Latest / Voices for Voices® / The Smallest Wins Nobody Celebrates | Rebuilding After Trauma | Lawrence C. Harris

Transcript

The Smallest Wins Nobody Celebrates | Rebuilding After Trauma | Lawrence C. Harris · Voices for Voices®

• 0:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Hi everyone, it's Justin here, Voices for Voices.
• 0:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you very much for joining us on this episode of the show.
• 0:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, whether you're watching, listening here in the United States or in one of the 115 countries across the world, uh, we're grateful to have you here.
• 0:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Whether this is your first show you're tuning into, you're in for a treat, or if you've been with us from the beginning, uh, we're very grateful.
• 0:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If you can do us uh some uh easy, quick, free things, give us some thumbs up, like, follow, subscribe, share, reshare, repost, and even maybe reach out.
• 0:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh think because I got the the background here.
• 0:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh hold my phone up if you can reach out to maybe 25 of your contacts and just share the Voices for Voices podcast with uh your contacts.
• 0:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I know you won't be disappointed or your contacts.
• 0:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um I am very excited for uh this particular episode.
• 1:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I've uh uh not just myself but the other organization.
• 1:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've uh we're trying to reach people, humans across all backgrounds, all age ranges, everything, and define a uh I'll say up and coming, but an up-and-coming motivational speaker on mental health, uh, 20 years old, uh has his own show, um, is uh speaking at every uh every chance he gets.
• 1:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it's uh it's tough to find people at at that age that want to share and and talk.
• 1:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know, sometimes it's shame and you know, the stigma, and you know, all those types of things, which I'm I'm I'm sure uh our guests will get into.
• 2:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But uh just wanted to give my uh thanks for for him switching his schedule.
• 2:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We uh we were conversing back and forth, and uh it just so happened, I was like, yeah, let's the sooner the better.
• 2:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like this is this is great, let's do it.
• 2:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So without further ado, I want to introduce our guest for this show, uh, Mr.
• 2:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Lawrence C.
• 2:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Harris.
• 2:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh Lawrence, thank you so much for joining us.
• 2:30
  Speaker: Thank you for having me.
• 2:32
  Speaker: I just brought my uh microphone connected, so let me get the uh good sound.
• 2:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, yeah, definitely.
• 2:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so I I guess maybe we'll just start out what what made you wanna do work in uh the mental health space?
• 2:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's uh uh a lot of people doing a lot of great things.
• 2:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh but everybody has a different story.
• 3:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So I'm just curious, you know, for our listeners and our viewers, uh, wherever they they may be finding us uh to find out like how mental health like even found its place in your life.
• 3:16
  Speaker: Well, the reason why I got into it was because I figured out what worked for me and decided I'm gonna put it out there and try to help other people.
• 3:24
  Speaker: Growing up, I experienced a lot of severe bullying, childhood abuse, living with autism, and all of these things just stacked on top of one another led me to some really dark mental health bases where I was pushing people away.
• 3:42
  Speaker: I was 16-hour screen times, not sleeping, barely eating, acne.
• 3:49
  Speaker: It was like room was filthy, didn't want to let people help me.
• 3:55
  Speaker: I was just taking my anger out on people who had nothing to do with it.
• 4:01
  Speaker: Now, at the age of 15, I was able to start seeing progress in my own life, you know, thanks to therapy and journaling and honestly getting to a point where I was like, I can't keep living like this, I have to figure something out to get better.
• 4:19
  Speaker: So as I began seeing, like, wait, I was able to clean my bed today.
• 4:27
  Speaker: I went outside.
• 4:29
  Speaker: Like, things that sound so small but are really so big.
• 4:34
  Speaker: When I was able to get myself from A to B, even though I knew I wasn't at Z yet, I was like, let me turn around and share.
• 4:47
  Speaker: Like, hey guys, um, here's how to be more confident.
• 4:51
  Speaker: And I started making TikToks and YouTube videos and one thing led to another, and I was like, wait, I need to go get this out there to the world even farther.
• 5:02
  Speaker: So, you know, you start volunteering at churches, you start volunteering, and you just one thing led to another.
• 5:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, and and I'm glad uh you you're you're being so transparent, and I and I I appreciate that.
• 5:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um because it's uh it's a lot of personal things, right?
• 5:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, we're talking about how we're feeling.
• 5:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um same way when I was in kind of my depths of despair in 2017, uh to your point, you know, getting a shower, doing the small things that some people are like, yeah, like that's just what you do.
• 5:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like it's no big deal.
• 5:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like, yeah, it kind of was a big deal.
• 5:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I brushed my teeth for the first time in a week, or uh what whatever the thing or things are, uh I I think you know, by you sharing, it's letting people know and have letting people know that they're not alone, that there's somebody else just like me.
• 6:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know, we're all we're all unique individuals, and to have somebody just by happenstance stumbling on one of your shows, one of your speeches, uh, one of one of our shows with you on and like, wait, wait, wait a minute.
• 6:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, I'm not the only one that that that's been through that.
• 6:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um it's just awesome.
• 6:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So when you started sharing, I know it maybe it's not um maybe it wasn't difficult.
• 6:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I I I don't know for you, but it it it's one thing to start doing the things for yourself, but then to share them, like you said, you started doing the TikToks.
• 6:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Was there like any uh any moment that clicked that said, all right, I I want to help people, and I'm gonna do a video on this particular thing or that particular thing, or was it just more like a natural thing where one day you're just like, all right, let's do this?
• 7:20
  Speaker: Well, it was a combination of both because firstly, I already knew that I'm just naturally a really talkative person.
• 7:28
  Speaker: Like, I kid you not, when I graduated high school, my award was more talkative.
• 7:34
  Speaker: So I always knew that somehow, someway, I'd find myself making online content about something.
• 7:43
  Speaker: I just didn't know what it would be.
• 7:45
  Speaker: Yeah, the reason that like it clicked, like, okay, I'm going to start taking my problems and putting it on the internet and saying, hey guys, um, so when I was 12, my dad used to beat me and I got really depressed, and then he kicked me out the house at 13, and it really sucked.
• 8:04
  Speaker: But here's what I did to get better.
• 8:07
  Speaker: The reason why I started doing that was because we have so many speakers and nothing against them, who they give you the generic, you know, believe in yourself.
• 8:19
  Speaker: Great advice.
• 8:20
  Speaker: You can do it.
• 8:22
  Speaker: Great advice.
• 8:23
  Speaker: I love that.
• 8:24
  Speaker: However, what have you been through?
• 8:27
  Speaker: Tell me about when you had to believe in yourself.
• 8:32
  Speaker: Tell me about when you felt insecure.
• 8:34
  Speaker: Like, I I want to see the validity.
• 8:38
  Speaker: Like, I don't want to hear about your degree in this, I want to hear about your lived experience.
• 8:44
  Speaker: So I gave my lived experience so people could see that oh, he didn't just wake up like that.
• 8:53
  Speaker: He didn't just like one day a light bulb went off and everything became perfect.
• 9:02
  Speaker: No, this guy has flaws.
• 9:04
  Speaker: This guy went through things.
• 9:06
  Speaker: I can relate to him, I can see that we may not have gone through the same thing, but I'm not perfect, he's not perfect, and he's sharing things I can actually do to get better.
• 9:21
  Speaker: And because I knew that's what I wanted, I gave that to the world in hopes that, you know, like you said, somebody stumbles onto it, and they realize that oh, I'm not the only one.
• 9:33
  Speaker: And because of that, um I've had experiences that just would have amazed my younger self.
• 9:43
  Speaker: Like I uh a few months back, there was this girl who DM'd me this like really long message about how one of my videos helped her get out of a toxic relationship and she started talking to her family more, and um she was in foster care because her parents were like addicts or something, so it was just even though I never went through addiction or foster care or any of that, I'm like, wait, this stuff's really helping people.
• 10:15
  Speaker: Or in October of last year, I was speaking at an event for you ever heard of Nami?
• 10:22
  Speaker: Oh yeah, yeah, for their Philadelphia chapter.
• 10:26
  Speaker: Okay, and this guy came up after my speech and he started like hugging me and crying and told me he was a um veteran from like Korea, like he was a Korean war vet.
• 10:37
  Speaker: And how a lot of the stuff I was talking about, like about journaling and how to manage your thoughts and self-care practices, that was the saint of his therapist had been telling him.
• 10:49
  Speaker: So it's beautiful how everything has developed over time, yeah.
• 10:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and that's that's what I've also found is it doesn't have to be the exact thing that we've been through.
• 11:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's just finding somebody that's like when like we're vulnerable, like when we when we share things, the people like that the people that know, and and uh it's it's it's hard to explain.
• 11:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I know you you know what I'm kind of kind of getting at.
• 11:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, you know, when you or I see somebody just being transparent, just like like we are.
• 11:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We're just having a conversation, and it it doesn't have to be the very specific thing to help somebody, it's just that vulnerability, you're taking things that are like you said, really personal, and and and and sometimes people like bottle that up.
• 11:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I remember uh I had uh 138 different things uh back in 2016, 2017 that I felt guilty about or I felt shame about something that I did, nothing breaking the law or anything like that, but just things that you know past relationships and just different things.
• 12:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and I was like, oh my gosh.
• 12:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um at first I didn't know that I could write 138 things in like less than I mean I just it wasn't even like a half hour, and I was just rattling them off.
• 12:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was like, I'm a bad person.
• 12:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like I'm not I'm not a good person.
• 12:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like I I need to I need to figure out what what's really going on and and really help myself before I can help somebody else.
• 12:49
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh because you can kind of tell like somebody's got like a swagger about themselves, like they're confident, but they don't like you said, it it doesn't just happen that you know overnight, like all of a sudden, like I'm just gonna be able to share and uh and and and to uh like you said talking about that that vet that came up and and spoke with you.
• 13:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's amazing.
• 13:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh you know, we talk about mental health, it mental health, just like physical health, there it knows no demographics, no age, no not it, it it it's all of us.
• 13:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All of us have the have mental health.
• 13:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It just talking about it is like, oh, he's mental, listen to him, he's crazy.
• 13:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and and that's what I was afraid of.
• 13:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I I had a five-day inpatient stay, and I was um diagnosed with uh major depression, generalized anxiety, among others.
• 13:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was like, I'm never gonna, I don't, I don't want to take medication the rest of my life because I had it like in my mind that like that's just that's just what's gonna happen.
• 14:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like you, you know, how we manifest things in our mind.
• 14:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We Google things and we're like, oh no, I'm not gonna be one of those people.
• 14:11
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And here I was, and I was one of those people.
• 14:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was one of the lowest days of my life, but it was one of the highest because it was at that point where I started to go, like you said, like I don't know if I'm gonna be around if I don't do some things different, if I don't ask, if I don't get help.
• 14:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like I I thought I had all the answers.
• 14:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I thought I could Google all the answers, and I couldn't.
• 14:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it was at that point where I was just like, I'm a failure, I'm a guy, I shouldn't be crying, I shouldn't have you know these things that I'm I'm talking about, and you know, I need to be, I need to just suck it up and and move on.
• 14:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh and it's just it's a powerful thing when you're able to to share and just to be confident and in your story and in yourself.
• 15:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I just want to say thank I should have said thank you at the very very beginning, but thank you for doing what you're doing because it's not it's not an easy thing to you know talk about, you know, about you know, sometimes family dynamics and things that are going on and bullying and you know, these are things that sometimes you know people you know uh they they jump on the pile and you go, oh yeah, look at him, look at what he's gone through, and like, yeah, oh I knew it.
• 15:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I knew there had to be something there, and I'm like you, or it's taken me a little bit longer, 24 years longer.
• 15:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh, but uh it feels so good.
• 15:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Do you get that you get that good feeling after you've given a speech, after you've done a show?
• 15:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, you know, just like like I don't know if I'm gonna if this helped one person or 1,000 people.
• 16:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What kind of feelings kind of go through your mind like after that, after that, uh those times when you're able to share, and even just like this?
• 16:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like a feeling of deep peace.
• 16:24
  Speaker: It's as if I might have only impacted one single person, but that one single person, it genuinely could have it genuinely could have prevented them from committing suicide.
• 16:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You bet.
• 16:41
  Speaker: And you would never know.
• 16:42
  Speaker: Like you never know what have a good day will do for the lady at Starbucks.
• 16:50
  Speaker: You never know what thank you will do for somebody who holds the door for you.
• 16:57
  Speaker: You you really never know.
• 16:59
  Speaker: So when you put your story out there and you put out, hey, here's what happened to me, here's how I got through it, and here's what you can do to navigate, you don't know what that will the impact that will have for not just that one person, but that person's whole family.
• 17:19
  Speaker: Like the girl who messaged me, how my video helped her, it didn't just help her, it helped her brothers and sisters, dads, aunts, uncles.
• 17:30
  Speaker: Like it's a whole chain reaction that happens.
• 17:33
  Speaker: And the beautiful thing about the internet is people can share your stuff, and now it goes from like it creates a dripple effect.
• 17:43
  Speaker: And what you said earlier about that 138 things of shame, it's it's really easy for us to get in our own head and think that I'm such a bad person and I'm so crazy, and I'm so this and I'm so that, and and all these things that we just bottle up and it pours out.
• 18:04
  Speaker: But you kind of have to let it pour out and look at it and face it in order for it to stop holding you back.
• 18:14
  Speaker: Like I I wrote an entire book on the graphic details of my childhood traumas.
• 18:23
  Speaker: I it's about what I went through with my dad, it's about getting kicked out, it's about how I wasn't such a good partner in my past relationships, it's about how I was distracting myself with 18 hours of video games a day.
• 18:38
  Speaker: It's about how I could barely wash up.
• 18:41
  Speaker: Like I go into graphic, raw details.
• 18:45
  Speaker: And then the second half of the book is okay, so now that we got through all of that, here's what I did.
• 18:52
  Speaker: Because if I didn't tell you what I went through and where I was, then you think that I just got this off chat GBT.
• 19:02
  Speaker: So if you don't mind, I can actually like send you a link where listeners can get that book for free.
• 19:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, absolutely.
• 19:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was just gonna ask, and uh my dog, our dog, uh, she loves joining in.
• 19:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: She always knows when there's a show going on.
• 19:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, let me in.
• 19:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But yeah, definitely.
• 19:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and even if you want to share the the name of it, like now.
• 19:26
  Speaker: It's called um made for more hope, resilience, and the strength within.
• 19:30
  Speaker: It's like so I was clinically diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder when I was 12.
• 19:38
  Speaker: Okay.
• 19:38
  Speaker: And I described in the book like what the symptoms actually feel like, how they affect your relationships, how they affect the way you communicate with others, this random wave of paranoia you get out of nowhere, and how by using what I share in the book, you essentially learn to calm down your body so that it stops thinking that you're 12 and it realized that, oh, you know, we're not gonna die.
• 20:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 20:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That's that's so uh man.
• 20:18
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So true.
• 20:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh that whole that yeah, the feeling of like I yeah, I I f I I'm dying.
• 20:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm feeling I mean I I went went through that and it and it and it took me so many times going to the emergency room thinking that I was, you know, I got chest pains, I got all these things, and and the uh tests would come back and they're like, you're not dying, you're fine, everything.
• 20:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 20:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and it's oh my gosh, but to actually continue forward and to go, okay, something's still just not something's just not right.
• 21:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And man, as you know with with NAMI and other organizations you work with, uh you know that the whole the whole stigma of uh oh there goes my there, we'll just do this.
• 21:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Get my video.
• 21:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So for everybody listening, my dog just did a good one.
• 21:30
  Speaker: Yeah, she probably like knocked the camera over.
• 21:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, she knocked it over, so I'm just gonna there we are.
• 21:36
  Speaker: There we go.
• 21:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So it won't be as fancy, but it's uh all good.
• 21:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It works.
• 21:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It works.
• 21:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um yeah, it I feel you with that when you said you feel at peace.
• 21:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That was how I felt when I was in in a psych ward for the first I I didn't have my phone.
• 22:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I didn't have obviously don't ever everything you're basically on suicide or watch.
• 22:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And so when you're sleeping, you know, for 15 minutes or so, you're being watched, and which is good.
• 22:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it wasn't until like I think the second day or so, and probably because I was also um having uh different therapies.
• 22:23
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I wasn't eating, I was down 30 pounds, I was feeling like I was allergic to everything except carrots and and hum plain hummus.
• 22:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was just crazy.
• 22:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I never had allergies.
• 22:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: People do have allergies, but I I never had allergies.
• 22:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and so it I was literally learning how to live again.
• 22:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, all right, like here's the menu.
• 22:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You can order anything you you want.
• 22:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And if something happens to you, you're at the hospital.
• 22:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We literally can take you and we can get you know tests done and whatever we need to do.
• 23:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, so if you eat a piece of bacon or a or a pancake or like things that it's like, man, like sounds really good, but I I was at home, I wasn't eating hardly anything, and it it was it was just so hard to explain.
• 23:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I was teaching college courses, and I was basically having kind of like mental breakdowns during that.
• 23:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, it was uh one thing it that there's uh one of the one of my students, he came up after class, they were giving presentations, and it was right before I went into the hospital, and he came up and uh when he was giving his presentation, he was uh visibly nervous, and he was stuttering a lot, and for me, even at that point, I learned it's like look, like who am I to judge anybody?
• 24:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, who am I to judge a person how they're speaking, how they're dressed, anything.
• 24:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, I'm I'm I'm not able to do that, and I don't think anybody here on earth is and so he was telling me this after class, and I literally just started crying, like tears just were coming down my face, and I was just like, I for I forget what the the student's name was, I shouldn't have remembered, but I was just I I said his name and said, Don't worry about it.
• 24:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I like I'm with you, like I'm I'm going through some similar things myself, and I I just remember going, oh my gosh, like I I really need to get this figured out.
• 25:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, I it was just uh but when I started the uh at the hospital feeling at peace, it felt like I could actually breathe again because I didn't like you were talking about your screens, I didn't have my phone with me.
• 25:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I didn't have things that could take my mind and my brain and take them all over, and and the same thing with sleeping.
• 25:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This I was like not sleeping at all.
• 25:29
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh it's uh it's just remarkable how you and I, two people from different states, different cities, have a lot of similar things and uh in common.
• 25:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh man.
• 25:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: So when you when you share, I'm sure you have a lot of different messages.
• 25:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: What are you you talked about, you know, even if you just touch that one person's heart, and that might stop them from taking their life.
• 26:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that is so true, because you don't we we don't we don't know, we don't know where that person's at.
• 26:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: That person, like you said, they could be ready with a weapon, they could uh whatever, they could have a plan, they could not have a plan, they might not think they like, oh no, I I'm not suicidal, I'm not having suicidal ideation.
• 26:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um but as I've found, as you mentioned at the beginning, yeah, you know, pushing people away and doing things, that doesn't seem like somebody that has a plan, but that's exactly like what my therapist and what my psychiatrist were telling like those were things like it wasn't like oh Justin had a plan and it was all written out and then it was printed out and had pictures.
• 26:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It was none of that.
• 26:54
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, that that's part of it, but the things leading up into that, uh how does that part make make you feel knowing that you're touching people's lives, not just here in the United States, not just in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, but all across the world, people that like don't even speak our language, and then and it's just crazy to think about.
• 27:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um, how's that make you feel?
• 27:24
  Speaker: Uh, in addition, it made me feel really like both proud of myself and aware that it's not all about me.
• 27:35
  Speaker: Like something you mentioned earlier is that when you get off the screen, then you spend a lot of time just sitting with your own thoughts and your own feelings, you become aware of like the dual nature of how we all are as people.
• 27:56
  Speaker: So, like, there I was journaling about this earlier, actually.
• 28:00
  Speaker: There's a side of me that is like could be called a bit arrogant, where it's like I like attention, like it's something I'm willing to admit, but then there's the other side of me that loves serving humanity, and it makes me aware of the fact that like I can do something that both makes me feel good and something that makes other people feel good, and it's so much deeper than money, it's so much deeper than just liking the fact that you know people tell me, Hey, you know, you're doing a good job, but it's knowing that I get to impact people in a way that very few else things can.
• 28:48
  Speaker: And the people who tell me, like, wow, I love this stuff, it helped me with this.
• 28:55
  Speaker: That's the minority.
• 28:57
  Speaker: Most people will never tell you, they'll just leave a like on the video and not say anything else.
• 29:06
  Speaker: But it's beautiful too, because uh two days ago, um, someone who'd been like watching my videos for I've been seeing her in like the comments for a few months.
• 29:17
  Speaker: She told me that my videos have inspired her to become a better mother to her child.
• 29:22
  Speaker: And I'm like, I didn't even know she had a kid.
• 29:24
  Speaker: Yeah.
• 29:25
  Speaker: Like I thought she was she looked 20.
• 29:29
  Speaker: And she was like, no, my kid's five.
• 29:31
  Speaker: Like, okay.
• 29:32
  Speaker: So it's not just inspiring like individuals, but it's helping families, it's helping people to genuinely make improvement in their life, it's helping them to become people that they didn't even think was possible.
• 29:51
  Speaker: And I get to remind them that yeah, Lawrence isn't anything special.
• 29:58
  Speaker: I'm just a guy who likes talking to a camera all day, figured out some stuff that works, and I talk to the camera about what works.
• 30:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah.
• 30:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: No, that's so it oh my gosh.
• 30:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It it's so true.
• 30:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and for some people, including myself, years ago, you know, uh, I I don't I don't remember who it was that I was listening to or watching, but they were like, you know, you you can feel good about what you're doing, and you know, everybody has that thing or things that they're they're good at.
• 30:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And you can if you want, go down the road to uh to to make money or or or to not.
• 30:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh but it can be your thing and my thing.
• 30:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It doesn't have to be I don't say like the man's thing, you know, like a like a business or a company.
• 31:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know what I mean?
• 31:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like it's like, hey, come come work for me and work on my mission.
• 31:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like I I I did that for a lot uh for many years, and that's one of the things that like I've found through my therapy and medication and uh my psychiatrist.
• 31:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like this is like what you're what you're called to do.
• 31:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Because that was the that was the thing when I came out of the hospital, I'm like, well what am I here left on uh left to live here for?
• 31:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, like really, like what's you know, and I got in my life, and it I've been transitory at times, and um, you know, not been you know the the best person to uh that you know is always going to church and that um but it like there's there's always that higher power where I'm like why why why are you leaving Justin on Earth?
• 32:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like all these different things happen and like why are you leaving him here to do what?
• 32:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And to your point, to look at a can look at a camera and and share and talk about life.
• 32:22
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and I just I guess put my head down and then next thing I know, not that numbers really matter, but I I I never thought I'd ever get 500 episodes.
• 32:37
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I never thought uh people like to your point, people reach out and and that you'd least expect, and then they would tell you, and you're like, oh, wait a minute, you really like you you have a family, and then like, oh you're um you know, this type of person or that type of person.
• 32:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Heck, I'll I'll go in uh our neighbor, uh we uh moved in a few years ago, and he's a biker guy, he's got a got the the the Harley bikes and the big truck and and everything.
• 33:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And you know, we we would uh you know pass each other coming and going and like hey, how you doing?
• 33:21
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And like I'm I'm not you I'm like that introvert, which I thought I was an extrovert because I like talking to a camera, but then my psychiatrist is like, no, Justin, like what do you like to do like when you're not doing that?
• 33:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was like, Oh yeah, like I'd like to kind of be in my cocoon, you know.
• 33:38
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was like, Yeah, so so the guy he's living and and and I'm just like I'm not very talkative outside of the camera, so I'm just kind of doing my thing, he's doing his thing.
• 33:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I had our uh dog out that's uh doing her business and in the front yard, and and he came over, I forget it was just like three or four weeks ago, and he's just like, and I was I had no idea, like I saw that my back was faced to him, and he came up, he's just like, Hey man, uh I've been a bad neighbor.
• 34:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was like, what are you like what are you talking about?
• 34:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he goes, You you know, like when you guys moved in, like I was just going through like a lot of the personal things and a lot of close people of the past, and um, and you know, we should be able to wave or at least just say, Hey, how's it going?
• 34:33
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he goes, I like to, you know, uh, I have a smoker, so I like to do barbecue, and you know, I'm doing ribs, you know, would you like some?
• 34:45
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and uh, you know, it anyway, so we're just like we're just like conversing, and and and he and he's and he told me he said it it was his uh his pastor that challenged him to come and just come right up and just just start a conversation.
• 35:05
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I was just like, man, like I don't know if I could do that, and he's just going on and on about his life and his background, and I'm doing the same.
• 35:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And it's it's just so and he remembered things because I I used to have magnets on my car with uh voices for voices, and then uh through the the weather elements and everything, like they they just didn't become very good magnets anymore.
• 35:34
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that was like that was like months ago, uh if not even a year ago.
• 35:40
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he brings that uh, he goes, he goes, That's how you had those on your car, like like did the magnet stop working?
• 35:48
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I'm like, how do you never know?
• 35:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, you want people to notice it, but like it's like he he he remembers this, and that's the thing he kind of associated with, and then we just start a bonding.
• 36:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I'm like, man, like yeah, like we can wave.
• 36:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I was like, I'm I'm I'm an internal kind of person too, but yeah, um, you know, yeah, we can wave.
• 36:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And he came over with ribs, and I was just like, it was just one of the things you're like, all right, like there's a reason, you know, may maybe he he was going through some things and he he was watching or listening to the show, or he found a guest, and uh, because for him to bring that up, I'm like, for him to remember that all these months ago, like, and I usually have you know, like a branded shirt on that says voices are for voices, and and so he he you see me a lot and in the branded clothing, and and I'm sitting there kind of wondering as you and I are talking, if he is one of the people that I have reached, and he's next door with that, yeah, and I had like no idea, and he didn't tell me that to your point.
• 37:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like a lot of them that a lot of people don't.
• 37:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's the ones that they they keep it quiet because they're just like, oh wow, like he said this or she said that, and that that's just I mean, anyways, I'm doing a lot of talking.
• 37:25
  Speaker: Like it's yeah, you go through so many things that I want to touch in or go on.
• 37:29
  Speaker: So the first one is like how when you're at your lowest, you need to have some kind of higher power.
• 37:37
  Speaker: Like it doesn't have to be, it doesn't even have to be one that makes sense to other people because when I talk about my relationship with God, people often think I'm talking about a religion, yeah, or a specific path, or any of that.
• 37:56
  Speaker: It's a very unique thing, especially since I reference the Bible so much.
• 38:00
  Speaker: They think that it I'm Christian, but I'm not, I'm just a guy who happens to learn from a book, and the two greatest commandments.
• 38:09
  Speaker: Well, there's so many things in there.
• 38:11
  Speaker: Firstly, people overlook the part about Jesus riding in on a donkey.
• 38:18
  Speaker: So he could have rode in on a beautiful, elegant horse with staples and chariots and gold, like trim, and everything.
• 38:29
  Speaker: He he rode a donkey with no saddle and a bag over his shoulder.
• 38:35
  Speaker: Like, you know how in a cartoon they draw homeless people with like the stick bag?
• 38:40
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 38:41
  Speaker: That's how the literal God in the flesh went from town to town.
• 38:46
  Speaker: He walked and rode a donkey.
• 38:49
  Speaker: He could have teleported if he wanted to.
• 38:52
  Speaker: He chose to walk and ride a donkey.
• 38:55
  Speaker: The reason why is because I'm no better than you.
• 38:59
  Speaker: Like we are connected, and he never went around boasting and arrogant and putting himself on a pedestal.
• 39:10
  Speaker: He simply said, I am who I am, and I'm here to show you who you are.
• 39:15
  Speaker: Like, hey, all of that stuff that you did, Paul, which was one of his greatest disciples, was a murderer, a literal murderer.
• 39:25
  Speaker: And when he was at a well, and everyone, and he's talking to the lady, and everyone comes along and says, Hey Jesus, don't you know that she's a prostitute, and don't you know this, and don't you know that, and and this, and and look at what she did, and look how bad she is, and how terrible she is.
• 39:39
  Speaker: And mind you, this lady's sad and she's crying because you know, this is true, like this is what she was doing.
• 39:45
  Speaker: And he said, Well, okay, um, so whoever here has never sinned, you've never done anything wrong, you've never lied, you've never cheated, you've never stole, you've never been jealous, you've never got angry, you've never hurt anyone, you've done nothing.
• 40:05
  Speaker: You throw the first stone, and no one did because none of us are perfect, none of us are.
• 40:14
  Speaker: And even to that point, Jesus himself got angry at times.
• 40:21
  Speaker: He went in churches slipping over tables, he went in there whipping people because they were selling chickens, he did things that were quote unquote not the holiest.
• 40:32
  Speaker: And the point is none of us are perfect, not even Jesus.
• 40:38
  Speaker: And a lot of people can get offended by that, but when you sit down and you properly read through the Bible and you look at his life, you see that he wasn't even perfect.
• 40:50
  Speaker: Like if you held him to the perfect standard, that wouldn't even apply.
• 40:58
  Speaker: Because you could say that going inside of a church, well, it wasn't even a technically a church because churches only existed after his death, but a temple and flipping over a table because you're angry, that's not good.
• 41:12
  Speaker: But they left it in there because he isn't meant to be perfect, he's just an example of here is a way to walk in your path.
• 41:24
  Speaker: He also went into town and said, Hey, is it not written in your law that ye are gods?
• 41:30
  Speaker: Lowercase G, it's not to say that you know you're all high and mighty and wonderful and powerful, but you're made in the image of a divine creator.
• 41:40
  Speaker: So, as the child of a divine creator, it is your job to go out there and express your gifts because um, you know, a man's gift makes room for him and places him among great men.
• 41:53
  Speaker: So when you figure out your gift and you take that and you apply it, whether that gift is because when people think your gift, the first thing their mind runs to is, but I'm not a pastor, right?
• 42:07
  Speaker: I'm not a rabbi, I'm not an imam.
• 42:10
  Speaker: Well, Moses had a speech impediment, yet he went out and freed all the slaves, so it's not even that you have to be perfect, but you know, I don't have some magical and great skill.
• 42:24
  Speaker: I'm not Tony Robbins, yeah, but you're a really good cook.
• 42:28
  Speaker: You you need to go open up a restaurant with that, but I'm not Gordon Ramsay, you don't have to be Gordon Ramsay, you just have to be the lady with the food truck who sells platters out of her house.
• 42:41
  Speaker: I know a lady who used to do that.
• 42:43
  Speaker: Well, she still does.
• 42:44
  Speaker: I haven't talked to her in like years, but she went from selling food platters out of her home, and people would come to her house and pick up the food, and then she went to like a little food truck on the side of the street, and then she went to a like actual storefront.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 43:04
  Speaker: There's a lady by my house who she has a van, it's like a little food van, and she sells smoothies.
• 43:11
  Speaker: She has been there for four years.
• 43:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I want to go for one.
• 43:16
  Speaker: I've met her mother-in-law, I've met her mom.
• 43:19
  Speaker: It's a family-owned smoothie shop on the side of the road.
• 43:24
  Speaker: So your gift could be something that is so seemingly simple to you.
• 43:30
  Speaker: Like the I had the guy who built my website, he lives over in um India, and this guy like computers and software systems and SEO optimization, all that type of stuff, that is basic information to him.
• 43:50
  Speaker: He talks to you about it like it's just common knowledge because that's his gift.
• 43:56
  Speaker: And we were on a call earlier.
• 43:59
  Speaker: And I was talking to him because he was helping me with like setting up some stuff.
• 44:03
  Speaker: And he told me that he just got a like a job working for the not it's like a subsidiary of SpaceX.
• 44:13
  Speaker: Okay.
• 44:14
  Speaker: So he's helping them with like IT services for these billion dollar corporations, and the man just living his best life all because he took his gift.
• 44:27
  Speaker: And when we feel like, okay, Lark, that sounds so great and inspirational, but look at what I've done.
• 44:34
  Speaker: You know, I've gone too far.
• 44:36
  Speaker: I've done this, I've cheated, I've lied, I've stolen, I was a drug addict, I was this, I was that.
• 44:42
  Speaker: Okay, um, again, back to my point.
• 44:45
  Speaker: Paul was a murderer.
• 44:47
  Speaker: I mean, it as long as you haven't murdered people, then you're not that far gone.
• 44:54
  Speaker: And even if you are, there are pastors who used to be prisoners, and in and in prison, they, you know, got their life together, went out, and started helping the community.
• 45:08
  Speaker: There are people who used to be thieves and crooks and backstabbers and liars and cheaters and manipulators who said, Okay, I saw my dirt, I did that, I owned up to that, but now I'm going to be renewed.
• 45:26
  Speaker: And this is one of the things that you know we all have to remind ourselves of because it's really easy to get in our own head and like you said earlier, create a list of all of our shames and all of our wrongs, but if we're so focused on my wrongs, this we lose sight of what did I do right?
• 45:49
  Speaker: Yeah, like I'm I'm not the devil in the flesh, I haven't committed atrocities, so I can get better if I simply am willing to do the work and believe that it's possible.
• 46:06
  Speaker: Maybe I can't do it on my own.
• 46:08
  Speaker: That's why, in like Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, the I think is step number two is after they have you admit you're an addict, they have you commit to a higher power of whatever choice you want.
• 46:25
  Speaker: It could be aliens for all they care.
• 46:28
  Speaker: Yeah, you just have to believe that I can't do it on my own because if I could, I would not be here.
• 46:36
  Speaker: So I have to admit that.
• 46:38
  Speaker: I have to believe that there is some higher, magical, wonderful, divine power that will bless me with inhuman strength to overcome this addiction.
• 46:49
  Speaker: And even when you feel like, Lawrence, I'm too far gone, I can't do anything, I suck.
• 46:57
  Speaker: Well, uh, pick a higher power, whichever one you want.
• 47:01
  Speaker: There's like a I don't know, there's maybe like 20,000 religions.
• 47:06
  Speaker: Hinduism had like 200 gods by itself, just pick one, or many, or none, or for all I care, you could believe in the moon and stars and the trees, and that can be your god, and that helps you to keep yourself alive.
• 47:22
  Speaker: That was that just went on those.
• 47:25
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: No, no, this is great.
• 47:26
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Keep going, keep going.
• 47:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: No, I got you.
• 47:28
  Speaker: I didn't give a whole TED talk.
• 47:30
  Speaker: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:31
  Speaker: This is great.
• 47:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is exactly what I was yeah.
• 47:35
  Speaker: I mean, a lot of people need to hear this stuff because you know, unfortunately, the world will really tell you about everything you don't have and everything that you're bad, and you're not like if you don't look this way, or you're you don't have this car or this house or this money or this job or this degree or this thing, then you're not enough.
• 48:00
  Speaker: Well, I mean, it's that's just someone's opinion of you, like because really at some point, all of us are gonna die.
• 48:12
  Speaker: Like at some point, it it's inevitable.
• 48:14
  Speaker: Even that, um you ever I can't remember his name, but they're this guy who's like 40 something, and he's obsessed with like biohacking and trying to make himself live forever, and he got like blood transfusions from his 17-year-old son.
• 48:30
  Speaker: You ever heard of that guy?
• 48:32
  Speaker: It sounds familiar.
• 48:34
  Speaker: He takes like 200 different supplements every morning.
• 48:37
  Speaker: Oh wow, yeah.
• 48:38
  Speaker: I recently found out that he actually just got diagnosed with a um it's an incurable medical condition where your stomach lining eats itself.
• 48:48
  Speaker: And what happens is like your stomach acid basically rots you from the inside out, and there's nothing you can do about it.
• 48:58
  Speaker: And he got it because of all the blood transfusions.
• 49:00
  Speaker: Oh my.
• 49:01
  Speaker: So even him, even if you dedicate millions of dollars and every conceivable method under the sun, we all die someday.
• 49:14
  Speaker: And when you're on your deathbed, you don't care about how much money you have, you don't care about how shiny your belt is, you don't care about how many bedrooms your house has.
• 49:27
  Speaker: You care about did I live my life?
• 49:31
  Speaker: Did I enjoy it?
• 49:33
  Speaker: Did I have fun?
• 49:35
  Speaker: Did I treat people well?
• 49:38
  Speaker: Like when I get buried, are people going to say, you know, he was a great guy?
• 49:44
  Speaker: Like, you know, he had 25 cars and eight mega mansions, and he had a super yacht and he bought a private island and he did this and he did that.
• 49:53
  Speaker: Or are you going to be somebody who my grandpa, he passed away when I was like, I think 10.
• 50:01
  Speaker: And at his funeral, that eulogy was beautiful.
• 50:08
  Speaker: He raised 13 children off one salary.
• 50:12
  Speaker: 13 of them off one salary.
• 50:17
  Speaker: He was a great father.
• 50:21
  Speaker: He did a lot of great things, having to raise 13 kids.
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 50:28
  Speaker: During the during the 60s, up until his most recent one was born in 2000.
• 50:36
  Speaker: So, like, we're talking about raising kids during that end of segregation and during massive changes in society and laws and rules and regulations and all these things.
• 50:51
  Speaker: And funny enough, I actually gave a speech at his funeral, and the pastor started crying.
• 50:55
  Speaker: So, like I don't know, this was just like destined to be my path.
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 51:03
  Speaker: Oh, for sure.
• 51:04
  Speaker: I believe God gives signs and lets you know, like, like a constant little nudging of, hey, uh, here's what I want you to do.
• 51:13
  Speaker: And it's not something that you choose, it's sort of like it presents itself to you, and then you make the decision to commit to that.
• 51:26
  Speaker: And that's where like the the the kingdom of God that every church in the Bible is talking about, it ain't some far-off, distant fantasy land in the clouds.
• 51:43
  Speaker: It's like heaven on earth, literally.
• 51:46
  Speaker: It's like you I've had so many times recently where like the bank account has been on three dollars and rent is due in five days, and I need six hundred dollars, or I'm getting kicked out.
• 52:07
  Speaker: So, well, they weren't going to evict me from my office building, but they were going to like they they were gonna put some penalties.
• 52:16
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, it wasn't gonna be pleasant.
• 52:17
  Speaker: Somehow, some way, the money just shows up.
• 52:20
  Speaker: It's like God is like, okay, you're gonna commit to what I say?
• 52:26
  Speaker: Let me bless you, let me send you a $500 check in the mail.
• 52:29
  Speaker: I've had it happen.
• 52:31
  Speaker: And the people I meet, the connection that happened, and not just with these podcasts, but going to schools and organizations and just letting my gift flow has opened the doors.
• 52:48
  Speaker: It's like the the Bible describes it as the land of overflowing milk and honey.
• 52:55
  Speaker: It's not about the the money that you get from it.
• 52:59
  Speaker: It's not even just about the claps and the applause and the cheering.
• 53:03
  Speaker: It's about the knowing that like I'm actually helping these people.
• 53:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, and that's it, and that's the wild thing is growing up at least for me, we have these, you know, like wild dreams and expectations, like I want to be an astronaut.
• 53:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: For me, it's like I want them to be an astronaut, and and then when it comes down to it, like you said, there's there's different signs that they present themselves, and it's at it's at those times where we do we we you know we make a decision and uh to like okay, yeah, we're gonna we're gonna go forward with this or or not.
• 53:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And then it might present itself again in a year or six months or six hours or six minutes.
• 53:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And that's what I found I found too, where it's kind of like well, what do you want me to do?
• 54:07
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like what what what do you want me to do since I'm you know still here on earth?
• 54:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and then it's just crazy because it it it it doesn't have to be some earth shattering thing.
• 54:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean it can be.
• 54:28
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, for some people like it I I it it can be uh like this breakthrough, but like you like you said, like you you just kinda I don't want to say like you just ease into it, but you kind of do that to kind of validate like what we're what you're doing.
• 54:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, okay, like I saw this sign, and I got to you know, people were cheering and that, but it actually made me feel good too.
• 55:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It wasn't just like, oh yeah, like I'm uh doing it because people are clapping or you know, they're on a picture with me, or whatever it may be.
• 55:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: They want to be on the show or different things.
• 55:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like, you know what, like it's that one of my uh I mean I know music's huge, a huge part of of my life, and many, many people, and one of um old I'll say like old school band given uh in the in the 90s Third Eye Blind ass song called Jumper, and it's that very thing we were talking about at the beginning.
• 55:39
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: About yeah, we might not help all 500 attendees, but there might be that that one person that is literally ready, or maybe they're already on that ledge, and or they're on that bridge, or what and to everybody watching and listening, we're not condoning any of this.
• 56:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: This is just merely for um uh example symbolism.
• 56:09
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh so we want to definitely make sure or we we share that as as we uh move forward with it.
• 56:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and it's like you know what?
• 56:19
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: To know that I help one person, even if that's the only person, if that's the only person that's ever comes up to me, or is ever commented, or is it ever emailed, or whatever method, then we've we've done our job.
• 56:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: We've we've that I mean it doesn't mean we I mean we can stop if we want, but to know that we have like one person, you know, I look back at uh growing up and I'm like help others?
• 56:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: No, I want to help me.
• 56:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I want to help me get to a certain place.
• 56:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and I've heard it said, and I mean, and it's so true, and it's exactly what you said, you know, you you can't you know, we're not getting out, we're not getting out of we're not getting out of life alive, none of us are.
• 57:13
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And they say like two things like our death and taxes is what's gonna happen to uh everybody at some point.
• 57:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and we can't take it with us.
• 57:24
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: People even say, like, have you ever been to I mean just using like Elvis as an example?
• 57:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Ever been to Graceland?
• 57:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, and I I haven't.
• 57:35
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um and and people said like, did you notice anything missing there?
• 57:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You know, like I I mean I've I've never won, but I'm like watching a video on it, and people talking, and and they're like, I don't, I don't know, I don't I don't think anything was missing.
• 57:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And they're like, Did you see Elvis there?
• 57:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Is Elvis still alive?
• 57:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: All his stuff's there.
• 58:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Here's his you know, his mansions, there's whatever, his thing.
• 58:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: But you know, there's not a there's not a U-Haul, you know, leave him like what like with with with with the coffin and and and that, and and that's the thing the thing that you were just mentioning, where you know on our deathbed, we're gonna look back and go, like, I I wanna I want to be known as somebody that at least tried to help people.
• 58:37
  Speaker: Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't.
• 58:39
  Speaker: And then too, you have to learn to like most importantly connect with yourself because when you were saying like not doing it for the applause and cheers, and people wanting to be on the show, that's what happens after the fact.
• 58:53
  Speaker: Like after you've already started, after you built momentum, after you probably made like 30, 40, 50 episodes with three views and and no comments, then people want to be on the show.
• 59:06
  Speaker: They know it they they nobody like nobody comes knocking and cheering before you do the thing.
• 59:15
  Speaker: So, like the reason why you start is because there was some motivation to do it.
• 59:23
  Speaker: Whether the motivation at first might have just purely been I want money, that's an okay motivation, like understandable, but over time, like when the money doesn't show up immediately and you still keep showing up, now there's a deeper why to it.
• 59:38
  Speaker: Like, I'm doing this because I want to leave a mark of humanity, I'm doing this because I don't want people to feel how I did, I'm doing this because I want people to know that they're loved, or I want to give back to the children in poverty, or I want to help my neighborhood, or whatever the person's reason is.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker: So in that process, you have to get to know yourself and learn to fall in love with the person in the mirror.
• 1:00:09
  Speaker: I'm not perfect, but I'm not that terrible.
• 1:00:12
  Speaker: Like I'm a I'm a pretty good guy.
• 1:00:14
  Speaker: Like, so you have to learn to first love yourself and then like your neighbor mentioned, like, learn to be a good neighbor.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker: Because like the the reason why the two greatest commandments were love God with all your heart and put nothing above it, and love your brother like you love yourself, is so that you don't make money your God, you don't make things your God, you don't make other people your god, you don't make anyone or anything else your God.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker: You have like some higher power, you love that with all your heart, and then you love your brother and sister like you love yourself, but to love your brother and love your sister like you love yourself requires you to love yourself, yeah.
• 1:01:07
  Speaker: So it's like so really it's three and one.
• 1:01:11
  Speaker: You love God, you love other people, and you love you.
• 1:01:15
  Speaker: So by connecting with like yourself, and that means connecting with all the good and all the bad, yeah.
• 1:01:24
  Speaker: The the shame and the good, the the stuff I don't want to talk about and the stuff I do, and learning to love yourself despite all of that.
• 1:01:33
  Speaker: Now you can give that to the world.
• 1:01:36
  Speaker: You can give them what you wish you had.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker: And we can look at people who on the surface, it looks like they got it all.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker: Like, like, wow, you know, they got the money, they got the car, they got the husband, they got the wife, they're beautiful or handsome, like they got it all.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker: And then you find out that they die of like a drug overdose.
• 1:01:59
  Speaker: That's what happened with uh Marilyn Monroe.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker: Oh, yeah.
• 1:02:04
  Speaker: You would think world famous actress, most rated the most beautiful woman in the world at many points, multi-million.
• 1:02:13
  Speaker: Well, she herself wasn't a multimillionaire because at the time, you know, women couldn't really have their own bank accounts, but essentially, she she did have access to the money, it just wasn't in her name.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker: It but you guys get the point, yeah.
• 1:02:28
  Speaker: You know, legalities of women's rights back then aside, she had access to the money, and you'd think she's marriage with all this stuff to the world.
• 1:02:39
  Speaker: That's what it looks like behind closed doors.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker: Her husband was cheating, somehow he was cheating on the most beautiful woman in the world.
• 1:02:45
  Speaker: I don't know who he was cheating with, but he was doing it, and she felt like very isolated because the only reason, like she understood this as a child.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker: The only people, the only reason people were so nice to her was because she was so attractive.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker: She grew up as an orphan.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker: Marilyn Monroe wasn't even her name, that was like an alter ego she created.
• 1:03:12
  Speaker: Okay, and at 13, she rugged that, huh?
• 1:03:16
  Speaker: If I sway my hips a certain way, I get these boys to give me their their lunch.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker: Yeah, and that's how she became like our career.
• 1:03:23
  Speaker: So when we look at examples like her of people who seemingly have it all, but then you do a little research into them and you see what goes on behind closed doors, you realize that you know everything that glitters isn't gold.
• 1:03:39
  Speaker: We can look at people such as uh the rapper Mac Miller, another drug overdose, uh Prince.
• 1:03:48
  Speaker: Now, I don't remember if his was like, you know, surgery and then one thing left to another, and you end up with fentanyl, but he that's how he ended up dying.
• 1:03:56
  Speaker: He died of a fentanyl overdose.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker: Yeah, then you can look at people like um there was a billionaire, I forgot his name, he was in like Pennsylvania somewhere, and this guy just you know leapt off a building, billions of dollars, all this money, all these things, all the shiny clothes of the cars, but the dude was super depressed.
• 1:04:17
  Speaker: Uh-huh.
• 1:04:18
  Speaker: Then you have like what then you have people who I don't want to use the word like normal people, but you get what I mean.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker: People who like your everyday job, you're walking down the street, the guy at the gas station.
• 1:04:32
  Speaker: Just imagine him.
• 1:04:33
  Speaker: You got a guy at a gas station.
• 1:04:34
  Speaker: You know, he's got a family, he's posting pictures on Facebook, they're going to church every Sunday.
• 1:04:42
  Speaker: His son is in baseball practice, his daughter is in ballet.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker: Uh, you know, the wife and three kids, they got the dog, and and they got an SUV, and and oh my god, they just have it all.
• 1:04:54
  Speaker: But behind closed doors, they have crippling credit card debt.
• 1:04:59
  Speaker: His son is getting in trouble with the cops, his daughter is dating all these guys who are terrible for her.
• 1:05:06
  Speaker: His wife is cheating, he's overworked, and everyone looks at him like a wallet, and nobody respects him, and he goes to work, and his boss is disrespecting him, and you see how it's not what it appears.
• 1:05:20
  Speaker: Yes, and that the life of millions, possibly I would argue billions of people fit that description in some way or another.
• 1:05:30
  Speaker: People only show you what they want you to see.
• 1:05:33
  Speaker: So, a big reason why I openly share, like, hey guys, so uh I deal with this and I deal with that, and here are my problems is so that people know I'm not perfect, you're not perfect, and because of that, we're able to genuinely have a conversation, and you know that this is real, like you go on Facebook and all you See, is everyone has a perfect life.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker: Nobody got problems.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker: Nobody's kids act up in school.
• 1:06:08
  Speaker: Nobody's wife is cheated.
• 1:06:10
  Speaker: Everybody got a perfect life.
• 1:06:13
  Speaker: But when you get into the real world and you start having authentic open conversations, and you're willing to share what you went through, you'd be surprised at how many other people are like, dang, I thought I was the only one who had problems.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker: Like, I thought I was the only one in the world who felt sad because your mind starts playing tricks on you.
• 1:06:41
  Speaker: It'll make you believe that you're the exception to eight billion people in the world.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker: Like, like you're you're the one and only person who feels shame.
• 1:06:53
  Speaker: Nobody else has ever felt that emotion before.
• 1:06:56
  Speaker: You're the one and only person who has done something they regret in a relationship.
• 1:07:02
  Speaker: Nobody's done that before.
• 1:07:03
  Speaker: You're the only one.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker: And you get so wrapped up in your head where you're like, yeah, I'm the only one out of eight billion.
• 1:07:11
  Speaker: And I'm the only one who's ever felt this, and I'm the only one in the history of humanity.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker: Like when you that's one of the ways I actually was able to improve my own mental health by putting it into perspective that, like, you know, nobody understands.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker: Well, um, how many people are in the in the world?
• 1:07:32
  Speaker: 8.8 billion.
• 1:07:35
  Speaker: So, what's the odds that every single last person in the entire world does not understand?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker: Meanwhile, Lord, you know, when you put it like that, it actually puts it into perspective that it's mathematically impossible for somebody to not understand.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker: Like the odds of someone not understanding your problem, no matter how specific it is.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker: Like you could have the most extreme problem ever.
• 1:08:07
  Speaker: Like, Lawrence, I am a war refugee, and I grew up in my entire family, like they got blown up, and I had to run across the border, and I had to like hop on the back of a shipping container to make it to America, and I don't speak the language, and this happened and that happened, and I live under a bridge, and I collect trash in order to make enough food, in order to make enough money to afford ramen noodle packs, and I boil water in a metal can so that I don't starve.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker: There's millions of people who that's their life story.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker: So, like even if that is your life story, you're you're not the only one.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker: Yeah, Lawrence, but you know, I grew up in severe poverty, and I grew up during segregation, and I'm a black woman, so I wasn't able to get a bank account, and the laws are against me, and I ran away at 13 years old because my family were abusing me, and I had a miscarriage at 15, and I had to run away to a different state to get a to get a job.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker: That's the life story of Oprah Winfrey.
• 1:09:19
  Speaker: Yeah, Oprah Winfrey, who was the first black female billionaire in America, had a miscarriage at 15, and she had to run away from home.
• 1:09:29
  Speaker: Well, Large, you know, I'm a woman in a country that women are not allowed to get education in.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker: And when I was eight years old, when I was she was 11, when I was 11 years old, the Taliban came on the bus and shot me, and I survived, and I refused to give up, so I decided to keep advocating for girls' rights.
• 1:09:51
  Speaker: That's the story of Malalali Yussafi.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker: She's a women's education activist from Pakistan who got shot when she was nine years old because the government didn't want her to keep speaking out about that.
• 1:10:06
  Speaker: You could find any example.
• 1:10:09
  Speaker: Like in one of my books, I talked about this guy named Um trying to remember his name.
• 1:10:16
  Speaker: It just disappeared from my head.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker: But he um so he's an artist.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker: Oh, Henry Salais.
• 1:10:26
  Speaker: He's an artist, and the guy's paralyzed from the neck down, so he can only move his head.
• 1:10:33
  Speaker: He holds pens in his mouth and makes photorealistic art.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker: So even without hands or the ability to move or the ability to wash himself, this guy still found a way.
• 1:10:49
  Speaker: So, or um Paralympic swimmers.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker: Again, his name blanked from my head again, but it it might come to me, it might not.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker: But he's a Paralympic swimmer, no arms, no legs.
• 1:11:07
  Speaker: He has like one little stump.
• 1:11:09
  Speaker: He's a gold medalist swimmer, like four-time gold medal swimmer from Brazil, no arms, no legs.
• 1:11:19
  Speaker: So when we think to ourselves that like nobody could understand me, no one understands my problems.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker: I'm quite sure if you typed your problem into Google, you could find millions of people with that exact problem who succeeded.
• 1:11:36
  Speaker: And the thing that when I tell people that they often counter with is, well, you know, those people got lucky, or they're different than me, and and they must have had some help that I didn't have, or they must have had this, or they must have had that, or they must have had this, or they had that.
• 1:11:53
  Speaker: Okay, so now that we've got all that out the way, what do you have?
• 1:11:58
  Speaker: Oh, well, you know, I have Google, I have friends and family, I have a school counselor, I have, and I'm just naming like really basic generic things.
• 1:12:09
  Speaker: I have running water and food.
• 1:12:13
  Speaker: It might not be the best, but it's I'm not starving.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker: I have this, I have that, I have this, I have that, I have this, I have that.
• 1:12:20
  Speaker: Okay, now find someone who didn't have all of that and had your problem and had it worse, and had more pressure, and was still able to do it.
• 1:12:33
  Speaker: Now, don't compare yourself to them.
• 1:12:35
  Speaker: Like this isn't to compare, it's simply to give yourself undeniable fact that if they could do it, so can I.
• 1:12:47
  Speaker: Maybe it won't be easy.
• 1:12:50
  Speaker: Maybe I might not become a gold medalist swimmer, maybe I might not become a billionaire, or I might not become, you know, the next Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos and create a $20 billion company, but I can at least sell this book on Amazon.
• 1:13:10
  Speaker: I might not become, you know, Tony Robbins doing $300, $300,000 coaching fees and coaching presidents and selling out Super Bowl stadiums, but I could sell out my local church.
• 1:13:28
  Speaker: I could go down to the YMCA.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker: I could go down and do like an online event or something.
• 1:13:34
  Speaker: Like I could hop behind Zoom, and you realize that no matter where you are, you just take what you got, and even if you only got like two sticks, just rub them together, get a spark going, and you can make a fire.
• 1:13:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, that's so true.
• 1:13:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It is.
• 1:13:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: You gotta, you just gotta get started.
• 1:13:55
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's like that, you know, the the gym membership, you know, the New Year's resolution.
• 1:14:00
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, all right, I'm gonna I'm gonna go to the gym and I'm gonna get in shape and and and that it you know it's uh you know, it getting started's half half the battle.
• 1:14:14
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Then like when once you're actually doing it, then it's like exactly.
• 1:14:20
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I don't care if there's one person here watching and listening, or a million, or a billion, like I'm still gonna give the I'm gonna put the preparation in no matter how many people are watching and listening, even if I'm even if I'm the one person and I'm the one to speak, like, all right, Justin, I learned something from you today.
• 1:14:47
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh and and once you do that, and it uh you know, you find out, you know, it if all you gotta do is try.
• 1:14:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I mean, you just you just we just never know like what we're capable of.
• 1:15:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh I'm glad you went through those examples, especially um the uh the the painter.
• 1:15:10
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's so true.
• 1:15:12
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It's making the best use of what we have.
• 1:15:17
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I think sometimes we that have working arms and legs and fingers and toes and all that, like we I know I do, yeah, you know, take things for granted like that, or um unless you're unless we're in that that spot, it's like, oh man, look at all those other people.
• 1:15:42
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, why can't I be one of them?
• 1:15:44
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Why am I the one that I'm a quadruple?
• 1:15:50
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, why why me?
• 1:15:52
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Like, I what am I gonna do in in in life?
• 1:15:57
  Speaker: Uh yeah.
• 1:15:58
  Speaker: And you forget how you're way more blessed than you think you are.
• 1:16:03
  Speaker: Like statistically, okay.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker: I'm gonna let's I'm gonna see if like you're able to guess this.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker: How much money per year would you have to make to be in the top five percent of worldwide income?
• 1:16:17
  Speaker: Oh is that like something like 30,000 or something?
• 1:16:26
  Speaker: 30,000 puts you like higher than the top 10 actually.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker: Yeah, that's uh yeah.
• 1:16:31
  Speaker: If you make if you make 25, oh, if you make 13, you're in the top 50 worldwide.
• 1:16:39
  Speaker: Worldwide, yeah.
• 1:16:41
  Speaker: So like most people, like the majority of the world lives on the on less than the equivalent of $2.50 a day.
• 1:16:50
  Speaker: Wow.
• 1:16:52
  Speaker: And that's not just split between like one person, we're talking about household income.
• 1:16:57
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, households, yeah.
• 1:16:58
  Speaker: So like think about things that you would consider to be, and not even just like talking about third world countries.
• 1:17:08
  Speaker: When we start talking about places like uh Flint, Michigan, they still don't have clean water, and it's been like a decade.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker: Or when you think about places like um Appalachia, like people living in those mounted communities, or people who live in really tiny towns where there's no job opportunities, you kind of take it for granted that you have that even though you might not want to, you have the option to go work at McDonald's.
• 1:17:39
  Speaker: The option is there.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker: That's not to say you'll get hired immediately, but it's there if you ask.
• 1:17:46
  Speaker: So the little things like, huh, you know, I don't live in a war zone.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker: Yes, I don't have bullet holes in my windows, I don't have anyone who's actively looking to hurt me.
• 1:18:04
  Speaker: Huh.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker: I have a bike.
• 1:18:08
  Speaker: Well, I don't personally have a bike, but I'm just using the same example.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker: Like the guy on a bike is comparing himself to the guy in the Toyota.
• 1:18:17
  Speaker: The guy in the Toyota is comparing himself to the guy in the Lamborghini, the guy in the Lamborghini is comparing himself to the guy with the jet, and the guy with the jet is comparing himself to the guy with the rocket ship.
• 1:18:30
  Speaker: But if they just looked at, huh, look how far I've come.
• 1:18:35
  Speaker: You know, I used to be the guy walking to work.
• 1:18:39
  Speaker: I used to be the guy with no legs.
• 1:18:43
  Speaker: I used to be the guy who couldn't get out of bed.
• 1:18:47
  Speaker: So, like, we take we take it for granted that we're not bedridden.
• 1:18:53
  Speaker: Like, think about what life would be like if you were bedridden.
• 1:18:57
  Speaker: It would probably suck a lot.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker: And I don't mean like you're temporarily bedridden where like you need somebody to help you get up and like you know get your walker, like when people are 85.
• 1:19:09
  Speaker: I'm talking about like you are full, medically paralyzed, neck down, bed ridden, nothing you can do.
• 1:19:19
  Speaker: Like that that that you take for granted the fact that you can stand.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker: Yeah, like um the guy Ronnie Coleman, he was like a huge bodybuilder back in the 90s and whatnot.
• 1:19:35
  Speaker: The guy can't stand because his muscles and his bones have deteriorated from all that steroid use.
• 1:19:43
  Speaker: Like he cannot he can stand, sorta.
• 1:19:50
  Speaker: He's like a lawn chair that like folds in on itself all the time.
• 1:19:55
  Speaker: And the point is that even basic things when you remind yourself that I can do this, you realize that my life is actually better than I think it is.
• 1:20:09
  Speaker: Yeah, and yeah, when life genuinely sucks, like when life is genuinely knocking you down, like your your dog died, your house burned down, your wife left, you took the kids, cry about it.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker: It's okay to cry about it.
• 1:20:26
  Speaker: Yes, sometimes the best thing you can do is feel it.
• 1:20:31
  Speaker: Cry, scream, be angry about it, in a healthy way, of course, but allow yourself to feel those emotions and navigate through it.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker: So it's not that we have to just be all rainbows and sunshine and cupcakes all day, no, feel that too, but also when life sucks, admit that hey, I'm in a tough period.
• 1:20:58
  Speaker: Feel it, embrace it, but navigate through it through things like you know, maybe you go for a walk, or you go meditate, or you journal, or you go pray, or therapy, or even even something as seemingly basic as just sitting there and crying.
• 1:21:22
  Speaker: Sometimes you just need to cry, and you'll realize like after you get those tears out, okay, I felt that now what can I do to solve this problem?
• 1:21:33
  Speaker: And it's like you just take it one day at a time, as cliche as it sounds, it's the truth.
• 1:21:41
  Speaker: We all live one day at a time, but if you don't if you keep comparing what I have versus what you think you don't have, you never really are living, you're just existing, and that yeah, that's not something you want to do.
• 1:22:01
  Speaker: Once you once you live and you feel what it is to be alive, uh Nikki Minot said in one of her songs, to live doesn't mean you're alive.
• 1:22:13
  Speaker: And I I didn't know what she meant by that for so long, but one day it hit me that like just to live, like just to wake up and breathe and go to work and pay taxes and die, that that isn't being alive, that's just living.
• 1:22:32
  Speaker: When you're alive, it's like I I want to get out of bed and hop behind this camera.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker: Yeah, and it's not that like, oh, you know, I have to do it.
• 1:22:46
  Speaker: No, I get to do it.
• 1:22:48
  Speaker: Yeah, I get to pay my rent, I get to pay my taxes, I get to, and you become grateful for the stuff that previously you didn't enjoy, but you realize that it's a privilege to do certain things that you don't enjoy.
• 1:23:11
  Speaker: Because you don't like paying your rent, but the fact that you get to means that I'm in a financial position where I can afford housing and shelter, and it's you should be grateful to pay your rent.
• 1:23:27
  Speaker: I hope that that point made sense.
• 1:23:30
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, made yeah, complete sense.
• 1:23:32
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, I mean uh yeah, because that means we're doing something.
• 1:23:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If we're not doing something, then we're we might not have rent, might be in a different different position.
• 1:23:51
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Um how about closing us out if you don't mind?
• 1:23:56
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Uh the brand pitch, the books, so let's list them out, and then you can obviously send send uh over to me for the description.
• 1:24:07
  Speaker: Over this last hour and a half, they don't probably they're like, I want whatever this guy got.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker: Yeah, like whatever he's got, it must be working.
• 1:24:15
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, that yeah, that's why I'm like, no, this is keep going.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker: This is fantastic.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker: They're like, what whatever this guy's doing, it gotta work.
• 1:24:25
  Speaker: I want my kid to whatever books and products he got.
• 1:24:28
  Speaker: I'm come on, come shop.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker: Absolutely.
• 1:24:32
  Speaker: My uh social media, like my Instagram and TikTok, Lawrence C Empowers.
• 1:24:39
  Speaker: That's where I put all my videos and content and YouTube, all the exact same thing, Lawrence C Empowers.
• 1:24:47
  Speaker: Okay, now my website where I have my books, products, I do one-on-one coaching for teens and young adults.
• 1:24:54
  Speaker: You can find all of that on Lawrence Charris.com.
• 1:24:59
  Speaker: And for speaking engagements, so if you know you want me to come down to your organization, your church, your YMCA, whatever you got, as long as it's in America, yeah, it's going to be Lawrence C Lawrence at LawrenceCharris.com is my email address.
• 1:25:19
  Speaker: So you can just email me, or if it's more convenient for you, you can book a meeting with me using the button on my website that you know says book me.
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: Book me.
• 1:25:31
  Speaker: Fill out those questions.
• 1:25:32
  Speaker: That way when we get on the call, I can actually know what it is you want, what you're looking for, give you the price, and move far from there.
• 1:25:41
  Speaker: And just as a reminder before we close out, that free ebook is in the link below.
• 1:25:48
  Speaker: It's going to take to a link where you just you know leave a testimonial of hey, what you think of my uh podcast interview?
• 1:25:56
  Speaker: You leave a little review and it automatically sends you the free ebook.
• 1:26:01
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Oh, fantastic.
• 1:26:03
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Wow.
• 1:26:04
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Thank you so much uh for you know, after the long day of being in front of the camera and shows and uh still having the energy now, uh it's uh it it's been uh a really awesome time for me because uh I like to listen more than I think I do, where it's like, oh my gosh, like like I feel like I learned something new uh uh every day.
• 1:26:36
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And to be around like you have like infectious energy, like in a good way.
• 1:26:43
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Yeah, like so many of the your examples and make so much sense and are are so uh e at least for me uh easy to to to to comprehend.
• 1:26:58
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And I I think like you you said, you know, like do I just want to exist or do I want to live?
• 1:27:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Is really what it comes down to.
• 1:27:08
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: If I want to live, let's let's uh let's find out that higher power, who or what or whatever it is, and and when you see signs, don't be afraid to go down there.
• 1:27:27
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Just because you not you, Lord, but uh your viewers and listeners, it just because it may seem like it's a path not very often traveled doesn't mean you can't do it.
• 1:27:41
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And and actually and it doesn't mean that you shouldn't do it.
• 1:27:46
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: It might actually mean that you probably want to at least take a take a look and see see how it goes.
• 1:27:53
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: And uh again, I I have uh I I've learned over the years.
• 1:27:59
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: uh you know whatever you're when when you're passionate about something or some things you get you kind of you kind of do those until you kind of wear them out in a way and if there still ends up being uh people watching shows listening to shows donating whatever buying books uh speaking engagements if things like that are still happening that means you're doing a good job and that's what i i've learned then it's not gonna happen every single day and that's why i think some people and including myself where we're sometimes we think that well it's gotta happen every single day like well i gotta be you know filming you know eight hours a day it it's it's not that i think i think that part is a little bit hard because it's like all right there might be like some days of the week um where there's not a ton going on well then then then you can create you can think you can get to that spot where it's like is there anything additionally I want to do or I can polish up or like you mentioned you're talking to your uh your your web engine engineer uh about some some updates you know re reach out and and and talk to the people and uh say is there anything that I'm missing that I can do a little bit better and trust me uh Lawrence and I we don't have all the answers but what we do have are our experiences and you have an experience too whether you're watching and listening whether you're here in the United States or across the world and uh just so grateful uh had to have Lawrence C.
• 1:30:02
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: Harris with us on this show.
• 1:30:06
  Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes: I I I was I was so excited I wanted to get a book today um and uh so I was so glad we're able to to do that and and thank you so much for your time I I really value I know how days can kind of never end but then it's in a good way and I I really appreciate your time your energy you helping people it's people like you that the world needs more of uh you know just that is a beautiful compliment thank you oh absolutely you're you're welcome I'm just going off the cuff how I'm like we just talk about how we're feeling and you know emotions and yeah it's you know when when we feel things uh it's it it it it it takes things and makes them a little bit calmer because if we're if we're going through a tough time but we yet we feel it and maybe we do cry or or we whatever we do it it takes that stress level down just a teeny bit and if you take a teeny bit of that stress down that means you got a teeny bit more of space in our brain to do some of the the the things uh additionally that we we want to do over the course of life so I I know I'm blessed to have the opportunity to have you on the show that you reached out to me I thank you for the the reminder because I was like I I know I I know there's a guest that reach out to me and you know how an email gets it's like oh my gosh yeah and then if you wouldn't have sent that I'd have been like miss out on like one of the best shows and I'm the just the the best humans to like just just have a conversation like no canned questions just going through life and talking about uh talking about being human so thank you so much Lawrence for being on the show today thank you for having me you're welcome and thanks to Lucy our dog that likes to uh join in from time to time don't you yeah you can always tell when daddy's on on the show and not just practicing or doing something that's not recording um and so yeah we all put everything we got the dog we got the camera we got everything but that's that's life and so we uh that that's just I that's how I prefer it because people have people are dealing with life too so if they got a dog and they're jumping up it's like the big deal like she just wants to hang out and want and uh and it's okay that everything doesn't have always have to be polished up so uh so shiny uh and thank you again our viewers our listeners wherever you may be please please please check out Lawrence C Harris's check out his books check out his speeches uh add them on LinkedIn as connection go to his social media and follow uh that's one thing that um over the course of the the days uh with the different accounts uh is to to make sure I'm following you on everything we we have and uh just uh man you're you're not and I'm just saying this I mean I've I just met you today but I mean you're not gonna find uh somebody that is gonna be more transparent and just talking about real life than than Lawrence so uh check him out find his works buy his books his content it's priceless and we will see you on another episode of the Voices for Voices TV show and podcast thank you so much and have a great day we'll see you next time everybody.