Following Your Passions and Giving Love to All with Adrienne Martin-Fullwood

19

Per Mrs. Adrienne - pour yourself a glass of wine and strap in for a rollercoaster full of wisdom!!!

Adrienne Martin-Fullwood is a director, producer, actor, mother, funeral director, mentor, advocate, business owner, and overall bright shinning star. She is the Executive Partner and Producer of 5280 Artist Co-op Entertainment Group, has been in the entertainment business for over 35 years and performed in over 100 theatrical shows and numerous voice over productions, commercials, short films and training videos. In addition to all of the above, she is a Facilitator for Kaiser Permanente’s Theatrical Department to bring awareness to audiences by performing theatrical illustrations and conducting group discussions regarding Colorado’s poverty and hunger issues. Oh, and she's Kelly's Mother-In-Law!!!

Mrs. Adrienne exemplifies the truth that creating your own path generates joy and freedom. She beautifully guides us through shaping moments, obstacles, oppression, boxes and self-limiting beliefs she overcame and how she learned to love herself through it all. She provides us with tools she uses to move through anxiety, to cultivate self-love and what her definition of success is. 

The wisdom, knowledge, and insight she offers into the journey of life, how to operate from a place of love, find the good in people - including yourself - and live for the now is truly a gift! We are so honored to share this with you all. 

We also speak about: 

• Not allowing other's to dictate who you are
• How we are all different and all the same
• Colorism
• Getting out of your own way 
• Listening to gut feelings
• Survival mode
• How love is love
• Corporate America
• Acknowledging people's presence 

Resources: 

Mrs. Adrienne's upcoming play:

• King Headly: April 27 - May 21 2023, Colorado Springs, CO

Find the full episode transcription here

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We acknowledge we are operating on the occupied land of the Ute, Arapahoe, and Cheyenne peoples colonized as Denver - we pay our respects to those past, present, and future. We also acknowledge this statement is not enough and are committed to giving a portion of our proceeds to the people whose land we occupy and are in the process of getting a true land reverence.

Transcript

[music]

Kendle: Hey, y'all. You're listening to no Offense and a loving and nourishing space created to fuel conversations around personal and collective liberation. We're Kelly Kendle, having vulnerable and intentional conversations full of humor, empathy, and, of course, love. 

Kelly: Honestly, these episodes are just our opinions, so take no offense, and we invite you to explore yourself through our words, help grow our community by leaving a review and most importantly, sharing. Now, let's get into some self loving

[music]

Kendle: so Miss Adrienne, she in my very small knowledge, is a manifesting generator. 

Kelly: Oh, girl, she's talking. And I'm like I'm like, wanting to tackle, and I'm like I don't want to say it because I know she doesn't know what that is. And I had ruined her train of thought through the ADD, but I was like, she's a manifesting generator. I want to know what her chart says. 

Kendle: Literally, same thoughts happening. So I was like, do I bring it up? No, because then we know. I want to hear her story. And then when she was talking about how she can feel everybody's energy, feel something's off in the room, I was like, she has the feeling sense like I do. That is literally her describing it. 

Kelly: Oh, my gosh, yes. 

Kendle: She's such a light. Her prayer every morning to be the lightness in someone's darkness. She lit the heck up out of my day. 

Kelly: I know she just has that presence and that energy. And like I said, I got emotional in the interview talking about how positive she has learned to become and just to show and give all of that love to others. I love interviewing her. I wish I knew her better, and I wish I knew her more. There's obviously been so many things that have happened. I mean, I've known her for a long time, so many things that have happened that have prevented us from having this relationship. But, like, we were talking divine timing. We are now meant to have this relationship together. And even, she said, only in the last five or so years, she's really kind of grown into this really confident woman where she knows who she is. She's stepping outside of that box, and she's curating all of this love within herself. And now that's just oozing from her. And it's so beautiful to hear her speak and hear her story. And again, like, aging is a privilege. And when you hear her speaking about all of her experiences, that's why it's a privilege, because she has all of this life experience. She has all of this knowledge. She has so much more perspective than I'll ever have because I'm not her age. 

Kendle: Yeah, I loved listening to her story. Yes. And for all of you listening, we interviewed Kelly's mother in law today. She is an actress, a singer, a dancer, a spitfire. She, as she says many times as a hustler, she has her hand in everything. And as I said earlier, she is just such a light to exist around, to be around. And as you mentioned just a moment ago, the divine timing. And that was a theme that kept coming up when she was telling her story, how many instances of divine intervention there were. And she's chosen, as we've both chosen, to live a life aligned with spirit, with intuition, with the Age of Aquarius. Just seeing how the world looks out for you when you look out for the world, as she said so many times, giving the good. She just is so full of wisdom. 

Kelly: I know her list goes on, right? You, like, stopped, and I'm like, Wait, no. She's a director, she's an entrepreneur, she's a businesswoman, she's a mother, she's a grandmother, she is a queen, she's a wife, she's a goddess, all of those amazing things. And it really was a privilege getting to hear her story. I can't wait to grow a relationship past this conversation and just dive deeper with her because I do want to have that relationship with her, and I'm glad you were there to share it with me. I'm glad everyone listening was able to hear her story. Yeah, it really was a gift. 

Kendle: Yeah, absolutely. She was a gift. All her tidbits of knowledge, her gifts. This episode definitely feels like a gift and a gift to your relationship with her. Like such a door that is opening. 

Kelly: Yeah, I can't wait to see where that leads. 

Kendle: Absolutely. I hope everyone enjoys it. 

Kelly: Yeah. It's a bit of a rollercoaster ride. 

V That is true. She was here and then there and then here, and then there, and then there, and then here. And it all connected. It definitely it just spoke to her brilliance that she is, and also all of the paths that she has been on that have led her to this exact moment, which I think just keeps becoming a theme in our interviews, is witnessing people's metamorphosis, because that's what life is, right? We're here to learn, we're here to evolve. And we've had the honor of interviewing women 40 and above so far, and they have all of that life that they've lived. And, yeah, life is hard, and it's also so beautiful. And to have those moments of looking back, what we say all the time, I wouldn't be where I am today, my 28 year old self, had I not lived all of those other moments of myself and just how exciting it is to think about me in 20 years from now, where we're going to be. It's cool. Life is cool. 

Kelly: Well, according to Ms. Adrienne, we will be in a beautiful studio with a full on team when we do interviews, make up all the fun equipment. I'm going to prophesize. 

Kendle: Yes, please. 

Kelly: Yeah. No, it was great. And I loved all her messaging. Be good to others. Be good to yourself. Don't allow yourself to be put in a box. Don't allow anyone ever to dim your light. Kendle: Yes. Don't let anyone ever tell you who you have to be, how you have to be, live, authentically. 

Kelly: And what I was getting a lot from her is do it now. Yeah, it's great that she's in this place now, but if she could have just had that message right to her younger self is just do it now. There is no better time than now. Why would you want to wait? It's scary, but that's why we have this community. That's why we are sharing these stories. So you can have the confidence to be able to take control of your own life again. Because as we know, so much of our lives have been controlled and we're all feeling this same type of energy and we're all feeling the same type of restraint from being our authentic selves because everything is telling us that's not okay. What I also loved in the conversation with her, I think we definitely are a little bit more spiritual. She talks about growing up more and in the church and Christianity, but all of it is the same. It is one might have spirit within, one might speak to God, one might speak to Source, one might have angels. Whatever it is, we're all talking about that same place, we all feel that same thing. So whether you want to label it as God, Christianity, Spirit, Source, we don't have to try and continue the separation because that is again, the power that is being used to separate us. Just because I say Source, I say universe, she says God, it's all the same thing. 

Kendle: And again, exactly as she said, we're all different and we're all the same and we're all interconnected and that is evidence of that. Religions all have their same core and spirituality as well. It's all about not all about sometimes religion with religion, but mostly it's like give love, be in trust and in conversation with the universe, with God, with the world, with Source, with Spirit. The collective do it for each other. 

Kelly: So excited to share this. I can't wait to re-listen to it.

Kendle: Oh my gosh, me too. 

Kelly: Yeah. It was so beautiful. I feel like there's going to be things I had to pull and journal and write down, especially just some of those little key pieces of her self love journey and she's gotten there and really sitting in that and processing that and being able to use that in my day to day. 

Kendle: Yes, 100%. Oh, what a treat. Thank you for introducing me to her. And we're excited to introduce all of you to the fabulous Miss Adrienne. 

Kelly: I can't wait for you to see some of her plays. If you're going to link her plays, 

Kendle: if you're in the Denver area, 

Kelly: in the Denver area, if you ever travel here, she has something coming. She is literally such a talent and I love that. A lot of her plays are deep. Yeah, they teach you whether it's history, whatever it is. They're just so impactful in the messaging, the attention that she's putting in, what she wants to put out into the world. So I can't wait for you to go. Your first one, everyone. Enjoy this podcast, enjoy the interview, and we'll see you next week. 

Kendle: Yeah. Love you all. 

[music]

Kelly: Okay, so I know I might be a little bit biased, but I am obsessed with the jewelry from Chrysalishaze.com. I don't know about you, but I am tired of wasting my money on jewelry that turned my fingers green after I wash my hands or putting earrings in and they burn my ears, or the gold search completely fade off, and I end up having to throw it away, and it sits in a landfill forever. It literally breaks my heart. So I love that chrysalis Hayes is an attainable luxury, gold filled and sterling silver jewelry brand that was made to last. Plus, my word, I feel like a bad bitch. We also love that packaging is compostable. They are focused on sustainability, and if you properly take care of your jewelry, it won't fade. So you can wear it year after year. Go check them out at Chrysalis Hayes.com Chrysalishaze.com. And check them out on Instagram at Chrysalis Haze. 

[silence]

Adrienne: People ask me all the time, well, how do you cry? Or how do you get that emotion? And you have to almost go there. There were two shows that I did. I did, actually. It was the crucible old It was fences and it was raising the sun. Those are all very, very dramatic pieces that pull a lot of emotion. By the time I got done with that last one, I said, I don't want to do anything that's depressing or I'm crying, because you have to go there. You have to almost recreate in order to get to that point. Or if you don't know it and you've never been there, then you have to figure out how to create to get to that point, whatever it is on the script. So, yeah, all that being said, yeah, I'm pretty vulnerable. 

Kendle: Beautiful. 

Kelly: Well, that's good because I know I kind of talked to you like, we want to hear about your self love journey. I know you said there was definitely a time in your life where you didn't have a lot of self love, so maybe if you want to take us to that and kind of the journey to how you got here, now I'm really interested to hear it because I don't know anything about your backstory. I've never been told. We've never had a conversation about it. Yes, and I would love to hear that story. 

Adrienne: Oh, my goodness. Don't ask us with my I used to not be that transparent where I would share I don't know what Allen has shared with you, but I grew up foster care. 

Kelly: I had no idea. 

Adrienne: Got you. I knew you didn't. Oh, yeah. But, you know, my son, he's very private. No, I grew up foster care. My mom had she was an extremely beautiful woman. She was an exotic dancer. I don't know if you know that. I did know that. Yeah, she's an exotic dancer. Back in the day we call them strip teasers, but now we call them exotic dancers because now they look like they're strip teasers anyway, so it doesn't matter. And my dad was a musician. As you can see, some of his remnants are around. And so I kind of grew up wanting to perform. So my secret and I was terrified, I was scared to death. But I would get in the mirror and I would grab whatever like a pencil and singing the pencil. And then I would take a towel and try tie it around my hair, make my hair long and I would be singing, pretending that I was whomever. And I never knew the words to any song, but I would just be singing. But I always wanted to get into entertainment, but I was always scared. So when I was in foster care and how did I end up there? It's because my mom had serious mental issues and she would kind of block where my father would care. And unfortunately my father died when I was twelve, so I got twelve years of him and I remember only a few years of those twelve. And then once we got into foster care and we kind of floated around, it was just me and my brother. And then my mom had another child and so she kept him, but we were in foster care. But then what happened is foster care did the worst thing they could have ever done. They separated me and my brother. So I was in one home and he was in another. And the home that I was in was a Christian home, actually, both of them were, but the one I was in was really a Christianity base. That's where my Christianity comes from. So we would go to church and of course the church frock flock or whatever they call the hats and all that kind of stuff, because I didn't grow up that way. It just kind of folded around life and that's where I began to connect with God Christianity. So that was about 13/14. My mom was awarded us again from the state and said, you can have your children. Well, by then we're all different levels of where we are in life. And I did see my mom go through another mental breakdown. It was like major. And she took my little brother and said, I'm moving to California. And you guys figured it out. And at that time I was 16, 17 years old. And so my grandmother, which was my dad's mom, was very stable and there's stability, whereas my brother, he went and lived with some family. I don't know. To this day I have a gut feeling that there was a lot of abuse, mental abuse, other things, I don't know. But for me, it was a stepping stone to be even better for life. Because that's when I don't know if you've ever heard the term, it takes a village to raise a child. So when I went to live with my grandmother, that's when because I was like the only child and they were very well off. My grandfather had his own business. Life was good, but I wasn't spoiled because they had cars. Teenagers to think, Mum, can I go drive to here? You can have the keys to they didn't do that. Like, no, you got a rat bus. What? We got three cars out here, you know. Nope. We don't want you wrecking a car. We don't want you to get drunk. We don't want you so it was strict, but then it was still that freedom. But it was enough for me to say I didn't really buck the system. I wasn't a rebellious child. I just thank God I wasn't that way, because when I look back at my life and go, no, what if I rebelled? That I wouldn't have what I have now or my children or life wouldn't be the way it is. So moving fast forward, they want me to go to college. The one thing that I did not get in all the moves, because my mom used to move like, I kid you not, every three to six months. So I went to every elementary school in Denver at the time. You name it, I went to it. And so I was lacking education big time. And I was also somewhat I'm self diagnosing, but only because of one of my kids had this is addiction deficit disorder. And I didn't know that at the time. I just felt like I just wasn't the smartest kid. But I didn't know how gifted and talented I was because I used to hear so much. And that's one of the things I really want to point out is for self love, how you have to block out the negative and you have to find positive sometimes. It's not always easy in this world now because think about it, every person that's on top, I'm speaking of celebrities, there's somebody that says, ah, they this or they that. There's something very, very negative about that person. So you have to have a certain mindset to keep you moving forward, because if you listen to everybody, your dreams will be squashed. They would be nothing. And that is one of the things that I really try to teach my girls, because I mentor and teach younger girls of color. But moving fast forward, I ended up going to college and it was very hard for me. School was hard. It's very hard. I was held back when I was in third grade, so when I was supposed to graduate at 17, I was 18. So I was always a year behind, and it took me years, years after children, to finally say, you're okay. You're a good person. I have to learn at my pace, not at somebody else's, because I've always admired intelligent people. I think intelligent people are like, the coolest people because they're smart, and I love smart people. And that's why, because I had such a hard time learning as a kid, and I didn't have that positive reinforcement to say, okay, you didn't learn this, but you're good at this. It was, oh, you're not good at anything. So it was very difficult. I learned self love along the way as becoming a mother, some of my spirituality, reading, watching, god. It's my stepmother. That's why I got into the arts. That's how I was introduced into the arts, because she had taken me. And I never forget to see Lady Sings the Blues with Diana Ross. And that was like a black Cinderella story to see someone that looked like me on screen, it's like, wow. So when I went to see Ladies Things the Blues, that was the beginning. And then I had gone to go see a play. I think it was a musical, and I can't remember that one. I don't remember. But I did go see a play, and I just used to dream about being on stage, but I was so terrified. I was so scared. You all have no idea. To this day, I still have anxiety, but I've learned how to manage it. It might be a drink. I don't smoke because I don't like that paranoia. Oh, God. I don't like that. You all had that one, but it just made. Now I've gotten to a point where if I go up on a line, that means if I drop a line, who's going to know? If it shows to my face, then you know. But if you don't know, then you don't know. So that's one of my coping mechanisms, is to learn the lines. But if you learn the story and you learn of what the playwright is trying to say, then you'll learn the lines anyway. 

Kelly: How do you push through that anxiety? I feel like a lot of people, I have anxiety all the time. How do you manage that? What are your tools before you go on stage and being able to push through that? 

Adrienne: Good question. Thank you for asking. I found out I'm not the only one who has anxiety. Always thought it was me. So you see celebrities, you see politicians. It could be your first day on your job, and you are scared shitless. You'd be like, oh, God. Oh, hi. Well, yeah. And you're trying to pretend like you got it all together. You're scared that somebody had to turn your body inside out. It would be like so you really have to. It's that breathing. Breathing means everything. If you're panting. That's not the word I want to use hyperventilating. It doesn't bring oxygen to the brain. And then the brain goes all kind of crazy. Hay wires, like a computer that if you put water on wires, how they spark, that's your brain. So those are the things that I learned just because of things that I've read, or I got to thinking about how the body is put together. We're all so different, but then we're all the same. So when your body goes into that panic mode, you go, okay, so what's going to help me bring it down? First thing is breathing. That's the number one thing. You have got to control your breathing. Because I could feel my heart, it'd be like right here. And sometimes I remember when I first started, I would be so nervous in anxiety. And I learned the word because I used to think it was nervous and fear. It's anxiety, part of it's, anxiety. And everybody gets that. Everybody at one point in time. And it's all to do with breathing. And then the second thing is mindset, because you can talk yourself into something, whether it's good or bad. Okay, I'm going on this first day of my job, oh, God, what if they don't like me? What if I don't say the right thing? What if I do this? What if I do that? If you be yourself, then yet that will eliminate part of that. Then the second thing well, the first thing is to breathe. You got to breathe. I'm going to keep saying that you got to breathe. Then the second thing is, I don't give a damn what they think about me. I'm going to be who I am. I am who I am and stop letting people dictate who they think you should be. That's the number one thing. And it took me years to get over that. People wanting me to be who they think I should be. And I was trying to be everybody, and I found out that everybody was not in me, and I was unhappy, and then I didn't know what I wanted. So now I be like, well, you don't like me. That's your personal problem. Give you another example. Growing up as a black woman, black girl. You didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you. I'm 63. Wait, I'm 63. The bags are gone now.

Kelly: We all know Black don't crack. 

Adrienne: Actually, I'll be 64 in October. And when I was very young, I look like I was 12/13. I always had that younger baby face, which I was very appreciative, and that was on my mom's side. But anyway, back in our day, back in you talk about the world of being of hate, and it started, the country started that way. Now I'm going to take you way back when slavery started, you had the Africans. Of course, we all know Africans are very, very dark. Black, very dark. And then you had the slave masters that were taking the women and they were making babies out of them. Well, when you mix the black and the white together, what do you get? You're going to get something a little bit lighter. Then you mix the white with the lighter, and you're going to get lighter and lighter. That's why we had all these different black people with all these different shades, because you have all these different nationalities within that black blood. Now, I'm not saying it's right or wrong. I'm just saying, I'm just explaining, as my friend says, I'm not complaining, I'm explaining. So as a result, I have a lot of Native American in my blood. No telling what else. So why do I look different than normal? Typical blacks. My hair is different. My skin tone is different. So guess what? I got discriminated against by my own people. So my people would look at me and go like, well, she thinks she's better because she light skinned it. I hate that word. Skin did it, she light skinned it, and she got good hair. My hair is different. My skin tone is different. So in their minds, because of their treatment that they were receiving, I was getting the ass woopens that they were getting, so to speak. And that was that envy and that jealousy. So that's how it was when I grew up. Now you look at black kids today, you don't know what the hell people are. I saw a white woman, I thought she was white. She wasn't. She was what they call French. She was French and black. I forgot there's a term. There's all these different terms. Now, you got to keep up with those, otherwise somebody's offended. But you don't know. You don't know what people sold. That's America. That's how we think. You go to other countries, they don't have those issues. I know when we went to Barbados, you see people of all kind of color, they're not considered, well, that's black bayesian. I think they call them Asian. They're black Bayesian. They're like Bayesians. No, we're all bayesian. Even the white woman, she's bayesian. Americans, they got to put a title, a tag on something. Well, if you have just a smidgen of black, well, you're black. I remember they used to talk about I told y'all, guaranteed subjects on you. They used to talk about Obama. Well, Obama's black. Obama to me, is just as much white as he is black. That's how I always said it. His mom is white. His dad was African. Really? That's the truth. So why does America say he's a black man? Just a thought. I don't have an answer for it. See what I mean? Yeah, but anyway, circling back, coming up as a kid, I had to deal with all of that. So I wasn't accepted by my people, and I wasn't accepted by white people because they saw that you're black. I don't care how you look at it, okay, what your hair looks like. If it's down in your ass. It doesn't matter. You're black. That was a question that you asked. Okay, 63 

Kelly: showing up now, how you manage anxiety and how now you don't care what people think about you. 

Adrienne: Yeah. You really do have to get that way. 

Kelly: Yes. How did you get there? How did you find that? I'm like, how did you find the courage to be you? 

Adrienne: Because I got tired of getting beat up. At the time I asked, Get whoops I used to fight. Now I was a fighting sister coming up because going back to that black, white and you think you're better, that's the kind of fighting my own people would say, well, you think you bet it, and you act like you betting everybody else. And then it didn't help that once I moved in with my grandparents, I had no one for anything. Everything was provided for me. Well, in the more poverty stricken areas, you didn't see that. And I'm only going to speak of my people because everybody was poverty and stricken. Every nationality has their own pockets, so I'm only speaking of my experience and the people that I grew up with. So when they see you and your clothing looks different, I don't have to go to Walmart or Target. I could go designer shops if I wanted to. I didn't because I was trying to fit in. I was trying so hard to be like everybody else and not realizing I was hurting myself and holding myself back. I didn't want to, necessarily. I always looked at what they had. I always compliment other people. I didn't get compliments because there was a lot of jealousy. And I didn't know that, not until I got older, till I realized the lack of compliments that I didn't get just because they were hating on me. So I'd be like, I don't know. You can edit this if you only fuck you. That's the way I got. And it started kind of like in college, a little past that. I remember when I married my husband, he had four kids. We had six kids, and when I married him and my name was Dirt because they thought that I was going to marry this rich guy and we were going to have I was going to have this big mansion because that's how people saw me. I didn't see because I was so insecure at the time. I didn't know that I deserved all of that. I felt like everybody else deserved it, but not me. So it was a lot of self destruction, not realizing that I was destroying myself. And not until Kelly has known me now for ten plus years, and not until I would say the last think about it five years have I blossomed into acting. Why? Because I've gotten to that. Just be who you are. Tell the story rather than worried about who Adrienne is and what people are going to think. And. I had to find that self love. When I raised the kids, I had a lot of people that were like, thank you. Better me. I wouldn't raise nobody. No man kids, no foe keys. And then I had a child out of wedlock, and I wouldn't change it for the world. All of my children are college educated. You don't see that in black families. Not no six kids. That's just something you don't see. You don't see them all. Not just with undergrads, but masters. A couple of them are working on doctorates. You don't see that. And we struggled. Trust me, we struggled. I brought you to a certain point. But then I went to college, and I struggled hard. Oh, God. Me. In schools like this, if it was anything to do with dance, I was good. If it was singing anything in the arts, I was very, very, very good in sports. I was very good in sports. I used to run track in high school, went to state. I played basketball. And people are like, what? Yeah, I was good. Tether ball champions. Y'all know nothing about that. It was waiting for your time. Oh, I was good. You know why? Because that was somebody's face. Bam. That bitch said what? Bam. See, I was scared at the time, so I wouldn't fight. But now everybody knows mom will fight you. Yeah, because I will fight for my kids. All of them. Ask my kids. They were like, yeah. My mom came up to the school. I would visit to the school, just checking on them, because I knew that they were the only minority. So I had to keep a gauge on it. And there were things that some of them teachers would do. I'd have to check them. Yeah. Like, Excuse me. I'm not that ordinary. I didn't get out there and kick your ass, even though you think I'm nice. So then I come back to the niceness. Yeah, she's approachable. I get that. But circling back around, how many circles will be done? About three full circles. Almost like journey circle. Yeah, journey. Self love. That's the main thing. But a lot of it came from learning to love yourself. And I realize we're all the same. That's really where it came from. One of my business partners I have a theater company. I have two partners, and one of them, both of them, they learn scripts like that. And I'm like how y'all be learning them scripts? And I found out because, Adrienne, it's you. You put yourself in the way. You're in the way. Get out of the way. That was how I started learning. Now, still, it's a challenge, but I don't let it hinder me. I just say, okay, you can't seem to remember this line. So if I just have to do that one line, there are some lines I can learn like that. And there's some lines because why? Because I didn't break them. Down to figure out what they mean. That's why what is this line saying? Sometimes lines be specifically something I'm like, okay. And once I get the meaning of it but anyway, I was going to say the business partner, she's a poet. She's a writer, and she would learn I'm like this girl. She would learn lines just unbelievably fast. I can't do that still. It's a process for me. And I'm like how we were talking one day, and she says to me, I had an anxiety attack. I had to go to the hospital. I said what? You anxiety? I was like, wow. So when you hear of actors that have drug problems I'm serious, the higher you get on that Echelon of acting because they expect you to know. Now I get it. I'm not condoning it. I'm just saying now I get why there's so many of them that have drug issues or mental issues. You've got the left brain and right brain, and sometimes your left brain is more creative, and then the right one just doesn't know what it's doing. And so they're trying to balance. And so what I do that's the other thing for self love, is I try to find balance. I also listen to my gut feeling spiritual. I used to always ignore it, and every time I'd ignored, life would just go haywire. When I have a gut feeling right here in your center, it's something that God spiritual. Bang your rocks, stones, whatever you want to use. It says it will tell you. But you got to listen. You have to listen. If you're trying to make a big purchase and you're trying to decide what you're going to do, don't always act on it. I've learned that. Stop moving so fast. Slow down and listen. It may be a week, maybe a month. What is your mind, your body, your gut telling you? What is your spirit telling you? And we all have a spirit, every last one of us. I said, we're all the same, but we're not. We're all the same. Spirituality. You just got to know what your spirit is, what you use to churn your wheel, get your engine wrapped up. What do you do in the morning? Do you meditate? I may meditate. I always go sometimes there's the same thing. My husband goes out to work, like, good, he's gone. Because he's like a kid. He got to be entertained. He's talking. I'm like, you can't think when somebody's talking, right? She's cracking up with his fruit. It's like, I love you, honey. We have our coffee and everything okay. Whatever it is that you do. So when he leaves, if you notice, you walked in and said that month, wasn't it peaceful? Very calm. Very calm. And I believe it or not, I talk a lot. But at the same time, at home, I'm very quiet. I'm very quiet. You Adrienne now. Yeah, I am. I'm very quiet. Believe it or not, I love people. And then some people are like, Gosh, he talks a lot. But then when I get home, I don't say work, and my husband would be wearing me out. And I'm like, yeah, honey, yes. Kelly knows. 

Kelly: Yes, I do. It is funny because, I mean, Allen would always be like we would just get stuck at the grocery store with my mom because she knows everybody, and if she didn't know somebody, she would just talk to them, and then she would be stuck there. 

Adrienne: That is so me. I got off the plane, and there's a bunch of old white men. Old white men look like they had on hoods. But I get along with everybody, and they had some golf clubs and stuff. And I said, Why you all go on golfing? You mind if I go? And he said, no, come on. I said, Where you guys going? Somewhere in Wyoming? Because they had a layover or something. I said, oh, man, I got my clubs right here, my shoes, everything. We could go off, but since you're going to Wyoming no. So I made a couple of jokes, and my husband's, like, he just shook his head. And I got to tell you this funny story. When we were moving here, and I ran to Safeway on Cremeri I don't know if you know where that is, in Denver, and it's a Safeway, and there's a King Super that right across the street. So I ran in a safe way because my brother said he needed something. So I went to go get him some dishwasher soap. I got to tell you what it was. And then while I was there, I was like, oh, some gum. I grabbed some gum. That's all I grabbed. So when I walked in the store, they had this stage and this backdrop, and they had cameras, and there was this man on the stage and this black man, big, tall, nice looking guy, talking. I was beeline to what I need to go get. And then when he spoke, I recognized his voice, and I went, that sounds like Russell Wilson. Interesting. So I kept on going because I'm not a starstruck type person. So I went and get my stuff, and I looked around at the crowd because I had to go back that way to get through the crowd. And there was a lot of people that wasn't too many. So I paid for my stuff, and I said, I'll give the brother a little bit of love. I'm going to stand here. It was only a sprinkle of pepper. It's a whole lot of salt. It's a little bit of pepper. I'll give him, let him know there's more pepper here in this city. So I stood there for a minute, and he was just finishing up, and he says, Any other questions? I was sitting thinking, this is odd. What the hell is he doing in a Safe way because, like I said, I was beeline. But then I thought about it after I stopped and I raised my hand and he said, yeah, the lady there, because I had a pink hat, because my golf hat. He said, yes, ladies are pink. I said, how did you end up in Safeway? I'm not going to say anything. He cracked up laughing. So he went to tell me, explain that he's in partnership with the Safe way to bring awareness to eating and good food for the underprivileged people. And he went on and I'm going, yeah. So he says, well, what did you come in here for? I said, I'm soaping some gum. He said okay. So it was this back and forth a conversation, and it was like nobody else existed. And we had this conversation and people were just cracking up laughing. See what I mean? I didn't be talking to any and everybody. Yeah, right. Anybody else will say, Can I have your autograph? I'm like, whatever. He signed a piece of paper. I had to stick the thing in a drawer somewhere. Really? Yes. So it was fun, but that would be me. Yeah. 

Kelly: Did you always talk to a lot of people? Was that always you? Were you like that as a kid? Or was that something that came out when you started loving yourself more? 

Adrienne: That's a good question. I would say, okay, there's two parts to that. One part of me is, like I said, I've always liked people. So believe it or not, I was shy. I still can be. Yeah, I know nobody believes that. So if I go into a big crowd, I may not necessarily say anything, but there's maybe one person that I connect with and then I start talking. So I kind of talk to people, but not like I do now. Mine, I would say, is more of maternal and more motherly. I get a lot of Aubrey's friends that go, I just love your mom. Because I kind of know what it's like to be where everybody is at your age and how you're trying to find your way, and there may be a lot of things that you want to do in life, but you don't necessarily know what it is. So I try to give that mother heart love to guide you, but I don't want to be overbearing to say, you should do this, you should do that. I remember back in the day, way back in the day, I had moved to La. I used to work for Martin Maria Aerospace, and I had dropped out of college between getting okay, let's be honest. I dropped out, got kicked out because I had such bad grades. I was at a D average. I had 2.99. I barely need to make it. And I felt like I was dumb as a brick. So I was like, skip college. This is just not for me. I can't do this. Because as you get in the upper level classes, they get harder. And I was taking business statistics, and that shit was going through my head like this. And I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I was like, I can't, because I didn't get the basics when I was in high school. Stats and all that kind of stuff in the school either. When you're moving around and all, yeah, I missed it all. And so I was really behind. I didn't realize it. And I'm going to take that back. I did, and I hid from it because my brother is illiterate and he's 65, and my brother still can't read to this day. Now, you think about that in the 2022, and somebody can't read. I mean, we're talking Jane cat, dog. He, my brother, cannot read. It's sad. It's very sad. So he's hid that. And so that's what I did. I hid that. I was not very literate, and I used to get very frustrated, and I would cry because I could read, but I didn't understand what I was reading. And we won't talk about math. Math was like a freaking foreign language to me. 

Kendle: It is a foreign language

Adrienne: yeah. So I hid all of that from people. So that's where the personality came from, because that would take away from and then scripts. I couldn't remember scripts because of the literacy. So all of that played into that. To go back to your question is, as I got older and became more confident, that's when I would speak to people, and you'd be surprised how many people are in the dark. And you could say things like, oh, my God, I love your hair, especially women. And she'll go, Watch her face, how she lights up. It could be any kind of compliment. If you don't have anything good to say, don't say anything. But if you see something and you really do genuinely like it, they can tell, I love this, or I love your smile. I love your look at your eyes, your beautiful eyes. You're beautiful. And sometimes people are just going along. They're in auto. There's a lot of people watch them. Watch people. They're an autopilot. They just they know that they got to do this, they got to do that, and their minds are and then you break that thought process of where they are, and you'll say something like, oh, my God, girl, your browser is bang. Oh. Because they feel like nobody knows it. They could be in a relationship, and you go day to day, and neither one of them persons are given compliments. The other thing I do is I do things like during the pandemic is a good example. Look how many people and I knew this was going to happen. People are going to come out of pandemic like crazy folk. They just some people lost their minds because they couldn't stand the four walls. There was no creativity. That's when I really became creative. That's where a lot of things about a lot of online businesses started, because people are on the Internet sometimes. The Internet was so blogged, you couldn't even get on there. So we'd go for a walk, observe nature. I'm very much a nature person, don't get me wrong. Don't let this fool you, because I'm telling you, I pop these nails off and put some boots on and go up in the mountains and stay all night. I don't like the bugs, but in the reptile, other than that, I love nature. I love to hike. I like being outside, but then I like to dance. I like to party. So I go from one extreme to the other. So you have to find all of that that you really love and back to what you think people judge you on. Those are some of the things that I discovered that I liked and then going back again. In our day, black people didn't hike. There are some things we didn't do. We didn't do any of the ins. Hiking, boating, skiing, biking, 

Kelly: swimming

Adrienne: swimming. But we sho don’t swim. That first boat riding, they say they're like, I ain't getting on another ship. No kidding. That's a joke. Fair. Like nobody damn boat. But all of those things we didn't do, now you're starting to see it, because we've incorporated our lives with other cultures. And so people are saying, hey, this is fun. Now they got the black women who rock. They go hiking and black girl magic, because those women have said, hey, why are we restricting ourselves to this little box? But back in my day, you were considered bougie or you think you better because you act like you're a white girl. What does that mean? You act like a white girl, you talk like a white girl. What does that mean? Because I was expanding, but I didn't know that was the path that God was taking me. All of those things that I've learned along the way prepared me for now, if you had asked to interview me five years ago, I would have been kind of like, what are we doing now? You can't shut me up. See, so I'm just trying to be cognizant. 

Kendle: We love it. How did you get to where you are today, though? And because you have brought us through all of this and I hear had so much fear in becoming like, this actress and this singer and being on stage, and then you just told us you have your own production company and that you mentor girls of color to do this work as well. 

Adrienne: Wow. You'd be surprised. I mentioned you guys, I bet you. And I'm going to prophesy that in five years, you see these little cameras you have? You all going to have a studio oh, yeah. Where it's going to be these big cameras, and you're going to walk in there and you're going to have makeup artists and people just doing the whole thing. But you've got to start somewhere. So you start with this, and then somebody else is going to see this and go, wow, that's pretty cool. That's pretty cool. That's a great idea. And then your subject matter of what you're talking about, it's therapeutic. Somebody is going to hear what I have to say and go, oh, my God, she's right, or any of the other people that you've interviewed, they're going to find something in that podcast that connects with them. So I said all that to say along the journey that I've had has brought me to where I am now, getting over the ridicule of what people think that I should be, how I should be. If we tried to be the script of what everybody writes, you wouldn't understand it. It wouldn't make any sense. It would not be a plot because you're all over the place. You ever watch a movie? It was like what? I didn't get that. But they started over here, but they ended up over here, and then, yeah, that would be your life. So you have to define it once you get all those pieces, and then the puzzle begins to make a picture. So then you have the picture. Now all the kids are gone. The husband's at the house. He at work making more money. And we struggle because there was a time there and that's the other thing. When you struggle from not having money, you're not creative. It's called survival mode. All you're doing is putting in that's what I mean about people that are so tunnel vision of, okay, I got to get the store, but when I get to the store, you're thinking before you even get there. Okay, I got $10. What can I get with $10? Let's see. I'll get some noodles. Maybe I can get some cheese. No, because if I get the El Vita, that's $7 right there. No, I can't get that. Oh, they got this one cheese on sale. It's turning green, but I get that. I can take that and throw it away and use other green. Telling you, boy, just think, there's a lot of people that live like that, been down that road, lived like that. And then the thing is, when people look at me, they think that life has always been good. I've been very poor when I lived with my mom. Back to that. We were so poor, we lived in the projects then. We really have projects here in Colorado. We don't this has been a good state that itself by divine. I could have grown up in New York in the projects, but God made me who I am, only me, and put me here in Colorado, where they now have affordable housing. But in our day, it was projects. It puts you all in this one building, and everybody was broke, everybody was poor, where they had that mentality of poor. So you don't do good, it's all poor. It's survival. So when I was going to junior high, we call it junior high there, not middle school. I had two outfits. So I wear one and wash one. Then the next day, I'd wear the one I washed and then wear the other one or wash it. I wore the same shoes because I had the good hair. I could play that off. And that's how I learned to do my hair. I would do all these different styles so it would throw off. Did she just have that on the other day? There were days we didn't have food, and I mean when I say no food, we didn't have ketchup, we didn't have mustard. There's nothing in the fridge. You open that Friday and be like, this bright light, ain't nothing there. My brother used to make sugar sandwiches. What is that? Happened to have some bread and some sugar at all. So you put some sugar this is disgusting. On some bread and then toast it, put it in the oven because you didn't have butter. 

Kelly: That doesn’t sound too bad, actually. 

Adrienne: So we did have some cinnamon. Put some cinnamon on there, make some cinnamon toast. Yeah. I'll tell you this to create some stuff. Now, I remember one time I had money because I always had an entrepreneurial mindset. And I was a kid, I was 14 years old, and I go to the store, used to buy biscuits for ten cents, ten cents, biscuits. And I would take those biscuits, and I don't even know how I figured this out. And I would open the biscuits, and I would get a top or something about this round, and I'd push it down in the biscuit. So I'd have the round part, and then I'd have the biscuit. Then I would fry it. What's that called? Donuts. So then I'd take the sugar, sprinkle of sugar, and I would buy a candy bar, and I would melt it down and make chocolate donuts. Then I would sell it to the kids in the neighborhood. So I'd sell each donut for $0.05. Bam. Entrepreneur. Yeah. Love it. 

Kendle: That's amazing. That's like an upgraded lemonade stand

Adrienne: you know, then that's funny you said it, because lemonade stands, the return of your profit was like, that's too much work. Whereas donuts, you just didn't see those in the neighborhood. And growing up in projects, there was always a liquor store. There was a dollar store, not a dollar store excuse me, neighborhood store, where they had chips and things like that. And people had, at that time, food stamps. I mean, actual food stamps. So you can go in and buy certain things, but they didn't have donuts. So I sold it, and everybody would come to the door, and I would sell them things out as fast as I could cook them. And as long as you had some grease and some biscuits and sugar, it was on and cracking and then I would do different things. I would sell different things. I became a salesperson throughout my career, selling Internet and stuff like that. But that was my first sales job. And self curated, too. Yeah, so that's the other thing is, if you think back of your life, even a kid I remember my son Allen. He used to love to put puzzles together, and he'd have puzzles, like 30 00, 50 00 pieces that would blow my mind. That is way too much, clutter way too much. It's too much. There's no way I could figure out how to do a puzzle. But he had that intricate mind. He loved airplanes and putting planes together. Well, guess what? He's a mechanical engineer. See what I mean? So if you look at a child, if a parent is able to look at that child and see certain things about them, you can kind of guide them and direct them. Well, I didn't necessarily have that, so I had to figure it out. I was good on the business side because I used to be a talent agent. So I would send people to I would always connect. And even to this day, people call me now, hey, do you know where I can find a band? I need a band for this festival because I could put people in places and together. That was my gift, was learning how to put different connecting people. That was what I was looking for. It's marketing, connecting people to the right people. And I know because they're talking to different people. I know of so many different people that do different things, and then they'll say, I need I got just a person for you. Hey. 

Kendle: I mean, I just see this, as you were saying earlier, this motherly heart that you're just sharing with everyone and how you see the best in all these people. It's really beautiful. Adrienne: Thank you. 

Kelly: The girls that you work with, what age are they? 

Adrienne: So these last girls, the ones that gave me Kobe, those girls that the ones you're talking about? Yes. But I managed to dodge that bullet, and I said, I just be Dip. But yeah, they were six to 18. Okay. And I used to teach acting. I worked for Girl Scouts. So what they would do is they had this mentoring after school program for girls, and so I would go to different junior high schools and teach them. Because I used to be makeup artists. I've had a lot of jobs as actors. You'll learn that we have a lot of jobs, but that's where you learn. We call it character study. I'm a funeral director now, and the reason I laugh, because you know, my character study. Wow. Just watch people. It is amazing. Anyway yeah. You're constantly hustling. I'm a hustle. I'm a hustler. The joke is I'm a legalized hustler, because before one job ends, I'm already going to the next. So anyway, is that from your survival spirit do you feel? Yeah, very good observation. And the other thing is office work. To be in an office every day, it kills my spirit. That's the one thing that I can't I've had jobs. I have a degree in business, believe it or not. By the way, I told you about my struggles in school, and I went back to school. I started working for Mark Marriott. I dropped out, got kicked out. That's where I told you I could keep going once tour the other and I started working at Martin Myriad, at Aerospace. I only started working there because I needed a job, and I was living at home with my grandparents because my grandparents took me. So everybody worked. There was no sitting around doing nothing, eating bonbons. So I started working, and I wasn't in that job three months, and I was like, oh, hell no. I can't do this. Oh, my God. So they had a program where you could get your degree at Regis College. It was Regis College then. Now it's Regis University. And so some people had told me about it and said, if you go it's accelerated adult learning. That's what it was that I was, you have to learn who you are. You got to listen. I said, the spirit, you got to listen to who you are. And I discover that was why I wasn't good at school, because it was too slow. That's what I discovered. 

Kelly: Your brain is going too fast.

Adrienne: Exactly how many things have I talked about since we've been on this? And this hasn't been an hour. When you learn who you are, then you know how to channel those positives and things that you need to get you to where you need to be. Now, you may have three or four things like me that you want to do and you're like and you're trying to do it all you can. Who said you have to be just this one thing or one person? So when I discovered that and I went back to college, those classes lasted four to five weeks. Then you also worked in groups. I discovered that that was helpful for me. So once I discovered those things, that's how I got my degree. And somebody says, Are you going back to get your masters? Like hell. No. I'm a thank you lottery. That's that's all I needed. And I only went to college to prove to me, not you, not them, not what they said. I want to prove that I could do it. That's where I would say back to a question. Where did you find your inner peace or who you are? That's where it started. I would say there and then there was other things that I went through in life. We'd be here all day if I went through all that, because I've done a lot of things and didn't realize that I've done that until my daughter says, Mom, do you realize you've done this? And I said, you know, I forgot about that. Yeah. But yeah, that was why I went and got my degree. It had nothing to do and then the funny thing is, once I got it, I never really used it in the corporate world because once I got my degree, that was the other thing. I was misled. I'm not going to say lied to. I was under the impression that once I got the degree, I would then move up in Mark Marietta to get this wonderful job. They looked at me like, okay, and? So I was still doing data entry. I was like, but I'm not going to get you. No, you have no experience. But how am I going to get experience if you don't put that made no sense to me. And that was my reality check of this is corporate America, baby. You don't know enough people. You didn't do this. They had all these different things. So that's when I began and not realizing to develop who Adrienne is today, because I can't rely on the corporate world because they gonna lie to you. I'm telling you, they gonna lie to you. And you're going to be the most loyal person in the world. I was very loyal. I made sure I was there. I was kind of late, but I made sure I was there every day. I wasn't the young people. I mean, I'm not going to say that I wasn't the type of person that I don't feel very good today. I'm going to call in. I had all this time racked in of sick time. I was very reliable, dependable. Like I said, I was a little late because we had different mindset. But the point is, it helped me become who I am today. How did you learn to connect with your spirit? You always had or is that something to learn? No coming in a Christian, let's put it this way. When I was dating, there were certain things of a boyfriend that I just didn't like and I couldn't put my finger on it. And what it was was my inner spirit that I go through because I had a tendency this is another thing I had a tendency to sacrifice me to make somebody else happy. No matter what it was, I always sacrificed myself and I wouldn't tell them the truth, how I really felt. So I would ignore what my mindset was telling me and I found out it was later my spirit. So now I listen more to my spirit. Some of it comes from if you read more reading what? It could be self help books. It could be motivation for the it could be my motivation for the day. I bought this years ago, years. And I never would find anything. My name is Adrienne in the way it's spelled. I never found anything that said Adrienne. And then I found something in the store and it says, Adrienne rich. I used to always pray even back then that I'd be rich in spirit. I used to always say that. That was my prayer. I never said I want to be rich in money. Now I wish I could go back and say, well, you know, Lord, I meant rich in spirit and money or money anyway. So the rest of this says, be strong and of good courage. Be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed, for the Lord thy God is with thee. Whether so ever thou goest, you can take it for what is worth it. In Joshua, and I kept that because that defined who I was all in a nutshell. I was scared to death. But it said, don't be afraid. And there's a scripture, Psalms 118 eight, and it said, be not afraid of man. What can he do to you? So if you say and then you go, what are they going to do? Think about it. Everything that you're afraid of, what are they going to do? That's where I found the peace and the self love, was you're. Okay, so what? And I used to wear braces because that was the other thing. I had like 242 teeth in my mouth. And so when I smile, I did a whoopie thing, always covered my mouth, and I never would smile. And then this older woman, that's another reason why I am the way I am with young people. An old woman said to me, she was old, but when you're young, they look like old, and they could be like 40 and you think they're old, 50. And she said, you have the most beautiful smile. I'm looking at her because I had all these teeth. They were stacked on top of each other. Oh my God, I was so self conscious. And I got teased about that. And you look like a vampire, that kind of stuff. And she said, you have the most beautiful smile. Take your hand down. And she would pull it down and she said, your eyes are so beautiful. They're so expressive and then this and that. And so she would compliment me. And then somebody else would say, you have a beautiful smile. And then when I started working at Martin Marietta, I always called my nickname from Martin Marietta was Mother Martin because I got my degree, I didn't pay a dime loan. As you kept your grades above the C average, that was the other thing. I had to prove to myself that I could learn in college and be better than a C average student. So that was a proof to me. I had to prove that I got braces. So I had four teeth extracted. Yeah, you already know about that kind of stuff. These two and then these two. So somebody, I don't know who to this day entered me into a smile contest. And so I got first runner up a smile they're a little yellow now because I drink coffee, but I still said one day I'll go and get them polished. But I always get compliments on my smile, you know, to this day. So little things. When you compliment someone, that could be something that is a hindrance to them. Do it out of sincere. Don't just do it because you're trying to get something. You want to know something about them. If it's sincere, it could be something that has hindered them. And you have no idea the chain that you break when you speak good on someone, that's speaking good on someone, it comes back to you. It does in one way or the other. 

Kendle: We talk about that a lot, how our world is in such a deficit of love. And love is free, so why can't you just give it? 

Adrienne: Yeah, so free. It's so free. And people just don't get it. They just don't get it because they're in such turmoil. That's the problem. And sometimes people are so deep into it, they can't come out of it. And another prayer that I do, a lot of prayer, praying, and I have learned not to browbeat people. I used to do that because that's where I was, and I wanted my husband and my family to come with me. And I just decided to fix me first. And then I'm just going to show you through example. So when people see that you begin to have a light. I get that a lot. If I walk into a room, somebody says, this is something about you. And it's just the inner spirit of peace. I meant peace even when I was going through a lot five, six years ago. Right, Kelly? It was bad. It was bad. But I tried to find the good of everything and the good in people. If you can find the good, then you can find somewhat of a peace. Because we're still all connected one way or the other. As I say, six degrees of separation. Somehow we're connected. 

Kelly: I remember just a small piece is actually at the wedding. You are such a positive person. It's so beautiful to see. But I remember the photographer was getting all moms together, and my stepmom was out to the side, and I was like, oh, I have one more. And I could see she felt like she wasn't a part of that. And the first thing that Mrs. Adrienne said was, what a blessing. She has all these moms. And I can just see her feel like, comfortable. I get an emotional thing, but it's so beautiful. I wish I could have more of that light and that positivity where I live all of my day. Because when you said that, it just touched me so much. And it's probably something that you didn't even think about. You just said it and you were like, let's take a picture. 

Adrienne: You'd be surprised. I'm so aware. I'm so aware. I remember at my wedding, my graduation, my biological mother came, my stepmother and my grandmother. And my mom always had this disconnect with my stepmother because, like I said, my mom had mental issues. So she always thought that my stepmother was this horrible person, whereas my stepmother was from the south, and she always had this loving spirit. She never had children of her own. I never asked. I couldn't tell you to this day. And it was very awkward. Oh, my God, it was some awkward. So I barely remembered my graduation. I remember when my son graduated from college. No, not college, high school. And we had the dinner, and you're trying to divide the families. You got part of family over here, part of family, and you're and then you run over this family, and because you're trying to keep everybody at peace, that's another thing. I say fuck y'all. This is about my world, and I'm the mean to be. So you can edit that out, too. That F word sometimes comes in handy because you will lose your mind trying to appease everybody. So when I was at the wedding, I knew and I could feel that's another thing that I have innate, a gut feeling. I could feel when something's not right. If somebody dies, I can almost tell two weeks prior to the death. I mean, it's a gift from that I have from God. I can't even describe to you. I can feel when something's not right. I can feel when the energy is not right. And I believe that my kids are like that. My biological children aubrey and Allen are the same way. They can feel when things aren't right. But at the wedding, I could see that her stepmom was like and we sat at the table and we laughed and joked. I was talking to her dad, like, I knew him for years. I was like, So you're the dad. And then, my God, I said, I thought and the other and we just talked, and he laughed. And then he got told about he was in the military. I said what? My grandfather? And so we got into this deep conversation. What's, just the four of us? If anybody came to a conversation like, you are not invited right now. We are not our own conversation. So we were into the military and what it was like to really be in the war and to touch that. When you touch on what people's lives, that means you care. And the problem is, people don't give a shit about other people. Yeah, I was somewhere, and I saw this homeless man. There's the homeless, and then there's the homeless. There's the homeless, and you know, it I saw him. I was like, oh, my God. I'm not doing this to be accolades. I'm not doing that. But I'm just giving you an example. And he was sitting outside Chipotle, and I said, would you like something to eat. And he goes, yes, ma'am, there's another guy sitting out. And I got him something, and I went into a Papa John's. No, it was a Chinese restaurant. It was a Papa John's next to it, and then there's a Chinese restaurant, and the guy needed another dollar to make $5 to get the five dollar pizza. And he says, Ma'am, you need to ask my husband who carries cash. That's the other thing. I just happened to have, like, $8. And he says, Ma'am, I would like a dollar so I could get a pizza. And I said, you know what? It's Friday. Go get your dragon and get you a pizza. And it lit up his world. But see what happens when you do that? And I don't think anything of it. I don't tell people about what I do or if it does happen somehow, I get blessed. Yeah, I get blessed. And I'm going to put this on record. My son and my daughter in law, we were living in an apartment. We had downsized. Life happened. So we were in the midst of trying to purchase well, you know, the market here in Colorado has gotten so stupid, when you get the down payment, then they raise the bar, and he's like, I need another $30,000. Well, damn. So we were like, let's just move out of state. So we're going to move out of state. And how things work. In divine intervention. He did not get the job, and he wanted that. He went on, I kid you not, bird told me seven interviews for this job. He ended up not getting it. Sees, unemployed. I don't even know if anybody knew that, but because of the work that I had been doing, and I've been banking stuff, so we were living off of that. And then stuff that I'd been doing, I'm hustling. I was hustling. So we were fine. We weren't hurting at all financially. And my wonderful daughter in law and the son that said, we have a condo, timing was perfect. So it all worked out for us to be here. See what I mean about blessings? If people understood that they can be blessed by blessing others because we're all still connected. I was reading scriptures about the body of Christ. The body of Christ. The arm is not going to be out there by itself. So if you're in the body of Christ, you're all connected. The liver is not going to do without the kidney. There's a joke about the kidney, the heart and the liver, and they were talking about how they don't need the other one, and the other ones say, well, the heart shuts down, then the kidneys ain't going to be no good. It's the same thing with people. We all need each other, but people think that they're in this world by themselves. 

Kelly: Yeah. My biggest turning point for knowing that you needed to stay here. A, of course. I always thought about, like, Aubrey has another baby on the way. Amir is here. You're so involved in their lives, and I would hate to see you have to leave them. But it was actually when we were sitting in your play where you had the ponytail. Yes. And I don't know what happened to that day. It was conversations that were happening. And I could not imagine you leaving the community that you had here because of how impactful you are in the community, how much you give back, how much you love, how much wow. I knew you would bring that, obviously, to anywhere you go, but I couldn't see you leave that. I wanted you to stay in that. I knew you needed to be in that, especially with babies on the way. 

Adrienne: You know that. God told me. Now he answered. I'm getting emotion again, because I'm going to tell you, I was only going to follow my husband. I did not want to go, I said, because I've done that before I left Martin Marietta after seven years of being with that company and stocks, bonds, good money, the old saying, I don't know what it is now because I don't work corporate America, but you always want to make more than your age. I was way past that point, and I was going to move to DC. And I went to DC to try to see what DC. Was about. It was something about, I want to go to California because I want to get into the arts. And I chose to not continue on with Martinida because DC. Was the only place they're going to allow me to transfer. So I quit. And I was like, I hope I know what I'm doing. So I went to California. No plan. Didn't have anything mapped out. Had money, but no plan. Less than a year, a little less than a year, I moved back to Denver. So I said, I would never do that again. I would have a plan. Excuse me. So when we were talking about Texas and we've gone there, and I'm like, yeah, this is great. Yeah, honey, yeah. But my heart was saying, you don't want to go here. I did not want to go. I said, damn. I'm 63. I cannot start over. It's hard. It's just like think of it as a corporate job. You go to a different corporation, a new corporation. You're trying to work your way up. Well, you got to get to know people. You got to get to know the structure of how things are set. You can't go in there trying to run things because you don't know nothing. So there's a process. And I'm like, I'm 63. There's a process. I may not have that kind of time. It took me 20 plus years to get this far. Hey, can I get a job? I'm like, no, that's not going to work. So I didn't want to go. And then I finally said, God, I'm going to let you tell me. What did I say about being still? I said be quiet. Be still and listen. So I just stopped pushing everything. I didn't do anything. I said, I'm just going to keep going. And then when the job didn't go through, I was so disappointed because it was going to be like a $30,000 raise for hubby. And I was like, that's what I was looking at. The only thing I was looking at is the money. And you get more houses in Texas than you do by far in Denver, Colorado. So that was the only thing. And then I thought, well, then once you get in the house, then what? You got to get new friends. You got to go, you know what I mean? All of that, even simple things like the store, the cleaners, nail shop, hair shop, you go on and on and on. All that stuff has to be brand new because you don't know anything. So I just said, be quiet. Need to get the job. Then this friend of his calls and says, hey, man, they're looking to hire at this company, and they need some sales reps. So he'd been looking, no joke. Three or four jobs a day. Couldn't find that, couldn't land anything. And then the guy, he sends his resume. Guy calls him the next day. Then the day after that is an interview. Then there's another interview, and that's it. Hired. Like what? I mean, about being quiet? Yeah. Then Kelly Allen says, hey, mom, we've been talking, and we want you to think about the place. Im like what? But we're going to make this work. I'm going to figure it out. Because we had signed the lease, we still had to finish out the other lease. But God said, be quiet, be still. That gut feeling. Listening. And because if you think about it, what did I say? I figured out Kelly and Allen's relationship. He has such a genuine heart. You guys both do. You know, let's get real. You see a black man with a woman that's not black. Other black women are like, some people are good with it, some people are not. They look at my son, and I don't know what is my son's good looking? Not only is it good looking, the boy is smart. So he's a beautiful, handsome, smart man. And then you see a woman that is not black, and they go, well, I said, let me tell you right now, she is the best thing for him. That's what God set it up for them to be together. And you have to go beyond that color. It's like mine. They're like minded so much. They're so connected. And there's a lot of couples that are not. I don't care what color they are. They're not connected. And you just have to find that love. And I just try to instill in my kids to look at the whole picture, not just one thing, because sometimes the whole picture is different than what you see. You can magnify something, and it's not. And you look at the post and say, oh, okay, I get it. It's just like reading a book. You read one line out the book, you don't understand it. No, you got to read the whole book. 

Kelly: Is that what you instill in those little girls that you mentor and teach? 

Adrienne: Yeah, the girls that I teach now are more for acting and the time frame, because I started talking about that, and I don't know how I got to talk about something else. But we only had a week with the girls, and they had to do presentation by that Saturday. So it was a world win. It was fast. It was real fast. And I had to throw a lot of things at them. The outcome was not the way I wanted it because I got covert, and so I wasn't able to teach them the way I wanted to. I do try to teach that positive and self love. Even when I taught for the Girl Scouts, when I was going to other schools, and that's where makeup came in, because I would teach them how to apply makeup. 

Kendle: I mean, I think that's just so beautiful, all of it. you keep mentioning people in boxes and how society puts us in these boxes, and I just see that in you wanting to pull people out of the boxes because you pulled yourself out of your own box. 

Adrienne: I'm still working on it, but thank you for saying that. I'm still working on my box. My box is getting bigger. I'm including more people in the box. But, yeah, we have a tendency to be stuck in our own little world. I remember one time hearing a sermon, and one of the pastors was talking about this was, like, almost ten plus years ago. He was talking about how people become so there's no neighborhoods. Well, that's not true. But, like, the neighbors, they don't speak to each other. Like this lady right here, whoever lives I'm saying whoever because I'm not quite sure. I see a couple of people come out of there, and they will come out the door. You can't see this people, but we are what 

Kelly: a handshake away 

Adrienne: handshake away, yeah. I could say, you got some sugar? And you could just toss it over the fence. That's how close we are. And they will not speak. They will not speak. And I'll say good morning. See what I mean? So I make them speak. Good morning. Hello. I'm not trying to get you busy. I could care less because I got enough going on over here to keep me busy in my life. But at the same time, acknowledging people

Kelly: acknowledgement. We talk about Acknowledgement a lot, too. 

Kendle: Acknowledging other people exist. They're presence. 

Adrienne: Yes. 

Kendle: Just a reckoning of I see you, you're here, and we're in this moment together. 

Adrienne: Yeah. And going back to a cultural thing, minorities, if we are a minority in a certain environment and you see someone that looks like you, guess what? We do not. If you were in the environment and there's somebody that looks like you, nod or high, you automatically gravitate to them. I used to be, believe it or not, kaiser Permanente had a theatrical program and I worked for them for three years. I got hired on as an actor. People say you're an actor for Kaiser. I told you I had a lot of jobs. Kaiser. What we had was it was a workshop. We did workshops for corporations, mainly in the health care. And it dealt with stereotypes. That's not the word, because I'll find that word in a second. But we had where people would be boxed in the stereotypes you have okay, I'll say Asian, where you think all Asians are smart people. They're intelligent. That's a stereotype. And so we would have to point out different stereotypes that we have of people. If somebody had brown eyes and they're this way, or blue eyes, they're this way. And so those type of stereotypes that we have of people, we had to break those pretzels. And so we would go through these workshops to show people that we are all different, but then we're all the same. And those workshops, we would go through different exercises to help people really think. And one of the things that people would do is they would realize how disconnected they are with the human race. The human race is like no other. And we are very disconnected because, like, I started talking about the neighborhood. People don't speak. They go in the driveway, in their garage. Get in the garage, shut the door really quick. I hope nobody is outside so you don't have to speak to them. How did we get like that? Where did this come from? Now, don't you honk at anybody. You might get blown away. There's some things that you do have to be kind of cautious of. But, yeah, the self love back to that, circling back is the people need to figure out where their love is. You got to love self first before you can love others. And how do you do that? Get off the Internet and stop looking at other people saying that that's the way love looks. You have to look at yourself and go, I have a lot to offer. And some people are so far gone. All you can be is the sunshine or the light because there's a lot of people in the darkness. And that is one of my prayers. I always pray that I be the light in somebody's darkness. That's my daily prayer. 

Kendle: So beautiful. 

Adrienne: Thank you. 

Kendle: The light in somebody's darkness. 

Adrienne: Yeah. Be surprised. Yeah, a lot of people are in the dark. Oh, so many. 

Kendle: You never know what's going on in someone's mind. 

Adrienne: You don't. Yeah. And so many people smiling and they just smiling. You think all things life is good. It's not. Yes. That's why I don't put that many things on Facebook anymore, because I try to keep it positive, but not overly where people think, oh, she's bragging. The other thing about self love, and that was when I worked corporate America and I was working for a company, it was a mortgage refi. And before I got laid off, which was the great thing, was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. That's how I became into the arts full time, because I was jump, roping. I was in out, in, out, because I wanted it so bad. But I was scared to death to make it full career. That's another thing, is to follow through. Gut but that's another story. And go back to what I was trying to say, trying to stay on track. And the company I was working for, there was a man there, he was all about money. All he believed in was and he had a family, he had a wife. And he used to talk about his wife. Oh, my God, you'd think she was a stranger and his kids. And he was all about and he bragged about this $800,000 house he had. It's almost a million dollar house. He bought it, I think, for 600 and some thousand before the market just shot up. And it valued at that time, $850,000. And he talked about all this money, and then he knew that I was living in an apartment, and he couldn't figure out why you live in an apartment. You got six kids. And he went on to judge me. Oh, he was dodging it. I felt like one of them. That's how I felt. And he's talking about me into my face, but in a diplomatic way. I could hear between the lines. And then one time he said something that just turned my button. I said, Let me tell you something. When you have because he had two children and they were just running the household, he had three. And I said, when you have six kids, six children that have gone through college and all have gotten degrees and that have successful jobs and they're not in the system, they're not in the judicial system, they've never been in that system. They do very well. They have wonderful spouses. I said, Then you come talk to me. I said, that's what you call success. I'm very successful. I don't have all the material things, but I have my mind, I have my spirit, and I have my health. And those are the things I cherish and I don't take for granted, because the older you get see, when we're your age, you're beautiful. The skin is all pumped. Look at that. Puffy is gone. Hair is long. My hair used to be thick and long, black. Now it's gray, kind of falling out. Skin tone. It's kind of loose up in here. Your body changes. But I still have my health. I'm very healthy. I take one thing a day of vitamin. I am so blessed. I know. I saw Kelly's mom. Her mom is absolutely stunning to me. She takes care of herself. She does have dietary restrictions, but that's because she chooses to say, I'm going to change my lifestyle. Those are what I call success stories. I'm very successful. I could still get up and down the stairs and without complaining, my knees hurt and this hurt and that hurts. I still could hang. I love to dance. Kelly knows that. I love to dance. I still dance. Not as much, but the point is, that's a success. And that's what I was trying to tell this younger man. He was like in his 40s something, and he just thought he was on top of the world because he had this $850,000 house and had a little bit of money saved. So he saves all his money, never goes out to eat and doesn't indulge in life. And then you get all this money. See, my grandparents, they had a lot of money. My grandfather had bad health. People took it from you. Do you know what I mean? You do all that saving, you don't live life for the moment. Now. There's still the smart. You live to save for the future, but then you live for the moment, because otherwise you're going to look back at this. Trust me. Trust me. You look back and go, I wish I could've should've so enjoy. 

Kelly: What did that man say when you said that to him? What is his face look like? 

Adrienne: We call that crickets. He didn't say a word. And I was like and I went back to my desk and sat down. Never brought that subject up to me again. Left me alone. Yeah, see, I can cut you out, but I can cut you out. So I blessed him and told him, and he left me alone. And I said to me as well, I said, we're educated. We're not stupid. And I didn't have the job that he had. I had just started, because I started as a temp. But I chose the path that I chose in career, because once I got my degree, I could have gone back and got a master's. I could have worked for a corporation and worked my way up. But I didn't like the corporate world, really. My heart was in the arts. So I combined the two. I said, I have a theater company. Well, that's where the managerial part comes in. That's where finances and learning about business comes in. But at the same time, I get to create and I get to be on stage. I produce shows. The show that you came to see, Flying West, that was part of our production. But I was also an actor in the show. I chose to be a temp. That work. And they kept trying to offer me as a full time. I was like, no, no, because I knew that would lock me in. That's what happens to people. The more stuff you buy, the more you get locked into stuff. So the sofa you're sitting on, it was by scanning and design. That was almost $4,000 sofa. But guess what? I said, one day I'm going to buy me a sofa because I used to love that store. And I'd go in that store and I'd dream. And this was like 1520 years prior, I said, one day I'm going to buy something out of here. And the day that I got a check from one of my gigs, we call it the gig from a commercial, I took my little happy ass, right, all over the Scandinavian. And I looked around and said, yeah, I like that. And it was on sale. And I said, how would you like to pay for that? You like credit? No, I don't want no credit. Cash. And that's how I started. I didn't lock myself into those things because I learned self love. 

Kendle: Yeah, you chose your spirit. You chose to be rich in spirit. 

Adrienne: Yeah. It's been about an hour and a half now. My bladder says time. 

Kendle: Yes, ma'am. This has been such an honor. 

Adrienne: This has been awesome for you to say, we want to interview, and I'm like, me?

Kendle: Do you have any upcoming productions or anything? 

Adrienne: So funny you asked. Come on, man. I was so happy. I just got a commercial shoot. I'm going to be doing a stage reading called Doubt. You've heard of that play Doubt? You haven't? No. Viola Davis was in it. They had it on TV. It's written by Patrick and I can't remember his last name. And then I just got cast for a play by August Wilson called King Hedley. I'm really excited because that one is going to be in Colorado Spring at the Fine Arts Center. Theater Works is producing it and that's like a regional, so I'm really excited about that one. And then I have a piece that I'm going to write and put together, including Aubrey in it for cancer survivor. What's it called? Fighting together to save lives. It's a friend of mine. She's a cancer survivor and she does this black tie gala and she has entertainment every year. This is like her fifth year, I think. And she's asked me to be in that. So I'm also associate director, assisting director for a play called The Piano Lesson. And that's going on right now, so still got to read that script. Yeah. And then my other little hustles, I told them hustler. 

Kendle: Yeah. Amazing. We will link any and all tickets that we can. 

Adrienne: Oh, yeah. 

Kelly: Well, thank you. 

Adrienne: Thank you. I'll give you a tour.

Kendle: Yeah. It has been, again, an honor and we just appreciate everyone listening and a lot of wisdom. Thank you so much. 

Adrienne: Y'all. Get your wine. I don't know which way the camera is short. Get your wine. Get whatever it is that you do. A long podcast. 

Kendle: It's worth it. 

Adrienne: Okay!

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Kendle: Thank you for holding space for this conversation. We hope it was expansive. As a new podcast, it would mean the world if you could please help us grow our community by leaving, review and sharing this episode. 

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