Minnie Carter

I would say having a supportive team, certainly my family - they've been behind me all the way. Early on, it would have been my mother, but she's now deceased, so my son and my daughter, both adults, are very supportive. But beyond that, I have met quite a few people, either in person or online, who have just stepped up and shared information with me that have been very helpful. Here in Baltimore, I met a gentleman who had his own record label and signed me to his record label way back in 2016. Unfortunately, he has since passed away, but that kind of set me on the path of moving up a little bit higher every time. I met another person online, Dr. Bradford Howard, who was living all the way in Texas. But when you're on the internet, it's like you're next-door neighbors. He voluntarily would take my music - I would send him the MP3s whenever I have a brand new recording - and he would share it with all of the internet radio stations in his network. And because they looked up to him and respected his judgment, they would play my music. So that has continued for maybe about 3 years, up till now. It's been an awesome experience. Once you put the music out there, it's up to the listening public to decide what they like, and just to see that it's so well received and that I am charting right along with other artists like CeCe Winans and Fred Hammond or Kirk Franklin - maybe I'm not right there with them, but we're on some of the same charts. The music has been something I loved from a child, but realistically speaking, if you're trying to make a living, I didn't go that route. That's why I ended up doing something that was in business where you could have a guaranteed income. And that has served me well, because even in retirement, since I worked so many years, I'm entitled to retirement income in addition to social security. So I can go ahead and explore my options with music without fear of being able to pay bills and that kind of thing. You only get one time around.

When it comes to the EEO work, basically just do the best job that I can - keep showing up and being on time, which was always something I would hear from everyone. If you need help, reach out for help, and also not be afraid to delegate, because you shouldn't try to do everything yourself. Sometimes people will have a problem with being a perfectionist, so they're afraid to give an assignment to someone else. But when you have a staff, it's good to go ahead and delegate portions of the work to everybody so that you're not trying to do everything and burning yourself out. As far as the music is concerned, I had a very lovely lady right here in my area who told me once, 'Minnie, don't let folks put you in a box.' By that, she meant don't make them feel like all you can sing is one type of music. So I do mix it up. I might do something that's considered a hymn or hardcore gospel, I might also do something that's just straight up Christian and inspirational, which then leads you into crossover. One of the songs I do is Mariah Carey's Hero, and one of the most recent is I Believe in You and Me that was made popular by Whitney Houston. But what I've done, I've changed a few of the lyrics so that it fits more of an inspirational song, it's not a love ballad. That advice, I always remembered - not to let people put you in a box. You want folks to see that you do have a certain reach, that you can be diverse and do more than one type of thing.

First and foremost, having a faith in God and being close, having a relationship with God is important. But also, education is very, very important. If at all possible, I would advise young women, and men too - because I think women, we kind of have the lead over the guys when it comes to education - to pursue a degree. It's okay if it's just an AA degree, that's fine, but if you get the bachelor's, that's even better. And not to be worried or scared because AI is becoming very popular. There's still many fields that rely on human contact, and if you're working in the field of EEO, an AI-generated robot or computer cannot handle that. You need human touch for those types of things. So I would say get the education, and then also, if possible, and usually it is possible, get yourself a mentor, or more than one, and just let them guide you so that you're not trying to do everything on your own. Also, if they're interested in any type of entertainment, or maybe they want to author a book - and I did author 3 books of poetry because that's something that comes easy to me - whatever it is that somebody aspires to do, they should go ahead and not let fear get in the way. Because a lot of times, nothing is stopping us but our internal feelings - a feeling of 'oh, I can't do it,' or 'oh, it's gonna fail,' or 'I don't know if they're gonna like me.' Just try to block out those negative thoughts and go ahead and give it a try, because unless you try, you'll never know. And even if you try to put something out there, whether it be a song, a book, a business model, and you get turned down once, twice, more than once, you have to just keep knocking on doors and not give up, because maybe the very next door that you knock on is the one that's gonna give you the opportunity. You just have to have that spirit of consistency and persistence, and if you do that for long enough, you'll see how successful you could be.

As an EEO director, I found that a lot of times, the supervisors and managers did not appreciate the work that I was doing. They would be annoyed if one of the employees had filed a discrimination complaint, and they would sometimes want to retaliate against the employee. So even though I would be helping the employee on the front end to get a resolution to whatever their problem was - whether that was to get the promotion they were passed over for, or just get equal treatment in the workplace - once that was taken care of and maybe we've even put the resolution in writing, I had to then also follow up with that employee to make sure there was no retaliation, because that, of course, is against the law. When you look at what's going on in the country today, it's hard to believe that even was ever a question, because now it's like so much chaos that EEO directors or just counselors are needed more than ever. I see a lot of people being abused and losing their employment for no good reason. That would be the biggest challenge - that managers and supervisors didn't like somebody reporting them. Sometimes you would call the person a whistleblower. They didn't get mistreated themselves, but they saw something else happening. So we had to also sort of protect the whistleblower, because they would then be in jeopardy of possibly getting retaliated against because they came forward and gave information, negative information, about their supervisor. I would say those things, they were challenging, but yet rewarding when I saw that I was able to help somebody to remedy their problems.

I would say, and hopefully people mean it when they say this, I try to put God first. Denzel Washington is big on reminding people to put God first, and I just try to do that also. There was a pastor that I had, I loved him so much - Dr. Harold A. Carter Sr. - he would always say, don't get the big head. People from the South have some funny little sayings that they use. Well, not to get the big head means like don't just get so arrogant because you think you are so successful. You forget where you came from, and you start treating people a certain way. So that would be it - stay grounded, stay humble, and be close to family also. Be close to family, and show them love, and just be there for them when they need you. If you do those things, especially putting God first, which also includes going to church whenever you can - now the pandemic is way over with, we can show up in person - and paying tithes, if you have it, paying tithes and offerings in the church to help with that ministry. I'm a strong believer that whatever you put out, it does come back, and I think it comes back even double sometimes. If you make that your motto, you'll see how much more blessed your life then becomes. And people will look at you in amazement. And that is really your secret. You haven't done anything so amazing or radical. It's just that you live by those principles, and God just kind of makes everything flow in your favor.