ORLANDO, Fla. – This week on “Black Men Sundays,” host Corie Murray interviews Jamil Frazier, an entrepreneur who’s founded more companies than most people have probably ever worked for.
From humble and troubled beginnings living on welfare in Section 8 housing until the age of 18, Frazier found his first refuge in sports and friends, what led to his football scholarship at Azusa Pacific University in 2002. From there, graduating Magna Cum Laude, Frazier accepted a position with Johnson & Johnson’s Pharmaceutical Sales division, moving into medical sales a few years later.
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Yet, troubled times would return.
“In 2010, my wife and I found out that we were pregnant with our first son. You would think that it would be this joyous moment for me, that I would be elated, but it was the direct opposite. I was scared. I went into a two-year depression. I put on a whole bunch of weight. I started doing a lot of things that were unhealthy. You know, drinking way too much, partying way too much. I didn’t know how to handle it, because, like I said, I never had a father, and so now me becoming a father was something that was really scary for me,” Frazier said.
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Though it would seem Frazier had checked all the necessary boxes for a happy life, he was still depressed, broke, and at risk of losing the beautiful woman he married.
It was around this time that things really changed for the better.
“I had a buddy of mine I used to play football with. He says, ‘Hey, you should contact my mom. She’s a health coach. She’ll help you develop better habits and she’ll help you get healthier.’ And so I did, and she became a mentor for me, and so she helped me get healthy. She saw that I had a relatively big network, and she said, ‘Man, you would be amazing, you’re empathetic, you know a lot of people, you’ve obviously had great results. People are already responding. You should go help people change their life and and make a transformation,’” he said. “After about a month of thinking about it, I was scared. I never really had a business before. She was using these big words, business and all this stuff, I was a corporate guy, worked in a pharmaceutical sales for Johnson & Johnson. I never really saw myself as a business guy, I saw myself as a hard worker for somebody who already had a business and so I went to a seminar that her and her folks were doing, and I saw that people’s lives are changing. I want to be a part of this. So I came back home, I quit that job, that six-figure job, and I just decided, one by one, I’m going to help people change their lives.”
Frazier would go on to launch Healthy Habits with US, Inc., his health coaching organization. From there, Fraizer has since founded E&M Investment Properties, a real estate investment company; Think Life is Different, an education company; Think Life is Different Media, his publishing company; and Fraizer Equity Partners, which deploys private equity into his portfolio companies, not to mention the scholarships he and his portfolio companies have been able to provide at high schools, churches and universities through the years.
Hear the full interview and more in Season 5, Episode 8 of “Black Men Sundays.”
Black Men Sundays talks about building generational wealth. Check out every episode in the media player below.