Transcript 0:00 Well, tell me a little bit more about the Male Mogul initiative, really what it is right now and the programs Male Mogul Initiative started with five kids at a local church in 2017, and has blossomed to serving over 3,000 young people, producing over 200 plus jobs. 0:16 What we feel is that if you're going to rebuild and revitalize communities, you need to have ownership in your community. 0:24 Welcome to the Purpose Driven Capital Podcast, where we help you align your money with your mission and maximize your impact. Here's your host, Matt Johns. 0:33 Today, I had the pleasure to chat with former NFL athlete, Walter Mendenhall. Remarkably, the end of his NFL career was just the beginning of the life of impact he envisioned. Walter is building a movement. 0:46 He's helping develop leaders among inner city boys in Chicago through entrepreneurship. 0:51 He started the Male Mogul Initiative to help kids realize their potential at an early age in order to transform their lives and the communities in which they live. Walter knows their struggles well. He lived it. 1:04 Walter not only overcame financial struggles growing up, he overcame a severe learning disability, graduating high school and eventually being twice named Academic All-Big Ten while on the football team at the University of Illinois. 1:18 Walter frequently speaks around the country for various institutions like Nike, the NFL, Young Entrepreneur Council, the Fellowship of Christian Athletes, and many others. 1:27 He is also involved in a number of business initiatives. Oh, and he's currently finishing his PhD in organizational leadership. I hope this is as inspirational for you as it was for me. 1:39 Welcome to my conversation with Walter Mendenhall. So you're enjoying the start of football season now, I'm guessing. Oh man, this is the best part of the year to me. 1:47 You know, we had the Olympics this summer, so it was, you know, some sports, but not a baseball guy, so when that football season starts, man, it, it makes me happy. 1:57 [laughs] Now who are you watching or what are you watching? [sighs] I have mixed feelings about college football, the realignments of the conferences. Hmm. I'm not a big fan of it. I don't know who is in what conference. 2:12 Like it's- Yeah. Yeah, I have no idea who is in what and what's going on. So probably gonna be looking more NFL. But I used to be more of a college football fan than an NFL fan. 2:24 But probably gonna be watching a little bit more NFL football, especially since Caleb Williams is a Chicago Bear, so. [laughs] There you go. He gotta win some games first before he becomes the hometown hero. 2:34 So random question though on the, the college football side of things, NIL. 2:39 Coming from your background where you are right now though, it's got an interesting impact on the game itself, turning it into a totally different thing than what it was, but is it helping players? 2:49 What, what is your take on that? Uh, you should be able to profit off your name, image, and likeness, but how it currently is implemented is really the Wild Wild West. It's detrimental to the players. 3:02 There's a lack of financial literacy, a lack of education, a lack of representation, a lack of knowledge. So it's really, really, really crazy now in this day and age of college football. I hope it gets rectified. 3:19 I am for compensating players for their name, image, and likeness, but currently how the system is is, is broken. Do you have any proposals that you're gonna pitch? 3:28 I think representation is gonna have to start at the high school level, to be honest with you. Mm-hmm. Agents and things like that. I think there needs to be some financial literacy and some education. 3:40 It's starting, I'll be honest with you, junior high, high school, and really start to help young people understand money, how it works in business, to be honest with you. Yeah. 3:52 Well, I'm sure that you're seeing a lot of that through your current endeavors and all that you're doing now too. 100%. [laughs] So... 3:58 But I'd love to start there too is that you're coming from a really difficult childhood yourself, and you rose up through the ranks by great effort and maybe some luck in there too, I don't know. 4:09 But y- you started Male Mogul, it seems to me as a result of what your experience was as a kid. But at what point did you realize that you had the potential that you're now, I guess, forming into? Yeah. 4:22 So, you know, just, uh, childhood. Didn't grow up with the best situations in life. You know, grew up at the age of five I was diagnosed with a learning disability. 4:32 Had a father, grew up in a single parent household, had a father who spent some time incarcerated and really didn't have everything growing up. 4:40 But one of the things that I do appreciate specifically about my mom is that we grew originally from a rough area, but we moved to a more affluent area, and I was able to get the services that I needed to help me to overcome my disabilities. 4:57 And we grew up, uh, right outside of Chicago in a suburb called Skokie, Illinois and- Mm-hmm... and Evanston, Illinois. 5:05 And really was a place where I was able to cultivate and get the resources I needed to be successful. But what I realized is that a lot of people that come from where I come from don't have those opportunities. Mm-hmm. 5:19 So what can we do e- with people who can't necessarily escape, you know, their under-resourced communities? 5:26 And that's one of the reasons why, uh, the Male Mogul Initiative was started, and the Male Mogul Initiative seeks to positively transform the way young men live and lead in their communities through leadership, entrepreneurship, and workforce development. 5:41 Mm-hmm. Well, tell me a little bit more about the Male Mogul Initiative, what you envision it to be, but really what it is right now and the programs. Yeah. 5:49 So the Male Mogul actually started, I was actually a teen program director at a local faith-based non-for-profit here in Chicago. 5:59 I remember going into a career day and meeting a young man Awesome young man, honor roll student, basketball player, very well respected in his school, but he sold drugs to get the things that he wanted. 6:11 And after that conversation, I thought to myself, how many young men in this city, and really nationwide, have the gift, skills, and talents to be successful legal entrepreneurs, but don't have the opportunity or exposure? 6:26 Mm. So really, the, uh, Male Mobile initiative started with five kids at a local church in 2017, and has blossomed to serving over 3,000 young people, producing over 200 plus jobs. 6:40 In 2022, we were a Chicago Innovation Award winner, which goes to some of the most innovative and fast-rising organizations and companies in the city of Chicago. Uh, we won Wintrust Bank Neighborhood Award. 6:54 In 2023, we were a MIT Solve semifinalist, and in 2024, earlier this year, we actually opened up Chicago's first small business incubator for youth and young adults called CoLab. 7:10 So it's a warehouse with approximately 12,000 square feet of space. It's a place where film, arts, and enterprise meets. 7:20 We feel that the most valuable currency in under-resourced communities of color is creativity, so it's a place where you can help to... We help you to monetize your creativity. 7:31 So we have a classroom setting and a manufacturing setup on the first floor. On the second floor, we're looking to build out, make it a maker space, and also a content creation studio. 7:43 And what we look to do there is to incubate, build ventures, skill up young people, and then deploy them in their communities to help them to be assets in their communities and essentially create community wealth building. 8:00 And, and that's gotta be incredible to see. When you step back and you look back at five-year-old Walter and who... 8:04 What you were doing and who you were then, could you have envisioned that you'd be building something like that then today? Uh, no. 8:11 You know, when I was playing football, and even though as much as I don't want to admit it, but I think deep down in my heart, I, I sought the praise and the approval of the crowd in what I was doing. Oh, sure. 8:27 So it was more about what I was doing as opposed to who I am and what I was created to do. 8:35 I think at that time, I thought I was created to be a NFL football player and make millions of dollars and, and really essentially put myself on a pedestal. 8:46 But what I realized in doing this work, I've had more joy, I've had more fulfillment in serving and helping others to reach essentially their goals and to make this world essentially a better place, and that's where true satisfaction and joy has come from. 9:07 And even though I was, had some success on the field, I really never had joy because it was really on to the next thing. Mm-hmm. And it was really, "What have you done for me lately?" That was the business. 9:21 And just even to waking up feeling like an 80-year-old man as opposed to a 21-year-old man, it was sometimes very brutal. So I wouldn't imagine, but I wouldn't change anything. 9:33 What do you think those life lessons are that you gained from the football field that are translating into your success today? Oh, man, that's a great question. I would say when you fall down, get back up [laughs]. 9:44 [laughs] Life is gonna hit you like those 300-pound linemen and those 250-pound linebackers. I think football, I would say, is the greatest sport that translates to life if you learn the lessons. 9:57 Hard work, dedication, teamwork, persistence, leadership, influencing others, inspiring others. Football was really the skills that I developed off the field and even on the field. 10:12 The intangible skills were really a catalyst to what I am doing now because those same characteristics that I just described earlier is exactly what I do now. I help to- Mm-hmm... inspire. 10:25 I help to create teams, leadership, helping people to handle adversity and deal with adversity, and being creative is all the skills that I've learned in football that I now use now. Mm-hmm. 10:39 You had a challenging childhood. You found out you had a learning disability. You were coming from a lower income household. You found... 10:46 Y- your mom obviously found ways to make things work, but what was that like for you? What was your experience like that was so challenging at that time? I think that's a great question. If I were just to pinpoint it, 10:58 I think it was constantly living in insecurity. And what I mean by that is that you just never felt comfortable. 11:11 You never knew what was gonna happen, so you really had to make it happen on your own. 11:18 So just during that time, emotionally dealing with my father in and out of my life, dealing with my mother, who was great, college-educated, but had three, sometimes four kids, 'cause we usually always had a family member come and live with us in a two-bedroom apartment. 11:38 Just that struggle and just seeing what she had to go through, what she persevered, but also living in a state of lack, it was... And then you were surrounded, and we lived in a community that was very diverse. 11:53 So you had people that didn't have to worry about some of the things that I had to worry about. And then you get into these comparisons, and then you're like, "Why is my life like this?" And- Yes... 12:04 you know, "His life is like this." 12:05 So what I had to learn essentially was- To be grateful for what I did have, to make the best of any situation, and still realize that I was blessed because in spite of the struggles that I was going through, I grew up in a family that... 12:27 And just as, like, outside, not my immediate family, but- Mm-hmm... my extended family that had even worse situations than myself. 12:36 So I always had to have a lens and always had to have a attitude and spirit of gratefulness. 12:45 But it was also, uh, my mom introducing us to faith that also to help us to persevere and put us around people that was supportive of us. And what I will also say is that I had a village that took care. 13:02 Even if my mom couldn't do things, it was weird that so- somebody at church would help or somebody in the community that we lived in. Mm. 13:10 A lot of times those were coaches that would, uh, help out and were very influential and really essentially father figures in my life. 13:21 And eventually got to a point where I actually lived with my old actually youth football coach for my last couple of years of high school. 13:29 So to make a long story short, there were adversity, but I saw God's hand in it, and I always had what I needed even though I didn't know where it was gonna come from. Yeah. 13:45 So to make a long story short, and in that I learned that to be honest with you, God is, is, is truly a, a provider, which has given me faith to continue to do what I do. 13:58 To that point, you were, you're talking about the village, and I feel like that's kind of what you're building right now is a village- Yes... 14:03 a community be it mentors, be it their peers, whoever it is, and this Male Mogul initiative. You are bringing these people together to support one another. 14:11 So why did you choose, of all the things you could've ch- chosen, why entrepreneurship as the, the key focus? I love it. I absolutely love it. But why did you choose that? Yeah. I'ma be honest with you. 14:23 What I learned being a teacher, like my background, I was a school teacher. 14:28 I was a youth minister at one point, and what I realized is that a lot of young men make poor decisions based on temporary financial circumstances. 14:41 So if I could provide another vehicle or engine to help them to gain monetary or money, it would help them to not make poor decisions. 14:59 So it's kinda like Maslow's hierarchy of needs in a sense, in which if you're not surviving, then you have a little more bandwidth to think about things in the future. Mm-hmm. 15:10 And instead of living for today, now you're thinking about what is it that I wanna be and what is it that I need to do in order to get there, and I believe that entrepreneurship is biblical, 15:23 but it's also a tool that I feel can revitalize under-resourced communities in a major way. Mm-hmm. That's much better a- answer than I even, uh, anticipated. [laughs] That was great. 15:38 [laughs] So y- I'm looking at, at, at the Male Mogul initiative right now. What are the results you're seeing in the, the kids who are participating in it and the ones who you are mentoring yourself? Yeah. 15:48 So it's been so much just great stories, impact, things of that sort. But essentially, like you said, we're building that village. 15:59 What we're essentially building is a community wealth building ecosystem, and this ecosystem consists of business incubation and acquisition, which is essentially our co-lab small business incubator space. 16:15 It includes finance. So one of the things that we do in the Male Mogul is that we have a mogul fund. So we do seed investment into whether it's ventures or into young people. 16:27 Last year we had three young men, ages 21 and 22, own or were able to get their first multi-unit investment real estate properties. Fantastic. Yeah. 16:41 So like you said, we put a village around them, a, a real estate team, a realtor, a, a lender, a appraiser, all those things. 16:50 We helped to provide some down payment assistance, and these young men were able to own property in the community that they live in. 17:01 And what we feel is that if you're going to rebuild and revitalize communities, you need to have ownership in your community. Mm-hmm. So this is essentially what we're looking to do. 17:13 We have direct services, which essentially is, uh, business coaching. It's helping to supply chain resources, things of that sort. 17:22 And then indirect services, anything that you need in order to run a business, whether that's tax preparation, whether that's just any other indirect service that you would need in order to run your business. 17:34 We're putting people around these young entrepreneurs and in turn, that would bring what we call community reinvestment, which is job creation and also real estate ownership for people in the community. 17:49 'Cause I believe that a community, people need to own, and that is how you revitalize, that's how you create wealth, and that's how you have investment in wanting to make your community better. Yes. 18:03 And, and are you getting a lot of local support? You're experiencing that support from local leaders and then maybe even elected officials or those kind of folks? Yeah. 18:11 So essentially, you know, what we are building is what I call a solution economy. Mm. So this is a cross-section of political, private, public, and community stakeholders. 18:27 The more inter cross-cross-section of people, and essentially why our space is called CoLab, it is short for collaboration, is that all these people are coming together in order to create systematic change. 18:42 And we have partners from the Obama Foundation to elected officials, to community organizations and schools, and also peer organizations that are partnering, funding, and helping us to help be a solution in the city of Chicago. 19:02 You've got this great foundation built. You're building huge stuff on top of that already. Where do you see this going in the future? Yeah. 19:09 So essentially what I'm doing, I'm actually two chapters away from my dissertation. 19:15 [laughs] And my topic for my dissertation is exploring sustainable and prosperous entrepreneurial ecosystems in the city of Chicago, where essentially we wanna create a blueprint of change, community reinvestment, and community revitalization with young people being the catalyst, and bringing this blueprint to cities all around the nation, and helping them to essentially create a community wealth building ecosystem. 19:50 And that's essentially what I see the Male Mogul Initiative doing, is really becoming a agent of change and helping people to realize their potential, and essentially making the impossible possible in their lives. 20:08 It's just awesome. So you mentioned your PhD. So this is one of a, a number of things that you have personally going on outside of the Male Mogul Initiative. Yeah. But you've got a lot of things that you're involved in. 20:17 So what's next up for you personally? That's a great question. So we're in the last stages of acquiring a FinTech company called Help with My Loan. 20:30 Essentially is a, a loan marketplace essentially for commercial loans and also business loans. So we're looking to do that. 20:39 We're looking to create jobs and, and help young people become brokers, business brokers and real estate brokers using tech to help expedite some of these processes that I've experienced are sometimes very slow and archaic, particularly in the banking and other lending worlds. 20:58 I think they need to get to the 21st century 'cause, you know, they're still using paper. Some of the... I don't know what they're doing in Texas, but [laughs] 21:06 this is, you know, some of this stuff is slow and archaic and need to get up to date. Continuing to finish up my PhD, so hopefully should have that done by the first quarter of next year, so I could officially be Dr. 21:17 Minden Hall. Mm-hmm. And go from special education all the way to PhD. And if I could do it, there's no excuse that- I love that... anybody else couldn't do it. Um- Special education to PhD. Terrific. Yeah. Yes. 21:30 And then from there, just continuing just to, to give back and to really create this community wealth building ecosystem, create, continuing to impact the lives of young people here in the city of Chicago, and essentially change the narrative of how Chicago is looked at from a national- Mm... 21:49 and global perspective. So I really wanna be a change that narrative because essentially, I don't know if you've ever been to Chicago, it's a beautiful place [laughs] and, um- Oh, yeah, it's a cool city. Yeah. 22:00 It's, yeah, it's a, it's sports town. Best... I feel like it's has the best food in the nation- [laughs]... as you can get pretty much in the- Houston may beg to differ with you on that one. 22:09 Houston has barbecue and, and Southern stuff. I don't think they have the variety that we have. [laughs] But they do have- We can use your hot dogs... good food. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But Houston does have good food. 22:20 But I just, just wanna help to change that narrative, and essentially, I really want to create young people that essentially will be pillars in their community and essentially be wealthy, and that's what I really want to see. 22:36 Mm. So as you reflect back on your life and you look back to the five-year-old Walter to now, 22:43 how do you think your life would be different if you had had the Male Mogul Initiative starting back then to help you through those difficult times, those challenges, as you were going through your youth? 22:54 That's a great question. I think I am the person that I wanted when I was that age, and I'm providing essentially what I would've liked to have and what I needed. I think if 23:08 I would've had that, or if I would've had the Male Mogul, I would've essentially understood who I was, why I mattered, and what my purpose was. It took me a little longer to figure that out. 23:24 S- I did get to that, but that would've helped me, and essentially that would've helped me to really equate my value on essentially not yards and touchdowns, but essentially what I could do in order to impact the lives of many people and create value in a way that I would never be broke [laughs] to be honest. 23:55 [laughs] 'Cause if you can... What I essentially tell my young people, if, if you can create value for people, you will never need a job, and you will always have a job 'cause you create value. Yes. 24:08 Um, and essentially I would've learned a lot of lessons a lot younger, and that essentially would've put me- In a, I'll probably be a lot farther along [laughs] than I am now. Mm. 24:22 But I, everything happens for a reason, and I'm happy that I could be the change that I essentially would have wanted to see when I was younger. 24:33 When this is all said and done, you look back, what do you hope is your legacy? 24:37 And I know you kind of alluded to it a- a couple questions ago, but what do you think is your legacy if you were to boil it down when it's all said and done? That's a great question. 24:47 I think for me, I was a great husband. I was a great father. That would be the first and second. That I loved people and people felt love. 24:59 People learned and lives were changed because I was on, it impacted and changed for the better because I was on this earth. Mm. 25:12 So if I could get that, I think I would get that applause when it's all said and done and those crown of jewels. No empires, no kingdoms. Yeah. Focusing on the individuals and helping people grow. Love it. Yeah. 25:24 Uh, Walter, it's been a real joy for me to have this conversation with you today. 25:27 Thank you for taking the time with me, and I certainly wish you all the best with the Male Mogul initiative and all the great things that you have going on. Thank you, man. Thank you for this time. 25:35 We hope you enjoyed this episode of the Purpose Driven Capital podcast. If you found this valuable, be sure to like, subscribe and share. Are you ready to align your money with your mission? 25:45 Discover the Purpose Driven Capital framework, access practical tools and build meaningful connections to grow your movement and multiply your impact at PurposeDrivenCapital.co. 25:56 The views and opinions expressed in this show are solely those of the individuals speaking and do not reflect the views or opinions of Honeyhive Capital, any broker-dealer, investment advisory firm or its sponsors. 26:08 The content is for informational and entertainment purposes only. 26:11 Nothing in this content nor any communications from it should be treated as constituting financial, investment, legal, tax or other advice of any kind, or as a recommendation to buy or sell an interest with respect to any investment. 26:23 We look forward to you joining us next time.
