The common denominator is you

Meet Bobby Bryant Jr., CEO and founder of DOSS Group, an AI-powered real estate technology firm based in Houston. According to LinkedIn, the company operates as a holding entity for a range of real estate services. Bobby was kind enough to share his thoughts on life in general with Humans of Galveston during an interview on The Strand.

Humans of Galveston: When you were growing up, what did you think you were going to become?

Bobby: Neither my mom or dad went to college. They just wanted me to do better than them. I was a smart kid. I was an athletic kid. I was a social kid. So I was a bit of an anomaly, if you will. I just wanted to be somebody important but I didn't know what it looked like. I just knew I had potential. I knew I wanted to be somebody of significance and a contributor to this world we live in.

Humans of Galveston:  Where did you spend your early years?

Bobby: I grew up in Mobile, Alabama.

Humans of Galveston: What was that like growing up there?

Bobby: Although I'm African American, I grew up probably better than 95 percent of the people in the country. I grew up in a community where there were no broken homes. Everybody had a mother and father at home. The community had this pact of taking care of each other. The men looked out for the boys. Everybody just looked out for everybody.

Humans of Galveston: What did you do for fun?

Bobby: We played football, and all of the families came together. We had a community of people that gave to each other, that did for each other, and they supported each other's kids. It provided this very, very rich life experience.

Humans of Galveston: Was there a pivotal time in your life where something shifted totally into something else?

Bobby: I'm a Gen Xer and my parents were Baby Boomers. When you start talking about African Americans, they had this thing of staying in their place. I was taught not to stay in my place and that education was a way out. So with that being said, I went to Troy State University for my bachelor's degree in vocational rehabilitation and my first master’s in special education. That pivotal moment was being in a classroom of people who didn't look like me. Cognitively, I knew I was on that same level, if not better, because of the foundation my parents provided.

Humans of Galveston: What did your parents do for a living?

Bobby: My dad, Robert, was a sergeant in the Air Force and my mom worked as a custodian in the school system. But it was interesting how everybody viewed my mother because of the way she raised me and my sister. In a lot of instances we were the smartest in the classrooms where we were. My mom, Carolyn, walked away from education for a while and when the teachers started having kids, she baby-sat them from newborns to school age. Although my mom was a custodian, her job didn’t define her. We were solidly middle class and although my dad carried the family financially, my mom wanted to give back and that was her way of feeling whole as a woman.

Humans of Galveston: If you could go back, in Star Wars fashion, and beam to where you’re standing in front of a 13-year-old you, what would you say to that person?

Bobby: Keep doing what you're doing because you're on the right track. I wouldn't change shit. My experience was rich. Life never reached its hand inside of me and altered me or derailed me or pivoted me. Yeah, I would tell me keep going. You're on the right track.

Humans of Galveston: We all have good days and bad days. What is your philosophy in dealing with them?

Bobby: The goal is to have more good days than bad days, because those good days turn into good weeks and those good weeks turns to good months, and years. If you don’t have more good days than bad days, then you gotta realize that you're the co-conspirator to your own demise – the common denominator to you. It doesn't matter if it's relationships. It doesn't matter if it's business. It doesn't matter if it's success. You are the common denominator, so maybe you need to disrupt you.

Humans of Galveston: What do you see as one of life’s mysteries?

Bobby: Why do people fail at life? Why do people choose mediocrity in life? My answer to that is we’re all a genius at something. Don't focus on other people. The goal is to focus on your strengths. What are you gifted at? What are you good at? We all are good at something. What ends up happening for most people is they focus on where they come from. Fuck where you come from. Nobody feels sorry for you. Fuck where you come from. Fuck what you've been through. A lot of people have excuses that they over analyze. And those excuses are tools of incompetence used by non-achievers to create worthless monuments of nothingness. The reality of it is nobody gives a shit about your excuses. Pull yourself up by the bootstraps. Stop looking for the pity party – the cavalry isn't coming – and rescue and save your fucking self.

Humans of Galveston: We’re all here for a finite number of days, months and years. What do you want your epitaph, your final words, to say?

Bobby: That Bobby made an impact. That's it. I don't want to be worthless. Regardless of where you come from, regardless of your story, contribute and find a way to make the world a better place. That’s it. It's just that simple. 

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