Latest / Color Commentary / Ep 28 | Beautiful and Jealous — The Truth About Ambition

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Ep 28 | Beautiful and Jealous — The Truth About Ambition · Color Commentary

• Charles Cole: Welcome to Color Commentary, a podcast with a story shaping our world, a told in black and white first, and then we dig into their deeper meaning in full color. Each week, I'll be bringing you the news like this. First, we'll start with what I like to call the black and white section, a clear, straight-shooting rundown of the facts and the tradition of the greats like Ed Bradley, Walter Cronkite, and the classic voices of journalism. Then we'll shift into the color commentary section, where I my own personal opinions and insights. For those watching, when I'm delivering news and strictly facts, it'll be in black and white. When I'm giving my opinion or the color commentary, see what we did there, it'll be in color, novel ideas, crazy. ⁓ Sometimes it'll just be me, sometimes we'll have guests, but let's figure out together exactly what this show could be with your feedback shaping the journey. That means you gotta comment, share, and you know, interact and engage with the stuff, the clips and the show. All right, let's get into it. Today, I wanna talk about ambition. My ambition, so to speak, right? Like where it came from, what it's cost me, and what I still can't fully resolve about it. So this is not a motivational speech. It's not like some success story with like a bow on it. It's examining certain things in my life ⁓ which people have somewhat asked about, right? I do, the comments I get, People wanna know a little bit more. I'm a very private person. I will still be a very private person, but there are some things plucked out of here for you that I think are pretty intimate and I think that it makes the larger point. All right, so let me just start by saying in this intro, the most jealous thing in my life is my ambition. And outside of my love of God, it's also been the most faithful. Let me explain. It got me out of poverty, like real poverty. It made me a doctor with a bunch of degrees. It took me across this country and outside of it. It made me write books. It helped me get more than a thousand kids, black kids, out of high school, graduated and into college, most of them with no debt. Like I get booked to speak ⁓ and fly around the country, because people want my attention. All of that, all of that came from that ambition. Now has it cost me? Absolutely, absolutely. But I'm still wrestling with the question I can't answer. So like when is enough enough? Where does that line go? And maybe through my own retrospective, through my own breakdown of what ambition has meant for me, maybe you'll see some of yourself as well. But let's get into it. Here are the facts in black and white. According to the National Alliance to End Homelessness, on any given night in America, approximately 580,000 people experience homelessness. Of that number, families with children make up roughly 30%. Yet family shelters, particularly those that accept two-parent households with men present, represent a small fraction of available emergency housing. The shelter system in this country was largely designed around single mothers and children. Intact families, especially those that include adult men, often fall through the gap entirely. The research on what housing instability does to a developing child is significant. Neuroscientists at Princeton and Harvard have documented what they call a scarcity mindset, a cognitive state in which unmet basic needs consume so much mental bandwidth that long-term planning, creative thinking, and emotional regulation are all diminished. Maslow identified this decades ago, self-actualization is not possible when survival is the primary task. But here's the paradox that research also reveals. For some individuals, early adversity doesn't diminish ⁓ ambition, it actually ignites it. A 2019 study in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that children who experienced economic hardship and developed an internal sense of agency, a belief that their actions could change their circumstances, showed significantly higher long-term goal persistence than peers who had not faced those conditions. The poverty itself was not the variable. The agency developed within it was. There is a cost, however. Research on high achieving adults with adverse childhood experiences consistently identify elevated rates of hypervigilance, a nervous system that remains in threat detection mode long after the original threat is passed. This shows up as difficulty resting, difficulty sustaining relationships, a compulsive need to remain in motion. The immune system keeps sending white blood cells to a wound that is already healed. That's the science. Now let me tell you what it actually felt like. All right, that's the news. Now let's talk about it. You are listening to Color Commentary with Dr. Let's start here. Gotta put you in the mindset. I lived in a bunch of shelters. I lived in four. We're gonna focus on one. San Francisco, the Tenderloin neighborhood, all right? I'm nine, maybe 10 years old, top bunk in a shelter full of families, jacket on. I mean, it wasn't that it was just cold. San Francisco, does get cold. But it's because the things in my pockets were mine. the only things I could call mine and I slept with my hands in them. And in a place like this, it's a lot of dope things. There's a lot of things happening and people still shit. So I would be there and holding on to all of my stuff and I need you to smell that room. I can smell it still, right? Like just too many people. It's about 50 to 75 beds in there, too little space and you know, there's bodies and cleaning products that just couldn't keep up with these bodies, okay? People who had various levels of hygiene. ⁓ And then like underneath it all, like there were these, this bulk, whole food smell. I don't know if you've ever worked in a soup kitchen or been in a soup kitchen, especially where people kind of live very close to it, but it gets this smell and the aroma. So simple meals, when you have that many people, they tend to cook simple. meals like soups and chilies and things that you could cook a lot of for very cheap. And those like meals that got cooked in these high volumes for a lot of families, those smells like mixed together in a way that I still haven't forgotten. Like I can smell it, right? I can smell this shelter right now. To this day, I am obsessed with sin. There are candles all over my house all the time. I have a very, very sensitive nose. I need things to smell a certain type of way. I need people to smell a certain type of way. I'm telling you, like, it's a real thing. Good colognes ⁓ every day. I wear cologne even during the pandemic, even now, when I'm working from home and in this setup like I am right now, I still wear cologne. Like, I still go through all of my, ⁓ the regular things that I would do. that really did help me during the pandemic as well for some normalcy. So I still do it. ⁓ So now you know why. If you like, ⁓ this dude really likes cologne. There's another reason for it, right? So back to this bunk. I'm lying there on that bunk and I'm listening to all of this. I get the sounds, I'm getting these smells. And I'm, like I said, I'm about 10 years old and I'm thinking I can't live like this. Like I'd rather die. Like I'm not gonna live like this forever. I don't care what I have to do. Like that thought, like that bone deep refusal is where that ambition was born. And there are levels to homelessness, right? So let me tell you the truth about that. Like I mentioned in the beginning in the black and white section, I noticed firsthand, it was very difficult for us to find ⁓ shelter because My father was with us. Like my father has never been in our family. Both my parents were in and out of jail a lot, but if my mother had gone at it alone, it would have been a lot easier for us to get placed. So when you have to find a shelter that would take five of us, that's my mother, my father, my siblings, and me, like that's, it's a different type of grace and luck. And I knew it even then. Like we weren't under a bridge. You know, I've never slept outside, like, because I had to. I've been camping before, which by the way, I am not a fan of camping. As a nigga that grew up homeless, ⁓ I have no desire to just sleep outside for fun. This is not what I enjoy doing, just letting you know, right? So, like I said, there are levels. And even in that, I felt gratitude. that was the best way to be homeless, right? I got to experience that. So that tells you something about how desperate the situation was, right? There was just always more people in need than beds available. And that shelter couldn't serve everybody. There was a cutoff time. Like, we we got a fighting chance and we fought. you know, like there were certain cutoff times for families to get in and sign up and give them credit. My father always made sure that we hit that time and. I don't know if we were ever in threat of losing that until we didn't need it anymore. But I did see people get turned away. I remember it. And when we talk about where my work ethic comes from, because again, you need two things to birth something. Like it wasn't just this poverty stuff, right? That birthed this ambition. My work ethic came from watching my parents and not to blame them, but to learn. I looked at my parents and my parents were an example at the time of what not to do. Neither of them went to college. So I said, damn it, I gotta go to college. I don't care about hook or by crook. So I started playing basketball. I was pretty good. Had a few scholarships, but I also got in college on my own merits as well. ⁓ I was gonna make sure, I debated, I became a debate champ. I made sure that my resume. was going to ensure that I got to college. I wasn't greedy. I wasn't trying to go to a big name school. I just needed to just get the degree. I had read that if you went to college, you make exponentially more money than if you don't. And as somebody living with no money and parents with no money, ⁓ I believe if it could have been a bold faced lie, I believed it like it was the coming of Christ, I'm letting you know, right? I'll give you an example though. As soon as we weren't homeless anymore, about 12 years old, I was in junior high. I started working. worked at a, it was about 12 years old. It was a newspaper subscription hustle out of this van. Let me explain it. All right. We earned cash for every subscription that we sold, right? It was not a, you don't get a work permit for this job. this is a cash business. Like we actually like, Like the spill was a lie in and of itself. It was like, ⁓ I am doing this to make money for college and da da. No, no, no, no, no, no. I got about, it was between 15 and $20 for every single ⁓ newspaper subscription we sold. We sold subscriptions to The Chronicle. We sold subscriptions to the Oakland Tribune. We went out in Oakland and we went out to the suburb. We went out all around the Bay Area doing this. It was a white dude in a blue van. He had about four to six of us as a crew and we was out there hustling. From then on, I have never been without a job. Even when I was in school, I might not have worked during the, like, you know, during school or whatever, I had to work in the summers. But from that point on, I never did not have a job. I'll give you another example. When I was in high school, and this is around a time you could burn CDs, I never wanted to... My parents did and sold drugs like my dad did both. ⁓ I've never, that's just never been my ministry. I'm not built like that. I don't have that in me. And this is around the time you start seeing cats die. I remember my dad had a drug deal go bad and these cats ran up in the crib in our house, laid the whole house down, right? Like they jumped my dad. I don't know what happened. ⁓ I just know my aunt rolled up with my uncle, my pastor uncle by the way, it's about to be funny in a second because ⁓ that pastor uncle came up shooting. It was a lot of gunshots that came out that day. And then we left that place and went to my aunt's house. ⁓ So dealing in drugs, I just was never built for it. I've never been a tough dude like that. It's just not my ministry. But I remember in high school, I'm fast forwarding a little bit, I'll come back to the story. You know, we moved from Oakland to Stockton in my senior year. I switched high schools and the Stockton people loved LA and Oakland and I was from Oakland. So this is around the CD burning era. This is Napster time, right? So we had a desktop at the crib. I made an investment and bought a spindle of CD-R ⁓ disc and I would charge $5 for a straight copy of a CD that was out that people wanted. But where I made my money was when people wanted these mixtapes and Oakland mixes. I went back to Oakland all the time. I still, you know, go out there and play ball and stuff. And I just always been a big music guy. I still am. And so for those mixtapes, I only would make one. I would make one. And then they were like, I sold them for $10. I probably, each time I did that, I probably never sold less than 30. So You know, I've never been without a job and a hustle. And at the same time I was doing that, I also had a job at McDonald's. By the way, still to this day, hardest job I've ever had. I run an entire company. hate it. Listen, man, I don't think you understand Ronald McDonald Corporation. If you're a dude, there's nothing glamorous at McDonald's for you, okay? You can't work the register. If you're a little black dude, you not working the register, they got your ass in the back. You can't. You can't sit down, you have to constantly be moving at the end of the night. You gotta take the grease out of the grease, out of the oven in this grease machine, dump it out. It was a whole thing. ⁓ I respect people that work at McDonald's, because it was definitely difficult. But to that point, I've never been fully unemployed from the age of 12 until now, which by the way, because I know y'all like when I trail off. By the way, like, let's like really, I just really want you to understand this man. Like I don't understand, got white friends and they successful people and they ain't all just white, but most of them are white that do what I'm about to say. Would they just be quitting jobs? And I'd be like every time I look like a fool, cause I'd be like, ⁓ what's your new job? I have never quit a job without either already having another job. working it or having one lined up. I still, am 42 years old. I do not understand these people that just can quit shit with nothing coming. Now, if you're getting laid off, different, understand. Them's the breaks. But it doesn't compute in my mind. Still don't make sense to me anyway. Now let's introduce ambition. And I'm gonna be very honest. This ambition is very selfish. I'm not gonna stand here and tell you that I worked this hard just because I love people so much. That would be a beautiful lie. Beautiful, but a fucking lie, okay? I had to look out for me because a lot of times nobody else did. No, I had to make sure I was good. I was the eldest son. My parents was fucked up until they wasn't. I went to NA with both of them. So I, in many ways, raised my little brother and sister. My relationship with them today, we were never, I never had a sibling relationship with my siblings. I've always been a surrogate parent. And to be fair, I would say I was the disciplinarian parent. I'm a lot older than my siblings, six and eight years. I have not talked to them in a while, but like, let's say one of them was at a party and got drunk. They would call the other because calling me would be like calling an overbearing father. You understand, like I raised them. I changed diapers and shit. It is also the reason why I have never wanted children. When you make a kid raise kids, it was all the propaganda I needed. Now, if I was to get married and my wife had a baby or whatever, would have been a great father. Or if something would happen, I would have had to do what I had to do. Just know. that if that were the case, you saw me with a kid, I lost the argument and it was a lot of crying that happened. I did not grow up wanting children. So back to this ambition, right? Like when you are in that situation and now as a kid, you're responsible not just for yourself, but for these two younger people, because my parents really did need the space to get their stuff together. ⁓ And there was a point where my moms went into, to, she went ⁓ to get clean. Like, and I loved when my mom went to recovery, ⁓ like the apartment that they had, all that stuff. Like I love NA and AA now. I just learned so much going to those places. Like even as an adult who's never done a narcotic, an illegal narcotic in my life, I have popped into like NA means. I just think they some of the best, they have a beautiful framework and I've learned so much. what has made me good with people across this country, being 10 and 11 years old in those meetings in the back, because they would have coffee and donuts. So I love going. I got to eat as many donuts as I wanted. I was the cute kid that came. It worked out for me, but I would hear these stories. would hear, like, it wasn't just like poor people. It was like surgeons, lawyers. Like, I learned early on that drugs do not, they don't care. They do not give a fuck. They will fuck up your life if you cannot control or contain yourself. when we're doing that, and I'm helping out my pops, the way that they did it, my dad never wanted our family to get split up, and kudos to him, because he made sure that never happened. ⁓ So when my mom went in to that program, it was just us, and he'd make sure we see her and support her. And then when she came out, got her apartment, my dad quit too. That's how they quit. My dad quit because my mom's was. gonna leave, bruh. that's, my dad really does love my mom a lot. beautiful love story. If you saw them now, you would know none of this and you'd just be like, ⁓ look at Deacon and Mrs. Cole. This is a beautiful in love couple. Like my dad's like super romantic. They do shit. Like it is a beautiful love story. But here's what people like, you don't want that? No, let me tell you why. Cause to be Chucky and Renata now, you gotta be Chucky and Renata then. And let me tell you, I wouldn't have put up with neither of these motherfuckers. I'm just letting you know. Break this family up now. ⁓ Y'all got to go. But you know, there's somebody for everybody and I'm glad they found each other and they still going super strong. It really is a beautiful story. But you know, but this, that survival piece, right? That having to, so I'm overly protective of myself. I'm overly an advocate for myself because I have to put so many things before me at such a young age. So I don't take kind to people trying to play me or what I may perceive as playing me. And this is when we talk about ambitions, other side, sometimes you misread it because you got a trigger finger on that, right? Like it's really important to understand this. And so here's some things that I figured out along the way, right? Like I know my temperament. I know. I was a champion debater because I can fight. I'm good at arguing. I'm good at defending and making points. The original play for me was to be a lawyer. That's what I went to school for initially and then fell into social work and I abandoned those plans. Sometimes I regret it. ⁓ It is what it is. But even in my 2K league, I have a basketball league, a 2K league with some friends. They're kind of all over the country, most of them are in Chicago, I mean in Oakland. But like even when we like arguing, like they be like, bro, you like, you'll be ready to defend yourself, bro. We not, ⁓ my bad, man. It's good. Like, come on, let's just, let's hoop, let's play, right? Like I said earlier, white blood cells flooding in even when the threat is just, you disrespected me on this game, son. Like I liked, I do like to win. I'm very, very, very competitive. ⁓ I just like to, I really, I'm okay with losing. But I like competing. It's a way I can compete without killing myself because I've ripped my knee to shreds playing basketball, had to learn how to walk again. It's a whole thing. But that's what I figured out about myself. I like to win. So I decided to win as something that matters. And here's me thinking I'm, I think it was savvy, right? If I have this insatiable desire to win and to progress and to overcome, and I know how selfish it is, Michael Jordan is my favorite athlete by far, right? You talk about somebody competitive. Then I said, well, let me be the best at building something that gives people the tools to fight for themselves. Let me align this selfish hunger with a greater purpose. That way I can go all in and I don't have to feel bad about it. don't have to, you know what I'm saying? I don't have to apologize for it. I get to go as hard and when I win, so many other people win. Hence me starting out as lightweight peacock and saying, I got over a thousand young people. in and through college with no debt. That's a win for me. I keep score. There's a scoreboard. ⁓ I'm not some grand philanthropist. It's all strategic. So this is that ambition. And then what I also learned early in that ambition is that you don't have to normally be the best. Let me explain. 80 % really is just showing up. I'm not. Bullshitting you I'm not pulling your leg when you realize how many people won't go after their dreams when you realize how many people would much rather love to be a victim and blame everybody and everything and even if you are justified in that blame and they won't do the things necessary in order to go out and get that dream When you show up and you give it an honest go people kind of fuck with it It is the analogy I learned this early on. Like when people are driving and they see a car stranded, people are gonna drive. But if they see you out there with you know, with the jack and trying to put your tire on or you pushing your car, then people will stop and people will help you. Not everybody, but there is a, it is a significant difference. I've seen it in my life. What I'm telling you is the way that I understood ambition and the way that it worked for me is, I'm gonna just try, I'm gonna try all these things and I'm gonna build up these skillsets. And then I get to a level and that level is the only thing that I can see. I can tunnel vision it. But as soon as I get to that level, and this is not really good, I don't really just enjoy that level, right? Then I'm like, fuck that, what's the next level? And then I'm honed in on that. And it has worked for me in so many ways, but it does come. at a cost. Tommy, it comes at a cost, my boy. It does not share well, interpersonally, okay? I'm gonna personify ambition a lot here, so y'all just have to rock with me, okay? It doesn't, like, I'm not the super family guy. I don't care that we're related. I have to like you. My aunt is one of my favorite people. She just lost her dog a few days ago. You know, I'm not a big pet person. The dog was cool, but I don't like to see my auntie sad. you know, RIP Casper, right? But she's one of my favorite people. She's my daddy's youngest sister, which makes her not a lot older than me. I think she's like 14, 15. Like she was a teenager when I was born. And we just always been close. Like even the house that I bought in Illinois is close to her. Like she's one of my best friends. We would be close even if we weren't related. There's people that I share the same name with, same whatever. You just, you you, hey. ⁓ I'm somebody that does believe in choosing family. ⁓ So, and this ambition does not play well with that. It doesn't play well with relationships in general, whether it's, you know, romantic or just friendly. And let me just say, let me explain why though, right? You got to understand you've been watching the show. I'm just giving you the makings of a man. I'm telling you how we got to this place and you might be saying, does he go to therapy? Tons of therapy, did it. I'm a social worker. You have to do it. I've confronted these things. I'm just opening this stuff up because I have people that watch this show and watch the clips that ask these questions. So ⁓ I hope you are in, you better watch these damn episodes. The group that I'm talking to knows exactly who I'm talking to. Okay. ⁓ But the reason why is because I went to 11 elementary schools across Maywood and the West Chicago suburbs, Paducah, Kentucky, back and forth. So understand I was born out in Maywood in the Chicago area, then moved to Kentucky with my grandmother, who was also my favorite person, by the way, greatest woman I've ever met. ⁓ My brother was then born, okay? The second one. Then back in the Chicago area, my sister was born. Then... Back to Paducah again in Kentucky. You know what I'm saying? So I'm giving you a sense of how much we moved and then when my grandmother passed, that's when we made the trek via Greyhound from Kentucky to the Bay Area. Six days on a Greyhound bus. need you, so I didn't, I don't have the history that a lot of people have where it's like, yo, me and such and such been friends since kindergarten. No, I meet new niggas every day. I meet new people. some once maybe I've switched schools two or three times in a year before. So I don't get attached to people in that way. And but it's worked for me, right? Because when you think about 11 elementary schools, four shelters, my grandmother, who is my real only anchor, and that's what my love for the Lord came, that woman, that woman, what I've seen God do through her, you can't you can't tell me anything. You know what I'm saying? But That was my real anchor. And when she died, when I was so young, like I learned early, like you can't get too attached. And one of the best things that ever happened to my parents, even her death was divine. What do I mean? Of course I was selfish and sad, but I remember she knew she was sick, told me like, earned this, right? Like this is why I believe in heaven and hell. This woman, I'm telling you. Cause a lot of people claim to be Christians, but they be scared as hell to die. because they don't know what's next. This woman was aware, okay? dare I say, almost giddy. Like, not giddy. Giddy is a bit much, but her, let me just tell you what she said. It was one of other times she had got sick, but she pulled through and she just talked to me and had me get on her bed and, you know, she got this big white Bible that she used to keep on her, like her nightstand, right? And like, She just, she had me sit up there and we read some stuff and then she was just like, baby, listen, I've lived a long life, a very long life. And I didn't realize how old my grandmother was. Like my grandmother was born like the early 1900s. She had my mother when she was fairly old, right? And she was like, I lived a long life. Like I'm looking forward to getting the rest. I'm looking forward to being with my heavenly father. And you can't, after that, I felt I would have felt terrible. Like I cried and I was so hurt and devastated when she passed, but she made sure that I knew what death meant for her and that it was something that she earned. And this isn't part of the show, but it's one of the things I've taken with me. I think you should take this with you as well. If you listen, I don't care what you believe in. I would just say, I want to, at the end of it, I want to feel like I've earned my death, I wanna feel confident as she did and being ready to go because she knew something was better there. So I just learned early on to not get too attached. And sometimes I can come off as argumentative and defensive and a little too much, Like I know it, it's like not a character flaw, it's like a nervous system that learn to protect yourself. And no, it's kind of a character flaw, cause I'm older, right? You can't just. You can't, if you are aware of the diagnosis, you can do something about it. But again, I don't, it don't bother me that much. Like I like who I am. Like people use the term normal a lot. Like that's not normal, whatever. But I don't, you can't tell somebody that if they only known this, that that is not normal. It's normal to them. You don't get to define normal for people. Right. And so I just remember having a lot of conversations like that. So But if I was to deeply personify my ambition, like, I mean, it's stunning, it's brilliant. It is productive, right? Like, my ambition, she's beautiful. And she is deeply, deeply jealous. Like, it competes with rest. It competes with relationships, like romantic and not like, you know, like I'm not. really in the rush, I don't be like, and I don't need to make a whole bunch of new friends. You know, like what is the purpose of whatever, right? I don't, I just take in relationships differently. And here's the thing, I'm very open about it. you know, and like, like you gotta really understand, like, and even in this, you see me defending this thing that I'm personifying, that I'm supposed to be talking about, the, the, the, the character flaws of it right now, it's right here in the script. Like, I'm looking at it. Like, I'm going off script on this, right? And I'm doing that because it is just, it might have made me lose out on things. It might have made me lose out on opportunities. It might have made me lose people. Like, it's taking things from me I can't get back. And I say that like without regret. Like, I say it honestly, but what is given me, It's like I owe it. just, I owe it. Like outside of my love of God, like my ambition has been like the most faithful thing in my life. And my problem is, and this is why I don't want to get in trouble with my Lord, I'm probably much better at the religion of ambition than I am at the one for God. And that's terrible. That's a huge faux pas. I'm not the best Baptist. I'm not, I'm just not, I'm a heathen, but you know. The church is the hospital for the sick, baby. ⁓ I work on it though, but the principles are in me. But like this ambition, got me out of poverty, Like, I grew up, like the friends that I got, like, I'm telling you, when I tell you my friends start dying at 14 and 15, like when you start seeing death in that way and you start seeing people become relegated to poverty, like so much so that we find ways to cope so we embrace it and we kind of. love that and carry it with us, right? Like ⁓ I've talked about this between me, my homie, Will, who's like my brother, who I normally call my brother. I'm closer to him than I am with my real brother. And another friend who's passed on, I don't want to bring up his name, Will, all three of us are just really close. And this is where you learn that it's everybody around you. I went to college, this all happened at the same time. We were all between a year ⁓ from each other. I went to college, my brother went to war. And our other homie became a really really successful dope dealer and he went to jail and we all were back home in North Oakland around the same time and I remember I remember we all kicking it and I remember people would be like ⁓ To me. ⁓ you so nigga. You think you better than people now you joke college You know I'm saying talking like them white folks blah blah like real shit real shit My brother who just fought, my brother did two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan, okay? In between one of those first deployments, right? Came home, people ask disrespectful shit like, how many people you kill? What you, like, is you crazy now? Like, it's real disrespectful stuff. You know what they did for our homie that got out of jail? That was a Supreme dope dealer? They threw this nigga a party. A party. And here's the thing, all three of us were real friends and we all bugged out about it. Even him was like, this is, I don't, I much rather be going to college or be a decorated soldier, right? ⁓ And you know, he couldn't necessarily say those things out. You know, gotta connect to it. You gotta, especially in the type of life that he had, you gotta be all in ⁓ or you can get God, you know? And I lost him, we lost him. He was one of my favorite people. And... ⁓ So you really got to understand like what this ambition has done, right? Like that ambition covered me in an environment that if I didn't have it, if I wasn't able to stand on my square, if I was not so bothered by these other kids and these other people, and if I didn't have the experience of all those schools, all those new places, really truly knowing and understanding that this too shall pass moments, I would have easily been susceptible. to doing other shit easily. That ambition covered me like a fucking cocoon and it powered me through college. I killed college, you understand? I wrecked that shit. I was very good. Meaning like, even like when we went out, like I could knock out that work and be out at the club and it's the other thing. I would always stay in like, man, I gotta do this. I gotta study. I was never bothered by the peer pressure of it. I never really to the point where people start rooting for you. I remember when I was playing basketball and I was like an honor roll kid, like even when like the dice game would happen, right? Like I never, my dad shot dice, cousin shot dice, my homie, both my other friends love shooting dice. And look, bro, dice games get laid down all the time. Like if y'all don't know, for those that don't know, ⁓ That's when somebody comes and robs the dice game, right? Never seen it in person. You know why? Cause I didn't hang out at the fucking dice game. And when I did try to hang out, those friends was like, man, go dribble a fucking basketball somewhere, bro. Go read a book. And not in a way that was like, it wasn't real teasing. It was like, bro, you got some potential. Ambition. Ambition did that. Like ambition made me say, yo, I got these critiques of these jobs, but you know, maybe I can start my own. And my ambition made me delusional in ways that worked for me. That kid on the top bunk in a tenderloin had no business becoming any of these things. And ambition, all with her jealousy and relentlessness and selfish ambition, that's why I did. So you have to, what I'm trying to do before people get super, you know, new age, right? Like everybody is a therapist now. Everybody is a psychiatrist. Everybody knows better. Like people like to throw around terms that they ain't got no business throwing around. I'm so sick of TikTok therapists that have no degrees behind their name, right? But like, can't, I need you to understand why I can't just stand here and condemn it. Like I love it. I'm loyal to it in ways that it has been loyal to me. Even this, this was supposed to be shot way earlier. Tommy had something happening earlier. I had some other work to do. So like, I will do this late at night. Like, I believe in a nine to five, five to nine theory. Listen, man, when I tell you I get joy from working, like I truly mean it. Like I really love it. And even when it's stressful and it's kicking my ass, and let me tell you. My companies are kicking my ass right now. But I gotta figure it out. I gotta work it out. And if I fail, I hope I don't. But I'm built for that. I think about being homeless every single day. I don't care that you're mad at me because I'm more focused on this work than to go out and go hoop right now. Well, hoop I would. ⁓ When hoop was a real thing for me and I was like good and to the point where I could go somewhere and do it, hoop does count as work. But it mean more than going out to the club with y'all, bruh. It do. Fastest way for a woman to get out of my life, and this has happened before. trying to make me choose between work and her. I ain't met that person yet, That person died with Ozzetta Hooper in Paducah, Kentucky. All right, that's about it. And it's just because I do believe in the power of like, I think I was just raised this way by my grandmother. A man should have a purpose and a doe should have a purpose, but she was talking to me, so she said a man. Don't read too much into it. Okay? I don't know what her conversations were with my mother. My baby sister was a baby. So I don't know what those conversations were. But I believed it. And because my father struggled to keep a job at times and his loss of a job tended to directly correlate with my black ass back in a shelter, you can't tell me nothing about work. I've had funders be like, what's the number need to be so you only doing this job? Now I'm gonna give you a number cause I ain't stupid, but I'm always gonna have my hustles. I believe, and I've coined this before, my nine to five and my five to nine. My nine to five pays the bills. Listen, I know y'all like when I venture off, this is another one for the young people. Stop thinking that you promise to be fulfilled spiritually and emotionally in your job, in your line of work. If you are, you are extremely blessed. The vast majority of people in this country that work are working because they have bills to pay. They don't get to be all extensional and self actualizing their work. It's a blessing if you're able to do it. And if you are able to do a job that you self actualized in, then you should treat it as such. You should treat it like it's precious because they don't come a dime a dozen. And I know people will talk about self care and all that stuff. We can have that conversation. I do think you should take care of your health. I think lazy people, think wild people have commandeered self-help and made it mean something else. So in the true definition of self-help, I'm absolutely on board with this new age shit that y'all talking about where you just had a vacation and now you need a vacation for the vacation and then you had a rough day. So now you need a mental health day. I don't rock with that. If my grandmother were alive, she'd be like, what are you talking about? My grandmother did physical work, the vast majority of her life. My parents did jobs where they came home in pain. My mother has bipolar carpal tunnel in her hands. Not cause she chose and wanted to do that, but because she had to work and type in all day before medicine and things got in. They didn't know, you know, the risk placement and all that stuff. Like, yeah, man. Yeah. Because when you don't, your kids end up hungry. My dad, Got injured at work. You know what I'm saying? So I get where people are. That was an aside, but I do have to ask the question, right? Like I'm gonna be, I'm showing you both sides of this. I think about Icarus a lot. I call it the Icarus question. Where does that line go? How far? What is the end goal in this ambition? Because it served a real good purpose when I was homeless or young or poor or living, you know what I'm saying? I'm trying to make it. Now I'm a middle-class dude with a doctorate degree and upperly mobile and doing things, but the ambition is still as loud. So where's the line? And I'm still... Like I keep coming back to it. It's the most jealous thing in my life. She loves me. She's clingy, son. And I'm still wrestling with that question. I'm doing this episode because it's so, I mean, look, I'm not in crisis or anything. I just think it's a real conversation. And I think most of the things that I see online, it's everybody so sure of everything. One of my favorite books, even after I got the doctor and all that stuff, because people love to ask for what you're reading. I don't know why that's the thing people ask you when you become doctor or whatever. And I really don't take this title very serious, by the way. It's the same thing. The Emperor Has No Clothes is my favorite story ever. Because I think it's the truest story ever. Don't nobody got this shit figured out. If they did, the world wouldn't be in a place that it is. Either nobody actually has it figured out and motherfuckers is lying. They acting like they got on. a full wardrobe when they naked or they really do got on clothes and then they just evil because there's some wicked shit going on out here. And at least if you don't know, I can give you the benefit of the doubt for it. But for y'all that don't know who Icarus was, Icarus ⁓ in mythology had these beautiful wings and escaped the stuff with his father and his father told him to enjoy the wings, have fun with the wings, but don't fly too high. And Icarus and those beautiful wings that just glowed in the sun. closer he got to the sun, they became more beautiful and everybody could see how beautiful Icarus's wings was and he wanted to fly as close to the sun as he could. and the wings melted and he fell to his death. So the Icarus question is a parable, is used as a parable for too much ambition or not listening, not heeding warnings. And I have wings and they've taken me places I had no business going from where I started. But I gotta figure out where the fucking sun is. I don't yet know how to cool it back because when I try to cool it back, it feels there's an empty, like I like the hustle and it's not people. If I want love, I have love, right? I just simply don't care that much about it in that way. I like productive love. wanna, like yo, like even with my friends, I want us to build something together. Like I wanna create something, I wanna create something that where somebody can get to where I got to and come from where I came from without having to go through what I went through. My moral compass is different from those people. You know what I'm saying? It's different from what normal people are. And a lot of people in the hoods are, right? Like you understand the transformation one has to go through in order to like sell dope, right? To people in their community or to be a stick up man. Like to really understand. One of my favorite Jay-Z lines, that like pushed me a lot when I was younger. He said, I don't know you homie, but the whole world owe me. Strip. Cause nigga, you owe me too. Like I'm telling you, like you did not want to be in my crosshairs when I see that apple and my eye is on it. That's what I had to do because I don't want to go back to the shelter because I don't want to, I can still smell it. I love visiting shelters now and talking to those kids. I love it. like, and when I do, man, I dress all the way, not to be inaccessible, but to be more accessible. and like, yo, this is a bump in the road. You still got some decisions you can make, some things you can do. So when I stop moving, it feels like something is passing me and not just people. I'm not as concerned about people. really, I don't, people don't like, it's whatever, who cares, right? But like, there's a purpose in my mind. And when I'm not working on it, I'm losing ground. You know, I own a home, the nine year old on that bunk couldn't have, haven't imagined it. Like I have a, little makeshift theater, but it's my theater, damn it. Okay. You feel me? Like, and I still can't fully be in it. That ambition will just not let me rest. And it can kill you. It can absolutely kill you. Like most things in life, if you do too much of it, it can kill you. You can like salt. Salt is a great seasoning. Salt can preserve meat for a long time and dehydrate things. You eat too much of that shit, it can kill you. too much of anything can kill you. And it can bring you down. And ambition, when it's real like mine is, you don't know, you gotta have a safety valve. Because when I'm at my best, I'm tunnel vision and I'm not, empathy is killing my shit, by the way. I so hate this, like, my level of empathy has grown. and I think has made me less effective. I don't enjoy having empathy. It serves me no real purpose. I'm just letting you know. but I do have empathy. ⁓ You just, you just, anybody listening, you don't want that drive to consume you. Let it save you, but it don't have to consume you. You gotta set boundaries with your own desires. Like what do you do with that? And I don't have a clean answer for you, because everybody's different. I don't know what motivates you or drives you. You know, ⁓ I'm not sure there is an answer, but I think the question itself is worth sitting with, right? Because most people are either running from their ambition or they're worshiping it. And very few are honest enough to wrestle with it. So the agentic institute, the new institute that I just built, you know. My notes say it wasn't born out of selfishness, it, in a way, like there's some altruism there, but deep beneath, I wanna win. So I say it wasn't born out of selfishness, but it was born out of the deepest kind of selfishness redirected towards something larger. I know myself. When I was sick in those rooms with my parents in a meeting, the sponsor or the person leading the meeting, I heard them say this, I heard multiple people say this, like don't tempt yourself, right? Don't go in a room full of crack and see if you can refrain from crack. They would say, don't go to where crack is. Take the people that do crack out of your life, right? And I think ambition is very similar. You have to find ways and tools for yourself to where that'll help you self-regulate. Cause I know that there are people out there that want it and I know you want it so bad right now, especially when you watch your motherfuckers online. What looks seemingly easy, it's not. and you see them building and working and you want it. It's just a reminder of what you don't have and it's driving you. and it's eaten you alive. Comparison is the thief of joy. ⁓ and by the way, people online show you what they want you to see. I actually don't respect people that put all they shit online. Why are you online crying? Know the role of this. And it's because they're seeking that validation in a different type of way to the point where they would sabotage themselves to get to it. And I'm telling you, if you're a young person or an older person and you feel like you're about to sell a part of yourself for this thing that you want. It's fleeting, dog. It is fleeting. There is no line that you cross. There's no finish line to success and you like, you break the ticker tape, you know what I'm saying? And then the crowd roars and shit. And it's like, you are now successful. Nah, bro, you just go to sleep and wake up the next day. It's fleeting. You have to be anchored in something real. You, you, you, you, so I built this thing. I built this agency, this Institute, because I don't want that next kid on that top bunk to have to pay the same tax I just paid just to have a fighting chance. You should not have to suffer this much to develop agency. You just shouldn't. And I believe it. If I need to write the reports that is more grandiose and all this, fine. But in this, I am Dr. fucking Frankenstein. I did the experiments. I know this. I feel very strongly about it. Hopefully there will be an academic article. We're moving it up. We're getting through there. That we can put our flag in the sand there and the scientific level. But ain't nobody coming to save you, dawg. That shelter couldn't save, that shelter didn't save me. It was great to be there. But everybody in that shelter didn't end up where I ended up. Some ended up better, I'm sure. One of the people I lived in a shelter with in Oakland, he ended up winning a championship with the Boston Celtics. Great dude, super great dude. I'm so proud of him. We lived with Henry Robinson together. Leon Poe, one of the best people I've ever met. We weren't friends. We was friends when we both lived in the same shelter and played basketball on the street sign. But we didn't like, you know, we might see each other here and there and we'll dap each other up, give each other a hug. You know what I'm saying? I'm very proud of him. That's why I built that thing though. Cause I want to give people the tools to fight for themselves with these systems, not just be at the mercy of them. I don't, I I don't, I'm not promising you shit. You can work really hard at something and still fail. I fail so much. I fail so much in every aspect of life. But once you start winning, You just need the wins and those wins require losses. You saw Michael Jordan get low braised and shit. Like, it looked like the movie Above the Rim at the end, how Tupac's team was fucking up to Wayne Martin. That's what the Detroit Pistons used to do to Michael Jordan. Motherfucker went to the gym, got bigger, got stronger, came back and did two, three peats. He just had the tools. He wasn't promised that. And you not promised anything either. So once you stop feeling old, once you stop feeling like the world owes you something and you start to go out and get it, you take your losses like a man or like a woman and you dust yourself off and you move on. That's what I'm building for people. I'm building an institute for people that want to be fighters. and it may not work. I have to raise a lot of money. It might not work. I would be devastated. I would be devastated. But I know what I came from. I know how I was forged. I have learned to not look in awe and praise of my wings. Most of the things I built, I knew this season would end at some point. but this one I do want to last. But if it doesn't, then I'd learn and I rebuild a fucking game. Okay. So to the group that asked me to give you some intimacy and vulnerability in the show and give you something that you could really sink your teeth in, I'm telling you, most people just be watching clips. I'm quizzing y'all, because I get you what you asked for. But to close this out, we don't talk about ambition honestly enough. We either romanticize it or we pathologize it. The truth lives somewhere far more complicated. And I'm sure if you talk to Oprah or you talk to Mike, actually you ain't even gotta talk to them. You can just look at them talk. You can go watch the last dance. You hear it. It's sitting right there. Michael Jordan's ambition is right there. Oprah's ambition is right there. She still wanna win. Beyonce still wanna win. Jay-Z still wanna win. and there's a cost that you don't see that comes with it. but I still have to live with my ambition. We are still very much in love. We fight and we argue, but we are wedded. ⁓ She's beautiful and she is jealous, but is the most faithful companion I've had and the one most likely to take me out. That ain't a toxic fucking relationship. I don't know what is. So there's your honesty. I love it. I am loyal to it. And I am still trying to figure out where that line is. I need to figure out what is when is enough enough. And if I fall chasing it, if I do so, so to speak, happen to get too close to the sun and those wings start to get a start to change a little bit and start flickering and start to melt and I fall to that death. It's just losing. I'm not being morbid for real. Then damn it. Let it be a glorious fall. Let it mean that I went somewhere. and let it mean that I built something that truly, truly mattered. Now that is my full color commentary. Thank you for listening to Color Commentary. We would love to hear from you. So drop us an email at colorcommentarypod at gmail.com. Once again, that's colorcommentary, P-O-D at gmail.com. And if you like what you hear, please subscribe to the show, leave us a five star rating, share it on social media, and join us every Thursday for more Color Commentary with Dr. Peace.