Ed Norwood

Introduction and Who Is Ed Norwood

Taryell Simmons: Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to another episode of Rise Urban Nation. I've got a special guest in the building today. The one, the only, the man, the myth, the legend, Mr. Ed Norwood. Ed, how are you doing today?

Ed Norwood: I am awesome, Taryell. How are you, sir?

Taryell Simmons: I'm doing good. I just found out we're kind of neighbors.

Ed Norwood: We are. I moved to San Clemente, and my power company is San Diego Gas and Electric. That's how close we are.

Taryell Simmons: I learn something new every day. Thank you for coming on the show. For people who don't know you, who is Ed Norwood?

Ed Norwood: I'm a husband and a father. I've been an entrepreneur for most of my life. I'm a new author, and I'm a humble servant, trying to lead people, not just in my generation, but to inspire the next generation by the decisions I make today.

Taryell Simmons: I love that you started with husband and father. The world might define me as a Black man first, but I'm a husband and father before I ever get to the color of my skin.

Healthcare Advocacy and the Unique Selling Proposition

Taryell Simmons: What problem are you solving with the businesses you've created?

Ed Norwood: We were all created to be storytellers and problem solvers. For twenty-one years we've worked in healthcare advocacy. We represent patients who challenge HMOs and healthcare payers that improperly deny medically necessary care, so they can stay in the hospital and get the care they deserve.

Taryell Simmons: How does one stumble across this career?

Ed Norwood: My first job in LA was at J. Abraham Marketing. J. Abraham was a millionaire who trained entrepreneurs to market their businesses, and I was a guy Friday: I got the CFO's Mercedes washed and was the DJ at his seminars, where 300 people paid $30,000 each for four days. What I took from it was his teaching on the USP, the unique selling proposition. When Domino's started, its USP was "30 minutes or it's free." If the pizza was a minute late, most people didn't care; they just trusted Domino's to keep its promise. He taught organizations to ask: if there are 50 nail salons in your area, why should someone come to yours? Years later, I built our organization on that teaching.

Losing a Business and Learning in the Wilderness

Taryell Simmons: So what is the unique selling proposition for your organization?

Ed Norwood: Why did you do that? I started my first business at nineteen, Law One Financial, a legal collection firm in the lodging and leisure industry. Our letter was followed by one from our in-house attorney. The former general manager at J. Abraham, Bill, told me, "You have a legal presence most collection agencies don't. Guarantee you'll recover two times what a conventional agency will, or you won't charge a dime of contingency fees." I said, "Bill, I've got to take care of my family." He said, "You said you're different." Using that USP, our company tripled.

I made a lot of money very young, and I made a lot of mistakes. I lost the business, and I learned a lot in loss. I went through what I call a wilderness, a season of temporary confusion, like a hamster on a wheel. God let me get to the end of myself, and I began to hear Him clearer than ever. Sometimes you don't realize God is all you need until God is all you have. I was on welfare, and I hated it. Churches helped me buy Christmas presents for my kids. I was fishing through couches for change to feed my family.

A friend hired me while I was trying to travel for ministry. I'd show up late, and he fired me. He should have. That pushed me to launch the organization we've had for 21 years. Sometimes the people who fired you help make you who you are. I landed one client who paid me fifteen hundred dollars for a day and a half a week, worked the rest of the week on my brand, and we've been doing it ever since.

Taryell Simmons: Big shout out to whoever pushed you to your greatness. Is that story in the book?

Ed Norwood: Yes, that's in the book.

Be a Giant Killer and the Giants in Our Family History

Taryell Simmons: Let's pivot to the book. What is it about, and why write it now?

Ed Norwood: I've been writing a long time; I started a Champions Bite e-devotional in 2006. I shopped 15,000 words as a manuscript, and a retired literary agent told me, "That's only a book proposal. You need 60,000 words." Finishing this book was the hardest thing I've ever done, but I journal a lot and pulled much of it from there.

The book is Be a Giant Killer: Overcoming Your Everyday Goliaths. It's about facing the giants in your family history and overcoming past traumas, mistakes, and shame to accomplish the wildest dreams in your heart. I wrote it for survivors and readers, Christian or not, to overcome the generational giants that keep growing: fear, procrastination, addiction, shame. I use the backdrop of my family, who lost 27 relatives in the Jonestown tragedy, to show how family history and shame can be fatal to our dreams, and how we can rewrite it by being giant killers in our generation, family, and industry.

Taryell Simmons: What does it mean to be a giant killer? Battle mode, you against the world? Or therapy?

Ed Norwood: It doesn't mean finding your enemy and taking him out. It means identifying the things bigger than you that stand in the way of the greatest version of you, often things from your history. As a healthcare advocate, I know physicians value family history, because high blood pressure or diabetes in your bloodline can creep into your life or skip a generation. But our children inherit more than physical traits. My kids inherit the residue of me. Every giant I haven't dealt with, they have access to. If I live in chaos or anger, I can transfer that, along with my fear and rejection. Every giant we don't defeat grows into the next generation.

We pass things off as harmless: "That's just Grandma. Mom will never change." I've decided I want to be the one in my generation who draws a line and says, "No further." The heart knows no time. Trauma and pain can't tell time. That's how a fifty-year-old man can throw a five-year-old's tantrum.

Ed Norwood: During the pandemic, everything that was silent became loud. That's what Goliath did: he taunted the Israelite army for 40 days. In year ten of our marriage, my wife and I went to the National Institute of Marriage, and the therapist said our hearts are like black boxes. An airplane's black box survives catastrophe, and divers go past the debris to find it because it remembers everything: "Welcome aboard," and "Mayday, fire in the cockpit." Our heart remembers every celebration and every betrayal. So we have to do heart work and renew our minds if we're going to pass the right things to the next generation.

Encourager Versus Comforter: Healing With Our Children

Taryell Simmons: I see two giants in the Black and brown community: physical health, where my granddad and uncles didn't go to the doctor, and mental and emotional health, which we don't talk about, though this new generation is breaking those stereotypes. How do you confront a giant and overcome it?

Ed Norwood: I believe we subconsciously carry what we bury. There are things your children need to hear from you, and I know that because there are things I still need to hear from my mother and father. My wife recently told me she sometimes feels I hold part of my heart back and don't respond with comfort when she's emotional. I told her that from fourteen to eighteen my mom was traveling for ministry and I was by myself. If I was sick, I gave myself chicken soup. In high school I ran an advice column, "Dear Ed," giving young people the encouragement I needed to give myself.

So with my kids, I was a great encourager but not a great comforter. I'd say, "Get up, you've got to accomplish this," and quote scripture, but I didn't say, "It must have been hard to lose that game. How are you doing?" My kids are now 31, 24, and 21, and I've gone back to excavate unresolved hurts: "Son, when you were 15 and wanted to leave the football field, I didn't listen to your heart. That was prideful. I'm so sorry. Will you forgive me?"

I grew up in a generation where you never heard "I'm sorry." You'd hear, "Look what you accomplished because of it." That's not the point. I needed your presence, not your gifts. If you want to know what your kids need to hear from you, think about what you need to hear from your parents. Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me? They lied. Words hurt, and what a parent said when you were young still stings today. And our kids are always watching.

Taryell Simmons: Everything Ed just told you is verbal gold.

Steps to Success: Ownership, Results, and Multiple Streams

Taryell Simmons: What steps helped you build your career and brand in healthcare, and yourself as a person?

Ed Norwood: After J. Abraham, I worked at the law office of Leonard Gross, a collection firm, and they gave me an all-Spanish-speaking desk for Central Furniture. I'd taken Spanish in high school and couldn't speak a lick of it. All I knew was how to ask how much someone could pay and their address. But I refused to fail, I had lines of people around the corner, and I was promoted in three months. It was straight commission, so it gave me a propensity for results.

So first: have a propensity to succeed, and love the place you're at as if it were your destiny. If you're the janitor, you tell someone, "Don't track mud on my floor. It needs to shine." If you won't do it in little, you won't do it in much. Second, when I left for a job paying $18 an hour, I realized I'd traded control of my income for a fixed one. So create multiple streams of revenue. Our company has no fixed incomes; we've created five revenue streams for employees, and they've built additions on their homes.

Lastly, everything has compensation, so confront what you fear and make better decisions. With my first credit card, a $500 limit, I wanted to take six co-workers out to eat. A colleague, Paula Strode, said, "Don't you do that." I didn't listen, and it started a landslide until my credit score was about 500. You can't pray a bad credit score up. Paying on time, paying cards down, and disputing errors took it to 750. We change our destiny by changing our decisions today.

Taryell Simmons: What's one good lesson life has taught you?

Ed Norwood: Hard work. When I lost everything, God taught me that if I trust Him, He can take me from ground zero and make me greater than ever. I can't erase what happened, but it can be restored, and when God restores something, He makes it better than new. Like the credit score, it isn't overnight. You prove in consistency that you'll keep doing the right thing.

Advice for a Season of Doubt and Giving Back

Taryell Simmons: What advice would you give someone in a dead-end job on the hamster wheel, or a new graduate with no idea where to go?

Ed Norwood: One of the greatest quotes I've heard, and I don't know who said it: what you learn in school will help you make a living, but what you teach yourself will help you make a fortune. Never stop learning. When I started, I read that to become an authority you have to give yourself away expecting nothing in return. So I gave free talks and articles until I could get paid. Volunteer in your industry and transfer those skills to a paid position. We need to build trust to gain permission, and you build trust by being a resource, even if you don't know the answer but know who does.

Taryell Simmons: How can Black and brown people who want to get into your industry make their way in?

Ed Norwood: Start where you are, and don't make excuses. If you're not passionate about what you do, no one else will be. A service business has less overhead but is built on relationships; if the manager who hired you leaves, you could lose the contract. So build relationships. We train people in healthcare, public policy, and compliance, and I have a virtual training session on May 19th with an attorney presenting; the links are on my LinkedIn.

Around 2009, during the recession, we held an event called Dream Job. We give food and toys every holiday, but what if we gave away what we know? Our strength is for service, not just status. One person taught interview etiquette, one Excel, one project management, and I taught healthcare public policy and compliance. As you learn, give it back to our community. If you don't, who will?

Where to Find Ed Norwood and Closing

Taryell Simmons: If you were driving and missed those links, I'll put them in the show notes. What are you working on, and where can people find you?

Ed Norwood: If you're interested in healthcare, visit our ERN Enterprises website. My personal website is ednorwood.com. Find Ed Norwood on LinkedIn, and our Instagram is champions_unleashed. I'm on a hybrid book tour, in person and on podcasts like yours. Get the book on Amazon, Walmart, or Target, and leave a review on Amazon, because reviews are gold for us.

Taryell Simmons: Give the name of the book again.

Ed Norwood: Be a Giant Killer: Overcoming Your Everyday Goliaths. Google "Ed Norwood Be a Giant Killer" and you can't miss it.

Taryell Simmons: Ed, thanks for being the giant that's killing the other giants out here. Any last words?

Ed Norwood: I love your heart for people. What's your vision for this podcast?

Taryell Simmons: To let people see others who look like them overcoming the giants they face, so they know they're not alone, and to normalize the excellence of all of us. No one succeeds alone, and this can be that virtual platform of support.

Ed Norwood: My desire is that God would enlarge your capacity and your platform, that your show climbs to the top of the search engines, and that in every story you tell, people see themselves and are inspired to do great things in their generation.

Taryell Simmons: Thank you, Ed. I receive that. When I rise, you rise. We all rise. Thank you, everybody, for tuning in. That's our show for today. Have a great rest of your day.