We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Glorius L. Martin. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Glorius L. below.

Alright, Glorius L. thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. Can you talk to us about a project that’s meant a lot to you?

I have been on a mission for sometime now to serve youth who are the most rejected, neglected, and abandoned for whatever reason. God has given me a tremendous heart, purpose, and passion to at the very least let them know that they have extraordinary value and deserve to be loved and heard.

This purpose has taken me to some incredible places like the Dream Center in Los Angeles, to once in a lifetime opportunities like being able to help lead and expand one of the most groundbreaking mentorship programs in the state of Minnesota called New Lens Urban Mentoring Society.

I now serve in two main capacities that serve this purpose: I lead a vent and expression group for youth experiencing homelessness at YouthLink in partnership with the JK Movement as well as serving as the program manager for Kulture Klub Collaborative; an organization that serves homeless youth with opportunities to create art, clothes, podcasts, and more. It’s been incredible for some many reasons, the primary that in each and every facet of my life I have been blessed to make a living doing everything I love to do and helping change lives in the process.

Glorius L. , before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

So much has changed from even a year ago. Growth and solid direction has been the flagship of my current state of being. I got into mentoring youth when I felt God called me to come back home and do so when I was living a beautiful life in California. I felt I was asked do I want to live a “successful” life or a substantial one? I chose the latter and my life has never been the same. I can’t explain it but I have deep felt passion for people but children in general. For them to realize how awesome they are in their own, unique way and I feel it’s about of my job to help them discover their own greatness.

I do this mainly through conversations about life; it’s ups and downs. Our choices along the way and use my mistakes as examples of what not to do. There is no one answer and everyone arrives to their perspectives through experience and what they were told/taught. So I don’t feel the need to “show them the way” but more so provoke the thought that shows them the path that’s best for them and their individual talents and strengths. I also offer opportunities to expand their talent and skill sets through various platforms like radio, podcasting, clothing/brand design, event creation and management, djing, etc. Basically every single thing I’ve learned that has made me successful, I try to teach and pass on to them. I don’t expect the youth to become anything I teach them, but I know I am giving them the skills to do so. More importantly, usually along the path of learning new things I have discovered that it can give a person more clarity on what they actually want to do.
It’s a beautiful process to watch the “lightbulb” go off and watch youth flourish once given a chance to really shine and be heard.

I believe what sets me apart from other mentors/teachers is that LOVE is my first priority and NOT what I am there to teach or talk about. Once a person fully believes that you care about them genuinely, there is no ceiling to what they are willing to learn from you. I’ve taught poetry, art, archery, djing, clothes design, english/vocab expansion, song writing, how to create radio shows/podcasts, life skills, etc. and the common thread that made them all successful is that I lead with love which created an atmosphere that no matter if they were successful in what I was teaching or not, each and every one of them felt valuable.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

Why. That word why; it’s what drives my journey. My why is children. To be more specific, my why is helping children be the best that they can be because as cliche as it is, they are our future. The more confidence, wisdom, guidance they have, the better off all of our futures will be. I continue to be blessed with new ways to interject them into whatever it is that I learn and do. It’s so important not to keep what you know to yourself. Somebody is waiting to be inspired. Someone just needs one or two words of encouragement to turn their whole life around. There is a person that just needs to experience something different that challenges them, and they will become more than they ever thought they could. It happened to me. I don’t feel I’m special. I feel like I’m just sharing what I know; and that is the one of the best things human beings can do for another.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I always thought I was supposed to be a nationally famous rapper. I had it all going for me. I was in national magazines. Performing all over the country. People were clearly hearing the music and this was before the internet. As time went on, and I realized that even though I had everything it took to be a really well-known rapper, every skill it took to be a good rapper was honing me to be a good mentor. A good speaker. It removed my fear of big crowds and speaking in front of them. The ability to paint a picture with words, examples, metaphors, while being extremely expressive, energetic, and passionate about what I was saying. This has all contributed to my success in my passion to reach youth.

The lesson I learned was that sometimes we can get so stuck on what we think we are, that we could be missing out and everything that we are supposed to be or at the very least, other things that we could be or do also.    

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.packmaterialentertainment.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/packmaterialllc/
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PackMaterialLLC
• Other: https://www.facebook.com/kultureklubcollaborative https://www.thejkm.org/