Jonathan Capehart: Lessons in Truth, Connection, and Self-Belief

Believe in yourself.

You know, Lena Horn, when she's singing that song, and, you know, it's a great song.

And then you start listening to the words.

And you start, I started internalizing them.

And when I feel,

there have been moments when I have felt low and I'll put that on.

And there's just something so uplifting about it.

Welcome to Mick Unplugged, the number one one podcast for self-improvement, leadership, and relentless growth.

No fluff, no filters, just hard-hitting truths, unstoppable strategies, and the mindset shifts that separate the best from the rest.

Ready to break limits?

Let's go.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged.

And today, We have a bucket list conversation for me, someone who's been a blueprint for some of the things that I've done in my podcast journey.

He is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist, a fearless truth teller on MSNBC, and a trusted voice shaping national conversations.

His work doesn't just report the culture, it moves it forward.

Get ready for an amazing conversation with the brilliant, the courageous, the unapologetic, my blueprint.

Mr.

Jonathan Kayfart.

Jonathan, how you doing today, brother?

I am great.

And Mick, I have to tell you,

i'm just i'm blown away by that by that introduction um no one has ever told me that i was their blueprint um and you're you you're reading the book uh you know and i hope you understand just like what an honor that is to hear and to hear from you um so thank you very much i'm i'm thrilled to be here Well, the thanks is all to you.

And we're going to get to the book in a second, man, because it is

page turning, it is reflective, and it is you.

And that's why I love it, man.

But one of the things that I love to ask my guests and my special guests on McUnplugged is about your because,

that thing that's deeper than your why.

You know, Simon Sinek said, start with why.

And I believe that.

But then I also believe that you're fueled by your because, that deeper purpose, that why behind the why.

So if I were to say, Mr.

Jonathan Kaypart, what's your because why do you keep doing the thing that you do so brilliantly

um i think my because

is

because this is what i've always wanted to do

because

what i want to do is about telling other people's stories

about getting to the truth of the of things

because I want to chronicle what's happening,

because

I understand that things are not static.

So because I write something,

because I write something today doesn't mean that facts might change and therefore I might have to revisit because my audience comes to me because they see me as someone who they can trust.

So my,

I love this question.

I think my because

is about

getting at the truth.

I think I'm still that naive kid who was taught right from wrong, good from bad,

truthful truth versus lies.

And I still believe that, you know, the lies should be exposed, the bad should be exposed, but so should the good.

So should those stories about, you know, people and things and issues that either people really care about about or

more importantly, that they should care about and they might not know about.

Yeah,

it's amazing.

And all of those things that you literally just said, you're because is why you are my, my blueprint.

And here's what I want to tell you, looking you in the eye.

And,

and what made you different for me?

You know, starting a podcast.

a year and a half ago, something I did not want to do.

I started my podcast literally just to create YouTube content, right?

And then Les Brown is one of my mentors and was like, no, you really should go all in.

Damon Johnson mentor was like, you should go all in.

So then I started looking at other people, not to mimic people, but just to understand what podcasting was about.

And what I started realizing, and there's a lot of podcasters, I'm going to hurt their feelings, but it was all superficial.

I was hearing stories I already knew, right?

Like I wasn't gaining much.

There was not a lot of insight.

And so then I just said, you know what?

One of the people that I listen to on TV is Jonathan K.

Part because he draws people in, right?

Like he's going to get to what you call the truth.

He's going to go to a deeper story, a more connected story.

And I think that you're able to do that because of the last thing I said, your connection.

Like you really connect with people, you connect with the story, and you're able to bring things out that people just don't normally see, right?

Like again, what's going on in the world today?

Everybody can report it.

Everybody can talk about it.

But you bring the story to life because there's an energy inside of you that you can create and connect the dots.

And that's why you are my blueprint.

Like you taught me how to, hey, Mick, take your time, understand and really connect with people because when there's genuine connection, right?

The story is going to live and the story is naturally going to come out.

I don't need a script of questions.

I ask Jonathan about his because and I hear that story.

And now that leads me to where I want to go.

Nothing scripted.

There's nothing pre-planned.

And I have to thank you for that, man, because you showed me how to do that.

Oh, wow.

Well, thank you.

You know, at the root of that,

that connection you're talking about is curiosity.

Yeah.

You know, you have to be in these jobs, in these roles, especially as a podcaster, because we're in people's ears.

It's one of the most intimate experiences that a person can have.

And so, because

it's so personal and so and so intimate,

you know, being curious about the other person or being curious about the subject.

And, you know, I will have some preset questions just as a safety net, but if someone says something that is

interesting,

I'm going to go there.

Exactly.

I'm totally going to go there because that is what makes it interesting.

And also,

because we're doing this face to face, you know, that it's also a matter of not so much of what the person is saying, but how they're saying it.

If you notice that as they're saying something, that there's a twitch or suddenly their eyes start glistening.

As soon as I see that, as soon as I hear the quiver in the voice, to me, just on a human level, I think, what's that about?

Let me ask what that's about.

And I have seen in real time interviews that started out sort of kind of cold and dry, like the interviewee is just, oh my God, here's another interview with another person.

And so I'm just going to get through this.

But

you could just feel the tenor and tone and move a mood of the conversation change when I probe that emotion that I'm getting from that person.

And it's a completely new conversation.

Suddenly that person is alive and they want to talk more.

And suddenly you realize, oh, well, we're out of time.

That is the beauty of sitting across from another person and talking to them about what it is that they've written or the policy that they've proposed or the art that

they've created.

The interview is not about me.

It's about them.

And that's what makes it so much fun.

And that was the other thing that I picked up from you is, especially from a podcast perspective, no one wants to hear Mick talk for 30, 45 minutes, right?

It has to be about the guests.

And so I make sure that I do a really good job of honoring the guests and really highlighting the things that they want to do.

And again, I thank you for that because you taught me those things, man.

You really did.

You really did.

So

I want to know, like hearing this, like, when did you know that

this was a gift that you had?

And I don't know if you know it's a gift.

I'm going to tell you, it's a gift.

When did you know that this was what you were destined to be doing?

Well, I,

you know, I don't know.

I don't, it's easy for me to pinpoint when I knew I wanted to be a journalist, when, you know, that first, that very first step that put me on this journey.

I know you've read it when those moments were, but in terms of understanding

what you called this gift,

maybe

it was,

I mean, it had to have been within the last 10 years.

Maybe, I mean, I started the podcast, my

podcast at the Washington Post in 2016.

And that was an outgrowth of live events that I was doing and understanding.

how much I love doing live events.

One, because you can see the person face to face, but then the interaction with the audience.

You know, trying to come up with ways to not only pull the interviewee in, but to also pull the audience in and try to figure out ways to get a reaction from them that will also be part of the dynamic.

I mean, I don't know when I realized that, but I do know that at some point,

you know, Mick,

I remember once I was at a very, I was at a low point,

you know, during during my career.

And I think this was around either just before the pandemic or during the pandemic.

And I was just feeling funky and feeling like I was doing all these things and nothing was

just nothing was gelling.

And I was in the shower and suddenly I just said

out loud,

I am damn good at what I do.

And it was just this, I don't know what compelled me to say it,

but this much I know, Mick, and I'm glad you asked me this question.

The moment I said that out loud to myself in the privacy of my own shower

is when

everything changed.

Literally everything changed.

It's when you know, more live events started coming.

It's when I started doing more things with Washington Post Live.

It's when I started doing more things on MSNBC.

It's when everything started clicking because suddenly I was not keeping

this to myself.

I said it out loud.

I gave it agency.

And I allowed myself, by saying that out loud, I allowed myself to believe in myself.

And I noticed that once I did it, I stood up straighter, my shoulders were, you know, were back.

And conversations I had with people from that moment on

were not about, oh, please let me do this or, you know, sure.

It was like, no,

I want to do this.

This is how, this is how I work.

This is how, I mean, I understand you've got your thing, but you want me to do this.

This is how I do it.

And I guarantee you, this is going to be terrific.

Trust me.

Absolutely.

I totally am a believer in self-affirmations, positive affirmations, because we're going to go through so much in a given week, a given month, some people in a given day, right?

That if you don't believe in yourself, it's going to be harder for other people to believe in you.

And I know that that's also something that is almost like a pillar of core value for you, too, is that that self-belief, that courage, the being able to,

I don't want to say take a risk, right?

But to believe that you're taking steps in the right direction, right?

Like reading this book, and we're going to go there in a moment.

Like, I see all of who you are in this book, man.

And it's just amazing.

Totally amazing.

You know, Mick, as you were talking and in this part of the conversation, do you know The Wiz?

Yeah.

The Diana Ross version with Michael Jackson, the movie.

Yeah, he's on down the road.

Right.

Well, there's another song in there that is one of my favorites.

And when I listen to it, it gets me here

because

it is a mantra and it is believe in yourself.

You know, Lena Horn, when she's singing that song and, you know, it's a great song.

And then you start listening to the words and you start, I started internalizing them.

And when I feel...

There have been moments when I have felt low and I'll put that on.

And there's just something so uplifting about it, reassuring.

And then when you follow it with Diana Ross singing home,

well, I'm a blubbery mess after that.

But

to me,

it is the power of those words and that art that, again,

you are absolutely right.

If you don't believe in yourself,

you're not going to be able to do anything.

Or as RuPaul says, if you can't love yourself, how in the hell are you going to love somebody else?

It's all, it's all mixed in, right?

Absolutely.

And I think that's the perfect segue to the book.

So, I'm going to hold it up for all the viewers.

Yet, here I am.

Lessons from a black man's search for home, segueing from the song from Diana Ross, right?

So,

I got a copy of the book.

Your team sent me a copy,

and I was frozen.

Just the title in and of itself.

Yet here I am.

I was like, oh, we're going to church, right?

Because, you know, I knew you spent some time in the Carolinas.

I live in the Carolinas now.

You know what church is like down here.

And yet, here I am.

I was like, there is a sermon in this title.

And then I opened the book and we start going there, man.

So, like, my first question for you about the book is more of

talk to us about the because of the book.

Like,

why did you say, I've got to write this memoir?

I've got to write this book.

Like, people need to know this.

Like, what was your passion behind saying, I'm going to put pen to paper?

So, during the first Trump administration,

things were not great in the country.

And as an opinion writer who writes about national politics, I mean, it was, it was distressing, dismaying what was happening to the country.

And I needed a break.

And I decided all these stories in my head from my summers down south in North Carolina,

12 summers I spent with my maternal grandparents.

My maternal grandmother was a Jehovah's Witness.

So going to Catholic school in the North and then coming down south and going witnessing with my Jehovah's Witness grandmother.

And the things that I saw and the things that I learned and the people I met, those stories

stayed with me.

They just churned in my head.

And I thought this one particular weekend in 2017, all right, now's the time to stop thinking about these and just getting them down on paper or in pixels on the computer screen.

And I spent all weekend just writing

what became the Down South chapter, which in the book has been split up into two or three separate chapters.

But I sent them, sent the chapters to a bunch of people, but three people in particular were very very encouraging: Tamron Hall, April Ryan, and Joy Reed.

And they all said, Wow, you have a story to tell.

Keep going.

April Ryan, in particular, was relentless.

Just like, are you still writing?

You have to tell your story.

People need to know your story.

And so I kept going.

And there are three authors along the way who really

were my sort of guardian angels in all this?

In 1999, 2000, I read Catherine Graham's memoir, Personal History.

Catherine Graham was the owner, publisher of the Washington Post, the most powerful woman in journalism, one of the most powerful people in the country.

And yet she wrote this memoir that was so revealing, so personal, so raw and honest and open.

I thought, whoa, this powerful woman put all her stuff out there for us to read

and for us to take in.

And I thought, I like this.

This is the kind of memoir I want to read.

Fast forward 20 years, I read Charles Blow's memoir, Fire Shut Up in My Bones.

Again,

raw, open, honest, introspective.

And

it showed me where the passion came from in Charles's columns for the New York Times.

So now you have these two diametrically opposed people, one gay, one straight, one black, one white, one male, one female, one in, you know, in the later end of her, of her career in life, the other one sort of smack in the middle.

And I thought, if ever I write a book, that's my guide.

And then when I started writing, my friend Richie Jackson, who had just finished writing his his book, Gay Like Me, A Letter from a Father to His Son, he said to me, Jonathan, remember, put yourself on every page.

You have to put yourself on every page for the reader.

And so, as I wrote, it was important for me that I had these stories to tell.

I had these lessons that I've learned in my life that I wanted to share with the reader.

But I also felt that I needed to be open and honest and raw

about

my failures and shortcomings as I was about, or am about my triumphs.

But it's the failures and shortcomings where all the big lessons come in.

And so I couldn't, I mean,

there's a chapter with a title that's two expletives, like it's bleeped out.

Yep.

But it is a five-year period where everything

just went to hell.

Personal relationships, professional relationships, and it was bad.

Yeah.

But

I share all that because, you know what,

people see me on television,

people fill in the holes.

They come up with, oh, this must be his life story because I see this and I hear this.

And so

I think I know him.

I think I can peg him.

Usually, critics

absolutely think they know who I am.

And this book is

filling in all those holes, especially for those folks who think, oh, you think you know me?

Oh, get ready.

Did you know I pumped gas for two summers at a Sunoko station?

in Wildwood, New Jersey?

Did you know I got so jammed up in a job that I had to, you quickly figure out a departure.

I mean,

I have been through some things and you need to know this.

But I want to share this because

no matter who you are, I am certain that

I have written something here that you have either gone through or are going through or might go through or know someone who's and

I guess i view myself in service in a lot of ways and if i've learned this lesson i feel duty bound to share here's what i learned yeah you're my observations and so if you find yourself in this situation here's how i went through it and see how that see how what i did and what i thought and what i went through matches or not

what you're going through and maybe it can help

i love love it.

Yet, here I am, right?

Yet, here I am.

You know, one of the things that I did not know about you that you talk about a little bit in the book was like

you were told you had a low IQ, right?

Like, like taught us about that, and then how obviously that isn't true, and that wasn't true, but just taught us a little bit about that, like being labeled.

Because one of the things that,

and I have family members, my sister, sister-in-law are both educators, and it is not them, but I think the education system labels people before society and the world labels people, right?

So tell us a little bit about that.

Well, shoot, society labels us, meaning African Americans and certainly black men and boys

before we even had a chance to even know who we are.

you know we moved from newark predominantly black city to north plainfield New Jersey, and then Hazlitt, New Jersey, where I went, where I became like the

only one

in a classroom.

And my mother, being a daughter of the Jim Crow South,

came up north.

She said to me on the first day of school in North Plainfield and then in Hazlitt, she said to me, listen,

you are not taking vocational education.

They will push us into those.

You are taking college prep classes.

And if anyone tries to do otherwise, you let me know.

And I will go to the school.

So there's that.

Then,

as I write in the book,

we had these weeks where it was like, no instruction today.

We're going to do these tests.

And, you know, my God, these tests with the...

number two pencil and the those ovals so tiny that I got stressed out.

I'm like, I'm going to make sure that this whole oval, because I want to make sure this answer counts.

So, the guidance counselor,

I have a meeting with him and I want to talk about, you know, how should I be thinking about college?

And am I taking all the right courses?

And he says to me,

pulls out this paper and he says, You see that number there?

That's your IQ.

And I don't even know what the number was.

And I was like, okay.

And he said, I'm confused because

that's a low IQ.

Yet your coursework is outstanding.

I don't understand how that is.

And so, you know, this says you will not be going to college.

And I thought, oh,

what I took from that, though, but he said, but your coursework is great.

So not sure what the discrepancy is.

Well, I know what the discrepancy is now.

I don't test well.

Right.

You tell me this is a life or death test and I freeze up.

Right.

Just don't tell me it's a life or death test.

I would do better on a pop quiz than I would on one of those standardized tests with the tiny ovals.

Right.

And so what that showed me was in high, of course, in hindsight, in retrospect, that they were gearing up to

track me in a different different way.

And when I got to high school, when I went to Raritan High School, they didn't put me in vocational ed classes, but they did.

My home room,

the place I went to every morning to start my day, was in the shop.

And that was the place in school then that was known as the hangout and home of the f kids not going to college, the burnouts, the troublemakers.

And I sat in this room.

All my friends were in other classrooms, homerooms with the, with the desks that you today you have to kind of squeeze in, can't believe we actually sat in these little desks.

And when the bell went off, I ran out of that room as fast as I could to join my friends.

But

yeah, that, and what's interesting, Mick, is when I read Michelle Obama's

book, Becoming, when I read Valerie Jarrett's book, Finding My Voice,

to read the similar experiences that they went through with this same thing, with people telling them, Well, you're not going to college, or you're not going to Princeton or you're not going to Harvard or you, you won't be able to do that.

And I thought, this,

I knew this happened,

but I didn't know that it had, it's so widespread that a former first lady of the United States, former senior advisor to the president of the United States, went through the same thing.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Amazing.

Amazing.

It's like full circle, man.

And,

you know, I told you offline, I'm on chapter 12, native New Yorker.

And you got me with a line in there.

You said New York is like an Eminem.

It's hard on the outside, soft on the inside.

And I saw the line before I even got deeper into the chapter.

And I called like two of my buddies.

So one, Kenny Anderson, former basketball player from New York.

And I was like, Kenny, I just heard the truth about New York, man.

Y'all just hard on the outside, but soft on the inside.

Give folks some context into your meaning of that of hard on the outside, soft on the inside.

So

I didn't come up with that analogy until I left New York, until I came to Washington.

Because, you know, New Yorkers believe every word of that song, New York, New York.

If I can make it there, I can make it anywhere.

And I got to Washington, and Washington was like, no, you're not.

It is just a completely different way of being here in Washington.

And that got me reflecting about New York.

New York's reputation is, it's harsh.

New Yorkers are mean, the city is crazy, it's chaotic, it's dirty, it's all these things.

And so people are intimidated by New York.

New York, by design, intimidates people.

But

New York becomes home to those people who dare to engage it.

And so with an MM, it's hard on the outside.

And some people are like, oh, no, no, I can't do it.

It's a great, it's a great way to screen out the serious from the tourists.

And so the tourists, and by tourists, I mean the folks who actually are there as tourists, and then the people who come to New York, oh, I'm going to give it a try.

And then, oh, my God, this is so hard.

I'm leaving.

And then it's the people who decide, okay, I like M ⁇ Ms.

Pop some in my mouth.

Yeah, that hard shell is hard.

But then

I just broke the shell.

All I had to do was try.

And that's the beautiful thing about New York.

All you have to do is try.

And if you put your, throw yourself into the crazy mix.

that is New York City, everybody's on top of each other.

You've got the super wealthy, You've got the very poor, and they're all in the five boroughs, all

trying to lead a successful life, however, they define it.

They are creative, they are go-getters, they are busting their humps to live in that this wildly chaotic, expensive city.

And when you

bite into you get into this softness on the inside and you you tool around and you start noticing patterns.

You start noticing that actually this city of 8 million people is actually a series of small towns.

And you start figuring that out when you start mapping,

here's where I live.

Here's where I work.

Here's where I go grocery shopping.

Here's where I drop off my dry cleaning.

Here's where I might go to school or go to the movie theater.

And because of your routine, you start seeing some of the same people.

You start noticing the patterns.

New York City now

isn't this big, unmanageable place.

It is now this your small, your

small piece of the city that is your town.

And the other beautiful thing about New York is no one really, no one knows.

Like in Washington, it's all about what you do.

Where do you work?

Who do you work for?

And in New York, I still still have friends in New York City.

I know

they go someplace to work, but I don't know exactly what they do.

Because our friendship is based on, you know, we might like the same movies or we like, might like the same restaurants or you have these concentric circles of friends.

And the beauty of New York is bringing people from the various circles together who might not know each other.

And so that to me is why I love New York so much, the beauty of New York, and why I am perfectly fine with people being intimidated, intimidated by New York, because not everybody, New York's not for everybody.

I get that, but New York is for everybody who gives it a shot.

I love it.

You just got to bite through the show.

Got to keep going, right?

Got to keep going.

But I did also hear, just because you made it in New York doesn't mean you can make it everywhere.

I want everybody to understand that too.

All my New Yorkers.

Oh, yeah.

Nick, you know how many New Yorkers, I've been in Washington 18 years.

You know how many New Yorkers I have seen move to Washington and then high tail it back to

within two years, if not sooner.

You know, during the Obama, when President Obama was first elected,

I had a lot of people from New York, but other cities, they were told to call me

to find out what New York was, what Washington was like.

And my question to them was always,

Did you like high school?

Only one person of all the people who I asked that question said yes.

But everyone else said, Oh my God, I hated high school.

And I said, Well, buckle up because you're not going to like Washington.

This is a giant high school filled with the smartest,

most aggressive

people you have ever met.

This is every college

class president,

varsity sports player, all these folks.

This is where they come.

And you just need, you need to be ready.

It's funny you say that because I told someone almost the same thing.

I said, go back to your yearbook and like the most likely to succeed, the class president, the class clown.

Like, that's what Washington, D.C.

is.

It is so funny you said that because that's what I tell people about D.C.

Oh, yeah, no, it is absolutely

true.

Wow.

Well, Jonathan, I know you're very busy.

The world has a lot going on that you need to go talk and write about today.

Give me one more question, Mick.

This is too much fun.

One last question for you then.

If you could spend a day with any person at any place.

Who would the person and where would the place be?

Oh, wow.

You know, the first name that popped into my head?

Was me?

That is so awesome.

Okay.

Sorry.

No.

The first person that popped into my head was Michelle Obama.

Okay.

Now,

I have spent time with her,

but it's never been long enough.

And what I would love to do is for the two of us to go to lunch wherever she wants to go.

If she said Chicago, Washington, New York, Rome, Paris, I would go and just sit and talk.

Yeah.

That's that's what I would love to do.

Amazing.

Well, I think that should happen.

I think that should happen.

I'm, I'm going to ask.

Hey.

It's always a no until you ask, right?

Right.

There you go.

There you go.

I also learned that from you.

See, look at that.

Look at that.

Well, Jonathan, where can everyone buy the book?

Where do you want us to purchase it from?

You can purchase it wherever books are sold.

But you know what?

If you have a local bookstore, support the local bookstore.

Go into the local bookstore.

Ask them if they have it.

If they don't have it, ask them to order it.

There you go.

And if you're in the issue,

you know where to go.

There you go.

Yeah, here I am.

All right, Jonathan, where can people find and follow you?

I am at K Part J on Instagram, on threads.

I was going to say Twitter, but don't don't go there.

It's no fun.

But yes, at K Part J.

At K Part J.

I'll make sure I have links to all of that there.

Jonathan, again, I just personally want to thank you for.

all that you do, all that you stand for, and the legacy that I know you're continuing to build.

I appreciate you, brother.

Nick,

you honor me with those words.

Thank you so much for inviting me to come on your podcast and

just

thank you.

You got it.

You got it, brother.

And for all the viewers and listeners, remember, you're because is your superpower.

Go unleash it.

Thanks for tuning in to this episode of Nick Unplugged.

If today hits you hard, then imagine what's next.

Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this with someone who needs it.

And most of all, make a plan and take action because the next level is already waiting for you.

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Until next time, ask yourself how you can step up.