Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 6: Built In Public: The Cost of Being Seen ft. Ryan Clark

Transcript

EP 6: Built In Public: The Cost of Being Seen ft. Ryan Clark · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Kid Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 2: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, we talk
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Welcome to another episode of Learning the Hard Way with
• 0:20
  Speaker 2: me your host Kre Gaines. Oh God whatever. I am
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: a husband, i am a father, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: a licensed therapist. I'm a DC native, I am a
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: professional speaker. And if you looked at the title of
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: this pod, you know exactly who I have on a
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: podcast today. And if you know me, you know I'm
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: a massive football fan, massive football fan. I'm a massive
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: fan of black men that have dimensioned to him where
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: you're more than one thing. I'm a massive fan of
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: men who are a little bit older than me and
• 0:51
  Speaker 2: got some wisdom to sprinkle so I can soak that
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: game in. And I'm a fan of people who say,
• 0:56
  Speaker 2: if Derrick Henry is running through the a gap, I'm
• 0:58
  Speaker 2: gonna put him on his ass. And then when you
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: get questioned about it, he say, no, Dad, all two
• 1:04
  Speaker 2: hundred and forty pounds of you, my boy, couldn't you
• 1:07
  Speaker 2: put you on your headquarters? But you know, I do
• 1:11
  Speaker 2: want to intro the part and just get some things off,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: because man, this episode means a lot to me, you know,
• 1:17
  Speaker 2: just being a black boy, and it's two ways that
• 1:20
  Speaker 2: you can go.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Sometimes it's being seen. There's a lot in being seen.
• 1:24
  Speaker 2: But sometimes when you're a black boy, the safest thing
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: that you can do is be invisible. When you're visible,
• 1:29
  Speaker 2: to teach it, don't call you out and try to
• 1:31
  Speaker 2: make you read sentences that you don't read fluidly very well.
• 1:35
  Speaker 2: The boys down the street who are bigger than you
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: will take advantage you don't see you. The cops maybe
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: don't see you when you're driving, that you don't get
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: pulled over. There's a lesser chance of something crazy happening
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: to you. Sometimes you could be invisible, but sometimes life
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: takes you in another direction and you experience the spotlight
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: and you experience a lot of attention and you gotta
• 1:55
  Speaker 2: know what to do with that when life flip the script.
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: So for me, just being a social media influence of
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: content creator, all of that. I think last month I
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: had forty million people visit my Instagram page. So now
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: when I move I can feel their eyes on me
• 2:11
  Speaker 2: when I walk in the room. If people do this
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: thing when they know you from somewhere, they do like
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: a quick look and then it's like, bro, I can
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: see you looking at me like I supposed to speak though,
• 2:21
  Speaker 2: say something, you know what I.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: Like. I think when.
• 2:25
  Speaker 3: People know you in that light, right when they know you,
• 2:29
  Speaker 3: whether it's social media or a job you do, they
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: don't know what to say because they know you aren't friends,
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: they know you aren't an acquaintance, they know you won't
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: know who they are. And I think a lot of
• 2:41
  Speaker 3: that builds a little insecurity, and not the type of
• 2:43
  Speaker 3: insecurity like oh I'm not enough any of those things.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: It's like you don't want to sound stupid, right. And
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: then there's some other times when people are a fan
• 2:51
  Speaker 3: of you in a certain way, they also respect your space, right,
• 2:55
  Speaker 3: Like if you are just out being a dad, there's
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: some people who want to allow you to do that,
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: and then there are others who totally are oblivious to it,
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: and they think that your time is their time because
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: they know you from Instagram. And so I think there's
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: just always a part of the spotlight and the life
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: or celebrity or whatever it is that will never be
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: comfortable for you or the people that see you and.
• 3:19
  Speaker 2: I'm new to this, and this is exactly why I
• 3:22
  Speaker 2: have Super Bowl champion, hard hitter, ESPN analysts, outspoken voice,
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: not afraid to say, hey, I said something publicly, allow
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: me to apologize, which is some real man shit in
• 3:38
  Speaker 2: my book, Ladies and gentlemen, today on the pod, I
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: have the one, the only, mister Ryan Clark, Let's grow. Hey,
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: you know when you get old, let's call you mister.
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: You know that much older though, you know you know
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: what's old enough to be my dad for real?
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: I thank god.
• 3:56
  Speaker 3: I've been, but I have been a father for much
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: more of my life than I haven't. Ye, I became
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: a dad at nineteen. You were father at nineteen nineteen.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: I had Jaden Well Jayden was born in nineteen. Jordan
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: was born when I was nineteen. Jordan was born I
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: was twenty one.
• 4:10
  Speaker 2: Logan was born when I was twenty five, and then
• 4:15
  Speaker 2: I was done. So I got a questioning. I got
• 4:17
  Speaker 2: a theory. When you were a good dad, you become
• 4:20
  Speaker 2: everybody's dad. Do you feel that way? Community wise?
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: So I definitely don't don't feel that way because I
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: didn't grow up or I didn't when I was the father,
• 4:30
  Speaker 3: I wasn't that in that sort of community, right, And
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: so it wasn't like my dad was where everybody came
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: to the house, or it wasn't like my dad was
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: where he was cooking for everything or boiling for everything,
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: And so it didn't really necessarily have that gravitational pool
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: as much as it had. I became the dude that
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: hosted the Bible studies. We became the house that through
• 4:53
  Speaker 3: the party when it was cut weekend, because I didn't
• 4:55
  Speaker 3: want the rookies or the young guys to have to
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: think about whether or not they'll have a job on Monday, right,
• 5:01
  Speaker 3: So that became part of it. And then there is
• 5:04
  Speaker 3: a sense of when you become a certain level of successful, right,
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: and you have a family where everybody might not be
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: doing as well as you are, you do start to
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: have to help in different ways. And you don't just
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: help by giving money, but you help by being present,
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: having conversations.
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: You help by being an ear.
• 5:24
  Speaker 3: And I think all of those things happen that happened
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: naturally as.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: You grow, right and as you deal and.
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: As adversity builds you up through wisdom, through experiences, through losses.
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: But I don't necessarily think it ever happened to me
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: where I had to be other people's father because as
• 5:45
  Speaker 3: I was learning to be a dad, I was away.
• 5:48
  Speaker 3: I was in Northern Virginia playing for Washington, or I
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: was in New Jersey with New York early on in
• 5:55
  Speaker 3: my career, or Pittsburgh for a certain amount of time,
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: and then by the time I came back home, everyone
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: kind of had established their relationship with me when.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: You away because c DJ said something one time, he said,
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: you know, either as a man as a father, either
• 6:12
  Speaker 2: you're in the house, y'all ain't got no money, there's
• 6:16
  Speaker 2: no provision, or the family's doing well financially, but you
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: can't always be home just you being a dad. Because
• 6:24
  Speaker 2: I know you disagree with me, but to me, that
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: feels like you're a father even though you're not there,
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: you're still present, like you're looking out for rookies to
• 6:31
  Speaker 2: make sure these men, these men don't feel innks for
• 6:35
  Speaker 2: cut they that that seems like the love and provision
• 6:38
  Speaker 2: that a fatherly figure would give you.
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean, I think you don't even have to
• 6:42
  Speaker 3: make it that big, like you just got to be
• 6:44
  Speaker 3: a good dude for sull Like it ain't even it's
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: not about that I felt like a fatherly figure.
• 6:50
  Speaker 1: It's like, no, I've been cut. I know how to
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: feel right.
• 6:53
  Speaker 2: I've been I've been at the room waiting for my
• 6:56
  Speaker 2: name to whether scroll or not to if I got
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: a job tomorrow.
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: Like, I know what's that? What that's like?
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: And I don't want you to have to deal with
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: that by yourself, because it's not like because you're at
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: my house and we got chicken wings, you're gonna forget
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: that it's happening, right, But maybe you don't feel a loan, right, Like,
• 7:13
  Speaker 3: that's what that's about.
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: It's about decency, right, It's about humanity.
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: It's about what I want people or what I would
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: have liked people to do for me.
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: Right when I was sitting by myself. And I don't
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: know if you know the story, when I was with Washington.
• 7:26
  Speaker 1: That's my favorite team.
• 7:27
  Speaker 2: My first year there, my first year there, when the
• 7:31
  Speaker 2: cuts rolled the first night, the first cut.
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: Day, my name was on it. It was the last name.
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: I packed my bag. I go to work cause I
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: think I'm gone. You see what I'm saying, And like
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: when I get to work that wasn't the case. But
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I dealt with that by myself. I got on my
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: knees by myself in my room. I wasn't around people,
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: and I don't want I didn't want other people to
• 7:49
  Speaker 3: feel that like it doesn't. I don't want to be
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: being truthful. I don't want to be anybody's dad but
• 7:55
  Speaker 3: my three. Yeah, you know what I'm saying. I don't
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: want nobody to look at me, cause here's that's.
• 8:00
  Speaker 1: What I know.
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: I can't love you like I love them, right, I
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: should talk about adoption all the time because I wanted
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: to give a child who didn't have a home, who
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: didn't have a family, a family, And what kept me
• 8:15
  Speaker 3: away and maybe this is selfish, I was like, man,
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: I love these three humans so much. You know what
• 8:23
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, Like can't live without them so much. And
• 8:27
  Speaker 3: I know they could feel that. I know they could
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: feel that no matter what they do, that's my dad.
• 8:33
  Speaker 3: He gonna show up if nobody else there, He's going
• 8:36
  Speaker 3: to be there.
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: I didn't know if I could provide that for another child.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: So I didn't know if it would be worse for
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: them to be in my house and see that level
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: of love, see that level of dedication, and if I
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: couldn't provide that for them then for them to have
• 8:52
  Speaker 3: to deal with that trauma or deal with that pain.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: And that's what kept me away from doing it. Whereas
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: my God.
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: And my nieces and my nephews, the love I give
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: them exceeds the love of an uncle, or exceeds the
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: provision of an uncle, but it also exceeds expectation because
• 9:12
  Speaker 3: I'm not their dad.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: Right, You see what I'm saying, right, And that's a
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: different man. So the whole this is this maybe off
• 9:18
  Speaker 2: the beating path. I don't know if you're comfortable asking this.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: You don't answering this. You don't have to if you
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: don't want to. But have you ever been in therapy before?
• 9:24
  Speaker 2: Because you're hitting on some themes that we talk about
• 9:26
  Speaker 2: a counseling therapy every week. Let me tell you what
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: you just got gave me. You just gave me empathy
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: and understanding. Before these mics cut off, I don't even
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: know if y'all caught it. We were talking about the
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: idea of high value man and Ryan was like, that's confusing,
• 9:38
  Speaker 2: and I don't know what that is. And I told
• 9:40
  Speaker 2: him because it's it's kind of based in nonsents, and
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: when we think of high value men we think of
• 9:44
  Speaker 2: men of station, of socioeconomic means of visibility.
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: But what you're talking.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: About, bro, that's a high value man of empathy, of understanding,
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: of community, and of belonging.
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: That's what makes a man a man.
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but you also so you also have to realize,
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: like there are men I'm sure who didn't come to
• 10:07
  Speaker 3: that level of awareness by making mistakes or by hurting people,
• 10:12
  Speaker 3: but I did, righting, And so like this isn't when
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: I start, when I speak from like the forty six
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: year old framework that I have now, that doesn't mean
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: at thirty five, that doesn't mean even at forty that
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: doesn't mean even at thirty I understood all of these things. Right,
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: And there are pockets of life you could be great
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: at it in right, and then there are other pockets
• 10:36
  Speaker 3: of life where you may not be there.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: There may be desires.
• 10:40
  Speaker 3: Or wants, or there may be feelings that are keeping
• 10:43
  Speaker 3: you from being selfless in certain ways.
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: And so it's not necessarily about you know, we joked
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: about the high value man thing like that's that's not
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: even like it's nonsensical, right, It's nonsensical because we don't
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: get to create our own life value.
• 11:01
  Speaker 1: God gives us our value.
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: Right, the level of grace and mercy that he's shown
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: me should be the level of grace that I should
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: show other people.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: It's the level of grace we show ourselves. And I think.
• 11:15
  Speaker 3: We are in And I think these microphones and sometimes
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: are like the worst things in the world. They don't
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: help sometimes, right, because but what I think is helpful
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: about it is you're supposed to know the opposition. How
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: do I know certain things I don't want to be
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: unless I know they exist, unless I know the pain
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: they cause, unless I know how stupid they sound. And
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: that Sometimes I hear some things and I'm like, did
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: I ever say anything like this? Or did I ever
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: feel like this? And so I do think it's good
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: now that we get opportunities to hear different perspectives because
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: we don't have to and.
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: We will not agree with everything. But if you listen
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: hard enough, you can learn from everybody. Yeah, absolutely, And
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: I think being able to listen is a key part
• 12:06
  Speaker 2: of leadership. On my social media page one time, I
• 12:09
  Speaker 2: just shared just sometimes I do my dishes. I hate
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: doing dishes, right, I hate busting sucks. I hate it
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: real bad. So I cut on the camera and just
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: talk to myself in the camera and make content out
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: of it. The past the time, trying to be a
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: good partner.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Is just the one.
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: I think you said something about, like you have to
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: epitomize the leadership, whether than look at the leadership as
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: what you're going to tell them or what.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah you saw that.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Ran Clark knows who I have, y'all. Yeah, that's
• 12:41
  Speaker 2: exactly it. Like there's a difference. There's a distinction between
• 12:44
  Speaker 2: leadership and dominance. Dominance needs to be better than someone.
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Dominance is going to crush everything in this path in
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: order to exist, in order to get the validation of
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: the spaces around it. This is me me, I did this,
• 12:55
  Speaker 2: I did this. Dominance doesn't work in a family structure.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: Leadership works. Leadership once is the rise and tide that
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: lifts all ships. Leadership isn't afraid of another leader. It
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: doesn't Leadership. Don't look at your wife and be like, ah,
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: she being a little bit too strong of a leader.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Let me let me dim that light a little bit.
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: It's not making me feel good enough. Leadership is like nah,
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: but I want you to be great outside of being
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: a wife, outside of being a mother.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: I want you to be a great person.
• 13:20
  Speaker 2: And I think when we talk about like the high
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: value man or whatever that is, I'm glad the men
• 13:25
  Speaker 2: are identifying the value within themselves. That's not the problem.
• 13:29
  Speaker 2: That's that apparatus ain't the issue. To me. The issue
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: is what we're hinging the value on. What pillars the
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: value is hinged on. Is it something that is very
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: external and it's you know, it's gaudy, it's the proverbial
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: gold chain and the wrist watch and everyone can see, oh,
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: look at him right there? Or is that quiet quality
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: that you have the whole so much value that lets
• 13:52
  Speaker 2: the people in your house know that they love That
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: helps you pick yourself up when you hear some stuff
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: about yourself that you ain't necessarily vibing with, but instead
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: of rejecting it, you listen to it, You figure out
• 14:03
  Speaker 2: what value you could take from it, and you do
• 14:04
  Speaker 2: something about it. You know, That to me is the
• 14:07
  Speaker 2: difference in leadership and dominance. And that's one thing. I
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: think The other thing is too.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: It's it's accepting that there are things that are natural
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: to us that are in direct opposition opposition of leadership.
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: Though ooh, what you mean? Pride is a natural thing
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: for sure, right, And and you should be you should
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: have pride, but you shouldn't be prideful. Right, Those are
• 14:34
  Speaker 2: those are those are two different things.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: It can be that I will continue to work in
• 14:39
  Speaker 3: a certain way, I will continue to want to thrive
• 14:43
  Speaker 3: in a certain way, and when I do, I can
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: have pride in my success. But I can't be boastful.
• 14:48
  Speaker 3: I can't be prideful, right because in leadership us and
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: we should always come before I. The prideful puts that
• 14:57
  Speaker 3: before the week.
• 14:58
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and so.
• 15:00
  Speaker 2: When you acknowledge that there are these things that you
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: are that don't correlate to great leadership, you now know
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: how to fight against them.
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: You now know how to recognize them. And in recognizing them,
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: it doesn't mean you always get it right. But you
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: know what recognizing them does allows you to say when
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: you don't for sure right. Because people, you know you're
• 15:23
  Speaker 3: talking about your family. Your family doesn't expect you to
• 15:27
  Speaker 3: be right all the time, right, But what your family
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: expects you to do is to acknowledge when you're wrong.
• 15:36
  Speaker 3: Your family expects you to correct things when they tell
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: you they hurt, when they tell you they don't benefit
• 15:44
  Speaker 3: them in a certain way. And then there are going
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: to be times. You know that I've learned, there's going
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: to be times where your family disagrees with you, or
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: they believe that something else is better for them than
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: the decision that you're making. And that's when you have
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: to have enough wherewithal the say, I get what you're saying,
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: but this is the way that it's going to be.
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: This is the way that it's going to move forward,
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: because I believe that's best for us. And if you've
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: led in the right way, if you've been compassionate enough,
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: if you've listened to them enough, they know that on
• 16:23
  Speaker 3: that day when you put your foot down, you're putting
• 16:26
  Speaker 3: your foot down because you love them, because you believe
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: it's the best thing. It's not one of those things
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: of dominance. It's that this is the decision we have
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: to make. Yeah, and I think this, and I think
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: that's glad you mentioned that. I think that's really complex
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: because when you talk.
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: About acknowledging something like you have to you have to
• 16:45
  Speaker 2: acknowledge that these things exist, or in order to acknowledge anything,
• 16:50
  Speaker 2: or in order to have an awareness of anything that's
• 16:52
  Speaker 2: going on inside of you, first thing is you got
• 16:55
  Speaker 2: to You gotta have self honesty.
• 16:57
  Speaker 1: You got to be able to look at the parts
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: of you.
• 16:59
  Speaker 2: They may not be where you need them to be
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: right now, and you have to tell You have to
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: know the distinction between who you are and who you
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: ideally would like to be. And you have to be
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: prudent enough to understand that you might not be there.
• 17:10
  Speaker 2: But you don't got to cosplay being there. You ain't
• 17:12
  Speaker 2: gotta fake it. You just got to acknowledge the gap
• 17:15
  Speaker 2: and be humble enough to know that the journey will
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: happen if just step by step you try to get there.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: But also with the leadership thing, it's twofold because you
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: can come to your family and be like, hey, y'all
• 17:24
  Speaker 2: straight up, and this is what we're doing.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: What if you're wrong?
• 17:28
  Speaker 2: And there needs to be you need to have space
• 17:30
  Speaker 2: in your leadership philosophy to say, you know what, babe,
• 17:33
  Speaker 2: what's your input? Okay, even me and my house, my
• 17:36
  Speaker 2: kids are four and eight, what y'all think you know?
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: And be able to take all these inputs in and say, Okay,
• 17:43
  Speaker 2: what I thought originally may not be the best plan
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: for us. Let me go back and pond doing this
• 17:47
  Speaker 2: a little bit.
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that's I think that's part of it. Right.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: I was, I was a why dad? What that mean?
• 17:55
  Speaker 1: So a why dad? Is this right?
• 17:57
  Speaker 3: There are things that your kids do that they get
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: in trouble for, right, or there are things that they
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: do that you don't want them to do, and there's
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: a discipline that goes along with that, whether it's a
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: punishment you take something from them or whatever it is.
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: But before we got to the punishment, always had a
• 18:13
  Speaker 3: question why did you do it?
• 18:16
  Speaker 1: Right?
• 18:17
  Speaker 2: My son may come home from school and he got
• 18:20
  Speaker 2: a detention for fighting, or he got a suspension for
• 18:23
  Speaker 2: fighting or whatever it was, and I would tell like, hey, look, man,
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: like you have to be able to control your emotions.
• 18:28
  Speaker 1: You can't allow things to put you into place.
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: Where you are now putting your opportunities to learn, and
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: also who people perceive you as at risk based on
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: these things. Right, You had that conversation and then you
• 18:41
  Speaker 3: ask him why. Right, Let's say, you know, let's say
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: he comes home and he's like, well, Dad, this person
• 18:47
  Speaker 3: said to me such and such. There may be certain
• 18:51
  Speaker 3: things that you could say to him, or you could
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: say to me. I'd be like, yeah, he should have
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: got punched in the mouth, right, Like, I understand that,
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: I'm not upset with you were doing that. But here's
• 19:01
  Speaker 3: how you have to handle that going forward, going forward,
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: Even though I know that hurt you, even though I
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: know that pissed you off, you see all the consequence.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Even though he said this thing to you, this disrespectful thing,
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: could be this racist thing to you, you know that
• 19:15
  Speaker 3: you will be punished if you retaliate in this way,
• 19:18
  Speaker 3: sometimes disproportionately.
• 19:20
  Speaker 1: So we can't do that. Yeah, And I know it's hard.
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: That's hard, man, Even you're saying that to me, piss
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: me off a little bit, right, But those are the
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: lessons you have to learn, especially when I'm talking to
• 19:31
  Speaker 2: my son. That's a lesson you have to learn in
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: order to be a leader of a family, in order
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: to be a leader of men. Right, what happens when
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: you work to gain a certain stature and someone who
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: hasn't put that work in to be there, you allow
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: him to take that from you because of the.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Way you react to him.
• 19:51
  Speaker 2: And it happens all that they don't deserve that, right,
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: they don't deserve that and so and it is hard,
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: and it's tough to learn because as men. You know,
• 19:58
  Speaker 2: we taught to be tough, taught to be don't get disrespected,
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: and you for sure taught that as black men, because
• 20:04
  Speaker 2: like it felt like that was all I.
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: Had, Right, you're not about to take that over.
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: Yeah, Like if I don't have if I don't have respect,
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: I don't have nothing. I ain't got a lot of money, right,
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: I didn't have fame, I don't got a lot of
• 20:16
  Speaker 2: upp with mobilities. Right, it felt like there was a
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: ceiling on who I could be. So, but what you're
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: not gonna do is punk me, right, what I'm not gonna.
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: Be is no hole.
• 20:26
  Speaker 3: But you also have to realize, like when that mindset
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: has to change, and when the changing of that mindset
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: actually shows your strength.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Oh man, you know, and so I restraint man, right,
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: So I just think that man.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: You know, there's so many different ways to do to
• 20:44
  Speaker 2: do things, and there's so many ways that we feel like.
• 20:49
  Speaker 1: We need to be fulfilled.
• 20:51
  Speaker 3: And when you become a father, when you become a leader, right,
• 20:55
  Speaker 3: it's not always about you. And I think that's where
• 20:59
  Speaker 3: leadership has gone wrong. People want leadership positions so they
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: can make unilateral decision.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's the exact opposite of leadership.
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: Yes, counting intuitive. If we're living in an intention economy,
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: everyone's like, hey, look at me. And then when the
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: spotlight is on you, bro, what you're gonna do with it?
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: What valuable wisdom or contribution are you're going to impart
• 21:18
  Speaker 2: to the world.
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: Well, I'll ask you this question.
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: Though I feel like our society now doesn't make you
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: earn it.
• 21:34
  Speaker 2: I agree with you to an extent comparative to especially
• 21:38
  Speaker 2: given your lived experience and because you went undrafted, right
• 21:41
  Speaker 2: the way you turned your Let's just take football. Let's
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: just start with football, the way you took football from
• 21:48
  Speaker 2: being undrafted to where you ultimately ended up. Then you
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: stop the game. And I work with a lot of athletes,
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: and we all know what happens when athletes stop the game.
• 21:56
  Speaker 2: The world stops and they got to try to re
• 21:59
  Speaker 2: they gotta try to reconfigure their identity.
• 22:00
  Speaker 1: And then you hop into broadcasting.
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: And this is no shade to anybody's identity, because we
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: talk about code switching. But you not some brother that's
• 22:08
  Speaker 2: going to hop on the front of a microphone and
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: start talking differently. I feel like you talk to me
• 22:12
  Speaker 2: now the same way you talk to your son, the
• 22:14
  Speaker 2: same way you talk to your wife, the same way
• 22:16
  Speaker 2: you talk to your pharmacist. I think this is just
• 22:18
  Speaker 2: who you are, but you don't see us in them
• 22:20
  Speaker 2: spaces like that as much. But you also got to
• 22:23
  Speaker 2: understand there's an adjustment to get there that didn't just happen.
• 22:26
  Speaker 1: Can you talk about that little yet?
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: So when I originally got the job, they sent me
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: to a speech coach for real, Yeah, because I'm from
• 22:34
  Speaker 3: New Orleans and so like there are certain things that
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: I just don't pronounce well yeah right. And honestly, from
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: where I grew up, I was the straight A student
• 22:46
  Speaker 3: I went to I went I left public school in
• 22:49
  Speaker 3: eighth grade and went to Catholic school because I was
• 22:51
  Speaker 3: good at football and I was smart.
• 22:52
  Speaker 1: I was the kid.
• 22:53
  Speaker 3: And you know you've been around kid. I was the
• 22:55
  Speaker 3: kid they said, oh you want to be a white boy.
• 22:57
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, right, Like I was that kid. They gave
• 23:00
  Speaker 3: you that. They gave me that.
• 23:01
  Speaker 2: Because I was always straight a's right, straight ah, dude, right?
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: And so I dealt with that.
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: And so to get to ESPN and for them to say, Okay,
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: you can't talk this way or you got to try
• 23:14
  Speaker 3: to fix this and fix that that was difficult for me, right,
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: And when I first started working, I knew I was
• 23:20
  Speaker 3: an undrafted guy.
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: I knew I was a safety.
• 23:22
  Speaker 3: I knew I wouldn't be a Hall of Famer, And
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: so my mindset was like, I got to show these
• 23:26
  Speaker 3: people how.
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: Smart I am.
• 23:28
  Speaker 3: Right, And I was actually walking with somebody who covered
• 23:32
  Speaker 3: me when I played, and they were just like me.
• 23:33
  Speaker 2: I wish everybody knew how funny you were. And I
• 23:35
  Speaker 2: was like, I'd be funny on TV, you know what
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: I'm saying.
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: I thought I was funny, But there was a piece
• 23:41
  Speaker 3: of me that was like, I just have to be
• 23:43
  Speaker 3: extremely prepared, right.
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: I have to be extremely excenal smart.
• 23:47
  Speaker 3: I have to make sure I have every name right,
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: I have to make sure I have these facts, needs,
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: thats and all that, and all of that gets in
• 23:54
  Speaker 3: your head and you can't be yourself.
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: And it did take me a while to feel comfortable enough.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: And it wasn't even code switching as much as it
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: was being comfortable right when you sometimes when you get
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: into a new like I wasn't the same dude in
• 24:09
  Speaker 2: year four in Washington that I was in year thirteen
• 24:15
  Speaker 2: in Washington when.
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: I came back, you came back right in year four.
• 24:17
  Speaker 1: You could talk to me how you wanted to.
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: Right, you could cuss me, you could say, you can
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: call me names, whatever it was, because like I'm trying
• 24:23
  Speaker 3: to feed my family. Right, you were talking to me
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: and you're thirteen. We are talking to each other. Right,
• 24:29
  Speaker 3: everything is a conversation. Right, I'll tell you.
• 24:33
  Speaker 1: I walked in.
• 24:35
  Speaker 2: Haslet was the DC. Jim Haslet, Right, Jim Haslet was DC.
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: My last year.
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: We had a practice and I was like a big
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: film guy, right, And so I knew every time we're
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: playing Jacksonville. I believe every time they got this formation,
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: this is the route they ran.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Brian left Wich Jacksonville all the time. Be left wasn't
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: there at that time. I can't remember who the quarterback was,
• 24:54
  Speaker 2: and so they give me this look. At practice. I'd
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: go jump the route, but they changed one the routes
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: on it and it actually ended up going to the
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: middle of.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: The field where I was supposed to be. Right, So
• 25:05
  Speaker 3: coaches watching the film when I go in, I'm going
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: to watch the film. I said, hey, coach tomorrow when
• 25:09
  Speaker 3: we get in the meeting, I need you to like
• 25:11
  Speaker 3: just jump on me about that play, right, the young
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: guys got to know it's not about guessing, it's about anticipating,
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: but it's also about diagnosing. I said, I knew what
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: was coming, or I thought what was coming, so I
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: jumped it right away.
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: I didn't let things.
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: Play out like go on, make an example out of it.
• 25:27
  Speaker 3: That was the kind of conversations I could have in
• 25:30
  Speaker 3: year thirteen. Because I'm thirty five. I've seen a lot
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: of ball. You can't have that conversation when you twenty
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: four twenty five. And you can also do that because
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: you're comfortable enough in yourself where you know whatever he
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: says to you is not going to embarrass you.
• 25:45
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: I've been in the seat of feeling like damn, man,
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: I can't belame letting this dude.
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Talk to me like that.
• 25:50
  Speaker 3: I already knew who I was at that point, and
• 25:52
  Speaker 3: so I just think we need to help young men
• 25:56
  Speaker 3: young women as well. And this is something I think.
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: We want to instill confidence so much, we want to
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: instill worth so much that we don't talk self awareness, man.
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: And I think self awareness is the foundation that you
• 26:16
  Speaker 2: build self confidence and self worths. Like if you don't
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: have it, everything else you building a multi million dollar
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: condo in mud, and it's going to sink and be
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: uneven and it's not going to be inhabit inhabitable after
• 26:29
  Speaker 2: a while.
• 26:30
  Speaker 3: Well, I think it goes to though, And I say
• 26:32
  Speaker 3: this at all. I tell young people this all the time.
• 26:36
  Speaker 3: In every room you walk in, you need to know
• 26:41
  Speaker 3: who is who in that room and who you are
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: in that room, right, because that dictates how you behave
• 26:51
  Speaker 3: If I walk into a room of billionaires, CEOs, high
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: level politicians, right, I'm still confident when I walk into
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: that room as Ryan Clark, but I'm listening for certain things. Right,
• 27:09
  Speaker 3: There's certain conversations that when those conversations start, I don't talk.
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: That's not my space, but I ask questions.
• 27:18
  Speaker 2: Right, just because you don't have a full grasp of
• 27:23
  Speaker 2: a topic doesn't mean you can't be a part of
• 27:25
  Speaker 2: the conversation. You can't contribute, right, You're a part of
• 27:28
  Speaker 2: the conversation because your curiosity, your inquisitiveness brings something out
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: of other people that edifies you as well. And so
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I just think we need to do a better job
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: of not not making people feel less than because you
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: aren't the one yet yet. It's the patient's peace waiting
• 27:58
  Speaker 2: for the yet the material your lives. And I think
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: you said something it was like, I'm a white dad,
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: but you sound like a white person.
• 28:05
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 28:05
  Speaker 2: And in therapy, I counsel so many men Ryan And
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the thing I always jokes like black men lost out whimsy, Man,
• 28:13
  Speaker 2: we lost. I was blaming whimsy is like it's short
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: for whimsical, like just to be able to dream and
• 28:19
  Speaker 2: fantasize and think about the bigness of life outside of
• 28:22
  Speaker 2: the immediacy.
• 28:23
  Speaker 1: Of provision, you know.
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: And we so stuck on survival and making it. And
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: I got scarce to be trauma. I grew up in
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: the projects of DC.
• 28:30
  Speaker 1: You know. I like to look at my bank account
• 28:31
  Speaker 1: every morning, like, Okay, I'm still there. They ain't take
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: it from me yet. You know.
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: I used to get these brand opportunities with these fortune
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: five hundred companies, and I'm like, they letting you sure
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: you want me, because I'm gonna come and I'm going
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: to present this myself. But I think what the world
• 28:44
  Speaker 2: has showed me is in this face and this body
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: and this experience.
• 28:48
  Speaker 1: I always say, I'm ana bem. I'm a big black man.
• 28:50
  Speaker 2: I'm a six foot two and twenty five pound black man,
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: and everybody doesn't see that and see the ability to
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: sell something to a lot of people or to present
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: an important product to the world. So it's just me
• 29:06
  Speaker 2: being able to see myself and me being able to
• 29:08
  Speaker 2: have the self awareness I know that doesn't exist in everyone,
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: and you talk about the self confidence.
• 29:13
  Speaker 1: And that even leads me to a question.
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: I want to ask you about the pod because I
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: saw the Mike Tomlin interview amazing, it's probably my favorite episodes.
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: And then I saw the Warrant Sap interview. Crazy.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: I didn't even know Sap was that actually crazy. I
• 29:29
  Speaker 2: didn't know Sap was that you can't be warrant Sapping,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: that it be.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: Tied tight, bro.
• 29:34
  Speaker 2: But I didn't know he was that charismatic and that
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: passionate the all players. He's awesome. I didn't know that.
• 29:39
  Speaker 2: You I see this part from the outside. I see
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: the pot as a fan since the inception, and you
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: and Channon and Freddie t man, y'all got this.
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: I can't explain it. You can't explain it, but you
• 29:52
  Speaker 1: know it when you feel it.
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: Man. Just this y'all multi dimensional black men and the
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: way that y'all approach conversations feel so full like with
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: the podcast and just the success of the podcast.
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: Can you feel it? Like, do you actually feel that success?
• 30:07
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: I don't think you necessarily feel it. I don't necessarily
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: feel it because I'm in it. Yeah, I know all
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: about that, right, You know what I mean? Like, you're
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: you're still doing the work, and I think sometimes when
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: you're still doing the work, you don't get an opportunity
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: to sit back and sort of process what you've accomplished.
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: What I do feel, though, is I've had people tell
• 30:33
  Speaker 3: me they feel like the podcasts say their lives.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Do you believe them when they say that? Yeah?
• 30:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah, because I don't expect people to lie about that.
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: But Ryan, what happens to your brain when somebody comes
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: in and say, oh my god, you're Ryan Clad you've
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: been hearing I said? You're probably seventeen years old when
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: they say, man, like I hear it now, but you
• 30:51
  Speaker 2: still heard it as some degree.
• 30:52
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Like the way I hear it now is much
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: different because the things I'm giving people are actually of myself.
• 31:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: The very vulnerable and openness of podcasting can be scary,
• 31:11
  Speaker 3: you see what I'm saying, Because in that space, you
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: open up and you give people an opportunity to reject you,
• 31:19
  Speaker 3: the actual you. Right, they can actually say I don't
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: like him, right, And that's hard. When I do TV
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: and we're talking about football, most times people just disagree
• 31:30
  Speaker 3: with me because I think their quarterbacks suck and they
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: think their quarterback's good. I'm comfortable with that, Right, you're
• 31:35
  Speaker 3: a fan. You're not supposed to like me if I
• 31:37
  Speaker 3: don't think the Chargers are great.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: I see that.
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: But when you're doing a podcast, the people who subscribe
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: or who support, they genuinely do it because they like you. Right,
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: They are taking an hour out of their Tuesday or
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: their Friday to sit and listen or watch you.
• 31:57
  Speaker 2: You got to like a person to do that. Like,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: I can be honest. I don't watch a lot of
• 32:01
  Speaker 2: podcasts because I already like people just being honest, Like,
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: I don't like to hear people talk like that, you
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: know what I mean? Like, I love having conversations, But
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: a huge reason why I don't listen to them a
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: lot of times because I feel like I don't want
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: their approach to podcasting to become mine.
• 32:18
  Speaker 1: You feel like it will pollute you a little bit, don't.
• 32:21
  Speaker 1: I don't watch sports TV. Yeah, I wouldn't if I
• 32:23
  Speaker 1: was you eating. Yeah, so so.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Like things that I do because from I was a
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: huge film watcher in football, right, because that translated for me,
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: thoughts don't translate to me.
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: Now.
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: I'm a big self help book reader. I read a
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: ton of them. I read a ton of but what you're
• 32:42
  Speaker 3: reading right now? I just finished The Power of Habit, Okay, right,
• 32:45
  Speaker 3: I just finished The Power of Habit. I think it's
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: an amazing book. One I really enjoyed. I read a
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Way of Superior Man.
• 32:56
  Speaker 2: I'm almost done with the Way of the Superior Man.
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: I think I got one more chapter that I read
• 33:01
  Speaker 2: The Way of a Superior Man recently. I truly enjoyed
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: that book. I've read The Alchemists more than once. The
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: problem with the Alchemist was I had to read it
• 33:11
  Speaker 2: more than once because I understand it.
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: Like i'mna be honest, some thoughts on the Alchemists, like
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: people told me about like all the wisdom in the book.
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: And you know, obviously reading allegory is a little different.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: It is, right, it's it's it's a little different. But
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: I recently read uh Tuesdays with Maury.
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: I'm not familiar with that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: So Tuesday that's about Mitch album album Tuesday with Tuesdays
• 33:35
  Speaker 3: with Maury is about his college professor and he was.
• 33:40
  Speaker 1: Dying and so I heard it. Yeah, so they and.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: So they reconnected and he would go see him every
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: Tuesday and then go and see him every Tuesday. The
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: sad part is he got to watch him diminish and
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: descend into death, but he also shared his story, and
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: so to me, it's one of the best books I
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: ever read because it's entertaining, because it's like it's storytelling,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: but there was so much wisdom because he was an
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: old man, really giving all he had ever learned to
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: one of his star pupils, who actually was in a
• 34:18
  Speaker 3: star pupil. He just loved them. Five People You Meet
• 34:22
  Speaker 3: in Heaven Another.
• 34:23
  Speaker 1: Bitch that one. Are you an Atomic Habits guy?
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I read Atomic Habits as well. It's probably one of
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: my favorite books I probably read. My wife makes fun
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: of me, you know, She's like, well, you're always reading
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: self help, but it don't help. I said, that's why
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: I keep reading him. That's cold, said, I said, that's why.
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, that's why I keep reading him. The
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: wife go and give it to you if nobody else
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: do it. But I think but isn't that. I think
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: that's why you that's how and why you should pick
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: her A one thousand.
• 34:50
  Speaker 3: You know, I met my wife. I was seventeen. You're
• 34:53
  Speaker 3: seventeen when y'all mest seventeen, y'all. I went to a
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: graduation party for her cousin, right, and I met her.
• 34:59
  Speaker 1: She hated. I didn't like her very much. She hates you.
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: Well, you know, seventeen year old Ryan Clark man like,
• 35:07
  Speaker 3: he was very confident about who he was. But I
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: think she more so hated me because of the way
• 35:12
  Speaker 3: people she knew talked about.
• 35:13
  Speaker 1: You walked in the room before you walked in the
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: room type thing.
• 35:16
  Speaker 3: Well, and they had been waiting on me and I
• 35:18
  Speaker 3: was late like Carlo was for her date.
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: That's crazy. Carla is my producers, and so shout out
• 35:25
  Speaker 2: to color you know, so people who are a little.
• 35:32
  Speaker 3: But nah man and like, I just you know, I
• 35:34
  Speaker 3: don't know, man, Like I'm at a stage in life
• 35:36
  Speaker 3: right now. It's like because of the podcast and you
• 35:42
  Speaker 3: don't get to talk about everything. Yeah, I'm very uncomfortable
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: with the praise really, yeah, because it's different from the
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: football praise. Yes, how so, because like football is this
• 35:59
  Speaker 3: this thing.
• 36:00
  Speaker 1: It's it's it's the sport that it's very it's very tangible. Yeah,
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: you can see the results, you can hold you.
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: You know what I'm saying, accolade, I know if you
• 36:10
  Speaker 3: I know if it's full of crap, you know if
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: you have a game, right. And the pieces we get
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: to give people of ourselves in this it's not that
• 36:22
  Speaker 3: we are lying or purposely omitting, but sometimes the topics
• 36:30
  Speaker 3: of our shortcomings, sometimes the topics of where we fall short.
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: I get where you're going, they don't become a part
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: of the conversation.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Part of your story, right, So you are.
• 36:42
  Speaker 3: Getting the small piece of me, and now you're developing
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: your perception of who I am. And there is an
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: embarrassment for me that you don't really know all of me. Right,
• 36:52
  Speaker 3: And there are times where I want to be like, yeah,
• 36:54
  Speaker 3: like that story is cool and like that's actually true,
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: but man, I'm missed too.
• 36:59
  Speaker 1: Do you do it when you feel that what I can?
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
• 37:02
  Speaker 3: But we also have to recognize the danger of this
• 37:06
  Speaker 3: job is that every story is not just our story.
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: I can want to tell you where I've fall. In short,
• 37:16
  Speaker 3: I can want to tell you where I've hurt people.
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: I can want to tell you where I've been dishonest,
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: where I've been disloyal, Right, But there are other people
• 37:25
  Speaker 3: in my life and in my story, in my journey
• 37:28
  Speaker 3: who had to live through that with me. Yeah, and
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: it's not my right to tell their story as well.
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: That's so good, right, And so you have to you
• 37:39
  Speaker 2: have to balance that and try to do your best
• 37:44
  Speaker 2: to focus on the parts of you in that story
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: that you can share to allow people to get as
• 37:51
  Speaker 2: much of a full view of who you are without
• 37:56
  Speaker 2: making the people who live through that with you live
• 38:00
  Speaker 2: through it again but publicly, right.
• 38:02
  Speaker 1: And the worst part for them they may not have
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: the outlet. Yeah, they don't have a visibility. Yeah, they
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: might not have the ability.
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: To go talk it out or to be praised for
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: their story. And so I think, you know, sometimes when
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: people are like, man, you're such this, and you're such that,
• 38:20
  Speaker 3: you know, I love the way you do this and
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: do that, You're like, yeah, for the most part of
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: those things, right, But just like everybody else, the imperfection
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: part of me is the thing that got me at
• 38:35
  Speaker 3: forty six to be able to say, I now recognize
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: this about myself, and that's so important.
• 38:41
  Speaker 2: Ryan Terry Clark, you pot it, bro, That is my
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: first name. Actually it's Terry first. My first name is
• 38:47
  Speaker 2: Ryan Terry. It's typhen at. That's how I know you
• 38:49
  Speaker 2: from the South. Yes, because my family's from South Carolina.
• 38:52
  Speaker 2: Everybody name is rose Ane, Ali May. Whatever your cousin
• 38:55
  Speaker 2: in the South, whatever's first name is, you've been calling
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: him Donnie.
• 38:58
  Speaker 1: His name ain't Donnie. My man name is Greg. So
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: funny you said Donnie. Right.
• 39:03
  Speaker 3: My one of my cousin's name is Don Terry, and
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: it's hyphenated like Don Terry Poe.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah like that.
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: No, no, no, no, his west One name it's Don hyphen Terry.
• 39:13
  Speaker 1: Y'all a country boy. Yeah and so.
• 39:15
  Speaker 3: And then my other cousin was named Brian. I was
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: supposed to be Christopher, but it was a late second audible.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: But my mom she called high Route and I was
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: Ryan Terry. And so my dad's people, who are super country,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: they call me Ryan Terry.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, oh no, I ain't no breaking between yes, right,
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: you barely get the win and Terry.
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, But I love them, they love me. I'm
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: like the most crazy. I'm like the most bougie of
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: my family.
• 39:40
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: I used to, man, I used to resent people calling
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: me bougie. I used to resent it. I used to
• 39:47
  Speaker 2: take it as an insult. But now like I'm not
• 39:49
  Speaker 2: drinking that brand of water. Bro Like if somebody just
• 39:52
  Speaker 2: comes with, like, I'm not gonna put any brand out.
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: There, I'm not drinking that. Oh you are bougie.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: Oh I'm terribly boogie. But that's really boo oh. It
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: gets worse. Don't get me to talk about coffee.
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: What you mean? What you mean?
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: It's certain coffee brands, like certain coffee houses that I
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: won't name. I'm not drinking that why because it's dog water? Yeah,
• 40:15
  Speaker 2: don't tell me. Because I like living in my oblivion. No, no,
• 40:19
  Speaker 2: I'm not.
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: I'm not gonna go ex water and I could go
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: to any coffee house like that.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: Like that part of me has not changed. I am
• 40:29
  Speaker 1: like super simple, dude.
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: My boogieing is is like my people still like the
• 40:36
  Speaker 3: cookout is the cookout?
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah still with that?
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like like the food is still the same, but
• 40:42
  Speaker 2: like I don't eat like that no more.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying, Like for the for them,
• 40:46
  Speaker 1: I see what you're saying. I'm not gonna eat the
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: pig feed and potato salad. No, I'm not eating that. Yeah,
• 40:50
  Speaker 1: that's not boogie to me. That's a lifestyle choice. Bougie
• 40:53
  Speaker 1: to me would be like, oh, what's up man? Oh
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: you're coming through? Cool?
• 40:57
  Speaker 2: You got a char coterie board or something like that?
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: You char COUTERI no, Ryan, geez.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: Louise, I know I'm not like. Don't give me no
• 41:03
  Speaker 1: like them cheese? What do you like that? What do
• 41:06
  Speaker 1: you like? I like fish?
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: Okay, all right, perfect, So don't come with like like
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: I like catfish.
• 41:12
  Speaker 1: Ain't nothing bad. But like I said, I like catfish, Ryan,
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: I said, I like it. You don't eat fried catfish.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: I didn't say I didn't eat.
• 41:19
  Speaker 2: Oh gosh, what is wrong with you?
• 41:25
  Speaker 1: I've insulted Ryan Clark. Hey, I I didn't say that.
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: But I'm a group of guys.
• 41:31
  Speaker 2: I just caught me a big bull red and Galveston
• 41:34
  Speaker 2: a couple of weeks ago.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: A grouper.
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, no, you don't like group of Also, don't fish.
• 41:39
  Speaker 2: All right, I'm done. I'm sick of this.
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: Fish and stupid fish. Is fishing was cool? You if
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: fishing was cool? It is cool.
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: It'll be called catching all right, all right, right because
• 41:53
  Speaker 2: you actually but it's the whole experience. Let me just
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: go fishing with me one day, just one time. I'm fish,
• 42:00
  Speaker 2: so you can therapize me. I'm not gonna therapize you.
• 42:02
  Speaker 2: We talked ship the whole time we be fishing.
• 42:05
  Speaker 1: I don't have I don't have a competitive fishing bone.
• 42:07
  Speaker 1: It's not competitive. It's relaxing. You get over get it.
• 42:10
  Speaker 1: It's like four o'clock in the morning, the sun just
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: coming up. You dropped that thing in the water. Time
• 42:16
  Speaker 1: it is in the morning. No, no, don't listen to
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: that part.
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: And then you dropped, you dropped the lure in the water,
• 42:20
  Speaker 2: and all of a sudden you're talking with your homie
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: and you got all the.
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: Homies and y'all tailler. It's just y'all, y'all on mad time.
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: You're bleeding hearts to each other and all that, and
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden your rod goes and you go, okay,
• 42:29
  Speaker 2: you bang. You set that joint you really in. I
• 42:32
  Speaker 2: wonder what I got. I wonder what I got? And
• 42:33
  Speaker 2: then it come up and it's a thirty five inch fish. Yeah, man,
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: A home and grill that joint.
• 42:38
  Speaker 1: Hope you enjoy it. Come on, all right, won't get
• 42:40
  Speaker 1: me out there? All right? Yeah? I got other things
• 42:42
  Speaker 1: to do.
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: E mudbugs, crawfish, Yeah, absolutely, Okay. I had to figure
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: out where the line is because I don't know where
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: we are right. I'm from New Orleans, of course. Cross.
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: I don't like fishing, Okay, I like fish. That's fine.
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: You don't like fish. I don't fish. I don't heard you. Yeah,
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: it's not. Also, don't do anything dangerous like atv ski.
• 43:05
  Speaker 1: I don't do that any none of those things.
• 43:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a little too I gotta I gotta protect
• 43:09
  Speaker 2: the money maker up top. I want to move to
• 43:20
  Speaker 2: conversation along because you talked about a lot of things.
• 43:23
  Speaker 2: You mentioned something about fear, which I love that you
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: said that, because when somebody looks at you, I don't
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: think they see fear. And black men, there is a
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: fear of failure. I want to read something off to
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: you real quick. Black adults are twenty percent more likely
• 43:39
  Speaker 2: to report very serious psychological distress from any number of stressors.
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: Stressor is anything in your life that causes it's stressed.
• 43:47
  Speaker 2: Anything you like to cause is pain or angst or
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: any negative feelings. But we are still the least likely
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: to reach out for help to deal with distress because
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: it is high key scene to a lot of us
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: still as a weakness, but it's not a weakness, it's
• 44:01
  Speaker 2: just our conditioning. And Ryan, only twenty five percent of
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: black adults seek mental health versus forty percent of white individuals.
• 44:08
  Speaker 2: And if you're telling me to cite my sources, is
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: from Columbia University, the part of psychiatry. Yeah, yeah, we
• 44:16
  Speaker 2: cite the sources. So I know you retired from football
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: after thirteen years. I mean you were all in brother,
• 44:22
  Speaker 2: it looks like you were. You're talking about a film nerd.
• 44:25
  Speaker 2: It comes across like you were all those things. Yeah,
• 44:29
  Speaker 2: after football was over, How we know how you we
• 44:33
  Speaker 2: know where you landed.
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: How did you figure out who to be? Like that
• 44:37
  Speaker 1: transitional period? I never had a transitional period. You just
• 44:41
  Speaker 1: went from blue to blue. Yeah.
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: I started doing TV while I was still playing, So
• 44:47
  Speaker 3: there was a big difference when you're undrafted then to
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: when you're drafted. I was never afforded the comfort of
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: football becoming my identity because I didn't control when it
• 44:58
  Speaker 3: was taken away from me. So I never thought of
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: myself as the helmet that never That never became who
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: I had to be.
• 45:10
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 45:10
  Speaker 3: It was what I did, and when I did it,
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: there was no plan B. But it was never who
• 45:16
  Speaker 3: I was.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: Right. No matter how great I played, people.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: Were never going to see me as this godlike football entity.
• 45:26
  Speaker 1: So I was never treated that way. I never treated
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: myself that way.
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: When you are consistently saying to yourself, how can I
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: be better, then you're never saying to yourself.
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: That I'm enough?
• 45:40
  Speaker 2: That is facts right, And so because of that, always
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: reaching for that thing, always climbing for that thing, I
• 45:50
  Speaker 2: have no regrets. Right, I could walk into any stadium
• 45:54
  Speaker 2: and lose and give up a play and be just
• 45:58
  Speaker 2: as comfortable about No. I pissed off that I want
• 46:01
  Speaker 2: to play better, Absolutely, but I know I poured everything
• 46:04
  Speaker 2: into being the best meat I could possibly be. And
• 46:07
  Speaker 2: a dude who was undrafted, who thirty two teams said
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: for seven rounds, wasn't good enough to play in that league,
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: played thirteen years, won a Super Bowl, was a pro bowler,
• 46:16
  Speaker 2: and a captain of two different organizations. You can't tell
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: me nothing about what I accomplished. And so for me,
• 46:21
  Speaker 2: when it was over, that's because God said it was
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: time to be over. But you know well said that me. Yeah,
• 46:27
  Speaker 2: I decided your times. Yeah, the people didn't tell me
• 46:31
  Speaker 2: I had to go. Yea, I said, you know what,
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: I have done enough. It is time for me to
• 46:36
  Speaker 2: go live a different life.
• 46:39
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: Just for a second, if you listening, I think he
• 46:43
  Speaker 2: just said something that I just got to put a
• 46:45
  Speaker 2: pen in right now, because you just summed up probably
• 46:47
  Speaker 2: about a solid year and a half of therapy in one.
• 46:50
  Speaker 1: Sense, I am enough. I have done enough.
• 46:55
  Speaker 2: And sometimes, and I'm sure you've seen this throughout your life, brother,
• 46:59
  Speaker 2: sometimes when in the pursuit of the thing, we get
• 47:02
  Speaker 2: so wrapped up in the chase that we don't realize
• 47:05
  Speaker 2: that we are in possession of the thing and we're
• 47:08
  Speaker 2: still chasing it, and we don't know when we've done enough.
• 47:11
  Speaker 2: We overstay our time and we end up doing damage
• 47:14
  Speaker 2: to not only ourselves but our families because we don't
• 47:17
  Speaker 2: know when to let go. Because people scoreboard watch Yeah,
• 47:21
  Speaker 2: I mean I scoreboard watch right. It's about life becomes
• 47:25
  Speaker 2: about wins and losses.
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And I do think there are these things in
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: life that have those definites, but only those things have a.
• 47:37
  Speaker 1: True scoreboard, right, I gotta played football.
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: The thing I miss about football sometimes is that, like
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: when I walked off of the field, I knew how
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: well I did and I was comfortable if I didn't
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: do well enough. I was comfortable if I was on
• 47:49
  Speaker 3: the losing end of it. But it was the comfort
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: too in knowing. At least I know, yeah, you know
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: right now. I know on Monday morning, how I have
• 47:58
  Speaker 3: to watch this film, what I have to correct, how
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: I can approach it, Whereas now in life things are
• 48:04
  Speaker 3: so damn subjective.
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: You don't know you don't like work.
• 48:08
  Speaker 2: For instance, I think this is my opinion, I'm one
• 48:14
  Speaker 2: of the best that does my job right.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: The people that give out Sports Emmys think so as well.
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: That doesn't mean that every single show on ESPN is
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: clamoring to have me on because they have their likes
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: and their dislikes and people have their relationships right. And
• 48:33
  Speaker 3: initially that bothered me because I came from a world
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: or no like if you work hard and if you produce,
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: and if you're the dude holding the trophies, then you
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: the dude that gets the playing time right, And I
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: don't feel like I got to go to dinner with you,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: at lunch with you, and be your friend, so you
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: pick me. I'm not a pick me type, dude, You
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: see what I'm saying. But the business works like that sometimes.
• 48:59
  Speaker 3: And when the this was working like that for a
• 49:01
  Speaker 3: small for a small space, I was like, well, I'm
• 49:04
  Speaker 3: the best at it and I'm working the hardest and
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: I say yes to everything and I'm showing up and
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: you don't want me. And my focus, my ego, my pride,
• 49:14
  Speaker 3: was focused on the ones that didn't want me until
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: I had to change that perspective it saying, oh, it's
• 49:19
  Speaker 3: not it's no problem.
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: I get you don't but he does and she or
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: she does. Watch how to elevate what they do?
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: Right? Watch how I repay that confidence overcoming that negative right?
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: And so it was just and so like it's just
• 49:31
  Speaker 2: always like these ebbs and flows of just understanding and
• 49:34
  Speaker 2: rooting yourself in the correct perspective in order to be
• 49:38
  Speaker 2: the best you. Man. That's I feel like that's something
• 49:42
  Speaker 2: that you get with. It used to be a personal
• 49:44
  Speaker 2: trainer and in order to gain muscle, it's you got
• 49:47
  Speaker 2: to move weight through space and it's time of detention,
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: and that's how you grow muscle, and that's how you
• 49:51
  Speaker 2: grow a person time under tension like that, That's exactly
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: what you just described. And so I think, you know,
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: people hate going through the thing, right, but I hate
• 50:05
  Speaker 2: going through the thing right from that exactly. But the
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: things are what make you the In my opinion, the
• 50:16
  Speaker 2: most successful people find glory in reframing suffering. Yeah, right,
• 50:26
  Speaker 2: because when you frame something as suffering, there's an inherent
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: misery that goes along with it. When you frame it
• 50:37
  Speaker 2: as sacrifice, it becomes a requirement.
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: My son with the Jets. Now, my son, like he
• 50:45
  Speaker 3: wasn't tall, he wasn't the fastest, and so like I was,
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: he's like, he came to me in eighth grade that
• 50:50
  Speaker 3: I want to college scholarship, so I can help you
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: with that.
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 50:53
  Speaker 2: There were days he was crying and he'd be mad
• 50:56
  Speaker 2: at me, and I say.
• 50:57
  Speaker 3: Son, all you gotta tell me is you no longer
• 51:00
  Speaker 3: want the thing that you told me you want. And
• 51:02
  Speaker 3: I'll be like every other day and I'll just sit
• 51:04
  Speaker 3: in the stands. I said, it's your decision, I said,
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: because I love you no matter what. In college paid for,
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: I say, so.
• 51:12
  Speaker 2: If you don't want that anymore, just say it say Dad,
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: that's not what I want.
• 51:15
  Speaker 1: I'll let you be.
• 51:16
  Speaker 2: And every time he would make the decision because he
• 51:18
  Speaker 2: knew that was what he wanted. And I make him
• 51:21
  Speaker 2: wake up and work out in the morning. He would
• 51:23
  Speaker 2: have to go work out after his workouts and my
• 51:25
  Speaker 2: wife would be like, why are you making Jordan go
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: do all these other things like such and such. Dad,
• 51:30
  Speaker 2: don't make him do I said that ain't my child, right,
• 51:33
  Speaker 2: And I said, and that child didn't tell me he
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: wanted what my son wants. But my point was to
• 51:37
  Speaker 2: him to let him know that you're not suffering, you're sacrificing.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: And sacrifice is a requirement of being anything that you
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: want to be. But so many times when people are
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: going through difficulties because they say they want a certain thing,
• 51:52
  Speaker 2: they think they're suffering. Right, And if you're suffering, you're
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: never going to show up as the best you because
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: that misery won't allow you to right. But when you're sacrificing,
• 52:02
  Speaker 2: you're telling yourself, I'm doing this because I want it
• 52:06
  Speaker 2: and I want to you pursue things a different way. Yeah,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: what you what you're describing is the quintessential growth mindset. Yeah,
• 52:14
  Speaker 2: that is the growth mindset. So you're outspoken, I mean
• 52:18
  Speaker 2: very outspoken. It's my favorite thing about you. If I
• 52:21
  Speaker 2: see on the Hord, John Come just said something I
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: think you were talking about.
• 52:24
  Speaker 1: I'm really deep in the football weeds.
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: See, I'm I'm a nerd. I'm a football nerd. Brother
• 52:30
  Speaker 2: John com says something about you. I think it's about
• 52:32
  Speaker 2: a meek me Robinson. I know you know him personally.
• 52:35
  Speaker 2: We just we just got him on the team with
• 52:37
  Speaker 2: the commander is. Yeah, he five. But the boy got
• 52:38
  Speaker 2: hart men. We played in the playoffs. He was like
• 52:40
  Speaker 2: the fourth corner back on your death shot. Yeah, yeah,
• 52:43
  Speaker 2: I like that. He's gonna play slot. We're gonna push
• 52:45
  Speaker 2: Mike Sanva still my my homie. Were gonna push him
• 52:48
  Speaker 2: to the side. Yeah, Mikey my dog. I got breast
• 52:50
  Speaker 2: with him sometimes. Dude, man, good dude. He hates you
• 52:53
  Speaker 2: like my wife. So we be talking about the food.
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: You gotta get on Hatian food too. I'm gonna put
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: you on all right.
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: So how do you decide when something is worth saying
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: out allowed when you know the costs. Well, it's a
• 53:04
  Speaker 1: good question. It used to be and it's changed. It
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: used to be.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: If I could continue if I could look myself in
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: the mirror and not feel any less of what I
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: was made to be.
• 53:24
  Speaker 1: If I didn't say it, then I wouldn't say it.
• 53:27
  Speaker 1: N that's crazy to come off the top of your
• 53:28
  Speaker 1: head with that, right, Like so if if.
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: It didn't move me enough to where I felt like
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: I was being inauthentic or dishonest with myself, like the
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: things that I know are going to.
• 53:40
  Speaker 1: Cause a stir.
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: Yeah, right, if I if I would look myself in
• 53:44
  Speaker 3: the mirror and be like, you allowed what you thought,
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: the perception of what you were going to say, You
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: allowed that to make you shrink from who God.
• 53:55
  Speaker 1: Made you to be. That's a tough thing to deal
• 53:57
  Speaker 1: with with.
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: Yourself, right and so and so and so like I would,
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: that would be difficult for me.
• 54:03
  Speaker 1: It's changed now.
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: We had an incident I'm sure you may know about
• 54:09
  Speaker 3: this with RG three and he says something about injuries,
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: and I responded, and I remember and to this day
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: my response was factual, right, But it caused this reverberation
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: that my family had to deal with, really that my
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: wife was attacked online and my kids were having to
• 54:33
  Speaker 3: defend me in all these things, and you know, we
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: actually had an argument about it at the house and
• 54:41
  Speaker 3: my wife said, you don't know how often everyone else
• 54:46
  Speaker 3: has to deal with what you say. And I was
• 54:51
  Speaker 3: operating from the silo of what me saying or not
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: saying something does for me. And that changed my perspective, right,
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: because now I know it's not just me. I know
• 55:04
  Speaker 3: it's these people that I love and that love me
• 55:06
  Speaker 3: as well, who now become a part of whatever I do.
• 55:11
  Speaker 3: And so it's it's It hasn't as much taken me
• 55:14
  Speaker 3: away from talking about things that I believe are important
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: to me, things that are important to my community, standing
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: up for people who don't have the voices or platform
• 55:25
  Speaker 3: that I have, But it.
• 55:27
  Speaker 1: Has changed the way I speak about it, right.
• 55:32
  Speaker 3: I understand what words or trigger words that could be
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: used to contextualize what I said in a way that
• 55:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't the way you didn't attend, right, And so
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: I have had to be smarter about that. And I
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: think that just comes with wisdom, right, because think about
• 55:48
  Speaker 3: the world we're in, bro, And I said this the
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: other day, I'm never ever in life having a back
• 55:54
  Speaker 3: and forth like I'm not like, you're not gonna go.
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: Talk about me on your podcast I'm gonna talk about
• 55:59
  Speaker 2: you on my podcast, and you can talk about me
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: on your podcast.
• 56:02
  Speaker 1: And we're gonna do this back and forth.
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: Like that's never gonna happen, right, because I've been in
• 56:06
  Speaker 3: this space long enough, and I've had people talk about
• 56:08
  Speaker 3: me where I've dm them.
• 56:11
  Speaker 1: I say, hey, man, where are you at up on you?
• 56:13
  Speaker 3: We have had this conversation face to face, right, And I've
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: had people tell me, nah, I want a verbally spark.
• 56:18
  Speaker 2: I don't live like that, right, I don't do this
• 56:21
  Speaker 2: for entertainment, right. And so when you learn that, it
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: now takes you away from having an actual personal feeling
• 56:29
  Speaker 2: about what people say.
• 56:30
  Speaker 3: So I don't have to respond to that. But it's
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: also changed the way I talk about topics. Like let's
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: say you're talking about a topic and I disagree with
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: your take, right, and I wanted to talk about it.
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: I'll say that you brought the topic up. I'll say
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: what your take is, and I'll never talk about you
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: again because now I'm gonna go into how I.
• 56:49
  Speaker 1: Feel about the subject.
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: I never have to say I disagree with this city, said,
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: disagree with this city said. I can just talk about
• 56:55
  Speaker 2: the certain thing and say this is how I feel
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: because we are in the world where we speak about
• 57:01
  Speaker 2: people's takes almost as much as we speak about the
• 57:03
  Speaker 2: actual actions. Right, But there's a way I can do
• 57:07
  Speaker 2: that without attacking you.
• 57:08
  Speaker 1: That's so media savvy man, right, and.
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: So but I had to learn that because and I'm
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: just being real bro, like I'm still from New Orleans,
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: and the same way you saying how you don't like
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: when people throw that B word out like that, we
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: talked about disrespect earlier.
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: I feel like disrespect has to be.
• 57:22
  Speaker 2: Checked in a certain way, and immediately right, it has
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: to be checked in a certain way. But you also
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: have to realize we're getting to a place now where
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: people disrespect you so.
• 57:33
  Speaker 1: They can get your shine.
• 57:35
  Speaker 2: I'm there now, just in my public figure in this
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: and I always say I'm a therapist, bro, But y'all crazy, y'all,
• 57:41
  Speaker 2: y'all forgot that there is no safety in person like
• 57:45
  Speaker 2: you can get punched in the face in real life.
• 57:47
  Speaker 2: I'm not saying I'll do it because I like brand
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: deals and not having lawsuits and stuff like that, but
• 57:52
  Speaker 2: like you can. They say that men aren't inherently violent,
• 57:55
  Speaker 2: and there is a lot of context with that, but
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: in nature, nature falls down the whether or not I
• 58:00
  Speaker 2: can f you up, because if all those falls down,
• 58:02
  Speaker 2: we can just toss the hands and get physical. Was
• 58:04
  Speaker 2: I I am, I one hundred percent agree with that,
• 58:08
  Speaker 2: And because well, once you learn that, not everybody's like that.
• 58:15
  Speaker 2: In one of my less proud moments, that's somebody who
• 58:18
  Speaker 2: was constantly talking about me, right, and I saw them
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: in person and they did something that I thought was
• 58:25
  Speaker 2: some f stuff, But we were in a setting where
• 58:28
  Speaker 2: it was about being respectful to the people that invited
• 58:31
  Speaker 2: us to the selling and pull them up on it.
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: And they went on their show and they talked about
• 58:34
  Speaker 2: it and they said, yeah, I saw him, and you
• 58:36
  Speaker 2: know he'd be talking tough, but I shook his hand
• 58:39
  Speaker 2: this and this. And the next time I saw him,
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: I saw him at Catch in Vegas and he was
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: with his wife and I got her from the table
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: with my family.
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: I got it from the table. I ain't say nothing
• 58:48
  Speaker 3: to nobody. I walked over to him. He was with
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: his wife. I tapped him on the should. They turned around.
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: He's like, oh, hey, what's up.
• 58:54
  Speaker 1: I was like, Nah, you know, I don't fuck with you.
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: I said no, I said, whatever issues we have, get
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: us get to settle now, and he's like, nah, man,
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: this and this I said, when I go tell that
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: story and you put the ads show.
• 59:05
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: But in walking away from that, I also realized that
• 59:12
  Speaker 3: I gave him the opportunity to make me lose everything
• 59:18
  Speaker 3: i'd earned, right, because I already knew what my mindset was,
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: so based on his reaction, based on his reaction to that, right,
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: because I'm thinking about what if you did me that
• 59:27
  Speaker 3: in front of my wife.
• 59:29
  Speaker 1: We got to move all the furniture in the restaurant.
• 59:31
  Speaker 3: One thousand, right, we got to move all the furniture
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: in the restaurant because we for sure not be in
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: a discussion. And you'll be like, you ain't do no, no, boy,
• 59:38
  Speaker 3: ran up on. You ain't catch now what I'm gonna say, right,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: you know what I mean. And so but I realized,
• 59:43
  Speaker 3: like there are things in this place in our life,
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: bro that we have to just.
• 59:49
  Speaker 1: Let it be what it is, leave it alone.
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: And it's hard, and it feels inauthentic in a way,
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: but you get to deal with those things with yourself.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 3: And so now, man, I've just gotten to the point
• 1:00:02
  Speaker 3: to be able to ignore, to be able to move
• 1:00:05
  Speaker 3: on and to be able to just continue winning. And
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: that's like the best revenge ever man, to have somebody
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 3: that talks about you all the time and you never
• 1:00:14
  Speaker 3: acknowledge them.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: And then like sometimes in their mind they be like, yeah, man,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: we enemies. No no, no, no, you're I'm your enemy.
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: I don't think about you. I don't even know you. Yeah,
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: I don't give you any brain space at all. But
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: I think that's important.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I had, even me and me being therapist, mindset, health, wellness,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 2: all that. I think there's a part of the black
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: male experience that you gotta fight to not be victimized.
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: It's a constant fight to not be victimized. And if
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 2: you're not a black man, I don't think you understand
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 2: exactly what that fight is like. But I took my
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: kids to a theme park in Jersey and I saw dude.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: I had static with looking the project with this family too. Like,
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: even this was a few months ago, a part of
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 2: me want to smack the fire out of him.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: Man.
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: But I looked at him and he looked at me,
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 2: and it was just like a all right, man, that's done.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: Just go on.
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 3: But I think there's there's so much power in being
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: able to say that that things are done and having
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 3: the ability, the maturity, the.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: Wherewithal to move on without resolution.
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: That's that is, that's that's grown as manning. Ryan Clark,
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 2: all right, let's get through this. Let's get to this
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: lightning around real quick.
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 1: I some ask you some questions. I'm answering to you. Ready,
• 1:01:29
  Speaker 1: you're ready? Uh, Ryan, I want to know quick answer
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: what failure shaped you the most?
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: And it's it's the one that you never erase even
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: though it costs you something big.
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 1: I don't have a failure that has has shaped me
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 1: the most. I don't. I don't remember failing. Hmmm, right,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: I don't.
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 3: I've never had that that moment where it was like
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: I failed.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 1: You know, I've had moments where I didn't get what
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 1: I wanted. But you don't contest vitalize it as a failure.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 2: No.
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 1: I think.
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest failures are and I think a
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 3: true failure is when you were meant to be or
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: do something and because of your actions, that thing doesn't happen.
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 2: Man, one of my frat brothers, my kneels on my
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: younger frat brothers, he told me this bar one time
• 1:02:28
  Speaker 2: in Dallas. He said, you only a failure when you
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: stopped trying and it was still time on the clock.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and I agree with that.
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: Now, I've had like setbacks, you know, I think you
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: know not being drafted was one of them.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I wouldn't considered that a failure. But I'll tell
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: you why it changed me.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: I can tell you why not being drafted is because
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 3: I didn't look at it as a failure like we said.
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 1: I could tell you why it changed me.
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: Going into my senior year, in every publication, the three
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: top safeties in the country were Edtery, Roy Williams, and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 3: Ryan Clark. I was on every preseason ll s CC
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: team crazy List, I was on every preseason SEC team.
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: I was on all these all American teams, right, And
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: I remember how out of character I became during that season,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 3: drinking a ton after the game on Saturdays, not making
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: it to workouts right when I had always been the
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 3: first that workout, the first across the line, all of
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: those things. I knew what that switch was. I knew
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 3: that in some of my failures, it wasn't just not performing,
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: it was not preparing right. And I said that day
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: when I wasn't drafted, the reason I was able to
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: accept it is because I was able to say I
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 3: didn't deserve it, because I didn't put in what I
• 1:03:48
  Speaker 3: was supposed to, and that will never happen again in
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: any phase of my work.
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: It's crazy. That's one of my mantras, right.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 2: That was walking across the street one time and this
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 2: dude had like this fancy car and I was on
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 2: the phone my cousin. I'm like, damn, must be nice
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 2: to drive that. He said, Bro, you ain't put it
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: in the work to drive that joint. Ask him what
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 2: he did to get it? Changed my life forever. I
• 1:04:05
  Speaker 2: was mad at him at the time. I didn't want
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: to hear that shit.
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 1: But yeah, he was right. I think my failure that's
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 1: a really good answer.
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: My failure is because my answer was yours and that
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 2: I thought about it.
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 1: It was mismanaging money. Mismanaging money.
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: I never had any type of change in my pocket,
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: and I got a lot of scarcity trauma from growing.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 2: So I hold on the cash. You know, you don't
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: know until you get a little bit of money. Your
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 2: pocket of cash is worthless, it doesn't do anything. And
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: then you get a little bit more money in your pocket,
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 2: realize you got to hide your money and different investments.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 2: Nobody ever taught me that and ended up having to
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 2: take out a personal loan to pay my mortgage. Man, Yeah,
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: it was that tight. So far from that. Thankful for
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 2: the lesson, But I was a personal failure on my behalf.
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 2: Not because I'm not enough, because I just didn't have
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 2: a tutelach you had anybody teach me?
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 1: Man, when it happens like that?
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 2: All right, next answer the next question you answered, and
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 2: I answered, I want to know the version of you
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 2: that exists in ten years, ten years from now it
• 1:04:59
  Speaker 2: looks back on who you you are today.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: What do you hope that he's the most proud of.
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 2: I hope that he's the best husband he could possibly
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 2: be outstanding. If I look at any part of my
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 2: life personally where I would say I felt at times,
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 2: it would be being a husband, man.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: That's a whole other episode. It would be.
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 2: Misunderstanding when she wanted me to draw closer but couldn't
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 2: communicate it so I distanced myself.
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: You know. It would be.
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 3: Not being savvy enough and understanding her enough that when
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: she's saying you work too much, she's not saying you work.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: Too much she's saying she missed you. I want you here,
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: I want your presence. You see what I'm saying. And
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 1: as somebody who.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: Takes a ton of pride in being able to provide, right,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: I think for a man, providing is biblical.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: It feels and it feels really good.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Right, it's biblical. And hearing you work too much, it's like,
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: how can you say that? Like you don't say that
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 3: when you go on vacation.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: You don't know, but like that's the I'm laughing because
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 2: that's the ego in you.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 1: Absolutely, you see what I'm saying. And to not blame her.
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, for that, that's the key. That's the key pieces
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 2: that blame.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: People, not blame her.
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: And so, uh, you know, that's something I talk about
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: in therapy. A ton is being able to anticipate, because
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: I believe the the best husband's, the best wives, the
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 3: best friends are able to anticipate needs.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: They're not reactive. So the version of me at that time.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: Because you know, like you said, you had kids with
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: your non wife before you were married. I have my
• 1:07:03
  Speaker 3: oldest daughter, even though we raised her, it's not my
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: wife's you know, And so the only like the purest
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: love I knew was the love for my children, And
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: in knowing that love, I would compare that to the
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: love I had for my wife, and I would focus
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: more so on the differences than the similarities, right. And
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: I don't think I ever fully invested in learning how
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: to love her best because I thought I did all
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 3: these other things as a husband so well.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 2: I was like, man, we are eating Man's like yeah,
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 2: I was like, man, I will work. I was like,
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 2: I will never sleep if it means that you don't
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: that you don't ever have to want for anything. And
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 2: if you married the right woman, that's actually the last thing.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: She thinks you put all that time into that. It's like,
• 1:07:53
  Speaker 1: my brother, that ain't what I asked for.
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so I think, and so I think for you know,
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: for me, you know, that would be the important thing.
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 3: My therapist were having a conversation about providing needs, right,
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: and she said, you know, person could ask you for water,
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: right and you leave the room and you come back
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: with a grouper because you're like, man, I went out,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: I caught this, I cooked it for you, and they say,
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: thank you, that's so sweet, but can I please have
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 3: some waters?
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 1: Right? Right?
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 2: And you and then you leave the room again, and
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 2: you come back with the gift. Yeah, like, I know
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 2: you thirsty, but you know I went on and I
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 2: bought you this bracelet and they say, yeah, I love that,
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 2: but can I get some water? Then you leave the
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 2: room again and you come back with a car because
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 2: you like, shoot, I know she's gonna be happy with
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 2: a car. And they're like, I'm so grateful for this car,
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 2: but could you please just get me this water? Because
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 2: the water was the thing that they needed, the thing
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 2: that was going to fulfill them. The three things you
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 2: brought the first time were the things that were going
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 2: to fail.
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 1: You absolutely tell your therapist. I say, he's a dog
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 1: or she's a dog. She is. My therapist is a
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 1: woman too, she's dog.
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and that and that's and that story really conceptualize
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: it for me.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 1: It's like Jesus and parodies, right.
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 2: Sometimes somebody could tell you a thing, but they tell
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 2: your story and it you get it. And that and
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: that taught me a lot. So Ryan just talked about
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 2: therapy and I have a therapist too. We're both actively
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 2: in therapy. I just talked to my therapist the other day.
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: She hit me up when I was in the gym.
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 2: It's it's she's hilarious. It's for a man out there listening.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 2: Because everybody not down with therapy. Some people are afraid
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 2: of therapy. Or maybe you went and you need to
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 2: reconnect because it's been a while, maybe you haven't found
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: the right fit.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: Whatever.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: There may be a question of how often you go,
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 2: or whether you need to be with your therapist for life.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 2: I'll talk about how my therapy goes, and then Ryan,
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: if you kind of explain yours. So now, I used
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: to see her every week because I got clinical depression,
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: and I struggle with clinical depression. Sometimes it's worse than others.
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: Right now, that's the best I've ever felt in my
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: life because regimented brother. I get sunlight, I play with
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 2: my kids. I'm not on my phone. I don't got
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: no instance. It's running through my bloodstream.
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 1: You know. I'm exercising. I enjoy what I do.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: Uh.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 1: I got it under control really well.
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 2: Might not always be that way, but I got it
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 2: under control right now, which I appreciate. So I don't
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 2: see her. I see her like once every month now
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: maybe every three months. But if I need her more,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: I'll pick up on more. So you don't have to go.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 2: Sometimes I see her two times a week if it's
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 2: real bad. Sometimes I her once a quarter and there
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: ain't no love lost. She does not She doesn't care
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 2: how often I see her.
• 1:10:27
  Speaker 1: She just wants me. Well, so, how often do you
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: see your therapy? Yeah? So I probably started three years ago? Okay,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 1: that's what's up. Which was late?
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 3: Nah, No, late is one of is man, you know,
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: but it was every week and then last week actually,
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 3: so this is a good time to talk about it.
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: Last week she goes, you know, maybe you don't need
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 3: to talk to me every week.
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 1: Oh, she spreading your You know what that means.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 2: You know, that means you moving along your treatment playing, Well,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 2: that's exactly, that means you on time.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 3: Yeah, she was like, maybe you don't need to see
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: me every Oh, that's a good sign. She was like,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 3: you know, next time we talk, you know, we'll discussed
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: about whom we need to do it. And she's like
• 1:11:02
  Speaker 3: and in no way, She's like, if you still feel
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: like you want to talk to me every week, She's
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: like absolutely, she's good. But she was like, you know what,
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: I feel like you have progressed and moved along. She's like,
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: I don't ever want you to get off the call
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: with me or walk out of my office and feel
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: like I didn't need that, right, she said, She's like,
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 3: I don't want you to feel like you're forcing a
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: conversation with me, that you're trying to make things wrong
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: when they aren't. And so you know, we've gotten to
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: that point. But I will say this about therapy. I
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: was speaking to her when we first started, from my
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: present perspective, how I saw life, how I made decisions,
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: what my actions were, and that was a far more
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: evolved me than everyone that was close to me had
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 3: an opportunity to live with, right, Whereas for me.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: You know, and I always that to my home words.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: I was like, man, you know, my problem is I'd
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 3: be one people forgiveness to work with my evolution of
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: decision making. Oh yeah, right, Like yeah, I like like,
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: if in this moment, I ain't making these decisions and
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: treating you this way, that's why I.
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 1: Want you to live with me, That's why I want your
• 1:12:20
  Speaker 1: level of forgiveness. Hell, but that's not it.
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: And so one day I sat with her because I
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: would talk about all these different relationships in my life
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: and these people, and I was like, you know what,
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: there's so much that I haven't told you, and I
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: learned about me that I didn't tell her because I
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: was embarrassed, right. I was like, there's nobody who just
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: can hear things and not judge. What if I tell
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 3: this woman this, What is she gonna think of me?
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 3: If I tell her this? What is she gonna think
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 3: of me?
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 2: And the day I decided to do that, bro, I
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 2: unloaded so much decades of stuff she had because I
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 2: was sad about it.
• 1:13:02
  Speaker 1: She had to tell me after the call, She's.
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: Like, you know, I don't think you're a bad person
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: because of these things. She's like, these are things we
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: need to unpack. She was like, but now I can
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 2: truly help you.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: That's right, you know.
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 3: But I kept all that to myself because I was like,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 3: I don't want this person to see me in that way.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 3: But I wasn't allowing her to know me well enough
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: to help me. And I think that was the day
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: truly like therapy unlocked for me because I never had
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: anything to hide, right, I never had to think to myself,
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: well did I tell her this story?
• 1:13:37
  Speaker 1: Because IM yeah, like did yeah? Did you know?
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: And so I think then I always say that, like,
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: if you do decide to go to therapy, you have
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 3: to be willing to be one hundred open and honest
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: because if you don't, they're actually not talking to the
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: real you.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: Absolutely, and I can't help you if you are telling
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 2: me that you want Mount Kate and you're not bringing
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: me all the ingredients, we're not going to cake and
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 2: the session. And I tell my clients sometimes I just
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: square away, like, hey, if you ever tell me your
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: story and you don't, you can't find a brave moment
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: to tell it honestly, just when just think about it
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: and the next session just bring it up like, hey,
• 1:14:11
  Speaker 2: I didn't really say this the way I wanted to.
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Let me give it to your different way. I agree,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 2: because what we have for our clients is this is
• 1:14:16
  Speaker 2: therapist nerd coming out. It's called unconditional positive regard. An
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 2: unconditional positive regard means there's nothing you can say that's
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: going to make me judge you or look at you differently.
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: And in grad school, because therapy is very westernized, very European,
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: and grad school we learn that you're not supposed to
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: self disclosed in sessions. You're not supposed to sy anything
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: about yourself, and sometimes I don't because if you're dealing
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: with certain populations of people that you disclosing about yourself
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 2: GUIDs their thoughts in a way where their thoughts need
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 2: to be more organic. And I don't want to steer
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 2: you overhandily. But with black men, you have.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: To self disclose.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: And I you know, one of my clients one time
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: told me, they told me that, you know, I think
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 2: you're judging me. And I said, you want me to
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: give you an honest answer? Said yes, I got twenty
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 2: five y'all. Bro, I'm not I promise you, I'm not
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: judging you. It's I'm not thinking about a value statement
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: on you.
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: I'm thinking about how I can use this to help you,
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: you know.
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: And I think you know, therapy wasn't something I grew
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 2: up with and understanding that that was an option, right
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: I grew up.
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 3: I grew up in I'm a Southern Baptist. My mom
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: just wants to pray everything away. Yeah, my mom prays
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 3: everything away. And my dad actually just never has a
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 3: problem that you know of, right, Like he is the happiest,
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: most positive person, Like I should to be like pop man,
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: like you always the only time you come to church,
• 1:15:37
  Speaker 3: like you just get there right before the service, Like, boy,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 3: I ain't got to listen to people sing, right. And
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 3: now my dad's like the pastor's right hand man. But
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: he used to always tell me he's like Bud. He
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 3: called me bub Bubba's my nickname. He's like, bub, I'm
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: always going to be good because of the way I
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 3: treat people, right, He's like, he's like, he's like so
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: many people you see in church. They're praying and asking
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: God for these things, and they refused to live the
• 1:16:01
  Speaker 3: way he told them to live in.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker 2: The Bible straight up. And he was like, and that's
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 2: the thing I'm gonna do before I do it straight up.
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 1: That's that's a solid brother right there. You know what
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 1: I'm saying.
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: And so like, you know, so I didn't grow up
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: with people telling me that this was an option. It
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: really was my wife, who's now getting her PhD in
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: clinical counseling, which is the worst thing ever.
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 1: Oh she cooking you, and oh she be therapizing me.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 2: She's cooking another night she gonna hit me with a well,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 2: why do you think you feel that way? I don't
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: want to know why I feel that way, y'all reflected, listen.
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 1: I turned.
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 2: My wife is a lawyer and I try not to
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 2: therapize her, so I just shut up, just like, yeah,
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 2: not man.
• 1:16:40
  Speaker 1: Ryan, this is man. This is great. Man. I appreciate you.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: Man.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 1: This was fun.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: This was this was this was like therapy. Honestly, So
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: I appreciate you inviting me on. Man, giving me the opportunity
• 1:16:50
  Speaker 3: is my honor.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker 2: If you were here and you're listening to this podcast
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 2: and anything resonates in your soul of spirit if anything
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 2: Ryan said, because he said a lot, Man, I want
• 1:17:01
  Speaker 2: you to just after you cut off this pod, just
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 2: take a second.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: Just take a second and allow yourself a moment to
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 2: think and process.
• 1:17:09
  Speaker 1: Don't judge what you're thinking, don't evaluate what you're thinking.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 2: Just allow your thoughts to exist. Question your thoughts, interrogate them, wonder.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 2: Get your whimsy back, my boy, get your whimsy back.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: But I mean, I don't know people. You don't have
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 2: to tell people where you are. I feel like everybody knows.
• 1:17:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm uncomfortable. I don't we got to do that.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: I'm very comfortable now. It's Ryan Quay. You know where
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 1: to find them.
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 2: Pivot Podcasts ESPN on your phone screen saying something mean
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 2: but true about your favorite team and us.
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: We Learn the Hard Way.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 2: I am your host here Games, and thank y'all for listening.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker 2: Thank you for your attention and your awareness. Till next time,
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 2: y'all be good. Jobo done, He's out. Learn the Hard
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 2: Way is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I'm your host
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 2: here Games. We're produced by Courtney Dean's and Cason Alexander Ashley.
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: Jay Hobbs is our senior producer.
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Will Packer, Doctor Joey hard and Bradford,
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 2: Alex Balden, and Carla Willmaris