Jonathan Capehart: Lessons in Truth, Connection, and Self-Belief

0:00Believe in yourself. You know, Lena Horne, when she's singing that song and, you know, it's a great song. And then you start listening to the words and you start. Yeah, I started internalizing them. And when I feel there have been moments when I felt low and I'll put that on and there's just something so uplifting about it.

0:26Mick:Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one podcast for self-improvement, leadership, and relentless growth. No fluff, no filters, just hard-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest. Ready to break limits? Let's go!

0:51Mick:Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today we have a bucket list conversation for me, someone who's been a blueprint for some of the things that I've done in my podcast journey. He is a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist, a fearless truth teller on MSNBC, and a trusted voice shaping national conversations. His work doesn't just report the culture, it moves it forward. Get ready for an amazing conversation with the brilliant, the courageous, the unapologetic, my blueprint, Mr. Jonathan Capehart. Jonathan, how are you doing today, brother? I am great. And Mick, I have to tell you, I'm blown away by that introduction.

1:34No one has ever told me that I was their blueprint. and you're reading the book, you know, and I hope you understand just like what an honor that is to hear and to hear from you. So thank you very much. I'm thrilled to be here.

1:53Mick:Well, the thanks is all to you. And we're going to get to the book in a second, man, because it is page turning. It is reflective and it is you. And that's why I love it, man. But one of the things that I love to ask my guests and my special guests on Make Unplugged is about your because, that thing that's deeper than your why. You know, Simon Sinek said, start with why. And I believe that. But then I also believe that you're fueled by your because, that deeper purpose, that why behind the why. So if I were to say, Mr. Jonathan Capehart, what's your because? Why do you keep doing the thing that you do so brilliantly?

2:34I think my because is because this is what I've always wanted to do, because. what I want to do is about telling other people's stories about getting to the truth of the, of things, because I want to chronicle what's happening because I understand that things are not static. So because I write something, because I write something today, doesn't mean that facts might change. And therefore, I might have to revisit because my audience comes to me because they see me as someone who they can trust. So I love this question. I think my because is about getting at the truth. I think I'm still that naive kid who was taught right from wrong, good from bad.

3:41Truth versus lies. And I still believe that the lies should be exposed, the bad should be exposed, but so should the good. So should those stories about people and things and issues that either people really care about or, more importantly, that they should care about and they might not know about. Yeah, it's amazing.

4:08Mick:And all of those things that you literally just said you're because is why you are my my blueprint. And here's what I want to tell you, looking you in the eye and and what made you different for me? You know, starting a podcast a year and a half ago, something I did not want to do. I started my podcast literally just to create YouTube content. Right. And then Les Brown is one of my mentors and was like, no, you really should go all in. Damon Johnson mentor was like, you should go all in. So then I started looking at other people, not to mimic people, but just to understand what podcasting was about.

4:43Mick:And what I started realizing, and there's a lot of podcasters, I'm going to hurt their feelings, but it was all superficial. I was hearing stories already new, right? Like I wasn't gaining much. There was not a lot of insight. And so then I just said, you know what? One of the people that I listen to on TV is Jonathan Capehart because he draws people in, right? Like he's going to get to what you call the truth. He's going to go to a deeper story, a more connected story. And I think that you're able to do that because of the last thing I said, your connection. Like you really connect with people, you connect with the story and you're able to bring things out that people just don't normally see.

5:22Mick:Right. Like, again, what's going on in the world today? Everybody can report it. Everybody can talk about it. But you bring the story to life because there's an energy inside of you that you can create and connect the dots. And that's why you are my my blueprint. Like you taught me how to, hey, Mick, take your time, understand and really connect with people. Because when there's genuine connection, right, the story is going to live and the story is naturally going to come out. I don't need a script of questions. I asked Jonathan about his because and I hear that story. And now that leads me to where I want to go.

5:57Mick:Nothing scripted. There's nothing preplanned. And I have to thank you for that, man, because you showed me how to do that. Oh, wow. Well, thank you. You know, at the root of that, that connection you're talking about is curiosity. Yeah. You know, you have to be in these jobs, in these roles, especially as a as a podcaster, because we're in people's ears. It's one of the most intimate experiences that a person can have. And so because it's so personal and so intimate, being curious about the other person or being curious about the subject. And I will have some preset questions just as a safety net.

6:44But if someone says something that is interesting, I'm going to go there.

6:51Mick:Exactly. I'm totally going to go there because that is what makes it interesting. And also, because we're doing this face to face, you know that it's also a matter of not so much of what the person is saying, but how they're saying it. If you notice that as they're saying something, that there's a twitch or suddenly their eyes start glistening. As soon as I see that, as soon as I hear the quiver in the voice, to me, just on a human level, I think, what's that about?

7:33Yeah.

7:54And it's a completely new conversation. Suddenly that person is alive and they want to talk more. And suddenly you realize, oh, well, we're out of time. That is the beauty of sitting across from another person and talking to them about what it is that they've written or the policy that they've proposed or the art that they've created. it. The interview is not about me. It's about them. And that's what makes it so much fun.

8:29Mick:And that was the other thing that I picked up from you is, especially from a podcast perspective, no one wants to hear Mick talk for 30, 45 minutes, right? It has to be about the guests. And so I make sure that I do a really good job of honoring the guests and really highlighting the things that they want to do. And again, I thank you for that because you taught me those things, man. You really did. So I want to know, like hearing this, like, when did you know that this was a gift that you had? And I don't know if you know, it's a gift. I'm going to tell you, it's a gift. When did you know that this was what you were destined to be doing?

9:08Wow. I, I, I, you know, I don't know. I don't, it's easy for me to pinpoint when I knew I wanted to be a journalist when you know that first that very first step that put me on this journey I know you've read it when those moments were but in terms of understanding um what you call this this gift um maybe it was I mean it had to have been within the last 10 years maybe I mean I started the podcast, my podcast at the Washington Post in 2016. And that was an outgrowth of live events that I was doing and understanding how much I love doing live events. Yeah, one, because you can see the person face to face, but then the interaction with the audience, you know, trying to come up with ways to not only pull the interviewee in, but to also pull the audience in and try to figure out ways to get a reaction from them that will also be part of the dynamic.

10:15I mean, I don't know when I realized that, but I do know that at some point, you know mick i remember once i was at a i was at a low point you know during during my career and i think this was around either just before the pandemic or during the pandemic and i was just feeling funky and feeling like i was doing all these things and nothing was just nothing was gelling and I was in the shower and suddenly I just said out loud, I am damn good at what I do. And it was just this, I don't know what compelled me to say it, but this much I know, Mick, and I'm glad you asked me this question. The moment I said that out loud to myself in the privacy of my own shower is when everything changed.

11:19Literally everything changed. It's when, you know, more live events started coming. It's when I started doing more things with Washington Post Live. It's when I started doing more things on MSNBC. It's when everything started clicking because suddenly I was not keeping this to myself. I said it out loud. I gave it agency. And I allowed myself by saying that out loud, I allowed myself to believe in myself. And I noticed that once I did it, I stood up straighter. My shoulders were back. And conversations I had with people from that moment on, we're not about, oh, please let me do this. Or, you know, sure.

12:08It was like, no, I want to do this. This is how I work. This is how, I mean, I understand you've got your thing that you want me to do this. This is how I do it. And I guarantee you, this is going to be terrific. Trust me.

12:26Mick:Absolutely. I totally am a believer in self-affirmations, positive affirmations, because we're going to go through so much in a given week, a given month, some people in a given day, right? That if you don't believe in yourself, it's going to be harder for other people to believe in you. And I know that that's also something that is almost like a pillar or core value for you too, is that, that self-belief, that courage, the, the being able to, to, I don't want to say take a risk, right. But to believe that you're taking steps in the right direction, right. Like reading this book and we're going to go there in a moment.

13:05Mick:Like I see all of who you are in this book, man. And it's just amazing. Totally. You know, Mick, as, as you were talking and, you know, in this part of the conversation. Do you know The Wiz? Yeah. The Diana Ross version with Michael Jackson, the movie. Yeah, ease on down the road. Right. Well, there's another song in there that is one of my favorites. And when I listen to it, it gets me here because it is a mantra. And it is believe in yourself. you know lena horn when she's singing that song and you know it's a great song and then you start listening to the words and you start yeah i started internalizing them and when i feel there have been moments when i have felt low and i'll put that on and it there's just something so uplifting about it reassuring and then when you follow it with diana ross singing home right well I'm a blubbery mess after that.

14:12But to me, it is the power of those words and that art that, again, you are absolutely right. If you don't believe in yourself, you're not going to be able to do anything. Or as RuPaul says, if you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else? It's all mixed in. Right.

14:37Mick:Absolutely. And I think that's the perfect segue to the books. I'm going to hold it up for all the viewers. Yet here I am. Lessons from a black man's search for home. Segwaying from from the song from Diana Ross. Right. So. I got a copy of the book. Your team sent me a copy. And I was frozen. Just the title in and of itself. Yet here I am. I was like, oh, we're going to church. Right. Because, you know, I knew you spent some time in the Carolinas. I live in the Carolinas now. You know what church is like down here. And yet here I am. I was like, there is a sermon in this title. And then I opened the book and we start going there, man.

15:19Mick:So like my first question for you about the book is more of talk to us about the because of the book. Like. Why did you say I've got to write this memoir, I've got to write this book, like people need to know this, like what was your passion behind saying I'm going to put pen to paper? So during the first Trump administration, things were not great in the country. And as an opinion writer who writes about national politics, I mean, it was distressing, dismaying what was happening to the country. And I needed a break. And I decided all these stories in my head from my summers down south in North Carolina, 12 summers I spent with my maternal grandparents.

16:05My maternal grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness. So going to Catholic school in the north and then coming down south and going witnessing with my Jehovah's Witness grandmother. and the things that i saw and the things that i learned and the people i met those stories stayed with me they just churned in my head and i thought this one particular weekend in 2017 all right now's the time to stop thinking about these and just getting them down on paper or in pixels on the computer screen. I spent all weekend just writing what became the Down South chapter, which in the book has been split up into two or three separate chapters.

16:53I sent the chapters to a bunch of people, but three people in particular were very encouraging. Tamron Hall, April Ryan, and Joy Reid. They all said, wow, you have a story to tell. Keep going. April Ryan in particular was relentless. It's like, are you still writing? You have to tell your story. People need to know your story. And so I kept going. And there were three authors along the way who really were my sort of guardian angels in all this. In 1999, 2000, I read Catherine Graham's memoir, Personal History. Catherine Graham was the owner, publisher of the Washington Post. The most powerful woman in journalism, one of the most powerful people in the country.

17:49And yet she wrote this memoir that was so revealing, so personal, so raw and honest and open. I thought, whoa, this powerful woman put all her stuff out there for us to read and for us to take in. And I thought, I like this. This is the kind of memoir I want to read. Fast forward 20 years, I read Charles Blow's memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones. Again, raw, open, honest, introspective. And it showed me where the passion came from in Charles's columns for the New York Times. So now you have these two diametrically opposed people, one gay, one straight, one black, one white, one male, one female, one in, you know, in the later end of her of her career and life, the other one sort of smack in in the middle.

18:49And I thought, if ever I write a book, that's my guide. And then when I started writing, my friend Richie Jackson, who had just finished writing his book, Gay Like Me, A Letter from a Father to a Son, he said to me, Jonathan, remember, put yourself on every page. you have to put yourself on every page for the reader and so as i wrote it was important for me that i had these stories to tell i had these lessons that i've learned in my life that i wanted to share with the reader but i also felt that i needed to be open and honest and raw about my failures and shortcomings as I am about my triumphs.

19:41But it's the failures and shortcomings where all the big lessons come in. And so I couldn't, I mean, there's a chapter with a title that's two expletives, like it's bleeped out. But it is a five-year period where everything just went to hell. personal relationships professional relationships and it was bad yeah but i i share all that because you know what make people see me on television they people fill in the holes right they come up with oh this must be his life story because i see this and i hear this and so i think i know I think I know him. I think I can peg him. Usually critics absolutely think they know who I am.

20:35And this book is filling and filling in all those holes for especially for those folks who think, oh, you think you know me? oh get ready did you know i pumped gas for two summers at a sunoco station in wildwood new jersey did you know i got so jammed up in a in a job that i had to you know quickly figure out a departure i mean i've been i have been through some things and you need to know this but i want to share this because no matter who you are I am certain that I have written something here that you have either gone through or are going through or might go through or know someone who's. And I guess I view myself in service in a lot of ways.

21:33And if I've learned this lesson, I feel duty bound to share. Here's what I learned. Here are my observations. And so if you find yourself in this situation, here's how I went through it and see how the, see how what I did and what I thought and what I went through matches or not what you're going through. And maybe it can help.

21:59Mick:I love it. Yet here I am. Right. Yet here I am. You know, one of the things that I did not know about you that you talk about a little bit in the book was like you were told you had a low IQ. Right. Like like talk to us about that. And then how obviously that that isn't true and that wasn't true. But just talk to us a little bit about that, like being labeled, because one of the things that and I have family members, my sister, sister-in-law are both educators and it's not them. But I think the education system labels people before society and the world labels people. Right. So tell us a little bit about that.

22:41Well, shoot. Society labels us, meaning African-Americans and certainly black men and boys. Right. Before we even had a chance to even know who we are. So, you know, we moved from Newark, predominantly black city to North Plainfield, New Jersey, and then Hazlitt, New Jersey, where I went. Where I became like the only one in a classroom. And my mother, being a daughter of the Jim Crow South, came up north. She said to me on the first day of school in North Plainfield and then in Hazlitt, she said to me, listen. They you are not taking vocational education. They they will push us into those. You are taking college prep classes.

23:30and if anyone tries to do otherwise you let me know and you know i will go to the school so there's that then you know as i write in the book we had these weeks where it was like no instruction today we're gonna do these tests and you know my god these tests with the number two pencil and the those ovals so tiny that i I got stressed out. I'm like, I'm going to make sure that this whole oval, because I want to make sure this answer counts. So the guidance counselor, I have a meeting with him, and I want to talk about how should I be thinking about college, and am I taking all the right courses?

24:12And he says to me, pulls out this paper, and he says, you see that number there? That's your IQ. And I don't even know what the number was. and i was okay and he said i'm confused because that's a low iq yet your coursework is outstanding i don't i i don't understand how that is and so you know you this says you you will not be going to college and i thought oh oh what what i took from that though but he said but your coursework is great so not sure what the discrepancy is well i know what the discrepancy is now i don't test well right you tell me this is a life or death test and i freeze up right there's this just don't tell me it's a life or death test i would do better on a pop quiz than i would on one of those standardized tests with the tiny ovals right and so what that showed me was, of course, in hindsight, in retrospect, that they were gearing up to track me in a different way.

25:30And when I got to high school, when I went to Raritan High School, they didn't put me in vocational ed classes, but they did. My homeroom, the place I went to every morning to start my day, was in the shop. And that was the place in school then that was known as the hangout and home of the kids not going to college, the burnouts, the troublemakers. And I sat in this room. All my friends were in other classrooms, homerooms, with the desk that today you have to kind of squeeze in. Can't believe we actually sat in these little desks. And when the bell went off, I ran out of that room as fast as I could to join my friends.

26:16But yeah, that and what's interesting, Mick, is when I read Michelle Obama's book Becoming, when I read Valerie Jarrett's book, Finding My Voice, to read the similar experiences that they went through with this same thing, with people telling them, well, you're not going to college or you're not going to Princeton or you're not going to Harvard or you won't be able to do that. And I thought this, I knew this happened, but I didn't know that it's so widespread that a former first lady of the United States, former senior advisor to the president of the United States went through the same thing.

27:03Mick:yeah yeah amazing amazing it's like full circle man and you know i i told you offline i'm on chapter 12 native new yorker and you got me with a line in there you said new york is like an m &m it's hard on the outside soft on the inside and i i saw the line before i even got deeper into the chapter and i called like two of my buddies so one kenny anderson former basketball player from New York and I was like, Kenny, I just heard the truth about New York, man. Y 'all just hard on the outside, but soft on the inside. Give folks some context into your meaning of that, of hard on the outside, soft on the inside.

27:43So I didn't, I didn't come up with that analogy until I left New York, until I came to Washington because, you know, New Yorkers believe every word of that song, New York, New York. If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere. And I got to Washington and Washington was like, no, you're not. It's just a completely different way of being here in Washington. And that got me reflecting about New York. New York's reputation is it's harsh. I mean, New Yorkers are mean. The city is crazy. It's chaotic. It's dirty. It's all these things. And so people are intimidated by New York. New York, by design, intimidates people.