Latest / DA CREW Podcast / Men's History Month I am my brothers keeper

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Men's History Month I am my brothers keeper · DA CREW Podcast

• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Ladies and gentle lane, I have your attention. Please The
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: show stops in nine eight, seven, six, five, four three two.
• 1:37
  Speaker 2: One go well, Hello, Hello, hello, and welcome, welcome, welcome.
• 1:43
  Speaker 2: I wanna thank you guys for joining us on tonight
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: as we celebrate our Black Men's History month. Y'all know
• 1:53
  Speaker 2: we don't officially have a month that recognized our men.
• 1:59
  Speaker 2: So here at Asparan Authors Magazine and The Crew Podcast.
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: For the last two years on the podcast and for
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: the last four years with the magazine, we have been
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: honoring our kings because I personally feel that society has
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: failed our meals and it's up to us to put
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: them on that throne and to help restore them so
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: that they can take their rightful place. And these amazing
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: men that are out here doing an amazing job, they
• 2:35
  Speaker 2: need to be recognized so that they continue the work
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: that they are doing. I'm excited to have tonight mister Elijah,
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: he is of the Amazing Authors, are part of the
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: one hundred author movement.
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: Going to get an opportunity to hear all about.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: What he do, some of his his writings, some things
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: he got coming up. We're gonna get an opportunity to
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: dive into his book, his brand and and all of that.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: We're gonna catch up with Elijah and see what he
• 3:11
  Speaker 2: got going on. And we're gonna talk about mental health, y'all.
• 3:14
  Speaker 2: That is something that is near and near to me
• 3:17
  Speaker 2: as a mental health advocate. I too suffer with mental
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: illness and it's something that I had to learn to
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: deal with and we like to bring awareness to so
• 3:33
  Speaker 2: that people will know because it's a stigma, and our
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: black and brown community, we all know some of the
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: stigmas that go behind it.
• 3:43
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: They tell us to pray about it, slap some all
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: on it and and those things. But sometimes you got
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: to go sit down and talk to somebody and get
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: it out. And tonight we're gonna we're gonna talk about it.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: So I want to welcome Elijah to the show. He's
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: gonna bring him on up so he can introduce hisself
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: because some of you guys may not know who he is.
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: So I'm gonna bring him on in the room.
• 4:12
  Speaker 4: How you doing, I'm doing good, Miss Angela. How about yourself?
• 4:17
  Speaker 3: I'm great. I can't complain. It does nobody no good.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: There you go, so yet I press They just keep
• 4:27
  Speaker 5: on pressing.
• 4:28
  Speaker 4: This you gotta do.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: That's it. Just take it one day at a time.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: That's what I tell everybody.
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: Moment for a moment, because if we are believers, and
• 4:36
  Speaker 2: we and we believe a word, the word tells us
• 4:39
  Speaker 2: that we don't have to worry about tomorrow because tomorrow
• 4:42
  Speaker 2: gonna take care of yourself. So we got to focus
• 4:44
  Speaker 2: on now. We can't worry about yesterday because it's already
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: overdone with. So the only thing we can focus on
• 4:50
  Speaker 2: is are now our prison. You know, we can't even
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: worry about what happened five minutes ago. So hey, I'm
• 4:57
  Speaker 2: here in the moment ready to dive in to share
• 5:01
  Speaker 2: with those that are tuned in just a little bit
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: about who you are, what you do, and all of
• 5:07
  Speaker 2: that good stuff. Because it's been a minute since you've
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: been O. I think you came on the end of
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: twenty twenty four.
• 5:15
  Speaker 5: No, actually, I think I was actually on the beginning
• 5:18
  Speaker 5: of twenty twenty five, early Jaquary.
• 5:22
  Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, early January one.
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Okay, well, it's been a minute because we at the.
• 5:29
  Speaker 4: Halfway mark now, that's true, so.
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: It's time to catch up.
• 5:34
  Speaker 2: I'm sure you have been doing some things, so we
• 5:37
  Speaker 2: want to know what's been going on.
• 5:39
  Speaker 3: But first you have to introduce yourself for those that
• 5:41
  Speaker 3: don't know who you are.
• 5:43
  Speaker 5: Absolutely well again, ladies and gentlemen. My name is Elijah Lewis.
• 5:47
  Speaker 5: I am an author and motivational speaker. I am currently
• 5:52
  Speaker 5: the author of the book Your Jewels in Your Journey,
• 5:55
  Speaker 5: Life Lessons to lead You out to Himself. It came
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: out in May of twenty twenty three. It took me
• 6:02
  Speaker 5: about six months or so to write, but pretty much
• 6:05
  Speaker 5: the little synopsis of the book, it just teaches readers
• 6:08
  Speaker 5: how they can be their optimal self because what I
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: tell people is that we're all on a journey, and
• 6:13
  Speaker 5: on that journey we typically learn that the life lessons
• 6:16
  Speaker 5: are jewels. But it's also important, especially when we talk
• 6:20
  Speaker 5: about tonight with the mental health aspect of you know,
• 6:22
  Speaker 5: if you need to talk to somebody, those people in
• 6:25
  Speaker 5: your life that can help you be your optimal self
• 6:27
  Speaker 5: are jewels. And once you know those two things, you
• 6:30
  Speaker 5: ultimately learn that yourself are a jewel. Because I tell people,
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: if you don't know who you are, it's hard and
• 6:34
  Speaker 5: where you're going. So with this book, it's all about
• 6:37
  Speaker 5: giving you a roadmap to get to your alternate destination
• 6:40
  Speaker 5: with just to be your optimal self and being able
• 6:43
  Speaker 5: to withstand the challenges that life is going to bring you,
• 6:45
  Speaker 5: because it's the old adage is life be life, and
• 6:48
  Speaker 5: so you know, definitely it's all about how you can
• 6:52
  Speaker 5: overcome the challenges in your life and in order to
• 6:55
  Speaker 5: be your optional self and live in your purpose that
• 6:57
  Speaker 5: you're meant to be. And also a little bit of information
• 7:00
  Speaker 5: about me too. I'm also a software architect slash developer.
• 7:04
  Speaker 5: I worked with the naming that's my day job as
• 7:08
  Speaker 5: a civilian, So that's a little bit about me. And
• 7:11
  Speaker 5: I'm also from Baltimore, Maryland, currently living in Waldorf, Maryland.
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: Wow, So what made you write the book?
• 7:24
  Speaker 5: Well, it's kind of interesting because I really thought about
• 7:28
  Speaker 5: some of the experiences that I went through in my
• 7:30
  Speaker 5: own life, and honestly, I think it relates to mental health.
• 7:36
  Speaker 5: Is the fact that I needed to somewhat write about
• 7:40
  Speaker 5: what I experienced and how at times I felt lost
• 7:44
  Speaker 5: on my journey because I tell people I went through
• 7:47
  Speaker 5: a lot of challenges in my life. You know, I
• 7:49
  Speaker 5: had a two point five a GP in high school.
• 7:52
  Speaker 5: I was at one point on acting and probation. One
• 7:55
  Speaker 5: of the challenges that I really talk about in my
• 7:58
  Speaker 5: book is the fact that I did have the unfortunate
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: experience being a part of sadly, being a part of
• 8:05
  Speaker 5: a church that ended up actually being in occult unfortunately,
• 8:07
  Speaker 5: and how that really impacted me. And what maybe really
• 8:12
  Speaker 5: want to write this book is that, like I said,
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: I know what it's like to be lost on my journey,
• 8:16
  Speaker 5: but I didn't want other people to have that same feeling.
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: And I know that God has blessed me to not
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: only you know, learn a lot of lessons in life,
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: but also I've been blessed to have great people in
• 8:27
  Speaker 5: my corner who have helped me get back on the
• 8:30
  Speaker 5: path where I am today. And so really that experience
• 8:34
  Speaker 5: that I went through really was the inspiration for me
• 8:36
  Speaker 5: wanting to write your Jewels in your Journey, because, like
• 8:39
  Speaker 5: I said, we're all on a journey. And you know,
• 8:41
  Speaker 5: my philosophy is is that if you pay close enough attention,
• 8:46
  Speaker 5: you can find many jewels on your journey because they're there,
• 8:49
  Speaker 5: whether it be in a form of life lessons or people.
• 8:52
  Speaker 5: So it's just all about you know, as somebody like
• 8:54
  Speaker 5: to say, like looking at it with your spiritual eye.
• 8:57
  Speaker 5: Those people that are in your corner who can help
• 8:59
  Speaker 5: you it to that that's my self that you're looking for.
• 9:02
  Speaker 4: So that was really the main.
• 9:03
  Speaker 5: Motivation of why I wanted to write Your Jewels in
• 9:07
  Speaker 5: your Journey by just telling people that, hey, it's not
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: how you start, it's how you finish. But as you
• 9:12
  Speaker 5: talk about in regards to mental health, we are going
• 9:14
  Speaker 5: to go through challenges that are going to try us emotionally.
• 9:18
  Speaker 5: But if we are lucky enough to have the right
• 9:21
  Speaker 5: people in our corner, we can't overcome those challenges on
• 9:24
  Speaker 5: our journey to be our optimal self.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's powerful.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: I know you said what made when when you were
• 9:39
  Speaker 2: asked to do this book? Because I think your friend
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: help you do this book. Well, was it someone that
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: encourage you to do this book?
• 9:48
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 9:49
  Speaker 5: And I've said this story many times and I love
• 9:51
  Speaker 5: sharing it. I went to a expo. It was a
• 9:54
  Speaker 5: black empowerment expo in Waldorf, not too far for where
• 9:57
  Speaker 5: I live. And my publisher was there and he's author
• 10:01
  Speaker 5: Mobivisius just be himself. If he sees his interview, shout
• 10:04
  Speaker 5: out to my publisher. His name is Matthew C. Horn
• 10:06
  Speaker 5: of Latin Fast Book publisher and Matthew was there and
• 10:10
  Speaker 5: I bought two of his book. He's author mobivisis be Himself.
• 10:14
  Speaker 5: And as I'm buying his two books, and there's a
• 10:17
  Speaker 5: lady that said, hey, come back a little bit later
• 10:20
  Speaker 5: because he was at the table of the time. So
• 10:22
  Speaker 5: I come back a little bit later.
• 10:24
  Speaker 4: On I meet him.
• 10:28
  Speaker 5: He asked these words, and I never forget. He said, brother, like,
• 10:32
  Speaker 5: you got a lot on your mind. You ever think
• 10:34
  Speaker 5: about writing a book? And it just shot me. I'm
• 10:38
  Speaker 5: just like, well, no, I never thought about doing that.
• 10:40
  Speaker 5: I'm like, I haven't anything major since my scholarly project
• 10:43
  Speaker 5: in grad school, so I'm just like, okay, I'm not
• 10:46
  Speaker 5: thinking about doing that. But the more we converse and
• 10:49
  Speaker 5: the more I thought about, you know what I wanted
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: to write about potentially in a book, It's just something
• 10:55
  Speaker 5: in my spirit said, okay, you know what you need
• 10:57
  Speaker 5: to do this. And I think what I always admire
• 10:59
  Speaker 5: about that moment was he saw something to me that
• 11:02
  Speaker 5: I didn't see in myself. And one of the things
• 11:05
  Speaker 5: that I write in Your Jewels in your Journey is
• 11:07
  Speaker 5: that don't let other people put you in a box,
• 11:10
  Speaker 5: but also you have to learn don't put yourself in
• 11:13
  Speaker 5: a box because I tell people too, we all have
• 11:16
  Speaker 5: a journey, but we all have a story to tell too.
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: So really, through his.
• 11:23
  Speaker 5: I guess you could say intuitiveness about you know what
• 11:27
  Speaker 5: I was asking and things like that, he really inspired
• 11:30
  Speaker 5: me to go ahead and write the book, because, like
• 11:32
  Speaker 5: I said, I had no plans to writing a book.
• 11:34
  Speaker 5: I didn't think that was anything possible I could do.
• 11:36
  Speaker 5: But what I've learned is that as long as you
• 11:41
  Speaker 5: are being genuine to your story, you may not be
• 11:45
  Speaker 5: able to get everybody, but you will inspire the right people.
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: And I think, you know, I think it's possible for
• 11:51
  Speaker 5: anyone to write a book. It's just that you have
• 11:54
  Speaker 5: to have the discipline and know what you want to
• 11:58
  Speaker 5: talk about. But as long as you have that and
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: you know what you want to write about and it's genuine,
• 12:02
  Speaker 5: then you know it's definitely possible. So yeah, he gave
• 12:05
  Speaker 5: me that, he put the bug in my ear to
• 12:08
  Speaker 5: press forward and go ahead and write the book.
• 12:13
  Speaker 3: So since you published the book, what has this journey been?
• 12:18
  Speaker 4: Like?
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: I know, because a lot of people they they published
• 12:23
  Speaker 2: and then they think that immediately they about to be
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: an overnight success, They about to sell.
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: A million copies.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: They about to get that big house, and they got
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: to get that that that big car. So what has
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: this journey been like for you? Because I have not
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: experienced it yet. I'm waiting for that to happen for me.
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: So what has your journey been like?
• 12:41
  Speaker 5: Well, you and me are in the same boat because
• 12:43
  Speaker 5: I'm still waiting for the car in the house too
• 12:45
  Speaker 5: that that hasn't come quite yet. But on a serious note,
• 12:49
  Speaker 5: I think I am very happy with the success that
• 12:52
  Speaker 5: I've had. I've been able to meet a lot of authors,
• 12:55
  Speaker 5: you know, especially like what you did with the one
• 12:57
  Speaker 5: hundred Author's movement, going to various book festivals and book fairs,
• 13:02
  Speaker 5: and I've had a lot of success from you know,
• 13:05
  Speaker 5: family friends and the people I've met at the various
• 13:09
  Speaker 5: events that I do. So I've had a great success
• 13:12
  Speaker 5: with the book. In fact, even just recently. I think
• 13:14
  Speaker 5: something I'm really proud of is that I recently got
• 13:17
  Speaker 5: back from Liberia a couple of weeks ago and I
• 13:21
  Speaker 5: actually was able to sell some copies in Liberia. So
• 13:23
  Speaker 5: I can, I guess say now I'm an international selling
• 13:27
  Speaker 5: author now, which is really something to be proud about.
• 13:30
  Speaker 5: But somebody suggested to me because on that trip we
• 13:33
  Speaker 5: had the opportunity to meet the president of Liberia and
• 13:37
  Speaker 5: he said, hey, why don't you give the president a
• 13:38
  Speaker 5: copy of your book? And so for me to do that,
• 13:41
  Speaker 5: you know, I never thought that would ever happen, you know,
• 13:44
  Speaker 5: just to have a president of any country, you.
• 13:46
  Speaker 4: Know, to have my book. You know, it's like, who
• 13:49
  Speaker 4: am I for that?
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: You know?
• 13:50
  Speaker 5: But you know, I am proud of the success that
• 13:54
  Speaker 5: I that I am. It's not an overnight success. I
• 13:57
  Speaker 5: wasn't expecting it to be, but I am thankful that
• 14:02
  Speaker 5: The biggest success I think I have is that I
• 14:05
  Speaker 5: think I realized this is something that I was really
• 14:07
  Speaker 5: meant to do. And I say that in the sense
• 14:10
  Speaker 5: of the fact that I've been able to connect with
• 14:13
  Speaker 5: so many people and at the same time, you know,
• 14:16
  Speaker 5: help and inspire people, because people come to me and say, hey, Elijah,
• 14:19
  Speaker 5: I enjoyed your book, especially my elders. When I hear
• 14:22
  Speaker 5: my elders that, that really means a lot to me,
• 14:24
  Speaker 5: because you know, they don't have to read the book themselves,
• 14:27
  Speaker 5: but when they say I enjoyed your book. I want
• 14:30
  Speaker 5: to get this copy from my son, my granddaughter, my niece,
• 14:33
  Speaker 5: you know, things like that really shows that people really
• 14:37
  Speaker 5: care about what I wrote, and you know that means
• 14:39
  Speaker 5: a lot to me. So you know, that's really the
• 14:44
  Speaker 5: highest level of success that I'm most thankful for. So
• 14:46
  Speaker 5: you know, you know, but hey, if you know, if
• 14:49
  Speaker 5: the house and car things like that come down the road, hey,
• 14:52
  Speaker 5: all blessings be to God. But you know, I'm not
• 14:54
  Speaker 5: going to let that the fact that I don't have
• 14:56
  Speaker 5: that now stop me from moving forward because the way
• 14:59
  Speaker 5: I see it is long as I'm helping people along
• 15:01
  Speaker 5: the way, then that's the only level of success that
• 15:04
  Speaker 5: I really need.
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: Wow.
• 15:06
  Speaker 2: That that that's that's amazing. And for me, I never
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: thought that I would even be an author. That wasn't
• 15:13
  Speaker 2: something that was in my cards. It was not something
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: that I had put on my to do list, but
• 15:20
  Speaker 2: it happened, and when it happened, it just opened up
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: a lot of other doors.
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: And I still.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: I really don't push my books because it's not something
• 15:35
  Speaker 2: I mean. I I love writing and I love doing
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: anathologies because it gives me an opportunity to allow other people.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: I feel like I'm a vessel to allow other people
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: to share their story. So I've been given the opportunity
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: to do anathologies and bring people together and to allow
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: them to share their voices. I say, one day down
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: the line, maybe I'll be able to focus on and
• 16:00
  Speaker 2: maybe I'll get that memoir out and then I'll.
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: Focus on me.
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: But we do have another guest backstage, another author, another male,
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: and he dabbled and he's a veteran. He got a
• 16:14
  Speaker 2: lot of stuff and a podcast on it. He got
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: a lot going on, y'all. We're gonna bring him own
• 16:18
  Speaker 2: up and let him introduce hisself, and then we're gonna
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: continue with this conversation.
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: So we got Frederick Beatty in the Beauty Come on in,
• 16:30
  Speaker 3: Come on in, come on in. How you doing?
• 16:36
  Speaker 6: AFTEROT, I was mutic, what's going on? How y'all doing?
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: We're doing pretty good? Good, good good.
• 16:44
  Speaker 6: Thank you for having me on this Thursday evening. I'm
• 16:46
  Speaker 6: very appreciative of that pleasure to meet you, mister Lewis.
• 16:50
  Speaker 4: Yes, sir, the same to meet you too, mister Beatty.
• 16:53
  Speaker 6: Yes, sir. So a little bit about who I am
• 16:58
  Speaker 6: so first and foremost, you know, I'm a I'm a
• 17:01
  Speaker 6: human first, male man. Second, I am a author with
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: about ten books to my credit, five of those as
• 17:10
  Speaker 6: a co author, and five of those that I've written myself,
• 17:16
  Speaker 6: working on book number six right now. I'm also a
• 17:21
  Speaker 6: I'm also a veteran. I served in the United States
• 17:23
  Speaker 6: Navy from nineteen ninety to nineteen ninety three. That was
• 17:27
  Speaker 6: doing Desert Shield Desert Storm. It was not in a
• 17:31
  Speaker 6: theory of combat. However, I did earn a combat I
• 17:33
  Speaker 6: did earn a a campaign badge and a campaign medal
• 17:38
  Speaker 6: for that. I'm also a muscle a podcaster. I have
• 17:43
  Speaker 6: trailed my podcast platform as trail Blaser Radio. It's a
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: platform that we talk about a lot of things that
• 17:49
  Speaker 6: Angela Angela talks about, and even more lately right now,
• 17:55
  Speaker 6: I've it's been really just hopping, jumping into pop culture
• 17:59
  Speaker 6: icons such as adult Swim to Nami, et cetera, and
• 18:02
  Speaker 6: just kind of doing audio stuff about though about that,
• 18:05
  Speaker 6: writing about that right now. But that's pretty much who
• 18:09
  Speaker 6: I am at the moment, That's pretty much what I'm
• 18:10
  Speaker 6: doing at the moment, and pretty much who I am.
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: So was author always in your hearts or it's just
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: something that.
• 18:22
  Speaker 6: Happened that was never in the cause for me? Never?
• 18:27
  Speaker 6: I never looked at myself as an author. I never
• 18:29
  Speaker 6: seen my saw myself as someone who would have something
• 18:33
  Speaker 6: that was published. Now, I dabbled around a little bit
• 18:36
  Speaker 6: in it, and you know, in high school writing poetry
• 18:39
  Speaker 6: and stuff like that, and you know, suffice it to say,
• 18:42
  Speaker 6: and this is quiet has kept me and my brother
• 18:47
  Speaker 6: did you know, create a little comic book that we did,
• 18:51
  Speaker 6: I took. I did a lot of the writing while
• 18:53
  Speaker 6: he did a lot of the drawing, and I did
• 18:55
  Speaker 6: the coloring. So you know, that was something that my
• 18:58
  Speaker 6: mom and my dad were proud of. But writing, Nah,
• 19:02
  Speaker 6: that wasn't even any cards for me at that point.
• 19:05
  Speaker 6: I never looked at that as a gateway to anything.
• 19:10
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 19:13
  Speaker 3: Well, now that you are here ten books later, what
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: has that journey been like?
• 19:21
  Speaker 6: That has been filled with Just like you guys mentioned,
• 19:25
  Speaker 6: that's been filled with my share of ups, downs and
• 19:30
  Speaker 6: uncertainties and in betweens, you know, you and I and I.
• 19:35
  Speaker 6: I can only say this from my own personal experience.
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: You guys, your your experiences may be different or maybe similar.
• 19:42
  Speaker 6: I've never written for recognition, never written for any kind
• 19:50
  Speaker 6: of line, like, any kind of shine, any kind of
• 19:52
  Speaker 6: spot like I've always written because you know, number one,
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: that's that was on my heart and spirit to write
• 19:59
  Speaker 6: number two. I felt that there was a message that
• 20:02
  Speaker 6: needed to be that need to be put out. And
• 20:04
  Speaker 6: then number three. You know, just if for me, if
• 20:08
  Speaker 6: I can touch one person, one person's life, one person
• 20:11
  Speaker 6: can change their lives or at least be affected by
• 20:15
  Speaker 6: what I've written, And to me, that's a mission complete.
• 20:18
  Speaker 6: But I knew, you know, like you guys, it's been.
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: It's been with these ups and downs and these ins
• 20:23
  Speaker 6: and outs, and like anything in life, their hills and valleys.
• 20:29
  Speaker 6: You have to learn how to navigate those hills and valleys.
• 20:32
  Speaker 6: You know. You gotta anticipate when the hills, when when
• 20:35
  Speaker 6: that hill is going to bring you down, and then
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: you also got to know when it's going to take
• 20:37
  Speaker 6: you back up. And so for me, the hills and
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: valleys have always been the thing for me. You know, now,
• 20:43
  Speaker 6: how do I handle that? You normally would quiet calm,
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: with quiet calm and determination knowing that this is not
• 20:53
  Speaker 6: this is not this is not the end, This is
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: not the end goal, This is not the this is
• 20:56
  Speaker 6: not the end goal for me. The end goal is
• 20:58
  Speaker 6: to reach that person and how that person at least
• 21:01
  Speaker 6: try to change and at least make an attempt to
• 21:03
  Speaker 6: change in some way.
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: Awesome and me too, I can mirror what you said.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: As far as why I write, I write because I
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: feel like there God gave me a message that need
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: to be shared. You know, we have these life experiences
• 21:25
  Speaker 2: that we have experienced that could help somebody, and I feel.
• 21:30
  Speaker 3: Like it is our duty to share.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: You know, we have these experience just for that reason,
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: so that we can share because the word say that
• 21:42
  Speaker 2: are we supposed to overcome by hearing and sharing the testimonies?
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: And that's what these experiences are.
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: These experiences are tests that we had for a moment
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: and we were able to overcome them so that they
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: could be test stimonies for someone else to help them
• 22:00
  Speaker 2: through whatever it is. So I get that. I love
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: that because it ain't ab accuplates with me. It would
• 22:11
  Speaker 2: be great. All that is, it's great, and people would
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: recognize us for the hard work that we do. But
• 22:17
  Speaker 2: at the end of the day, I feel like if
• 22:21
  Speaker 2: one person could be touched by something that I've shared
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: and can change their life, then I feel like I've
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: done that thing that I was placed.
• 22:32
  Speaker 3: Here to do.
• 22:33
  Speaker 6: That's right, yep.
• 22:35
  Speaker 3: And then other things come along.
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: Hey, that's that's that's the extras that that that's the
• 22:40
  Speaker 2: that's the good, the extra But I ain't I could.
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: That's not what keep me going. That's not what wakes
• 22:48
  Speaker 2: me up. That's not what pushes me. That's not what
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: make me do this podcast, this magazine and and bring
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: people together. You know, it's the it's hearing you guys
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: share your story and the reason why you do what
• 23:05
  Speaker 2: you do and the messages that you guys have.
• 23:11
  Speaker 3: You know, you are among a very small.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: Percentage of people because the last I checked, they used
• 23:24
  Speaker 2: to say the bottom ten percent could it could have
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: roads because we know a lot of people been publishing,
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: but they say in a lifetime, only ten percent of
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: the population would be a published author.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: That that's what they say. So you guys have.
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: Managed to be in a very small percentage of people,
• 23:52
  Speaker 2: and that is something to be very proud of because
• 23:55
  Speaker 2: I hear people all the time say that they got
• 23:57
  Speaker 2: a book, they got a book, look in them, they got.
• 24:01
  Speaker 3: A book in them, but then they never get it out.
• 24:05
  Speaker 2: You know, there's a lot of people that has gone
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: on that had books in them that never got them out.
• 24:11
  Speaker 2: So I'm glad, I'm thankful for you guys for sharing
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: and getting your books out there.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: So, Frederick, I know that you served our country.
• 24:25
  Speaker 4: Thank you, ye, thank you, thank you.
• 24:30
  Speaker 2: And I know that being in the service, and I
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: know that a lot of people in the military that
• 24:37
  Speaker 2: often come home and they have mental issues, they suffer
• 24:41
  Speaker 2: from mental issues and often go unserved and unrecognized.
• 24:47
  Speaker 3: And so what has that been like for you? And
• 24:50
  Speaker 3: what does men's mental health money mean to you?
• 24:57
  Speaker 6: Okay, so answer your answer the second question first, Okay,
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: So what that means, what that means for me is
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: just this is a chance for us. This month is
• 25:08
  Speaker 6: a chance for us as brothers to just and this
• 25:11
  Speaker 6: is just for men of all ages, all racist denominations,
• 25:14
  Speaker 6: it doesn't matter, men of all men to come together
• 25:18
  Speaker 6: and just and just bond and sit down and have
• 25:21
  Speaker 6: a conversation about where we are, where we are in
• 25:24
  Speaker 6: our emotions, where we are in our mindsets, and talk
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: about those things at length, and then figure out ways
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: to to kind of st to solve those to solve
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: those things, and put those things and get action plans
• 25:38
  Speaker 6: in place so that way, so that way we can
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: we can we can sell, we can address those issues
• 25:45
  Speaker 6: first and foremost, and then for me, it's about just
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: I look at it as just a big old thing
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: that that helps us improve our quality of life. One
• 25:54
  Speaker 6: of the things I think that a lot of people
• 25:56
  Speaker 6: don't understand. I'm not going to say I won't. I won't.
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: I'm not going to put this is as men and women.
• 26:01
  Speaker 6: I'm just gonna say people, because you have dude, guys
• 26:04
  Speaker 6: that are understanding, you have women that are understanding. So
• 26:06
  Speaker 6: people a lot of people don't understand that. You know,
• 26:08
  Speaker 6: when a person's quality of life is affected, everything else
• 26:14
  Speaker 6: that's up, that's below that is affected as well. You know,
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: if if my mental health is off, then my quality
• 26:21
  Speaker 6: of life is affected, that means everybody that depends on me,
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: that relies on me, are affected, and they're affected adversely.
• 26:29
  Speaker 6: You know, even I'm affected adversely because I'm the one
• 26:32
  Speaker 6: that's having a bad day. So this is a just
• 26:34
  Speaker 6: I think this is a big thing, a big, a
• 26:36
  Speaker 6: big thing for men to just kind of gather and
• 26:39
  Speaker 6: just sit and talk and have these real conversations, not
• 26:45
  Speaker 6: not nothing fabricated, not nothing you know, put on just
• 26:50
  Speaker 6: for the sake of being in front of a camera,
• 26:52
  Speaker 6: in front of a microphone, but have real conversations. And
• 26:56
  Speaker 6: to answer your second question, how to answer that one. Wow,
• 27:05
  Speaker 6: me being a veteran then and going to the VA
• 27:09
  Speaker 6: medical clinics and then going to the VA hospital to
• 27:13
  Speaker 6: especially to be the you know, to give my checkups
• 27:15
  Speaker 6: and things of that nature. It's been thus far, has
• 27:20
  Speaker 6: been a very good journey, but it hasn't been without
• 27:23
  Speaker 6: his without his pitfalls. Where I live at the one
• 27:30
  Speaker 6: of the main one of the main VA hospitals is
• 27:33
  Speaker 6: is not it's not too far from where I live.
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: But for the amount, for the amount of veterans that
• 27:38
  Speaker 6: come in and out every day, that parking that parking
• 27:42
  Speaker 6: lot stays full and for and I know that's a
• 27:45
  Speaker 6: small thing to say, but in me, but for someone
• 27:48
  Speaker 6: like but for someone like me and another for veteran
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: it with me it means a lot because now certain
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: things are impeded. If you gotta park on the very
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: top floor, you gotta come all the way down to
• 27:58
  Speaker 6: the bottom to get to the hospital, and then you
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: maybe laid for an appointment. So that I mean, and
• 28:04
  Speaker 6: that's not and I'm not complaining. I'm just pointing out
• 28:06
  Speaker 6: some pointing out some things, you know. The other thing
• 28:10
  Speaker 6: is that you know, I've also had I have a
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: brother and an uncle and a father who served as well.
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: My brother was then my brother and my father were
• 28:18
  Speaker 6: the only com or the only combat veterans among us.
• 28:23
  Speaker 6: So listening to their stories is has been has been
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: sobering for me. I never served in the theater of combat.
• 28:32
  Speaker 6: My brother has, and my father has. My father served
• 28:34
  Speaker 6: in Vietnam. He never really talked about his experiences. He
• 28:40
  Speaker 6: never talked about his experiences at all, not for maybe
• 28:44
  Speaker 6: for the sake that we were too young or whatnot.
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: But as we got older, we got a little bit
• 28:50
  Speaker 6: more about learning what his experiences are. And I'm also
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: learning that, you know, my thing. The one thing that
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: I did learn that a lot of things, a lot
• 28:58
  Speaker 6: of things that I flipped that flicks that quote unquote
• 29:01
  Speaker 6: a flicks veterans doesn't all doesn't always come from being
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: in a combat zone. You can ask someone can have
• 29:07
  Speaker 6: PTSD well well before they get into a combat zone.
• 29:13
  Speaker 6: You know, I served in the military, but then but
• 29:15
  Speaker 6: but suffer, but sufferers suffer from PTSD, not from being
• 29:19
  Speaker 6: a military but from going just from going through the
• 29:22
  Speaker 6: trauma of losing the child. You know, I suffer a
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: little bit from anxiety, not just this isn't from being
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: in the military is from them losing the child, you know,
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: one of I think the other thing that I think
• 29:36
  Speaker 6: that a lot of people miss misconstrue about us as
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: veterans is that the things that the all all the things,
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: all the things that we've that we experience as veterans
• 29:50
  Speaker 6: are just all lumped up into one thing. You just
• 29:54
  Speaker 6: you you served, and you went you served, and obviously
• 29:57
  Speaker 6: you went to a zone of a zone of combat. No,
• 29:59
  Speaker 6: not everybody their service goes to goes to a theater
• 30:01
  Speaker 6: of combat. But there are other things that go out
• 30:06
  Speaker 6: going outside of a theater of combat. There can be
• 30:08
  Speaker 6: other things that happen. You know, someone could be injured
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: on could get can be seriously injured on the job.
• 30:14
  Speaker 6: That can affect that can affect that person's quality of life,
• 30:16
  Speaker 6: that can also affect their mental health. So everything that
• 30:19
  Speaker 6: happens doesn't have to go on doesn't happen in the
• 30:21
  Speaker 6: combat zone. But that's the misconception. And that's one of
• 30:25
  Speaker 6: the things I try. I'm me and several other veterans
• 30:28
  Speaker 6: that I know are trying, are trying very hard to
• 30:30
  Speaker 6: try to try to buck and try to try to
• 30:33
  Speaker 6: get rid of the other. But I think the other thing,
• 30:35
  Speaker 6: the one the main important thing, and I kind of
• 30:38
  Speaker 6: I'll leave it with this. One of the main important
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: things I think that's important is that some people I
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: think and this is just again, this is just my
• 30:48
  Speaker 6: thought process. It could be anybody else's thought process. A
• 30:55
  Speaker 6: lot of people think that just because it was just
• 30:59
  Speaker 6: because we serve, just because we served, means that were
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: means we're okay, or means that we that we that
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: we said that we served, and that we served and
• 31:13
  Speaker 6: we walked out, we walked out of that service hole.
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: It's not true. I got a father, I got a
• 31:20
  Speaker 6: father and a brother that cantil that can prove that
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: that that has the that are proved positive, that are
• 31:24
  Speaker 6: proof positive of that. My dad what was my dad?
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: My dad went to Vietnam. One person came out a
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: whole different person. My brother went. Me and my brother served,
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: and me and my brother went into the Navy at
• 31:35
  Speaker 6: the same time. He got out. He got out of
• 31:38
  Speaker 6: a year after I did. He was over in the
• 31:41
  Speaker 6: Gulf of Bahrain on combat operations. He went. We both
• 31:44
  Speaker 6: went in went into that. We both went in. One
• 31:48
  Speaker 6: person walked out, just walked out, did walked out. Two
• 31:52
  Speaker 6: different people so just because I mean, people don't think
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: that that changes you, but it does.
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: I get it. I I truly do.
• 32:00
  Speaker 2: My my nephew is serving right now, and he's been
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: serving for the last I keep saying six years, but
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: he told me it was eight.
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: For the last eight years.
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: He's you lose track of time. You lose track of
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: time in the military, trust me, and he.
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: I Yeah, he's getting ready to deploy on the twenty fourth.
• 32:25
  Speaker 2: He just come back from Hawaii yesterday and he's getting
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: ready to go to Bahran.
• 32:32
  Speaker 3: He's headed over to Bahran on the twenty fourth. And
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: this is his this is his third this is his
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: third round, because he was going.
• 32:45
  Speaker 6: For third deployment.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Yeah, this is his third deployment.
• 32:52
  Speaker 6: People don't people don't understand that that those these those
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: things change you as a person. You know, it does,
• 33:00
  Speaker 6: and I've.
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: Seen yeah it. He has a lot of anxiety issues now.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: But yeah, but yeah, so yeah, definitely, I love what
• 33:18
  Speaker 2: you're talking about, because, yeah, we need to start having
• 33:21
  Speaker 2: some we need to start having more open conversations and
• 33:25
  Speaker 2: not so much of trying to do it for the camera. Yeah,
• 33:29
  Speaker 2: we need to have these open conversations where we can
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: truly be ourselves and really talk about what is bothering us.
• 33:36
  Speaker 2: It wasn't until I went through my domestic violence that
• 33:41
  Speaker 2: I realized that I truly was dealing with some mental issues.
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: Didn't know that I had been dealing with depression for
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: a long time. Didn't know that, you know, I had
• 33:54
  Speaker 2: been dealing with some grief issues because I lost my
• 33:59
  Speaker 2: mom twelve day after my sixteenth birthday and really never
• 34:02
  Speaker 2: really grieved that.
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: So when I went.
• 34:05
  Speaker 2: Through the domestic violence, I found out a lot of
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: stuff about me when I had to go sit down
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: on that couch and talk to I had.
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: To because it shook me.
• 34:17
  Speaker 2: I developed I forget what the name of that PTSD
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: that they say. It's not the normal PTSD that they
• 34:24
  Speaker 2: say I got. It's some other kind of I can't
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: even remember because it just but it's not the regular
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: PTSD that they say I have. But it Frederick, when
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: I tell you it took me for a loop. I
• 34:39
  Speaker 2: actually had to see a psychiatrist and I had to
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: see two therapists.
• 34:46
  Speaker 4: Two.
• 34:47
  Speaker 2: I'm telling you I had to because when I began
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: to deal with we started out dealing with me being
• 34:55
  Speaker 2: shot in the domestic violence, and then as I began
• 34:59
  Speaker 2: to go in to that. It got deep because I
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: went back to childhood and having to deal with stuff
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: that I didn't even know was going on. You know
• 35:08
  Speaker 2: what I'm saying, I learned so much about myself that
• 35:13
  Speaker 2: I did not, but when I'm glad I did because
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: now I'm able to when when I feel some of
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: these things coming up, I know what they are now,
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: so I know how to handle them, and if I
• 35:27
  Speaker 2: can't handle them myself, I know who I can call.
• 35:30
  Speaker 2: I'm thankful for my therapist friends that looked like me
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: and can refer me to somebody if they can't help me.
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: And that's what I'm so glad about because a lot
• 35:42
  Speaker 2: of us we ran away from getting the help that
• 35:45
  Speaker 2: we needed and deserved because we didn't have nobody that
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: we felt could relate to us or understood us, or to.
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: Really you know, feel the things that we felt.
• 35:56
  Speaker 2: Right, So it was hard for a lot of us
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: to go sit down on those couches and pour out
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: to people. So yeah, I'm thankful for those black and
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: brown therapists.
• 36:09
  Speaker 3: That did the work.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: And you know, even even the therapists even say they
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: got to have therapists and stuff. So I'm thankful that
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: we're doing what we need to do so that we
• 36:22
  Speaker 2: can be better.
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: And when we do that, then we can help those
• 36:26
  Speaker 3: next to us.
• 36:27
  Speaker 2: We can help our families, and then we can begin
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: it begins to trickle out into our neighborhoods, and then
• 36:32
  Speaker 2: it begins to triple out throughout out the nation, and
• 36:36
  Speaker 2: then we all can begin to heal.
• 36:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but it all starts with us, And.
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: I'm glad that we all sitting here today decided to
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: do the work so that we could be vessels to
• 36:51
  Speaker 2: help someone else, Because, like they say, hurt people hurt,
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: heal people can help others heal too.
• 36:58
  Speaker 6: So the one thing I also want to kind of
• 37:00
  Speaker 6: add to that, and I know mister Eliacha will probably
• 37:02
  Speaker 6: agree with me on this one. You know, it starts
• 37:04
  Speaker 6: with It starts with us recognizing that we're humans first
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: and then man or woman second. We have to we
• 37:13
  Speaker 6: have to get to that point. We have to get
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: to that point first, because all human beings have emotions
• 37:18
  Speaker 6: and have feelings, right, So for so for someone to
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: say that a man doesn't have feelings, because no, that's lie,
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: because he's a human being just like you are. So
• 37:29
  Speaker 6: we have to get back to the human aspect of
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: this first and foremost, because if we don't get back,
• 37:35
  Speaker 6: if we don't understand the human aspect of it, we'll
• 37:37
  Speaker 6: never understand the male or the female aspect of it. Right,
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: you know, break it down. Start with the human aspect. Okay,
• 37:43
  Speaker 6: he's human, he's got feelings. Let's start there first, and
• 37:47
  Speaker 6: then dive deeper into the male or female. Dive deeper
• 37:50
  Speaker 6: into the male aspect of it. You know, it's and
• 37:54
  Speaker 6: it's crazy because I've had I've had to repeat myself
• 37:57
  Speaker 6: repeat that phrase the people and others settings because it's
• 38:02
  Speaker 6: always been this this crazy thing that say, well, you
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: a man, you're supposed to be this, and you're supposed
• 38:08
  Speaker 6: to be that. Hold hold on, wait a minute, how now, Brown,
• 38:12
  Speaker 6: cal no, ma'am. I'm human first and foremost. Man secondly,
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: man second. Right, if I if you cut, if you
• 38:24
  Speaker 6: cut me, or if you cut me, I'm gonna bleed
• 38:25
  Speaker 6: just like you will.
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: Exactly that part.
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: I put my pants on. I put my pants on
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: the same way you do. One leg, got one leg
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: first and the other leg.
• 38:36
  Speaker 3: Next, exactly so.
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: And see that's what we got to realize as and
• 38:42
  Speaker 2: as humans. You know, we got to realize that that
• 38:45
  Speaker 2: that we all, we all experience, we all can experience
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: the same thing, you know, you know, we all And
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: and then Elijah, come on jumping on in the conversation
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: anytime you want to, because I know, I know this
• 39:00
  Speaker 2: is right.
• 39:00
  Speaker 5: Up your alley too, Yes, ma'am, absolutely well, you know,
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: and I wanted to answer, like especially the second part
• 39:08
  Speaker 5: when your question is answer like with you know, what
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: is men's mental health awareness of mean to me? I
• 39:15
  Speaker 5: really think we're seeing that it allows the stigma of
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: men not reaching out for mental health to be broken.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: I say this as a millennial. Even in my lifetime
• 39:30
  Speaker 5: growing up, I didn't really hear much conversations about mental health.
• 39:33
  Speaker 5: You know, I just never heard much about it. I
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: just I kind of was kind of raised with that
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: same mentality almost too, where it's like, hey, you know,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: you just pressed through it.
• 39:44
  Speaker 4: You know.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: For example, I shared earlier, you know, I you know,
• 39:49
  Speaker 5: one of my traumatic experiences, unfortunately, was that I had
• 39:52
  Speaker 5: to spend ten years of my life in a cult.
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: You know, I was a This is not against all
• 39:58
  Speaker 5: de versualites, but the group I was a part of
• 40:00
  Speaker 5: was a Hebrews like group, and I was in a
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: part of that group and when I was six to
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: about almost seventeen, and one of the things that looking
• 40:08
  Speaker 5: back that just never made sense to me was like
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: they kept telling everybody, well, you know, hey, we're all
• 40:13
  Speaker 5: catching hell, we're all going through problems. But it's like,
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: but why, I mean, you know, because we've all read
• 40:19
  Speaker 5: the Bible, you know, Christ said, you know, in me
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: should have we're in the world, you should have tripulation,
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: but in me should have peace. So you know, why
• 40:25
  Speaker 5: is everyone struggling financially being taken advantage of?
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 40:29
  Speaker 5: And that's something that the mentality of that was is
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: that hey, you just you got to just embrace the
• 40:36
  Speaker 5: fact that you're going through it, keep praying it, or
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: be all right, don't worry about it. But what I
• 40:41
  Speaker 5: can say I've learned now is that, for example, I
• 40:44
  Speaker 5: had the opportunity to be on a zoom call with
• 40:48
  Speaker 5: the mental health organization called Our Well Being LLC, and
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: they did a topic focusing on the mental health of
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: millennials and gen zers, and a lot of people on
• 41:00
  Speaker 5: that call, like I said, for myself, even as a millennial,
• 41:03
  Speaker 5: we just didn't talk about mental health like that. And
• 41:06
  Speaker 5: I really have to give credit to gen Z because
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: I know we like to joke with them about, you know,
• 41:13
  Speaker 5: what they're doing wrong and you know, things like that.
• 41:16
  Speaker 5: But you have to give them credit. I think they
• 41:18
  Speaker 5: were the first generation to say, we're not going to
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: fall for that mentality of we're gonna just pray about
• 41:25
  Speaker 5: pray our problems go away.
• 41:27
  Speaker 4: You know. Again, nothing wrong with prayer about any meaning.
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: So I think prayer is really great, but there has
• 41:31
  Speaker 5: to be as the Bible says, you know, faith without
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: works is did so you know, definitely you know that
• 41:36
  Speaker 5: maybe the answer to your prayer is you know, hey, God,
• 41:38
  Speaker 5: I ask you to hear me from this trauma world.
• 41:40
  Speaker 4: You know, maybe you know God's like, hey, you know
• 41:43
  Speaker 4: you saw that therapist that you ran into the story
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: the other day that you know you said you were
• 41:46
  Speaker 4: good and didn't want to talk to. You know, that
• 41:48
  Speaker 4: was the answer your prayer right there, you know.
• 41:50
  Speaker 5: So you know, so so besides you know the fact
• 41:52
  Speaker 5: that we're going to just pray away our problems or
• 41:54
  Speaker 5: we're gonna you know, get the alcohol, or we're gonna
• 41:57
  Speaker 5: light the weed and try to make it all go away.
• 42:00
  Speaker 5: Z was like, no, We're going to embrace the fact
• 42:03
  Speaker 5: that we are not okay and it's not going to
• 42:06
  Speaker 5: be stigmatized.
• 42:07
  Speaker 4: And really the advantage that they have, and.
• 42:10
  Speaker 5: You also can include now Generation Alpha as well, that
• 42:14
  Speaker 5: they're going up in a world that they don't have
• 42:16
  Speaker 5: to worry about that stigma anymore, especially as men, because
• 42:21
  Speaker 5: I think, as brother Frederick was saying, you know, as
• 42:24
  Speaker 5: men were almost taught to be robotic, like we can't
• 42:28
  Speaker 5: show any weakness, We can't show that. We have to
• 42:31
  Speaker 5: show that we're always in control no matter what is
• 42:33
  Speaker 5: affecting us. And I think with the rise of Mental
• 42:36
  Speaker 5: Health Awareness Month, you realize that, you know, as men,
• 42:41
  Speaker 5: it is okay for us to have these conversations because
• 42:44
  Speaker 5: I remember our well being a LLC. Do they wind
• 42:47
  Speaker 5: down Wellness retreat back in December and they separated the
• 42:50
  Speaker 5: men and the women in these healing circles And for me,
• 42:54
  Speaker 5: that was really raped tune just to learn, like you know,
• 42:56
  Speaker 5: like mister Frederickson about like hey, you know, like you know,
• 42:58
  Speaker 5: what is a real man? You know, you know, how
• 43:01
  Speaker 5: can a man show emotion and you know, not be
• 43:04
  Speaker 5: considered weak or you know, you know, femine or whatever.
• 43:07
  Speaker 5: You know, so you know, you really learn a lot
• 43:10
  Speaker 5: and I think it really inspires you to get on
• 43:13
  Speaker 5: a journey of your own healing too. So I really
• 43:16
  Speaker 5: think that's the what really what Men's Mental Health is month,
• 43:19
  Speaker 5: when what Men's Mental Health Awareness Month means to me
• 43:23
  Speaker 5: is that it just shows that hey, we can break
• 43:25
  Speaker 5: the stigma as men and know that hey it's okay
• 43:29
  Speaker 5: if we are not okay, and that we can talk
• 43:32
  Speaker 5: to somebody about our problems and hopefully we can be
• 43:36
  Speaker 5: got in the right direction moving forward. Because you know,
• 43:40
  Speaker 5: the one thing about us as men, I'm sure you're
• 43:43
  Speaker 5: mister beat a problem. You know, we we're designed to
• 43:47
  Speaker 5: be problem solvings, so we want a problems.
• 43:50
  Speaker 4: We want to be the fixer. But it's hard to
• 43:54
  Speaker 4: fix things when you haven't been fixed yourself. So and
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: I think, yeah, exactly. You know, it's like you know,
• 44:01
  Speaker 4: you know, you can't heal people when you're sick yourself.
• 44:03
  Speaker 4: So I think for us, learning to take moments like this,
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: I have conversations like this allows us to be healed.
• 44:12
  Speaker 4: As like you said, Miss Angela, is heal people who
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: can inspire people along the way. And you know, and
• 44:17
  Speaker 4: like you said, hurt people do hurt people. But I've
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: actually heard people say this too. Is that really is
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: that unhealed.
• 44:22
  Speaker 5: People hurt people, And that's the that's why I get
• 44:25
  Speaker 5: that cycle of trauma because when you're not healed, it's
• 44:28
  Speaker 5: only natural. Well it's not natural per se, but in
• 44:31
  Speaker 5: your subconscious mind probably it is natural.
• 44:34
  Speaker 4: Just hurt other people because you've been hurt.
• 44:36
  Speaker 5: So yeah, that's pretty much what it means to me,
• 44:39
  Speaker 5: and I'm just thankful that, you know, you brought us
• 44:42
  Speaker 5: on the podcast to talk about this because you know,
• 44:45
  Speaker 5: definitely it's something that all of us as men really
• 44:48
  Speaker 5: need to take the time to slow down, stop and
• 44:52
  Speaker 5: think about what we've been through. And that's kind of
• 44:55
  Speaker 5: what it was with me with writing. You know, writing,
• 44:57
  Speaker 5: I would say to some of de matter, might as
• 44:59
  Speaker 5: well say my life, you know, because I just didn't
• 45:02
  Speaker 5: understand what I went through until I took that time
• 45:04
  Speaker 5: to be still and actually write my experiences and what
• 45:08
  Speaker 5: I was feeling, you know, from those experiences on paper.
• 45:12
  Speaker 5: So you know, I think, you know, not to say
• 45:15
  Speaker 5: that writing will be a replacement for therapy, but I
• 45:17
  Speaker 5: do think it can be somewhat of a helpful guidance
• 45:20
  Speaker 5: to give you some questions pret some answers to your
• 45:24
  Speaker 5: question that you've been experiencing, because you know, it's either
• 45:27
  Speaker 5: a you write them down and express your feelings or
• 45:31
  Speaker 5: you keep it locked in and that's just going to
• 45:33
  Speaker 5: bubble to the surface and make things worse.
• 45:35
  Speaker 4: So definitely, moment.
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: Brother, I do, and I think for me, writing and
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: to ads to your point, writing became Writing became carthotic
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: for me, became like that that thing I looked forward
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: to every time, every every time I got in front
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: of them, like my laptop, or I got in front
• 45:55
  Speaker 6: of or I grabbed my pan and a pad. It
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: became that place where I could write about what I
• 46:01
  Speaker 6: was feeling and and be okay and be okay afterwards.
• 46:06
  Speaker 6: You know, if I wrote, if I wrote it down
• 46:09
  Speaker 6: on a piece of paper, or I wrote about what
• 46:11
  Speaker 6: I felt, what I you know, what my day, how
• 46:12
  Speaker 6: my day was, and then I expressed that that emotion.
• 46:17
  Speaker 6: I felt good afterwards, I really did. And then also,
• 46:21
  Speaker 6: you know, I found other I found another outlet too,
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: you know, besides just the writing. You know, I'm I'm an,
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: I'm an admitted I'm a I'm a huge gamer. So
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: video games is the other thing, the other thing for
• 46:34
  Speaker 6: me that as another good outlet for me and it
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: is as weird as this is gonna sound. And I'm
• 46:40
  Speaker 6: gonna say this because I think I said it before
• 46:43
  Speaker 6: and this was like a couple of years ago for me.
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: Since some instances, the proximity of my emotions, my emotions
• 46:50
  Speaker 6: is sometimes is sometimes tied to the game that I played.
• 46:55
  Speaker 6: And I said this to a bunch of people before
• 46:57
  Speaker 6: I play. I like again, I play games for enjoyment,
• 47:03
  Speaker 6: a little bit of a challenge, but mostly but mostly
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: for me just to disconnect and disconnect for a bit
• 47:10
  Speaker 6: and then come back. You know. I know people think, well,
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: that's an obsession with that. You didn't know. It's it's
• 47:17
  Speaker 6: the way that I just the way that I can
• 47:18
  Speaker 6: relate in that way that I can release if you
• 47:21
  Speaker 6: leave me alone, let me be on let me be
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: on call of duty for like a like thirty minutes
• 47:24
  Speaker 6: to an hour. I'll be I'll be cool, right yeah,
• 47:30
  Speaker 6: let me be on COD for Let me on CEOD
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: for a minute, and then let me come back to
• 47:33
  Speaker 6: let me come back. But the question to add that
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: that I was asking me is like they ask me, well,
• 47:39
  Speaker 6: what is the proximity of your emotions when it comes
• 47:41
  Speaker 6: to video games? I said, well, for me, and again,
• 47:45
  Speaker 6: this is gonna sound really really weird coming from coming
• 47:48
  Speaker 6: from a guy, But I play mostly. I play mostly
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: if it's a like a role playing game or something
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: that allows me to choose the type of character that
• 47:58
  Speaker 6: I want, I play mostly for femle characters. There's a
• 48:02
  Speaker 6: there's a reason behind that. For me, the female chacters
• 48:06
  Speaker 6: have a lot more emotional emotional depth. They deliver the
• 48:10
  Speaker 6: lines with a lot more emotional with emotional clarity, and
• 48:13
  Speaker 6: there's a lot more it's a lot more relatable to me.
• 48:16
  Speaker 6: Not this is not to say that the male characters
• 48:18
  Speaker 6: aren't aren't capable of doing that, but I relate more
• 48:22
  Speaker 6: to the female characters. If it's a main character and
• 48:25
  Speaker 6: I get to choose if it as a male or female,
• 48:27
  Speaker 6: I pick the female all the time because and again
• 48:30
  Speaker 6: because that's a there's an emotional connection to the word,
• 48:33
  Speaker 6: to the lines that they're speaking that it holds more
• 48:35
  Speaker 6: emotional depth for me. And I know that that's a
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: weird thing to say, but I tell but I tell
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: folks that all the time, and they look at me like, yeah,
• 48:43
  Speaker 6: that is weird, Like it's not weird, it's just it's
• 48:46
  Speaker 6: how I can. It's how I connect with my with
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: my emotions. If someone's feeling like if there's that part
• 48:53
  Speaker 6: of a where there's grief, part of a game where
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: there's grief involved, and that person delivering those lines and
• 48:59
  Speaker 6: it's and it's hitting home with me, of course I'm
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: going I'm going to immediately relate. I'm going to immediately
• 49:05
  Speaker 6: immediately kind of empathize and recognize with that. I think
• 49:08
  Speaker 6: one this is something that I said before. I think
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: a lot of people don't. A lot of people again,
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: I'm not gonna say men or women, a lot of
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: people don't. A lot of people don't realize the proximity
• 49:20
  Speaker 6: of the proximity of their emotions. Where they could where
• 49:23
  Speaker 6: they could be, where they could be tied to, where
• 49:25
  Speaker 6: they could be linked to, what they could be, where
• 49:29
  Speaker 6: it could be, where they could come from. It could
• 49:31
  Speaker 6: come from a book, like it come from you writing
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: your book, writing a book something that's charthodic. It could
• 49:38
  Speaker 6: come from playing a game. It could come from exercising.
• 49:41
  Speaker 6: It can come from just sitting just you know, just
• 49:43
  Speaker 6: sitting down and meditating. No one really knows the proximity
• 49:47
  Speaker 6: of one's emotions until they start exploring. So they start
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: exploring their emotions, exploring where you know what makes them tick,
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: what what makes them angry, what makes them happy, what
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: makes them sad, what makes them just, what puts them in,
• 50:02
  Speaker 6: what puts them in protective mode, what puts them in
• 50:04
  Speaker 6: what puts them in defense mode, what puts them in
• 50:06
  Speaker 6: aggressive mode, things of that nature. You know, you never
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: understand the proximity of your emotions until you start exploring them, right.
• 50:14
  Speaker 6: One of the things, I think, one of the things
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: that you mentioned this before, and I want to just
• 50:17
  Speaker 6: emphasize it, one of the things I think a lot
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: of people think is a miss. It's kind of a
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: miss that I think that they miss. They don't think
• 50:25
  Speaker 6: us as men can can be in can be in
• 50:28
  Speaker 6: tune with that, and that's not true.
• 50:33
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 50:34
  Speaker 5: I think another thing too, is that because you talk
• 50:36
  Speaker 5: about being in too with our you know, our emotions,
• 50:38
  Speaker 5: I think and I think we we had this conversation
• 50:41
  Speaker 5: was when I was in the healing circle with our
• 50:43
  Speaker 5: well being seen back in December. I think it's men,
• 50:47
  Speaker 5: the only emotion we have been taught that we can
• 50:50
  Speaker 5: express and no one will ever say anything bad about
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: it is anger.
• 50:54
  Speaker 4: That's about it.
• 50:57
  Speaker 5: That's like the only unfortunately that's like you know, I mean,
• 51:00
  Speaker 5: we can show most we can be happy, we can
• 51:02
  Speaker 5: be joking, but you know it's like, okay, anger is
• 51:06
  Speaker 5: like the only other emotion we can show. And if
• 51:08
  Speaker 5: it's not happiness or anger, you you can't show any sadness.
• 51:12
  Speaker 5: You can't do all that. Like you know, I'm sure
• 51:15
  Speaker 5: mister Frederick. You know I didn't hear about Here's as
• 51:17
  Speaker 5: much in my lifetime going.
• 51:18
  Speaker 4: Up, but maybe you did. The whole add is that,
• 51:20
  Speaker 4: you know, hey, boys, don't cry. You know you can't.
• 51:23
  Speaker 4: You can't show any emotion.
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: It's just like I said, it's like we've been taught
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: to only be in touch with certain emotions and not
• 51:31
  Speaker 5: you know.
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: It's some dirt on it, it'll be all right, Yeah,
• 51:34
  Speaker 6: there you go, right, dirt, it'll be all right. You know, dude,
• 51:38
  Speaker 6: I've heard that on more than one time. On on one
• 51:40
  Speaker 6: occasion as a kid. You know, if you if you
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: hurt yourself, oh no, put some dirt on, he'll be okay. Well,
• 51:47
  Speaker 6: better get up, dust yourself off. It's okay. Those things
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: that attitude, those attitudes and dispositions don't translate, and today
• 51:57
  Speaker 6: they don't translate in today's society. They don't translate in
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: to day's culture, where being emotionally intelligent and being in
• 52:07
  Speaker 6: being in tune with your emotions is kind of as moralism,
• 52:10
  Speaker 6: not not even a requirement, it's it's something that you
• 52:14
  Speaker 6: have to do. I mean, and I don't. And you
• 52:18
  Speaker 6: can probably agree with me, you guys agree with me
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: on this one. I don't think I can say this
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: for me. I wasn't I was never taught by my
• 52:27
  Speaker 6: father or my or my father or my uncles or
• 52:31
  Speaker 6: anybody or anybody that to be to be emotional or
• 52:34
  Speaker 6: how to be in tune with that, I wasn't taught.
• 52:36
  Speaker 6: I wasn't taught any of that. I wasn't given the
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: wasn't given the handbook on any of that. And that's
• 52:41
  Speaker 6: and I don't blame I don't blame my father on that.
• 52:43
  Speaker 6: I don't blame my father for that because probably because
• 52:47
  Speaker 6: he probably wasn't taught either, So I can't blame my
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: father for not teaching me something that he wasn't taught.
• 52:55
  Speaker 6: It took me till I got nineteen years old in
• 52:59
  Speaker 6: the military MHM, going through going through some emotional stuff
• 53:02
  Speaker 6: and now having to having now having to deal with
• 53:04
  Speaker 6: the upheople of what I was feeling. Homesick, depressed, anxious,
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: a little bit on the defensive, going through I'm going
• 53:15
  Speaker 6: through the whole gamut of all these emotions all at
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: one time, and having no and having no place to,
• 53:21
  Speaker 6: no place to let that, let all that go, let
• 53:24
  Speaker 6: all that out, and it's it was, it was, it was.
• 53:29
  Speaker 6: It was a disaster. I mean, I can't I'll say,
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: I can say, I can't say this from my own
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: I was a wreck at that point. I don't think
• 53:36
  Speaker 6: I was cool until I got I don't think I
• 53:38
  Speaker 6: was okay mentally. At least I thought I was okay
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: mentally until I got to until I got out of
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: my service school and went to my first my first
• 53:46
  Speaker 6: place of duty, and even then, and even then, I
• 53:50
  Speaker 6: wasn't okay. You know, you you think you're okay when
• 53:54
  Speaker 6: everything passes. And I say this to the brothers and
• 53:59
  Speaker 6: brothers I talked of all time. You think you're okay
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: when everything passes, when all when all those emotions flooding you,
• 54:06
  Speaker 6: and then they pass over you and they passed through you. You
• 54:08
  Speaker 6: think you're okay when all these when those things, when
• 54:10
  Speaker 6: it passes, but they're still residue. There remnists of the
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: anxiety of the PTSD, the anger, the disappointment to hurt.
• 54:18
  Speaker 6: All there's residue still there, that residue still lingers, and
• 54:21
  Speaker 6: then that residue still be that residue builds back up
• 54:24
  Speaker 6: until those emotions you thought that you buried a long
• 54:27
  Speaker 6: time ago.
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: Yes, absolutely, yeah, because you think the further you've gotten
• 54:32
  Speaker 5: away from that pain or that trauma, you think, Okay,
• 54:35
  Speaker 5: it doesn't affect me. And that's what I told people.
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: You know, that's one of the biggest things learned when
• 54:39
  Speaker 5: I wrote my book, because it's like I I did
• 54:42
  Speaker 5: not understand what I was going through until I took
• 54:45
  Speaker 5: time to really write my book, because I was under
• 54:49
  Speaker 5: that same impression like, hey, that was the past, that
• 54:52
  Speaker 5: was years ago, that doesn't affect me. But you know,
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: it's it's like that old adage. You know, wherever you go,
• 54:58
  Speaker 5: there you are. So it's like, you know, if you
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: still have the residu as you said, of the trauma
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: and that pain, it doesn't matter if it's five years,
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: ten years, or fifty years, it'll still affect you. If
• 55:08
  Speaker 5: you don't take the time to process what you went
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: through and learn how you can heal from that. So yeah,
• 55:15
  Speaker 5: and I think that's the thing we've been kind of
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: taught as men where it's like, hey, we just shake
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: it off, like you said.
• 55:20
  Speaker 4: Put some dirll on it, you know.
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: You know, of course that's talking about like physical pain,
• 55:24
  Speaker 5: but we do the same thing, like me with emotional pain,
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: like hey, I'm just I'm gonna just bury that, never
• 55:29
  Speaker 5: deal with that, and it's gonna be okay.
• 55:30
  Speaker 4: But it's like until you take the time to understand
• 55:33
  Speaker 4: what you went through, yeah, it'll still follow you wherever
• 55:36
  Speaker 4: you go if you don't take the time to learn
• 55:38
  Speaker 4: from it.
• 55:39
  Speaker 6: For sure. For sure. One of the things I've talked
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: and I said this with a good friend of mine,
• 55:46
  Speaker 6: it goes back to it goes back to looking at
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: the little boy that's inside of you. There's a little boy,
• 55:53
  Speaker 6: and there's a little girl that dwells in all of
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: us as human beings. Whether it's a little boy that
• 55:56
  Speaker 6: dwells in us as men and there's a little girl
• 55:58
  Speaker 6: that dwells in female as women. You have to go
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: back to that little boy that's inside of us, and
• 56:07
  Speaker 6: of course acknowledge what you've been, the knowledge what you've
• 56:11
  Speaker 6: subjected that little boy too, of course, but in the
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: same in the same, in the same instance. Instead of
• 56:21
  Speaker 6: trying to, you know, slap band aids on all these
• 56:25
  Speaker 6: all these these wounds and whatever stages of healing they
• 56:28
  Speaker 6: are in, instead of trying to slap band aids on it,
• 56:30
  Speaker 6: just embrace that, embrace that little boy in apology and apologize.
• 56:35
  Speaker 6: I'm sorry that I put that, I'm sorry that I
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: put subjected you to all these all this hurt and
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: all this pain, all these things in my life that
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: I subjected you to. I'm sorry, And then to me,
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: you know, confronting that little boy and apologizing to that
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: little boy. That's that's the forgiveness part. That's the forgiveness
• 56:55
  Speaker 6: of self part. Yes, the hard the hard part. The
• 57:00
  Speaker 6: even harder part is the forgiveness of is seeking the
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: forgiveness of others. And I ain't gonna lie. That was
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: a hard part for me. Forgiveness of self was somewhat
• 57:11
  Speaker 6: somewhat of a difficult journey with asking other people to
• 57:13
  Speaker 6: forgive me, and then asking people and then asking, you know,
• 57:20
  Speaker 6: forgiveness from other people, and or seek asking people to
• 57:24
  Speaker 6: give me forgiveness. Dude, that was deal. That was rough,
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: and it was a hard It was a hard It
• 57:30
  Speaker 6: was a hard journey. And I think and mental health,
• 57:33
  Speaker 6: and for me, mental health begins with that part of it,
• 57:36
  Speaker 6: looking inside yourself, seeing what parts of you are broken
• 57:41
  Speaker 6: and doing your and doing your very best to fix
• 57:43
  Speaker 6: those parts. It don't got to be perfect. A lot
• 57:47
  Speaker 6: of people. The one of the misconceptions, I think when people,
• 57:49
  Speaker 6: especially when we talk with us as brothers, when we
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: talk about healing ourselves, we figure it's got to be
• 57:53
  Speaker 6: perfect or or it can't happen. No, no, dude, it
• 57:57
  Speaker 6: don't got to be perfect. It don't got to be perfect.
• 58:01
  Speaker 6: As long as you're doing the work to build, to
• 58:04
  Speaker 6: to build, to make that solid foundation to get to
• 58:07
  Speaker 6: get to that road to healing, it don't got to
• 58:09
  Speaker 6: be perfect. It can be. It can be. It can
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: be a ramshackle road. But as long as that road
• 58:14
  Speaker 6: is holding up and you you able to pass that
• 58:17
  Speaker 6: vehicle over there, and you're good.
• 58:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 58:20
  Speaker 6: Absolutely, as long as you can, as long as it
• 58:23
  Speaker 6: can hold, as long as it as long as they
• 58:24
  Speaker 6: able to hold the weight, it's good. And you mentioned
• 58:29
  Speaker 6: it earlier, Loja that a lot of us as men
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: deal with physical weight is something that we can that
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: a lot of us as men can deal with. We
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: can deal with physical weight, you know, we can. We
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: can pick it up, we can put it down, we
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: can hold it up for a little bit, things of that,
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: and we're cool with that because that's how we're built.
• 58:49
  Speaker 6: It's the emotional weight that a lot of us as men,
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: myself included, are not always equipped to deal with because
• 58:58
  Speaker 6: no one because again, no one taught us how to uh.
• 59:00
  Speaker 6: No one taught us how to pick up that weight
• 59:02
  Speaker 6: and put it back down. No one taught us that
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: if it's too much of a load on your airplane,
• 59:08
  Speaker 6: the jettis and some of that stuff, we we take it.
• 59:11
  Speaker 6: We take all that weight, We take it in. We
• 59:13
  Speaker 6: take it in, We take it in, we take it in,
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: and all of a sudden we're way down, almost like
• 59:17
  Speaker 6: an elephant's got all four all four of us, all
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: four of his legs on your on your on your chest, yep.
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: And you'll be happy if the elephant take one leg
• 59:25
  Speaker 6: off your chest. And a lot of us as men
• 59:29
  Speaker 6: walking we do. I'm that serious. I mean, I and
• 59:31
  Speaker 6: I can and I can attest. I can say this
• 59:33
  Speaker 6: for myself because I've there have been days that I
• 59:35
  Speaker 6: do that. We walk around like everything's cool, But little
• 59:40
  Speaker 6: do people know that we walk there. We we got
• 59:42
  Speaker 6: this elephant on our back, all four feet all four
• 59:45
  Speaker 6: feet on our shoulders, and we're being way down. Not
• 59:49
  Speaker 6: we're not. And that elephant, that elephant represents the world. Yes,
• 59:53
  Speaker 6: it represents, represents the world's miss represents the world's conceptions
• 59:57
  Speaker 6: of us, society's conceptions of us, our women's can se
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: options of us, our children's conceptions of us, our own
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 6: conceptions of us. Not to mention all the or not
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 6: to mention all the thought, all the thoughts that we
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 6: battle with day in and day out, with you, day
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 6: in and day out. And how are you gonna get
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: that off? How you're gonna get that off you? It's
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 6: already it's already heavy. You't already picked up told you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 6: already took in so much? Well resist, I mean, and
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 6: I told my friend of mine look and he didn't.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: This is literally just recently, dude, you gotta let you
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 6: gotta let some of that stuff go. Man, Yes, you
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 6: got too much weight on you, but I don't know
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 6: how to do that. First of all, well, if you
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 6: don't know how to do that, then you might then
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 6: you might want to ask someone to show you how
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 6: to do it if you A lot of us again,
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: a lot of us men in a misological test it this,
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 6: a lot of us men have been taught to not
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 6: not say nothing, to be silent, to be reticent, h
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: to just sit there and be like, it's okay, keep
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 6: just keep it coming. I can take it. Yes, absolutely,
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 6: But then when the but then when the burden gets
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 6: too much and the crack, the cracks in the building show,
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 6: or the cracks in the cracks in the damn show,
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 6: and then all of a sudden, that damn breaks. Yes,
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: what it's the people. It's the people that's in That's
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: the people that's in front of that damn that get
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: the emotional They get that, get that, they get that
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: and moe that that emotional tsunami. They get that emotional
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 6: that emotional wave that comes at them and they and
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 6: they don't know how to deal with it because it's
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: coming directly at them. And now they're caught up in this,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 6: they're caught up in this wave and they're they're under
• 1:01:47
  Speaker 6: uninto their unintentional cat their unintentional casualties.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 5: Yeah, absolutely, and you realize the signs where they're all along.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 4: Like I know, one of the things.
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: We do, like you know is my job of the
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: civilion in the Navy, Like we have to take certain
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: training and they tell you, like, you know, look for
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 5: certain characters or somebody who's unstable or maybe an inside
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 5: or throw things like that, or or workplace violence that's one,
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 5: something like that, and they and they show you like
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 5: people think like, oh, yeah, this person just snapped.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 4: It's like no, they didn't really really they didn't snap.
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 4: They they showed you signs the whole time.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: The problem was we've been taught, I'll put all this
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 5: since Ken, we've been taught to kind of ignore those signs.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 5: Yeah that's I don't know. Well, I don't want to,
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 5: you know, risk my relationship with this person, you know.
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 5: But when you let this, when you let a person
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 5: really just self destructing destruct in front of your face,
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 5: it's like you can't be surprised when, as mister Frederick said,
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 5: the emotional tsunami comes, because that's.
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 4: Really all that. And I've been there.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 5: I've been that person who I just let something build
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 5: up inside of me too much and just like okay,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 5: now I just unleashed that on everybody. It's just like
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 5: I'm looking back at It's like I could have handled
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 5: that differently, but because I didn't, I let the emotion build.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 4: Up inside of me. Eventually it's going to reach a
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 4: boiling point. You know. It's like when you boil water.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 5: You know, at some point, when that temperature gets to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 5: two hundred twelve degrees parentheit or hundred celsius, you're going
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 5: to seeing that.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 4: Steam out the kettle, you know. So if you don't
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 4: take the steps to deal with.
• 1:03:21
  Speaker 5: That emotion, you know, then yeah, it's gonna you risk
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 5: putting other people you know, in danger.
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: You know.
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 4: I think a perfectly yeah, a perfect example of that.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 5: And I'll say to you quick, I really I think
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 5: a lot of people agree me when I say it's like,
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 5: for example, I am a huge Will Smith fan, but
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: look at what happened at the whole thing with the
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 5: oscars a couple of years ago.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 6: With that man.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 5: You could talking about a man's mental health for a second.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 5: You can see the pain the man was dealing with.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 5: And I think my dad had this conversation because, for example,
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 5: Will has always been that actor who's always had the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 5: clean image, who's had that pressure of giving you that
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 5: who's had to have the pressure of dealing with the
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 5: fact that I have to be clean, like I don't
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 5: curse in my I don't curse in my wreckers, like
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 5: a happy, positive, family friendly guy. And when, as you said,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 5: there were some cracks starting to show in his personal life,
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 5: and people and everybody in their mama was talking about it,
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 5: it reached a bulling point to the point where he
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 5: wasn't necessarily wasn't don't. I can't say he wasn't angry
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 5: what happened between between August and Jada. But the point
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 5: is that when Chris Rock made that joke about Jada's hair,
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 5: it just got to a boiling point where he just
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 5: went up on that stage and slapped that man like
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 5: he didn't know what hit him. But that's a perfect
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 5: example of I think, is when men have to go
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 5: with that when you've been told to try to keep it.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: Together, don't let it affect you if you if you keep.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 5: That mentality, you're going to see a moment like that,
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 5: not hopefully not to pot with somebody where you slap
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 5: another person, because that's a soul. But the point of
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 5: it is when you don't deal with those emotions. In
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 5: other words, the emotions are gonna start dealing with you,
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 5: so exactly, definitely, that's a that's a perfect example, you know.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 5: And I said, I'm still I'm still a diehard with
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 5: Will Smith fan. You know, I love the man, his
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 5: music is, his movies and everything. But you know, my
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 5: heart goes out to you know, so to him.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker 6: Like I mean, because I agree with you.
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 5: I mean, he showed everybody what happens when a man's
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 5: mental health is drastically affected.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: Yep.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 6: And I tell folks all the times, if you see
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: somebody and you know they're about to explode, don't get
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: mad when you get caught and you didn't help. Don't
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: get mad when you get caught up in the blast radius. Yes, absolutely,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 6: because you had because you had the opportunity, You had
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: the opportunity to help. You had the ability to help,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 6: and you didn't. Yes, And now the person exploded, and
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 6: now you mad because you now you're mad because you
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 6: got called the blast ratis well, you should have helped.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 4: Or it's not the fact that people are mad.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 5: It's like, oh my gosh, I just can't believe that
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 5: person did that over him, right, Oh my gosh, this
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 5: is I am just so offended.
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 4: Like, how can he do that? It's just like like
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 4: you said, like you kind of saw the It's like.
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 6: For it, you saw, you saw, you saw the signs.
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: Yes, you saw, and that's just like that's just like
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: when family members say, oh, that's just Johnny. Oh, that's
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 2: just how Johnny is. That's just how that's just how
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: Sally is. Oh, that's just how Paul is. That's just
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: how they are. You know, they they they accept it
• 1:06:33
  Speaker 2: and they want you to accept it when they know
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 2: that it's not okay. Yes, that the behaviors need to
• 1:06:39
  Speaker 2: be addressed and these things need to be addressed. But
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 2: then that's how we brush it off when we don't
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 2: want to deal with it.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 6: But the funny thing about that is Angela is that
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 6: and this is this is a sad thing to say,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 6: is that we as people we do that all the time.
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 6: We do that all the time. We're the ones that
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 6: paint the caricatures of each other. That's just that's just Angie,
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 6: that's just Fred, that's just Elijah. When someone when someone
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 6: acts out and it acts out a way, acts out
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 6: in a way, we paint those We paint those caricatures
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: of each other, of each other all the time, and
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 6: that's that's considered normal for us now because we we've
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: been so used to painting these caricatures of each other,
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 6: especially when we when we when wrong behavior is displayed,
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: is now it's normal, Like and people when they look
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: at it, all that's just how they are. That's just
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: that's just them, you know, And and they shrug their
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: shoulders and it's like, no big deal, and no one
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: wants to address the issue at hand. Why is this
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 6: person acting like this, Why this person feeling like why
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 6: is this person? Why this person has the unction to
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 6: remove themselves from this plane of existence. Let's get to
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 6: the root of that and figure out why that is,
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 6: and then we can kind of deal with the deal
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 6: with everything else outside of that, you know, let's get
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 6: to the root of it. The one thing I've always said,
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 6: there's an origin to everything. Yes, there's an origin of everything,
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 6: Like you mentioned the like I'm domestic violence doesn't start
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 6: with just a man a man or a woman hitting
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 6: on the hitting on the opposite of the other person.
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 6: There's an origin of that. There's always an origin of
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 6: that something. Maybe it happened in their families sometimes somewhere
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 6: down the line, or maybe they witnessed it, to witness
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 6: it with a friend or whatever. So there's always an
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 6: origin to where to where to where we are as
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 6: far as especially when it comes to our emotion or
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: our mental health, there's an origin to that. There's a
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 6: there's a reason why some men shut down and don't
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 6: want and don't talk. Well, I won't say some where
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: most men shut down don't want to talk. There's a
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 6: reason why most of us as men are in perpetual
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 6: anger mode or perpetual anger mode, anger mode all the time.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 6: Like like David Banner when he said that to Captain America, Oh,
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 6: don't worry, don't worry, Steve, don't work, Captain, I'm always angry,
• 1:08:49
  Speaker 6: and then immediately transfer them to the wholk and plant
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: and punches something. Come on now, I mean, it's like
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 6: why when then when you ask somebody why angry and
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 6: they tell you that they don't know. Yeah, you do,
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 6: you know why you're angry all the time. There's something
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 6: that triggered that. There's something that triggers that anger again
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: origin and triggers but one of the things we don't
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 6: want to do again. This is sad to say, and
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 6: I'm not saying this and this is we don't. We don't,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 6: we don't, we don't want to do. We don't want
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 6: to dig deep and go to get to that origin
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 6: because because we're afraid, well because we're afraid if we
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 6: dig too deep and we find we find when we
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 6: find out the origin for that, that's gonna, that's gonna,
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 6: that's gonna scare the hell out of us. We don't
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 6: want to look at ourselves in the mirror.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 2: Some people don't Some people don't want some people don't
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: want to truly heal that. Some people want to stay
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: in they mess and they want to stay having a
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: pity party and stay having that on them. I want
• 1:09:52
  Speaker 2: to be here. I want to be healed. So I'm
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 2: thankful for these conversations. I'm thankful for individuals that's willing
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 2: to share their journey and really willing to share their
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 2: experiences so that other people don't have to go through
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: what we've been through and can find alternative because what
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: may work for me, may not work for Frederick, may
• 1:10:16
  Speaker 2: not work for you. And if we can grab a
• 1:10:19
  Speaker 2: nugget from Frederick, grab a nugget from Elijah, grab a
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 2: nugget from whoever, and we can just get these nuggets
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 2: and apply them to our lives. You know, it's just
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 2: having those experiences and just having the outlook is what
• 1:10:34
  Speaker 2: matters to me.
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: And I'm thankful for you guys just coming on here
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: sharing y'all. Before we wrap it up, y'all, we gotta.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: Let everybody know how they can connect with you guys,
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 2: and how they can get some of your literature. So, Frederick,
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 2: how can they follow you? And then Elijah, we want
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 2: to be able to connect with you too, So Frederick,
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: how can how can we follow you?
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: How can we support you?
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 6: Oh man? So many ways to do so many ways
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 6: to do that, so many ways to do that. Well.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 6: First of all, if you if you want to just
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 6: follow me as a as an individual, you can follow
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 6: me on Facebook under Frederick Beatty. I'm also on Instagram
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 6: and unders under miss their Underscore Beaty. If you want
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 6: to follow a platform that's you can follow the platform
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 6: on YouTube that's Trailblazers Trailblazers with a Z Radio and
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 6: on YouTube on Facebook. We're also I'm also on TikTok.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 6: I do plan on doing some live streams on TikTok
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 6: very soon if you guys want to listen. If you
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 6: guys want to listen to something to the podcast, we are.
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 6: We're on Spotify, We're on Apple, We're on Amazon Music,
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 6: We're on Apple, We're we're on Apple, We're on Gosh,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 6: We're pretty much we're anywhere where streaming audio is streaming
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 6: audio or so. But if you want to listen to
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 6: the Crux of Us, we're our main distribution places on Spotify,
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 6: so it can catch us on Spotify or Trailblazer Raudio.
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 6: As far as my books are concerned, you can find
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 6: those books on Amazon under fl under f LBD. That's
• 1:12:03
  Speaker 6: my first initial in my lap first initial, my middle
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 6: first initial, middle initial. They're on Amazon. I mean, any support,
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 6: any any support you guys do, whether it's a follow,
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: where it's a like, whether it's a share, whether it's
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 6: a comment, or even if you purchase a book and
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: leave and leave a review, leave a review for the book,
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 6: I mean, any of those things helped me out immensely.
• 1:12:26
  Speaker 6: I just want to say that I'm very thankful and
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 6: very grateful to having the first of all, being here,
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 6: with being here with you and mister Ali, mister mister
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: lewis number one, number two, just being able to be
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 6: in a being. Having a support system that I have,
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 6: It means a lot to me to have the type
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 6: of people that surround me to encourage me, to hold
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 6: me to account, to keep me on mission. I would
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 6: be remiss if I didn't mention those people. Angela, You're
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 6: you're one of those people we talked earlier and you
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 6: put it. You put an idea in my head. Now
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 6: going to implement that idea. So it's people like you
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 6: and and Monica and and other people that you know
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 6: that support me, that keep me, that keep my spirits up,
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 6: but also keep me on mission. So I appreciate that.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: Well, that's my job. That's what I'm here for.
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 4: Mister Elijah, Yes, ma'am.
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 2: How can we support you? How can we follow you?
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 2: How can we stay connected?
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 4: Absolutely well?
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 5: First, and once again, miss angel thanks for letting me
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 5: come on the show as an honor to also connect
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 5: with mister Beattie. I love this conversation. I definitely learned
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 5: a lot. You know this conscious are definitely gonna need it.
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 5: So I appreciated you. Yeah, So if you all like
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 5: to stay connected with me, you can follow me. I
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 5: am on Instagram. My Instagram is Melanie King Elic I
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 5: am on Facebook. You can send me a request at
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 5: Elijah K.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 4: Lewis.
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 5: Also have a Facebook page for your Jewels in Your
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 5: Journey which is your Jewels in Your Journey, which is
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 5: my face which is our Facebook page as well. I'm
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 5: also on LinkedIn at Elijah Lewis. And as far as
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 5: if you want to support and get a copy of
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 5: my books learn about what I offer as far as
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 5: motivational speaking, you can go to my website at www
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 5: dot Elijah Lewis dot org. You can get your purchase
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 5: your signed copy from me, learn more about my motivational speaking,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 5: learn more about the events that we have coming up,
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 5: and definitely you can also stay connected. And in fact,
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 5: I'll say this as well because in honor of PTSD
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 5: Awareness Month and Men's Mental Health Men's Mental Health Awareness Month,
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 5: I'm also partnering with an organization called Salute to Duty.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 5: And Salute to Duty really focuses on helping veterans through
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 5: service dogs who have suffered from PTSD, agave all of
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 5: our veterans who have served and are continuing to serve.
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 5: And my godfather is over that company. He also happens
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 5: to be my manager of your Jewels and your Journey too.
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 5: And what we're doing is for the next twenty two
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 5: books that I sell, we're also going to throw in.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 4: A second We're also going to throw in one of his.
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 5: If you don't know, if you can see it, we're
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: gonna throw one of his lapel pens too. And what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 5: we're going to do is after we sell twenty two books,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 5: we're going to have a raffle. Thinking about is the
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 5: prize is going to be probably fifty bucks. But the
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: goal of that is is that we want people to
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 5: focus on self care. And this is not just for
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 5: veterans or not necessarily just for men, you know, this
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 5: could be for anybody who wants to participate.
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 4: But the goal is what we're trying to do is
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 4: just show.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 5: You all that, you know, we want you all to
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: focus on taking some time for yourself, whether that is
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 5: you want to go to the movies, you want to
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 5: maybe you do want to spend this, spend the money
• 1:16:00
  Speaker 5: to go talk to somebody to get therapy, or you
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: want to just take a trip somewhere, whatever you want
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 5: to do, it's all about self care and focusing on you,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 5: you know, because a lot of times you put other
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 5: people ahead of ourselves. A lot, so we need to
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 5: have those moments where we focus on ourselves for a
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 5: few minutes before we go back and associate with everybody else.
• 1:16:21
  Speaker 5: So again, that's something that we're doing for the next
• 1:16:24
  Speaker 5: twenty two books. Right now, I've sold two of them,
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 5: so I still got twenty more slots left. So if
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 5: you'd like to get in that raffle and definitely purchase
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 5: your copy, and I'll definitely sign your book and send
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 5: you your lapel pen as well. So yeah, just again,
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 5: miss Angela, thank you so much for the opportunity and
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 5: definitely looking forward to more opportunities with you and brother
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 5: Frederick and many of the other authors in the one
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 5: hundred Authors movement.
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 6: Oh just so you know, man, I'll follow you on Instagram.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 4: Bro okay, all right, as soon as we get off
• 1:16:57
  Speaker 4: of them and follow you back.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: Appreciate that, Yes, yes, yes, well, I definitely want to
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 2: thank both of you guys for stopping by and sharing
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 2: with me on tonight because mental health is near and
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 2: dear to my heart, and I am my brother's keeper.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: I hold my men up.
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 2: One of my things is I want to help you
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: retake your thrones because I know that society has failed
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 2: you guys, and I want to do my part to
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 2: help you guys to reclaim your thrones because you are
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: kings worthy kings that are worthy of honor. And I
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: thank you guys for coming on and being transparent tonight
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: and sharing in hopes that it would help somebody else
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 2: that may be going through or may think that they
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 2: are alone on this journey. So I definitely thank you guys,
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 2: and continue to be a voice. I thank you for
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: being a voice. Thank you before before before we leave.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Since we know deed the giving out of the information,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: I always ask my guests to leave the listeners with
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 2: something encouraging. So, Elijah, what's your encouraging thought for tonight
• 1:18:17
  Speaker 2: as we close?
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 5: I think, you know, just going back to time that
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 5: we talked about, you know, for the for the men
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 5: who are listening. Uh, just always know there's no shame
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 5: or there's no weakness in getting help.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 4: You know, if you're not if you're not okay, you know,
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 4: don't let.
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 5: The stigma of thinking that it's weak if you talk
• 1:18:37
  Speaker 5: to somebody or you try to reach out and get
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 5: help stop you from doing that. You can still you
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 5: can still be a man, You can still be maskling
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 5: and at the same time, you can still get help too,
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 5: because that's something we all need along the way. None
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 5: of us can go through this journey on our own,
• 1:18:53
  Speaker 5: and honestly, why would you. You know, it's always better
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 5: to have the help of other people when you can
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 5: get it.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 4: So if you're whatever you're going through, know that.
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 5: There are people out there who can help you be
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 5: the best person that you can be. Like I said earlier,
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 5: you know that's one of the jewels on your journey
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 5: is finding those people who help inspire you to be
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 5: your optimum self. So, you know, don't let the stigma
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 5: of you know, it's being weak to get help or
• 1:19:20
  Speaker 5: anything like that stop you know, you can still be
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 5: who you are as a man, but at the same
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 5: time get the help you need so that you can
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 5: be the man that you are meant to be. Because
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 5: you know, we all have a purpose, you know, both
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 5: men and women, but especially as men. You know, definitely
• 1:19:36
  Speaker 5: don't be afraid to seek help and know that there
• 1:19:38
  Speaker 5: are people out there who want to see women who
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 5: want to see you succeed. And Mike Cister Andels said,
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 5: you know, we all are our brother's keepers, so you know, definitely,
• 1:19:47
  Speaker 5: let's look out for one another and just continue to
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 5: uplift each other because, as Booker T. Washington said, if
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 5: you want to lift yourself up, lift up someone else.
• 1:19:56
  Speaker 5: So definitely, Uh, that's my nugget that I like, leave
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 5: everyone for tonight.
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: Well, thank you for that, and mister b. D.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 6: So we're gonna elaborate a little bit on what mister
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 6: Lewis has said, but I'm gonna but I'm gonna quote
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 6: something from from from Lao Zoo and I quote the
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 6: journey of a thousand miles starts from one.
• 1:20:18
  Speaker 4: Step, Yes there you go, yes so, and.
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 6: Saying that the emotional, the emotional us being us men,
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 6: the emotional spectrum is a human experience. We as men
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 6: are not We're not We're not exempt from that. If
• 1:20:41
  Speaker 6: we're if we're going to be the man, if we're
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 6: going to be the men of standard, the men that
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 6: can stand up in any season, we're gonna have to
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 6: We're gonna have to be able to embrace the emotional spectrum,
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 6: the entire emotional spectrum and all of us, all of
• 1:20:58
  Speaker 6: its nuances, is all his nuances, all of us happiness,
• 1:21:01
  Speaker 6: all his ugliness that goes along with it. If we don't,
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 6: if we don't do that as men. There's no growth,
• 1:21:09
  Speaker 6: there's no progress, there's no there's no there's no man,
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 6: there's no man of standard. And I'm not saying I'm
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 6: not saying to be I'm not saying this to be
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 6: completely open and every completely open and everything, but to allow,
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 6: but to allow. But I'm saying that to allow yourself
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 6: to feel, allow yourself to be, allow yourself to break down,
• 1:21:34
  Speaker 6: allow yourself to cry, allow yourself to acknowledge when you're
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 6: not feeling where you're not feeling well emotionally or mentally.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 6: And as I said that before, that quote from allows YOUO.
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 6: It starts with one step. That one step becomes two,
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 6: two become three, and so forth. As long as you're
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 6: taking those steps forward steps now, it doesn't Now, taking
• 1:21:59
  Speaker 6: backward steps is a is a thing. So you can't
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 6: take five steps backward to go to steps forward. That's
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 6: a thing. It's not a bad and it's not a
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 6: bad thing. But as long as you're moving forward, you're okay.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 6: That's mine, that's what that's my that's what I got
• 1:22:17
  Speaker 6: for you.
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 2: Well, I want to thank you guys for joining me
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 2: on tonight. I appreciate you guys. So so much, and
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 2: I want you guys to come back anytime you want
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 2: to and share. I appreciate you, and I hope that
• 1:22:35
  Speaker 2: you guys have a great night. I want to thank
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 2: everyone that has tuned in. I hope that you guys
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 2: were blessed by something that was shared. And I want
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 2: you to help me to apply these amazing men for
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 2: the job that they do, because oftentimes we don't like
• 1:22:55
  Speaker 2: to give them the recognition that they deserve. I thank
• 1:22:59
  Speaker 2: them for coming on and being transparent on tomorrow, and
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 2: I want to thank you guys for tuning in. I
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 2: hope that you were blessed by something that was shared
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 2: on tonight. If you were blessed by something that was
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 2: shared on tonight, share these nuggets with someone else. Share
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 2: this broadcast with someone else so that they too can
• 1:23:23
  Speaker 2: be blessed. I want you guys to tune back in
• 1:23:27
  Speaker 2: on tomorrow night. We have shining will be in the building, y'all,
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 2: bad to business.
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: See y'all tomorrow night.