Know Dumb Questions
Know Dumb Questions
KNOW DUMB QUESTIONS: FT Garrain Jones
Can personal challenges transform into stepping stones for a fulfilled life? Join us as we unravel the transformative journey of self-discovery with Garrain Jones, defining happiness beyond societal markers, and finding true inner peace. Reflecting on a deeply personal story, I share how the tragic loss of a close friend ignited my quest for authentic living. We explore the pivotal moments that shifted my focus from external success to inner joy, and how confidently pursuing my vision inadvertently empowered others.
What does it take to clear negative energy and foster a healthier existence? In a heartfelt chapter, we discuss the transformative power of apologies and the act of taking responsibility for past actions. I recount a poignant experience of reaching out to someone I wronged during childhood and the surprising emotional impact it had. By creating a list of 250 names to apologize to, I discovered how liberating it is to clear negative energy, leading to profound personal growth and positive life changes.
Discover the power of vulnerability and community support on the path to healing and self-improvement with Garrain Jones. We delve into my journey of embracing vulnerability, particularly as a man in a society that often misconstrues it as weakness. Sharing my struggles on social media in 2013 was a turning point that resonated deeply with others, even saving lives. We also highlight exciting opportunities like the upcoming "Artist Power Awakened" retreat and the mastermind "Artist Power Expressed," both designed to foster accountability and personal development. To wrap up, we enjoy a spontaneous and uplifting musical moment, celebrating the strength found in authenticity.
Hey, what's up, brother, how you doing how my life go, brother, how about you?
Speaker 1:I am fabulous. I hear my two and a half year old screaming upstairs and my very pregnant wife just supporting me so I can have these calls and business is rocking and rolling and I'm in the best health mind, body, soul, heart and spirit of my life.
Speaker 2:You seem to stay in the happiest place on earth. I'm here at Disney right now, but you seem to stay at the happiest place on earth. How did you get there?
Speaker 1:I decided what my happiest place on earth was, and a lot of people base their happiest place on earth based off of what they think it is, what they see as good for other people. And you know, coming up in the entertainment industry, I was surrounded by celebrities, surrounded by successful, outside successful people, and I had a friend who I thought had it all. He had the girls, he always had a smile on his face, he had the cars, buying bottles at the club every night and I was like man, I want a life like that, even though I've never had a sip of alcohol in my life. But I wanted a life. So I was patterning my happiness based off of what I thought was happy.
Speaker 1:He wound up and put a bullet into his brain, so when I saw that I said, well, maybe that's not the happy that I need to decide. I needed to figure out in my life what is my own version of interpersonal freedom, what is my own version of success and what is my own version. So I set out to define what success and happiness was for me. And for me, when I look in the mirror and the truth shows up and nobody's around and I'm actually proud of the man, that I see the son, that I see the father, that I see you know, the God in flesh form that I see and experience. That is my version of success.
Speaker 1:And before I go to bed at night, there's no voices in my head and it's peaceful and it's calm and I'm like yo, that's a joyous life. There was nobody who had that kind of life, so I had to picture it in my mind. I just want to be peaceful, I want to be joyful, I want life to feel seamless and that success for me. So I went to work towards that. And if it didn't feel that, then that's not success for me. Money, it's got to be more than that. And so that's how I got, because I was clear on what my version of happiness, joy and success was and I won't settle for any kind of other life other than that. So that's what I work towards.
Speaker 2:You take people with you, though, like right, I took some folks with me to Disney. Yeah, you take people to their happy place. How did you become a conductor on the train to happiness?
Speaker 1:You know it's so interesting. Energy can't be created nor destroyed. It can only be transferred. So when I was a little kid, my mom told me she said I was trying to get a $150 pair of Jordans and she was like I'm not paying no $150. When you can make your own money, you can buy whatever you want that unlocked something. So as a little kid, I knew that nobody was going to come save me, nobody was going to do it for me, so I always had to create a way. I always had to create a way and I think that early on, because I developed the confidence to be able to find a way to get what I want, whether it was mowing neighbors, uh, lawns and and, uh and and washing people's cars and going from door to door. But also I would bring people with me. They was like I don't have any money. I was like well, I got a lemonade stand, so I would like.
Speaker 1:In my young entrepreneur mind, before I knew what an entrepreneur was, in my young mind, it was people coming along with me. Because in my confidence and in my steadfast of knowing what I wanted, it seemed as though, even though I was unconscious as a little kid, people would follow someone who actually had the confidence and the direction that they were going in. So you take that let's just say that's the ABC version of you know you start learning language. Abcs turns into words, sentences, paragraphs, essays, books. Well, early on, my confidence in the direction that I was going in. Over time, same way ABCs evolves, the ABC version of that confidence and that clear direction. Also, when you are lost in the street and you're looking hey, where's the 405 North? You're probably going to listen to somebody who's confident in the directions that they're telling you. So over time I developed what I didn't even know was influence, because even without me knowing what my future was, I was clear on the direction that I was headed in and that just in every community that I've been in, I've been a leader and a student simultaneously, and I'm just so grateful because that has now turned into millions of people.
Speaker 1:And I don't lead people. What I do is I lead in energy, I facilitate a vibration. And now this is me not knowing what that was when I was a kid. But this is me almost 45 years young, one year from now, I mean one month from now. I don't heal people, but I facilitate the energy of healing and then I raise, I facilitate people raising into that vibration and anybody who gets in that vibration. That's where healing lives, that's where your spiritual gift lives, that's where this next level, or the release of your traumas, lives, because you're rising into a completely different vibration.
Speaker 2:You mentioned yourself as a student. There are no scholarships in life and you clearly paid a lot of tuition for the lessons that you learned. Can you talk about that?
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's interesting. You say that because I have a friend, a childhood friend, whose mom was a heart surgeon and his dad is a brain surgeon named Bomi, and their whole family comes from African family that comes from wealth, and he was going to take over his dad's practice and he was like man, I got to go to school, then we're going to go to college, and then he's in school. Listen, I graduated in 1998. He graduated in 1999. He just got out of school two years ago and now he just took over his dad's practice. I said, man, there's no way that I'm going to go to school for 15, 20 years just to make the big bucks right. So I was like I'm all. No college, no, nothing. But meanwhile I had this big vision in life.
Speaker 1:Then all of a sudden, the hard knocks happened. I fell down, lived in my car, figured out a way to get out of that. Was in prison for two and a half years. Figured out a way to get out of that Didn't come for money. Figured out a way to get out of that Was in prison for two and a half years. Figured out a way to get out of that Didn't come for money. Figured out a way to break that matrix and like, literally be in the abundance.
Speaker 1:Frequency Was so unworthy, inside of my own skin figured out a way to like, truly honor the chief that I am in the world and the reverence that I have for women.
Speaker 1:I used to cheat on all the girlfriends that I am in the world and the reverence that I have for women. I used to cheat on all the girlfriends that I had figured out a way to be a devoted man, devoted husband. So when I look at the time that Bomi spent in school to get the big bucks and then I look at the time I spent in the school of life, it is the exact amount of time you will get rewarded in life for the price you had to pay if you learn how to evolve from your limited thinking and live inside your bigness. But you will not go without having to pay some aspect of a price. Class is in session. There will always be dragons at the end of Super Mario round to get to the next level. There will always be a test at the end of the round of a current aspect of your life to see if you're ready to go to the next level you.
Speaker 2:So you have a phd in life right about now, for sure, and he has a phd, at least in medicine. Yes, you are a healer. You help people through what I've heard you refer to as the disintegration. Want to talk about that. What an adult is.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean, you got to look at it like this, if you can see again how ABCs transforms into dancing, into singing, into rhythm, into running, because it's the foundation of language and it's the building blocks of growth.
Speaker 1:Abcs okay now, the abcs of a little child whose father abandoned them, whose mother abandoned them, whose whose parents weren't um, they always made them feel less than that little kid creates a story, lives inside of the vibration. And then, inside of that vibration, unless you start doing something different, it's no different than you having an iPhone and the app is still open. The app is not going to close until you close one of those apps, and the more apps you have open, the slower your phone is. So the human, when you're impacted as a child, each thing that impacts you, you create a story and then you start living that story. Your story shapes and creates your life. Not what happened to you, because what happens to you is what happens to you, but what you do about it, what you think about it, what you say about it is how you start identifying with it, and that's what shapes and creates your life.
Speaker 2:Is that self-talk?
Speaker 1:Self-talk, negative thinking, the way that you act, the way that you respond to things, things that are triggered inside of you. So that's why I say adults are deteriorated children. So if you can take it all the way back from the first time you got heartbroken, the first time you got rejected, the first time you felt unworthy, the first time you cut off your limited thinking or you cut off your bigness because you were just afraid to be yourself because of what other people might think, if you take it all the way back, there's more power in the trauma of that little kid than the adult will ever experience. And this is why little kids shut down, they shut off the emotions. And then, because they shut off those emotions, what they then start doing is they start finding other ways to release those emotions and as you get older it turns into over-sexualizing, it turns into drugs, alcohol, porn, overworking, trying to prove daddy right, trying to prove daddy wrong, all this other stuff.
Speaker 1:So most people are focused on the surface of the adult, but meanwhile there's a little kid inside trying to make somebody pay the price, over and over and over. The same guy you keep on attracting in your life, the same woman that you keep on treasures of your life that are wanting you to probably come back inside of yourself and express those true emotions, like the little kid always wanted to express, instead of numbing themselves out or being quiet because they were afraid to speak up. That will unlock so many, so many of so much energy inside of your body. It will free up some stuff and of course I wouldn't tell somebody to just go and do it Like find somebody who's qualified to support you in doing nervous system regulation.
Speaker 2:You took some steps. You took some steps. You took a step to reach out to people who bullied you and apologize.
Speaker 1:Yeah, but it wasn't just them. I took steps and I wrote a list of 250 names of everyone, because I was in the process of transforming my life. I was in the process of transforming my life and I just recently, I used to bully this girl when I was seven years old. We were on a bus. You know, little kids, little boys and girls, hit each other all the time. It's not like a man and a woman and I pulled the drawstring over her head and I hit her. I remember hitting her in the head with my yellow backpack. I've had many classes with her after that. We're in our 40s, but every time I think of this one woman, I always think of that moment. So I decided one day wow, I was like, let me just reach out to Tess. Hey, tess, I just wanted to apologize. You probably don't remember this, but I just wanted to apologize for hitting you in the head when we were seven years old. You know, kids do the stupidest things and then she go and then she didn't respond and I'm like, huh, we were just going back and forth and she didn't respond.
Speaker 1:I went on Facebook to post the same thing and do a public apology. She instantly responded to me. She said um, can you please remove that? I'm in tears right now. Number one why'd you do that? Number two what about me? Made you do that? Number three the same thing is happening to my kids and I don't know what to tell them, and I was like, holy crap, people hold on. I didn't even know that they remember how you made them feel, and then, even whether they remember it or not, but their encounter with you will bring that feeling back up, whether they're conscious or not. So what that that taught me was wow, there's probably a lot of people in my life that I left feeling wrong, people that I had negative thoughts towards women that I cheated on, people that I Was there karma coming up inside you?
Speaker 2:Were there something that you were?
Speaker 1:feeling that you felt like.
Speaker 2:I kind of got to do this Like were you hitting the bad times. You feel like this is all me.
Speaker 1:What was it? I wasn't aware that people can hold onto the way that you made them feel. So it wasn't a karma thing, because I wasn't even aware. But you can't change what you're not aware of. So once I was made aware I was like oh my goodness, I got some people to call. I would love to clear the air. I didn't even know people hold on the little girl who I smacked in the butt when I was five years old and stole her gum, like I didn't know people hold on to that. Sometimes people are like, ah man, it's nothing, I've been forgot about that, but the little kid inside of them did it. So, in the process of transforming my life, I wrote a list of 250 names from when I was a little kid all the way up to present moment I was doing some research.
Speaker 2:What did that feel like for you, though Just the writing, Before you get to what you did with the list? What did that feel like there was a freeing.
Speaker 1:There was a freeing. I didn't even know I needed to free. It's an energy. If you take a ball, a volleyball, that's not supposed to be in the water and you put it underwater, it's literally trying to come up. But as soon as you release your hand, how fast does it come up, real trying to come up? But as soon as you release your hand, how fast does it come up, real fast, to where it's supposed to be? So I didn't even know that that energy was there until I even started being in the act of clearing my life and all of a sudden I was like wow, I'm just so.
Speaker 1:I pay attention to this universal order, this plastic universe. Life's not happening to you, it's responding to you. So every time I would make an act towards transforming my life and having uncomfortable conversations, I would instantly notice these positive things kind of like Coming my way. I'm like. So that's what I got inspired by, by writing these lists of 250 names with the intention of apologizing to people for the negativity or the harm that I caused them, without blaming them for whatever they did. It was only me clearing myself For whatever they did. It was only me clearing myself Now, even people who hurt me. If I ever thought negative about you, my goal was to apologize to them and not bring up what they did.
Speaker 2:Stay there because I'm not that dude right, I'm not that involved. Yeah, you talked about how for you. You apologized to them for what you thought about them. That was between you and you, man.
Speaker 1:Like, why let that out? Well, because you got to understand. I also have my PhD in energy and vibration. So if you have negative thoughts inside of you, that's literally like throwing battery acid on your future. I'm just clearing what's inside of me. So if it's a negative, negative thought, there is nothing uplifting about that. There is no high range frequency inside of negativity, resentment, not being able to forgive. So if I can clear myself, which is better for my wife, better for my sex, better for my money, better from the, the, the auric field that surrounds me, it's better because I'm a vibrational being.
Speaker 1:So if you have low resonating energy inside of you, regardless of what anybody did, you might not be that dude, but you just might not be aware of how. But you just might not be aware of how valuable it is to everything that you want to create, because we're the most powerful magnet in the world. So you could be repelling something that you don't even. You're like man, I'm working so hard but you don't even realize that your energy is working a thousand times harder. Energy is working a thousand times harder. So if you then go inside and say, oh, hold on, I'm actually gonna be the highest vibration possible, there's no, there's not going to be any energy leaks or kinks inside of my vessel. So now I'm like so all I get to do is have a conversation and it's I'm not saying that the money. How did you?
Speaker 2:know they were going to be even open to it. Like did it matter that they were even open?
Speaker 1:It didn't matter because I was being intentional with my life. So, as long as you're in the act of See, when you're a causation of your life, now you're not reactive of life. I was causation of my healing, causation of your life. Now you're not reactive of life. I was causation of my healing, causation of my transformation, so it didn't matter if they was going to pick up or not.
Speaker 1:I'm just like, hey, man, I'm in the process of transforming my life and you know, I just want to apologize for setting you up in seventh grade and having the teacher think that you're the one who stole the cinnamon roll. And you know what I got. Man, you know, I've hated you for 30 years. I'm like why? Because when I know I didn't steal that cinnamon roll and we were in in-school suspension, then you blamed me. I got in trouble. My dad whooped me. I got in trouble, I got grounded. He made me move with my mom, I got into drugs, I ended up going to jail and the process because nobody believed me, I started to turn on everybody and I was like, oh shit, you never know the chain reaction of anything. And so that's your point.
Speaker 2:That's your thesis on energy as a whole energy Right.
Speaker 1:As a whole. So I'm like man, david man, I really apologize, dude man, if I would have known what I know now, I had no idea, but still, he was not open to the conversation. However, I was clear. So whatever he did with it is what he gets to live with. But I was clear and I knew. I was clear that all of a sudden, a universal order, something, starts happening. But it was always positive. When I was going into the tough conversations, when I was having the conversations I knew I didn't want to have and that knot would come up in my stomach, so I did that 250 times in my stomach. So I did that 250 times Now.
Speaker 1:This is why I have so much confidence. When I walk into any room in front of any body, it don't matter if you're a billionaire or a broken heir I don't shift, I don't change, I don't shrink down. I'm always in my bigness, I'm always in my magic, because I know I did the work that most people on this planet will probably never do. But that work did something for me and I was like, oh, there's no such thing as outside freedom. Outside freedom is when you give your power away. True freedom to me was when you have the power to possess your own mind. And so I started feeling the inner liberation.
Speaker 1:With every conversation I was having, it was closing a loop, closing a loop, closing a loop, closing a loop. And the more I was doing that I'm like oh wait, a second. My business Started taking off. So here I am At a limit in my business and I do all these calls interesting. In the same month, I mean in the first 18 months, I was earning $70,000 a month passive income and I was just homeless, $250,000 in debt. Not saying that this would happen for everybody, but you can have a spiritual dam on your life and not even know it. It's all energy. So if you clean your energy, it's not about how the other person responds. You're clearing yourself so that you can be an open, open, uh, divine vessel to, to, to do what you came to do in the world.
Speaker 2:Even the most practical sense. If there are less people out there who hate on you, there are less people standing in the way of your success. So even if one doesn't believe in the energy, they would have to believe that there that's 250 less people who want to see you lose.
Speaker 1:Jamie Tworkowski. Well, the thing about it is one believes in the energy. They just don't know it. It's like you go to your grandmother's house before you get in there and that screen opens up and you know she's cooking food. Before you even encounter anybody, something starts to change inside of you. That's her energy. Now, if you go over to somebody's house that that, um, there's a bunch of negative people there, and then somebody talking shit and you know nobody's talking, but they can. You can feel it. You can feel it. All of that is energy. It's just that so many people.
Speaker 2:It's how black people ask who all is going to be there. Right, when you say you're having something at the crib, the first question they ask is who all is going to be there. Who all is going to be there. Is that the energy question?
Speaker 1:So I can see if this is the right space for me to be in. All of that is energy for me to be in. All of that is energy. Just, a lot of people haven't been educated on how to prime your energy, raise your vibration, tune your frequency, because we're literally like a radio station you do.
Speaker 2:I don't want to call them workshops because I feel like that might undermine the work that you do. On the same token, as I've watched your videos throughout your life, I'll be honest with you. I had to look at some of the early videos of you and some of the more recent ones. I didn't even I barely recognize you physically, and you're not. You know, if you had committed a crime back then, I probably would have recognized that it's you. But you understand the point. The point is that you aesthetically look different, and there are those who come out of your seminars and I'll let you name what they are. I'm gonna refer to them in the most basic sense your seminars who talk about being uplifted and being taken through. Coming back to this convoluted question, you talk about the child as the artist, someone who crafts their world. Did you repaint yourself?
Speaker 1:No, I remembered myself. I didn't have to repaint it. Yoda was not too far off when in Star Wars he was like you must unlearn everything that you've learned. They were feeding this to us as kids.
Speaker 2:So when I remember what made me happy, not what made everybody else happy, when I remember what brought me so much joy, we know it, though, like you know, that one of the things you talk about is confidence, and I want to stay there because I want to marry these two. I think you know, like I said, that I'm here at the happiest place on earth, right, a lot of folks are, they know what makes them happy, but the courage you keep talking about confidence to go find it like, to go be that when the hell that comes from?
Speaker 1:Well, confidence comes from reps. There's so many people that say, oh, I'm not confident, and so I'm just going to ask you what's your name? Steve Perry. Okay, how tall are you?
Speaker 2:5'9". What color is your hair? I think it's black and gray. Now I think I got more gray than black.
Speaker 1:What size shoe do you wear?
Speaker 2:11.
Speaker 1:What city do you live in?
Speaker 1:West Haven, connecticut, I can ask 99 out of 99 not confident people. That exact same question and they will confidently respond exactly how you respond. I'm like you said you weren't confident. No, no, no, it's where you put your energy and where you put your reps in. You just haven't put reps in the area where you lack confidence. Now you do anything. The same way you did your name, same way you learned how to walk, the same way how you adapted into the upright position, the same way you learned how to swim, tie your shoes. I could name like a hundred things in somebody's life where they just effortlessly do it. That's all confidence. It's. People lack reps. They don't lack confidence. They lack reps in the area where they want something to happen, and one of the most highest degrees of leadership is patience. But most of the world is impatient with the process of being able to get their reps in in the areas of their life that they want something, because they want it now.
Speaker 2:But you teach patience in a very hands-on way. Well, I am patient.
Speaker 1:So because I embody what I teach, it transcends what I'm actually saying. And this goes back to the energy body, Like when I'm in space with a person and I'm here and I'm connected with them and they feel like they're the only person in the world where there's 50 people in the room. Oh, something's going to happen. We will transcend whatever's going on right now. And I had to learn patience because when I was in prison, all of the inmates that were local, they were writing letters and they were getting their letters back in a week because I was there on drug charges. They had to decode everything I was writing.
Speaker 1:So it would take I would write a letter, it would take two months to get to the USA and then it would take two months to get back. And I wrote maybe 150 letters just to my friends. Four people wrote me back. So what that taught me was nobody's going to come and save me and I got to figure out a way to use my mind differently other than just waiting. So that's when I started remembering and being creative again and drawing again and doing all these different things. So now I don't do patience for a checkoff for, like checking off a list. I am the frequency of patience. It's not. There is no separation. It's just who I am, and you will show up to your own life based off of how you identify.
Speaker 2:You mentioned and we've talked about it. I don't want to go too too far down this part of your story because I don't think that it is the most important part, but you mentioned that you went to prison. What happened?
Speaker 1:I got busted smuggling 6.2 kilos of heroin from one country to the next. Now, did I know it was heroin? No, but I knew that I was doing something bad because all I was doing was driving a car over a border, over a ferry, ending up in Rotterdam getting a package full of money, and then that's that. I did that route seven times. On the eighth time, going in from France into the UK, I got caught and I was in a holding cell for an entire week. They fed me, one time a day, one little slither of a sandwich. I didn't get to shower, I didn't get to brush my teeth. They were trying to starve me, to get me to snitch on the person who I was working for. And unfortunately I wasn't going to snitch because the person who I was working for their kids went to my daughter's school, and so it wasn't nobody. I didn't want to put anybody in my family in danger of getting killed because of my lack of uh responsibility. So I was like I'll take it, I'll take it on and um, over time, that's what happens it was.
Speaker 1:It ended up being 6.2 kilos of heroin and all of a sudden it was connected I I won't say which mafia and I think the thing that had them not make me the lead person is when they pulled the drugs out, it was newspapers inside of the Congo, drums from places I didn't have on my passport, so they knew there was an operation from somewhere else. But then they tracked the car. There was stolen luxury vehicle which I had no idea. It was connected to a specific mafia which I had no idea and I'm like, wait hold on, this is connected to, but I still didn't say anything. So that is how I ended up. My ego, my greed for money and my lack of impatience is how I ended up in a prison, far away from where I'm supposed to be what I want people to take from the story is not one point in the retelling of that story.
Speaker 2:did you say you made a mistake? You said I made a decision. You talked about your impatience, and the intentionality in your retelling is clearly thought out. You could have, like many people said, I grew up this way. My father was that. In no part of this story have you fallen on the proverbial what I refer to as lazy emotional swords.
Speaker 1:Why not? I'm going to tell you this and I don't think I've ever really even shared this on any type of interview or a podcast or a TV show. When I got busted for smuggling I knew the moment it happened. It wasn't for the reason why I got busted when I was a little kid and I used to break into cars, break into houses, and I got away with it Like I would go to the rich neighborhoods and break into cars and steal bank bags and steal guns and everything. And I always said, man, I bet you one day karma's going to come back and get me.
Speaker 1:But then after a while I got away with it and it was like I mean, I broke into 60 something cars in one night. Each one of those cars is a felony. So that's 60 something felonies that I got away with. And I'm breaking into, I'm stealing people's wedding rings and man, I could not stop and I got away and I said I wonder whenever it's going to come back. So when I got busted, something inside of me said Garen, the compound effect of what you thought you got away with. That's actually why you're here and I'm like shit, you really can't get away with nothing.
Speaker 2:Was that a sense of relief? Almost, Like you know, we'll call it a telltale heart moment.
Speaker 1:Yes, because always in the back, in the quiet of my mind, in the back of my mind. I'm like it never in the back of in the quiet of my mind, in the back of my mind. I'm like it never came back. Oh, it never came, but when it happened, it's like I was like I know exactly why I'm going to prison. I know exactly why it ain't even for this reason, it's for the things that I thought.
Speaker 2:I got away with, and you reference your decisions as your decisions, again, not reflecting in any way on your circumstances. Because I think it's interesting about the explanation is that, while you help people to return to their childhood to uncover what it is about them that they loved, you're not returning to your childhood to uncover what it is that you hate.
Speaker 1:I did in the process of healing and I was met with a lot of my edges. When I was I'm like why do I get so angry about this and I don't even know why? I had no idea? I'm like why do I get so angry about this and I don't even know why? I had no idea. And so, as I started doing 10-day silent retreat, five days in the dark, spiritual, psychology, emotional intelligence, communications course one, two, three and four, leadership training I mean I've got 15 years worth of training and every single time I step into a retreat, a ceremony, a leadership course, I know that I'm going to meet a new part of myself, because sometimes you can be in a room with somebody and you completely forget, and then somebody can be telling your exact story and it'll unlock a sensory inside of your brain that you completely forgot about.
Speaker 1:And that's why community I mean communities being in safe environments and communities who are vulnerably willing to share their experiences. That's why I think the world needs those type of containers and that's why I create my retreats, so that people can be witness in their vulnerability but also be witness in their power.
Speaker 2:You talk a lot about vulnerability. I think that among men in particular, that might be the uh. It can either be your albatross or your key. You use it as a key. How did you get the courage? Again, we're going back to your confidence how did you get the confidence to stand in front of everyone and and, essentially, rip your shirt open and say it is what it is?
Speaker 1:It's not about how, it's about why. Because I reached the point. I had a 15-year-old daughter Kylie is 22 now that no matter how successful I was, that no matter yeah, no matter how successful I was, no matter how much money I made, she wasn't budgingging. She didn't give a shit about none of that stuff. She just wanted daddy. But I didn't have no daddy to be. I didn't even know how to show up as a daddy, because my dad wasn't there. He was murdered when I was 12 years old and even when he was alive he wasn't there. So I'm just showing up based off of no models. I had literally no models, so I'm just shooting darts in the wind. So it wasn't until I was like man. I did the silent retreat and at the end of the silent retreat, this guy named Steve he's like man. I've been in several containers for you, with you, and every single time your intention is to learn more about what's missing.
Speaker 2:So tell us what a container is, cause I don't think everybody knows.
Speaker 1:You've got a container is any environment that you're in, um, where there's a group of people. So container is a retreat, is an emotional intelligence course, is a mastermind. It's like when you're with a group of people we call that a container. So anytime I was in one of those just opportunities to heal with a group of people or to learn more about myself emotional intelligence courses I was in several of those and the guy, steve, says man, you always ask for the same thing and it's like. It's almost like you're knocking on a door that's not there. He was like you're a good looking guy. It's safe to say you can get any woman that you want. I said yep. He said get a date with your daughter. Oh, she's a girl.
Speaker 1:In my mind she was three, but she was. She was 15 and I was like I'm surrounded by women. I've never thought to ask them what do they want? I was asking jewish men women, what do you want? Muslim women, what do you want? Christian women? What do you want women in general? What do you want black women, white women, mexican, asian? They said the same thing with a slightly different language I want to be seen, heard, acknowledged and want to feel safe. And then one woman goes. But when I say heard, I don't mean you repeating what I say. I want my heart to be felt. And I was like, oh my God, I have never in my life treated a woman in that way. I've never pursued a woman.
Speaker 1:So when he said get a date with your daughter, I was like I can do that. So I decided, instead of being a weak, because I was strong for all of y'all in the world, but I was weak around my daughter because I was shame and guilt and I was like well, I can't do anything about it. In the past and I'm giving you all of this context so you can know where the conversation came from I said I can't do anything about the past, but I can do something about me right now. And there has not been a model of a man who's a devoted husband, who is committed, who modeled fatherhood in a way where I was actually inspired. So I had to create it in my mind. So, instead of being the weak version of me, I said I am the most powerful representation of who my daughter will marry one day. And just by affirming that and changing the identity of who I was with my daughter, all of a sudden the relationship changed. She's like daddy, you're different.
Speaker 2:What were the changes? Name some of the changes.
Speaker 1:Because I'm pursuing her. I never pursued her before. She was like don't call me. And I was like I wouldn't call. She's like, well, you don't call me. I was like you told me not to call. She don't mean that.
Speaker 1:And so what I started doing says you know what? I'm going to be a pillar for my daughter's life and and I am the most powerful representation of who my daughter will marry one day that changed how I looked at all women, because I used to look at women through my dad's eyes. Now, the reason why so many women feel safe with me? Because they've never felt this safe in front of a masculine man who doesn't want anything from them and they're like I've never. That's why my, my, my retreats are 94% women and they all feel a level of safety They've never felt in their life because my daughter, my daughter just give me one second she taught me how to see the world with the eyes of love, without boundaries, without restriction, and when I could hold her like that and open up my heart in a way that my mom never even experienced. That All of these women around me's relationships with their dads started changing based off of how they saw me being a dad and I was like man. This is not just one or two women, is like 30, 40 women whose dads and all of a sudden started pursuing them. So what I realized is just how powerful a woman is. Her energy, just by way of thought, can completely change her whole reality. But she's got to witness it. You can't be what you can't see. So all these women saw me pursuing my daughter and then saying I wish my dad would do that, wish my dad. Then they started picturing their dad being someone like me and their dads started changing. So, to answer your question, I saw the value in that. I was like holy. So that's what gave me the confidence, because I felt it was my duty and my responsibility not seeing any examples of a devoted, committed man, committed husband, committed father that doesn't have any leaky sexual energy when they're around beautiful women or women in general. There was no examples. So I said I will be the example, thank you. And it's so interesting.
Speaker 1:Right after that, that's when I met my wife and we're now about to be five years happily married in a beautiful relationship, and so I just want to close this out my daughter trained me on how to be a real man inside of my own body and not the kind of man that most men are raised to be by other unhealthy, masculine men, but truly how to harness the feminine inside of me so that I could actually be a witness to the feminine, because everything is a mirror reflection. So by training with my daughter, I was training and healing the feminine inside of me, healing the masculine inside of me, and I became now the harmonized man, an embodied man who knows himself. So I don't have to lose myself inside of sex and side of like weird ass thoughts and things like that. So my number one value, my number one value, is safety. My number one value is safety.
Speaker 1:So because I saw the value in what it was creating in the world without me barely opening my mouth. It was my way of being. Now people start changing because I was being different. I'm like, wow, if I could support people and in fully accepting themselves, fully embodying themselves, women would heal and return back into their rightful frequency, rightful state, instead of having to come through this unhealthy, masculine, masculine man's world, and then men could lead with women, not lead over women, but lead with women. It's a partnership and we all need each other.
Speaker 2:You mentioned earlier that your confidence comes from reps, and you've also talked about vulnerability, and you've also talked about vulnerability.
Speaker 1:Talk about how you get the reps in of vulnerability. Again, as a man, I'm just going to say as a man, we're taught that real men don't cry. Vulnerability is weakness. So if you're domesticated in that, you will never feel safe enough because you don't want to be seen as weak and you don't want to be. You know, you don't want to be seen as what they say crying like a girl or something like that.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile, you look at the statistics of men committing suicide and it's rising and the part of that is unexpressed, suppressed men, where that expression because suicide is a form of expression All of that is pent up, suppressed expression. So if allowing yourself to feel all of it all of it now, you know, you'll gain access to why so much in your life is not working, because you're operating from probably 0.2% of yourself. So the vulnerability piece came online in 2013, and I was deathly afraid I was pretending to be something that I was not, because so many people live as a mask of what they think other people think of them, which is that you're a musician.
Speaker 2:People may not know that part.
Speaker 1:Yeah, because I was a musician and I was making it seem like my life was good, but inside I was actually dying. Hey, man, I'm just trying to get like you and I'm like man, I fucking want to kill myself. But you know what? No one ever asked me. Hey, I'm just trying to get like you and I'm like man, I fucking want to kill myself. But you know what? No one ever asked me. Hey, how's your heart? How are you doing?
Speaker 1:It really took the time. Why? Because that's not manly, and I wouldn't even respond to why. Because that's not manly. Because that's how we're trained. We're literally trained like that. You can't unlearn English. If you learn English, that's a training, but you can learn a new language.
Speaker 1:So when I got tired of living a false version of myself and making it look a certain way On 2013, I went on social media and I was like man, all these people think they know me, they have no idea. So I went on social media, I put a old I mean I put a modeling photo up there and it's still up there today and I say you think you know me. You have no idea. You know, I've dated this person, you know I've been on this TV show. You know this and this and this and this. Right now I'm living in my fucking car. Right now I'm sleeping in in a, in a storage unit. Uh, right now I'm sleeping in an abandoned building on bubble wrap, pretending to be something that I'm not.
Speaker 1:And then I just shared my absolute truth, not for people to feel sorry for me, because I would rather drown than spend another day inside of a false version of myself that I painted for other people. That was the scariest time of my life and I didn't know what vulnerability was going to do. But you know what I did? I learned that if I can't be free inside of my own self, then what is the point of all of this? So I shared that and I went from not having any likes. There was no verified accounts, I didn't have none of that stuff, it was just like whatever.
Speaker 1:And I posted that post. First message I got from somebody Thank you for your strength. I put the gun down and I was like, wait, what you mean to tell me? My scaring just saved somebody's life. The fifth message I was on my way to drive my car off a bridge but somebody shared your testimony with me. Thank you so much and I was like, oh my God, and in that I found purpose. So my vulnerability in a world full of people who are afraid to be vulnerable was the gateway into the heart of humanity.
Speaker 2:People listen to who they relate to Do you feel that the fact that you don't have trouble getting women what's a real question. But do that, that your capacity to attract women gave you greater latitude, so you didn't have to put on an air cause. You knew that you would get them anyway. Because sometimes I didn't grow up like that though Okay, let me hear it.
Speaker 1:I didn't start puberty until I was 18 years old, so I was a little kid for a very long time, and every girl I liked in high school they were like aw, you're like my little brother, and I was like fucking hate that.
Speaker 2:So I grew up Been there. You should be called a button, Like you should be called a button.
Speaker 1:This is what I'm saying. So I grew up with a small man complex and he was like aw, you're like my little brother. And he was like, oh, you're like my little brother. And all the women they would be like no guys allowed, but Garen, you can stay. And I was like does she like me? They're like oh, you're like my gayest straight friend. And I'm like what the fuck does that mean? So my head was so messed up and so I was afraid to approach women because my whole life they rejected me, from little kid all the way on up 18. So that's not something that was wired.
Speaker 1:That was something that was acquired over time. You know, I was a stripper when I was 18 years old and so when I was a stripper this is like right after I started puberty and I was like but I like the attention, it wasn't because I wanted to do that, I was like I never got attention like this, so I could barely even dance, I could barely roll my body, but I was like man, these grown ass women like me, the only reason why I stopped stripping because this lady, she was like you look so familiar, I'm like. No, she was like I know you. You're Miss Sherry and Son I work with your mom and I was like fuck. So that's how my mom found out.
Speaker 2:So it just got really weird. Totally not sexy, totally not sexy.
Speaker 1:It got really weird really quick and that's why I stopped stripping um. My name was mr fantasy, by the way.
Speaker 2:Wow, none of y'all know this that's why, that's why y'all know dumb questions, so they can find out what they've never known, what they've never known before.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you, you, you, you said, mr fantasy, keep going yeah, and so I share all of that, because I never had beautiful women start liking me until I was like 20 years old and I remember this one girl named Jennifer King. She was like oh, it's so cute. And she pat me on my head. She was like I bet you, when you're like 30-something, you're going to be so fine. And I had a bird test too and she's like you're going to be so fine, you're going to be so. And I had a bird test too and she's like you're going to be so beautiful. I'm like man.
Speaker 1:And meanwhile I remember the doctor saying he told my mom I wasn't going to grow past 5'8". I graduated high school at 5'7" and so I had a little shoe. Now I'm 11 and a half 12, and I'm six foot one and a half, and so it didn't make sense. When I went back to my 20 year class year reunion with people who hadn't seen me in a long time, they were like hold on, you graduated at five, seven. How you come back? Six foot one and a half?
Speaker 1:So it was a whole thing and over time when I started learning about who I was and not working out to get women, but working out because I wanted to be powerful for myself and learning how to love myself. I want to love myself and the reps of continuously being myself without needing permission to be myself. It just became attractive. Have you ever seen a heavyset woman leave the club with a beautiful man? You're like, how did he? Because she's fucking confident, it's great. She was like like my outfit, my, this would. It's the confidence that's sexy, it's the it. She embodied every aspect of herself.
Speaker 1:It never made sense, but it makes sense now. A confident person will 100, not somebody who's punching above their weight class. A confident person who knows themselves and they don't shy away from their insecurities and they just own it all. There's something so attractive about that. That's why I tell people all the time in my talks I'm like I'm going to tell you right now I'm a follower of Jesus Christ and I occasionally listen to trap music. So I'm like a habanero pepper. Either you really like me or you really don't. And I'm listen to trap music. So I'm like a habanero pepper. Either you really like me or you really don't. And I'm okay with that. So right now is the ticket to get off the train. So if you're not feeling me cool, go find somebody else to lock in with.
Speaker 2:But you talk about confidence and vulnerability and very often people don't see that. They are literally simpatico that one builds their vulnerability on the width of a foundation of confidence, and so a way to be vulnerable as a man is to know that you can be vulnerable. You seem to really delve in. I know we've gone past the time, but then I'm going to let you go in a minute. I, you know, really appreciate your time, but in the realest sense I want to go back to you. Um, going out on a date with your daughter and the the requirements that she had of you. What did that look like for you? Can you say that again? Yeah, what were the requirements that your daughter had for you to date her?
Speaker 1:No, she didn't. She, she wasn't in control of that. There were no requirements, because there had never been a man in her life to pursue her. So how can you have standards on something you don't even know exists? It was to the point where I was just like I was just pursuing her and I was willing to do anything and everything. Instead of saying like, hey, do you want to and this is literally how I used to approach my daughter Would you want to go out to eat? And I'm like why do I keep talking like that? Yeah, and she would always turn it down. You know what I did? I said hey, we're going to the best restaurant in town. I want you to be magazine ready. Be ready by 3 pm. Don't ask any questions. We're going to have the best night of our lives.
Speaker 1:Her mom said what did you do to my daughter? I'm like what are you talking about? She says she's changed and she's been all giddy in her closet and it's changed into 15 different outfits. She said great job, dad. And I was like this shit works, what?
Speaker 1:And then when we went out to eat, normally I would hug her, but I would hug her from a weak place. I hope she loves me. She don't work. She wants the fullness, she wants embodied, she wants daddy. So when I went around her and I went to give her a hug, I wrapped my big muscly arm all the way around her and I pulled her in close to this and she was uncomfortably close to my face and I was like I love you so much. She was like, and then she was trying to get out, but I could tell that she really wanted it and I kissed her on her forehead and then all of a sudden you just felt her body just melt in my arms. I was like did she? It works. So it wasn't a requirement, it was an embodiment, it was. She wants to feel like she was the only person in the world and when I was with her, I wasn't thinking about work. When I was was with her, I wasn't thinking about work. When I was with her, I wasn't thinking about all these.
Speaker 2:She literally was the only person in the world you didn't just drop the mic on that one brother, you threw it out the window and this is a deal.
Speaker 1:Women want that, whether they say they do or that they want it, whether they're constant, that's what they want. Whenever they say I want my man to step up, they were like I want him to listen, to listen to me, I want him to be here for my heart. I want him to not think about a thousand things. Whether it's dinner at the table, whether it's whatever, it's the presence she wants to feel, the presence of God through that man making her feel like she's the only person in the world. Because they want to feel seen, heard and like they matter, and they want to feel safe. And when you're embodying that level of presence, it literally disarms. All of the thousands of years women have had to protect themselves from leaky-ass energy men. So, and in a moment, the wall just goes up. But when you're in your true divinity, that wall goes down and she will fall into her feminine.
Speaker 2:The pursuit of daddy. Yeah, pursuit of daddy. That's a mic drop Brother. You know we got to do this again. We got to do this again. We got to do this again. Tell folks a bit more about your containers, how they could participate. A lot of folks want to know how they could participate in the next container. And then you and I are going to do this again real soon.
Speaker 1:For sure. My next retreat is June 10th I mean June 6th through the 10th in Austin, texas. Anyone can DM me the words retreat and then we'll book a call to see if it's the right fit, because we interview there's a whole interview process, so the crazies don't get in and ruin it for everybody. But my retreat is called Artist Power Awakened and I think we have 10 slots left and it is going to be about 100 people.
Speaker 1:Such a magical, healing, uplifting, creating a launching pad for your life and your business, because of who you vibrationally become that right. There is probably by far one of the most powerful retreats in the country and that'll be June 6th through the 10th. So you can DM me the words retreat and then take it from there. And then I have a book out called Change your Mindset, change your Life, and then a mastermind coming up in the next few months called Artist Power Expressed. Everything is revolving around healing the inner child, revealing the magic of the inner child and providing you with the right combination of people and accountability so that you can lift your life in such a magical way and create the life that you actually want to live instead of the one that you settle for.
Speaker 2:And then right here we're going to finish on top. Bro, Folks have been asking you to sing the entire time, so if you wouldn't mind gracing up or something on the way out.
Speaker 1:Let me give you a joke hey now, hey now. Hey now, hey now, hey now, now now. Hey now, hey now, hey now, now now. Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Speaker 2:Oh oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh oh oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, thank you.