
A firm believer if.
00:00:13
You all live once, sit back and enjoy.
00:00:19
We are switch.
00:00:20
To tech tech resources to accelerate your career in information technology, monthly classes on tech topics we offer free or discounted exam vouchers, scholarships for you to meet courses, free events, free boot camps, and more. You can find us at www.switchintotech.
00:00:41
Dot org OK.
00:00:45
Hey y'all, this is Elyse Robinson with the nobody wants to work though podcast today I have Cedric Signore with me today and he's going to talk more about himself and his career switches and whatever else we get into. Go ahead, Cedric.
00:01:03
Hi my name is Cedric Signar and I am originally from Cleveland. I was born in Cleveland. OH, I'm originally from Sandusky and I am one of thirteen children. My mom and dad moved us to be a greyhound in 1977 from.
00:01:20
Sandusky, from Sandusky, OH to Sacramento. My mom had a job with then Governor Jerry Brown and I.
00:01:29
Was raised here and I went to school here and I wanted to join the the military. I wanted to, you know, go to the Navy. But I wanted to go and.
00:01:41
Learn about computers so they promised me that I can join the Navy and go into computers, and I signed up and they gave me my assignment, which wasn't computers. I had to fix airplanes. I was hydraulics, meaning fixing the hydraulics parts of airplanes and.
00:02:02
I wasn't happy about that, but I did learn to trade.
00:02:05
It also is where I learned how to.
00:02:08
Enjoy going to school and getting good grades cause I was just a.
00:02:13
A difficult student in high school. I didn't.
00:02:17
Takes school seriously and I.
00:02:22
When I went to the military, they're about learning, learning, learning, learning, learning and I learned about airplanes and I learned about the hydraulics part of airplanes and it made me fall in love with learning.
00:02:34
That was the first part of my career.
00:02:36
I was stationed in Hawaii.
00:02:39
And circumstances led to where I.
00:02:44
Didn't have a second stint with the Navy, and so I wanted to become a lawyer. So I came back to Sacramento.
00:02:53
And.
00:02:55
I was just maybe like on the brink of becoming a lawyer. I I I took the.
00:03:04
The test and passed and then OJ Simpson trial happened.
00:03:10
And that changed my mind about becoming a lawyer because I used to always tell people I wanted to be the world's first ethical lawyer.
00:03:19
And.
00:03:20
That's almost like an oxymoron to to, you know, and so.
00:03:26
I decided that at the time I was coaching basketball and I.
00:03:31
End up becoming a teacher.
00:03:34
And I taught a leadership class in history class.
00:03:38
At Luther Burbank High School, which is here in Sacramento.
00:03:42
And I.
00:03:46
Love that so much. I stayed with it. The money wasn't good, but the IT was one of the most wealthiest jobs I've ever had because I've learned so much about people.
00:03:59
I always wanted to write a book. I always wanted to write a book, especially a book about the Bible, a book about religion. Because my mom, I just said, or who used to be the.
00:04:11
President of the NAACP here in Sacramento.
00:04:14
No.
00:04:17
She used to teach classes on revelations at the end time.
00:04:22
And I she would make us go. She would make us go. And I'm glad she did. And I learned a lot. And so I said, I've always said I wanted to write a book. I always wanted to write a book. So then.
00:04:35
I.
00:04:37
Started reading the left behind series by Jerry Jenkins and Tim Lahay and I fell in.
00:04:44
Love with those books.
00:04:46
But one of the things that we're missing out of those books is they talk about.
00:04:51
Characters. None of them look like me or you. Like what happens in the rapture?
00:04:58
To black, black people, what happened to Mexican people? What happened to Asian people? Is it just the white experience? You know, the Rapture experience is just the white experience. So I told myself I wanted to write a book on it.
00:05:12
And I did, and that's. That was my third and my final career change. And I I'm loving it. I'm. I'm loving writing and and I'm loving the processes that go with write.
00:05:25
So that's me.
00:05:28
That's interesting. I I went to. I went to Smedberg and Sheldon. I'm trying to thank you. Oh, my God. It's 20 years ago.
00:05:36
You're a baby.
00:05:38
20 years ago this year. Wow. But yeah, and actually, no, it it would be 20 years as of January, cause I graduated high school semester early, even though I was like you. I didn't say I didn't really care about school cuz I did it just.
00:05:55
It was too slow. Like I learned when I went to Guatemala to learn Spanish because in Mexico.
00:06:03
It's too expensive there, so I went to Guatemala and I had a a private teacher and I did a home stay with the family and I learned that I need to go at my own pace and that's why I hated school so much is because they were too damn slow for me, you know, and I need to. I need to ask questions on my own.
00:06:24
You know, to dig deeper into to things. So it took me.
00:06:30
Like 30 years to figure that out. Like but. But yeah, that's what I I learned 30 years later about about school.
00:06:44
What did you want to be when you grew up?
00:06:48
I.
00:06:50
I always wanted to be a lawyer. I always wanted to be a lawyer because I like argue.
00:06:57
And I I'm a very analytical, very logical person. And I just wanted to help people that needed help, you know, and.
00:07:06
And.
00:07:07
I was set on that I was never one of the kids who wanted to be an astronaut. I played sports, I played basketball, ran track, was very good at it, never wanted to be an athlete. I just wanted to be a lawyer.
00:07:20
And I when I went into the military, like I said earlier.
00:07:25
The plan to go to be, to come, to go into the lawfield required that I go to get a Commission, which means I would have to go to Annapolis. I would have to go to a different type of military experience than I wanted. I wanted to just be an enlisted person, not a commissioned person. So I.
00:07:43
Ditch that plan and decide I want to.
00:07:45
Just you know.
00:07:46
Work on computers, so I take computers apart and.
00:07:48
Put them back together again.
00:07:50
So yeah, I wanted to always be.
00:07:53
Become a lawyer.
00:07:55
In a way, at least I feel like I still am a lawyer because I'm now pleading the case for.
00:08:05
A.
00:08:06
Different type of or mitigating.
00:08:11
Sort of forgot I'm. I'm mitigating for people like us.
00:08:16
This.
00:08:17
Their walk with God and their spirituality and and in a way I I feel like I'm that already like people often say, are you a minister and I I'm I'm. I'm never the one with with titles. I don't like titles. I always said that.
00:08:33
Peter is Peter.
00:08:34
John is John, Jesus is Jesus, and I gotta call you Reverend. What?
00:08:39
You know, like they didn't take on title. So you know, why should I just and nor am I putting people down. I teach my kids to always say doctor and and reverend but.
00:08:52
If I I would never require someone to call me that so.
00:08:57
I I've always felt like I was.
00:09:00
Sort of like descending.
00:09:03
People like me and.
00:09:07
Defending the truth as it's supposed to have been like portrayed to us coming from God.
00:09:14
So I guess I still am a lawyer.
00:09:19
My mother wanted to be a lawyer and I I talked her out of it. I got some book called like 50 reasons not to go to law school or something like that. And and she read it and she was like.
00:09:31
Oh, hell no.
00:09:34
So so yeah, I mean, cause my mother, like, she would have been like the female Johnny Cochran, like my mother.
00:09:42
Mm-hmm.
00:09:42
Had.
00:09:43
The gift of gab, and you know she loved to write in the research, and she was always just lost stuff anyway, like fighting all these cases. It was it was just a mess.
00:09:54
And.
00:09:55
My mother was. I'm gonna say just a clerk, but she retired from the state of California as, as, as a clerk, a statistical clerk. But.
00:10:07
But yeah, no, she she would have been like the Johnny, Johnny next female Johnny Cochran. Like, seriously.
00:10:17
Let's see what was the excuse me. My allergies is kind of up there. This weather keeps flip flopping. What was the catalyst that made you change your career? I don't know if you talked about why you didn't stay in the military and you know you became a teacher.
00:10:38
Well, if I told you the story why I didn't tell him to stay in the military, it would be more like a reality drama. Yeah. I mean, if you wanna hear it, I'll share it with you.
00:10:47
I I I've worked on military base before, I probably get I probably fully, totally understand and I'm at a VA hospital too. Well, mine is a little bit more melodramatic and adult relationships. Well, I'll, I'll just try to briefly share the story with you. I felt my high school sweetheart.
00:11:08
Fell in love with it.
00:11:09
She.
00:11:11
Convince me.
00:11:13
Along with the fact that my father was in the Navy, she kind of convinced me that you want to do that, that that'll be the path that we take. That would be the path we take.
00:11:21
And.
00:11:22
I went in because I wanted to start a family with her.
00:11:26
And.
00:11:27
Long story short, she ripped my heart into two. I ended up.
00:11:36
It was a situation to where I was.
00:11:40
Completely trusting her in Hawaii and she decided to kind of move on back in Sacramento and that had me leaving Hawaii unauthorized to come back to Sacramento to try to patch things up with her. I married her.
00:12:00
Try to patch things up and so I ended up being.
00:12:04
Kicked out of the Navy for with a bad conduct discharge for not going to work. I just didn't go back to Hawaii.
00:12:12
But.
00:12:14
And I got in trouble for that, so that that was more of.
00:12:17
A forced career.
00:12:18
Changed to be honest with you, the career change from teaching and coaching to writing was more because of retirement. My body is tired and I just wanted to continue to try to.
00:12:36
Voice. Some of the things that I think that are important. So I switched over to becoming a, becoming a writer.
00:12:45
So was there like a period of time where you were kind of like floating between the military and being a teacher, or did you just go right at teaching?
00:12:54
Yes, yes, yes. And some things that you maybe at a later time. There's some things that you said in some of the interviews where people were interviewing you that I thought was very interesting and so true. But like like the the floating period, yes, that, that that was there was.
00:13:15
A time where.
00:13:17
I was just a nomad. I was.
00:13:18
Just.
00:13:20
What do I do? What do I do? Because my entire life?
00:13:24
Was building the family.
00:13:27
And now I have no family. I have no wife.
00:13:32
I have no career.
00:13:35
What do I do? And the only thing I can think of at least?
00:13:39
Was.
00:13:40
I'll just go to school. I like going to school, so I enrolled in Consumers River College.
00:13:46
And ended up becoming the President of the student body at Consumers River College. I was carrying. You know, you're only supposed to take 12 units.
00:13:55
I have had 27 units which had to get signed off by the Dean and and this is sort of how me and you kind of cross. I was a geek I I love.
00:14:09
I had an astronomy class where I was in the morning, but because I wanted to ace the class, I would go to the evening class. So I'll have it all packed. I didn't want Ace. I want it. If there was 1000 points, I wanted all 100, all thousand points. I didn't want to miss one and so I was. I got straight.
00:14:29
Straight a straight off the route which helped me become the student body president.
00:14:35
And my friend the.
00:14:38
I asked a few classes, but if you try to ace the class, the worst that can happen is you get a if you try to get straight A's, the worst that can happen is a B. So in one of my classes that I wasn't acing that and again ace means you get 100% of the points the Spanish.
00:14:54
And Spanish like math.
00:14:57
You have to practice every single day. You can't just.
00:15:02
You know, think you're gonna wing it so.
00:15:06
I was in the low 90s and I wanted to make sure that I kept my 4.0 GPA so my friend's wife tutored me.
00:15:15
And I ended up getting the B.
00:15:17
And once you get a bee, the bees start flowing. They come and I ended up getting maybe two or three B's in my college career because of that.
00:15:27
So yeah, and what I did to steal that loan was go to school. I went to school, learned as much as I can and.
00:15:35
Got a degree in history and.
00:15:38
I love history because it was like watching the movie.
00:15:43
That happened already, and of course, because I believe in the Bible, that's the history of its of itself. So I studied a lot of the Bible and that kind of helped me.
00:15:53
With what I'm doing right now.
00:15:57
That's funny when you say you're a geek, cause I consider myself to be a geek, but I'm only thing of sees get degrees. That's that's my.
00:16:05
That's right, that is so this.
00:16:07
Well, I told my friend I gotta say this, my friend who's going to school to become a doctor.
00:16:13
And she was upset because she got a B.
00:16:18
And then that beat went down, and she was about to get a seat to pass a class. So I'm like, well, explain to me, what do you call a doctor that?
00:16:25
Got straight A.
00:16:26
'S in school, she said. Doctor, I said, what do you call a doctor? They got a B's and C's.
00:16:31
She said, doctor, I'm like, exactly. That's that's once you pass. That's the point, you know, no one looks at a person's degree and say that's a straight A's doctor. That's an A&B doctor that's an A&B. And she got 1C. Doctor says you did what you had to do, and now you have the degree. So.
00:16:53
Yeah, cause like I said, I'm more of like the independent study type of person, you know, cause a lot of stuff they have in school with some fluff. Anyway, get me down to the nitty gritty and the juicy stuff. The stuff that I can apply to real life, you know? So, you know, I don't. I don't really care about all that other stuff.
00:17:07
Hey, man. Yeah, telling the truth.
00:17:14
But you know, I ain't I. I barely graduated high school. I barely graduated college. But look at me now. Ohh. Let's see.
00:17:25
Get you down. Look at you down.
00:17:29
And you kind of talked about a little bit all these things come at a cost. You know when you wanted to become a a teacher and you left the military, I mean. But let me back it up. When you left the military, you know, to go chase you. Boo. Did you have people in your ears saying don't do it, don't do it. And then we wanted to become a teacher or.
00:17:50
You were like, yeah, you crazy. And then now that you're a writer and, you know, the Bible is is a big, you know, controversial topic, you know, you know, people in your ear.
00:17:59
And it is it is, it is, yes.
00:18:07
There were people that were telling me.
00:18:10
Look right in front of you. You're.
00:18:11
A logical person.
00:18:12
She doesn't care about you. She does not care. And but I I believed in love. I believed in love. And I believe in the fairy tale version of it.
00:18:24
Because I was taught to love by this person, so I believed in her.
00:18:32
And yeah, my my mom. My mom was one of them. My sister. I have a sister who's sort of like my mom. She was like twin leave her alone. She's the devil. Leave her alone. She's the devil, you know. Don't don't pursue that. And it's weird because I wish I had this in.
00:18:49
Earlier to the advice.
00:18:53
I end up taking the advice, but sometimes that advice when you don't heat to it comes with another price that you end up paying.
00:19:00
Now as far as becoming a teacher, everyone.
00:19:05
I ended up getting married and I have three daughters and.
00:19:10
They see how.
00:19:13
Smart, their father is and.
00:19:17
Their thing is you can do so much with your brain. Why would you become a coach and a teacher?
00:19:25
Why you're getting paid peanuts.
00:19:29
And.
00:19:31
That created tension and my relationship with my daughters because I spoiled them growing up as long as they got good grades they have, they got all the finer things in life.
00:19:41
And that.
00:19:43
Kind of put a strain on our relationship because.
00:19:47
They wanted the father.
00:19:50
To be.
00:19:52
As prestigious as the way that he thinks and the way he talks in the way that he feels. But I was. I've never been one to chase after materials or anything like that. But like, for some reason that's sort of how I raised my kids to like to find the things in life because I got them to finer things in life.
00:20:12
So that strained our relationship.
00:20:15
That on the second one now I'm still new in the. I think it's two years now that I've been writing and.
00:20:24
The cost that I can say that writing.
00:20:27
Has is.
00:20:30
Or being becoming an author is.
00:20:34
You see.
00:20:36
So clearly your vision.
00:20:39
But.
00:20:40
Because you're dealing with other people's perspective.
00:20:44
You can't expect them to see as clearly as what you see, and that's a lesson that I'm learning over over again. Like Cedric, they're not going to see it exactly the way you do understand it because you don't see exactly what they see and I'm learning.
00:21:00
To.
00:21:01
To not expect people, because expectations sometimes can ruin relationships and not expect them to see things the way I do. Especially when you come up the Bible translations and.
00:21:15
I've lost a couple.
00:21:18
Connections not relationship, but this connections from my view on the Bible because it's a little different than than the mainstream view.
00:21:30
And.
00:21:31
When I started writing it's I'm more about like reading the Bible and studying the Bible and learning the Bible and that's the cost I end up losing some connections because how I feel.
00:21:46
Kind of.
00:21:48
Set me apart from Main Street and I've never been one to just go by tradition or just go by just cause someone tell you something. That's the way it's supposed to be. No, that has to be proven. It has to be proven.
00:22:02
You touched on a lot because you know, like I said, my mother could have been the next Johnny Cochran. But I never. I never really judged my mother for it or anything like that because I I under, you know, I understand now that she had a family, you know, she couldn't go back to law school. You know, they didn't have all this online stuff that they have now. And you're going to find.
00:22:21
Right.
00:22:21
Right, right.
00:22:22
Trying to do it, you know what I'm saying? So you know when your daughters get older, you know, maybe maybe they'll get it.
00:22:31
My God, dude. But.
00:22:35
And outside of that, the different perspectives, I mean, yeah, one thing you know I and I I found out is that people come and go. You know, when you start to make certain changes and things like that and they they can't stay around. So it's it's just your next journey journey in life and it is what it is.
00:22:56
But.
00:22:58
But yeah, good stuff right there.
00:23:05
Let's see the process on switching careers. We kind of talked about a little bit. I mean, of course you have to go to college.
00:23:13
To.
00:23:13
Be a teacher. I mean, maybe talk about, you know, your student teaching the credentialing.
00:23:22
You know, how did you convince someone to? Ohh. I'm going from? Well, they probably have programs now, but I don't know if they did back then. But the military to to teaching programs.
00:23:35
You know, convince someone. Hey, you know I'm not gonna go back to the military and I want to be a teacher now you know that going from airplanes to teaching, that's that's, you know, the whole different thing. So what was your process and?
00:23:44
Right.
00:23:52
You know, you could have been done any career. Why teaching instead of accounting or engineering or, you know, whatever.
00:24:00
Well.
00:24:01
I think it goes along with who I am as a person and my personality and who I was raised to be. I like I told you before, I have identical twin brother and he's the exact opposite of me. He is very, very good in math, very, very good in math and he.
00:24:22
There's so many.
00:24:25
Faces he's.
00:24:26
Like a better, smarter, funnier, stronger version of me. And I've learned a lot from him. But on the flop side there's some strength that I have that he didn't have.
00:24:39
The reason why I say that is.
00:24:42
We ended up both my twin brother and I.
00:24:45
Kind of raising our nephews and nieces.
00:24:51
And we.
00:24:53
When I started raising my niece and my nephews, it came at an opportunity cost and that opportunity cost was.
00:25:02
Like.
00:25:03
Me being able to give my second wife the attention that I should give her because now I'm raising someone else's kids and being the same with my daughters.
00:25:15
All of those things, however.
00:25:17
Got me prepared.
00:25:20
To teach at Luther Burbank High School.
00:25:23
Now.
00:25:24
I would say it got me prepared to teach at school, but Luther Burbank High School, which is in the middle of South Sacramento and it's an inner city school, I don't need to tell you about it. The the dynamic of that.
00:25:40
Demographic.
00:25:42
It's like no other school.
00:25:45
And I came already cookie cutter prepared.
00:25:51
To teach those students, I started out first with coaching and then I ran programs over the summer and then the principal at the time came up to me and said, well, you have a degree. What? Why don't you just teach? Why don't you just teach? And we started off with the leadership class and then end up going to government.
00:26:12
Ask and I.
00:26:14
Let me just give you an example of the kids that I deal with.
00:26:19
And and my philosophies.
00:26:22
And this is so because I have 70 something, nephews and nieces that I raise help raise.
00:26:28
One of the kids when I started my class there there were.
00:26:34
We had an overflow of 37 kids. We were only supposed to have 25, but everybody wanted to go to coach Cedric's class, go to coach Cedric's class, so we had 37 kids, and with classroom comes the jokesters, the ones who want to.
00:26:52
Prove themselves and I had this kid every time I would say something, he will make a joke about it. He would make a joke about.
00:27:00
And.
00:27:02
I'm the type. I'll stop the entire class, so I stopped the entire class.
00:27:08
And I said to him.
00:27:11
It's obvious that you have something that you want to say you want to be a comedian.
00:27:17
And it's like.
00:27:17
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, well, how?
00:27:19
About.
00:27:19
This come up to the front of the class.
00:27:22
You can have 5 minutes to say whatever you want. Just don't talk about somebody's Mama and just don't cuss.
00:27:30
And you'll be fine.
00:27:31
He's like, OK, OK, OK.
00:27:34
At least he came up to the front.
00:27:38
And he said some gibberish for about maybe 5 seconds.
00:27:44
And he stood there frozen.
00:27:46
He couldn't do anything.
00:27:49
So I had him go back to his seat and I said, see, people like you, you get your energy off of.
00:27:57
Mocking other people, you get your your kicks and that's that's how your drive off of being able to Heckle the person that's in charge. I'm like, that's who you really are. You're not a comedian. That's who you really are.
00:28:11
At least that kid never said anything. The rest of the semester he went on, he went on. He transferred to another school. He transferred over to Sheldon. He became a football sensation. And he's a professional right now and.
00:28:27
I say that to say that.
00:28:30
No curriculum can cover that. No curriculum can do things like that, and I I did get well. This is the curriculum and I I I'm one for who I will follow the curriculum.
00:28:44
But sometimes when they.
00:28:46
Tell you that you have to do this and you have to do that.
00:28:50
It it doesn't serve our kids well, it doesn't serve our kids well, and I have this philosophy that everyone, including students, need to be respected. I've talked to teachers where they say wells, US versus them, talk about the teachers versus the students. And I checked the teachers. No, it's not a US versus.
00:29:11
Them they're human beings, just like we are. They're just younger versions of us. And I give every one of my students the respect that they deserve as a human being. Now, I'm not going to respect you as a grown up because you're not a grown up yet, but you have a right to be respected as a human being, which means if you talk, I'm going to listen to you.
00:29:31
Which means if I'm talking, you have to listen.
00:29:33
And so I added that as a dynamic of the type of teacher I would be.
00:29:40
And I end up having the principal bring state board people to my class to see how it goes. And like every time they come, you know how the the money is, what talks and every time they.
00:29:57
Bring in a a group to look at the success of the programming. They will bring them to my classroom.
00:30:05
And and I I wanted to say this isn't how all the rest of the classes are. This is just how this class is and they will show them how the how the kids are involved and I will make them be involved because I will.
00:30:19
Make it interesting for them.
00:30:21
And.
00:30:24
The way that they have curriculums, especially now it's to cater to how someone feels, how someone feels and I tell the kids, just like I tell my own, my own kids.
00:30:38
How you feel is very, very important.
00:30:42
But it has nothing to do with your learning process.
00:30:46
If you want to talk about how you feel, we can set. We can do that on the side, but right now you need to learn. You need to learn. And so I'm not.
00:30:54
All up in your feelings. I'm not caring about your feelings. I'm caring about your learning. You need to learn. And then as you learn, if you want to talk, you can go to a counselor. We can talk about your feelings, but your feelings isn't the most important thing right now. You learning you absorbing this information is because you have to pay the price like everyone else. You have to go through this.
00:31:15
Classes pass a class, pass the test.
00:31:19
And graduate just in order to go to the next step of life.
00:31:23
And that's what we have to do. That's the processes we have, so.
00:31:28
That's, that was my theory. That's my.
00:31:32
Philosophy on teaching and it it worked. I I believe it worked. I've never had. Have anyone that ever been taught or coached by me would tell you Coach Cedric's classroom.
00:31:46
And coach Cedric's.
00:31:48
Softball team and basketball team.
00:31:50
It was always quiet as a mouse. It was always quiet. Kids were always and not that they were scared of me.
00:31:59
But.
00:32:00
I respected them so much they were afraid to disappoint me.
00:32:05
Which is what you should do as a parent or we should do as a boss what we should do as a teacher, we should make those who are sort of like our subordinates at the time.
00:32:18
We still want them to see.
00:32:20
Me.
00:32:21
That I care about you so much that I'm doing this for you and it's the truth and that develops a relationship to where.
00:32:29
They want to reciprocate by showing you I can do this.
00:32:34
And every single one of my kids, when they turned 18, I had a girl call me up.
00:32:39
And she said coach Cedric, guess what, guess what? And for some reason at least I heard it in her voice.
00:32:45
I'm like you're pregnant.
00:32:48
She says. How would you know?
00:32:52
And I'm like I I don't know. I just had that feeling. And so she's like, are you disappointing me? I'm like, why?
00:32:59
Why would I be disappointed in you? You're you're about to embark upon motherhood, which is a beautiful thing.
00:33:06
Now, are you saying that you're not going to be able to take care of this baby? Are you saying that? What? And she's like, no. My mom just told me to call you and tell you that I'm.
00:33:16
Pregnant. I'm like, OK, congratulations.
00:33:18
And it shocked.
00:33:19
Her at least because I think she thought I was gonna be like you're 18 and you just had a baby. How you think about, you know? And that's what we that's what we would tend to be taught by our parents and like to come down on the situation. There's nothing I can do to change it. So the best thing I can do is encourage her to make the best of it.
00:33:39
And now she has a.
00:33:42
12 year old daughter.
00:33:44
Whom she's trying to beg me to come out of retirement and teach her softball. I'm like, it's not happening. It's not happening. So, yeah, that's that's sort of me with teaching and the processes of it.
00:33:58
Writing.
00:34:00
Did you just start writing one day or did you attend seminars, writing classes to prep you, or or what?
00:34:10
I.
00:34:14
I guess it started out with.
00:34:18
People were asking me. Well, Cedric, is there another way I can say this? Can you rewrite this for me? And I would rewrite it. And there, like, that's exactly what I wanted. That's exactly sort of like I, I think of your mom kind of being like that, like being.
00:34:32
A clerk how sometimes they know exactly what it is that a person is trying to say or do and.
00:34:42
And I started writing and started enjoying writing. Then I started writing clothes, start writing sayings, and then.
00:34:50
I said well after like I told you after reading the left behind series, I'm like I need to write something and people always say I want to write a book. I want to write a book. I want to write a book. I want to write something.
00:35:02
That addresses the African American community.
00:35:07
The Caucasian community.
00:35:10
The Mexican everyone, not just.
00:35:13
Rayford Steele and.
00:35:16
A rich Caucasian person because some people can't relate to that. But like in my book.
00:35:23
There's some people getting high in the garage.
00:35:26
You know, and that's the reality of of.
00:35:33
Not all African Americans.
00:35:36
But.
00:35:37
My relatives who get high in the garage, who I know for a fact so.
00:35:45
I express those things in where we're writing and I think what maybe want to write.
00:35:53
Excuse me and got me into writing was.
00:35:56
It's the best way.
00:35:58
To express yourself.
00:35:59
Forever.
00:36:02
What you say?
00:36:04
Unless it's recorded.
00:36:05
Can be lost, but what you write is forever. At least it's it's gonna always be there.
00:36:12
So I think that's what got me into.
00:36:15
Man, I hope I hope videos and stuff and be there forever. We got the cloud now.
00:36:24
Not like the so-called moon landing, but that's that's.
00:36:28
Ohh yeah ohh that's the whole that's supposedly it got deleted everything. That's the moon. Letting is is the recording off someones TV but I won't go there.
00:36:44
What are some positives and negatives we could talk about the military? That's always a good one, right? And we could talk about being a teacher. I mean, you kind of talked about the teacher thing. You know, I love hearing stories of, you know, because I I don't. I didn't. I never had a teacher. I was like, yo, look, I wanna call him up and.
00:37:05
Tell them about what's going on my life. So I I believe that's a beautiful thing.
00:37:11
And then the writing. So what are the some of the?
00:37:15
Positives and negatives of each.
00:37:17
Well, the one of the things that I think are the.
00:37:21
The positives for me are the negatives that happen in my life.
00:37:25
For example.
00:37:29
After that first relationship.
00:37:31
I was the worst boyfriend in the world.
00:37:34
I was off the chain.
00:37:38
I was a bad I was a good father and I was a bad husband.
00:37:42
Because I didn't trust anyone after that.
00:37:47
And.
00:37:50
I have a saying that I didn't become a good man until I realized I hurt a good woman.
00:37:57
And that changed me.
00:37:59
It changed me and that was the positive. That was the positive that, you know, how can I write about positive things if I'm a I'm constantly hurting people, hurting people with.
00:38:13
My lifestyle and what I do, so I think that.
00:38:18
Is one of the positives now as far as.
00:38:21
The the change with me, the changes come with changes in my relationships because they were everything that I've learned, at least.
00:38:32
And I don't know if this is a sad thing or not.
00:38:35
Have been taught by women.
00:38:37
My dad was very, very quiet. My dad had one arm.
00:38:41
I always thought fathers are supposed to be have one arm because he was in the military and he put his hands in the equipment and they changed his arm off and he was a pitcher in the profession and he was a pitcher in the ***** leagues before he got drafted for the Korean War. So that killed his his dreams.
00:38:59
My dad was very, very quiet.
00:39:03
He's probably.
00:39:05
Sit down and talk to me.
00:39:07
Maybe 15 times in my entire life.
00:39:12
And my dad just recently passed away, like maybe eight years ago.
00:39:18
Everything that I've learned has come from women.
00:39:21
My first wife taught me a lot.
00:39:24
UM.
00:39:26
My sister, my mom, one of all of my mentors. My.
00:39:32
History mentors are women.
00:39:36
And I I learned a lot from from that.
00:39:41
The.
00:39:43
Negatives.
00:39:46
Are the again are the are.
00:39:49
When you change and you transition.
00:39:53
You would like to think that your life as it is, including relationships and transition with you, but there's some people that don't want to go there with you. There's some people, at least, that don't want to go from me being a teacher to writing.
00:40:08
About Christian Christian things.
00:40:12
And those people range from family members.
00:40:16
To friends.
00:40:18
To buddies, you know they.
00:40:23
For some reason, their expectation of you is not this person. Now that you're trying to be, so they're offended.
00:40:31
There. How dare you do this to me? That you are now talking about the Bible. How dare you do this to me? That now you're you're teaching and they don't pay enough. How dare you do this to me? So those are the negatives that comes from the transition from one career to the next career.
00:40:52
And.
00:40:53
I know that it's not a one of those tangible things that you can say, it's nagging, but it's a real thing and it's more relationship based, it's real. And I I guess I don't need to tell.
00:41:03
You that because it's you?
00:41:08
Have very many things that you've done and you probably witnessed that how sometimes you lose some people along the way and sometimes it shocked me.
00:41:19
That not that who it's not doesn't shock me that I lose people. It shock me who these people are because some of them are the closest to you.
00:41:29
And there's an old saying that you can only truly be hurt by somebody who's truly close to you.
00:41:36
And I've been hurt a few times, especially about my career changes.
00:41:42
So.
00:41:43
Yeah. And then the writing, now it's more, but the writing comes research.
00:41:49
And.
00:41:52
A good example is in my book.
00:41:57
I talk about.
00:42:00
How in the 10 Commandments, God said?
00:42:04
Worship the Sabbath.
00:42:07
And so.
00:42:09
Sabbath that's on a Saturday.
00:42:12
Why don't we go to church on Sunday?
00:42:14
And that's the type of person I am. I'm like, wait a minute. If God told us to go to church on Saturday, who changed it?
00:42:21
And I have a Bible class and we debate all the time about those things when.
00:42:27
You know.
00:42:29
If we're going by the truth, if the truth is this, why are we doing this other thing? It's because we were taught traditionally, we were taught things well. This is the way things go. Not this is the truth. This is the way things go and it become embedded in who we are. And when you come along with something different.
00:42:46
Your view that you're going against.
00:42:49
What everybody else is doing well, actually, I'm just trying to promote the truth so.
00:42:54
In my book, one of the things that happened because I don't believe that people who are going to church on site because I believe you can go to church on Sunday, you can worship any day you want. But the Bible also says we're supposed to worship on Saturday long as it's Saturday, you think about God and you talk about creation, that's fine. And you can go to church on Sunday. So I'm not against going to church on Sunday.
00:43:16
But in my book.
00:43:18
And I'll tell you.
00:43:18
This.
00:43:19
All the churches that worship on Sunday when the Rapture came got destroyed.
00:43:25
With falling planes and cars and things, not the people.
00:43:30
Some of the people got raptured who were saved, so I didn't damn. The people held that we went to church on Sunday. I just destroyed the buildings and some people take offense to that.
00:43:47
What are some traits that would make you successful, whether in the military or writer or as a teacher?
00:43:56
And let me ask you this, do you think?
00:43:56
I think.
00:43:59
That you that you.
00:44:01
Develop these traits over time, or were they always there?
00:44:06
I believe the number one trait.
00:44:09
For any career.
00:44:11
Is honesty.
00:44:13
And I'll explain it to you like.
00:44:16
My mom, whom I think is just the wonderful person.
00:44:21
Used to tell me things like.
00:44:24
Twin don't go out with her because she ain't nothing but a blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. You don't wanna get her pregnant. Blah, blah blah.
00:44:30
Blah.
00:44:30
Blah sex is are the devil blah blah.
00:44:33
Blah blah blah.
00:44:35
And so.
00:44:37
She would just instill that not just me.
00:44:39
But all of us.
00:44:41
Until one day at least, I did the math.
00:44:44
I said mom.
00:44:47
You had pity when you was 13 years old.
00:44:52
Like it just again, I'm a logical 1.
00:44:57
So whenever I talk to my daughters.
00:45:01
Specifically about sex, I was always honest. I don't say ohh. I was the most perfect person in the world and I had abstinence. And no, I I if you want to know and most of the times they did not.
00:45:15
I'll tell you the truth. This is how I am. It may not have been how things should have been, but this is how I am and I think it.
00:45:23
Gave them a respect for me to know that, hey, the same things that I probably go through the same feelings I probably went through my father.
00:45:35
Had those as a young person too.
00:45:38
I think fairness.
00:45:40
Should always be.
00:45:43
The way that we project ourselves.
00:45:45
Like, I'm not gonna.
00:45:47
Like get on like I won't tell someone.
00:45:51
You shouldn't do this.
00:45:54
And I was the main.
00:45:56
Transgressor of the very thing that you did, I could say. Well, let me explain this. I did the same thing and this is what happened to me. And you don't want to go down that road. But I'm not gonna be like you shouldn't do this. You shouldn't do that. And I think that helps people.
00:46:12
With understanding the centric is a.
00:46:17
He may not be a perfect person, but he tries to be fair. So I think the greatest quality you can have with anything is that you have to be honest and fair and that honest don't always mean right. Honest doesn't always mean that you're the person that they can look for that look up to, but then they'll know if they come to you.
00:46:39
They'll get a version of what they.
00:46:42
Want.
00:46:45
It may be a negative version, it may be a positive version, but it may be one that they can relate to which helps them. So I think that helps with teaching. I think that helps with I told the kids.
00:46:57
I'm not, you know, right now I skipped school all the time. I did not go to school, but I had to struggle afterwards. I I don't say y'all need to stay in school. Y'all did this and I tell them they need to stay in school by telling them I skip school. And look, I had to go the hard route with getting to what you guys are.
00:47:17
Getting eat them.
00:47:19
So and then when I was a.
00:47:22
Rent programs and I hired people and I was their boss.
00:47:26
I tried to be.
00:47:29
They're like.
00:47:30
If they were late.
00:47:33
And if they explain to me, OK, I'm I'm late because of whatever reason. Like, OK.
00:47:39
Is that it? Well, yeah. Well.
00:47:42
Are you're not gonna say anything? Well, no, because things happen. Things happen. I'm like, well, now, we were having this 15 conversation about the same thing 15 times. I know there's something up, but I mean, life happens and you have a life, your leader in your home and.
00:48:02
There's some priorities and I'm one of the type of employers that.
00:48:08
I understand that this shouldn't be your priority. Your family should be your priority, not this job. So that's how I will.
00:48:16
Kind of like manage you and at least to be honest with you, I've never really had employees that had the tennis problems cause that they know that.
00:48:27
You respect them as having.
00:48:30
You respect them as a being a person because you are a person. They view you as a person and it's easy to work for someone that's just like yourself. It's easy, it's hard to work for somebody who's untouchable. Ohh no, he or she can't do anything wrong. It's easy to work with someone who I can relate to, so I think.
00:48:51
That honesty is the is the most important thing you can have.
00:48:57
And being fair is is another.
00:49:02
You kind of touched on it.
00:49:04
A little bit, but.
00:49:06
Tips and tricks you would give someone who wants to move from one career to another and then what did you wish you knew before? Because I mean we we keep, we keep harping on, you know you're gonna lose people. They're not gonna agree with what you try to do so.
00:49:20
Yeah, yeah.
00:49:23
Tips and tricks and you know what you wish.
00:49:25
You knew before.
00:49:27
UM.
00:49:28
The things I wish I knew before.
00:49:31
About.
00:49:33
Switching over to the career or even being in this career is how rewarding it is.
00:49:40
A book at least. It's like a baby. It's like.
00:49:44
This comes from me. This is something that comes from me and I'm you know how people don't ever get tired of their baby, their own kids pictures and they will show them all day, every day. That's why I'm about people reading my books. Like I I can hear it every single day so.
00:50:02
At every single hour, it's the reward.
00:50:05
The reward that comes from it.
00:50:08
Is.
00:50:10
So worth it. It's so worth it. And just just some writing to for anybody who wants to write.
00:50:16
My tip for you is it's called person, place or thing. Every person, every place and everything that you encounter. Set aside. Writing isn't just writing the book, it's writing about the things that are in the book.
00:50:29
You set another folder aside and every person you talk you you mentioned you write everything you write about that person. That way it's fluid. That way you can build on that person or every place you go. It's fluid. Like if Johnny went to Mexico and Susie went to Mexico. Whenever I talk about Mexico.
00:50:49
Further in the.
00:50:49
Book I look and see. Well, Johnny and Susie's been there, so it's kind of helpful.
00:50:55
To have those side things, you don't just sit there and write a book, you have the side person, place and thing and every time you put that in their folder and the person, place and thing this person.
00:51:06
Willamina everything time I talk about willamina, it goes in their folder. So when I go to write about willamina I go look in their folder and I read OK she did this. She did that. She's 60, tall, she's blah blah blah and it helps with writing.
00:51:21
All of those things.
00:51:24
Are rewarding.
00:51:26
When the baby is delivered, when your book is published.
00:51:30
All of those things.
00:51:33
Help you feel a sense of.
00:51:37
Importance. I guess the transition the the thing that helped me with the transition from being a teacher to the author is it was an easy transition because.
00:51:50
The the characters that I write about.
00:51:55
A lot of them have similarities from my students, from my basketball players, from my softball players. You know, in fact.
00:52:03
I called up a few of them and said can I use your?
00:52:06
Name in the.
00:52:07
Book and I put their name in my book.
00:52:13
And.
00:52:15
Just the a tip for anybody who wants to trans.
00:52:20
To go into another career chess, the first thing you should do.
00:52:24
Have a day where you do you say and you think nothing about the career change? Clear your mind. Some people take a vacation.
00:52:36
Clear your mind. Don't even think about it, first of all.
00:52:41
And then once your mind is cleared, you took that day.
00:52:43
Then you start.
00:52:44
The thoughts that start coming in on the pros and cons, it's I believe you can answer this the pros and cons happen.
00:52:55
If you're serious about changing the career, they happen almost autonomously. They happen. You'll start hearing them in your head like, well, maybe I shouldn't do that, or that would be good to this. Or maybe I shouldn't do that. Take note of all of those things, because those are gold Nuggets. Then you making the right decision.
00:53:14
Did that make sense? At least I'm sorry.
00:53:18
Yeah, I'm over here to drink my water and and and get my burping on. But yeah, no, it it made perfect sense. One thing that I do.
00:53:29
Is I do seminars like once a month maybe if I feel like it cause I'm an introvert, so I ain't. I'm not outside talking to a whole.
00:53:38
Bunch of people.
00:53:39
So this is my talking to people time my Oprah time.
00:53:45
And so when I do these seminars and things like that, I ask people for feedback and, you know, reviews and whatever. And so I keep a a folder, I call it my my brag, my brag bag. And so when I want.
00:53:57
To.
00:53:57
You know, I'm feeling down or I want to brag or do whatever show somebody something. Look, that's what somebody said about me, so.
00:54:05
You know things, things like that.
00:54:08
But yeah, you definitely got to keep a folder of of whatever, whether it's about yourself, other people. My thing with other people is you got to have the the black male full take your screenshot and take your screenshot. Yeah, that's my other people thing I keep.
00:54:15
Mm-hmm.
00:54:28
Hands on other people but but yeah.
00:54:35
Outside of that, where can we find you?
00:54:40
OK. Well, before we say that, can I just tell you about the striking resemblance of you in my book?
00:54:48
Yeah, go ahead.
00:54:48
Is it OK alright.
00:54:51
The main character is Tracy Sidor.
00:54:54
Who happens to be my real niece?
00:54:58
She's married to a Mexican.
00:55:04
She is very, very smart.
00:55:10
She's into real estate.
00:55:14
She.
00:55:18
Walks. I'm sorry. She talks.
00:55:22
Remarkably like you.
00:55:25
If you can hear her, well, I created the character, so I hear her talk.
00:55:30
He acts remarkably like you because there is a sense of.
00:55:37
You caught it's, it's your introvert.
00:55:42
But it's a sense of.
00:55:45
Confidence.
00:55:48
With the being introverted, you're very I. You pull off to me that you're very, very confident in whom you are, who you are. You. You're just confident with it and you've done so many things like Tracy in the book.
00:56:02
That you're confident but.
00:56:05
She'll. She'll sit back. She'll sit back and tell somebody, say something, and then she'll she'll let them have it. She'll tell them. And when you first start talking and you start telling some of the things, and then when I start doing some research on you.
00:56:21
I'm like this is almost Tracy in the book. This is.
00:56:25
It's kind of eerie.
00:56:28
Because.
00:56:30
The personality in itself, because you're the way you are right now is how you are and you're you don't change how it's how.
00:56:37
You are in.
00:56:37
Your.
00:56:38
Interviews. It's how you are when you interview other people, you are just you and sometimes people dance for situations and they dance for.
00:56:50
Different people, they dance for different, like walks of life.
00:56:56
I can see you acting like this in a room full of.
00:57:01
Sailors in a room full of doctors in a room full of.
00:57:05
Mothers in the roomful of teenagers, year and Tracy are going to be who you are right there.
00:57:12
And that's a form of honesty. And that's what I.
00:57:14
Wanted to paint.
00:57:15
For Tracy, that although she got left behind.
00:57:19
She's a very, very honest person with whom she is and.
00:57:24
You guys kind of like your fashion sort of the saying too, and Tracy likes a lot of fine things. She likes a lot of in the book. She did, she does so. It was just kind of.
00:57:38
To me, kind of.
00:57:40
Either.
00:57:43
Faithful or creepy that I was getting an interview by Tracy in my book. That's what I was in my mind. I was saying this is like the character interview with me so.
00:57:56
It's one of the things I'm going to thank God for after this.
00:58:00
After this you end up getting raptured. Trust me, you end up getting raptured.
00:58:00
I didn't get raptured.
00:58:07
Damn, I gotta. I gotta stand there. Watch all the bad stuff happen. Now you know what I would wanna stay. I would want to stay and watch all the all the stuff happen.
00:58:15
Honestly, but that's just me. Yeah, but.
00:58:16
Yeah.
00:58:20
For the record, I am not married to a Mexican. That's what.
00:58:23
I call a Mexican. Well, because you went to Mexico. That's the. That's the that's.
00:58:25
Yeah, I'm not. I'm not married to 1 record. Let's throw that out there.
00:58:33
But other than that, show us where our tell us where, where we can find you.
00:58:38
You can find me on first of all, Facebook. I'm under Cedric, signor.
00:58:43
A.
00:58:44
I have a.
00:58:47
Twitter is see Arthur sitting. It's under my pen name.
00:58:51
And.
00:58:53
I think that's it. I gave you the link for the book. If they are interested in the book.
00:59:01
I think that's it.
00:59:04
All right, y'all. My name is Elyse Robinson, AKA Tracy. And thank you for listening to. Nobody wants to work through podcasts and thank you, Cedric, for coming on the show. And until next time.
