Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Maurice Houston. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

For those who haven’t read about me yet, I would say that I will listen to you. I mean actually listen to what your passion is or what you are talking about. I am always looking to take a deep dive into someone’s personality. People really interest me everyday and I am always curious about someone else’s point of view. I am a very tentative person. If it’s serving a purpose in the way you’re speaking on it, you’ve got me hooked. Which is a big reason why I wanted to be an Author. I wanted to relay this same passion into writing, where people could take something from my story on the plane, car ride, waiting at the DMV or just having something to read on the couch after a long day of work.

The thing I most proud of from the story that I would want my followers/fans to know is that my thought process stemmed from you all. If I didn’t encounter as many people as I have, I feel like I wouldn’t have learned or even got a chance to form a fair opinion on myself to direct a self help book to people. Someone came to about the book and said “Moe, I was never comfortable talking about this until I read your story, I thought I was alone in this, turns out I am not”. That really changed things for me too, because we’re not alone and we don’t have to be alone during it. I am proud that I changed the perspective of one person. That’s all I could ask for to be honest. Time really does fly finding yourself, I promise.

We often hear about learning lessons – but just as important is unlearning lessons. Have you ever had to unlearn a lesson?

Oooh, this is a good one. Something I had to unlearn, that came from my community. I am still working on that but toxic masculinity and communication. One absolutely needed to go and one absolutely needed to be fixed.

The back story behind that is that I came from a very “toughen up you’re a man” community. We never talked about the pains that caused us, we just deal with it. I adapted this phrase “it is what it is”. I am very much still unlearning that because for the simple fact that “it is what it is” is inherently true. It was my coping mechanism to shut it down and not worry about it. I needed to grow from it. When I was put into the situation, I think saying that made me run away from it by ignoring the problem at hand. In my community, we’re conditioned to be something more and preform higher than the average human being because the world wasn’t designed for the black community to have the leg up on things. So we’re conditioned to just keep going, keep feelings to the side. We in a way don’t have time for that if we want to carry on. This wasn’t the right answer either and I want to untangle that in my family, community, friends. You name it, I want to fix it.

This also goes into a bit of the communication piece, we don’t know how to talk about our feelings. We know how to argue, but we don’t know how to be emotional and expressing ourselves in a way that is receptive to others. We really miss the ball on that and I am still unlearning this too. Sometimes you need to step away from the situation until you cool down, or you go in with the expectations that this could go bad and am I ready to pay the consequences of not having this person in my life anymore? Depending the level of seriousness but these are things to be considered before screaming when it’s honestly never necessary. Let people talk and take turns at it. Please for the love of everything let them FINISH what they’re saying before you interject with what you have to say. That gets me going, haha don’t do that!

Do you think there is something that non-creatives might struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can shed some light?

I don’t think people put much consideration into a creators time. You may think someone isn’t doing much or that just because you know them they should drop what they’re doing to have a conversation. I just think people should always ask “hey do you have a minute?” Or should we schedule a time to talk. It sounds more difficult than it needs to be, trust me I know. However when you both come to an agreement on a proper space or time to talk, you can get so much more across. I used to like the idea of “picking up and calling them” now I think “hey are you free this week to talk?” makes a world of difference.

This is a difficult journey for us that we’re navigating through. We’re connecting with people at rapid speeds, going to events, meeting people in our same space. Things are going 100 miles per hour a day for creators. Give us the space we need and I promise we will make it work with you.

Just love us and we will absolutely love you back.

Contact Info:

• Instagram: Moenotmaurice
• Facebook: Maurice Houston

Image Credits
Dominic Berlinger Jeremy Conley