Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 16: The Performance Tax: The Price Black People Pay to Succeed (Ft. Savon & Antoinette from the Can’t Afford Therapy Podcast)

Transcript

EP 16: The Performance Tax: The Price Black People Pay to Succeed (Ft. Savon & Antoinette from the Can’t Afford Therapy Podcast) · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Kiing Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose, we talk about pressure, and we
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: talk about what it actually takes become a full comprehensive man. Hey,
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: what's up, y'all? Welcome back to another episode of Learning
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the Hard Way. I am your host, Kre Gaines. I
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: am your favorite therapist. I'm also husband, I'm a father,
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: a content creator, and I am a person who used
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: to work in corporate America. Since Shiver's down the spine,
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: corporate America has been a subject that a lot of
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: us talk about when we huddle together amongst each other.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: But I want to bring it to the pod, and
• 0:45
  Speaker 1: I want to bring it to the pod with two
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: people who have a lot of experience and not only
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: talking about corporate America and being in corporate America, but
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: also navigating it and navigating it trying to be themselves
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: while start while still trying to figure out who they are. Man,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: that's challenging. If you go back to earlier in the pod,
• 1:08
  Speaker 1: we had an episode about colde switching. With the episode
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: about cold switching an episode about masking, and that it's
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: such a good conversation that I wanted to expound on
• 1:18
  Speaker 1: it now. If you read the title of this episode,
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: you already know who's here at the pod today. You
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: know who I got And if you are a video listener,
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: you can see them because they's sitting right across from me.
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: But if you're an audio listener, you know I like
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: to keep the suspense, you know, I like to do
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: a little housekeeping before we get into introducing our guess.
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: So please allow me guess, y'all, find just allow me
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: a second to get this off before we get into it.
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Of course, I'm here, I'm locked it.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: I love it. I alwayscited about this episode already, so
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: really quickly. When we have these work settings that not
• 1:57
  Speaker 1: only dictate how much money we get on how well
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: we're able to take care of ourselves, sometimes it dictates
• 2:04
  Speaker 1: the way we feel about ourselves. And the person you
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: are at home around your mama and your cousins is
• 2:10
  Speaker 1: not the same person you are at work around your
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: supervisor and your coworkers. Of course not, of course, not
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: that it doesn't work that way. You trying to keep
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: your livelihood in check, You're trying to keep them dollars rolling,
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: You're trying to make sure that the people in the
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: spaces around you know that you're a professional, but sometimes
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: you arrive at this weird space where you gotta kind
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: of negotiate how much of you to leave in the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: car and how much of you to bring it to
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: the building. How much is too much, how much is
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: not enough? Because if you too much of yourself in
• 2:41
  Speaker 1: a workspace, sometimes you end up feeling unprofessional and like
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: you don't belong. If you're not enough of yourself in
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: a workspace, sometimes you end up feeling like an impostor
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: like you're cosplaying somebody that you're not, somebody who you'll
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: never be. So today my two guests a say on it?
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Answer that is antwine either one?
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: My parents say it different. See, it doesn't matter to me.
• 3:06
  Speaker 3: I answered to both.
• 3:08
  Speaker 1: I name the same way. Some people say here, some
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: people secure they make it a difference.
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: I'm like, what do your parents say?
• 3:13
  Speaker 1: My mama named me kid here? So which one are
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: you answering? Answer that? Because I feel like I hear
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: people say both both.
• 3:21
  Speaker 3: My parents say it. Let's go okay.
• 3:26
  Speaker 1: Like that one because the twelve little they got a
• 3:27
  Speaker 1: little sauce on it. Yeah, I like that, but say
• 3:31
  Speaker 1: and answering that from the can't afford therapy podcasts. And
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: this ain't just any podcasts, y'all. They have won awards,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: they they have been seen and if you've heard, if
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: you haven't heard the podcast, please go listen. But if
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: you have heard the podcast, you probably fell in love
• 3:46
  Speaker 1: with him for the same reason that I did. It's
• 3:48
  Speaker 1: the candor and the conversation. Man, It's just good conversation.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: It's intelligent. It's people speaking like they got some damn sense.
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: And I always walk away with more than I walk
• 3:58
  Speaker 1: down with. So y'all to the pod.
• 4:01
  Speaker 3: For having us here.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think this first time I've had two people
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: be a guest. Yeah, I see, that's crazy.
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: Started you're really I don't know how much is too much?
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: No, no, be yourself here, be yourself here, because sometimes
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: I go too far and it's it's fine. Yeah, it's
• 4:21
  Speaker 1: nothing wrong with that. For those who don't know, y'all
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: want to get them a little bit more familiar with
• 4:26
  Speaker 1: the can of Ford therapy pod, I know that save on. Yes,
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: if you if you heard his name before, it's because
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: this man has been working as a producer for a
• 4:37
  Speaker 1: very long time on a wildly successful podcast called the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: JBP and he also, I mean you dabble in a
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: little bit of everything. Can you introduce yourself.
• 4:50
  Speaker 4: To the of course, what's going on y'all? Like like
• 4:53
  Speaker 4: here said, thank your introduction was amazing. By the way,
• 4:56
  Speaker 4: I was a listener. I wasn't a guest.
• 4:59
  Speaker 1: He was doing your thing. But that's a freestyle of that.
• 5:02
  Speaker 4: But yeah, I'm a producer, podcaster. I've been on a
• 5:06
  Speaker 4: ton of different podcasts, created hosts. I've touched every part
• 5:10
  Speaker 4: of podcasting at this point. But today I'm a co
• 5:13
  Speaker 4: host on Cannaphid Therapy here with Internet, So I'm excited
• 5:16
  Speaker 4: to have a conversation with you.
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: I was telling him, you know, we hear his name
• 5:19
  Speaker 1: all the time. When Joe Budden say, you know Parks
• 5:22
  Speaker 1: is here, is here? You know he do to everybody
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: who is here, and you hear his name, And then
• 5:27
  Speaker 1: you go on a podcast and you listen to what
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: he's saying, You're like, oh, bro, it's crazy insightful and respectfully,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: I didn't expect you to be that insightful. Like, it's
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: just hard when I'm in this field andever I see
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: other men, it's never the conversation don't always go deep.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: It just be real loud sometimes.
• 5:46
  Speaker 4: I think that was probably one of the reasons why
• 5:48
  Speaker 4: I wanted to do this podcast, because you hear the
• 5:51
  Speaker 4: Joe Budden podcast and you just put you know, an
• 5:53
  Speaker 4: association music, entertainment, boisterous whatever. This was a different side
• 5:57
  Speaker 4: that I needed to tap into.
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 6:00
  Speaker 4: It was purposeful, like me answering that Josh coming together
• 6:03
  Speaker 4: like that, that was intentional.
• 6:05
  Speaker 1: Shout out to Josh.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: So he's the third voice to the podcast, and.
• 6:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I love what he brings. I think all of
• 6:10
  Speaker 1: y'all brings something unique. And you Answerinette, you bring something
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: really unique because you are you. I want to call
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: you an artist and not a performer.
• 6:21
  Speaker 3: I'll take it.
• 6:22
  Speaker 1: Yeah, because you do a lot of other things and
• 6:25
  Speaker 1: you're still in corporate America on top of being a creator.
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: Yes, full time, damn fifty hours a week, damn come
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: home and then I do this work.
• 6:35
  Speaker 1: Damn double homicide.
• 6:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, I'm a very patient partner.
• 6:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Who's also a brilliant photographer artists, right, you know what,
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: I would call him an artist too. He sent me
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: a DM he was like, hey man, he yo he
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: I get dms all the time, and he sent me.
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: A DM is like, hey, man, if you have an area,
• 6:53
  Speaker 1: let's work together. I want to take some picture.
• 6:55
  Speaker 3: He don't do that. Just so you know, I wouldn't know.
• 7:00
  Speaker 3: I take this men as pictures for free. I believe him.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: And once I saw his pictures, I knew he's expensive
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: because I never answered those questions. It be somebody with
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: an iPhone seventeen just trying to come up real quick.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: And I saw his pictures. I showed my wife. I
• 7:11
  Speaker 1: was like, baby, look, She's like.
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: Damn, yeah, yeah, you should talk. He got a studio.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: He wants to bring you in.
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: He's different. Yeah, he loves different. But back to back
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: to you and everything you do.
• 7:22
  Speaker 3: Your background is my background is. I came up in
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: the arts. I pursued performing arts, vocalists, trained vocalists, still saying,
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: Jess was on featured on a Grammy Award winning album
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: with Christian McBride. I usually don't proud of that. I'm crying.
• 7:40
  Speaker 3: They tell me, just like roll my shoulders back, and
• 7:42
  Speaker 3: I love it and I miss it dearly. If it
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: was what I could, if it was something I could sustain,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: or something that made me feel secure in terms of
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: financially in this climate. I would probably pursue it full time,
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: but that's just I'm a project manager, so the way
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: things are set up my mind, I'm type A one
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: plus one equal to that here a little bit. It's confusing.
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: So I'm grateful that I still have these different opportunities
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: to be an artists and podcasting came. I have another
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: podcast around the Way Curls. I'm very politically motivated, yes,
• 8:24
  Speaker 3: so I grew up also very activated in student like
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: leadership and in African American studies. With that said, needed
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: another outlet for that. So the artistry for me is
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: more like if we're talking about spaces where you're in
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: corporate America and you don't always have a space for yourself,
• 8:45
  Speaker 3: how can I create an outlet for myself? What I've
• 8:50
  Speaker 3: been talking to the guys now is it wherever I am?
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: I still haven't found a place where all of me
• 8:56
  Speaker 3: is present. I'm fragmented.
• 8:57
  Speaker 1: Do you think that exists?
• 9:00
  Speaker 3: I don't you know what? I don't know, but I'm
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: always in pursuit of it, regardless.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Of such an artist. I don't know, it's such as yeah,
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: and I'll be looking for the same thing too, because
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: it's all these things I love to be and that
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: I love to do, and I would love if they
• 9:16
  Speaker 1: all just lived in the same place. I'm starting to
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: think that that does not exist, and I'm.
• 9:21
  Speaker 3: Trying even now with you creating your your like you're
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: on your entrepreneurial journey.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah it's been five years, right, which.
• 9:28
  Speaker 3: Is still in its infancy when you think about it.
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: It ain't gonna start walking yet. Yeah for sure.
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: So even now as you're creating, I'm really actid. I
• 9:38
  Speaker 3: want to know for myself, like as you're creating a
• 9:40
  Speaker 3: life for yourself that you're imagining, which is incredible, you
• 9:45
  Speaker 3: still feel that way, like I don't know if.
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: Yes, even more so, even more so than any other time.
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: But also I have a very cynical mind. Okay, so
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: my mind is attracted to worst case scenario. My mind
• 9:59
  Speaker 1: is very very much designed to fish for the negative.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: I hunt for the negative, and I have to purposely
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: and consciously put on a positive or it won't exist
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: in my life. So to me, it's just I can
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: focus on how disappointing it is because I love this,
• 10:16
  Speaker 1: I love doing the pot I could say and talk
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to y'all all day. Part is a tiny percentage of
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: what I do, and even the pod actually talking.
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: The recording is five percent of the recording. It's the
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: smallest part of the podble.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like, this is the part I love. We're doing
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: the logistics to put it together, and my producers are
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: doing a tonne of work the book people that it's
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: it's just it's a lot of movement. And I think
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: that when I thought of being in this space, I
• 10:41
  Speaker 1: thought of what it would feel like to be, you know,
• 10:44
  Speaker 1: on camera and talking to people and having these dope
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: conversations be in front of people like y'all. I didn't
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: think about the back of the emails.
• 10:52
  Speaker 5: Emails for clarification we need you know, I know you
• 11:00
  Speaker 5: with some kid in Sacramento working for a marketing team
• 11:03
  Speaker 5: telling me what do you think is best for me?
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Right right here? We do that.
• 11:07
  Speaker 1: Uh yeah. I just think the idea of it was
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: a lot sexier than the reality of it. For me.
• 11:11
  Speaker 1: I still enjoy it, but it's it can be frustrated.
• 11:14
  Speaker 4: It's tricky, for sure. Tricky for sure, somebody like it's
• 11:18
  Speaker 4: funny you say that. On my way here, I was
• 11:20
  Speaker 4: having the thought of how do I bring it all together?
• 11:23
  Speaker 4: Because there's a side of me like you said, the
• 11:24
  Speaker 4: JVP the music side, entertainment side, and then it's this side. Right,
• 11:28
  Speaker 4: I'm proud of both. I haven't found a way to
• 11:30
  Speaker 4: make them coexist.
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: Do you still think that there is a way to
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: make well, let me ask, let me phrase it this way.
• 11:36
  Speaker 1: Do you think you've been trying to make them? Damn,
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: it sounds like I'm therapizing your promise. I'm not.
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: I might need the most on.
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: He gave me license to shoes. So do you think
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: you're having a hard time finding it because you haven't
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: stumbled upon it yet? Or is it because it doesn't exist?
• 11:58
  Speaker 4: I think that I'm looking at everybody else's blueprint and
• 12:02
  Speaker 4: trying to take pieces to create my own instead of
• 12:05
  Speaker 4: just creating my own.
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: I feel that ship you get.
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: So interesting to me because you created a blueprint with JBP.
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: I did I created he tweeted at Joe was like, oh,
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: I'll be an intern, and that's how he got that gig.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: That's a crazy, crazy full yeah, full court.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: That's crazy. That's how you got the gigs.
• 12:24
  Speaker 3: And created the whole back like, created the systems and
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: did the thing.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: All the things. Yeah, well you for sure. I lived
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: an hour and a half away.
• 12:35
  Speaker 4: I had a I think I might have lied to Joe.
• 12:37
  Speaker 4: I told him that I lived twenty minutes away from
• 12:38
  Speaker 4: the studio. I lived like an hour and thirty away. Yeah,
• 12:40
  Speaker 4: still made it on time, and yeah, but.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I haven't found a way to like make it all that.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I'm giving up, y'all.
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: It's capitalism. But I'll shut up in political side, sister,
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: But I'm serious when you Okay, When I was so,
• 12:57
  Speaker 3: we had just rode by an off Broadway theater and
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: I was showing my partner, he doesn't know that side
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: of me. He's never seen me perform. It's so sad. Yeah,
• 13:04
  Speaker 3: he's never seen me. He's seen video, he's never seen
• 13:07
  Speaker 3: me performed. And I was like, oh, that's a theater.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: When I was doing shows there, and then every night
• 13:12
  Speaker 3: off I was working at Shout Out to Dizsease, a
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: jazz club serving and I was working seven days a
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: week for years, and I would do two show weekends
• 13:22
  Speaker 3: and then rush over there. And so when you when
• 13:26
  Speaker 3: you love this thing and you love this art, but
• 13:28
  Speaker 3: then you have to figure out how to make it
• 13:30
  Speaker 3: sustain you. That's where the emails and the taxes and
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: all of that stuff comes in and it starts to
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: it's a cuss word. At this point, that's where everything
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: starts to get complicated, and then you slow. I just
• 13:47
  Speaker 3: feel like you're robbed of it. We were talking about
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: Broadway and I'm like, you know, I go to see
• 13:52
  Speaker 3: Broadway shows and my heart breaks a little bit because
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: it's so evident that they have an overhead cost and
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: that they have to put but in the seats, and
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: that the people who are trained folks who've been really
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: doing this their whole lives, who do shows at night
• 14:08
  Speaker 3: and take classes during the day and are learning lines
• 14:11
  Speaker 3: and auditioning for the next thing because they don't know
• 14:14
  Speaker 3: if this is going to go away. They're not getting
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: the gigs. They're off Broadway because the celebrities need to
• 14:20
  Speaker 3: draw butts to the seats. It's that type of stuff
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: and it exists in every industry. That breaks your heart
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: a little bit and you're just like, oh, wait, it's
• 14:27
  Speaker 3: AI for photographers, you know.
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: Oh, it's going to be AI for editors. But yeah, yes, yes, nah,
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: I think you spot on me and say von were
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: talking about this before we came into the pod. We
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: always be potting before we pod, and my producer gott
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: to yell at me, like save it for the migaphone.
• 14:44
  Speaker 1: But we were talking about doing that jump, the jump
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: from corporate unto like doing the full time creative thing,
• 14:52
  Speaker 1: and a lot of people on socials will tell you
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: just do it. Believe in yourself and better on yourself, Like, damn,
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: that is a recipe to not be able to eat
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: or afford a roof over your head. It's the jump
• 15:03
  Speaker 1: is so crazy because there's no guarantee even if you're talented,
• 15:08
  Speaker 1: even if you are visible, there's no guarantee that you
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: jump off of the porch and onto the lawn. You
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: might jump off of the porch and into the lava.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: And then the big question when you do that is
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: always and then what and then what? So to me,
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: it's not necessarily about because I agree with capitalism. Capitalism
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: it undergirds every economic determinant that puts people in a
• 15:34
  Speaker 1: bad place. Yes, a lot of people are terrible parents
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: because of capitalism. A lot of people terrible partners because
• 15:39
  Speaker 1: of capitalism. A lot of people have fucked up self
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: identities because of capitalism. Yeah, it's not the shark't the water.
• 15:46
  Speaker 1: But still, like you want to have a mix of
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: the thing you do to make money, in the thing
• 15:52
  Speaker 1: you do to feed yourself. And I tell folks all
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: the time they not always oftentimes they're not the same thing. No,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: not at all.
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: But we're not taught that. No, we're taught you're gonna
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: do what you love. It's very rare that people are like,
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: you're gonna make money, you know, and then figure out
• 16:10
  Speaker 3: a way to live where you feel alive.
• 16:15
  Speaker 1: And I live where you feel alive.
• 16:19
  Speaker 3: And that Like, I'm not a proponent for do anything
• 16:22
  Speaker 3: and sell your soul to make money or do something
• 16:24
  Speaker 3: that is just killing your spirit, right, But I do
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: think that it's unrealistic to think that because we're in
• 16:32
  Speaker 3: a capitalist society where we chose taxes and bills that
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: like the idea of who you wanted to be when
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: you were sixteen, everyone's gonna get. It's such a blessing
• 16:43
  Speaker 3: if you get it. But I feel privileged where like
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: just the very idea that even if I perform twice
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: this year is such an honor because I'm like, I
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: still have this thing that I love, I still have
• 16:56
  Speaker 3: this thing that grounds me. No, it's not what I'm doing,
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: you know, for my career, but I still have it
• 17:05
  Speaker 3: and I won't let go of it. I won't let
• 17:07
  Speaker 3: go of it. I can't. Whereas I have a very
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: dear best friend who is a singer, amazing singer, does
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: it full time, and the same way that you're talking
• 17:17
  Speaker 3: about the podcast, it applies to that, and you look
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: at it, you're like, wh you're a superstar, You're Grammys,
• 17:23
  Speaker 3: you got that, And they're like.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: That'd be sad, be the saddest.
• 17:30
  Speaker 3: So the whole structure applies regardless of what you do.
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: I think that you just have to be alive. You
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: just have to find the moments. You just have to
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: find a moment and cherish them.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: Yeah. No, you're right. That's why I find myself more
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: often than not. Because you also want to express gratitude
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: for the rare opportunity. Both of you all have rare
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: opportunities to be on hero gram Yeah, I mean, like
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: to even have people care about what you say enough
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: to listen to you. A lot of people in the
• 18:01
  Speaker 1: world don't feel heard, and you got the very opportunity.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: But we do this thing sometimes where we feel like
• 18:07
  Speaker 1: if we express any level of frustration for our blessing,
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: somehow we're less grateful for it. I don't believe in that,
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: like I'm a complaining is cathartic for me. I'm a
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: complain I'm gonna do some shit about it, of course,
• 18:20
  Speaker 1: but I'm going to.
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: Compare complaining then or are you processing out loud?
• 18:23
  Speaker 1: Both? I think it depends on how you look at it.
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: Some people look at it as a complain and some
• 18:27
  Speaker 1: people look at it is externally processing. I think it's both.
• 18:30
  Speaker 1: I don't have a problem with complaining.
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: If you rob yourself of that, I feel like you
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: dehumanize yourself and then you just become a figurehead.
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: And that's what I don't want. I even told my audience,
• 18:39
  Speaker 1: I said, if I ever come across as one of
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: these gurus who just trying to sell y'all shit and
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: just telling you what you should do with your life,
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: and I don't feel like a real person, no more
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: knock on my door me, Hey, bro, like they got you.
• 18:52
  Speaker 1: Because it's easy to get swallowed up by the more something.
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: And I was talking to just hilarious and had a
• 18:58
  Speaker 1: conversation about this. The more something is has the potential
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: to make money, the fast that it could just be
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: just come in, be infiltrated and turned into something you
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: do not love.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: Turning into the monster.
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: I don't like it.
• 19:11
  Speaker 4: I feel like every time I get on a podcast, Mike,
• 19:14
  Speaker 4: I'm fighting against that.
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: Really yeah, yeah, said so, I like to call.
• 19:21
  Speaker 4: Maybe five, six, seven years ago, podcasts was like the
• 19:24
  Speaker 4: gold rush.
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah right.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: It was untapped. It wasn't the sharks.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: There was no ads, there wasn't no celebrities, and so
• 19:31
  Speaker 4: that was a real opportunity for us to create and
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: figure it out, which intrigued me, which is why the
• 19:37
  Speaker 4: whole corporate verse creative thing resonates with me, because I
• 19:41
  Speaker 4: believed in that.
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 19:43
  Speaker 4: I dove head first in the podcast and every aspect
• 19:45
  Speaker 4: of it. This was it, even though the tweet, right,
• 19:48
  Speaker 4: like who does that? I was on a forklift when
• 19:50
  Speaker 4: I tweeted, y'all you had.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: A warehouse gig.
• 19:52
  Speaker 2: I was at a warehouse.
• 19:53
  Speaker 1: That's crazy.
• 19:54
  Speaker 4: And my second job, I saw the DM he responded
• 19:57
  Speaker 4: to me when I was working out a homeleer shelter.
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: I had two jobs.
• 20:01
  Speaker 4: When I was willing to intern at twenty five or
• 20:03
  Speaker 4: twenty six, right, this wasn't like a collegiate Oh, I'm
• 20:06
  Speaker 4: going to get college credit because I'm working out a label.
• 20:09
  Speaker 4: It was no, I'm listening to it. I respect the
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: craft's untapped. It's not regulated. At that time, there was
• 20:16
  Speaker 4: no ads in the space. Fast forward to today, every celebrity.
• 20:21
  Speaker 4: It's a marketing tool. I used to work at HBO
• 20:24
  Speaker 4: and the beauty of working.
• 20:24
  Speaker 3: At head their podcasts.
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 20:26
  Speaker 4: I was a producer at HBO for about three or
• 20:30
  Speaker 4: four years.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: So that's crazy. You were a producer.
• 20:34
  Speaker 4: Yeah, HBO for sure. Yeah, yeahbo at HBO. So we
• 20:38
  Speaker 4: worked with the talent. They call it companion podcast, right,
• 20:43
  Speaker 4: so the show or one of the staple shows will
• 20:46
  Speaker 4: take the IP and we'll have a companion for the show.
• 20:48
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Game of Thrones. Literally, I listened to at them
• 20:51
  Speaker 1: joint legit here by the way.
• 20:53
  Speaker 4: The team behind that, like those was my coworkers, my boss,
• 20:56
  Speaker 4: my friends, my people, like everybody making those pieces move,
• 21:01
  Speaker 4: and I think it was fascinating. I looked at it
• 21:03
  Speaker 4: like a training ground, you know what I'm saying. I
• 21:05
  Speaker 4: come from the JVP, where it's independent, it's music, you know,
• 21:10
  Speaker 4: it's rappers, it's lateness, it's all of the things.
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: And then I'm sitting in across from.
• 21:17
  Speaker 4: Circe, like, wait, hold up, is this really my life
• 21:20
  Speaker 4: in the same space, right, So I've seen all factors
• 21:25
  Speaker 4: and faces of podcasting and what you're talking about, like
• 21:28
  Speaker 4: the creative verse. I need to survive. It's a real thing.
• 21:33
  Speaker 4: It's a real through line with that.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: It is, man. I remember when I first start a
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: getting brand opportunities. I realized that I would talk different
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: if I'm doing a commercial for let's say, leave for
• 21:43
  Speaker 1: two thousand, soa y'all kind of young y'all might not
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: know what.
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I'm an older statesman.
• 21:50
  Speaker 1: Yeah, older than me.
• 21:50
  Speaker 2: It's my old g old.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: You're where we could battle this out afterwards. Yes, I
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: was and earlier late late.
• 22:03
  Speaker 1: You're younger. I'm one eighty six.
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: I just turned forty, one year older than me.
• 22:09
  Speaker 1: One year still one year. Shed like I'm a gonna
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: mind my finish now, like two thousands, don't see, I'd
• 22:19
  Speaker 1: be like, what, like my knee is still good?
• 22:22
  Speaker 2: Two thousands is crazy, not two thousand ninety four.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, same thing.
• 22:30
  Speaker 1: No, I won't do that. That's wild though, But this
• 22:36
  Speaker 1: little one, this is a wild time to be born. Damn.
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: I'm old. I remember just y'all making me think of authenticity,
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: and I remember I'm from DC. It's a high school
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: in DC. Shout out to Blue Senior High School that
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: I used to work at when I worked in special education,
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: so I got to know the staff. And then once
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I quit my job and started doing the social media
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: thing full time, they invited me back to be a
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: keynote speaker. By this time, I'm doing a lot of
• 23:12
  Speaker 1: brand opportunities, a lot of speaking. You know, you get
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: in front of mixed crowd, sometimes the endings to your
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: words become a little bit more defined and ha ha ha,
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: you might be a little more buttoned up. And I
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: went from that world and then I got dumped back
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: into the school, which is in a community that's a
• 23:29
  Speaker 1: rough part of the city, so you can get a
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: little bit of everything in there. And I remember trying
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: to think of how I wanted to open up the
• 23:36
  Speaker 1: graduation speech. I mean, a lot of these kids are
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: first time high school graduates in their family, three four,
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: five generations back. It's a big moment, and I was
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: going to open it up being very proper and probably
• 23:48
  Speaker 1: a little bit too clinical. But in DC, we got
• 23:51
  Speaker 1: a saying and I just asked the crowd. I said,
• 23:58
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna say, what's up with y'all and I want
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: y'all and when I want y'all to say what's up
• 24:03
  Speaker 1: to me? And I'm gonna answer how I answer where
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: I'm from and in DC like the answers cooler, I'm cooling,
• 24:07
  Speaker 1: Bob cooler. And I answered it like that when they
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: say what's up, I said, I'm cooling, Bob, I'm cooler,
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: and everybody started laughing. And it allowed me put my
• 24:15
  Speaker 1: shoulders down. Because I'm home, I can open up a
• 24:20
  Speaker 1: little bit more. I could be myself more. But it's
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: not that all the time in a workspace. Can y'all
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: speak to a time like when you were in the
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: workspace and you had to switch that shit up on
• 24:32
  Speaker 1: your co workers, like either you had to be real
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: button up and you had to switch it up and
• 24:37
  Speaker 1: had to be on your a I'm not going for
• 24:39
  Speaker 1: that shit today, or you found yourself being a little
• 24:42
  Speaker 1: bit too casual and you had to zip it back
• 24:45
  Speaker 1: up and call to banks your way out of that.
• 24:48
  Speaker 4: I think I've set hard boundaries in my career right
• 24:53
  Speaker 4: where I don't like to put myself in situations where
• 24:56
  Speaker 4: I have to co switch. Now I know I do,
• 24:58
  Speaker 4: and I have the ability to do it, but I
• 25:01
  Speaker 4: do everything at every cost not to do it. So
• 25:04
  Speaker 4: I can give you an example. This is before Joe
• 25:08
  Speaker 4: I got an opportunity to work for the Yankees.
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: I got.
• 25:14
  Speaker 4: I got an opportunity, I'll just be doing shit. Honestly,
• 25:18
  Speaker 4: it's like side missions. I just complete shit.
• 25:20
  Speaker 1: No, you're like the black Cool force worked everywhere with
• 25:25
  Speaker 1: Master HBO.
• 25:26
  Speaker 4: Thing is I didn't do it. I didn't work there.
• 25:29
  Speaker 4: So I went through the interview process. I had no experience.
• 25:33
  Speaker 4: I don't really care for baseball at the time, but
• 25:35
  Speaker 4: I needed a job. I'm like, you know what, I
• 25:37
  Speaker 4: need to challenge myself cool. I did maybe two rounds
• 25:41
  Speaker 4: of interviews. On the second round, the lead producer executive
• 25:45
  Speaker 4: he said, hey, look, you are the least experienced person
• 25:47
  Speaker 4: that I've interviewed. But whatever reason, you got the job.
• 25:51
  Speaker 4: And so I took I.
• 25:52
  Speaker 2: Didn't know how to take it.
• 25:53
  Speaker 4: I was happy, but when I went home, I lied
• 25:56
  Speaker 4: to my family and told him I didn't get the
• 25:57
  Speaker 4: job because I walked outside the office and I saw cubicles,
• 26:01
  Speaker 4: and I saw suits, and I saw collars, and I said,
• 26:05
  Speaker 4: this ain't me that she felt like a prison to you,
• 26:07
  Speaker 4: And I said, I refuse to do it. I was
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: also struggling with hair loss at the time. I was
• 26:12
  Speaker 4: like twenty six when I lost my hairline completely gone.
• 26:15
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: So yeah, it was messed up dark times, but it
• 26:21
  Speaker 4: made me create a boundary to where I don't want
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: to be anywhere where I can't be comfortable.
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: If I can't wear what I want to wear, if
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: I can't walk in the room and be who I
• 26:32
  Speaker 4: want to be, if I can't you know, if I
• 26:34
  Speaker 4: can't wear my hat right in the meeting and the
• 26:36
  Speaker 4: board meeting, I just want to kick it. It's my comfort,
• 26:38
  Speaker 4: you know, regardless of what it is like. So I
• 26:41
  Speaker 4: don't have too many situations to where I could pinpoint
• 26:44
  Speaker 4: to ooh, I had to code switch, because I've done
• 26:46
  Speaker 4: everything in my career not to code switch.
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: Damn. Most people don't. Most people are in such a
• 26:55
  Speaker 1: need for the money that they just like, you know what,
• 26:59
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna put my foot on the gas, I'm gonna
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: speed through my own boundaries, just trying to make ends meet.
• 27:06
  Speaker 1: But for you to say, nah, this doesn't feel like me.
• 27:09
  Speaker 1: This is a great opportunity, but something feels off that
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: says a lot. And then you also talked about hair loss.
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: We actually got an episode about that because it's made
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: like a punchline or like a joke. But I don't
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: think people understand how it plays with your identity, how
• 27:27
  Speaker 1: it plays with the way that you see yourself, and
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: it's something that's beyond your control. I've been losing my
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: head for like my joint. My joint's been really slow.
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: But I've had alopecia for since I some damn braids, man,
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: when I took them joints out, since I was about
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: twenty three. Really, so yeah, yeah, yeah yeah.
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: And it's man, it's such a play on the mind
• 27:51
  Speaker 6: that you could go around and say, if I can't
• 27:54
  Speaker 6: wear my hat and feel comfortable where I'm at, I
• 27:57
  Speaker 6: don't want to do.
• 27:58
  Speaker 1: It unless you experience. I could see how that could
• 28:01
  Speaker 1: be like you doing too much. It's not that serious,
• 28:04
  Speaker 1: like nah, it is just that serious.
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: It's a real thing. I left eighty thousand dollars on
• 28:10
  Speaker 2: the table at that time.
• 28:11
  Speaker 1: What year was this?
• 28:12
  Speaker 4: This was twenty fifteen, he was ten. Yeah, these stacks
• 28:17
  Speaker 4: out about fifteen. I left about eighty thousand, only seventy
• 28:20
  Speaker 4: stacks now to go back to Make thirty five. In
• 28:24
  Speaker 4: that warehouse, I was telling you about why I tweeted.
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: Joe, he don't do stuff that's not in alignment. It's incredible,
• 28:33
  Speaker 3: world you, I was.
• 28:35
  Speaker 1: The silence was because I'm thinking, like, right, like, let
• 28:40
  Speaker 1: me hold that my stommach aet the ground and don't
• 28:43
  Speaker 1: think it's a conceptive.
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: I don't know.
• 28:47
  Speaker 1: Damn nah, that's love. I love a person who could
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: stand on principal and know what they're not willing to do.
• 28:54
  Speaker 1: I'm always inspired by that. I think corporate America for
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: me was I didn't. I wish I would have approached
• 29:02
  Speaker 1: it more like that as opposed to I'm just trying
• 29:04
  Speaker 1: to fit in it so I can get paid. And
• 29:06
  Speaker 1: you rob yourself with something very nutritious when you're trying,
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: when you're trying to move in a space that does
• 29:12
  Speaker 1: not feel like you and that doesn't belong to you,
• 29:15
  Speaker 1: and you're trying to like take bits and pieces of
• 29:18
  Speaker 1: it and put it into your personality. Yeah, so I do.
• 29:21
  Speaker 1: I do want to talk about the hair lost piece
• 29:24
  Speaker 1: because in the barbershops and when we're amongst men, we
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: kind of joke about it and laugh and then move on.
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: But I find it to be a deeper conversation. What
• 29:33
  Speaker 1: I know what it's been like for me. For me,
• 29:35
  Speaker 1: I think mine is it depends on the way I
• 29:38
  Speaker 1: hold my head. But also the kind of alopiece I
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: have is inflammatory, so sometimes if it gets inflame, my
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: hair will get real thin, and then inflammation stops, stops
• 29:48
  Speaker 1: and it'll grow back a little bit. It never go
• 29:50
  Speaker 1: back fully. I'm also forty, Like you're not always gonna
• 29:53
  Speaker 1: have a full head of hair, But like, how do
• 29:55
  Speaker 1: you find yourself coping with that? Because I know it's
• 29:58
  Speaker 1: men out here who are experiencing it but don't know
• 30:01
  Speaker 1: what to do with it. They everybody say, man, just
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: shave it off. I got a peanut like my head,
• 30:05
  Speaker 1: shit like a knuckle bro liked shit like a kneecap. Man.
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: I don't know how it's going to me. That's not
• 30:12
  Speaker 1: something I want to that I'm ready to do. So
• 30:17
  Speaker 1: can you talk through like how you manage like what
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: your mental process is the whole time?
• 30:21
  Speaker 4: I think for me, I'm still dealing with it every day,
• 30:26
  Speaker 4: Like you'll never see me without my hat internet at
• 30:28
  Speaker 4: the studio before the cameras come on, Like on camera,
• 30:31
  Speaker 4: you'll never see it I'm just not there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely,
• 30:35
  Speaker 4: but I embraced that.
• 30:36
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying.
• 30:37
  Speaker 4: I'm also vocal about it because I think it's important
• 30:40
  Speaker 4: to talk about because, like you said, you go to
• 30:43
  Speaker 4: the barber shops first.
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: I got a new.
• 30:44
  Speaker 4: Barber recently and I had never met him in person,
• 30:49
  Speaker 4: and I seen him in passing. My dad goes to him,
• 30:51
  Speaker 4: so like me, familiar with each other. But yeah, I
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: didn't know him. So the first time he cut my hair,
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: it had been a few weeks, I got the uncle Phil.
• 30:59
  Speaker 4: Shit gets bad. Right, I meet him, I take my
• 31:03
  Speaker 4: hair off, my hat off, and the first thing, he
• 31:05
  Speaker 4: don't even look me in my eyes. He's looking at
• 31:08
  Speaker 4: the head. He's like, oh, I ain't even know that, bro.
• 31:10
  Speaker 4: Like it was so you could feel with somebody's looking
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: at the top.
• 31:14
  Speaker 2: Of your top of my dog.
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: And I get it the initial reaction, but I think
• 31:19
  Speaker 4: it's one of those things. But me personally, I struggle
• 31:21
  Speaker 4: with it. Like I salute guys who walk out their
• 31:23
  Speaker 4: confident without their cap I call it like it's almost
• 31:26
  Speaker 4: like a pacifier to.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: A baby, you know, Like I don't need it.
• 31:29
  Speaker 4: It's just a comfort thing, you know what I'm saying,
• 31:31
  Speaker 4: it's just one of those things where it almost became
• 31:34
  Speaker 4: a part of my identity. But I will tell you this,
• 31:37
  Speaker 4: the very first day that I met Joe as an intern,
• 31:41
  Speaker 4: I made it a point to leave my hat in
• 31:43
  Speaker 4: the car because I needed to show up fully.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: As me in this moment.
• 31:48
  Speaker 4: If I'm gonna build with this guy, if I want
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: the opportunity, I don't want to put a mask on,
• 31:52
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. I don't want to have
• 31:54
  Speaker 4: a hat on, Like I want them to know exactly
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: who they're getting and what they're getting. So for me,
• 31:59
  Speaker 4: taking the hat off is almost like a statement, right,
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: Like Antonetta's like this my sister, we cool, we family
• 32:05
  Speaker 4: once the hat come off, Like that's it. We sleep,
• 32:07
  Speaker 4: movie cracking jokes, Like That's kind of what it means
• 32:10
  Speaker 4: for me. This is more like it's like a cloak.
• 32:12
  Speaker 4: You know what I'm saying That that's what the hat
• 32:15
  Speaker 4: resembles for me. So I'm still working through the whole
• 32:18
  Speaker 4: hair loss part of it.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: Yeah, But hearing you as a woman right who had
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: a dad that was bald, right since I known them,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: I see him wit here would have freaked me out.
• 32:31
  Speaker 3: Hearing you process that, Like I remember when you first
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: told the story of I'm being honest, I was like,
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: what did you could wear a hat at eight thousand
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: dollars at it too? But hearing you process it helped me,
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: Like it informs how I interact with men because I have,
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: you know, a ton of men in my life who
• 32:48
  Speaker 3: I love and care for and they're losing their hair right,
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: And I realized that I feel like for a listener,
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: maybe it helps humanize just y'all experience a little more.
• 33:00
  Speaker 3: And I always say this about our show. It's like,
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: you know, come on here, and we're not gonna be
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: talking about who pays the bill. It's more of an
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: opportunity to, like an invitation of this is how you connect, right,
• 33:11
  Speaker 3: this is how you converse, and this is how we
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: can really be community and really be like family. I'm
• 33:20
  Speaker 3: not gonna say I understand what you're going through, but
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: what I will say is that I have space for
• 33:25
  Speaker 3: it now, Like it informs a lot, Like I crack
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: jokes with my other homies, and maybe I won't crack
• 33:31
  Speaker 3: you know, or I have a friend who I'm always
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: encouraging just shave it off your brother's ball. You look
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: just like him, it's gonna look great. And I'm like, oh,
• 33:39
  Speaker 3: you're not making space, You're invalidating his actual feelings and experience. No, really,
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: it was super help. It was super help being I'm
• 33:48
  Speaker 3: privileged to be talking to two men who will have
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: these conversations like through. And I don't take that lightly
• 33:55
  Speaker 3: because I'm like, I know that there's a lot to
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: even divulge this with a woman in the space. Right
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: because I'm an elder, I think they don't care as much.
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: Do you understand, like you worry about it? But I
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: I do think that, and I hope that the people,
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: especially the women listening, understand how important it is to
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: hear these two men to really like humanize them, because
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: we we dehumanize men so much and so easily and
• 34:28
  Speaker 3: so easy.
• 34:28
  Speaker 1: It's so easily and.
• 34:30
  Speaker 3: The dohumaniz I mean, everybody's a victim of patriarchy. They
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: dehumanize themselves as well.
• 34:34
  Speaker 1: Well, that's how patriarchy works with men, right, Yeah, it
• 34:36
  Speaker 1: makes you reduce, it makes you flatten yourself to be
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: this usable tool in society who's not supposed to want
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: or fix the hammer. Believe you're pretty much exactly and
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the hammer is fine. When you're trying to put up.
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: A wall, but I wrap your arms around it.
• 34:51
  Speaker 1: And the hammer is a terrible a terrible tool. When
• 34:54
  Speaker 1: you're trying to fix a.
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: Car, they don't.
• 34:56
  Speaker 1: It don't work all the time. When you're trying to
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: fix a leaky sint. You can't fix a fucked up
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: toilet with a hammer. It don't work that way. So
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: I appreciate you making space for that. My barber, he
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: shaved or you know, got a he got a baldy,
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: and I told him, I was like, bro, one day,
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: you're gonna come in this joint. I'm not a full
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: head of head and a plane ticket to Turkey. I
• 35:16
  Speaker 1: want you mind your business.
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: Dog.
• 35:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, but he won't. I think he has a hard
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: time accepting it in himself, which he's very open about.
• 35:24
  Speaker 1: And it took a long time for me to accept
• 35:26
  Speaker 1: the fact that my hair was standing for the longest.
• 35:28
  Speaker 1: I'm at the point now where I'm like, hey, if
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: I can make it to fifty, I don't care if
• 35:32
  Speaker 1: it if my hair like a knuckle, I take a
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: flight to Turkey. It just is what it is. But
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: it's a very hard thing to accept that the way
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: you're and I think it's like agent for everybody in
• 35:44
  Speaker 1: some way. The way your body is changing is against
• 35:47
  Speaker 1: your will. You wouldn't choose for it to be this
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: way if you had a choice in the matter. And
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: I think that there are a lot of men that
• 35:54
  Speaker 1: haven't been afforded the emotional depth to be able to
• 35:58
  Speaker 1: see that with such complex You set me free a
• 36:01
  Speaker 1: little bit. Bro. Listen that you talk about it.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, absolutely, that's dope, And you set me free.
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: Man.
• 36:06
  Speaker 1: I appreciate the canda because it's a rough thing to
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: talk about. It still have to go back and live
• 36:10
  Speaker 1: it all the time. Oh, for sure, that you know
• 36:12
  Speaker 1: it's on everybody, Damn nah, I appreciate that. I appreciate that.
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: That's what made me say like, oh yeah, I got
• 36:19
  Speaker 1: something special with this pod, y'all pod. And for sure
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: as for that, I want when we talk about because
• 36:28
  Speaker 1: I didn't get your response to the whole code switching. Yeah,
• 36:33
  Speaker 1: like when you're co switching at work? First has ever
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: been a thing for you?
• 36:37
  Speaker 3: My mom is white and my dad is black. Okay,
• 36:40
  Speaker 3: So I grew up navigating spaces. There were there were
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: where there wasn't enough space for all of me.
• 36:45
  Speaker 1: See, that's an experience I don't know a lot about
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like that's its own code switching between
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: these different possible identity and.
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: Fans code switching for some maybe yeah. I think for
• 36:57
  Speaker 3: me it was more recognizing there was an expectation for
• 37:05
  Speaker 3: me to do it from family members. So here, you
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: act like this here, and I was more like no, no.
• 37:14
  Speaker 3: So I grew up hyper aware of who I was
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: in spaces. I pretty much always occupied black spaces, but
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: I was always aware, mama's white. You have certain privileges
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: because you're a light skin mixed girl running around Philly.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: So the awareness was always there. When I got into
• 37:34
  Speaker 3: the corporate space, I'm the only black person on my team,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: the only one. I think that first. I always come
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: in and I take the temperature right, and I'm like, okay, cool,
• 37:49
  Speaker 3: and I take definitely take the temperature of my boss.
• 37:52
  Speaker 3: My boss was thank god, pretty open to me, providing
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: he wanted to know what I saw on the tea.
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: I was like, the team lacks culture. There's no culture here. Culture,
• 38:05
  Speaker 3: there's no there was no togetherness, there was no community,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: no cohesion. You would walk in, they wouldn't say hello,
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: they just I've never I mean, I'm sitting next to you,
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: and they're just like that is weird there, Like there's
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: a human element that's missing that I truly believe because
• 38:27
  Speaker 3: I occupied black spaces for the most part. We just humans,
• 38:31
  Speaker 3: like we just are who we are. We can't help it, right,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: straight vibes, and I'm like, if you allow me, you
• 38:38
  Speaker 3: know the space, I would like to make it my
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: business to impact this culture.
• 38:45
  Speaker 1: And of course they didn't say no.
• 38:46
  Speaker 3: He did not say no. And what I realized quickly
• 38:51
  Speaker 3: is that every space that I've entered in Savon said
• 38:57
  Speaker 3: this on an episode. I thought it, but I would
• 38:59
  Speaker 3: never say it out louds like, you make it better.
• 39:01
  Speaker 3: Your energy is just like we all chilling, we're all good.
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: It's very communal. And so I pretty much was like,
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: I got this job because I bring something to it.
• 39:12
  Speaker 3: They knew who I was when they hired me, and
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: they didn't want me here, then they wouldn't have hired me.
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: And if I'm too much, it's not the right space
• 39:20
  Speaker 3: for me. And that's where I'll trust that I'm not
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: going to be in a space where like I'm too much,
• 39:26
  Speaker 3: because I think I was scarred from being too much
• 39:30
  Speaker 3: growing up trying to navigate the racial tension in my
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: household and with my parents and everything else. You're too
• 39:35
  Speaker 3: much here, you're too much of this whatever. I'm not
• 39:37
  Speaker 3: going to live like that. But I know that everyone
• 39:44
  Speaker 3: has talked about how much better the space is now.
• 39:48
  Speaker 3: Everyone's talking now, everyone's checking in on each other. People
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: are saying happy birthday and making an effort to write
• 39:54
  Speaker 3: a card like. These are the things that I think
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: are necessary in order to even make you call it
• 40:01
  Speaker 3: corporate America, but like even to make our day to
• 40:04
  Speaker 3: day life like I spend more time with y'all than
• 40:06
  Speaker 3: I do my family, than my man and my dog,
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: that's for sure, you know what I mean. Like, so
• 40:10
  Speaker 3: we can't come in here and we don't have to
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: be family, but we have to be human.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, And there has to be another element that exists
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: in this work relationship beside the static, rigid work relationship.
• 40:24
  Speaker 3: And if I don't, if I'm constantly colde switching, I'm
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: adding to that stale, sterile environment that it doesn't my
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: it doesn't allow my god given talent to shine through.
• 40:37
  Speaker 1: Do you still be hitting the cold where it's like,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: all right, guys, So the through.
• 40:41
  Speaker 3: Line for c not guys you can't do guys.
• 40:44
  Speaker 1: It's not an inclusive language.
• 40:46
  Speaker 2: Careful.
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: That's something I've had got it so as y'all. I
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: feel like y'all because I refuse to be like all right,
• 40:53
  Speaker 3: and sometimes this team, but I'll do it like if
• 40:55
  Speaker 3: I do that speak, I'm making fun of it. At
• 40:57
  Speaker 3: the same time they know that, I'm like, all right, everybody,
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: are we ready to you know, like they know that, Okay,
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: she going to I'm being ridiculous on purpose to be like, okay,
• 41:08
  Speaker 3: can we now that that's done, can we just figure
• 41:11
  Speaker 3: out how we're going to get X, y Z done today?
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: Because as a project manager, you're also leading the team,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: so you're setting the tone.
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: And I'm a huge fan of inclusivity. I think everybody
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: should feel comfortable and everybody should feel like they belong.
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: The way that we used to do inclusivity when I
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: work for corporate was it was so much language and
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: it talked around the point so much that they didn't
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: actually say anything. And it's like, has to be two parts.
• 41:35
  Speaker 1: You have to make people feel included, but you also
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: got to get to the point. You got to get
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: to the point of what you're saying or else we
• 41:41
  Speaker 1: just yeah, the through line, and if everyone's okay with it,
• 41:45
  Speaker 1: if you all will look at it, if it's okay
• 41:47
  Speaker 1: with you and everyone agrees on this point, then perhaps
• 41:50
  Speaker 1: if everyone raises the hand and wearing unison, then we
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: can like, okay, we agree, what's the point? Yeah, but
• 41:55
  Speaker 1: what are you trying to say.
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: This face there? And for those listening, like, there's spaces
• 41:59
  Speaker 3: like that that exist, right, and I don't want to
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: invalidate those experiences. I'm just saying for me, I don't
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: know that I would be able to navigate it, Like
• 42:08
  Speaker 3: duality is a thing. I got to be able to
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: do a little bit of both in order to just
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: even feel alive.
• 42:14
  Speaker 1: And I think people appreciate a little bit of both.
• 42:17
  Speaker 1: But yeah, we talked about capitalism. We live in a
• 42:19
  Speaker 1: very litigious country and people will sue your ass in
• 42:25
  Speaker 1: a hot second. I think that employers are very self protective,
• 42:29
  Speaker 1: Like it's one.
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: Thing, but it's also for black and brown people is different, Like.
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: I got for black and brown people, it's always like.
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: I have people to show up to work and like
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: slippers and pajamas. I could never get away with that,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: and that is something that rubs me the wrong way.
• 42:45
  Speaker 3: That is something that I still eat that I'm like,
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: I am very conscious of how I show up to
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: or how I present. I always present very put together
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: for that reason. Like you're never going to say that
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: I'm unprofessional, Like I'm not even going to give you
• 43:00
  Speaker 3: it's its own burden. Like I got people that it
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: doesn't look like they've brushed their hair in days, and
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: they just and they're excellent at their jobs, but they've
• 43:06
  Speaker 3: just showing up to work, Like I don't care. I
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: don't have to worry about it.
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: I got a theory. Okay, let me hear this. I
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: got a theory.
• 43:12
  Speaker 3: Go ahead.
• 43:13
  Speaker 1: I think that the model that and before out there.
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Before you disagree with me, just listen. I'm not trying
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: to change your mind, just giving you a different perspective.
• 43:22
  Speaker 1: I think that the idea that you have to work
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: twice as hard to be half as good, which is
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: the model that a lot of black people, it gets
• 43:29
  Speaker 1: drilled into your head, right, I think that it's overemphasized.
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: It is.
• 43:34
  Speaker 1: It's overemphasized to the point where we develop these complexes
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: about how we're supposed to show up, and it takes
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: energy away from other things that you could be doing
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: because what you grow to realize sometimes not everybody experience,
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: but sometimes is that all the stuff that you are
• 43:50
  Speaker 1: ruminating about and all the dangers that you see around
• 43:53
  Speaker 1: every corner because your environment is constantly drilled into your
• 43:57
  Speaker 1: head because it's a history of it isn't for no reason.
• 44:00
  Speaker 1: But what you find is that you're the only one
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: sometimes in the room that sees those things.
• 44:05
  Speaker 4: It's those landmines. It's land minds that we have to navigate,
• 44:10
  Speaker 4: like the land minds in corporate America. Is why I
• 44:13
  Speaker 4: choose to embrace the path of struggle what you mean
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: as an entrepreneur, as somebody who's betting on themselves every
• 44:23
  Speaker 4: single day. I would rather that than the landmines of
• 44:27
  Speaker 4: saying you guys trying to be inclusive, not thinking twice
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: about it, because it's casual in our language, right, hey, God,
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: like it's all encompassing of everybody in a room. Is
• 44:38
  Speaker 4: not a gender specific thing. That's not my intent, but
• 44:41
  Speaker 4: it doesn't get received that way.
• 44:43
  Speaker 1: It's a tax you got to pay when you live
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: in a country that has held so many people down
• 44:47
  Speaker 1: for so long, exactly.
• 44:48
  Speaker 3: But that's the thing too, Like you have to be
• 44:50
  Speaker 3: twice as good right that thinking is. It also does
• 44:55
  Speaker 3: not put the onus back on the people who are
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: responsible for that being reality or the system, right, Like
• 45:02
  Speaker 3: I I'm a troublemaker in the sense of if I
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: feel that way and I've voiced how I felt, I
• 45:08
  Speaker 3: have voiced it like, hey, I want you to know,
• 45:11
  Speaker 3: like if you're having a one on one with me
• 45:13
  Speaker 3: and you ask me how I am, I'm actually going
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: to tell you. And it's not that I'm hating on
• 45:18
  Speaker 3: my my coworkers, but I'm going to sit here and say, like,
• 45:21
  Speaker 3: you know, I've no you know, I sometimes feel like
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: I forget how I worded it to him, but I say,
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: you know, I'm very cognizant of how I present here
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: because I always want to be seen as professional. I
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: know that I'm showing up for work and I'm struggling
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: with whether or not I could my appearance could be
• 45:42
  Speaker 3: the same as the rest on the team and just
• 45:45
  Speaker 3: let him sit with that and it's not that, And
• 45:47
  Speaker 3: I was like, it's just I said, And it's not
• 45:49
  Speaker 3: that I think anybody else is being a professional. I'd
• 45:51
  Speaker 3: rather be comfortable too, But it's something that internally I'm
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: struggling with that I can't even drop my shoulders enough
• 45:57
  Speaker 3: to do that. And you should be aware that that's
• 45:59
  Speaker 3: what I'm dealing with. If you're my if I'm your
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: direct report, you should know that those are the things
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: that's ruminating in my head on a daily basis.
• 46:07
  Speaker 1: Good leadership will want to know that you would have
• 46:09
  Speaker 1: got an episode on leadership. Good leadership, we want to
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: know that. Let me let me you know, you gave
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: me better perspective. Let me let me change what I
• 46:15
  Speaker 1: said a little bit. I'm not saying that the things
• 46:19
  Speaker 1: that you're struggling with, you're the only one that sees them,
• 46:22
  Speaker 1: which is actually true, but it sounds a little invalidating.
• 46:25
  Speaker 1: I'm just saying that the over emphasis on your presentation
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: takes up so much brain space. It takes up so
• 46:32
  Speaker 1: much brain space. I always like, I'm a tall, dark
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: skinned black man. I can't I can't roll into the
• 46:37
  Speaker 1: office and no goddamn pajamas. You crazy. Like even my kids,
• 46:41
  Speaker 1: my kids don't go to a predominantly black school, and
• 46:44
  Speaker 1: I see the way some of these kids roll into school,
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: and I'm like, ah, it's like that you should be
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: able to hear that on yesterday, But I do different
• 46:52
  Speaker 1: because there's an expectation for perfection and presentation with little
• 46:55
  Speaker 1: black girls. Didn't know that, didn't grow up a little
• 46:58
  Speaker 1: black girl. I didn't know that until I start. They're
• 47:00
  Speaker 1: raising them. So now, if my daughter decides she went
• 47:02
  Speaker 1: to wear TWU two, the sparkly pants and a long
• 47:06
  Speaker 1: John silver T shirt, that's what she's wearing in school
• 47:10
  Speaker 1: because it doesn't it doesn't impact her education. It just man,
• 47:14
  Speaker 1: I can go into it forever. But I think we
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: black folks have a complex around presentation.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: It's self policing and community policing. And obviously that was necessary.
• 47:23
  Speaker 3: That's just that was necessary for survival. But I'm more
• 47:28
  Speaker 3: interested in recognizing it and being like, hey, people that
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: are responsible for us feeling like this, you need to
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: know that it's impacting me because I'm not just gonna
• 47:38
  Speaker 3: keep feeling like this and.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: My way of combat and that is I'm bucking the system.
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Why should I have to do that?
• 47:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah?
• 47:44
  Speaker 1: Why why do I have to? Why can't I say,
• 47:46
  Speaker 1: ain't in this presentation?
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: Right?
• 47:48
  Speaker 1: Why can't I like, if the system's gonna set up
• 47:50
  Speaker 1: for me to be perfect, damn, it's gonna it's gonna
• 47:52
  Speaker 1: have to earn this perfection. When we talk about performance
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: and like comfort and everything in the workplace, y'all both
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: are very vocal. I don't know if a lot of
• 48:09
  Speaker 1: people lie. Y'all are very vocal about what y'all are
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: and ain't rocking with is. Was it ever a point
• 48:14
  Speaker 1: where that blew back up in your face?
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, oh yeah, I gotta let go. I gotta
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: let go during the pandemic. But it was not I
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: got yes, I got separate, so I didn't get fired,
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: don't I gotta let go. And I'll tell you what,
• 48:30
  Speaker 3: I have no regrets. Yeah I was again. I it
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: was good trouble, but I remember, and I won't say
• 48:37
  Speaker 3: the company shout out to them, but it was during
• 48:40
  Speaker 3: the pandemic, and they folded me into the to.
• 48:43
  Speaker 1: The what is it?
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: Layoffs? But my boss, they could have I did her job,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: but she was on maternity leave. She is an excellent boss,
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: excellent worker, everything, but she was on maternity leave. And
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: I proved that I could do her job for half
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: the pay. So any she thought she was going to
• 49:03
  Speaker 3: get let go, she was terrified. She knew what she
• 49:05
  Speaker 3: had told me or whatever they chalked my ass. And
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: part of it was because I'll never forget that. The
• 49:11
  Speaker 3: environment was really toxic, and it was with a lot
• 49:13
  Speaker 3: of artists. It was like a anyway, I don't want to,
• 49:18
  Speaker 3: I don't want to just yea disclose that. But it
• 49:21
  Speaker 3: was a very toxic environment. And we were on a
• 49:26
  Speaker 3: company meeting and I'll never forget our the president of
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: the entire organization was on there and he's like, you know,
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: not many places where we have a forum like this
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: for all of the employees to say how they feel.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: And we're going to open the floor and we're on
• 49:43
  Speaker 3: a zoom. We're going to open the floor for folks
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: to say how they feel.
• 49:47
  Speaker 1: Death trap.
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: But no one spoke. It was silent, not one hand raised. Meanwhile,
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: this this environment was so toxic that our artistic director
• 49:58
  Speaker 3: used to do shit. He used to say, I like
• 50:00
  Speaker 3: to see people how people operate under stress. So he
• 50:03
  Speaker 3: would just he was chaos agent and he would just
• 50:06
  Speaker 3: sit back and watch you try to figure things out.
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: And he's like, you learn a lot from people when
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: you see them in the rest.
• 50:15
  Speaker 1: So he's drunk on a false sense of power. Crazy.
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: It was crazy. And it's a nonprofit. You're not paying
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: me nothing.
• 50:21
  Speaker 1: Oh you already know they're not project. I would say,
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: I come from the prod. You ain't paid, but pay
• 50:27
  Speaker 1: the two much as ran out of mine.
• 50:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, so they rely on the mission. And I remember
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: I waited a minute. A minute is a long ass
• 50:37
  Speaker 3: time for silence on a call with three hundred plus people.
• 50:40
  Speaker 1: Did you say something?
• 50:41
  Speaker 3: And I said, raise hand and I said, I don't
• 50:48
  Speaker 3: have something specific to say in terms of what I
• 50:52
  Speaker 3: think could push this company forward. I can get back
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: to you on that. I'll be happy to like really
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: rumin on this and like intentionally put things down. What
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: I would like to invite all the leadership on this
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: call to do is to recognize how everyone is silent
• 51:09
  Speaker 3: on this call, and how it could be possible that
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: they're silent because they don't feel like this is a
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: real safe space to actually even voice how they feel.
• 51:19
  Speaker 3: What happened after that, a couple of months I was
• 51:22
  Speaker 3: out of there gone. What happened after that was that
• 51:25
  Speaker 3: everybody wrote me off to the side, Oh my god,
• 51:28
  Speaker 3: thank you so much. Hey you sir, you're so right.
• 51:32
  Speaker 3: I mean, everybody.
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: Where your ass was that when I was being vocal.
• 51:37
  Speaker 3: Nowhere and they and the reason why we had this
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: call is because there was internal chaos within the company,
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: so they knew that people had grievances. They had heard it,
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: you know anonymous, this anonymous that online like just posting
• 51:51
  Speaker 3: stuff online that was talking about how terrible of an
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: environment this place was, and no one said anything because
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: they were fucking terrified, and they were right to be.
• 51:59
  Speaker 3: But I was just like, you know what, I don't
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: like bullies. And I wasn't taught to bite my tongue.
• 52:07
  Speaker 3: That might be my privilege, I don't know, but I
• 52:09
  Speaker 3: was not fire me.
• 52:10
  Speaker 1: Have you ever seen a movie three hundred before?
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: No, that's the one where they all fighting and stuff.
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: And this film, interestingly, that.
• 52:16
  Speaker 1: Is a great synopsis of three D. Who's never seen No?
• 52:20
  Speaker 1: That's well, basically.
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: It makes it look like a video game a little bit.
• 52:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like a real time, real washed out But
• 52:30
  Speaker 1: basically the main character was this king. He was a
• 52:33
  Speaker 1: warrior king named Leonidas. He had to fight this demi
• 52:36
  Speaker 1: god named Xerxes, okay, and no one could beat xerk Season.
• 52:40
  Speaker 1: At the end of the movie spoiler aler if you
• 52:41
  Speaker 1: ain't seen three hundred by now, like dog, what are
• 52:44
  Speaker 1: we doing? But he throws a spear at Xerxes, and
• 52:48
  Speaker 1: it misses him, and it hits his sector ring and
• 52:51
  Speaker 1: lands into his throne behind him, and Xerxes is bleeding,
• 52:55
  Speaker 1: which is something that a god can't do. And the
• 52:57
  Speaker 1: goal for Leonidas wasn't to defeat Xerxes. It was to
• 53:00
  Speaker 1: show that a god king can bleed. And maybe that
• 53:03
  Speaker 1: was maybe that was your Leoni a Serces moment because
• 53:07
  Speaker 1: you weren't going to make them change the coach, but
• 53:09
  Speaker 1: you see an uncomfortable part our lives. Yeah, and I
• 53:12
  Speaker 1: could tell that was the truth when you first started
• 53:14
  Speaker 1: talking about it. But I ain't about to.
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: Get I get fired.
• 53:18
  Speaker 1: No, no, package, yea.
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: I wish you would.
• 53:25
  Speaker 1: I'm talking about I would have been.
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: Like I was also much younger. Would I do it
• 53:31
  Speaker 3: now again? I would? Yeah, I can't even lie. But
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: I was much younger with two roommates, you know, I
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: could feel in a saving figure it out to lose.
• 53:41
  Speaker 1: I think I was a lot more. I think I'm
• 53:43
  Speaker 1: becoming a lot more brave now that I just I
• 53:45
  Speaker 1: don't care because I'm not gonna dip into other bags.
• 53:48
  Speaker 1: But there was a point in time where I'd be quiet.
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: But that's the thing, and that's why everybody has a
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: role to play. I don't look at the people who
• 53:55
  Speaker 3: didn't say anything necessarily as cowards. I look at it
• 53:58
  Speaker 3: as y'all circumstances were different than mine, and that everybody
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: has we can't all do everything. That's why I'm not
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: I used to be a terrible leader in the sense
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: of like I'm placing blame on everybody. It's not as
• 54:13
  Speaker 3: brave as me. No people have I don't have children,
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: I don't have mouths to feed, So maybe I need
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: to be at the front of the line.
• 54:21
  Speaker 1: Listen, when folks ain't writing into the Congress people about
• 54:24
  Speaker 1: their political grievances, and they expecting their favorite musician to
• 54:27
  Speaker 1: say something, and they're like, well, I'm vocal on lines
• 54:30
  Speaker 1: like yeah, well what's the name of your company? Put
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: the name of your company and poscial political opinions from
• 54:35
  Speaker 1: your job.
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: I still want some of them to do that.
• 54:38
  Speaker 1: Do that, and I want to see if you're brave
• 54:40
  Speaker 1: enough to do that, because you're asking this singer, this
• 54:43
  Speaker 1: pop singer, to be vocal about something, and I guarantee
• 54:46
  Speaker 1: you you can't name all You can't name all the
• 54:52
  Speaker 1: Congress people from your state. You don't know who the
• 54:55
  Speaker 1: senator is off of your district. Your anger is misplaced?
• 54:59
  Speaker 1: Do you like, has it ever blown up in your face?
• 55:02
  Speaker 1: Man of mini challenges many jobs.
• 55:06
  Speaker 4: I was thinking about it, well, Internet was time sharing
• 55:09
  Speaker 4: that story because I didn't know you got fired.
• 55:12
  Speaker 2: Is laid on.
• 55:17
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't know if y'all that's when that did
• 55:20
  Speaker 1: not get fired.
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: But no, I was thinking about it.
• 55:23
  Speaker 4: And for me, I think it's the faith that I
• 55:28
  Speaker 4: walk in and the intention that I kind of framed
• 55:31
  Speaker 4: my life where I never have to be in those situations.
• 55:34
  Speaker 4: Like when I went to Corporate America, I was really
• 55:37
  Speaker 4: good at my job, like phenomenal at my job, much
• 55:39
  Speaker 4: like Anteinette. When my boss was out, I could cover
• 55:42
  Speaker 4: his duties, his responsibilities like I'm good, like he probably
• 55:45
  Speaker 4: took extra vacations because he's like he got it. But
• 55:49
  Speaker 4: I was very intentional on telling all of my leadership
• 55:51
  Speaker 4: like yo, I'm not trying to climb this corporate ladder.
• 55:54
  Speaker 4: You ain't got nothing to worry about with me. I'm
• 55:56
  Speaker 4: gonna show up, I'm gonna do my job better than
• 55:59
  Speaker 4: everybody else, and your job is safe like I'm yeah,
• 56:03
  Speaker 4: I don't have those aspirations to be here long enough
• 56:06
  Speaker 4: to where we're now competing, right. Like, Luckily, my culture
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: was really good at HBO, so I didn't have that
• 56:13
  Speaker 4: toxic experience where I felt like I needed to kind
• 56:15
  Speaker 4: of step up. But I just never put myself in
• 56:19
  Speaker 4: those situations, Like I'm very intentional on how I see
• 56:23
  Speaker 4: my life.
• 56:24
  Speaker 1: You're more preventative. You move the hs around so you
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: don't have to be in those spaces absol being reacted.
• 56:30
  Speaker 4: Yeah, because if I'm reacting to a job, it's already
• 56:34
  Speaker 4: taken away from my creative career. And I told you
• 56:39
  Speaker 4: I dedicated my life to this podcast and like every aspect,
• 56:43
  Speaker 4: So if I'm giving that energy and time and bandwidth,
• 56:49
  Speaker 4: then I shouldn't be there.
• 56:50
  Speaker 1: It's so many people who are listening to this who
• 56:52
  Speaker 1: are trying to balance the career that they have in
• 56:56
  Speaker 1: the future that they want. And that brings me back
• 56:59
  Speaker 1: to the canifor what therapy podcasts because a lot of
• 57:05
  Speaker 1: people are, like even in the name of the podcast,
• 57:10
  Speaker 1: it kind of tells you what y'all mo Is and
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: y'all are incredibly emotionally mature. I really love listening to
• 57:16
  Speaker 1: y'all talk because that's evident, But can y'all talk a
• 57:21
  Speaker 1: little bit about just how what the motivation was behind
• 57:30
  Speaker 1: wanting to help folks or wanting to put something on
• 57:34
  Speaker 1: wax that people could consume who probably wouldn't have access
• 57:38
  Speaker 1: to therapy otherwise, or perhaps y'all were talking about yourselves
• 57:42
  Speaker 1: and this kind of came into light, like what's the
• 57:45
  Speaker 1: motivation behind the pod? And just in terms of people
• 57:50
  Speaker 1: who can't get access, what did you hope that they
• 57:52
  Speaker 1: would walk away from?
• 57:54
  Speaker 2: I think it started for me.
• 57:56
  Speaker 4: So I actually been in and out of therapy since
• 57:58
  Speaker 4: I was about eighteen seventeen. The first time I went
• 58:01
  Speaker 4: to therapyst no, I'm not I can't afford it right now,
• 58:04
  Speaker 4: like legit.
• 58:05
  Speaker 2: So the podcast is my therapy.
• 58:09
  Speaker 4: But it just came from talking to a lot of
• 58:13
  Speaker 4: my friends and asking them about therapy, and that was
• 58:16
  Speaker 4: like the same answer I got from so many different
• 58:19
  Speaker 4: I can't afford it.
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: I can't afford it.
• 58:20
  Speaker 4: I can't afford it right Like that's the number one
• 58:23
  Speaker 4: thing beyond the stereotypes around it. It was the access
• 58:27
  Speaker 4: to it and so answering that Josh and myself when
• 58:32
  Speaker 4: we came together the first few episodes, it felt therapeutic, Like.
• 58:37
  Speaker 2: I didn't know her, she didn't know me.
• 58:40
  Speaker 4: But we were able to open up in a way
• 58:42
  Speaker 4: where it's like wait this this, this doesn't even feel right,
• 58:45
  Speaker 4: like and we're honest about we're not therapists, We're not trying.
• 58:49
  Speaker 4: This is life experience, this is research, This is asking
• 58:52
  Speaker 4: myself questions. I want to know why, Like therapy for
• 58:56
  Speaker 4: me was tools. Everybody always asked me about, like, oh,
• 58:59
  Speaker 4: why do you go to therapy? Like I need the
• 59:02
  Speaker 4: tools to understand why I am the way that I
• 59:04
  Speaker 4: am so I can be the best version of my
• 59:06
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying. So I think it just
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: kind of stems from that being curious. You know, I
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: always want to be a student of life, of myself,
• 59:13
  Speaker 4: of other people. Like Antinete said, I taught her about
• 59:17
  Speaker 4: just baldness, right, like men struggling with baldness.
• 59:20
  Speaker 2: That's a real thing.
• 59:21
  Speaker 4: Like we have conversations on air in front of our
• 59:24
  Speaker 4: audience and we take things away from it, like we're.
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: Not trying to preach to anybody.
• 59:30
  Speaker 4: We got that webe award and we didn't think anybody was,
• 59:34
  Speaker 4: oh yeah, it was too sorry, But we got multiple
• 59:37
  Speaker 4: awards for the podcast on Independent and it came from
• 59:43
  Speaker 4: us just being honest and curious and open and not
• 59:49
  Speaker 4: judging in building cultivating like a real community through our
• 59:54
  Speaker 4: life experience. And also we take the time to research,
• 59:57
  Speaker 4: like maybe the first few episodes the first season and
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 4: me and Antoinette, it was some tension there, a lot
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 4: of there was some tension around our process, around how
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 4: we would do episodes.
• 1:00:07
  Speaker 2: So I give you a little bit of insight.
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 4: Every episode, one of us lead the topic, right, and
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 4: so if I'm leading, I'll introduce the topic. I'll say, hey,
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 4: this is where stems from, and we go from there,
• 1:00:19
  Speaker 4: and all of us have our own, like I guess,
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 4: approach to it. The very first season, I'm off the dome,
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 4: all right. I come from entertainment world. I come from
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 4: a feeling. I come from Yo. If it's in me,
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 4: we gonna get it out.
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: And that's it. I know my talking points, I know
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: how I feel.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 4: I don't need to write it down Internet Anternette project
• 1:00:38
  Speaker 4: manager type. Hey, yeah, it's like my wife, Hey dog
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 4: ware outlined. I'm like Internette, I'm fighting for my life.
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 4: I ain't got the time, Okay, I'm here. And so
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 4: there was a lot of tension in building it, and
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 4: again that's a part of the podcast. Like I learned
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 4: through that process of how she works, how I work,
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 4: what works best. Now it's reversed. I'm the one like, I, guys,
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 4: where's your outline? I need that and I got that
• 1:01:07
  Speaker 4: through this podcast.
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 3: I will say that for me, one I felt like
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 3: this isn't. My biggest thing was if we're going to
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 3: do this, we have to agree to be really vulnerable.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: I know we don't know each other, but that's going
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 3: to be a part of the show. They're going to
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 3: watch it unfold, watch us struggle about whether or not
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 3: to say certain things, watch us be shocked with what
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 3: we hear, and like have it be an invitation for
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 3: folks to see this is how you are in relationship
• 1:01:37
  Speaker 3: with someone that you are intentionally caring about.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 1: I was just thinking that that's that is the premise
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 1: and foundation of a strong relationship.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 3: That's it. Like, come come and watch us fail, come
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 3: and watch us navigate and successfully do this thing. We
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: had to take time off because I don't even think
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: it failed. It just we needed a breather yep. And
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: then the second the second thing was I was like,
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 3: we are not therapists. This could be therapeutic for folks,
• 1:02:06
  Speaker 3: So we have to make this so clear, especially then
• 1:02:08
  Speaker 3: the conversation's happening now around life and saying and stuff.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: They're like, we are not therapists. But my main thing
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 3: was I was really wanting and hungry to see men
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: and women, especially black men and women talk to each
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 3: other in a loving, just like patient way.
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: I find myself with such a hunger for that right
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 1: now because the conversations that I see online are framed
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: and this isn't a takeaway anybody's negative experience with anyone else,
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 1: but they're framed so cynically just by default, that there
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: isn't room for any warmth or understanding. It's just generalizations
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 1: and people superimposing their worst lived experiences onto everybody else.
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 1: It's so out of control. It's so out of control.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 1: So I find myself with.
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: And I think it's by design.
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 1: But hey, listen, I can jump in, my I can
• 1:03:09
  Speaker 1: jump in you know, the CIA up one thousand, Nah,
• 1:03:18
  Speaker 1: it's it's I think that's necessary. Even when Savon was
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 1: talking about honesty and just these forgive the corporate speed,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 1: but just these through lines of what therapy means. It's
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 1: honesty and it's curiosity, like that's that's what we're teaching
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 1: in that room, not teaching, but that's what we're discussing
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 1: in that room, forty five minutes at a time. And
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 1: it takes people. It seems really easy, like, oh, yeah,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna just interrogate my thoughts and you know, I'm
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 1: gonna just do everything that I need to do. It's like,
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 1: all right, cool. But then when you're actually going through
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 1: the process, you realize it doesn't take you three sessions.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: It takes you three years. Yeah. Absolutely, and they can
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 1: be a long, drawing out process. Sometimes. I don't think
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 1: everybody anticipates. I want to move back to the advice
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 1: piece because I understand y'all say y'all not therapists, but
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 1: I feel like y'all are incredibly insightful, and I think
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 1: talk about mental health you don't have to be a
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 1: therapist at all. We need more people to do that
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: and talking about their lived experience. So for someone who's
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 1: in corporate America right now and they navigating spaces that
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: don't feel like them or weren't designed for them, is
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 1: there anything practical you can tell them, like a next
• 1:04:45
  Speaker 1: step or something they can.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: Do to actually help them know your price, know your price,
• 1:04:51
  Speaker 3: know your price.
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: Break that down from me a little bit.
• 1:04:53
  Speaker 3: Know what you're willing to.
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: Give up, Yeah, the tax that you have to pay,
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 1: because it's going to come at a cost.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 3: It's going to come at a cost. And make sure
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 3: that when you name that price, you don't deter from it,
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: no matter what the money looks like, no matter what
• 1:05:14
  Speaker 3: the opportunity looks like, name your price whether and it
• 1:05:18
  Speaker 3: doesn't it's and the price is like that, the tax
• 1:05:20
  Speaker 3: is like who you wouldn't be willing to work for
• 1:05:23
  Speaker 3: certain companies that are not aligned, you know, in terms
• 1:05:27
  Speaker 3: of like how much of your integrity are you willing
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 3: to sacrifice if you even have to negotiate that, Like
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 3: how much is it really worth? Like I think that's
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 3: the big thing, it's like, and then more, I think
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 3: that's where you start with yourself and when you get
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 3: into the space, be honest with the folks around you
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: about what you are navigating. I think a lot of times,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: if you feel safe enough, if there's somebody that you
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: can like, if you're feeling that anxiety around code switching,
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 3: if you're feeling that anxiety around hair, you need to
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 3: touch on that around dress, around.
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: All the things and the shape of your body.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Around the shape of your body. I think it's okay
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 3: to say that, and it might make other people uncomfortable,
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 3: but they need to be uncomfortable.
• 1:06:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah, nah, I'm with you on that. Can I add
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: something to the whole name your price thing? If you've
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: established the price that you were cool with and you're
• 1:06:27
  Speaker 1: not cool with it anymore, it's okay to not be
• 1:06:29
  Speaker 1: cool with it. Yeah. Yeah, you can comp it and
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 1: change that.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: You can pivotage, but be doing that internal work where
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 3: you're kind of I don't want to say, interrogating yourself,
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: but it's like that double consciousness. Sometimes not all the time,
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 3: but check in with yourself on like, am I good here?
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah?
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: It's my soul?
• 1:06:46
  Speaker 1: Right. Yeah, if you got to go home and cry
• 1:06:48
  Speaker 1: about it, it may not be worth it to you. Right,
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: even if you can stand it in real time in
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: the person. If you go home and you have it,
• 1:06:55
  Speaker 1: you washing dishes and you're talking to your co workers
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 1: in your head, I think the price might be a
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 1: little too pidh Yeah, you might be overdrifting. Yeah what
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 1: would you say, folk? Yeah I did that, I said, folks. Yeah,
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 1: what I would say is stepping stone. Know, what is
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 1: a stepping stone.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: It's not.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of people get into these spaces.
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 4: I also want to give a caveat to what Antoinete said,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 4: neither of us have children, so it allows me to
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 4: be this ambitious. It allows me to be illusional, you.
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: Know what I'm saying. It allows me to do this.
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 4: So I do want to make sure I'm speaking to
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 4: your audience with that, because I don't want people to
• 1:07:33
  Speaker 4: think that I'm just telling them to take these risks
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 4: without you know, like I don't have kids.
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: Josh has a kid. He just liked you.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 1: Though.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 2: Josh has a kid and he's doing everything. I ain't
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 2: got no kids. If I had a kid, maybe I
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 2: have a different too.
• 1:07:47
  Speaker 4: Maybe I would have took the eighty thousand from the
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 4: Yankees and it would have been different.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 4: I come from teenage parents. My parents had me sixteen
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: to seventeen. Goodness, their parents had them sixteen seventeen. The
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 4: their parents had them eighteen nineteen. I met my great
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 4: grandmother's mother because we were just stacking on top of generations,
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 4: and I broke the curse. I was the first person
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: in my lineage not to be a teenage father, and
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 4: then to get through my twenties and still not be
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 4: your father.
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:08:19
  Speaker 4: So it's allowed me to dream and be delusional in
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 4: how to pursue my career. And so when it goes
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 4: when I go into corporate spaces, if anybody who has
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 4: the ability to do it, look at it like a
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 4: stepping stone. Even if you want to stay in the
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 4: same company, you may want to get in a different position.
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 4: You may want to be an executive, maybe you want
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 4: to stay away at and you just want to move,
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: you know what I'm saying laterally and go to another company.
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 4: Like it's so smart if you everything as a stepping stone.
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 4: Nothing is permanent. When you're looking at the stock market,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 4: it changes every time an executive switches out of that
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 4: position from Netflix for to whoever, right, It's always going
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 4: to change. So like we get a patched to our
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 4: positions and where we are where I think, if we're
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 4: able to look at it like a stepping stone, it
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 4: can allow us to be more flexible and it won't
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 4: hurt as much when it is time to change.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 2: Or maybe it won't hurt at all.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: Maybe you'll be seeking that change because you go into
• 1:09:17
  Speaker 4: it knowing there's a stepping song.
• 1:09:20
  Speaker 1: That's good advice man, because I think we walk into
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: these positions sometimes and it's full of livelihood. A lot
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 1: of us wouldn't be working where we working if we
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: had to do it for free. So you know, you're
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: trying to protect something at this job essentially. And I
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 1: think when we walk into these positions, I know it's
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: happened to me. You see it almost as a forever thing,
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 1: like I'm gonna get here, I'm gonna do as much
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: as I can do, I'm gonna make a name for myself.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 1: And you don't realize that this is just resume padded
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 1: until you get to the next place. Because we not
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 1: like our parents, grandparents, what an expectation was for you
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 1: to work forty years in a place and retire. No
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 1: one's ever doing that again. We just don't socidey is
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 1: moved past that way of thinking about employment. I add
• 1:10:04
  Speaker 1: a little something for people who are in the workspace,
• 1:10:08
  Speaker 1: and I think both of y'all hit on it self honesty,
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 1: self honesty. I think it's it's you have to be
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 1: able to hold very conflicting experiences and thoughts and opinions
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: at the same time, and you have to be honest
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 1: with yourself. You gotta be honest about whether something is
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 1: helpful for you anymore, whether it's not, whether something is
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 1: hurting you, whether or not you're chasing yesterday's dream. There's
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 1: people in mad school right now who wanted to be
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 1: a doctor when they were five, you as they want
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 1: to be a doctor in undergrad. You know, my wife
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 1: is a lawyer. She'll tell you no. You know, she
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 1: was a teacher before that. Loved that she became a lawyer,
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 1: and she's like, Yo, this sucks. She doesn't do that anymore. Wow,
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: you know, So being honest with yourself. If a dream
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: ain't a dream, ain't deferred when it's expired, and like
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 1: sometimes you just you OutKick it, you outrun it. That's
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 1: just not where you are anymore. And it's okay. It's
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: a hard reality step in two, but it's okay. You
• 1:11:08
  Speaker 1: talked about answering that when you got your job and
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: you boosted the culture. I wish we had somebody at
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: a lot of different jobs I worked at like that
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 1: because we were stell as hell, and I tend to
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 1: go too far either that direction. Either I'm super like, hey,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 1: I'm just stick by the book, getting paid and stay
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: out the way, or I'm buck the system on my
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 1: Bushwick Bill Willie d type shit Like it gets bad,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 1: I get real militant at work, and that doesn't work
• 1:11:36
  Speaker 1: well for anyone. It's hard for me to stick in
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 1: the middle real fast.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 3: Part of that for me was because I wanted I
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 3: wasn't looking at the job. This is other advice I got.
• 1:11:45
  Speaker 3: I just remember I wasn't looking at the job. If
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: I got to prove myself to the job, it's like
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: I'm here to take something. You got to give me
• 1:11:51
  Speaker 3: something too. And in that there was an opportunity for
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: me to be a culture like a change agent. And
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: I hadn't had that opportunity to like really set the
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: table anywhere, like from process to the culture to everything.
• 1:12:06
  Speaker 3: And I was like, this is a great opportunity for
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: me to do this. And I'm leaving here with more
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 3: tools than when I came, and so I need But
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: but somebody told me, like, when you go to work,
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 3: you have to be interviewing them too. You have to
• 1:12:22
  Speaker 3: be setting up what is my growth plan? Because because
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: as you said, it's a stepping stone and so often
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 3: we're just there to like make sure we're checking their boxes.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: Are you checking mine? That I got a plan for myself.
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: Because we'd be so happy to be there. I'm like, like,
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 1: you're doing me a favor behinding me, And really, when
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 1: you look at the numbers in the economy.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 2: I get it right.
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 1: It's hard to get a job. It's hard to keep
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: a job. It's hard to have your resume looked at
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 1: once you hit submit, and then it's even harder to
• 1:12:53
  Speaker 1: get an interview. Then it's even harder to get a
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: second interview. Then it's even harder to be brought in.
• 1:12:58
  Speaker 1: Sometimes you don't do a third interview, do like an formal.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 1: But it's hard to stay ninety days at your job.
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: It's not just applying for a job. Isn't a one
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: once swiped shebang. It's a multi step process. And by
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: the time you finished doing it, you exhausted. You don't
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: want to have to do that shit again. So it's like, yo,
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 1: I am thankful to be here. Whatever you say, cool,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna do. I'm gonna stay out the way. And
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: you do that until you wrote a ridiculous resentment for
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: your job and everybody in there, and then you just
• 1:13:22
  Speaker 1: don't give a fuck no more. And that is that
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: is not the place you want to be. But when
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: you talked about changing the culture, I'm curious of what
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: y'all think building community looks like. In those spaces and
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 1: my old job, all the black people used to huddle
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: on the corner and kind of whisper our disgruntled unpleasantries
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: amongst each other, not because we were scared, not because
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: we were cows, but because it didn't feel like a
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: safe place to say it out loud. Somebody gonna retaliate
• 1:13:48
  Speaker 1: against you in the nice, nastiest way possible. So what
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 1: does building community look like for them spaces and y'all?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: For y'all to y'all, two.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 4: Yard, I think it goes back to what you said,
• 1:13:59
  Speaker 4: just being hones with yourself and trying to find pockets
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 4: of people who you can be honest with as well.
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 4: I think trying to please everybody at a job is
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 4: just the wrong that is just never gonna work. And
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 4: so there's a reason that you're in those doors and
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 4: why you're in those doors. Just try to find those
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 4: pockets of people to you know what I'm saying, and
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 4: again humanize yourself, Like I'm very transparent and open with
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 4: the people I work with about what's happening in my
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 4: personal life.
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 2: Like if I'm messed up, you're gonna know.
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: See I'm the opposite. I'm the opposite. Don't let them
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: know nothing. Those are the people that I work with.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: It's just different.
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 3: It depends on for me. It depends. But like who
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 3: who like you?
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 4: Like when before we record Antoinette I and Josh, we
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 4: spend at least an hour and a half just catching
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 4: up and talking.
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: That's the creative space is different. Okay, because me and
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: my producers, I talk to them a lot. We shoot
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 1: the ship before, we do the power all the time.
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: But in the corporate space it's different for me. I
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: remember one of my coworkers told me I was inviting
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: her somewhere and she's like, man, we work friends, we
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: ain't friends in real life. And that set me free.
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 1: I was like that you right, damn it ain't never
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 1: invite them to nothing. I wvited all in them in
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: my fortieth a few months ago. But it's not like
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: a or I invite someone to a birthday party. But
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: I'm very clear. I was like, man, you put the
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: words what I've always been feeling. So there's nothing wrong
• 1:15:26
  Speaker 1: with that approach. But I'm the opposite. I don't tell
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 1: you nothing that work. I'm at work. Once I clock out,
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 1: I don't think about y'all. I ain't looking at y'all.
• 1:15:33
  Speaker 1: I'm bouncing, I'm out.
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: I think to create community at work is to for
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: me practical approaches, to be empathetic, to be curious. If
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 3: somebody's underperforming, be curious about them, ask trying to figure
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: out why. Is Probably not just because they're not good
• 1:15:51
  Speaker 3: at their jobs. Probably something else going on. Humanize them.
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: I think I'm trying to think about what people have
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: done for me. Don't be you know, for your loss
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: of power. Never outshine the master. But it's like you
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 3: can outshine me, Like we need to lead differently.
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 1: That's a great leadership quality.
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: Again, if I'm a good leader, If you're a parent,
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: you want your kids to be better than you.
• 1:16:16
  Speaker 1: Right, If you're a good parent, yes.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: So hello. If you're a leader, then you do it right.
• 1:16:22
  Speaker 3: I think that whatever you want, you have to create,
• 1:16:27
  Speaker 3: and especially with black and brown folks, like you know
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: how to suss people out, take an inventory on who
• 1:16:34
  Speaker 3: you could trust, who you can't, And like there's a
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: group at my job only black and brown people are
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: in its teams like chat and it's like three hundred
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: of us from like the New York office, Chicago office,
• 1:16:47
  Speaker 3: Philly office, and we're all giving each other tips and information.
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: Need Yo, y'all you see this new check out this training.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 5: Yo.
• 1:16:55
  Speaker 3: I just pete that you can do a word. Can
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 3: you show me that don't even know the person You're
• 1:17:00
  Speaker 3: getting online after work and somebody's putting you on. That
• 1:17:03
  Speaker 3: is what folks need.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 1: Men that mendis community man who build each other up.
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 1: And I got an episode where we talk about leadership.
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 1: I say, you know, leadership is not dominant, and leadership
• 1:17:16
  Speaker 1: wants to see other leaders grow because we talk about
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 1: men in the household, how some men are like now
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 1: the leader, but you stepping on everybody else for you
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 1: to feel leaderly or whatever that is. Like, Nah, I'm
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 1: a leader. My wife is a type of leader. My
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 1: wife is a leader too. Most certainly my daughters are
• 1:17:33
  Speaker 1: different types of leaders. My oldest is a leader, my
• 1:17:35
  Speaker 1: youngest is a leader. Everybody gets a share of voice
• 1:17:38
  Speaker 1: in the system because I've been in too many oppressive
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: systems with a person that's at the top hoards all
• 1:17:44
  Speaker 1: the power and the shit sucks for everybody. Underneath being
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 1: if family is not exonerated from that same dynamic. But
• 1:17:52
  Speaker 1: one person holds all the power and everybody else is
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 1: just hanging on for dear life. And I don't want
• 1:17:57
  Speaker 1: to be a part of a system like that, and
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: I definitely don't want to be the re in for
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 1: a system like that. Ever, one thing that points out
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: to me, and I don't know if y'all see it
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 1: in y'allselves, but y'all answer everything with a lot of
• 1:18:09
  Speaker 1: emotional maturity.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: Thank you?
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 1: Yeah, what was that?
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 3: You just got here?
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 2: About four years on the bar?
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 1: Emotional maturity, though, it's hard to come across, and it's
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 1: so obvious, and people who just avoid of it or
• 1:18:33
  Speaker 1: they just haven't arrived there yet, because a lot of
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 1: people have the ingredients, they they just you know, they're
• 1:18:39
  Speaker 1: just not making the cake. For whatever reason, y'all are
• 1:18:42
  Speaker 1: clearly coming from a healthy space. Can y'all share some
• 1:18:46
  Speaker 1: resources for folks, resources or approaches or practices that you
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 1: do for folks who may not have emotionally mature people
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 1: like y'all in they circle or when they bring that
• 1:18:57
  Speaker 1: to they group of friends or they bring that to
• 1:18:59
  Speaker 1: whatever they can community is it's not received warmly.
• 1:19:04
  Speaker 4: I feel like there's I feel like I'll be a
• 1:19:05
  Speaker 4: little bit quicker than answer. I feel like you got
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 4: this one. But me writing, my background is writing, like
• 1:19:12
  Speaker 4: I believe in writing, putting pen to pad, not texts,
• 1:19:17
  Speaker 4: not fingers to notes, like put pen to pad and
• 1:19:22
  Speaker 4: get it out and reread it and store it somewhere.
• 1:19:25
  Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying.
• 1:19:26
  Speaker 4: Have I have a cabinet file of just notebooks from
• 1:19:29
  Speaker 4: when I was like twenty two years old, going through COVID, depressed,
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 4: going through breakups, getting fired, or maybe regretting not taking
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 4: the jobs that maybe I should have. You know, So,
• 1:19:42
  Speaker 4: writing is something that really, really, I know it sounds cliche,
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 4: but it's really a tool for me. It's the foundation
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 4: of who I am. Right, it allows me to express
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 4: myself and also to reflect with my own handwriting. Right,
• 1:19:57
  Speaker 4: this is not text, it's not technology, this is me.
• 1:20:00
  Speaker 4: And then another one on the tech side, I think
• 1:20:03
  Speaker 4: being curious in like community. I don't know how often
• 1:20:06
  Speaker 4: y'all use Reddit, but like for me, it's an anonymous
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 4: source of people confiding in the world. And I was
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 4: going through maybe two or three years ago into that
• 1:20:20
  Speaker 4: I like dedicated myself to like just drop and wait.
• 1:20:23
  Speaker 2: I was like two hundred and sixty pounds. I'm not
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 2: I'm barely six foot to sixty. I was looking crazy.
• 1:20:29
  Speaker 2: We on camera. I felt crazy. We would have clips.
• 1:20:32
  Speaker 4: I wouldn't promote our social clips because I'm like, yo, antoinette,
• 1:20:36
  Speaker 4: I feel so crazy about like I look nutsy, that's
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 4: how you look. I did not know, and I was
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 4: not kind to myself during that chapter. So what I
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 4: did was I sourced, like Reddit, groups of people who
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 4: felt the same way I felt, and they were saying
• 1:20:49
  Speaker 4: the things that I was thinking.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 1: I knew.
• 1:20:51
  Speaker 4: I wasn't alone. I didn't know what they looked like
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 4: unless they put an image up. So writing and redded
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: it's probably my two things, as crazy as it sounds.
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 1: So those are two things that I often. I've definitely
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: given clients in the past, but I give men all
• 1:21:05
  Speaker 1: the time. Write it down and go back and look
• 1:21:08
  Speaker 1: at it, because you'll be surprised when you look. You've
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: been dealing with the same feelings for the last five
• 1:21:13
  Speaker 1: years and it doesn't feel that way, but you'll be
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: able to see the continuation of the same challenges over
• 1:21:18
  Speaker 1: and over again. I also tell folks to look on
• 1:21:21
  Speaker 1: Reddit like mad a. My four year old is making
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 1: me hate paying it right now, and you realize this.
• 1:21:30
  Speaker 1: You know, they say that misery loves company, but it
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 1: does in the most beautiful way to know you're not
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 1: alone in this difficult thing that you're navigating that no
• 1:21:39
  Speaker 1: one talks about out loud, and you're not quite sure
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 1: what to do with. And then you read pages of pages.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 1: Sometimes the vice on Reddit is terrible, but you still
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: get the perspective. So it's funny you say, that's two things.
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: The feelings are still feeling, the feelings of the original
• 1:21:54
  Speaker 1: post are valid. And then even if the advice is bad,
• 1:21:57
  Speaker 1: there's something in it that's probably usable, you know, or
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 1: something that just makes you think will consider perspective you
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: didn't otherwise.
• 1:22:06
  Speaker 3: This one is hard for me because one, I think everything,
• 1:22:11
  Speaker 3: the foundation of everything is vulnerability. You're gonna get hurt.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: If you spend your life trying to avoid hurt, You're
• 1:22:16
  Speaker 3: gonna avoid a lot of laughs, a lot of love,
• 1:22:21
  Speaker 3: a lot of beauty, right, and the people who you
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: love most are gonna disappoint you at some.
• 1:22:26
  Speaker 1: Point, sometimes the most, most times, the most.
• 1:22:29
  Speaker 3: Right, because that's why it hurts so much. And so
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: I think if you are in relationship with folks where
• 1:22:37
  Speaker 3: you can't be vulnerable or you or there isn't a
• 1:22:41
  Speaker 3: pathway to forgiveness right if you do air, I don't
• 1:22:45
  Speaker 3: know if those are your people. And for me, I'm blessed.
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: I've had the same group of friends since high school.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 3: I just came from seeing them. I've been in therapy
• 1:22:56
  Speaker 3: with a friend, like we went to couple's therapy together.
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 1: I think more people need to do that. It's really
• 1:23:02
  Speaker 1: a friendship.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's wonderful. And we we just had a situation
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: where what have our friends walked out on us? We
• 1:23:09
  Speaker 3: were holding a mirror up that she wasn't ready to
• 1:23:11
  Speaker 3: see and she said, enough, we'll be fine. I'm very
• 1:23:14
  Speaker 3: confident that we will be fine. We love each other.
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: We're gonna come together and talk about it. And if
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 3: you can't do that, then I would suggest trying to
• 1:23:22
  Speaker 3: find spaces where you can, whether it be church. I'm
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: not super religious, but some people they find a lot.
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 1: Of there's a lot of purpose for that space, right.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: Whether it be a coach, you know, like for younger
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: people who are in sports related activities, sometimes that mentorship
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: is exactly what you need. Whether it be looking at
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: Jason Wilson his post and feeling, yeah, like feeling comfort there.
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: Whether it be books, whether it be moving your body.
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: There's a lot of therapeutic things, and therapy aren't just talking.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: You move that stuff out of your you get closer
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 3: to yourself, whether it be prayer, whether it be tears.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: It all starts though, for me, with vulnerability, with that honesty,
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 3: that and the vulnerability is another word for its courage.
• 1:24:13
  Speaker 3: Got to be so courageous to feel your feelings and
• 1:24:18
  Speaker 3: to be honest about them.
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: And so.
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: If you can't do that in certain spaces, I will
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: argue that's not your space.
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: I would argue something similar to that. I think, yeah,
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 1: I agree with you there. I think for me it'll
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 1: be kind of taking what you said and then like
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 1: expounding on that. It'll be diversify your friend groups. I
• 1:24:44
  Speaker 1: think so whenever one of the homies is about to
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 1: have a baby, man, my girl, my wife just got pregnant,
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 1: I always say congratulations. Second first thing I asked is
• 1:24:54
  Speaker 1: what does her friend circle look like? Yeah, because if
• 1:24:56
  Speaker 1: she does not have a strong friend circle, she is
• 1:24:59
  Speaker 1: going to rely on you to be all of the things.
• 1:25:02
  Speaker 1: And my brother, no matter how skilled you are. No
• 1:25:05
  Speaker 1: matter how intuitive or tuned and dedicated you are, you
• 1:25:08
  Speaker 1: will never be enough and she will be angry at
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 1: you because you can't complete an impossible task. It starts
• 1:25:16
  Speaker 1: your relationship starts to take on water. Relationship is a
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 1: relationship is a relationship. And I believe that even your
• 1:25:21
  Speaker 1: friend groups and my forties, my friends that I had
• 1:25:24
  Speaker 1: since high school, like it's our friends. Our friendship is
• 1:25:27
  Speaker 1: not the same. It's not the same in some ways
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 1: that are okay, in some ways that I wish weren't true,
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: but it's the reality. And what I'm finding is that
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: it was an indicator for me that damn, I've been
• 1:25:39
  Speaker 1: leaving a lot of points on the table when it
• 1:25:41
  Speaker 1: comes to friendships. So now I got groups on my
• 1:25:43
  Speaker 1: social media homies to do the same thing I do.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 1: And you know, when you front of the camera, only
• 1:25:48
  Speaker 1: certain people are going to understand the struggle. They're like, yeah, dog,
• 1:25:51
  Speaker 1: you blessed to do these forty interviews to day, Like bruh,
• 1:25:54
  Speaker 1: it's forty interviews today. But my homies in the industry
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 1: get it, or maybe my homies who are therapist. I
• 1:26:00
  Speaker 1: got a group of of my homies, other black men
• 1:26:02
  Speaker 1: who are therapists. They understand that particular thing. Grouple, my
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 1: homies who are dads. I got my frat brothers, I
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 1: got my chapter brothers within my fraternity. I've been able
• 1:26:12
  Speaker 1: to put a little bit of my needs being met
• 1:26:15
  Speaker 1: in every little pocket, so that if one pocket is
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 1: unavailable to me, I still got apply to run and
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 1: choose community. Community. Man, it's so important. It's important for everybody,
• 1:26:24
  Speaker 1: but it's really it's so important for men. And we
• 1:26:27
  Speaker 1: spend a lot of time talking about how men don't
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 1: have community. We don't emphasize the men that have great
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 1: community and ask them what did you do to building? Yeah,
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 1: you do to sustain it. That's that cynicism thing where
• 1:26:37
  Speaker 1: we talk about men. We talk about from the most
• 1:26:39
  Speaker 1: negative perspective, what men aren't doing. It's so definite focused
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 1: and we don't give light to any other masculinity outside
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 1: of toxic masculinity. That's all it gets to breathe M
• 1:26:51
  Speaker 1: not me.
• 1:26:53
  Speaker 3: I know y'all, Love y'all, I really do.
• 1:26:55
  Speaker 1: You're a brother of fresh as you are to my wife.
• 1:26:58
  Speaker 1: She grew up with a great relationship with her dad.
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 1: That's a great relationship with her. That's what it is
• 1:27:03
  Speaker 1: like the men and her family show up. They show
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 1: up like how some people are used to mom showing up.
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 1: They're all present, they're all vocal.
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: Masculinity should not be synonymous with toxic. That's not They're
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: not the same things. I hate gotta unlearn that.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 5: I hear you.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: But in order to unlearn that, when I'm learning more
• 1:27:21
  Speaker 1: just from being in spaces with women and having women
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 1: as clients, is it takes. It's tough. I look at
• 1:27:28
  Speaker 1: that almost like black folk relationship with the police. Hear
• 1:27:32
  Speaker 1: me out, hear me out. When the threat is coming
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 1: from anywhere and you don't know who the threat is,
• 1:27:41
  Speaker 1: you have to assume that the threat is coming from
• 1:27:44
  Speaker 1: everywhere and everyone is the threat. It's every interaction I've
• 1:27:48
  Speaker 1: ever had with a police officer bad. No, not not
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: at all. I should have got I should have been arrested.
• 1:27:54
  Speaker 1: Sometimes when I got pulled over and they're like, I'm
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: gonna let you go, man, or you just say, man,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 1: my wife on my ass about seatbolt. It's my bad,
• 1:28:02
  Speaker 1: brosy man just put the seatbelt on. Man, They go kicking.
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 1: I've also had some horribly life changing experiences with the police. Terrible.
• 1:28:10
  Speaker 1: Those people should not be on the force, But when
• 1:28:13
  Speaker 1: the officer pulls up behind me, which memory do you
• 1:28:15
  Speaker 1: think is the most forefront in my head? And when
• 1:28:18
  Speaker 1: we're talking about the police, most people are going to
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 1: bring up their most negative experiences. I think it's whenever
• 1:28:23
  Speaker 1: you feel like you've been oppressed by a group of people,
• 1:28:26
  Speaker 1: and it's been a lot of people from different angles
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 1: and different intersections of your life. It's hard to see
• 1:28:32
  Speaker 1: them outside of the framework of being the oppressor, and
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 1: it's hard to see them as people. Yeah, protective for them,
• 1:28:39
  Speaker 1: sucks for me, But yeah, I love your I love
• 1:28:43
  Speaker 1: your approach. I think you and my wife y'all both
• 1:28:46
  Speaker 1: type A artsy types who believe that the world could
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 1: be a better place. That's it.
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: You like.
• 1:28:59
  Speaker 2: The same page, go through it all the time, the
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 2: same thing.
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 1: You need people like that in the world, though, because
• 1:29:04
  Speaker 1: if the world was full of me, we'll never get
• 1:29:05
  Speaker 1: nothing done. We'll just be all argument that all the time.
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 1: I am privileged enough to be sitting here in front
• 1:29:11
  Speaker 1: of antwer Neet and be sitting here in front of
• 1:29:13
  Speaker 1: Savan and seeing their beautiful, smiling faces, and any question
• 1:29:16
  Speaker 1: I want to ask them, I can ask them right
• 1:29:18
  Speaker 1: here and they'll answer. But you don't necessarily have that privilege,
• 1:29:22
  Speaker 1: and you don't have that privilege with me either, which sucks.
• 1:29:24
  Speaker 1: But that's the way that it goes because we not
• 1:29:26
  Speaker 1: live in front of each other. But Kier, what can
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 1: I do about that? Uh huh uhha. There's the thing
• 1:29:32
  Speaker 1: you can do. You can go to learn the hardwaypod
• 1:29:35
  Speaker 1: dot com. Sh Well, I pronounce it. I enunciated that joint.
• 1:29:39
  Speaker 1: I let the DC accent slip off. You are to
• 1:29:42
  Speaker 1: learn the hardwaypod dot com, and I want you to
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 1: go to the feature that allows you to leave me
• 1:29:46
  Speaker 1: a voice message. Leave me a voice message up to Carl.
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 1: It wasn't a minute, right, ninety seconds voice message. Y'all
• 1:29:54
  Speaker 1: heard that straight from her lips. You can leave me
• 1:29:56
  Speaker 1: a ninety second voice message. Ask me anything at this
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 1: anything we talked about. They gave you a high moment
• 1:30:02
  Speaker 1: that inspires you. If you disagree, if you think that
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 1: that's when that really got a fire and she's not
• 1:30:07
  Speaker 1: telling us, leave it on the message. I will answer
• 1:30:10
  Speaker 1: her doing one of my mailbag episodes. We're gonna start
• 1:30:13
  Speaker 1: rolling those in more and more. I shout out to
• 1:30:15
  Speaker 1: everybody who loved the last mailbag episode. It was a
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 1: really good one. But yeah, leave it for me, learn
• 1:30:19
  Speaker 1: the hardwaypod dot com. Leave me a voice message. I
• 1:30:22
  Speaker 1: will get back to you. I will. No, that's a lie.
• 1:30:25
  Speaker 1: I won't get back to you, but I will respond
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 1: live on air, so that you know we can be
• 1:30:31
  Speaker 1: a community and commune together over our ideas and our
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 1: difficulties because we building this joint. Break by breckson the community,
• 1:30:40
  Speaker 1: break by break tell the good people where they can
• 1:30:45
  Speaker 1: find y'all individually and then collectively.
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 4: There's not too many save ons, So if y'all just
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 4: want to type in save on last name Slater, you
• 1:30:52
  Speaker 4: can find me on instagram X all of the places
• 1:30:55
  Speaker 4: I can't afford therapy pod on Instagram and YouTube.
• 1:30:59
  Speaker 2: We have rebrand did our YouTube channel. Oh it's amazing.
• 1:31:03
  Speaker 2: It's growing. It's a growing community. Yeah, that's where you
• 1:31:06
  Speaker 2: can find me.
• 1:31:07
  Speaker 1: Save our Slater is a dope thing. He was slot wise.
• 1:31:10
  Speaker 3: He was destined for greatness.
• 1:31:12
  Speaker 2: I will do something.
• 1:31:13
  Speaker 1: It's a great slave.
• 1:31:15
  Speaker 2: Let's gonna figure it out.
• 1:31:16
  Speaker 1: I like that. Thank you. What can they find?
• 1:31:18
  Speaker 3: You can find me on Instagram. I'm be on all
• 1:31:20
  Speaker 3: the other things. I'm older, y'all. It's not even it's
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 3: Anton that was here or something stuff like that.
• 1:31:26
  Speaker 1: That's what it is.
• 1:31:28
  Speaker 3: I also have another podcast around the way, Curls and
• 1:31:31
  Speaker 3: I have can't afford therapy with this guy and Josh,
• 1:31:34
  Speaker 3: who is forever in our hearts.
• 1:31:35
  Speaker 1: He's start shout out to you, Josh, what you were
• 1:31:37
  Speaker 1: here with us?
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 5: Bro?
• 1:31:38
  Speaker 1: I you're doing more important things.
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 3: Yeah, we online, we're doing the things. But yeah, I'm
• 1:31:43
  Speaker 3: around y'all.
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 1: I love the fact that y'all on year number what
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 1: years was the part? Three? Four?
• 1:31:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah? Three or four?
• 1:31:50
  Speaker 1: Hard it is to keep a podcast going for well, yeah,
• 1:31:53
  Speaker 1: you do know, but most people's podcasts don't get off
• 1:31:56
  Speaker 1: the ground yat thirty long.
• 1:32:00
  Speaker 4: Actually, I just launched a new podcast, blank Slate, so
• 1:32:05
  Speaker 4: I'm backing it again. I just launched the YouTube channel.
• 1:32:08
  Speaker 4: I think as of today we got about two thousand,
• 1:32:10
  Speaker 4: so I'm regrowing all other things. So yeah, I'm launching podcasts,
• 1:32:16
  Speaker 4: I'm doing podcasts, I'm producing podcasts. But yeah, blank slate
• 1:32:20
  Speaker 4: catch me there.
• 1:32:21
  Speaker 1: I love it, man. I love that not only can
• 1:32:23
  Speaker 1: y'all come up here and y'all talk to talk, but
• 1:32:26
  Speaker 1: y'all actually walking it and living it in real time.
• 1:32:28
  Speaker 1: Let's clap it up. Let's clap it up. Thank you
• 1:32:31
  Speaker 1: for charity podcast.
• 1:32:32
  Speaker 3: And thank you so much. Thank you what you do.
• 1:32:35
  Speaker 3: Of course, my partner really really finds a lot of
• 1:32:40
  Speaker 3: comfort in a lot of your videos. I had no
• 1:32:42
  Speaker 3: idea he was like who.
• 1:32:44
  Speaker 1: I love him, And so I told you, people don't
• 1:32:46
  Speaker 1: know who I am.
• 1:32:48
  Speaker 3: No, I didn't know that he was so connected to you.
• 1:32:51
  Speaker 3: I knew who you were, but I didn't know that
• 1:32:52
  Speaker 3: he was. You know, he loves he loves you, and
• 1:32:57
  Speaker 3: he really is grateful for the space that you take
• 1:33:00
  Speaker 3: up and for the work that you're doing, as intentional
• 1:33:03
  Speaker 3: as it is. He has that first video that went
• 1:33:06
  Speaker 3: viral of yours saved in his phone from years ago,
• 1:33:09
  Speaker 3: Get out of Here. Yes.
• 1:33:10
  Speaker 1: So when I met him, I could feel the love
• 1:33:12
  Speaker 1: and the yes.
• 1:33:14
  Speaker 3: He's a son. The eleventh. Y'all just emotional out here.
• 1:33:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah, we emotional, but I ain't a bit.
• 1:33:27
  Speaker 5: I saw.
• 1:33:30
  Speaker 1: Y all Right, y'all that's it for us. Thank you
• 1:33:38
  Speaker 1: so much for tuning in. You know, if you're in
• 1:33:41
  Speaker 1: a place and you're at a job that you don't love,
• 1:33:45
  Speaker 1: you are in a position that you wish were different,
• 1:33:47
  Speaker 1: you find yourself growing into the person that you do
• 1:33:50
  Speaker 1: not want to be in your job is a huge
• 1:33:52
  Speaker 1: reason as to why I know this is hard because
• 1:33:55
  Speaker 1: the economy is crazy, the job market is crazy. But
• 1:33:58
  Speaker 1: I want you to take a hard look at yourself,
• 1:34:02
  Speaker 1: the way you think and the way you're approaching things,
• 1:34:05
  Speaker 1: and I want you to ask, what is one or
• 1:34:08
  Speaker 1: two things, even if they're small, that I can do
• 1:34:11
  Speaker 1: to produce a different outcome. You don't have to change
• 1:34:14
  Speaker 1: the world right now. You just got to do a
• 1:34:15
  Speaker 1: little something different. And if you start stacking them little
• 1:34:18
  Speaker 1: somethings on top of each other, you're gonna turn around
• 1:34:21
  Speaker 1: and everything's gonna change. But much like my book that's
• 1:34:24
  Speaker 1: dropping September, first, it all starts when you do my
• 1:34:27
  Speaker 1: nighbors Kire Gains. I think y'all can tune it into
• 1:34:29
  Speaker 1: the pod. Y'all take care of y'allselves. Job or Now
• 1:34:33
  Speaker 1: Learn the Hard Way is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
• 1:34:36
  Speaker 1: I'm your host, Ker Gaines. We're produced by Courtney Deans
• 1:34:39
  Speaker 1: and Cason Alexander Ashley. J. Hobbs is our senior producer.
• 1:34:43
  Speaker 1: Our executive producers A Will Packer, Doctor Joey hard and Bradford,
• 1:34:47
  Speaker 1: Alex Balden and Carla Will Marris