Grit For The Day

by Thomas Lee Johnson

Grit stories from influencers who have overcome. Grit For The Day is an engaging, intimate series of conversations with leaders who have achieved and accomplished despite adverse circumstances. In this era of shared calamity and turmoil we need collective wisdom and inspiration to overcome!

Podcast episodes

  • Season 2

  • Vera J. Katz, Grit For Generational Naches

    Vera J. Katz, Grit For Generational Naches

    Naches - Yiddish for familial joy or pride. Professor Vera J. Katz shares a riveting story of enduring firings, isolation from peers, persecution from students, busted car windows, slashed car tires and other indignities on her path to become a tenured professor at Howard University and one of the most celebrated acting coaches and experts to teach THE Black Panther Chadwick Boseman, Taraji P. Henson, Debbie Allen, Anthony Anderson, Phylicia Rashad and Corey Hawkins. Hear her coping skills for enduring isolation, persecution, unjust accusations and using the legal system to overcome institutional resistance to new ideas. Professor Katz demonstrates her Grit For Generational Naches, her life purpose, to bring joy and pride to generations of marginalized people, both Jews and African-Americans alike. Hear private, intimate moments about the late Chadwick Boseman, long before his fame. Hear an episode filled with gems of conversation!

  • Bob Smith, Accredited Investor & Executive Director of Innovation Corp

    Bob Smith, Accredited Investor & Executive Director of Innovation Corp

    Accredited Investor and Executive Director of the National Science Foundation Innovation Corporation [https://beta.nsf.gov/funding/initiatives/i-corps/about-i-corps] Mr. Bob Smith travels the U.S., Japan, Europe and elsewhere teaching his unique brand of innovation and pragmatism to young entrepreneurs. Bob's lessons are especially prescient as the 2023 global economy heads into a potential downturn, He encourages entrepreneurs to find opportunities to innovate now. Place small bets on big ideas now. And, as he says, "Never, ever, ever quit."

  • Season 1

  • Lamman Rucker - Grit To Be Born

    Lamman Rucker - Grit To Be Born

    Lamman Rucker shares the heart rending story of the early days and months of his sons life in the Neonatal Intensive Care Unite (NICU)and Thomas Lee Johnson shares the story of the miraculous birth of his son Ephraim William Johnson. Sometimes overcomers of adversity come in 3 pound, 13 ounce sized packages and teach us lessons we are ill prepared to learn.

  • Executive Director Chanda Causer - Grits To Keep Pushing

    Executive Director Chanda Causer - Grits To Keep Pushing

    Main Street Alliance Executive Director Chanda Causer shares hard fought lessons and wisdom from her successful career as a leader in the non-profit and for profit worlds.

  • VP Alex DerHovhannessian, Grit To Annihilate Distraction to get 200% YOY Growth!

    VP Alex DerHovhannessian, Grit To Annihilate Distraction to get 200% YOY Growth!

    200% YOY growth for three years and counting, VP Alex DerHovhannessian of GCOM Qlarion shares intimate details of overcoming tragedies to build a lasting legacy in his family and his companies.