Kevin is from Chicago, Illinois. At the time of his interview, he was living in Chicago and spending his days “working…and when I’m not working, just with the kids, being a family man, trying to do as much as I can possibly do on my weekends.”
Kevin’s Most Likely To Is: Most Likely to Help Someone That Needs Help
Listen to “Conversation 45 (Kevin)” on Spreaker.
Kevin described the way he unwinds on his days off, after working two jobs:
“I still like to try to cheat and play the PlayStation 4. I’m a big [NBA] 2K fan…I’m rocking with my city Chicago; even though next year it might not be the same. But I’m at the point where I’m not like a 2K god or anything, but I might play sets randomly and just pick whoever at random.”
He explained what he means by “helping someone who needs help”:
“Just a small example, I’m the guy that at work at one of my other jobs… [if a] person doesn’t have a car and we get off at 9 o’clock…instead of having them wait on that bus until 9:45 [at night], I might take them home.
Or let’s say the bum on the corner…I don’t judge, like some people say ‘Oh, I’m not going to give them my money. They’re just going to use it to buy anything.’
I might be that person if I’m eating some food and I’m sitting at the stop light, and I know that I can go buy another $6 meal. I just came from out of the drive-thru, and this person says that he’s hungry; I might give that person my food. And throw him a couple of bucks. That’s the type of thing I would do.”
Kevin shared the biggest lesson he learned from his father:
“Respect. Not only for yourself, but for others. [When I was] coming up, I was the one kid that used to say – would have to say – ‘Yes sir, no sir.’
I’m not saying other kids didn’t say that, but out of my crew in the little neighborhood that I grew up in, [to my friends] it sounded so abnormal. Like, ‘man your dad, he’s super strict! You gotta say yes sir and no sir!’
My dad…let’s say if I say ‘yeah’, he’ll pretend…he would just automatically go deaf! He didn’t hear it. [It would be like]:
Me: ‘Yeah’
Him: Silence
Me: ‘Oh…Yes’
Him: ‘What?’
Me: ‘Yes sir.’
Him: ‘Oh okay.’
That’s something so small, but I look at it today…and like man, that helped me a lot. Just something so small. I take pride in situations where people will come up [to me and my son if] we’re out in public and say, ‘oh that’s your son, he’s very respectful, you don’t see that type of stuff nowadays.’
That whole thing right there, the whole having respect for your elder; because if you respect yourself, you’re going to learn to respect others, you’re going to learn to respect your elders…most of the time you would do that.”
We talked about his journey of personal growth over the past few years:
“I guess life has changed me over the past seven years. My dad has always told me that life is your best teacher. Some people make mistakes and don’t learn. Some people make those mistakes over and over again.
Versus some people may make that mistake, maybe didn’t understand it, maybe made it that second time; but they learned and they progressed and they got better with it. That kinda has been what has changed me over the past seven years.”
He described his experience getting laid off from his first corporate job, and talked about how he bounced back:
“This was a grand company. I’m thinking like, ‘wow this is going to be great.’ And here I go, I worked there a total of two years, and then they shut down the whole call center and moved to Toronto and outsourced it. That was my welcoming into corporate America. It really made me realize that just working a job is not going to do it.
So I decided to get back into school, after dropping out from going to the University of Southern Mississippi. I ended up going back into school after the layoff…because the job was outsourced; there were a lot of different benefits. One is called the Trade Readjustment Act, so I was able to go back to a two-year school and get it paid for.
…it takes a little prayer. I know it sounds cliché, but you can’t lose your faith…Sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t think this way, but I always think how it could be worse. I lost a brother in 2006. My second brother. And my first brother got killed in 2004.
So, I mean…it could be worse. I mean, I’m still living. I [was] only 21 at the time, I still had opportunity. So it hit me when the layoff came, I was like ‘wow’…but I was thinking I [could] get past it. Maybe the first day I was kind of upset…the first couple of weeks…but I got past it. I got over it.”
Kevin talked about what having children has meant in his life:
“It means a lot man. It gives you direction. I’m not going to say I didn’t have purpose before my children, but it magnifies that purpose and maybe even adds more to it.
This is my first little girl. My girl is about to be two in a couple of months. My son is six about to be seven. You may have heard the Daddy’s Girl / Momma’s Boy type…I’m coming to find that to be true.
That little girl, I love her so much. I love my son, [but] she has me wrapped around her finger. But man, it means so much. Like I come in the house, and instead of going to my girl and giving her the kiss, I go straight to my kids! She gets jealous at that…[but] it’s just a wonderful feeling, man.”
Listen to our full interview with Kevin
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