July 26, 2022 • 24 mins
Are there gender roles in relationships? Gam’s husband, Rodney, joins her to unpack this question as they take a look at their own marriage. Find out where we want to travel together and what restaurant in Baltimore is one of our go-to spots.
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@gammynorris Gammy's Facebook
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
What's up everybody. I'm Gammy and her husband Rodney, and
this is positively what's going on? Babe? How are you today? Good?
I'm good. Just flew in the day a couple of
hours ago. How was your flight? It was good, it
was good. I saw on the news today t s
A is offering defense classes to flight attendance because there's
(00:28):
been so many attacks on flight attendance, and I just
think it's really sad that it's come to that that
now they have to take defense courses. Yeah, that's pretty
bad because this latest attack was ridiculous. I actually they
should have um Skott Marshall's and on all the planes. Yeah.
(00:50):
I actually think that they should stop serving alcohol. Oh
yeah for sure. Yeah, that doesn't mean people won't be
drunk when they get on the plane though. Anyway, that's
not even what we're talking about today, guys. We are
talking about gender roles in a marriage. Great topic. M hmmm,
because in today's culture, gender roles are shifting in a marriage.
(01:14):
No more husbands have the final word or the wives
staying at home with the kids. Now we have stayed
at home dad's and wives being the bread winners. So
what's your take? On that baby. Would you ever stay
at home with the kids? Probably not, I mean unless
that was a conversation that we had and there was
a role that I had to take on for a
(01:34):
particular amount of time. But I don't think I could
do that full time. Yeah, But growing up, we were
typically in well quote unquote a traditional household back then
in your family, well and most families in my neighborhood anyway,
was the father went to work a lot of times,
the mother stayed home. My mother stayed home throughing my
(01:56):
earlier childhood and then later on in life she went
out and had a Korea too. Her and my father worked. Yeah,
because my mother never stayed home. My mother never stayed home.
She was always working, and so that's how we were
kind of raised. I never even considered being a stay
at home mom. I mean, I didn't even like kids
(02:18):
that much. So, I I mean, I don't. I'm not
a kids I'm not a kid's person. I don't think
the women in my family typically are. Jada is not,
I am not. Karen was not. Sounder probably was more
of a kids person than any of us, but she
(02:41):
too worked. So Yeah, I didn't grow up in that environment.
I grew up with both parents participating um financially to
support the family, and so that was the standard for us.
I had both of those experiences. So early on it
was just my dad and my mother stayed home, and
(03:02):
then later on in life it was both until my
dad got sick and he couldn't work anymore, so then
it was just my mother became kind of almost like
the sole breadwinner. So yeah, yeah, but even that was
because your dad was ill, correct, Yeah, So I don't know.
I mean, I I give kudos to to dads that
can do that, that feel comfortable and confident enough about
(03:25):
who they are as men to stay home, because I
still think that there's like, what is it that I
want to say, Yeah, a stigma attached to men that
don't work. It's kind of like, uh huh. I think
that there's an expectation still generally speaking, in society that
(03:51):
men are the bread winners. I don't think that's the
case as much as it used to be. Yeah, women
have made a lot of in roads into all types
of businesses and job situations and equally as powerful as
men in any arena. So they are and they should be,
(04:11):
But women still don't get equal pay, So the expectation
is still that the husband or the man of the
household is going to make more money than the woman. Right,
wrong or indifferent because it's definitely wrong. But well, they
might make more money, but they are out there working,
(04:33):
is what I'm saying. Typically you're talking about to stay
at home mom and if dad goes out and he's
the breadwinner. But I think women and in a lot
of cases, are making more money than the men, and
I think that can be an area of contention for
some men. Yeah, but either as it may like, it's
not a woman's place to try to figure that out.
(04:55):
For him, that's a conversation, and then he needs to
figure out how he's going to navigate that because she's
a woman shouldn't be hindered by his insecurity, right, Yeah,
I agree with that. We both had our own cars
(05:15):
and then we had to kind of merge everything, right,
and you actually had the larger home. Your home was
way bigger than mine, but I just thought that mine
was nicer and the pool and it was almost like
(05:36):
I don't know how many people watched Martin, but the
episode when Gina and Martin moved together and they brought
all of that stuff and he had They had to
toasters too, two stereo systems, two of everything's two irons,
and they were trying to trying to battle about who
was better. And that was kind of how it went
for us, Like, well, you got a bigger house, but
(05:58):
I have a pool and we got It's kind of
how it went for us. And we actually even had
two of the same cars, so and you kind of
one out with the house and the car. I did,
but your car was newer. You had the newer Bens
and mine was older, but mine was prettier. That's mine
was hotter than yours. Yours was just I think at
(06:20):
the time, I was just into giving you almost whatever
you wanted. Yeah, I was definitely kind of like it
wasn't that big a deal to me, Like it wasn't
that important. I just wanted to be with you and anywhere.
Any move that we made was not a bad one.
It wasn't like it wasn't that big a deal. It
(06:41):
wasn't that big a deal. But it was a sacrifice
for you. I do remember you feeling some kind of way,
particularly when you decided to sell your home. That was
huge and that was a huge deal for me. Too,
because it was an indication of the level of commitment
that you were willing to give to the relationship. Because
(07:02):
you did that before we were actually married. This was
all I mean, we knew we were heading in that direction,
but you know, at any time something could have gone
wrong and it not happened. So I just thought that
was a huge commitment that I thoroughly appreciated it. And
I don't think it was as easy as you're trying
to make it sound right now. I remember you're having
(07:25):
feeling some kind of way about it. That's true. I mean,
I mean, at the end of the day, is breaking mortar.
But I did like that house, and it wasn't just
liking the house, babe. It was to me and correct
me if I'm wrong, a symbol of your independence, and
by giving that up and having to move into my space,
that was something that I probably would have never done. Well,
(07:48):
let me not say never, because you know the trash
bag incident, right, but yeah, get bad day when you
got actually set up and get the funk out the
trash bag as it then taught me to never do that.
So the fact that I was going against one of
my core beliefs was big because you have been through
(08:10):
that before and years many years prior, but still having
lived through that would make you hesitant about being putting
yourself in that position once again. I know I told
you years ago, but I do appreciate you doing that well,
thank you, because I think it's difficult because we have
friends that are getting ready to get married and they're
(08:32):
in the same position. It's easier for them to be
in the woman's home than it is to be in
his home, and so he's gonna end up giving up
his space temporarily until they can then merge. And I
think the plan is that they'll buy a home together
another home together, but in the meanwhile, they're going to
(08:54):
be living in her space. And I just think it's
a challenge for men. It's kind of go in a
pride thing, right, Yeah, I think that's Yeah, you definitely
got part of that. But the biggest thing for me
was it never really felt like my home. It took
a while for that part to kick in, Like it
always just felt like it was your home and I
lived there, so it took a minute for me to
(09:17):
get beyond that. Yeah. Yeah, trash Bag Diaries, because my
my father told me you gotta have your name on
the rent book. That's what they used to call it
back then, rent book. But just like if your name
isn't on the rent book, you can get put out
at any time. So that psychologically was always in the
back of my mind, not that I ever thought it
would happen, but you know, I didn't have a sense
(09:40):
of ownership to it because I hadn't I had no
skin in the game. Yeah. I did do some things
to the house to try to make a lot of
skin in the game now though, Yeah, I mean even
early on I when I decided to renovate the master,
I put that big ask stub in there, Yo asked,
(10:00):
because I don't even right, Yeah, we were dating. When
we were dating, nice to tell her I take baths
of every night. I was lying, Yeah, okay, it's always
(10:23):
a shower like everybody else. Oh man, would a way
somebody anyway. I want to talk about how we handle
big decisions, and one of the things that comes to
mind was the time I can't even get this out
(10:45):
without laughing, at the time you came to me and
said you wanted to purchase a skating ring because you
like to skate. Mm hmm. I can't help a laugh
eat And you presented as a business venture, it was.
It was a business venture because I was out here
(11:06):
and we're out here in Los Angeles. We were looking
for something to to invest in, a business to invest in,
and they were closing the skating rinks in the area.
They closed all the skating rinks in the area where
we live. Now we have to drive almost fifty minutes, which,
(11:26):
by the way, is not unusual in Los Angeles. You
have to drive an hour to get any place, but
anyway to get to the skating rink. And so I
want to know that convenience for you to get to
a rink is not a business venture. No, no, no, no.
But because the rinks in the area were closing, I
felt like, there's there is a skating rink community in
(11:50):
Los Angeles. There's a skating rink that's going out of business,
that has been owned by skating rink owners for many years,
and you're gonna come in with no skating rank business
(12:15):
background and make it work when they couldn't. Well, no,
it wasn't that they couldn't. I just think that they
had been in the business for so long they were retiring.
That's what I think it was. As it turns out,
I think that they also it was just one of
those offers that they couldn't refuse because the city actually
bought the building. But at the time I didn't know that,
(12:39):
and I just thought that they were retiring because they
were old and we could have had the same team
that they used to manage the skating ran. I thought
it was a great idea, but typically, how do we
handle big decisions. We talked about it, we pretty much,
and we definitely talked about what was the compromise. The
(12:59):
compromise you didn't get the drink, but you did. We
did take the cars out of the garage and you
were able to skate in there, and that didn't go
so well either. But and this was all during the pandemic, guys,
so this was before we started going back out and
skating again. So yeah, moving on, How would you say
(13:29):
that we support one another's dreams? I would say when
I think about that, I think about it as far
as excuse me as our careers are concerned, because I
think that our careers have kind of kept you on
the East coast and meet on the West coast, and
(13:52):
we support one another like you you starting your own
company was something that you had always wanted to do,
and it came about at a time when it was
actually kind of challenging for us because we were just
about to get married and like we didn't know what
(14:16):
how that was gonna change our lives, and we almost
thought about canceling the wedding because we didn't know about
how it was. All of this huge change was gonna
affect us financially. And just so everybody knows, we did
not have this huge, fabulous, expensive wedding. We did just
(14:39):
the opposite. We had a very modest wedding ceremony and
it was really about celebrating very minimally with our friends
and family, and it was really more about the marriage
than it was about the wedding. Even though y'all know,
I love a good wedding, right, I love a wedding.
I still love a wedd My girlfriend is getting ready
(15:01):
to get married, and I'm so excited moving on. But
I think skating venture, I think we we we typically
support each other and whatever we want to do. Yeah,
but it's I mean, it's been challenging because it has
kept us living on a separate coast a lot of
the time. So um, just trying to be there for
(15:22):
one another, yeah, you know, and giving people giving you
and you giving me the space that we need to
like grow, and without feeling any real limits, but just
being respectful and conscious and considerate of what your decisions
(15:43):
mean for the other person. Yeah. And that actually brings
to mind when you first got Red Table and you
not being in that arena before. You were very nervous
and not very confident about your ability to do it
because Jada and Willow have both been in the field
(16:05):
for a very long time and you didn't want to
come off looking foolish. Yeah, and I still feel like
that a lot of times. But I was telling you then,
I mean, this is in line with what we're talking about.
I kept I was always telling you every day that
you can do this. The show is great, you're gonna
you're gonna kill it, and you've proved me right. Okay,
(16:26):
thank you. But you have been my biggest supporter there
and the person that really encourages me and and pushes
me to not limit myself when it comes to stuff
like that, because I am I'm someone who has historically
and still to this day, suffer from low self esteem
and just just not a lot of confidence, and you
are the one that is behind me pushing me to
(16:50):
do whatever and to not limit myself. So for that,
I appreciate you well. Thank you. I appreciate you too,
and I hope you feel like I do the same
for you when it comes to your business. Although you
don't seem to feel like you can't do something, you're
always trying to do more So you need to tell
(17:12):
people how I've been most of my life. So what
I do is to provide services for people with intellectual
impairment or developmental disabilities, and we do that with multiple programs,
so it's kind of wrap around supports, residential supported employment,
family therapy, medical, just a holistic approach to UM treating
(17:39):
people with intellectual impairment. You worked with another company, like
for twenty years or more in this as one of
the executives in that company, and you started from the
ground up. Yeah. I mean it's funny because I was
in another business. I had another business at the time
and it wasn't doing well. So I took a job
(18:01):
with a friend of mine and I said I'll do
this for six months and helping him out, and then
I'll go back to my business, and it's twenty five
years later and I'm still doing it, and just now
you're doing it for yourself because you were working with
another company, and now I was corporate VP for another
for a very large company in Maryland for twenty years.
(18:22):
I did that and they got bought out and they
came in and they got rid of all of the
all of the executives in the company. And and it
was just at the time when you and I were
talking about getting married, and that was that this is
when you know, again referred to we were fearful of
whether we were going to be able to even have
(18:44):
it or not have a wedding because we had money,
but whether we were gonna even go through with it
at the time, and I always believed in myself, so
it wasn't that big a deal to step out. But
at the same time, it was a big deal. It
was a big deal. It was a huge deal for you.
But it was also like blessing in disguise because you
(19:04):
had been talking and talking about starting your own company
and you just never did it because you didn't have
comfortable comfortable and you didn't have to so and then
I can remember feeling like for a while there. I
was I got a little nervous because you know how
when people it seemed like you were taking a break, right,
(19:26):
you were taking a break and you were just chilling
for a minute. And I was like, Okay, so is
he gonna put this company together or is he just
gonna chill? Like what is happening? And I didn't really
understand the space that you were in at the time.
I didn't understand like, you didn't jump right into it, right,
(19:47):
you know what I mean, You took your time and
relaxed for a little bit. Well, I actually did jump
right into it. It just didn't appear that way because
there's a lot of like regulations you have to go
through to get licensed through the state of Maryland and
all of that. So it just took time. It took
about a year for all of that to happen. So
in that year I consulted with some other companies, and
(20:08):
I guess on your end, it appeared like still doing nothing,
But yeah, I was actually working on it the whole time,
just behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah, So when the license
showed up, we were ready to go. Yeah, we hit
the ground running and we've been rolling, rolling, yeah, every
since I mean, I'm basically doing the same thing I
did for this other company. I'm just doing it for myself.
(20:30):
And you just have to step out on faith and
believe that what you do is what you do and
it's going to be good enough for you as well
as it was for someone else. Okay, So with all
of that being said, I would say that we pretty
much have a traditional marriage. Our roles are traditional, our
belief systems are traditional, as far as our expectations for
(20:50):
each other, and for this marriage, we're pretty traditional couple.
We have a fan question, where is the one place
you have always wanted to travel together? I would say,
(21:12):
and it's someplace that I've been before, but I would
have loved to have gone with you, and I'm willing
to go back with you. But I would say any
place kind of like the Maldives or Bali or Tahiti.
I would love to to visit one of those islands
(21:32):
with you that just seems so really romantic and being
able to stay out in one of those like out
on the what do you call those little things that
they have out on the water where you actually are
sleeping and your it's no, not a hammock, it's it's
actually your living quarters are out on the water. What
(21:54):
do you call those? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah,
So I would love to experience being in one of
those bungalows that's actually out on the water. It's just
very romantic. Yeah, I think the question is where? Where
is the one place that we have discussed wanting to
travel together? Okay, well, what is your no? I mean
(22:18):
that that both of us haves have discussed together. Okay,
what is your thought about that? Because I'm not I've
talked about that with you coincident ball teas and you
don't want to go because it's too far, then you
don't want to be on the plane that long. That
has been our discussion. What would you say is the
one place? I can't think of a place that we've
(22:39):
talked about going and thus and the show everybody together.
I think we want to do the Greece trip, right, Yes,
I would agree. We are still wanting desperately to go
to Greece. I think the first place that we really
wanted to go together was Egypt, and we were able
(23:01):
to accomplish that. That was like the best trip I've
ever had We've been to to buy So yeah, Greece
is very high on our list of places to go.
Name one of your favorite restaurants in Baltimore to eat
Ida Bees, Ida Bees, Ida Bees. We really enjoyed Ida Bees.
(23:24):
I was down in the area and I see that
Ida Bees is open for business, so we definitely have
to go and get dinner there, babe. Like we love
Ida Bees and anybody who hasn't experienced it, let me
just tell you the mac and cheese is off the chain,
so check it out. And that's our show for this
(23:46):
week of positively gam. You can follow me online at
Gammy Norris and you can follow me at I Am
Rodney Norris. You can submit your questions to positively Gam
at red table talk dot com for an has to
hear me answer them on a future episode. Also help
us out by leaving a five star review on Apple
(24:07):
Podcasts and by hitting the follow button I Heart Radio,
Stay grateful, y'all. Positively Gam is produced by Red Table
Talk Podcast and I Heart Radio. Executive producers are Adrian Vanfield,
Naris Valin, Jethro and Jada Pinkett Smith. Our audio engineer
is Calvin Vale and our associate producer is Irene Bischoff.
(24:30):
Burger our theme song is produced by DBATS.
What's up everybody. I'm Gammy and her husband Rodney, and
this is positively what's going on? Babe? How are you today? Good?
I'm good. Just flew in the day a couple of
hours ago. How was your flight? It was good, it
was good. I saw on the news today t s
A is offering defense classes to flight attendance because there's
(00:28):
been so many attacks on flight attendance, and I just
think it's really sad that it's come to that that
now they have to take defense courses. Yeah, that's pretty
bad because this latest attack was ridiculous. I actually they
should have um Skott Marshall's and on all the planes. Yeah.
(00:50):
I actually think that they should stop serving alcohol. Oh
yeah for sure. Yeah, that doesn't mean people won't be
drunk when they get on the plane though. Anyway, that's
not even what we're talking about today, guys. We are
talking about gender roles in a marriage. Great topic. M hmmm,
because in today's culture, gender roles are shifting in a marriage.
(01:14):
No more husbands have the final word or the wives
staying at home with the kids. Now we have stayed
at home dad's and wives being the bread winners. So
what's your take? On that baby. Would you ever stay
at home with the kids? Probably not, I mean unless
that was a conversation that we had and there was
a role that I had to take on for a
(01:34):
particular amount of time. But I don't think I could
do that full time. Yeah, But growing up, we were
typically in well quote unquote a traditional household back then
in your family, well and most families in my neighborhood anyway,
was the father went to work a lot of times,
the mother stayed home. My mother stayed home throughing my
(01:56):
earlier childhood and then later on in life she went
out and had a Korea too. Her and my father worked. Yeah,
because my mother never stayed home. My mother never stayed home.
She was always working, and so that's how we were
kind of raised. I never even considered being a stay
at home mom. I mean, I didn't even like kids
(02:18):
that much. So, I I mean, I don't. I'm not
a kids I'm not a kid's person. I don't think
the women in my family typically are. Jada is not,
I am not. Karen was not. Sounder probably was more
of a kids person than any of us, but she
(02:41):
too worked. So Yeah, I didn't grow up in that environment.
I grew up with both parents participating um financially to
support the family, and so that was the standard for us.
I had both of those experiences. So early on it
was just my dad and my mother stayed home, and
(03:02):
then later on in life it was both until my
dad got sick and he couldn't work anymore, so then
it was just my mother became kind of almost like
the sole breadwinner. So yeah, yeah, but even that was
because your dad was ill, correct, Yeah, So I don't know.
I mean, I I give kudos to to dads that
can do that, that feel comfortable and confident enough about
(03:25):
who they are as men to stay home, because I
still think that there's like, what is it that I
want to say, Yeah, a stigma attached to men that
don't work. It's kind of like, uh huh. I think
that there's an expectation still generally speaking, in society that
(03:51):
men are the bread winners. I don't think that's the
case as much as it used to be. Yeah, women
have made a lot of in roads into all types
of businesses and job situations and equally as powerful as
men in any arena. So they are and they should be,
(04:11):
But women still don't get equal pay, So the expectation
is still that the husband or the man of the
household is going to make more money than the woman. Right,
wrong or indifferent because it's definitely wrong. But well, they
might make more money, but they are out there working,
(04:33):
is what I'm saying. Typically you're talking about to stay
at home mom and if dad goes out and he's
the breadwinner. But I think women and in a lot
of cases, are making more money than the men, and
I think that can be an area of contention for
some men. Yeah, but either as it may like, it's
not a woman's place to try to figure that out.
(04:55):
For him, that's a conversation, and then he needs to
figure out how he's going to navigate that because she's
a woman shouldn't be hindered by his insecurity, right, Yeah,
I agree with that. We both had our own cars
(05:15):
and then we had to kind of merge everything, right,
and you actually had the larger home. Your home was
way bigger than mine, but I just thought that mine
was nicer and the pool and it was almost like
(05:36):
I don't know how many people watched Martin, but the
episode when Gina and Martin moved together and they brought
all of that stuff and he had They had to
toasters too, two stereo systems, two of everything's two irons,
and they were trying to trying to battle about who
was better. And that was kind of how it went
for us, Like, well, you got a bigger house, but
(05:58):
I have a pool and we got It's kind of
how it went for us. And we actually even had
two of the same cars, so and you kind of
one out with the house and the car. I did,
but your car was newer. You had the newer Bens
and mine was older, but mine was prettier. That's mine
was hotter than yours. Yours was just I think at
(06:20):
the time, I was just into giving you almost whatever
you wanted. Yeah, I was definitely kind of like it
wasn't that big a deal to me, Like it wasn't
that important. I just wanted to be with you and anywhere.
Any move that we made was not a bad one.
It wasn't like it wasn't that big a deal. It
(06:41):
wasn't that big a deal. But it was a sacrifice
for you. I do remember you feeling some kind of way,
particularly when you decided to sell your home. That was
huge and that was a huge deal for me. Too,
because it was an indication of the level of commitment
that you were willing to give to the relationship. Because
(07:02):
you did that before we were actually married. This was
all I mean, we knew we were heading in that direction,
but you know, at any time something could have gone
wrong and it not happened. So I just thought that
was a huge commitment that I thoroughly appreciated it. And
I don't think it was as easy as you're trying
to make it sound right now. I remember you're having
(07:25):
feeling some kind of way about it. That's true. I mean,
I mean, at the end of the day, is breaking mortar.
But I did like that house, and it wasn't just
liking the house, babe. It was to me and correct
me if I'm wrong, a symbol of your independence, and
by giving that up and having to move into my space,
that was something that I probably would have never done. Well,
(07:48):
let me not say never, because you know the trash
bag incident, right, but yeah, get bad day when you
got actually set up and get the funk out the
trash bag as it then taught me to never do that.
So the fact that I was going against one of
my core beliefs was big because you have been through
(08:10):
that before and years many years prior, but still having
lived through that would make you hesitant about being putting
yourself in that position once again. I know I told
you years ago, but I do appreciate you doing that well,
thank you, because I think it's difficult because we have
friends that are getting ready to get married and they're
(08:32):
in the same position. It's easier for them to be
in the woman's home than it is to be in
his home, and so he's gonna end up giving up
his space temporarily until they can then merge. And I
think the plan is that they'll buy a home together
another home together, but in the meanwhile, they're going to
(08:54):
be living in her space. And I just think it's
a challenge for men. It's kind of go in a
pride thing, right, Yeah, I think that's Yeah, you definitely
got part of that. But the biggest thing for me
was it never really felt like my home. It took
a while for that part to kick in, Like it
always just felt like it was your home and I
lived there, so it took a minute for me to
(09:17):
get beyond that. Yeah. Yeah, trash Bag Diaries, because my
my father told me you gotta have your name on
the rent book. That's what they used to call it
back then, rent book. But just like if your name
isn't on the rent book, you can get put out
at any time. So that psychologically was always in the
back of my mind, not that I ever thought it
would happen, but you know, I didn't have a sense
(09:40):
of ownership to it because I hadn't I had no
skin in the game. Yeah. I did do some things
to the house to try to make a lot of
skin in the game now though, Yeah, I mean even
early on I when I decided to renovate the master,
I put that big ask stub in there, Yo asked,
(10:00):
because I don't even right, Yeah, we were dating. When
we were dating, nice to tell her I take baths
of every night. I was lying, Yeah, okay, it's always
(10:23):
a shower like everybody else. Oh man, would a way
somebody anyway. I want to talk about how we handle
big decisions, and one of the things that comes to
mind was the time I can't even get this out
(10:45):
without laughing, at the time you came to me and
said you wanted to purchase a skating ring because you
like to skate. Mm hmm. I can't help a laugh
eat And you presented as a business venture, it was.
It was a business venture because I was out here
(11:06):
and we're out here in Los Angeles. We were looking
for something to to invest in, a business to invest in,
and they were closing the skating rinks in the area.
They closed all the skating rinks in the area where
we live. Now we have to drive almost fifty minutes, which,
(11:26):
by the way, is not unusual in Los Angeles. You
have to drive an hour to get any place, but
anyway to get to the skating rink. And so I
want to know that convenience for you to get to
a rink is not a business venture. No, no, no, no.
But because the rinks in the area were closing, I
felt like, there's there is a skating rink community in
(11:50):
Los Angeles. There's a skating rink that's going out of business,
that has been owned by skating rink owners for many years,
and you're gonna come in with no skating rank business
(12:15):
background and make it work when they couldn't. Well, no,
it wasn't that they couldn't. I just think that they
had been in the business for so long they were retiring.
That's what I think it was. As it turns out,
I think that they also it was just one of
those offers that they couldn't refuse because the city actually
bought the building. But at the time I didn't know that,
(12:39):
and I just thought that they were retiring because they
were old and we could have had the same team
that they used to manage the skating ran. I thought
it was a great idea, but typically, how do we
handle big decisions. We talked about it, we pretty much,
and we definitely talked about what was the compromise. The
(12:59):
compromise you didn't get the drink, but you did. We
did take the cars out of the garage and you
were able to skate in there, and that didn't go
so well either. But and this was all during the pandemic, guys,
so this was before we started going back out and
skating again. So yeah, moving on, How would you say
(13:29):
that we support one another's dreams? I would say when
I think about that, I think about it as far
as excuse me as our careers are concerned, because I
think that our careers have kind of kept you on
the East coast and meet on the West coast, and
(13:52):
we support one another like you you starting your own
company was something that you had always wanted to do,
and it came about at a time when it was
actually kind of challenging for us because we were just
about to get married and like we didn't know what
(14:16):
how that was gonna change our lives, and we almost
thought about canceling the wedding because we didn't know about
how it was. All of this huge change was gonna
affect us financially. And just so everybody knows, we did
not have this huge, fabulous, expensive wedding. We did just
(14:39):
the opposite. We had a very modest wedding ceremony and
it was really about celebrating very minimally with our friends
and family, and it was really more about the marriage
than it was about the wedding. Even though y'all know,
I love a good wedding, right, I love a wedding.
I still love a wedd My girlfriend is getting ready
(15:01):
to get married, and I'm so excited moving on. But
I think skating venture, I think we we we typically
support each other and whatever we want to do. Yeah,
but it's I mean, it's been challenging because it has
kept us living on a separate coast a lot of
the time. So um, just trying to be there for
(15:22):
one another, yeah, you know, and giving people giving you
and you giving me the space that we need to
like grow, and without feeling any real limits, but just
being respectful and conscious and considerate of what your decisions
(15:43):
mean for the other person. Yeah. And that actually brings
to mind when you first got Red Table and you
not being in that arena before. You were very nervous
and not very confident about your ability to do it
because Jada and Willow have both been in the field
(16:05):
for a very long time and you didn't want to
come off looking foolish. Yeah, and I still feel like
that a lot of times. But I was telling you then,
I mean, this is in line with what we're talking about.
I kept I was always telling you every day that
you can do this. The show is great, you're gonna
you're gonna kill it, and you've proved me right. Okay,
(16:26):
thank you. But you have been my biggest supporter there
and the person that really encourages me and and pushes
me to not limit myself when it comes to stuff
like that, because I am I'm someone who has historically
and still to this day, suffer from low self esteem
and just just not a lot of confidence, and you
are the one that is behind me pushing me to
(16:50):
do whatever and to not limit myself. So for that,
I appreciate you well. Thank you. I appreciate you too,
and I hope you feel like I do the same
for you when it comes to your business. Although you
don't seem to feel like you can't do something, you're
always trying to do more So you need to tell
(17:12):
people how I've been most of my life. So what
I do is to provide services for people with intellectual
impairment or developmental disabilities, and we do that with multiple programs,
so it's kind of wrap around supports, residential supported employment,
family therapy, medical, just a holistic approach to UM treating
(17:39):
people with intellectual impairment. You worked with another company, like
for twenty years or more in this as one of
the executives in that company, and you started from the
ground up. Yeah. I mean it's funny because I was
in another business. I had another business at the time
and it wasn't doing well. So I took a job
(18:01):
with a friend of mine and I said I'll do
this for six months and helping him out, and then
I'll go back to my business, and it's twenty five
years later and I'm still doing it, and just now
you're doing it for yourself because you were working with
another company, and now I was corporate VP for another
for a very large company in Maryland for twenty years.
(18:22):
I did that and they got bought out and they
came in and they got rid of all of the
all of the executives in the company. And and it
was just at the time when you and I were
talking about getting married, and that was that this is
when you know, again referred to we were fearful of
whether we were going to be able to even have
(18:44):
it or not have a wedding because we had money,
but whether we were gonna even go through with it
at the time, and I always believed in myself, so
it wasn't that big a deal to step out. But
at the same time, it was a big deal. It
was a big deal. It was a huge deal for you.
But it was also like blessing in disguise because you
(19:04):
had been talking and talking about starting your own company
and you just never did it because you didn't have
comfortable comfortable and you didn't have to so and then
I can remember feeling like for a while there. I
was I got a little nervous because you know how
when people it seemed like you were taking a break, right,
(19:26):
you were taking a break and you were just chilling
for a minute. And I was like, Okay, so is
he gonna put this company together or is he just
gonna chill? Like what is happening? And I didn't really
understand the space that you were in at the time.
I didn't understand like, you didn't jump right into it, right,
(19:47):
you know what I mean, You took your time and
relaxed for a little bit. Well, I actually did jump
right into it. It just didn't appear that way because
there's a lot of like regulations you have to go
through to get licensed through the state of Maryland and
all of that. So it just took time. It took
about a year for all of that to happen. So
in that year I consulted with some other companies, and
(20:08):
I guess on your end, it appeared like still doing nothing,
But yeah, I was actually working on it the whole time,
just behind the scenes. Yeah. Yeah, So when the license
showed up, we were ready to go. Yeah, we hit
the ground running and we've been rolling, rolling, yeah, every
since I mean, I'm basically doing the same thing I
did for this other company. I'm just doing it for myself.
(20:30):
And you just have to step out on faith and
believe that what you do is what you do and
it's going to be good enough for you as well
as it was for someone else. Okay, So with all
of that being said, I would say that we pretty
much have a traditional marriage. Our roles are traditional, our
belief systems are traditional, as far as our expectations for
(20:50):
each other, and for this marriage, we're pretty traditional couple.
We have a fan question, where is the one place
you have always wanted to travel together? I would say,
(21:12):
and it's someplace that I've been before, but I would
have loved to have gone with you, and I'm willing
to go back with you. But I would say any
place kind of like the Maldives or Bali or Tahiti.
I would love to to visit one of those islands
(21:32):
with you that just seems so really romantic and being
able to stay out in one of those like out
on the what do you call those little things that
they have out on the water where you actually are
sleeping and your it's no, not a hammock, it's it's
actually your living quarters are out on the water. What
(21:54):
do you call those? You know what I'm talking about? Yeah,
So I would love to experience being in one of
those bungalows that's actually out on the water. It's just
very romantic. Yeah, I think the question is where? Where
is the one place that we have discussed wanting to
travel together? Okay, well, what is your no? I mean
(22:18):
that that both of us haves have discussed together. Okay,
what is your thought about that? Because I'm not I've
talked about that with you coincident ball teas and you
don't want to go because it's too far, then you
don't want to be on the plane that long. That
has been our discussion. What would you say is the
one place? I can't think of a place that we've
(22:39):
talked about going and thus and the show everybody together.
I think we want to do the Greece trip, right, Yes,
I would agree. We are still wanting desperately to go
to Greece. I think the first place that we really
wanted to go together was Egypt, and we were able
(23:01):
to accomplish that. That was like the best trip I've
ever had We've been to to buy So yeah, Greece
is very high on our list of places to go.
Name one of your favorite restaurants in Baltimore to eat
Ida Bees, Ida Bees, Ida Bees. We really enjoyed Ida Bees.
(23:24):
I was down in the area and I see that
Ida Bees is open for business, so we definitely have
to go and get dinner there, babe. Like we love
Ida Bees and anybody who hasn't experienced it, let me
just tell you the mac and cheese is off the chain,
so check it out. And that's our show for this
(23:46):
week of positively gam. You can follow me online at
Gammy Norris and you can follow me at I Am
Rodney Norris. You can submit your questions to positively Gam
at red table talk dot com for an has to
hear me answer them on a future episode. Also help
us out by leaving a five star review on Apple
(24:07):
Podcasts and by hitting the follow button I Heart Radio,
Stay grateful, y'all. Positively Gam is produced by Red Table
Talk Podcast and I Heart Radio. Executive producers are Adrian Vanfield,
Naris Valin, Jethro and Jada Pinkett Smith. Our audio engineer
is Calvin Vale and our associate producer is Irene Bischoff.
(24:30):
Burger our theme song is produced by DBATS.
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