Latest / Dear Son, / A Performative Kind of Love | w AD The Greatest | Ep 161 | The Dear Son, Show

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A Performative Kind of Love | w AD The Greatest | Ep 161 | The Dear Son, Show · Dear Son,

• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's get it.
• 0:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: Welcome to the DS on show.
• 0:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: We have meaningful conversations about life through the lens of fatherhood It's for fathers those with fathers and the father lesson nobody's left out These are the conversations on what my sons the access is they grow through life in the manhood So no topics are all for them.
• 0:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's today.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm your only host, but we got an amazing guess AD isn't the building.
• 0:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: How you feeling my brother?
• 0:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I feel calm man.
• 0:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: I see it.
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  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I see it.
• 0:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's a calmness about you man.
• 0:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: How's your day going?
• 0:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's going on, I'm actually in the season where I am releasing and shredding old patterns and cycles.
• 0:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So a lot of times, man, I've been overwhelmed.
• 0:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I get, yeah, I was going for a walk.
• 0:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: As we were talking earlier and like, I just got hit with a wave of emotion.
• 0:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I had to breathe into it.
• 0:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you know, inhale, exhale and remind myself that the little boy is not running the show.
• 0:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 0:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Is that common?
• 0:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: What did it, did it catch you off go?
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  [SPEAKER_01]: I spent, it caught me off gore because I spent many years on being a void into my own behavior patterns.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, I had amazing people coming my life trying to love me, but I realized that I've been pushing them away, you know.
• 1:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it actually stemmed from a father wound.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: okay.
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  [UNKNOWN]: Yeah
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  [SPEAKER_01]: You do it this way.
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  [SPEAKER_01]: And so performance was the way that I was seeing in the household.
• 1:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So think about it, I was born from two parents that came to America for a better life.
• 1:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm the product of that better life.
• 2:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I felt internally a lot of pressure.
• 2:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I never did well in school.
• 2:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: I tried sports to be seen.
• 2:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's also a place where I hid.
• 2:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and I had a well, you know, for a long time.
• 2:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, so yeah, that's, that's, I ended up in, um, around 16, I ended up in Texas, you know, I ended up in Arlington.
• 2:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was there for about, about a year and a half, and came back home to Orlando.
• 2:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, uh, yeah, I've been, I've been here.
• 2:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you clearly, very aware of that nail, how, how early in life did you pick up on the performative aspect,
• 2:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: that that's what was required.
• 2:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you know or honestly it's been this year.
• 2:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, you know, honestly it's been this year.
• 2:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's been a roller coaster over a year.
• 2:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got into a relationship with amazing woman and she was a mirror, you know.
• 2:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I've been on my Hila journey for at least eight years.
• 2:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: What?
• 2:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: She saw things in me that I was still operating from ego, still operating from past hurt.
• 3:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, um, and I was unwilling to, to, um, hear that and see that.
• 3:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: What was the dynamic in the house with your parents together for a time or for the duration of your childhood?
• 3:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, like one, I never, I never, I never, I never, I never received my dad's love.
• 3:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, even though he was there, he was in the house.
• 3:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, yeah.
• 3:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Up until six, right?
• 3:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 3:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, he taught me a little things like, you know, stuff about Spanish, stuff about having patience.
• 3:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when he used to come home and, you know, he used to work out at a state.
• 3:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was a sheet metal mechanic.
• 3:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he used to work on like in North Carolina, he used to work in, in Mobile, Alabama.
• 3:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when he come home, I remember this one conversation when I was six years old
• 3:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is like my first memory essentially of separation, right?
• 4:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was six years old and he came home and he gave my mama a check and my mom said, that's it, you know, you've been going for a while and you know, my mom had an amazing career being a nurse.
• 4:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So in that moment, I'm sure he felt he masculated, right?
• 4:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I'm six years old, I have no idea.
• 4:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I just see them arguing.
• 4:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: He leaves, he says, he sees me in a hallways
• 4:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: and he gets in his car, he had a white Cadillac backing down a driveway, and he had tears in his eyes.
• 4:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I have his image of my head that I just sometimes I can't shake, it's a six-year-long, six-year-old, a little boy with his hands, you know, on the window with forehead, on the window, and watching my dad, you know, leave.
• 4:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, and yeah, so sometimes,
• 4:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: that moment, that moment taught me, you know, like every meal, am I good enough?
• 4:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, is it my fault, right?
• 5:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so maybe if I was good enough to hit the state, right?
• 5:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: So because it was unknown and I didn't have my father to lead me or guide me or fill in the blanks, right?
• 5:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've been moving from six years old to 34, like essentially like without a roll map.
• 5:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just been, she would start out the way, if it sticks, if it's good, all right, great.
• 5:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I realize that I've, I've, I've left for mess sometimes through my own ambition.
• 5:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 5:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 5:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did that show up from, let's say through, up until high school, do you remember that period?
• 5:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like elementary metal, where the things that jumped out at you, that,
• 5:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, so we'll shake how you are.
• 5:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: From 6 to 13, it was like we've been spending like Christmas's and summers with my dad in Alabama.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 5:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then he had a girlfriend.
• 5:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like he never really spent too much time with us.
• 5:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was just like an obligation.
• 5:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, um, that I don't think we would say us.
• 6:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, of a siblings.
• 6:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I had me and my sister.
• 6:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 6:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 6:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, and so.
• 6:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It was more like an assure like more of an obligation.
• 6:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: It didn't feel like he was actually present.
• 6:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: It just felt like he had something, it like we, like he had to do it.
• 6:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you know, I'm sure that, you know, he'd love this, but I don't think he know how to actually be emotionally available.
• 6:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I remember him telling my sister one year.
• 6:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was on a cycle, and she was having a stomach ache, and he just told her, suck it up again in a car, we got to go.
• 6:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so like,
• 6:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's just things like that that I've, you know, even me being a father like, I have to catch myself up with my daughter to say, oh, because those moments that little moment right there, I can see myself with my daughter, like, you know, over the summer we're playing a, she plays flag football, you know, we're working out.
• 6:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, but I don't know that she's, she's cramping.
• 6:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, come on, we don't did this drill it like, come on, I'm pushing her and she's like my back hurt, my stomach hurt.
• 6:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, you know, I'm getting frustrated.
• 7:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: just like a man that I barely even knew, right?
• 7:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so I remember up to high school because at 13, my father died, you know, and so I got a call in December, 2003, and a time on 12, and he called, he spoke to me, and his voice sounded weaker.
• 7:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, hey, he's like, hey, like, I got to tell you something.
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, what's up?
• 7:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: He was like, uh, got colon cancer.
• 7:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know nothing about an colon cancer.
• 7:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know nothing about cancer.
• 7:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you, you're my superhero, right?
• 7:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, so I need to believe that you are going to beat whatever you're going to do.
• 7:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 7:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so he tossed the phone to my mom.
• 7:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I tossed the phone to my mother.
• 7:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, um, she was talking to him and then I thought, and so, um, there was actually a plan where he was supposed to come back home and live with us.
• 7:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: But my mom had this boyfriend that she moved in that I barely even knew at 10.
• 7:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, being my mom from the 10 to 17, there was no like, she wasn't, I would always say that she wasn't emotionally available for me.
• 8:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because I was a kid that was going in his mom's room and, you know, not she has this boyfriend and now I have to knock on the door.
• 8:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, get older, I don't wanna go through that knock to talk to my mother.
• 8:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it stopped being her voice, then it was his voice.
• 8:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he didn't spend time either.
• 8:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now I'm having the process these things that I don't even know, these emotions that I'm feeling these feelings I don't feeling, and I don't even know what's coming up.
• 8:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: So what do I do?
• 8:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I turn a lasant, I go outside, play basketball, right?
• 8:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Anything to not sit in what I'm feeling, not even know what I'm feeling.
• 8:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 8:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so when we got that call, so fast forward to May,
• 8:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: um she said that my dad would make it past a week and I was like okay this was like you know like made knife and then maybe 11 she came home and she gathered me and my sister and she said hey your dad passed this morning in California um he was living with my other sister and she couldn't come with us there was no space and so he went to go live with his other daughter in California and um I never got that conversation you know what I mean?
• 9:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: the message and it's part of a larger question that I want to ask in terms of how does she present who your father was to you after he left?
• 9:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: Were there many or any conversations about did she steam him?
• 9:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did she, you know, how does she present him to you for blank?
• 9:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: She never said any bad words, right?
• 9:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I remember being a kid and having my mom come in a room and she had like, swap my mouth, you know?
• 9:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, you know, as a kid, I'm guessing she had to, because he was like, well, I'm out of town alive.
• 9:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even know if he's mine, you know, kind of thing.
• 9:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when I said I didn't earn my father's love, it's like, I remember these moments, you know?
• 10:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm connected to him.
• 10:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've never hated my father because I'm connected to him.
• 10:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, and so the best thing that he did was help give me life.
• 10:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I love you.
• 10:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, but that's also how my mom raised me to think.
• 10:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, um, and as that's that's how I just moved with grace, you know, because I realized that it was my father's first time being off, you know, and I realized that my father's father wasn't the best father either, right?
• 10:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we ain't no in group in the age where
• 10:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man just working them came on yeah, you know some yeah, we
• 10:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: We realized that, well, I realized that when I became a father that I as a kid had no right to judge who my father was to me, not understanding what it took to be a man, but I also recall growing with certain feelings before that point, like what was, how did you, what carried you through high school, what was that experience like as you're becoming attracted to women and you started to have these experienced socially, how did you connect with people to did you?
• 11:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was angry, that's how I ended up in Texas.
• 11:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I wasn't feeling it.
• 11:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was, I was, I was frustrated because my mom was too busy trying to tell me I need a father figure when I, when I, when I told her black and white, I need my mother's love.
• 11:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, my mom has always been the instrument of me having a voice.
• 11:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, um, in the communicate before I, before I get frustrated, right, but I was angry
• 11:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is this one woman that with this one little girl that you know, I was 13, 14 years old and, you know, what text that she's called on me, I'm playing basketball.
• 11:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm with all my guys, right?
• 11:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, and they're all telling me like, don't pick up, right?
• 11:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, don't respond.
• 11:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, wait 15 minutes and then text her back, right?
• 11:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm learning early.
• 12:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Then I go to the barbershop and the barbershop.
• 12:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: They talking about having multiple women.
• 12:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, the guy in the neighborhood, that's a little bit old.
• 12:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's talking about having multiple women.
• 12:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that's what makes you a man.
• 12:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Having one woman, I didn't see marriage growing up.
• 12:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the one time that I did, it was a close friend of mine.
• 12:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I never wanted to go home.
• 12:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: fight the structure of his mom cooking and cleaning and working and him dad coming home and taking his tie-off to go in the backyard and swing with us and live waste with us and go on a front yard and play basketball with us watching football with us eat with us right and I used to say man I don't even want to go home to my house right I'm like you you get this every day yeah you know but I was angry man like I got into
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: fighting.
• 12:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got into custom teachers out.
• 12:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got into, you know, the one thing that I love was basketball, and I got that taken away from me because, you know, as a father, now I understand what my mother was doing.
• 13:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: She would teach me there like, hey, like, if I'm driving an hour to work and then coming home, but then I have to draw 45 minutes to your school that I sent you to a better school.
• 13:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: But now you couldn't have at the school, I got to take this away from you.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 13:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: The one thing that I've zoned out.
• 13:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like every time I jump at a basketball, like it just blocked out all the mental chatter.
• 13:29
  [SPEAKER_02]: Right.
• 13:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, um, and that's, that's, that's, you know, that landed me in Texas, man, and in high school.
• 13:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: How so I moved the Texas with the world because I was I was getting in trouble, right?
• 13:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, and they were gonna send me to a different school that that was gonna really get in trouble, right?
• 13:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like the kids in my kids in my neighborhood kids in my age we started to, you know, steal from stores we started to
• 13:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: in the neighborhood playing with the handles of the doors, right?
• 13:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I saw some of my friends die, you know, well, you know, 16 years old I had my first gun, right?
• 14:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so there was a lot of things that, and a watching game game movies on YouTube, you know, and one day, my mom seen the video and she was like, hey, keep this up.
• 14:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're gonna be right where your dad is at, and I said, but my dad is dead, she said, yeah, I know.
• 14:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I remember just being like, I would you tell me that, but I don't think she even had any idea how to deal with me, just letting process.
• 14:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: How much do you know about your parents' parents?
• 14:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: How they're upbringing?
• 14:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, I know, I don't know too much about, I never met my grandparents on my father's side.
• 14:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, funny enough, my mom didn't even know my dad spoke Spanish until she heard one day on the phone, talk to his mom.
• 14:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: She thought, she thought she was being cheated on.
• 14:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she was like, who is that?
• 14:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, he's like, I'm talking to my mom.
• 14:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's like, I didn't know you know Spanish.
• 14:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: My dad said you never asked.
• 15:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: So right then in there, we're dealing with a man that it's very private.
• 15:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he was also like, military, you know, and he was a part of some, I think he was part of some cult if I'm being honest, right?
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 15:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And he's a tell me like, if I told you the thing that I'm done, I have to kill you.
• 15:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So he was like, one of those military men,
• 15:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know, um, and my mom's parents, um, don't only remember having my grandma is running over her foot when it's on the truck.
• 15:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like as a kid, you know, um, my grandfather and one time when I was 10 and, um, that was, that was, that was cool.
• 15:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: We, we went to Barbados, and that was, that was, that was, that was pretty cool.
• 15:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, my mother told me that, um, she told me this year,
• 15:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: her mother didn't really give her a voice.
• 15:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was the oldest girl.
• 15:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was the oldest daughter of six kids.
• 15:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was three boys and it was three girls.
• 16:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she's the oldest daughter, but she had to take care of the three older boys.
• 16:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 16:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so my mom said, you know, um, you know, I was, I didn't have much of a voice growing up.
• 16:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was like, I wanted to do things differently with you all.
• 16:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 16:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so she told me because my son, he, um,
• 16:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: There's times when I'm trying to talk to him and it's not landing, where I'm like, you know, listen, I didn't have a dad like me, like I'm showing you, and it doesn't land because it's not his life, you know?
• 16:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's so, my mom was like, don't let him see frustrated because you didn't talk to you before and then he started to mumble and then he started to stutter.
• 16:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: When my mom always poured it to me, told me about Moses was slow to speak as well too, and he just told me that I couldn't read right to speak well.
• 16:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I do know he's like, my mom poured everything that all the love that she could give me, whatever she can give me, at the time that she can give me, I know that she never held back, you know.
• 17:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: What did the experience in Arlington do for you?
• 17:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: The experience in the fatherhood?
• 17:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, we laugh about this me and my siblings because there was no parental figures.
• 17:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is me and my two sisters.
• 17:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: One of my sisters she is our 12 years older than me.
• 17:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have different dads.
• 17:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
• 17:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so she knows more about my dad than I do.
• 17:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, but my sister that this close in age, I was 16.
• 17:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was 19, my other sister was like 28, 29, you know, somewhere around there.
• 17:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, I was actually more free to be honest.
• 17:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my mom would call her here and there, but I wasn't, I wasn't here.
• 17:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she would try to say, you know, if I got in trouble, she would try to punch me through the phone and I tell my sister to try to.
• 17:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, that ain't going right.
• 17:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was like, that ain't, that ain't it.
• 18:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You kind of push me away, right?
• 18:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You kind of gave up on me as I got older.
• 18:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I saw that my mom was just trying to find who she was.
• 18:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, because she had been a mother since her 20s.
• 18:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I took it personally, even though I still need a mom mother's love, but you do the only parent that I got.
• 18:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I need you.
• 18:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's like high side is amazing when you can actually come to an appreciation of what your parents were going through.
• 18:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because you don't understand what it is to be 20, having not been 20.
• 18:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 18:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: But having been 20, you kind of, oh, I wasn't hitting them all.
• 18:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And everything, I wasn't making all the right decisions.
• 18:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: And if you got people looking at you, depending on you modeling your behavior,
• 18:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: There's plenty of behaviors early in my fatherhood that I'm not proud of now, even though I wasn't intentionally being a bad person.
• 19:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So by children, I just didn't know what I didn't know and I didn't ask for help.
• 19:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, that was my thing.
• 19:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: I had a great father, but I felt like I was embarrassed in him because...
• 19:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't want to be like him.
• 19:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't like his rules, right?
• 19:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: They were very religion-branded house.
• 19:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I get it now.
• 19:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you gotta have a standard.
• 19:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I completely understand it now.
• 19:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: But as a child, 13, 14, I thought I knew what I did.
• 19:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: No.
• 19:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that carried on through my early adulthood, so as I create a distance from my father, who I had access to, which is foolish, when I realize that I need to him now, I'm embarrassed.
• 19:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I can't tell him.
• 19:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm out here living the way I'm living.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 19:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because I didn't realize that he had a life too.
• 19:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm saying, and I found out later, actually through this platform and like, 40 that we had some something like the Apple,
• 19:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: Typically last next to the tree.
• 19:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: In most cases, in all cases in last next to the tree, it may roll down the hill, but it absolutely falls directly beside the tree.
• 20:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: What went it on, as you move it to adulthood.
• 20:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: how are you navigating like because anger seems to be a thing, even when you're away from your mom, that was this head of maybe the anger is still there.
• 20:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's trying to punch you through the phone and give your sisters, you know, guys, so how the hell do you, like, at what point did that subside or was it a day by day today, man?
• 20:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Today, I'm, I'm, I'm looking, I don't get angry, I'm just disappointed.
• 20:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I just get disappointed in like, I believe you, Dave, you know.
• 20:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, like, people look me on my eyes so they got me and treated my heart horribly.
• 20:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm not even upset.
• 20:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, I understand that you had to be hurt and hurt me.
• 20:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, you know.
• 20:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I get it.
• 20:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: It doesn't mean that like, you know, there is a, the anger stopped when,
• 21:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: I thought it's an understanding like, I'm allowing other people to get me here.
• 21:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and was dating as woman, I was like 20.
• 21:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, I think she was cheating on me, whatever, but I got so upset.
• 21:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she didn't see this, but I just tore my whole apartment apart.
• 21:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I was a child in my room.
• 21:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, as a kid, you know, I can't, you just get in your room and you start throwing stuff.
• 21:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my mom used to always come in the room and like, and give me these three soft knots.
• 21:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she said, hey,
• 21:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, you still got domestic cleanup, right?
• 21:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did you have a match of energy when it came to anger, or was she always kind of ever?
• 21:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: There was one time like so, it was a rise to power moment, right?
• 21:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So like when I was 13, our 12, and I think it was 13, 14.
• 22:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was in 7th grade, I know that.
• 22:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so you probably run that age.
• 22:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And we were doing math.
• 22:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I say, my mom was creating, she does math differently than what they teach in America.
• 22:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I was like, they're not doing, I don't understand what you're saying.
• 22:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're trying to help me.
• 22:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I get that you're trying to help me.
• 22:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you can't help me in this situation because that's not how they teach in it.
• 22:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so she grabbed, you know, she grabbed a paper.
• 22:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Or she grabbed nothing, she grabbed something.
• 22:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever was close to it.
• 22:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: and she went like this, and that's when I stood up, and I grabbed her wrist, and I said, we don't do it that.
• 22:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, and it was just me staring at her eyes.
• 22:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And yeah.
• 22:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then ever since then, she switched her whole approach.
• 22:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she got a very strategic with how she handled me then.
• 22:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it was like, hey, let's go, hey, I got to come run some errands.
• 22:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, cool, yeah, come with me.
• 22:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, cool, I'm thinking we're gonna bond.
• 23:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: We're not on one time, right?
• 23:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: What are we going?
• 23:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, first thought, we're gonna go cut that hair.
• 23:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, it was, and it was very much.
• 23:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I've always been a rebel.
• 23:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've always been a goal against the grain.
• 23:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Whatever you tell me,
• 23:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: the lines with me.
• 23:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 23:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And but my mom always met met that with kindness with softness with grace.
• 23:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's that's interesting.
• 23:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: My uh, my last whipping because I got with uh, there's no other way to describe it was in seven great and and I deserved it.
• 23:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: But what shifted the dynamic between me and my father was only when a lot of being my mom beat me one time in my dad was like, hey, you know, you You go to it takes too much for you to get there.
• 23:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: You go too far once you did.
• 23:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: So that was the only one time my mom beat me.
• 23:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: But the last time of my dad with me.
• 23:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: He started crying.
• 23:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like after he did it, I heard him like his office space was across the hall from my room and I heard him crying.
• 24:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: He came back in in the apologize.
• 24:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: And he realized that, like, in seven grade, I'm probably five, 11, 16, 165.
• 24:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: My dad is six once.
• 24:13
  [SPEAKER_00]: So we're almost out of eye.
• 24:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not that I would dare raise up on him.
• 24:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: He was like, I realized that you had to take it.
• 24:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think he said, I felt like I was degrading.
• 24:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: He said next time, if we get to that point, we'll square up.
• 24:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: We never had a problem again.
• 24:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: Not that I wasn't a problem, but I never presented myself in the way that we're forcing to put his hands on me.
• 24:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was just
• 24:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: You say yes, it's also known for me.
• 24:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: I curfew with his curfew.
• 24:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like those were my things and it was beyond whipping and I stayed on punishment.
• 24:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't think I saw the first three seasons of Martin and that was a big deal because I was on restriction for those years.
• 24:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: For those years, that was my life.
• 24:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when it comes to that point, I think it's a,
• 24:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: a salute today and maturity to realize when something doesn't work.
• 25:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's kind of why I want to go on conversation that you reference children, a daughter, and a son, is that the extent of it?
• 25:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
• 25:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: What kind of parent how old are they?
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: Number one.
• 25:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: My daughter is 12, and my son is nine.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Okay.
• 25:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you've been at this 12 years.
• 25:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did you start in less kind of walk-through where you are today as a father?
• 25:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: How did I start as a father?
• 25:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 25:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: He won't kiss.
• 25:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I won't kiss too.
• 25:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, so let's do sex.
• 25:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let's do sex, you know?
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know?
• 25:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know?
• 25:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, let's say brother, I'm very fortunate that she don't call me no problems.
• 25:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, no, yeah, that's not the way that that should be done.
• 25:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, message, yeah, it was so, you know, I like you, I see we going in life and I like you too, I like when you're going to life, you know?
• 26:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Both of us were fighting, I did it with women that we didn't even know existed, you know, from her and her mom and her dad and for me, from my mom and dad.
• 26:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like the one thing we had in common is like, this is how we want to show it for our children, what we want to create.
• 26:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so we just went, you know, in it.
• 26:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: And you have to get ready to try two weeks, be people in my trial and Germany.
• 26:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I'm pregnant.
• 26:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Well, I got a decision in me, right?
• 26:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: My dad wasn't there, and I'd be real with you, no one is checking for absent fathers these days.
• 26:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I got a decision to make.
• 26:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can go be selfish and go do a dream that I've been planning in my hair since I was 10.
• 26:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, all right.
• 26:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right, could be a father.
• 26:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And well, I was afraid to be a father.
• 26:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: In your mind, they were opposed.
• 26:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: There was no answer for both things to be a team.
• 27:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: Your dream and fatherhood.
• 27:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've never seen both.
• 27:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Outside of the guy that I was married or the guy that I was on married in his household.
• 27:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: But at 22, 21, I wasn't even thinking about what I was seeing in that dynamic of marriage.
• 27:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 27:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm just like,
• 27:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do we do from here?
• 27:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was just like the love that I had for was mine, because mine is mine.
• 27:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't play about was mine.
• 27:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, okay, cool, I got you.
• 27:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: So we'll figure this out.
• 27:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then she was with both of our children, actually, she was, she ran the risk of having either miscarriage or premature.
• 27:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, because it was like a medical, like, or like her body, the cervix was half than what it needed to be at the time.
• 27:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she couldn't even work anymore.
• 27:57
  [SPEAKER_00]: Did the job know that before, let's do sex.
• 28:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you found out through the first pregnancy.
• 28:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, man.
• 28:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: We, you know, you know, who we had no idea.
• 28:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: I mean, at least I didn't know.
• 28:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 28:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I went into, um, this is actually funny now.
• 28:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I went and said that I went and said that, um,
• 28:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, when you go into the meeting, I meet the doctor.
• 28:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, they're well.
• 28:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, he was like, hey, this is a... First pregnancy?
• 28:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm like, yeah.
• 28:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: I'm interested in the questions.
• 28:30
  [SPEAKER_02]: And she's like, no.
• 28:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 28:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm...
• 28:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: When I was 15, like, my mom made a decision for me.
• 28:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, oh.
• 28:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay, never been to type the judge anything.
• 28:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm like, yeah, I, okay, but it's valuable information under this, you know, Georgia, that is valuable information to share.
• 28:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, and so I'll, so I've learned to shut up, you know, I've never been the type of man to have any authority over a woman in their decision or their bodies.
• 29:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm like, all right, I ain't no, I'm no foul.
• 29:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I'm rolling with you, I think that men,
• 29:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, whatever we should, and I'm a, I'm a, I'm a, I'm a get you on a camera to agree to come back to a panel discussion to talk about that because I don't think we don't get to it here.
• 29:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yes, yes, got cool, yeah, I think man should take on the whole package, you know, you know, um, it's part of their responsibility of men and men feel that internally in a turn to add the cheek and I know they do.
• 29:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, what are you going down the path?
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 29:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Going down the path.
• 29:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go back.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Let's go back.
• 29:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm, I'm, you know, you know, eight.
• 29:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I'm beautiful.
• 29:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I always say if it feels heavy, that's because God gave you the responsibility.
• 29:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's why I feel heavy.
• 29:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so every time when I feel like I'm pushing away or running arm over well, oh, no, it's supposed to feel like that.
• 30:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, the thing about that is weight weight still heavy when you first started lifting them, but we keep lifting them.
• 30:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: Come on.
• 30:08
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah, 100% for what is work, for what is work.
• 30:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've learned to just, I learned one to speak and one to, you know, one to just listen.
• 30:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so when I learned through that pregnancy, you know, I always said that my daughter's my oxygen, you know, she actually taught me how to love, you know.
• 30:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I held them and I says, I don't want you to be like me.
• 30:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that was the introduction to my healing.
• 30:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't even want to have my name.
• 30:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I wanted to have it on identity.
• 30:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: I wasn't, I was still, I was still Alex.
• 30:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to earn, I felt like I had to earn my name, Alexander.
• 30:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so on.
• 31:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that was a challenge for me because, you know, I never seen it, but like the love that I had.
• 31:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like I've always, my kids know that they, they know I'm a great dad.
• 31:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know I'd love their mother.
• 31:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: No idea, she's a come home and I was still in that space of come on for work and she was, you know, she wanted to connect with me.
• 31:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I've been home all day with our children.
• 31:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna play basketball.
• 31:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm going to go to the gym, I can't let you get that close to me because then because then you'll see me and if you can see me, you might hurt me.
• 31:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so when we operate like that, she actually hurt me before she can hurt me, I hurt myself.
• 32:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: how light you got it.
• 32:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: I've always been a fan of like people who can just tell me raw true.
• 32:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 32:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: It makes life for me a god that didn't have a road map.
• 32:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Very easy.
• 32:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm much rather that raw truth than to be comfort with a lie.
• 32:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: So yeah, I became the man.
• 32:27
  [UNKNOWN]: I
• 32:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: No, I still think today she's an amazing woman, you know.
• 32:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you said, you, I want to pull a thread a little bit because when you said it, I was listening to what you said after it, but I was in my place trying to place myself in that position of my significant other telling me basically telling me I'm not what they need.
• 32:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: that's how I hear.
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 32:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 32:51
  [SPEAKER_00]: How how how did how did you how did you actually hear it?
• 32:53
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not I'm not trying to put anything on you to say something different.
• 32:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I'm genuinely curious like, what did you hear when she said that?
• 33:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: I felt like a little boy looking at that window again.
• 33:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, looking to perform, looking to people please, what could I do better?
• 33:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: All right,
• 33:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, what did I do?
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a nice guy.
• 33:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm a good father.
• 33:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: Everyone who's always telling me, Alice is an amazing father.
• 33:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: They would stop there.
• 33:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who am I without the performance?
• 33:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, there.
• 33:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And fatherhood at some level, it's a performance.
• 33:32
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you got to wake up and put that crown on and get to it.
• 33:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: whether you want to or not.
• 33:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: What do you want to or not?
• 33:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So it's like, I am, I am very efficient and it's going to 20 points and 10 rebounds.
• 33:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: And if I have a sis, I can see really.
• 33:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, it's measurable.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 33:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 33:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, when I'm not performing out my best is that when I'm not worthy, I spray my ankle.
• 33:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So now you're going to cut me.
• 33:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm glad you brought in the sports analogy because like often in my conversations with men, we think somewhat linear like it's it's this or that.
• 34:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: So something that's measurable or it's not you did 2010 or you did five and one and you was on the bench like you let you like it's clear when you didn't meet the mark and you let your team down.
• 34:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 34:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: And fatherhood.
• 34:23
  [SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, I won't say that there aren't stats, but I didn't want to see my stats.
• 34:27
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 34:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: So when you say you were a great father and people champion that would qualify, would it lose the stats for that?
• 34:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, would confirm that you would great father other than that words?
• 34:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man, I had, I changed my life around.
• 34:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, just to be my kids that, you know, there's not a axe too much.
• 34:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: ain't nothing like I'm laying it on a line because I'm a product of someone who didn't have a dad.
• 35:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I always speak light and love over the mother, even around my kids, even when we're separated from day one, you know, even through the heart, through the heart, pray, even though I'm I'm crying for days, because I'm the little boy that can't get what
• 35:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did you recognize it in real time?
• 35:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: Good impression?
• 35:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 35:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't know what it was.
• 35:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was literally, I had the mindset of like, you know, this ain't mine.
• 35:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't know what this is.
• 35:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know?
• 35:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I didn't got to a point in my life where I didn't did everything that everyone wanted me to do.
• 35:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: And how about how about still losing?
• 35:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right?
• 35:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I put the prior to the side.
• 35:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: I put the career to the side.
• 35:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: OK, I'm going to be a father.
• 35:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So let's be a father, right?
• 35:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not knowing.
• 35:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: that I also have to be a good partner, right?
• 35:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: Not knowing that she has an experience that she wants to live as well, too.
• 36:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so I became the person that was like, she told me when I was like, you know, you can post these inspirational quotes, motivational quotes on social media, but you ain't living it.
• 36:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so like, I got off line for like 18 months.
• 36:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I said, I need to figure out who, who was Alexander?
• 36:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to earn this kid's love.
• 36:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to earn this man's love.
• 36:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to go to my father's grave and, and, and, and, hey, I love you.
• 36:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 36:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, here we are now.
• 36:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: We don't have this conversation now.
• 36:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I wasn't, I had a fly from Orlando to California because it was like, my mom said it was like, well, you're not coming to me.
• 36:44
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I got to go to you.
• 36:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I was like, man,
• 36:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: If she's the one, let me know, should I go work that out?
• 36:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Let me know, please let me know.
• 36:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: If it's one thing that you can help me with, just let me know.
• 36:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: If she the one and my arm came into my body like this.
• 37:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And in that moment, it was like, oh, I'm the one that I've been looking for.
• 37:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what, I got a show for my kids because you didn't show for me, right?
• 37:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's that right here, that's going to stop today.
• 37:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know what I'm saying?
• 37:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I just feel guilty.
• 37:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, choosing me.
• 37:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I want to point out how you frames something when I ask you to qualify the great dad award, you know, and you said, I I laid it on the line cool.
• 37:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I gave up my career.
• 37:35
  [SPEAKER_02]: Did any resentment brew from that?
• 37:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: No, I didn't feel like I had a choice.
• 37:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I feel like I did the best thing.
• 37:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like my daughter, like to be honest, like, this is a first year, like, she's a middle school.
• 37:57
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she's playing like, she just tracks, she does football, she does basketball, all the things.
• 38:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And the coach was like, hey, you fast?
• 38:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I was like, yeah, why?
• 38:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: Man.
• 38:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your daughter, man, she fast, man.
• 38:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, she, she, she, she, she is a, she was the only girl that was on the seventh, it was on the eighth grade team.
• 38:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was the only girl that I was in sixth grade starting at running back amongst boys.
• 38:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it was like, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so, so
• 38:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: So you said football.
• 38:31
  [SPEAKER_00]: I assume I know there's girls flag football league.
• 38:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're talking about football.
• 38:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: This was co-ed.
• 38:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, this was like, no, this is a flag football.
• 38:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: Okay.
• 38:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: But I mean, still, and she still scoring touchdown, you still can't catch her like none of it.
• 38:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they're acting me, you know, and I'll get to it.
• 38:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like they were acting me like some of the some of the cultures, some of the some of the players.
• 38:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, I often do you trainer trainer.
• 38:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I pour my life into this little girl.
• 39:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 39:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there ain't nothing that she believed in.
• 39:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: And my son, there ain't nothing that they don't believe that they can do.
• 39:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Nothing.
• 39:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I gave them my mentality.
• 39:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and also, they were around me while I was still, you know, hey, I'm not slowing down for you.
• 39:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm going to the court.
• 39:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm just dragging you with me now.
• 39:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, yeah.
• 39:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they got that competitiveness.
• 39:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think that's interesting, and I commend you for number one being at a real time, and it didn't take you long to answer, so I believe you're true for the body, but not but the reason I was curious about it is because
• 39:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: I made my career my priority and found a way to blame it on them because I needed to do that to give them a better life.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 39:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's how I justified it in my mind.
• 39:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it's interesting to with somebody that has a dream where
• 40:00
  [SPEAKER_00]: like only the 1% of the 1% make it and to lose that and not shift any of that blame or carry any of that into into your parenting.
• 40:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think it's commendable, because I'm just talking about corporate, like, it gets replicated all the time, not everybody makes it period, not everybody makes it how I made it, but it wasn't like I was, I had worked 18 years and I messed up at the combine.
• 40:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: It wasn't that.
• 40:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, said, there were other chances, but it was, but honestly, I made it my thing because I have friends, the last weeks, right, and that's measurable trophy.
• 40:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Playoffs.
• 40:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: Championship like it's measurable.
• 40:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: So my thing was, but I got to be successful.
• 40:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I need to, I need to make it to the executive rank.
• 40:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: And recognize what I was doing to my family.
• 40:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I didn't shift.
• 40:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Soon enough, thank God I said that opportunity to correct course.
• 41:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: But
• 41:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: when things weren't going well in home, our rents were weren't well and was measurable, which was in the office.
• 41:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 41:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: I think with a lot of our black man, we're taught that our purpose is sports.
• 41:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like our purpose is like performance.
• 41:18
  [SPEAKER_01]: Perform, yeah, the show.
• 41:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I've always said like, sometimes people with dreams are you know, there are inconvenience to other people who love them.
• 41:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: right like if I'm if I'm 34 years old I'm like man I'm gonna get back out there man I can still make the lead.
• 41:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Who am I inconvenience in now?
• 41:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: My daughter needs me.
• 41:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: My son needs me.
• 41:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: They're mama still need me as some capacity, right?
• 41:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mama needs me.
• 41:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: My sister needs me.
• 41:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: I can very much go out here and go do that and commit everything that I got to it.
• 41:51
  [SPEAKER_01]: And what cost?
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 41:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I what cost am I wasn't to be a success to the world but at home a
• 41:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: Paul's right there because the way you just laid it out is what we would have been a thing on this platform is that in every other area of life, we can figure out how to go hard, go through hell, to figure it out, to get there, to wherever there is, but the moment, food ain't high when we walk in the door, we ready to go.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: Leave it.
• 42:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's why I'm not, that's why I never get married.
• 42:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm like, well, food don't.
• 42:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you would never don't, okay, got you with the audacity of some of us to be able to love something so much and poor, all of us into something so much that has no guarantee return, because it's not even a human that can get it back to you.
• 42:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's a sport, it's an achievement, it's an accomplishment.
• 42:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Run through every wall to do that.
• 42:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mom used to always tell me that, um, she said, Alex, if you had to do something as not of you, just to get something that you want and what you're trying to get, probably don't deserve you.
• 42:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: Your mom still living?
• 42:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, man.
• 42:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, yeah, she retired this year and she's moving to Panama.
• 43:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: Do you still have conversations with him?
• 43:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: Every day, like Monday through Friday, we talk.
• 43:06
  [SPEAKER_01]: Two years ago, I made a point.
• 43:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I watched this, it was like these football players from Miami hurricanes.
• 43:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And then when the last time we talked to him all, some of them were like, oh, last night, oh, last week, oh, last month, that I, and I said, man, you know what?
• 43:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna make it a point to have a better relationship with my mother.
• 43:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so I call her, even if it's just a talk about whatever it is, but now my mom helps me with like relationships stuff, it helps me, I was like, yeah, I've, like, she had been fired as a parent, but she was, but you know, I'm saying, like, she's fired as a parent.
• 43:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can't tell, but you could also like, you are my advisor, yeah, right, A mom, I'm thinking about doing this this this world, did you look at this, this, this, right?
• 43:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: She, you can't tell me parenting.
• 43:52
  [SPEAKER_01]: But you can also, but now, I'm more inquiring of like, hey, if I make this move, is this valid?
• 43:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: What Alex, like, you don't need a woman that is going to be a set codependent, right?
• 44:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: You need a woman that's going to actually understand you.
• 44:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: You need a woman that is going to do that.
• 44:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: So she's like, you might have to move something out of the way in order to actually be with the woman that understands what you're building in the family dynamic, you know?
• 44:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I didn't have, like I said, 10 to 17, emotionally checked out.
• 44:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, but I get to say, you know what, hmm, let me go foster and create this relationship that I actually want to have with my mother.
• 44:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 44:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And not be like, well, she's the parent.
• 44:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, why should I come to me?
• 44:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Fair.
• 44:36
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think a lot of parents are so ready to be in the advisory role.
• 44:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: when their parenting role didn't earn them and it buys a response.
• 44:48
  [SPEAKER_00]: Oh, yeah.
• 44:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know, I've said like, you, if you, the hack is, if you're parenting for the relationship to continue when they become an adult, you're probably parent, more informed and more intensely.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 45:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you're parenting to get them out of the house so you can get back to your life.
• 45:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: You need to set them up for a problem or y'all love for a problem.
• 45:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: If you choose to still be involved with the child once they become an adult and that's that's one thing that I that has become clear to me is that my dad had standards.
• 45:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: But becoming a parent, I realized that being leaving early didn't just cause problems for me.
• 45:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: It caused problems for me and him because he chose the remaining part of the solution.
• 45:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: So part of his parenting was probably, man, I see this coming like I see my kids now have my children today are 22, 19, 18, 12, and 11.
• 45:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: One birthday left this year, my 19 will be 20 years old will be 20 before the year ends.
• 46:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I have adults and adolescents in the house at the same time.
• 46:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 46:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: And what I realized is who I am for the adolescent children.
• 46:11
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't for the adults because I didn't have the capacity to be.
• 46:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I wasn't me.
• 46:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: So they get in two different versions.
• 46:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's interesting because the younger ones see how I parent the older ones.
• 46:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And they think they're do that.
• 46:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: No, you're still this.
• 46:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: And then the older ones see how I parent the younger ones.
• 46:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: So, so with when it clicks that parenting is for life, that's my choice.
• 46:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 46:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: Some may not agree.
• 46:42
  [SPEAKER_00]: Right.
• 46:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: 18 you got to get out of the house.
• 46:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I think we do that way too much in our community.
• 46:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: Conversation for another time.
• 46:49
  [SPEAKER_00]: But when you parent to stay in your child's life, I think I think both the parent and the child are better for that.
• 46:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was sharing something with you, man.
• 46:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never share with anyone.
• 46:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mom to this day has a hard time telling me she loves me.
• 47:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: She shows me, I also hear her tell my grandkids, her grandkids that she loves them.
• 47:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hear her tell my sisters that she loved them, but when it comes to me, I know she lives with a silent guilt.
• 47:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know she lives with Shay.
• 47:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know she's not proud of how she showed her for me in childhood.
• 47:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that she's the type to overcome and say, I know that she's the type to fill in my gaps when I fall short.
• 47:28
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 47:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: I had to be the man to say,
• 47:34
  [SPEAKER_02]: Let me show off for you, because everyone else, you show off for everyone else, let me show off for you.
• 47:44
  [SPEAKER_02]: Have you let off the hook?
• 47:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:49
  [SPEAKER_01]: We have some of the most like crazy, it's funny because I learned more about my mom through my daughter.
• 47:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like whatever conversation skipped me, she gives them to my daughter.
• 48:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And she's like, did you know that Mimi used to sing?
• 48:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: When she was in Barbados, no idea.
• 48:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Did you know that she was working at this place in my, no idea?
• 48:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 48:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: My mom told me at six, she says, don't look at me as, as mom all the time, like, I'm a girl.
• 48:20
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm like, you're what?
• 48:22
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, you won't, you probably won't.
• 48:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: You're probably on this, I'm not going to say you want to understand it because I think you have a handle on it now.
• 48:28
  [SPEAKER_00]: But you'll understand it fully at the point you become a grandparent.
• 48:34
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 48:35
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, I'm a grandparent now, my granddaughter is 15 months.
• 48:40
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it's almost like having a third generation.
• 48:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like I said, I got 20 to 11 year old and then 15 month old.
• 48:50
  [SPEAKER_00]: It register for me when my dad told me.
• 48:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was like, you're not, I don't know who you are when you around my children.
• 48:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 48:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'm not sure of this guy, all my mom, right?
• 49:01
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's still the other thing, God.
• 49:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: And my dad said, sometimes, it's like, when you get a second chance in life to correct the wrong, you do it, and I said, man, I, yeah.
• 49:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that hits me.
• 49:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: That really hit me in my spirit just now.
• 49:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: I tell my kids, I'm like, man, listen, I didn't grow up with the roll map.
• 49:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't, I didn't, like, this time I wasn't working on something.
• 49:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I really want to connect with you all.
• 49:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I don't know how to choose both.
• 49:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I don't want to put the laptop down.
• 49:35
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like sometimes I'm like, baby girl, you want to come and take this phone out of my hand.
• 49:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: You want to close this laptop down.
• 49:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like you want to tell me like, hey, daddy, take a break.
• 49:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause sometimes I go.
• 49:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so, you know, even today, my daughter, she says, she says, hey, I want to go after practice.
• 49:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I want to go to this, some band performance
• 50:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I'm like, nah, not today, default.
• 50:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Putting myself in her shoes now, I'm like, I remember wanting to go to things like that when I was her age and my mom told me no.
• 50:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 50:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I'm safe.
• 50:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I dropped her off and I was like, I'll keep her open mind.
• 50:22
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm trying.
• 50:23
  [SPEAKER_01]: She's okay, all I can do is I'm trying, right?
• 50:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the part of me that is like, I'm okay with them with their mother, like finding love somewhere else, like that man is not my replacement.
• 50:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's her reward for being clear.
• 50:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: She was clear and what she wanted to experience, I was not ready to give you there.
• 50:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I was not the man who I am today who can give you that experience, right?
• 50:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So you have exactly what you said you wanted, right?
• 50:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I tell her her,
• 50:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you chose him as your father.
• 50:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm sorry, as the stepfather for our kids.
• 50:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm glad you chose him as a husband because he was actually raised in a household where he had two parents.
• 51:05
  [SPEAKER_01]: Where you actually had, you had their conversation, this is what you think.
• 51:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, no, I had that word.
• 51:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, I had that one word, I'm like yo, I'm proud of you to for choosing that man because he actually had like my kids don't lack nothing.
• 51:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right, for somebody who didn't have a father, my kids now have, they got two grandfathers from her son.
• 51:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: She got a, she got a dad and a step dad.
• 51:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Oh, she has her husband, which my kid stepped at.
• 51:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: My kid's got me, and if I want to play around with that and act like I'm prideful, you know, there's gonna be a moment where there's a graduation, there's a house, there's a car, there's a thought of these likeable congressmen that our kids are gonna be, and guess, I'm gonna have to share that moment with you, bro.
• 51:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I should probably just like, hey, I'm proud of you.
• 51:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, you're a woman who knew what she wanted.
• 51:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: I hope that you're happy.
• 52:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know he's proud to be with you too.
• 52:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so I'm making efforts to connect with him more as we grow.
• 52:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: Because who I am, I'll tell you right now, like, that ain't even common.
• 52:14
  [SPEAKER_00]: I know who I am, and I'm the boy you say, I'm like, because I have a version of that.
• 52:19
  [SPEAKER_00]: My oldest is not my biological, but she's no less mine.
• 52:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Her father didn't choose to spend as much time.
• 52:27
  [SPEAKER_00]: So I am the default, you know what I'm saying?
• 52:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I know what it is when there's a rub, when it's not all good, you know what I'm saying?
• 52:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: And it can,
• 52:41
  [SPEAKER_00]: It can tap on the man's pride and ego when a thing isn't going the way he wants it, especially when when part of it was something that used to be his not belong, not property.
• 52:54
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I got your guy.
• 52:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: You know what I'm saying?
• 52:56
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like you don't, that was, so I find it interesting and very mature.
• 53:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Granted you are 34.
• 53:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: I was 24 going through it.
• 53:07
  [SPEAKER_00]: So it, you know,
• 53:09
  [SPEAKER_00]: It, the city could have been smoky on either side, but it, but, but, but, but, but thank God, it never, it didn't progress to that and cooler has prevailed.
• 53:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'm not thankful that he backed out, and I've never had a conversation with him about like, why?
• 53:29
  [SPEAKER_00]: Mm-hmm.
• 53:30
  [SPEAKER_00]: Because it wasn't like he felt like he couldn't be around.
• 53:32
  [SPEAKER_02]: Yeah.
• 53:33
  [SPEAKER_00]: Ultimately, he married a woman that had a child.
• 53:38
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I think something is click like he appreciated my, you know, in my mind, again, these come say the second time around.
• 53:46
  [SPEAKER_00]: These come say he's never had, but in my mind, I'm, I'm, I'm suggesting that he said, oh, well, this is what it's like to be on that side.
• 53:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: But, but what, like, is any of that approach?
• 54:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: letting yourself off the hook, like that, yeah, like they're better now, cool good for them.
• 54:08
  [SPEAKER_00]: He can undo, well, it makes like being a father wasn't really your, your weak point, but maybe being that man that she needed.
• 54:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: Like, is any of that, who?
• 54:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: She's over me.
• 54:26
  [SPEAKER_00]: I, you know, he can
• 54:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know there were just souls passing through here.
• 54:36
  [SPEAKER_01]: Passing through life.
• 54:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: I know that we don't possess anything.
• 54:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: But like I said, it was mine as mine.
• 54:41
  [SPEAKER_01]: My kids are mine.
• 54:43
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm not threatened by nothing.
• 54:46
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's my blur, we're not doing them.
• 54:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: Now, however, you'd now tell me clear, I didn't actually be a part of my life, right?
• 54:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: That would be kind of weird.
• 54:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: To be clear, right?
• 54:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, he actually chose me by choosing who he Packs do, right?
• 55:01
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so this is what you're signing out for.
• 55:03
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so in the beginning of that, right?
• 55:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, there was very much of her of not liking me, hating me, right?
• 55:09
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I broke her heart, right?
• 55:10
  [SPEAKER_01]: I failed her, right?
• 55:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: So that's all he knows of me.
• 55:15
  [SPEAKER_01]: the part that I didn't fit the bill, right?
• 55:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when I'm talking to him, he already has a jaded perspective of me.
• 55:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: He's already like, hey, I know y'all too, the friends, but like, I'm gonna be the only one making her laugh now.
• 55:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: Bro, that's fine with me, yeah, I just,
• 55:34
  [SPEAKER_01]: I really know care like I'll be I would you like I love shorty like you know and and and like we create a life together yeah and if that's how guys so that's all I see I didn't have to I didn't have a tool and and if you need to experience something else and they have two more kids right like you know so it's like Rowley I'm I'm cemented and so are you we should probably get along right
• 55:59
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and so like there be times where I'm going to get my kids something like some ice cream or something like that like I stopped like I'm like, hey, what is our system want.
• 56:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah, that's a that's another conversation.
• 56:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, I'm not I love bro.
• 56:14
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna give it even though it's not received well.
• 56:19
  [SPEAKER_01]: You're going to have to fall to it eventually, because he might hold on with him and why is he, what does he want from me on one another?
• 56:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: This is how I live my life.
• 56:28
  [SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
• 56:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: And it's cheaper to keep her, but it's also cheaper to be on good terms where.
• 56:38
  [SPEAKER_01]: So when there's things that like, Dr. Bills, anything outside the house,
• 56:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: That's not because I'd never tell the how to run her household like that that's his domain, right?
• 56:50
  [SPEAKER_01]: But for me, like anything that falls into my kids, you know, I got it.
• 56:53
  [SPEAKER_01]: Just give me a call and I'll take care of it.
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: Right.
• 56:56
  [SPEAKER_01]: So they're there ain't no chasing me down.
• 56:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: There ain't no like, you know, she she receives more than me more from me than hurt than her ever trying to put me on a child support.
• 57:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: the way that I just show up emotionally and take care of the kids.
• 57:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have my kids every year to week.
• 57:13
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and if I wanted to have them more, I could have them more.
• 57:17
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, the time that I saw you in Dallas, I came home.
• 57:20
  [SPEAKER_01]: I have my kids for two straight weeks.
• 57:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, and I never asked for a break.
• 57:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: I never said, you know, can you send me some money?
• 57:29
  [SPEAKER_01]: So, you know, the kids got closed over there.
• 57:31
  [SPEAKER_01]: You can bring them up like I've never
• 57:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: It's like, hey, did y'all talk to y'all mom today, right?
• 57:37
  [SPEAKER_01]: I didn't make sure you check in where, right?
• 57:40
  [SPEAKER_01]: Like, I'm, that's where I'm at, what's up?
• 57:43
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love it, man.
• 57:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: I love it, man.
• 57:45
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll close it with the question that I, that I typically ask, especially when I have guests that aren't regulars on the show.
• 57:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: Um, and I'm pausing because I'm thinking of which way I want to ask it.
• 58:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: So the concept of the show is, their son, what I wish my father told me.
• 58:10
  [SPEAKER_00]: You lost your father in 13.
• 58:12
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I can imagine, I'm not putting anything on you by saying, I can imagine there are a lot of things that you wish he told you, given how you chronicled the story.
• 58:21
  [SPEAKER_00]: But I want to flip it.
• 58:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Coming to the place where you are today, dealing with yourself daily.
• 58:32
  [SPEAKER_00]: What is something that you're focused on ensuring that your children will never have to wish that you told them?
• 58:50
  [SPEAKER_02]: To know who they are, right?
• 58:52
  [SPEAKER_02]: Like I always integrity, honesty.
• 58:55
  [SPEAKER_02]: You know, being a servant of God,
• 59:03
  [SPEAKER_02]: that guy is actually inside of them, you know, it's true.
• 59:07
  [SPEAKER_01]: That when they, when they tap into the right, like the image, right, that we're making the image, so like this did to be able to access that.
• 59:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so I tell my kid, it's like, no, I don't always need, you know, you ain't got to be the best, but just give your best, right, like we can deal with that.
• 59:27
  [SPEAKER_01]: And so the thing that I wish that in my fall
• 59:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: I'm love beyond what I do, it's good, you know, I'm love beyond how we're like a foreign, you know, and I don't have to be that kid that looks for his parents to come through the door to see if he's coming to the game, right, to know that, hey, like, even though I'm not there, I'm here.
• 59:58
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so that is something that, you know, I would always instill in my babies.
• 1:00:06
  [SPEAKER_02]: Family, I always tell them like, see who's around when it's time to celebrate you.
• 1:00:16
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, like, when you get needs this conversation with the chief, it's called, see who's around?
• 1:00:21
  [SPEAKER_01]: Cause everybody asks, that's around.
• 1:00:24
  [SPEAKER_01]: That you call family.
• 1:00:26
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, because they're going to be, they're going to take them space in his world.
• 1:00:30
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the one thing, if it's the one thing that I always tell my kids, is I really just told them yesterday, like last night, you're here to take up space, take up as much damn space as you want to.
• 1:00:42
  [SPEAKER_01]: I got you, right?
• 1:00:45
  [SPEAKER_01]: So I know me working is to be able to create.
• 1:00:47
  [SPEAKER_01]: So whatever my daughter gets to age, my son gets to age, and they want to
• 1:00:54
  [SPEAKER_01]: And I want for people like you to say, hey, you know what, I'll work with your dad this much years ago, he's a great man.
• 1:01:00
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, here's my baby girl.
• 1:01:02
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, here's my son, right?
• 1:01:04
  [SPEAKER_01]: If they want to learn anything about the camera, anything about pot, like what whatever it is.
• 1:01:08
  [SPEAKER_01]: Hey, go over there.
• 1:01:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: He'll get you right.
• 1:01:11
  [SPEAKER_01]: I trust him with my life and even in my absence, if I'm no longer here, breathing off earth, that the people that I've collaborated and worked with that they can be like, my dad trusted them, so I can go to them.
• 1:01:25
  [SPEAKER_01]: If I needed money, if I needed resources, if I needed an idea, if I needed a conversation, if I needed eight minutes a day, they would give it to me.
• 1:01:33
  [SPEAKER_01]: And they would reflect back to me what my dad would tell them, right?
• 1:01:39
  [SPEAKER_01]: So the work that I do, I always say is necessary, beyond me, you know, I'm just passing by.
• 1:01:48
  [SPEAKER_01]: You know, so, um, I think that's what I would, you know, in a nutshell, right, that's not the room.
• 1:01:55
  [SPEAKER_01]: Um, we're going to people's find you if you want to be found, uh, I always tell people me, you only going to find me when you're ready, but, um, Instagram, um, AD the greatest.
• 1:02:12
  [SPEAKER_01]: And that should do it, you know, 80 to greatest, you know, I'm gonna have some other things coming up that are gonna be, you know, a link in the bio and they can figure out, at the ways, but the main thing is that's the ground right now.
• 1:02:24
  [SPEAKER_00]: Got good deal man.
• 1:02:25
  [SPEAKER_00]: Definitely appreciate the time man, glad we, I'm glad that we aligned in the same room, shout out to Nate, Nate with love, Nate Carme, my guy, Jiga, that conversation,
• 1:02:39
  [SPEAKER_00]: Spock something to me, I don't know if you could tell at the time we were having it, but I didn't want to have all of it.
• 1:02:44
  [SPEAKER_00]: And that's, so I appreciate the time we're hitting it.
• 1:02:47
  [SPEAKER_00]: Hopefully this won't be our last conversation.
• 1:02:52
  [SPEAKER_00]: But certainly wish you much success.
• 1:02:55
  [SPEAKER_00]: And I'll be following your journey.
• 1:02:58
  [SPEAKER_00]: I'll be listening for Nuggets because I'm not too old to learn from.
• 1:03:02
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wisdom.
• 1:03:03
  [SPEAKER_00]: Wisdom doesn't have an age.
• 1:03:04
  [SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
• 1:03:05
  [SPEAKER_00]: It's to be applied.
• 1:03:06
  [SPEAKER_00]: So for the listening audience, check the link down below for all of our 80s information.
• 1:03:15
  [SPEAKER_00]: That's going to do it for this episode.
• 1:03:16
  [SPEAKER_00]: We appreciate you guys.
• 1:03:17
  [SPEAKER_00]: God bless you.
• 1:03:18
  [SPEAKER_00]: Thanks.