Latest / Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines / EP 23: Your Job Is Not Your Identity ft. Jason Rosario

Transcript

EP 23: Your Job Is Not Your Identity ft. Jason Rosario · Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines

• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Learn the Hard Way. My name is Keir Gaines.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: We talk about purpose. We talk about pressure.
• 0:12
  Speaker 2: We talk about what it actually takes to become a full,
• 0:15
  Speaker 2: comprehensive man. Hey, what's good, y'all? Welcome back to another
• 0:18
  Speaker 2: episode of the Learn the Hard Way podcast. I am
• 0:21
  Speaker 2: your host, Keir Gaines. I am a licensed therapist. I
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: am a keynote speaker.
• 0:26
  Speaker 3: I am an.
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: Author of my brand new book, It All Starts When
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: You Do. Please make sure you go get that out
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: September 1st. And I am also I am also a
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: person who has been impacted by the proliferation of AI.
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: And if you don't know what proliferation means, don't worry.
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: It's just a really sexy way of saying the spread.
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: Feel free to steal that joint. It's just a really
• 0:49
  Speaker 2: fancy way of saying the spread of AI. And I
• 0:52
  Speaker 2: think that there's a fascinating conversation at the intersection of
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: the proliferation of AI and the loss of jobs in
• 1:01
  Speaker 2: a specific part of our society, and male identity. And
• 1:08
  Speaker 2: if I'm a political head, I listen to a lot
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: of political podcasts. I follow politics very heavy. I'm such
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a politics junkie that I listen to British Parliament. I
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: listen to them folks argue all the time. But this
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: is a big concept because a lot of the jobs
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: that men traditionally held obsolete now they're gone and a
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: lot of male identity has traditionally and is currently centered
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: around productivity what you bring how you add value economically
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: and what type of wealth or station you can accumulate
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: in your life and when those things disappear even.
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: Though a large version a large portion of our.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Identity formation is centered around those things when they disappear
• 1:54
  Speaker 2: so does your self-identity so who do you become How
• 1:58
  Speaker 2: do you stay ahead?
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: How do you remember who you are?
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: How do you reinvent who you are? Why keeping in
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: mind who you've always been? Now, I would love to
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: just break this joint down throughout a whole episode, but
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: it's so dense that I needed another genius brain in
• 2:14
  Speaker 2: the room. I needed another very intelligent person that speaks
• 2:19
  Speaker 2: about this, not only fluently, but thoroughly. So today I invited... Man,
• 2:26
  Speaker 2: one of my favorite people to listen to. I'll take
• 2:28
  Speaker 2: it back. Not only is he one of my favorite
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: people to listen to, he was the first black man.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: I've ever seen on social media do a talking head video.
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: It was a long time ago.
• 2:38
  Speaker 2: But he popped in front of the camera and he
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: spoke so brilliantly and so confidently. This was years before
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: I was creating content at this clip that I was inspired.
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: And he still continues to be one of the greater
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: minds in the social zeitgeist. And he is going to,
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: y'all are going to really enjoy this episode because he
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: is going to break this joint down on a cellular level.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: And we're going to really talk about it. And today,
• 3:03
  Speaker 2: my guest is the one, the only, Jason Rosario. I'm
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: a road of odds, my boy.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Jason, what's good with you?
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: You're locked in, kid. You're going to make a black
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: man blush with that intro, my brother. That's hard to do.
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: So thank you for that. Nah, man.
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: Nah, thank you. I want you to introduce yourself. but
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: before you introduce yourself, I want the audience to have
• 3:30
  Speaker 2: an introduction to you because you recently made a post
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: about something called the wisdom economy. I've heard of the
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: gig economy. I've heard of all these other things, but
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: you mentioned the wisdom economy. Never heard of that before.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: And I ain't going to lie. I feel like I
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: should know what that means, but I'm not sure if
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: I know what that means. So we're going to play
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: a clip and then I want you to introduce yourself
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: and then I want to talk about it.
• 3:51
  Speaker 1: That's cool with you?
• 3:52
  Speaker 3: Let's do it. Let's rock.
• 3:53
  Speaker 1: All right, let's roll the clip.
• 3:55
  Speaker 3: You see these grays in my head? That's not a
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: sign of old age, it's a sign of wisdom. I've
• 3:59
  Speaker 3: traversed many landscapes in my life and I've been in finance, marketing,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: and entrepreneur, and here's what I've learned. It's not about
• 4:06
  Speaker 3: what you know, it's about how you apply that knowledge.
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: In a world where AI has now leveled the playing
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: field and everybody has access to the same level of information,
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: MIT-level curriculum at our fingertips. What's going to make you unfuckwittable?
• 4:19
  Speaker 3: It's your lived experience, your unique perspective, and your background
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: combined with that knowledge that's going to allow you to
• 4:26
  Speaker 3: really drive value. It's going to really unlock your ability
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: to recognize patterns and connect dots that other people can't see.
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: And so, yeah, in a world where AI is coming
• 4:34
  Speaker 3: for a lot of jobs, think about your unique background,
• 4:37
  Speaker 3: what you know, and how you apply it as a
• 4:40
  Speaker 3: real differentiator as we enter the wisdom economy. Peace.
• 4:45
  Speaker 1: Oh, we. It's so much there.
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: So for men, specifically black men who feel like I
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: like opportunities are drying up and the rules keep changing
• 4:55
  Speaker 2: and the goalposts keeps moving. This conversation is going to
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: be about how to stop scrambling to become somebody else,
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: you know, figuring the funk on a nasty dunk, how
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: to start recognizing, developing and most importantly, demonstrating the value
• 5:08
  Speaker 2: that you already have. So with that in mind, let's
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: get this episode popping.
• 5:12
  Speaker 3: Let's go. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. Well, thank you for that, man.
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: And it's such a layered topic, right? The idea of
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: the wisdom economy, the idea of the future of work
• 5:21
  Speaker 3: and what does that all mean, you know, for all
• 5:23
  Speaker 3: of us. But to give context in terms of who
• 5:27
  Speaker 3: I am, where I've been and why we're having this conversation,
• 5:30
  Speaker 3: you know, my background is as varied, is as nontraditional
• 5:34
  Speaker 3: as it comes. You know, I started my career in finance.
• 5:37
  Speaker 3: I like to joke that I'm a reformed finance guy
• 5:40
  Speaker 3: in some ways, right? Because I kind of achieved everything
• 5:43
  Speaker 3: that there was to achieve in that space. Worked both
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: here in the U.S. and in Switzerland for some time.
• 5:51
  Speaker 3: You know, achieved every marker of success there, living a
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: great life. Decided to leave that space. transitioned into entrepreneurship
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: in 2016, spent a little time consulting in media, in tech.
• 6:03
  Speaker 3: And then the last five years of my life, I
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: spent leading inclusion strategy at a global advertising agency. So
• 6:10
  Speaker 3: I've been in finance, media, technology, marketing. And so I
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: think I've seen enough across various industries to start to
• 6:17
  Speaker 3: kind of really understand nuances and patterns that run across.
• 6:23
  Speaker 3: And then when you throw on top of that, The
• 6:25
  Speaker 3: fact that we are still in a post-COVID world where
• 6:28
  Speaker 3: people are still navigating kind of what does this all mean?
• 6:31
  Speaker 3: This reintegration, so to speak, of relationships, of work dynamics.
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: What does that all mean? The hybrid working environment is unique.
• 6:41
  Speaker 3: The hybrid learning environment for students is unique, right?
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: Oh, and the data is showing that.
• 6:46
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah. So when you think about that, we're still
• 6:48
  Speaker 3: adjusting to that. And the speed with which it's happening
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: now coupled with AI, all of this is moving so fast, right?
• 6:56
  Speaker 3: And so we're all kind of in real time having
• 6:59
  Speaker 3: to navigate a changing world. And what does that mean?
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: And how do I, if in the past, the playbook
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: was pick a discipline, double down on that discipline, become
• 7:09
  Speaker 3: an expert at that discipline, and then find a career
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: and build it, the world of the future is not that.
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: It's how do you take a step back, look at
• 7:18
  Speaker 3: everything that you've ever done, look at your background, your
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: unique skills, your experiences, your travels, what you've learned. And
• 7:26
  Speaker 3: then how do you package that, apply that for the
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: sake of driving value in the world? And so that's
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: what I think is the future of work. And that's
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: what I call the wisdom economy.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: When you put it like that, that makes so much sense.
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: And even listening to you run back the resume, when
• 7:43
  Speaker 2: I think of social media, because for the longest time,
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: people calling me an influencer and people are kind of
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: moving off of that term now because it doesn't really
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: characterize everything that I do or everything that a lot
• 7:55
  Speaker 2: of creators do. But when you talk about all the
• 7:59
  Speaker 2: work experience you have, it comes out, not just in this, um, the, well,
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: cause we also live, we live in a lot of
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: different economies. We also live in an attention economy. So, um,
• 8:11
  Speaker 2: The value is just having eyeballs on you. And when
• 8:13
  Speaker 2: you have a lot of eyeballs on you, there can
• 8:15
  Speaker 2: be an impulse to just do whatever keeps the attention,
• 8:22
  Speaker 2: even if it's not necessarily substantive. And then it just
• 8:26
  Speaker 2: becomes this very wide delta between having all of the
• 8:32
  Speaker 2: answers that are clippy and sound good on podcasts and
• 8:35
  Speaker 2: make people say, oh, you spit and.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: Clap, clap, snap, snap, snap. And having realistic.
• 8:41
  Speaker 2: Practical knowledge from just like your experience, your experiential journey
• 8:47
  Speaker 2: has given you an understanding that a chat GPT prompt can't.
• 8:52
  Speaker 2: Because anybody can sound smart now. Anybody can sound authoritative.
• 8:57
  Speaker 2: But I really believe and I kind of want to
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: get your opinion on this. I think as time goes on.
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: authority is going to become more and more sought after
• 9:09
  Speaker 2: as we question everything that's in front of our eyes.
• 9:11
  Speaker 1: Is this AI? Is it not? Are you telling the truth?
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: Are you not? Are you qualified? Are you not?
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: I mean, on every system of our society, these questions
• 9:19
  Speaker 2: are being had. Actual authority and knowing what you're talking
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: about is going to become a highly sought after commodity.
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: Do you see it that way?
• 9:27
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent, man. And you talked about it. We're, we're,
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: in the attention economy. And someone told me, I can't
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: claim having created this, but the idea that in order
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: to drive attention, you have to create tension. So think
• 9:41
  Speaker 3: about that, right? So everything, if you distill everything that
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: we're taking in on social media, there's some sort of
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: tension behind that that's driving the eyeballs, that's driving the attention.
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: It might be polarization. It might be differences of opinion.
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: It might be a counter take or a hot take, right?
• 9:57
  Speaker 3: So that's the world that we live in. And then
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: to your point about sort of people watching a a
• 10:02
  Speaker 3: tiktok clip and and all of a sudden feeling like
• 10:04
  Speaker 3: they're they're qualified to provide medical advice you know and
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: i saw a video that you that you that you
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: uh an interview that you did where it's just like
• 10:13
  Speaker 3: people are not qualified to give um therapy advice club interview. Yes. Yeah. Yeah.
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: People are talking about, you know, narcissist this and, you know,
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: gaslighting that. And it's to your point, this is like,
• 10:26
  Speaker 3: you hear these buzzwords and all of a sudden you
• 10:27
  Speaker 3: feel empowered to, to be able to be an armchair therapist,
• 10:31
  Speaker 3: if you will. But to your point, I think the
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: value in that, I think what's revealing in that is that,
• 10:38
  Speaker 3: and I said that in the video, ChatGPT, these AI tools, technology,
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: as it were, has lowered the cost of acquisition of
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: knowledge and information so that everybody has access to the
• 10:50
  Speaker 3: same information, right? MIT-level degrees at our fingertips. So what's
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: really going to differentiate you, Kier, versus a Jason, versus
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: whoever else, is you can spend hours on on ChatGPT
• 11:03
  Speaker 3: answering questions, downloading the information, but then it's your unique
• 11:07
  Speaker 3: thought patterns, right? Is what are the unique insights that you,
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: through your lived experience, can draw from that to then
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: provide new insights moving forward? And I think that's the
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: challenge that's in front of us. And I think that's,
• 11:19
  Speaker 3: you know, for those of us who are raising kids,
• 11:21
  Speaker 3: that's the challenge that we have in terms of raising
• 11:24
  Speaker 3: our kids and how they're learning differently.
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: That's a whole, brother, that's a whole nother genre, the
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: kids and the chat GPT and the shortcuts. I got
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: a rising fourth grader and she's quick to be like, oh, well,
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: let me just hold.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: Wait a minute. Let's let's figure out how we do this.
• 11:40
  Speaker 2: She'll show me her math problem, but she does not
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: like showing me how she got the answer. That's like, ah,
• 11:46
  Speaker 2: it's because you can figure out the problem, but you
• 11:48
  Speaker 2: don't know how you got there. And the nutrients in
• 11:52
  Speaker 2: the way that we think, the way that we live,
• 11:54
  Speaker 2: the way that we do and the way that.
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: We are is how we got there.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: Show me your work.
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Show me your work.
• 11:59
  Speaker 3: You remember that in high school? I used to hate it.
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: I used to hate it. I used to hate it.
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: But now I understand. I understand.
• 12:07
  Speaker 2: OK, so you cooking with something, man, because you gave
• 12:10
  Speaker 2: me something that I didn't. really think about before you,
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: but also you kind of reinforcing something that I believe.
• 12:17
  Speaker 2: So I believe that more knowledge doesn't always make us better.
• 12:20
  Speaker 2: Knowledge doesn't translate in the skill. Knowledge is just knowledge.
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: And the way that I see it is Jason, if
• 12:27
  Speaker 2: I gave you a picture of a clown and I
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: gave it to you and I told you, Jason, draw
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: this picture, draw this picture of the clown, you'll draw it.
• 12:34
  Speaker 2: And I give you all the instructions, you'll draw it,
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: you know, but it won't look like that picture. You
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: have the knowledge, you have the instructions, you have the tools,
• 12:42
  Speaker 2: but you don't have the skill to make it look
• 12:45
  Speaker 2: just like the picture that I gave you. And no
• 12:48
  Speaker 2: matter how much instruction, no matter how many prompts, no
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: matter how much knowledge I give you, how much data,
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: how much information, it's not going to make you draw
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: that thing any better. You're only going to get better
• 12:58
  Speaker 2: if you one, continue to practice or two, you naturally.
• 13:02
  Speaker 1: Have the gifts to make that happen.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: And both of those things can't be acquired through just
• 13:08
  Speaker 2: typing in a prompt. For me, a lot of the
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: knowledge I have is through working in the community for
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: years and years. It's not from reading a book about trauma.
• 13:17
  Speaker 2: It's through sitting with an HIV positive woman that has
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: four kids, nowhere to live and trying to help her
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: figure her situation out and listening to her story and
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: internalizing and thinking of solutions together with her and working
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: with her for months. That's where my knowledge base comes from,
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: not a textbook. So when you talk about the wisdom economy,
• 13:38
  Speaker 2: And what that means, like what even made you realize
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: that this shift was happening?
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: What was the prompt for you?
• 13:46
  Speaker 3: I'm in the middle of it all, right? So I
• 13:51
  Speaker 3: talked about my career progression, you know, to my last role.
• 13:54
  Speaker 3: And in my last role, I was the chief impact
• 13:57
  Speaker 3: and inclusion officer, right? And so part of my role-
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: So it was DE & I, right? We're coming out
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: of sort of this anti-DE&I world where language is changing.
• 14:06
  Speaker 3: But I was a chief diversity officer at the advertising agency. Oh, wow.
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: I've never seen a man hold that role before.
• 14:13
  Speaker 3: Yeah, very few of us. We exist. We're like dinosaurs.
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: We exist. But yeah, very few, and specifically very few
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: Black men that hold this role.
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 14:24
  Speaker 3: So yeah, so I was a chief diversity officer at
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: an advertising agency. Dream job by all intents and purposes, right?
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: So marrying creativity with impact work in such a unique way,
• 14:35
  Speaker 3: my approach to that role was a little bit different
• 14:37
  Speaker 3: in that it was beyond sort of creating culture and
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: programs internally, right? It was advising on the creative output
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: that we produced on behalf of our clients. So when
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: you think about you and I are storytellers, right? We're here.
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: We're on this pod. We're having a conversation. Brands are
• 14:53
  Speaker 3: storytellers at a more meta level, right? And so for
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: advertising agencies, our jobs is to create stories for those
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: brands that make them engage with consumers better. To me,
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: you can't do that without inherently being inclusive. You can't
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: do that without inherently thinking differently about different audiences. So
• 15:11
  Speaker 3: that's kind of what I brought to the conversation. But
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: in that process, in terms of not only the external
• 15:18
  Speaker 3: output that we have to think about, it's the internal output.
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: Who are we bringing in? What's the talent? How are
• 15:24
  Speaker 3: we empowering these people to be the best selves at work?
• 15:28
  Speaker 3: Are we giving them the right tools? And so when
• 15:31
  Speaker 3: AI sort of came on the scene, it was literally
• 15:35
  Speaker 3: like a night and day sort of shift where it's like, okay,
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: a lot of our creatives were put out of work
• 15:40
  Speaker 3: because chat GPT and mid journey can produce lifelike images overnight.
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: And so the idea of what does it mean for
• 15:49
  Speaker 3: these people who are being impacted? How are we thinking
• 15:52
  Speaker 3: about upskilling these folks? How are we thinking about reskilling
• 15:55
  Speaker 3: these folks? How are we thinking about older generations in
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: the workplace that are now confronted with this new technology
• 16:02
  Speaker 3: that You know, they're not digital natives, right? So how
• 16:05
  Speaker 3: do we upskill and bring them along? That was a
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: real conversation and still is a real conversation. That kind
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: of put me right in the middle of this thinking about, okay,
• 16:14
  Speaker 3: so what's the differentiator, right? So these people still have value, right?
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: The 50, 60-year-olds that are in organizations have value. But
• 16:21
  Speaker 3: what is their value if it's not this technical ability?
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: It's what they know. And what they've seen and the
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: cycles of business that they've seen over over the years
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: of their career that they bring to the conversation that
• 16:34
  Speaker 3: moving forward is what's going to allow them to drive value.
• 16:37
  Speaker 3: So that's kind of what got me thinking about this.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: And then there's a book, too. I know that there's
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: there's a lot there, but there's a book called Range
• 16:45
  Speaker 3: by David Epstein. And he talks about sort of the
• 16:48
  Speaker 3: idea that, you know, we've been taught that the discipline
• 16:51
  Speaker 3: picking discipline is the thing. and how the future of
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: work is completely opposite from that.
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's when I first learned about the gig economy.
• 17:00
  Speaker 2: I can't remember who I was listening to. It wasn't
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: Thomas Sewell, it was some economist. And they were talking
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: about how in the future, people may not have nine
• 17:09
  Speaker 2: to five jobs. Everybody will be gigging, you know? And
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: then the gig is like Uber, Uber Eats, DoorDash, Fiverr.
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: If you were creative, you know, you can hire out
• 17:20
  Speaker 2: almost anything And, you know, of course, there are pros
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: and cons to that. But when you talk about an
• 17:25
  Speaker 2: older generation and then we now have an economy where
• 17:29
  Speaker 2: the age of retirement is constantly moving further and further back,
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: it makes me think about the people who are in
• 17:37
  Speaker 2: the prime of their work careers. A lot of people
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: listen to this podcast. So that's going to be people
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: from about 25 to 45. And if everybody has the
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: same access to information through AI, Jason, help me understand
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: because I got an idea, but I want to know
• 17:51
  Speaker 2: what you think. Help me understand what separates the man
• 17:54
  Speaker 2: that knows something from the man who can actually do
• 17:57
  Speaker 2: something valuable with it. What separates those two when everybody
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: can read the same thing and sound the same?
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: Bro, you're getting to the heart of the matter now, right?
• 18:08
  Speaker 3: You're getting to the heart of why I do the
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: work that I do. But it starts with, I would say, curiosity.
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: You have to be curious about the world around you.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: You have to be curious about not only the world
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: around you, but the world inside of you. And if
• 18:22
  Speaker 3: we're talking to men right now and we're talking about
• 18:26
  Speaker 3: how do you start to think about yourself, who you are,
• 18:30
  Speaker 3: the value that you bring to the world within the
• 18:32
  Speaker 3: context of a changing landscape, you can't do that by
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: looking outside first. You got to start internally. Right. And so,
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: you know, I mentioned there's a word that I use
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: in that clip. I said, you know, how do you
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: be become unfuckwithable? Okay, you can say that.
• 18:47
  Speaker 1: Can I curse?
• 18:48
  Speaker 3: Okay. Yeah, you say it, bro. It's a safe space.
• 18:52
  Speaker 3: How do you become unfuckwithable as a man, as a professional?
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: It's starting with this internal process. And I know that
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: that might sound soft for a lot of guys. It
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: may not necessarily equate to, okay, how do I make
• 19:03
  Speaker 3: more money? But I promise you, and I think you
• 19:05
  Speaker 3: know this, Kier, I promise you, if you start building
• 19:08
  Speaker 3: the foundation, the internal foundation, all of the other things
• 19:11
  Speaker 3: are going to start to become clearer. They're going to
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: become I don't want to say easier, but they're going
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: to be you'll have a clear path for how you
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: arrive at those outcomes that you want for yourself.
• 19:21
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I actually wrote an entire book about that. So
• 19:24
  Speaker 2: that's why I was shaking my head. Yes, because that
• 19:27
  Speaker 2: crosses over into counseling and therapy. What's going on in
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: your eternal internal universe? And what's the book that every
• 19:35
  Speaker 2: man loves to read? Not always push back. Well, 48
• 19:38
  Speaker 2: Laws of Power.
• 19:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah.
• 19:40
  Speaker 2: And I'm like, bro, it's cool if you can manipulate
• 19:42
  Speaker 2: the world and all these spaces around you and influence people.
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: That's great. But if you're doing all of that and
• 19:48
  Speaker 1: you don't have a handle on what's going on.
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: On between your ears, you will be a successful failure.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Your relationships won't be strong. Your marriage won't be strong.
• 19:57
  Speaker 2: Your sense of self won't be strong. I mean, we
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: got plenty of examples of very rich men that are
• 20:03
  Speaker 2: morally empty, just devoid of all morality. And that's not
• 20:08
  Speaker 2: who and what you want to be.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: So I'm with you on.
• 20:11
  Speaker 4: That, man.
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: But I don't even know how, like, where do we start?
• 20:18
  Speaker 1: Can we double click on that real quick?
• 20:20
  Speaker 2: Because I think for men like you and I and
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: a lot of other men out there, it's like, yeah,
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: of course, your internal.
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: World, you want to figure that out. What does that mean?
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: Like, real talk, if I'm a man that wakes up,
• 20:33
  Speaker 2: I put my drawers on one leg at a time.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: I may be married, I may not, I may be partnered,
• 20:38
  Speaker 2: I may not, but I go to work, I make
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: the money, I come home, I pay the bills, all
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: to repeat the same thing tomorrow. What does exploring my
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: internal universe look like? What does it even start with?
• 20:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah. There's so many places to start. I would say
• 20:54
  Speaker 3: the first word that comes to me is discernment, right?
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: Having the time, creating the time and the space for
• 21:00
  Speaker 3: you to sit still long enough to listen to your
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: own guidance, that internal intuition. You know, we talk about
• 21:07
  Speaker 3: female intuition, right? Like this ethereal, almost like a superpower
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: and something that men don't have, which is not true, right?
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: Men have intuition. We have intuition. It's just that we've
• 21:18
  Speaker 3: been separated from it. We've not been taught how to
• 21:20
  Speaker 3: nurture it. So it starts there. But I think more practically,
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: it starts by building capacity. You know, we have to
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: build the capacity internally to be able to hold everything
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: that we were calling into our lives as men. right?
• 21:33
  Speaker 3: If we want to be the protectors, the providers, if
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: we want to be great husbands, great fathers, great leaders
• 21:39
  Speaker 3: in our community, it starts by creating the space internally
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: in your mind, body, and spirit to hold that. And
• 21:46
  Speaker 3: when people hear capacity, they think about one side of
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: that coin. They only think about sort of the ability
• 21:53
  Speaker 3: to endure, the ability to get through hard things and
• 21:56
  Speaker 3: push through hard things, which is part of it. But
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: true capacity is actually creating space to hold some of
• 22:03
  Speaker 3: the Beautiful parts of life, joy, love, adventure, right? Those
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: things together, when you create enough room inside yourself to
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: be able to navigate those two worlds without being shaken, right?
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: Because then there's going to be external things that are
• 22:17
  Speaker 3: going to come and challenge you, right? There's going to
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: be traumas and failures and family dynamics. But if you
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: can withstand those and still hold your truth, that's capacity.
• 22:26
  Speaker 3: And that's where it starts. And if we can start
• 22:28
  Speaker 3: from that point, then I think everything else just becomes,
• 22:31
  Speaker 3: you know, building blocks after that.
• 22:41
  Speaker 2: Two words you use that I love to hear many use,
• 22:44
  Speaker 2: curiosity and adventure. Curiosity and adventure, because I call that whimsy.
• 22:50
  Speaker 2: I feel like specifically black men, we lost our whimsy.
• 22:53
  Speaker 2: I got a whole episode about that where you're not
• 22:56
  Speaker 2: allowed to explore the idea of joy.
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: Play around with it.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: What does it even mean for you? And I think that,
• 23:03
  Speaker 2: you know, men, we have this tendency to view life
• 23:08
  Speaker 2: through this lens of success looks like enduring your hardships
• 23:11
  Speaker 2: like a good soldier, like being repeatedly punched in the
• 23:14
  Speaker 2: face and wearing your bruises like a badge of honor.
• 23:18
  Speaker 2: And at some point it becomes, OK, cool, you can
• 23:20
  Speaker 2: you can endure an ass whooping. But but on the
• 23:23
  Speaker 2: other side of that, where are the things that make
• 23:25
  Speaker 2: life beautiful? Where are the things that you can look
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: at at the end of your days and be proud
• 23:29
  Speaker 2: of outside of what you've earned, what you've produced and
• 23:32
  Speaker 2: what you provided? And Jason, I tell you, bro, when
• 23:36
  Speaker 2: you get men in therapy and you ask them, you know,
• 23:38
  Speaker 2: what are you looking forward to? What are you excited about?
• 23:42
  Speaker 2: What do you love? Don't mention work. Don't mention your family.
• 23:45
  Speaker 1: It's a wrap.
• 23:46
  Speaker 3: It's crickets. Yeah.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: As crickets, we would spend a whole 45 minutes just
• 23:51
  Speaker 2: sitting there staring at each other. Like, all right, well,
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: let's move to something else. Like, nah, let's sit with
• 23:56
  Speaker 2: this because this is the thing. This is the immovable
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: object right here that's in the way.
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Yeah, bro, but let me say something about that real
• 24:04
  Speaker 3: quick because I got to admit, I'm guilty of that, right? Oh,
• 24:08
  Speaker 3: me too. One of the things that I'm struggling with
• 24:11
  Speaker 3: right now, Keir, is the idea of play. Right. The
• 24:14
  Speaker 3: idea of play and letting my hair down, the little
• 24:17
  Speaker 3: hair I have left. But to be able to say,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: you know, Jason, you can take a Sunday and just
• 24:22
  Speaker 3: go and just do something mindless. Right. And the reason
• 24:26
  Speaker 3: that feels so hard for me, and I would probably
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: assume that for a lot of men the same way,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: is that because we're so trained to produce and our
• 24:35
  Speaker 3: values so tied to that production, that anything that's not
• 24:39
  Speaker 3: productive or at least not seen that way feels irresponsible. Right.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: It feels lazy. And I feel like that's how, you know,
• 24:45
  Speaker 3: that's why I'm struggling with the idea of play. So
• 24:48
  Speaker 3: I hear you on that, man. Yeah.
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: And it's, we, we spend a lot of time deficit
• 24:52
  Speaker 2: framing men in society. Like the majority of conversations about
• 24:57
  Speaker 2: men in society started a deficit all the time. It's
• 25:00
  Speaker 2: profoundly frustrating. It's really a bugaboo for me, but we,
• 25:03
  Speaker 2: we talk a lot about men who don't like who
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: aren't stepping up to the plate, you know, men who
• 25:10
  Speaker 2: are fulfilling the stereotypes. What we don't talk about is
• 25:13
  Speaker 2: this gigantic faction of men, specifically black men, who are
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: so afraid of the stereotype that they overperform in the
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: opposite direction. And when I sit with fathers, I get
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: it all the time. What was the thing? You know,
• 25:25
  Speaker 2: black fathers aren't involved. Hands off the whole nine. All
• 25:28
  Speaker 2: the data has proven that that's not that's not true.
• 25:30
  Speaker 2: But when I sit with black fathers, black fathers feel
• 25:33
  Speaker 2: so much guilt about taking time off.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: Like, oh, no, I can't. I got to be with
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: the family.
• 25:38
  Speaker 2: Because any moment I spend away from my family, I'm
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: moving closer and closer to that perceived stereotype. And even me, me,
• 25:45
  Speaker 2: Keir Gaines, my biggest thing that I'm having an issue
• 25:48
  Speaker 2: right now is I don't have fun anymore. I don't
• 25:51
  Speaker 2: do shit fun. Like I used to make content for
• 25:54
  Speaker 2: fun and then it became my job. Making content is
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: not fun for me anymore.
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: I don't know. It's not that I don't know, but
• 26:00
  Speaker 1: I'm rediscovering.
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: What fun looks like for a 40-year-old man that has
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: two kids and a wife and travels all the time
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: for work and has all this pressure and has all
• 26:08
  Speaker 2: these responsibilities. And some days I can tell you what
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: it looks like, but man, that goalpost be moving, brother.
• 26:14
  Speaker 3: 100%, yeah.
• 26:14
  Speaker 1: I can't. It's oscillating left to right.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: So that's when you say something like being unfuckwittable, I
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: can vibe with that. But I'd be lying to you
• 26:26
  Speaker 2: if I didn't say that I get confused in between
• 26:32
  Speaker 2: being unfuckwittable and being irreplaceable. Do those two live in
• 26:39
  Speaker 2: the same place, like in this idea that you have?
• 26:43
  Speaker 3: I can see how they can be conflated for sure,
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: but they're not. Being unfuckwittable is 100% internal. In the
• 26:53
  Speaker 3: ways that I describe it, in the ways that I
• 26:54
  Speaker 3: approach this conversation. And the reason I say that is
• 26:57
  Speaker 3: because there's something that underpins the idea of becoming unfuckwittable.
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: And again, just to be clear, what do we mean
• 27:03
  Speaker 3: by that? It just means being consistent, right? That's not
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: to say being stoic, right? The idea of being stoic
• 27:10
  Speaker 3: and I'm not, you know, I'm Superman, nothing phases me
• 27:13
  Speaker 3: is not what we're talking about. What we're talking about
• 27:15
  Speaker 3: is being consistently you and grounded in who you are.
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: And that starts with three things. It starts with confidence.
• 27:21
  Speaker 3: You have to have The confidence to live in your
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: own skin unapologetically. It starts conviction. You know, the idea
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: that you're going to live the life that you want
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: to live, that you've set out for yourself. Again, self-driven.
• 27:34
  Speaker 3: That's not external driven. And then courage to be able
• 27:37
  Speaker 3: to say to yourself, you know what? I'm going to
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: live on my edge. Whatever that edge is, I'm going
• 27:42
  Speaker 3: to live on that. I'm going to risk my heart
• 27:44
  Speaker 3: being broken. I'm going to risk quitting this job because
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: I have this vision for myself that is too big
• 27:49
  Speaker 3: for me to hold. That is being unfuckwittable. When you
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: can hold that, bro, and you can say, you know what,
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: no matter what comes, I'm going to stay true to that.
• 27:58
  Speaker 3: That is being unfuckwittable. Being irreplaceable is something different, right?
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: When we're talking about maybe working at a job When
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: you come into this space of knowing who you are
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: and you're embodying these things that I'm talking about, you
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: realize that you're a number on a spreadsheet on a
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: job in a corporation. 1,000%, 1,000%. So you know that
• 28:19
  Speaker 3: you can show up the best way you can. You
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: can produce. You can do all the things. But at
• 28:24
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, there's something outside of your
• 28:25
  Speaker 3: control that if and when death knocks on your door
• 28:29
  Speaker 3: and layoff happens or something happens where you don't have
• 28:32
  Speaker 3: any control over that, that doesn't shake you to your core.
• 28:36
  Speaker 3: And that's the difference between the two.
• 28:39
  Speaker 2: Let me sit with that for a minute, man, because
• 28:42
  Speaker 2: I wrote about that in my book. By the way,
• 28:45
  Speaker 2: when you're writing a book, you say that a lot.
• 28:49
  Speaker 2: But I wrote about that and, you know, it's not
• 28:53
  Speaker 2: giving your power to some external locus of control. What
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: it is, is the way that I put it in
• 28:59
  Speaker 2: a book is, the best meals are always going to
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: be the ones that you cook from home. You know,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: when you're eating what's already in your refrigerator, as opposed
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: to going out into the world and getting supplies or
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: eating fast food, because you have the materials already there.
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: It lasts a little bit longer. It doesn't cost you
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: as much. And it's, it's internally motivated.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: You, every, everything comes from inside that house. You don't
• 29:23
  Speaker 2: have to step out for what you need. Um, and,
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: When it comes to just like confidence and what confidence
• 29:30
  Speaker 2: looks like for you as an individual and being okay
• 29:33
  Speaker 2: with what that looks like for you, confidence for you
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: may not be walking into a room of a hundred
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: people and moving in an Obama when Barack Obama walk
• 29:41
  Speaker 2: in a room and he pretty, that man don't even walk.
• 29:43
  Speaker 3: He's floating.
• 29:44
  Speaker 2: He's shaking hands and he being the coolest dude in
• 29:46
  Speaker 2: a room that may not be you. So confidence is
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: not only recognizing that that's not you and doing your
• 29:54
  Speaker 2: version of that. That may look completely different, but be
• 29:56
  Speaker 2: more applicable to you. But confidence is also being okay
• 29:59
  Speaker 2: with that.
• 30:00
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 30:01
  Speaker 2: And being at peace that you and him do things
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: in two completely different fonts. And there's more than one
• 30:06
  Speaker 2: way to be confident, more than one way to be successful.
• 30:09
  Speaker 1: But you got to internalize that.
• 30:10
  Speaker 2: You have to feel that deeply within yourself and make
• 30:13
  Speaker 2: peace with it.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: You remember that meme on social media? I don't remember
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: what the page was, but he talked about the difference
• 30:21
  Speaker 3: between the juice and the sauce. The juice is temporary.
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: But the sauce, the sauce is forever, right? That's what
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: I'm talking about.
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: And I felt that on a cellular level, man.
• 30:32
  Speaker 2: And look, even my sauce, I feel the recipe.
• 30:37
  Speaker 1: For that joint changing all the time.
• 30:39
  Speaker 3: Facts, yeah.
• 30:40
  Speaker 1: And just like we're talking about a changing landscape.
• 30:43
  Speaker 2: In the work world, you know, where you and I
• 30:46
  Speaker 2: do a lot of work on social media, my God,
• 30:49
  Speaker 2: it's changing every day.
• 30:51
  Speaker 1: What's the dude named Adam Masari for Instagram?
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: Oh, man.
• 30:54
  Speaker 1: Every time I see his face pop up, I'm like, oh.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: Here we go. He done changed some shit.
• 30:58
  Speaker 1: You know, we chasing the rabbit once again.
• 31:02
  Speaker 2: And, you know, I'm realizing that even in my field,
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: while we're talking about men that need to rethink and re-strategize,
• 31:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not exempt from that. And, there's a moment where
• 31:13
  Speaker 2: I realized that I need to think differently in order
• 31:16
  Speaker 2: to get the opportunities I want, because the content creator space,
• 31:19
  Speaker 2: I've been doing this full time for five years. And
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: when I first started doing content, if you, man, Jason,
• 31:24
  Speaker 2: you pull out your camera in the middle of a crowd,
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: people going to look at you crazy. Now everybody's doing it.
• 31:31
  Speaker 2: So it's not a big issue. I think everybody wants
• 31:33
  Speaker 2: to be a content creator now, which isn't a problem,
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: but it creates a problematic scenario. So for me, in
• 31:40
  Speaker 2: my mind, And I'm glad I get to get this off.
• 31:43
  Speaker 2: I never get to get this off. One of the
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: things I'm starting to dislike creating content because it's like
• 31:50
  Speaker 2: it's a wall of sale. Like everybody gets the inspiration
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: from the same place. Everybody's on TikTok talking with bird
• 31:55
  Speaker 2: hands and being overly contrarian just for the sake of attention.
• 32:03
  Speaker 2: And it makes me feel like I'm contributing to the
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: noise sometimes. And it doesn't it doesn't feel helpful. You
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: know what I'm saying? Back in back in my day,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: you had to be creative in order to be a creative.
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 32:15
  Speaker 1: You know, so I had to change it.
• 32:17
  Speaker 2: And instead of curating content, I had to kind of
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: capture it. You know, I just let my camera run
• 32:24
  Speaker 2: for three and a half hours and I might get
• 32:26
  Speaker 2: 25 seconds or something natural because I'm not trying to
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: act it out.
• 32:30
  Speaker 1: I'm just letting life unfold in front of me.
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: And I know like AI and charisma or whatever that
• 32:38
  Speaker 2: you can get from that stuff, it can give you
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: information to access, but it can't give you the judgment
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: than you develop from actually living your life, bro.
• 32:47
  Speaker 3: Yo, you are, I know this isn't a therapy session, bro.
• 32:50
  Speaker 3: I'm going to pay you separately for one of those.
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: What you're talking about right now is hitting to my
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: heart in such a unique way. And the reason I
• 32:58
  Speaker 3: say that is because The Unfuckwithable video was inspired by
• 33:04
  Speaker 3: another video that I had probably posted maybe two weeks
• 33:06
  Speaker 3: before that, where I'm sitting on my porch and I'm
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: talking about the very idea of creating content and how
• 33:15
  Speaker 3: uncomfortable that feels, right? I'm an executive, right? I am,
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: you know, I've lived and worked in the C-suite. I
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: feel like I am at a level in my career,
• 33:23
  Speaker 3: at least, where the idea of creating content, I'm not
• 33:27
  Speaker 3: a TikToker, right? I'm not someone that's going to pull
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: my phone, I'm not disparaging content creators. What I'm saying is,
• 33:33
  Speaker 3: does the perception of me becoming a content creator diminish
• 33:36
  Speaker 3: my worth in the eyes of future employers? Right? And
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: that's the thing that's running behind in the back of
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: my mind. So I think twice about turning my camera
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: on and saying, you know what, I got something to say,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: something valuable to say, but how do I say it?
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: And then how do I adjust that message in a
• 33:53
  Speaker 3: way that fits, you know, sort of the quick clipping,
• 33:57
  Speaker 3: hooky formats that social media is consuming, right? So that
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: to me is there's a dissonance there that I'm trying
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: to fight through. And that's a real sort of you
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: shared something that you're working through in real time. I'm
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: working through that in real time because the net result
• 34:10
  Speaker 3: of that is every fiber of my being wants to
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: be on social media less, not more, right? And the
• 34:16
  Speaker 3: work that we do requires us to be fully present.
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: So that's the challenge. It is.
• 34:22
  Speaker 4: It is.
• 34:23
  Speaker 2: It requires a certain level of visibility that every day
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: I have more and more contention with. I don't know
• 34:33
  Speaker 2: where I am with it. I keep saying on threads
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: in two years, my content will be on social media,
• 34:37
  Speaker 2: but I will not. You know, it used to feel very,
• 34:40
  Speaker 2: very good to scroll and see things. And now it just,
• 34:44
  Speaker 2: I have an arduous relationship with social media. But I
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: do want to push the conversation forward because you just,
• 34:51
  Speaker 2: There's something that I talk about a lot, and it's scarcity.
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: And I know that you have some brilliant thoughts on this, but.
• 34:57
  Speaker 1: I don't know if I'll ever get you here.
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: I don't know if I'll ever have another chance to
• 35:01
  Speaker 2: run these through you.
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: Anytime, man. Anytime, bro.
• 35:03
  Speaker 1: Man, I want to ask.
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: You this, man, because after my speaking events, there are
• 35:10
  Speaker 2: always a ton of men.
• 35:12
  Speaker 1: If it's co-ed, it's women too, but You know, for.
• 35:15
  Speaker 2: My events for men and for fathers, a lot of
• 35:17
  Speaker 2: men come up and I make sure I stay there
• 35:19
  Speaker 2: and talk to every last one of them. I'll be
• 35:20
  Speaker 2: there for two hours sometimes. And it's scared, man. And
• 35:23
  Speaker 2: sometimes I ain't gonna lie. I feel nervous, too. I
• 35:26
  Speaker 2: talk about it on my podcast, how I got scarcity trauma.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: Grew up, but grew up poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor, poor.
• 35:33
  Speaker 1: Oliver Twist. Can I have more, son? Like that type
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: of poor. All right.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: And it's a deeply rooted fear of mine to ever
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: go back there or have my children experience that. And
• 35:43
  Speaker 2: in a world, bro, where jobs just feel less secure
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: and industries are changing and the thing that you spent
• 35:49
  Speaker 2: all this time and all of this, God forbid, man,
• 35:53
  Speaker 2: you spent all of this student loan money learning, it's
• 35:58
  Speaker 2: feeling less and less valuable quickly. And we kind of
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: got to learn the difference between pivoting and panicking, you know,
• 36:07
  Speaker 2: because it's easy to just say, man, I'm going to
• 36:09
  Speaker 2: tear the walls down. And to me, there's a difference
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: between pivoting and panicking. And when you panic, you can become,
• 36:16
  Speaker 2: I think, so focused on what you think you need
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: to become that you completely lose sight of what you
• 36:23
  Speaker 2: already bring to the table. Like for me, recently, I
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: realized like the large percentage of our income is through
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: paid partnerships. After DE & I, boy, they are now
• 36:38
  Speaker 2: looking at black creators. I'll tell you that. Not looking
• 36:41
  Speaker 2: at male creators. So the opportunities have shrank. And then
• 36:46
  Speaker 2: the fact that back in the day, what would be
• 36:48
  Speaker 2: a $ 20, 000 deal for two pieces of content or one
• 36:52
  Speaker 2: piece of content is now a $ 5, 000 deal for six
• 36:55
  Speaker 2: pieces of content. So you're doing more work for less money.
• 37:00
  Speaker 2: And I was thinking about changing my business model. So
• 37:02
  Speaker 2: I got to get out of here. I got to
• 37:04
  Speaker 2: get ahead of the curve. Maybe I need to move.
• 37:06
  Speaker 2: away from content altogether to something more stable, something more predictable.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Maybe I need to leave people and giving people this
• 37:13
  Speaker 2: good information and start talking directly to companies, you know,
• 37:18
  Speaker 2: take the stakes out of my tent and get out
• 37:20
  Speaker 2: of town. And I don't know, man, I don't think,
• 37:24
  Speaker 2: I can't tell if that's a pivot or a panic
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: or somewhere in between.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: But my question for you is like, what do, what
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: have you noticed that scarcity does to men emotionally?
• 37:36
  Speaker 2: You know that you start to get cagey, man. You
• 37:40
  Speaker 2: need to do something even though you're not sure what
• 37:43
  Speaker 2: to do.
• 37:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I just want to say something about the pivot
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: versus panic language. And I know you're a lover of language,
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: so I'm saying this. I don't embrace either one of
• 37:56
  Speaker 3: those words. Because even in my transition, right, leaving my
• 37:59
  Speaker 3: job into this new world of entrepreneurship, I'm not using
• 38:03
  Speaker 3: the word pivot. I'm using the word expansion. Mm-hmm. Because
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: pivot in my mind, at least it connotes the idea
• 38:09
  Speaker 3: that you're leaving behind so many valuable skills and experiences
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: because you're pivoting away from it versus I'm expanding into
• 38:17
  Speaker 3: something new where I'm bringing everything that I've ever done
• 38:21
  Speaker 3: and learned with me, right? Going back to the idea
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: of the wisdom economy, going back to the idea of
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: the being unfuckwithable. That's just the language that I'm using.
• 38:29
  Speaker 3: And so, yes, with that comes some panic. But I
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: think when you look at it through the lens of expansion,
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: You just know that you're expanding, you're growing and nothing
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: great happens inside of your comfort zone. So you have
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: to push outside of that. And that to me is
• 38:41
  Speaker 3: what gives me a bit more comfort and a bit
• 38:44
  Speaker 3: more confidence in moving forward. But in terms of scarcity, man,
• 38:49
  Speaker 3: you're talking to one of the things that I talk
• 38:53
  Speaker 3: to my homies about every day is the idea that
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: we're all building our castles, right? We're all building something
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: that we love, that we care about. We're building families,
• 39:06
  Speaker 3: buying homes, businesses, et cetera. And I have homies in
• 39:09
  Speaker 3: my circle right now who are building so deeply and
• 39:14
  Speaker 3: so grand that they feel like the very idea of
• 39:18
  Speaker 3: them sort of taking a step back is going to
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: risk it all, right? And so they have this scarce
• 39:25
  Speaker 3: mindset around like, If I don't get this bag, if
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: I don't get that check, if I don't get that client,
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: it's all going. to shit and and my counter to
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: that is the classic analogy right or the classic adage
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: of holding sand in your hands right if you hold
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: sand tightly in your hand it's gonna slip right through
• 39:43
  Speaker 3: your fingers right But if you hold it gently with intention,
• 39:46
  Speaker 3: you're going to keep more of that sand in your hand.
• 39:50
  Speaker 3: And that's my approach in terms of scarcity, in terms
• 39:53
  Speaker 3: of what I'm building. There's enough out here for all
• 39:55
  Speaker 3: of us to win, bro. Even if there's a contraction
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: in the marketplace, I believe that money does grow on trees, right?
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: You and I come from single parent homes. You and
• 40:05
  Speaker 3: I come from similar environments where we were probably the
• 40:08
  Speaker 3: oldest child or had a lot of responsibility early on.
• 40:11
  Speaker 3: And we were taught certain things about money that we
• 40:13
  Speaker 3: had to be you know, very frugal with it. We
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: have to protect it, right? Hyper protective, yeah. Right. But
• 40:20
  Speaker 3: the idea and what I've learned sort of, you know,
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: being in different spaces is that, nah, there's enough money
• 40:26
  Speaker 3: out there. You just got to go ask for it, right?
• 40:28
  Speaker 3: Asking you shall receive. But then you have to first,
• 40:31
  Speaker 3: before you receive, you have to embody the feeling of
• 40:33
  Speaker 3: having received it. And then you will receive. That to
• 40:37
  Speaker 3: me is the thing that I'm spending most of my
• 40:39
  Speaker 3: time in this environment of contraction, of technology shifts. It's,
• 40:45
  Speaker 3: it's not what's for me. It's for me is, is
• 40:47
  Speaker 3: out there and it won't miss me. My job is
• 40:49
  Speaker 3: to align. Right. And so again, going back to these
• 40:52
  Speaker 3: principles of building capacity and being unfuck with a bull.
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: One of the things that I tweeted or threaded recently was. Threaded.
• 40:59
  Speaker 3: It's crazy. Yeah.
• 41:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: That's right.
• 41:01
  Speaker 4: Right.
• 41:02
  Speaker 3: I'm less interested in being more impressive. I'm interested in
• 41:06
  Speaker 3: becoming more aligned. That's it. That is my mantra right now.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: And so if I'm focused on alignment, I know that
• 41:14
  Speaker 3: I'm going to attract everything that's rightfully mine.
• 41:22
  Speaker 2: Hey, hold on, y'all. Real quick, I want to make
• 41:24
  Speaker 2: an announcement. My very first book, It All Starts When
• 41:27
  Speaker 2: You Do, is available right now. If this podcast has
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: ever helped you, I think this book will too. I
• 41:32
  Speaker 2: want you to just search It All Starts When You
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: Do by Keir Gaines, wherever you get your books.
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: Do you think that's easy?
• 41:40
  Speaker 2: Because I feel the same way, but I'm trying to
• 41:41
  Speaker 2: check my privilege at the door. Do you think that's
• 41:43
  Speaker 2: easy for us to say as black men who have
• 41:46
  Speaker 2: a track record of both career and financial success and
• 41:50
  Speaker 2: we're both public facing very visible?
• 41:53
  Speaker 1: Do you think it's easy for us to think that?
• 41:55
  Speaker 3: I think so. I think I'm fully acknowledging the privilege,
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: but that's not to say that within. certain pockets of,
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: of identities or experiences, it's still not possible. So, you know,
• 42:07
  Speaker 3: you can be a blue collar worker every day, but
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: go to work and put your, you know, your best
• 42:11
  Speaker 3: on and, you know, kill it at work every day,
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: but there's still possibilities. There's still expansion available to you
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: if you have that disposition, right? I think, unfortunately, when
• 42:20
  Speaker 3: you're in survival mode, you don't have the ability to
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: think expansively or creatively because you're just here, right? You're
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: like right in front of you. And so that's why
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: I think it's, You know, it happens. It's available to
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: us in degrees, but it's still available, I think.
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: I think being in survival mode is the perfect environment
• 42:38
  Speaker 2: to turn you into an opportunist in the worst ways.
• 42:42
  Speaker 2: And that leads me to a question I thought about
• 42:45
  Speaker 2: when you started talking about expansion. How do you think
• 42:49
  Speaker 2: a man is able to tell whether he's expanding or
• 42:53
  Speaker 2: whether he's just chasing whatever looks like an opportunity right now?
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. I answered this question recently, and
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: here's how I approached it. You've played sports. You've interviewed
• 43:10
  Speaker 3: athletes before, right? And what do young athletes say when
• 43:14
  Speaker 3: they first get into the league? You know, it's like
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: they have to adjust to the speed and the physicality.
• 43:19
  Speaker 1: Of the game. It's always the game is moving fast.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Everybody's big, fast, and strong now.
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: 100%, right? So for me, to your point about how
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: do I know I'm getting to that point of having
• 43:30
  Speaker 3: built capacity in whatever domain of my life is because
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: the game slows down, bro. It slows down. And instead
• 43:37
  Speaker 3: of me sort of thinking on the playing field or
• 43:41
  Speaker 3: on the court, I'm letting my preparation and my intuition
• 43:45
  Speaker 3: take over. That's not to say that I'm not, I'm
• 43:47
  Speaker 3: just kind of standing back and, you know, Jesus take
• 43:50
  Speaker 3: the wheel. I'm still a co-creator in that, but it
• 43:53
  Speaker 3: feels different. It feels different in here. You don't feel
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: like you have to go after everything, right? You can
• 43:59
  Speaker 3: learn how to say no to certain things. Your no's
• 44:02
  Speaker 3: become more defined. Your yes's become more intentional. And that
• 44:05
  Speaker 3: is a very empowering feeling. You don't have to feel
• 44:07
  Speaker 3: like you have to go out and grab every bag.
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: And I think that to me is when a man
• 44:12
  Speaker 3: starts to really embody the sense of like, yo, this motherfucker,
• 44:15
  Speaker 3: he knows what he's doing, right? Like, motherfucker, he knows
• 44:18
  Speaker 3: he's grounded in who he is, right? And I think
• 44:19
  Speaker 3: we all know men like that. And I think that
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: comes with a lot of experience and a lot of intention,
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: for sure.
• 44:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, if I could zoom in on that real quick, man, damn,
• 44:30
  Speaker 2: I just hit the corporate speed.
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: Let's zoom in on that real quick. Let's double click
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: on that. Yeah, double click on that.
• 44:36
  Speaker 2: The through line of the Blake. Yeah, my bad if
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: I did that and you don't like that. So it's
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: something that he said that I just want to reach
• 44:45
  Speaker 2: out and talk to the man who's listening to this
• 44:49
  Speaker 2: and feels like that's too far of a goal because
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: Jason is cooking. And one thing that I want you
• 44:55
  Speaker 2: to know is that in order to get to that place,
• 45:00
  Speaker 2: You have to be less afraid of failing. You have
• 45:03
  Speaker 2: to be less afraid of not being good at something.
• 45:07
  Speaker 2: I always quote my homie Maddie James, what she told
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: her daughter when her daughter got frustrated about her homework.
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: You do not have the right to be good at
• 45:14
  Speaker 2: something the first time you try it. This is a
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: game of practice and taking your deficits and taking your
• 45:21
  Speaker 2: losses and taking your boo-boos, your bruises and your black
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: eyes and not allowing them to become a part of
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: your identity. There's a difference between failing and being a failure.
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: They are not the same thing. You cannot learn if
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: you're so afraid of failing that you do not try.
• 45:38
  Speaker 2: That is the definition of being stizz up and don't
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: nobody want to do that. So I hope that you
• 45:45
  Speaker 2: can find a brave moment. You know, being brave isn't
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: always about being tough. Sometimes being brave is about being vulnerable.
• 45:53
  Speaker 2: Sometimes being brave is about being curious. But you have
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: to try. And one of the best things that you
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: can experience is trying and realizing that the reality of something,
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: reality of failure ain't as scary as the narrative of
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: failure that your brain creates in your mind. You know,
• 46:12
  Speaker 2: you you you have to attempt in order to succeed.
• 46:15
  Speaker 2: Like there is no there is no other way. Jason,
• 46:19
  Speaker 2: if if a man how do I want to put this?
• 46:23
  Speaker 1: Let's say that.
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: There's a man out there who believes like his experience
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: is too ordinary or too messy or too unrelated to
• 46:34
  Speaker 2: his career to be valuable. I feel like I got
• 46:37
  Speaker 2: a ton of transferable skills, but not everybody does. How
• 46:40
  Speaker 2: does he start recognizing the wisdom in what he lived
• 46:48
  Speaker 2: and what he experienced?
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: That's a great question. So I think it starts with
• 46:53
  Speaker 3: You know, again, the intuition piece and the discernment piece.
• 46:57
  Speaker 3: And the reason a lot of men struggle with that
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: part is because we're separated from the idea of discernment
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: being a mostly feminine quality. But I think when you
• 47:09
  Speaker 3: can look at a set of decisions in front of
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: you and intuitively say, This feels better than this decision.
• 47:18
  Speaker 3: This feels like I can be in more control of
• 47:21
  Speaker 3: this decision versus that. I think that starts to really
• 47:25
  Speaker 3: frame how you move forward. I think it starts with self-inquiry.
• 47:29
  Speaker 3: So one of the things that I learned in therapy
• 47:30
  Speaker 3: was before I made any decision, before I responded or
• 47:34
  Speaker 3: reacted to anything, it was always ask, is this true
• 47:37
  Speaker 3: for me? That was the first question that I would
• 47:40
  Speaker 3: always ask for myself. Is this true for me? Because
• 47:42
  Speaker 3: it gave me a moment to pause and and then
• 47:45
  Speaker 3: interrogate what was going through my mind, what were the thoughts,
• 47:48
  Speaker 3: what were the fears, and then respond from that place
• 47:51
  Speaker 3: as opposed to reacting from a place of maybe just fear,
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: to your point, or anxiety. So taking a moment, right?
• 47:59
  Speaker 3: And I don't think that, you don't have to have
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: gone to therapy for years to learn how to do this, right?
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: So talking about, I'm a big fan of, of, uh,
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: using accessible language and accessible tools for men that are
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: in different places in their lives. You can take a
• 48:13
  Speaker 3: moment and breathe and say, is this true for me?
• 48:17
  Speaker 3: Is this, this person's reaction? Do I really, do I
• 48:20
  Speaker 3: really want to respond that way? Does this really hit
• 48:22
  Speaker 3: who I am? Or is it maybe that they're just
• 48:24
  Speaker 3: having a bad day? That moment of pause changes everything. Yeah.
• 48:30
  Speaker 2: I call it, um, You know, there's this insatiable need
• 48:37
  Speaker 2: of hurry that we have. And everything has to be
• 48:41
  Speaker 2: so urgent all the time. And if everything is urgent,
• 48:45
  Speaker 2: ain't nothing urgent. And it can force us, especially when
• 48:49
  Speaker 2: it comes to this motif of masculine identity being so
• 48:52
  Speaker 2: decisive and so assured. And it gets reinforced everywhere in
• 48:56
  Speaker 2: society that a real man is decisive.
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: And knows what he wants, goes after what he wants.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 49:02
  Speaker 2: And that's all cool and fine until you realize that
• 49:05
  Speaker 2: that's not true for you. And there's no counter narrative
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: to that. There aren't many examples where men say, I
• 49:12
  Speaker 2: wasn't sure and I was indecisive and I still remain
• 49:16
  Speaker 2: confident throughout.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: You don't hear men cop to that.
• 49:19
  Speaker 2: Because I think it takes away from this traditional masculine
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: identity that we cleave to, even when it's.
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: Not helpful for us, man.
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: Mm-hmm.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: 100%.
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: So all this stuff is coming to mind as you
• 49:35
  Speaker 2: keep talking, and experience is something I just keep thinking about.
• 49:38
  Speaker 3: Mm-hmm.
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: Because experience matters. It's what's going to be the differentiator
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: and the wisdom economy between you and everybody else.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: What is your experience? What have you been through?
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: But simply, I know that simply having experience, it doesn't
• 49:53
  Speaker 2: necessarily create value.
• 49:54
  Speaker 1: You know what I'm saying?
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: In and of itself, that's not how it works.
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: And you got to understand what your experiences have taught you,
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: what they allow you to see, what they blind you to,
• 50:06
  Speaker 2: and which problems they really prepare you to solve. You know,
• 50:10
  Speaker 2: and then once you got all of that, you got
• 50:12
  Speaker 2: to show your work. You got to go out there
• 50:13
  Speaker 2: and show people. So while charisma and chutzpah might get
• 50:19
  Speaker 2: you into the conversation, confidence might help you say yes
• 50:24
  Speaker 2: before you feel completely ready. You know, you might be
• 50:27
  Speaker 2: more willing to say, I'll figure it out once somebody
• 50:30
  Speaker 2: gives me an opportunity. But that can't be a whole
• 50:33
  Speaker 2: strategy anymore. Like you can't just be the personality hire, right?
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: So I wonder what that means for a man who
• 50:44
  Speaker 2: wants to turn his background, his perspective and his lived
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: experience into something useful without feeling like he has to
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: sell his trauma, man.
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: And make it a whole life brand. You know what
• 50:57
  Speaker 1: I mean by that? I go on podcasts sometimes.
• 51:00
  Speaker 2: I'm like, tell me about being a black kid with
• 51:03
  Speaker 2: a single mom from a tough neighborhood.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: It's like, God damn, again?
• 51:08
  Speaker 3: Here we go.
• 51:10
  Speaker 1: Here we go.
• 51:10
  Speaker 2: I feel like a black man in a poorly written
• 51:13
  Speaker 2: early 2000s rom-com, bro. It's like this boilerplate NPC template
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: for black men. And even though it's my story, I
• 51:22
  Speaker 2: hate that that just becomes like a whole identity in
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: a brand. So how does a man like use all
• 51:29
  Speaker 2: of that without feeling like he's leaning on a trauma
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: piece too hard?
• 51:33
  Speaker 3: Man, what's coming to me is the conversation that I
• 51:39
  Speaker 3: have with some of the men, you know, the young
• 51:42
  Speaker 3: men that I work with every day is the idea that,
• 51:46
  Speaker 3: especially with young folks, they come into corporate environments. I'll
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: just use that as an example as the environment to
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: kind of answer the question. And there's a sense of entitlement, right? It's,
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: you know, yeah, like we grew up where we had
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: to earn it. We had to earn every promotion, every accolade,
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: every raise. And there's this sentiment now with younger generations
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: where they come in and they're like, well, I'm just
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: more entitled than anything else. And they're not as invested.
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: And I'm a firm believer in sort of you got
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: to do the work. at the end of the day,
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: you have to earn it. You have to earn your stripes.
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: Maybe that might be the old school man in me,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: but I do believe that there is virtue in work
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: and getting your hands dirty and learning and having curiosity.
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: And so if you're a man that's out there thinking
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: about sort of, okay, taking a step back, I heard
• 52:35
  Speaker 3: you guys talk for the last hour, makes a lot
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: of sense, but how do I practically put this in
• 52:40
  Speaker 3: motion in my life? It starts with asking yourself, are
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: you where you want to be? And are you making
• 52:48
  Speaker 3: your future self proud? Are you making decisions today that,
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: you know, 45-year-old Kier is going to be proud of?
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: And if the answer is yes, you continue to double
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: down on the things that you're doing. You tweak here
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: and there. But if the answer is no, then you
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: know you have some serious changing to do. And that
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: change starts by perhaps learning a new skill. That change
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: might come from really taking a step back. And I
• 53:10
  Speaker 3: think this is a big mistake that a lot of
• 53:12
  Speaker 3: men make is that they're not even clear that they're
• 53:14
  Speaker 3: chasing goals that they've set for themselves. a lot of
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: men are chasing goals that aren't even theirs, right? They
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: might be society's expectations of them. They might be, you know,
• 53:24
  Speaker 3: their family's expectations and goals for them, but they're not
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: even theirs. And so what happens is we go down
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: this rabbit hole, we build an entire career, an entire
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: life around that and get to the point where in
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: our mid forties, we're like, this isn't the life that
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: I wanted. This is what I envisioned it being. And
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: so it started because, you know, and there's, there's no,
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: There's no shame in that. But it starts from that
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: place of not even having clarity around whose dreams you're
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: chasing if they're not yours.
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: You know, that's something I didn't really appreciate until I
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: started working with black men whose parents.
• 54:01
  Speaker 1: Aren't from this country. You know, I told you my
• 54:04
  Speaker 1: wife is Haitian.
• 54:06
  Speaker 2: And in in black immigrant populations, man, in communities, there
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: is this profound pressure. And my dad is Nigerian. He's
• 54:14
  Speaker 2: West African. So there's a lot of that there, too,
• 54:18
  Speaker 2: where you ask you ask these young men, what do
• 54:20
  Speaker 2: you want to be? You know, you only get three answers. Doctor, lawyer, engineer,
• 54:24
  Speaker 2: because that's all they see. And that's what we reinforce.
• 54:28
  Speaker 2: reinforce it because that is the prototypical idea of success.
• 54:33
  Speaker 1: Like if you become these things, you get successful.
• 54:35
  Speaker 2: And he may have been saying, I want to be
• 54:36
  Speaker 2: a doctor, lawyer, engineer since he was five because his
• 54:39
  Speaker 2: parents said, this is how we getting out the hood, bro.
• 54:42
  Speaker 1: Like this, you are our ticket out of here.
• 54:43
  Speaker 2: And they push it and they press it and they
• 54:45
  Speaker 2: make education such a priority and they reinforce it socially
• 54:48
  Speaker 2: and they reinforce it mentally and emotionally. And after a
• 54:50
  Speaker 2: while he changes and he does not find joy, happiness, purpose,
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: or fulfillment in those things, but he's still chasing it.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: That dream, that ain't even a dream no more, Jason.
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: It's a shadow of a dream that does not belong
• 55:03
  Speaker 2: to him anymore. And it doesn't stop him from pursuing it.
• 55:07
  Speaker 2: And it's the craziest thing when you're in therapy and
• 55:09
  Speaker 2: you realize, you watch this 30-year-old man realize that he's
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: been living somebody else's script for his entire adult life.
• 55:19
  Speaker 3: Bro, can I tell you something on that? I designed
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: a leadership program called The Manuscript. And it's based on
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: that same insight is the idea that we've been given
• 55:28
  Speaker 3: a script that isn't ours. And through this program, hopefully
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: over time, I help you self-author a script that feels
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: good for you, that feels natural for you. But I
• 55:39
  Speaker 3: think in that example that you said, yes, there's a
• 55:42
  Speaker 3: generational aspect to that where you and I might have
• 55:46
  Speaker 3: been the beneficiaries of that type of parenting. But our responsibility,
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: you and I's responsibility today is to demonstrate and elucidate
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: different opportunities and give these young men exposure to other
• 56:00
  Speaker 3: avenues that they may not have considered, right? So whether it's, yo,
• 56:04
  Speaker 3: you've built a beautiful, successful business as a content creator,
• 56:07
  Speaker 3: as a speaker, as a therapist, that is admirable, right?
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: There's virtue in that. But for a lot of young men,
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: they don't even know that that's possible. For me, I
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: built a career in different industries. So my job and
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: my responsibility, I think, is to demonstrate and kind of
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: showcase those different opportunities and different possibilities that, you know,
• 56:27
  Speaker 3: they may not have seen growing up.
• 56:29
  Speaker 1: Jason, you said a word, you said elucidate?
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:32
  Speaker 1: I had never heard that word before. What does that mean?
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah. That means to shine light on, right? To bring
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: to spotlight that. Oh, that's a good one. I'm stealing that, bro. Elucidate? Yeah.
• 56:43
  Speaker 1: Oh, I've never heard that word before. I'm a word guy.
• 56:46
  Speaker 2: So I always ask people to break it down. No,
• 56:48
  Speaker 2: I think I think that's brilliant. I'm glad you developed
• 56:51
  Speaker 2: that that program, because the more I go out here
• 56:54
  Speaker 2: and I speak, there is this there's this notion that
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: men should just know.
• 56:59
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 56:59
  Speaker 2: But also there's this notion that I shouldn't have to
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: teach you what you should already know. And it's like, well,
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: these things are kind of dialectical. So if on one
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: side I should just know and on the other side
• 57:10
  Speaker 2: I shouldn't be taught because I should.
• 57:12
  Speaker 1: Just know, then where do I grab the information from?
• 57:15
  Speaker 2: And there will never be enough of these programs to
• 57:18
  Speaker 2: fill the need that we have. But I'm so glad
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: that people are still putting them out into the world
• 57:25
  Speaker 2: for younger men to participate in and grab some value from.
• 57:29
  Speaker 1: All right.
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: So I know that we're going to be coming up
• 57:33
  Speaker 2: on time soon. I hate that, man. I hate having
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: guests on my pod where the conversations are something I'm
• 57:40
  Speaker 2: getting a lot from because by the time we really
• 57:42
  Speaker 2: get into it, it'd be time for the episode to
• 57:44
  Speaker 2: be over. And I'm always sick about it every time.
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: I'm going to survive, but I just want you to
• 57:48
  Speaker 2: know I'm sick about it. So all the things that
• 57:51
  Speaker 2: we talked about and all the things that we elucidated.
• 57:55
  Speaker 3: Oh, yes. I see what you did.
• 57:56
  Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah. All this elucidation that we're doing.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: For the man that's listening and he knows that he
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: needs to pivot, but he doesn't know where to start.
• 58:07
  Speaker 2: So what's one practical thing that a man can do
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: this week to just identify? Let's just start with that.
• 58:13
  Speaker 2: Just to identify the value that he already has. He's
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: cooking what's already in his kitchen.
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: Gotcha, gotcha. There's an exercise that I walk our coaching
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: clients through and it's called clarify what you want. It's
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: the first module. And so what I ask people to
• 58:27
  Speaker 3: do is choose an area of their lives that in
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: the course of the next 90 days, if they were
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: to really focus on that area and make progress in
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: that area, they would feel like it would fundamentally change
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: the course of their lives. Right. So it could be
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: their health. It can be their relationship, their job. So
• 58:46
  Speaker 3: we clarify what that area is. And then I have
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: them sit down and write a goal statement. But a
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: lot of men have never written a goal statement in
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: this way. So there are three elements to writing a powerful,
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: effective goal statement. You start with, what is the goal?
• 59:03
  Speaker 3: What is the act? So I want to lose 10 pounds.
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: Then you start with the second sentence is, what is
• 59:09
  Speaker 3: the feeling that you want to feel as you're embarking
• 59:13
  Speaker 3: on that goal? I want to feel powerful. I want
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: to feel embodied. I want to feel confident. And then
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: the last sentence, part of the goal statement is what
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: are the tactical, tangible steps that you're going to take
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: to get to that goal, right? I'm going to work
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: out three times a week. I'm not going to eat
• 59:30
  Speaker 3: sugar for the next 90 days, whatever it is, and
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: then put that together. And then that is your goal statement, right?
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: It's not an affirmation. It's not this thing that you
• 59:39
  Speaker 3: kind of pull out of the air and you put
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: on your bathroom wall and you recite every morning. It's
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: something that is clear. It's tangible. And you have clear
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: steps to how to achieve that, that you have self-authored
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: for yourself. And that is one thing that I would
• 59:54
  Speaker 3: encourage men to do starting today is pull out a
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: piece of paper. You don't have to be a journaler
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: like I am. You don't have to be a meditator,
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: if you will. But take out a piece of paper, pencil,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: and write your goal statement down using those three elements
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 3: and then see where you go from there. That's so good.
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 3: Whenever I'm around my.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 2: counseling colleagues, I'm always ringing the bell that therapy is
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 2: not designed for the way that men see the world.
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 2: It does not work, especially black men. There's so many
• 1:00:27
  Speaker 2: elements of it that are missing something. And if a
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: black man comes into therapy and you're telling him the journal,
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 2: what if that doesn't work for him? Then you're telling
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 2: him to meditate. What if that doesn't work for him?
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 2: Then you're telling him to write affirmations and love himself.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: What if that doesn't work for him? The difference between
• 1:00:43
  Speaker 2: a lot of my male and female clients is my
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 2: female clients will come into therapy. I mean, let it
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 2: all out and say, oh, I feel so much better.
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 2: After that, my male clients will come in, let it
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 2: all out. Like, yo, nothing changed.
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: I feel worse.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 2: I tell people with men, you have to give men practical,
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 2: actionable baby steps so that he can see something. He
• 1:01:06
  Speaker 2: could feel something when you're in the gym and you're
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: working out. If you've been working out for four months
• 1:01:10
  Speaker 2: and your muscles don't look any different, you're probably going
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: to quit. If you ain't lost a pound and nothing
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: looks different, you probably going to quit. Like it has
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: to be something that he can hold and see the
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: results in. When that shirt fit a little bit more
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 2: snuggly around them arms and around that neckline, you're like,
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 2: all right, let me do a two a day. You know,
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 2: give me some encouragement to move forward. I love what
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: you mentioned about those first steps on that module. If
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 2: I could add something that I think goes alongside that is,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: and I think it's what you're talking about. If you
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 2: get stuck, reverse engineer it. Don't start with what you
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: want to do, like what your ultimate, don't start with
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 2: your ultimate goal and I'm just trying to get there.
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 1: Cool. What's the step right before your ultimate goal?
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 3: Right. Okay.
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 1: Now what's the step before that? Now, what's the step
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 1: before that?
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: And I want you to keep writing until you can't
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 2: think of another step. You know, until the step you
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 2: end with is a step that you need to start with.
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 2: And I think thinking about how you want to feel
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 2: is a great starting point. Like if you do reverse
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 2: engineer everything and your first step is around a feeling,
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: around an emotion that you want to secure, I think
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: that's brilliant because we're humans and We're human beings, but
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: we're also human feelings. And there's nothing that we don't
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: do that isn't centered on emotion. Not a thing. That's right.
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 3: That's right. And one thing I've learned to do in
• 1:02:34
  Speaker 3: my own work is learn dude psychology, right? Like how
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 3: do dudes actually make change?
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: For sure.
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: And it's practicality. It has to feel practical. Like I
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 3: can do this. I can see, I can move from
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 3: this conversation to my living room in five minutes and
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: actually do the thing and then see a result from that.
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: I think that's the thing. And look, in this work
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 3: around men, you know, there are different modalities, right? You
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: have guys that go out in the woods and do
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: silent meditations for five days. You have, you know, other
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 3: kinds of approaches, which is all great. And we need
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: all of those. But I think it's important that we
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: use a language that's approachable and that's practical if we
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: really want men to really start to change behavior.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 2: And we do a horrible job at that as it stands.
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: And we also got to talk to men. At our level,
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 2: you know, not talk over men, not punch down at men,
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 2: but talk to men at our level. And look, even
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: in my counseling sessions, sometimes that face to face sitting
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 2: and talking shit don't always work. Sometimes we go outside,
• 1:03:33
  Speaker 2: we throw a football or we shoulder to shoulder talking
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 2: while we're working on a puzzle or something. You got
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 2: to meet men where they are. The world's not prepared
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 2: to do that. Um, but yeah, Jason, uh, man, no, no,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 2: that was so to say it ain't so, uh, you know, if,
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 2: if I'm a, I'm a land is playing since we
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 2: approaching the runway and I'm just going to talk to
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 2: any of the men who may be listening.
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 1: And we have a lot of women listeners too. So
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 1: this applies, let it fly.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 2: All right, Jason, as we land in this plane, my brother,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 2: there is a thing that I do when I allow
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 2: listeners to call in and just give me, you know,
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 2: give me what's going on with them in their life.
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 2: I've never done one with a guest before. This is
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: the first time. So I want us to listen. Usually
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 2: people come to us with a question they have, something
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 2: they took away from the pod, and they're just looking
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 2: for a response, looking for a connection of some sort.
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 1: So I have one queued up.
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: We're going to listen to it together and then you
• 1:04:32
  Speaker 2: and I can kind of talk through what we think
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 2: and give this person a little bit of light.
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 1: That sound cool?
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: Sounds good. Let's do it.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 4: Hey, on your previous episode with Dr. Sky Kid or Dakota,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 4: you fellas spoke on men not celebrating their birthdays and
• 1:04:47
  Speaker 4: the reasons being that there's nothing to celebrate because we
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 4: haven't accomplished something. And our worth or even self-perception is
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 4: what gives us allowance to actually celebrate ourselves better. And
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 4: also not just for our birthdays, just within life. You
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 4: spoke about homies' funds are low and you wouldn't see
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 4: them around much. And it stems from not being where
• 1:05:07
  Speaker 4: you desire to be in life. And that can even
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 4: add to like a depression and even to impede on
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 4: your energy day to day to want to pursue those
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 4: goals that will bring you some satisfaction for yourself, which
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 4: sometimes it really feels like an unending loop. Can you
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 4: talk a little bit more about what kind of causes
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 4: this sort of thing and maybe ways you think to
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 4: try to combat that. I love to get your thoughts
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 4: because especially getting those, those text messages and those calls like,
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 4: Hey man, what you doing this year? It almost feels
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: performative every year for your birthday when you don't really
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 4: feel celebratory, like even for yourself.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 3: Love what you're doing, man.
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: And I hope to hear your thoughts about this.
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: Thank you.
• 1:05:53
  Speaker 1: So Jason, just to give you a little context, I
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 1: had this guy on Dr. Starkid. dude named Dakota. I'll
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 1: send you his Instagram. He's an astrophysicist. Bro is dope.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: But he's like a dude. He's like me and you.
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: He's a guy.
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 2: And we were talking about birthdays and he talked about
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 2: how many men don't celebrate their birthdays. And even he
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 2: and I had to come to terms with the fact
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 2: that we don't, we're not really big on celebrating our
• 1:06:17
  Speaker 2: B days. And it was attributed in the conversation to,
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 2: he brought up the point that that men don't feel
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 2: like they've accomplished anything necessarily that deserves celebration.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: Do you celebrate your birthday? Are you big on B days?
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 3: A hundred percent. I just celebrated mine a week ago.
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: How old did you turn?
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Guess.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Oh, damn, man. You got good skincare routine. You don't
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: got a lot of wrinkles and shit. It's hard to tell.
• 1:06:44
  Speaker 1: You gotta be around. You, you, you gotta be around
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: my age. You got a little bit of gray.
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: I'm 47, bro. You 47. Yes, sir.
• 1:06:52
  Speaker 1: Damn, I was going to give you like 40, maybe 30.
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: I don't feel a day over 27, though, bro. I
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 3: feel amazing.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 1: Lessons, man.
• 1:06:59
  Speaker 2: Make sure whatever magical fountain you sipping out of, you
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 2: send me the recipe because I feel every day of 40.
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 1: Do you understand me? You're 47, bro?
• 1:07:08
  Speaker 3: Yes, sir. Just turned 47.
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 1: You look good, man.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: You look amazing. Thank you, my brother. Thank you. So.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 2: I want you to give me your perspective then when
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 2: he talks about like men celebrating birthdays and it can
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 2: even come from what makes that thing important to you,
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 2: whether you tie it to accomplishment, any of that, like
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 2: what's your take on this thing?
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I think the first, the first feeling I get
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: is sadness. You know what I'm saying? Like I feel
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: a little bit sad that somehow this, this special moment
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: that happens once a year is still couched in the
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: language and through the lens of accomplishing something. Like there's
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: no better accomplishment than waking up every morning, bro. Like,
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: and to me that, and maybe it's because I'm still
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 3: basking in the halo of my own birthday, you know,
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: a week ago, but I do feel like there's something
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 3: to celebrate. Even if you don't feel like you're where
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 3: you want to be in your life yet, there's something
• 1:08:02
  Speaker 3: to celebrate. I mean, especially if you come from the
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: neighborhoods that we come from, man, like we hear it
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 3: all the time, getting to a certain age, everything else
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: is a mint on the pillow, right? If you got
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: to 40, getting to 41, 41, 42, 40, and anything
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: past that is a mint on the pillow. I think
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 3: that's worth celebrating. I think that the idea of being
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: alive is the thing that, you know, trying to decouple
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 3: this idea of having to have produced something that is
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 3: then celebrated. If we can sort of decouple that from
• 1:08:35
  Speaker 3: your humanness, I think we're starting to really make some progress.
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 3: So I'm going to encourage the brother to, as he's
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: thinking about his birthday and whether or not he wants
• 1:08:44
  Speaker 3: to celebrate it, think about, yes, who you are and
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: what you've been through and why you should be celebrating yourself.
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: But at birthdays, you're also celebrating other people, people that
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 3: have gotten you this far, right? Whether it's your parents,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: you know, if they're alive, your siblings. your friends, your community,
• 1:09:01
  Speaker 3: people that uplift you every day. I look at it
• 1:09:04
  Speaker 3: and that's how I approach my birthday every year is
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: a celebration of them as well and helping me get
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: to where I'm at today. So I really believe in birthdays, man.
• 1:09:13
  Speaker 3: I believe in celebrating them. I believe in honoring them.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 3: You know, everyone that has gotten you to this point. And,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: you know, I just I just feel sadness when I
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 3: think about men not celebrating themselves because we don't have
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: too many opportunities to do so as it is. So
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 3: why not celebrate the one day in the year that
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: is all that should be all about you? And maybe
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 3: that's the Leo in me, but that's my take.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: You are Leo, too.
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 2: Look, God, it's too many of y'all in this world.
• 1:09:38
  Speaker 2: My wife and my oldest daughter are both Leos, man.
• 1:09:41
  Speaker 2: Y'all are deep.
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: Um, nah, that's, that's beautiful.
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: And I'm glad that you're able to provide more of
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 2: a counter narrative to that as a man who sees
• 1:09:49
  Speaker 2: tremendous value in celebrating his birthday. And I listened back
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 2: to that episode. Cause I listened back to all the episodes.
• 1:09:55
  Speaker 2: I listened to every episode when it publishes every Thursday.
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 2: And I was thinking about the conversation. And one part
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 2: that I think we missed is this idea of what
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: celebration is supposed to look like. Um, I don't know
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: what we're measuring celebration up against. And perhaps it's a
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: social media thing when somebody has a whole birthday itinerary,
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: you know, that's my birthday month.
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 1: Why is there a brunch on Sunday, a play on Tuesday,
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 1: a beach day on Wednesday.
• 1:10:24
  Speaker 2: And I think that, and there's nothing wrong with that,
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 2: but comparative to how we celebrate a birthday is 20
• 1:10:31
  Speaker 2: years ago. I think that's an exaggerated version of celebration
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 2: and you have the right to it. But if you're
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 2: comparing your normal, to what could be considered exaggerated, it
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 2: can make you feel like your normal is not doing enough.
• 1:10:44
  Speaker 2: So instead of looking at it like a celebration, I
• 1:10:47
  Speaker 2: look at it like a punctuation. You know, my cousin,
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 2: I almost said his name. He got a high level
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 2: executive job now, so we're not going to say his name.
• 1:10:55
  Speaker 2: But my cousin, me and my cousin went to a go-go.
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 2: And in D.C., a go-go is, you know, it's like
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 2: a party with live instrumentation.
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: And we were young. We were like.
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 2: 15, 14. And we were sitting on the car and
• 1:11:10
  Speaker 2: gunshots rang out, pow, pow, pow. And the last gunshot went,
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 2: because it hit on the car we were leaning on.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: And we started running and we ran around the corner
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 2: and we came back to where we were. It was
• 1:11:20
  Speaker 2: a young man dead in the middle of the street,
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 2: just flat out right there. He got hit by the
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: joints that didn't hit us. And me and my cousin
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 2: was sitting reminiscing on that. And we got real emotional, man.
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 2: And he touched my chin. He's like, look at these
• 1:11:32
  Speaker 2: grays in your bed, man. You know, you're my older cousin.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 2: I said, look at the grays in yours. He said, bro,
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 2: how blessed are we to turn gray? He said, you
• 1:11:40
  Speaker 2: remember the little homie from Newtown?
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah.
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 2: He never got to turn gray. You know, so instead
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 2: of a big celebration, I look at it as punctuation.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 2: How can I not allow this moment to pass, this
• 1:11:53
  Speaker 2: sentence in my life to pass without putting a period
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 2: at the end, without putting an exclamation mark on it?
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 2: My wife just threw me a crazy 40th birthday. It
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 2: was crazy, bro.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 1: We had a cigar rolling station. It was a Kier
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 1: DC mumbo sauce thing. It was amazing.
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 2: And I had a great time and I appreciate her
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 2: for it. You want to know the best birthday I've
• 1:12:12
  Speaker 2: ever had? My wife invited a few of my grad
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 2: school homies, a few of my friends to a bar.
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 2: And we just, we took over a section and we
• 1:12:19
  Speaker 2: talked all night. It was so chill. My idea of
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 2: celebration is a more low key thing. Do something to
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 2: punctuate the moment. Just don't allow the moment.
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: Just acknowledge it.
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 2: That's it. Just acknowledge it. Do something to make it
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 2: just a little special. Go buy a bottle or something
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 2: you like. You know what I'm saying? Like, go be
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 2: somewhere that feels familiar and friendly. Me and my friends
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 2: used to talk in front of my homie Ant House.
• 1:12:43
  Speaker 2: I would love to spend a birthday. Oh, let's just
• 1:12:45
  Speaker 2: pull up and talk in front of Ant House like
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 2: we did when we were 16, 17. Do something that
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 2: feels special to you, even if it's not a bottle
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 2: coming out from the back of the club with sparklers
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 2: on it.
• 1:12:55
  Speaker 1: You don't need all that. So I would say.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: Not reduce, but shrink your idea of what celebration is
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: to something that is befitting of your personality, your way
• 1:13:09
  Speaker 2: of commemorating things, your personal definition of special.
• 1:13:13
  Speaker 3: 100%. I love that take now.
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, man.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 1:13:17
  Speaker 1: Damn, Jason, look at you, man. Look at us, man.
• 1:13:21
  Speaker 1: On this joint pod. All right. Jason, tell the people
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 1: where they can find you, please, bro.
• 1:13:26
  Speaker 3: Yeah, man. You can find me on all social platforms
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 3: at Jason two underscores Rosario. Rosario. Yeah.
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 2: Come on now. Let's roll them odds, man. Jason, I
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 2: admire you tremendously, man. I appreciate you for popping on
• 1:13:41
  Speaker 2: the pod and giving us this idea of the wisdom economy.
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 2: I can't say thank you enough, man. I'm really grateful
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: that you were able to be on the pod today.
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: I'm grateful to you, man. And I'm just so, if
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 3: I could say this, I know it's weird to say
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 3: this to some people, but I'm so proud of you, bro.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: So proud of the work that you're doing, your elevation,
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 3: the way that you treat your family, yourself, your community
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 3: with so much care. Your standard of care is sky high, man.
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 3: And I'm just, it's a privilege for me to be
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: on this with you and on this journey with you, man.
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: So however I can be a support to you, you know,
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: don't hesitate to reach out, bro.
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: Man, you know, five years ago, I would have just said, yeah, man,
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 2: thanks and kept it moving. But not only do I
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: receive that, bro, I'm actually going to utilize you. I'm
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 2: going to call your ass when I need you. Like
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: for real, man. And to all the listeners out there,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 2: Make sure you follow Jason to get more brilliance. This
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 2: is just a modicum of what he has to bring
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: to the world. But also keep in mind that you
• 1:14:44
  Speaker 2: have a lot that you bring to the world. And listen,
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: don't don't overthink it. You know, if you don't take
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 2: anything else from this episode, don't don't overthink it. You
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 2: can start with the problems that already exist. come to
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 2: you to solve you know the things that you notice
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 2: that other people miss that there's so many things that
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 2: are special about you and your unique way of viewing
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 2: the world there's this situations that only you know how
• 1:15:11
  Speaker 2: to navigate because you've been there walk in the bread
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 2: aisle of the grocery store and i want you to
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 2: count all the different brands and you know what they
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 2: all do they all sell bread you have a particular
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 2: brand of bread that somebody out there is willing to
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 2: purchase So I want you to really think about what
• 1:15:28
  Speaker 2: we talked about.
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 1: And I also want you to share your thoughts and
• 1:15:31
  Speaker 1: questions that come up.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 2: You know, we build this community brick by brick and
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 2: leave us a voice message at learn the hard way
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 2: pod dot com. We listen to every single one of
• 1:15:40
  Speaker 2: them and we even answer some of them because we
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 2: want to keep this conversation going. Y'all are the most
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 2: important bricks in this building. So thank you for listening.
• 1:15:50
  Speaker 2: And I will catch you next time. Job well done.
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 2: Learn the Hard Way is a production of iHeart Podcast.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 2: I'm your host, Keir Gaines. We're produced by Courtney Deans
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 2: and Kacen Alexander. Ashley J. Hobbs is our senior producer.
• 1:16:06
  Speaker 2: Our executive producers are Will Packer, Dr. Joy Harden-Bradford, Alex Baldwin,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 2: and Carla Wilmaris.