Have you ever felt like invisible chains are holding you back? This week, we pull back the curtain on those barriers: limiting beliefs and authenticity. We start with amusing tales from our week - the highs and lows of a black bean sweet potato chili and the elusive art of cooking the perfect rice. We tackle the tough topics: breaking free from societal expectations, living our truth, and conquering our fears to strive for success. We believe in the power of authenticity and want to encourage you to recognize your superpowers. It's time to question the stereotypes, challenge beliefs, and step into your potential. Join us for this transformative episode – it's more than just a conversation; it's a journey toward self-discovery and success. And, as we wrap up, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a prosperous new year.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
Have you ever felt like invisible chains are holding you back? This week, we pull back the curtain on those barriers: limiting beliefs and authenticity. We start with amusing tales from our week - the highs and lows of a black bean sweet potato chili and the elusive art of cooking the perfect rice. We tackle the tough topics: breaking free from societal expectations, living our truth, and conquering our fears to strive for success. We believe in the power of authenticity and want to encourage you to recognize your superpowers. It's time to question the stereotypes, challenge beliefs, and step into your potential. Join us for this transformative episode – it's more than just a conversation; it's a journey toward self-discovery and success. And, as we wrap up, we want to wish you a Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and a prosperous new year.
Please email us at Gettoknowthedevil@gmail.com
This is Cleveland. This is Lindsay.
Speaker 2:And this is another episode of the Devil. You Don't Know, lindsay, what are we going to be talking about today?
Speaker 1:Limiting beliefs and authenticity. Oh, limiting beliefs and how they pertained our lives.
Speaker 2:Wow, that's interesting. I always I know this every week that I like to repeat what you say, but I'm going to repeat it Limiting beliefs and authenticity and how they impact our lives. So it's like in the business we call that a paraphrase, or you would just call it parody.
Speaker 1:In therapy, right, we call it a paraphrase with our clients. So yeah, so tell me, what did you eat this week?
Speaker 2:So something interesting I ate this week was that that nice black bean sweet potato chili that you made the other day was actually very delicious.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it was really good and I love that new rice cooker. I was going to say that you bought me, but really I just buy whatever I want, so rice cooker makes perfect rice. Did you like the rice?
Speaker 2:Oh, I love the rice and it was one of the things that I struggle with is if I were going to say I had a devil of the week. My devil of the week is making rice, because I can never make a perfect cup of rice. But you actually sat for once. I followed instructions, which is challenging. My boss at work will tell you. You will tell me, my kids will tell you that it's challenging. But I did exactly what you said. It was two cups of rice, two cups of water and push the white rice button and hit start and hit start, and it couldn't have been simpler than that, it couldn't have been similar than that and it was really good. That is a really nice rice cooker.
Speaker 1:I needed a rice cooker because I kept reading that that's the best way to cook rice, and I'm terrible at cooking rice on the stove. It gets clumpy and I wish I knew how to do it better, but that's like push a button and leave it Perfect. So I had a really bad cold pretty much all week and I drink a ton of green juice, which, thanks to my awesome Nama 2 juicer that you bought me probably last year already, love that juicer. I have been drinking kale, cucumber, pineapple, ginger juices all week and apple, celery, cucumber, lemon juices all week and I am feeling a little bit better, but I'm still congested, so just trying to heal before we go to Florida.
Speaker 2:Oh yeah, it's gonna. We're Naples bound, naples bound this week. One of the interesting things about that Nama juicer is it's a nice cold pressed juicer, right.
Speaker 1:It's so good. It's the best juicer we've ever owned. It's up there like it's the quality of a Vitamix in a juicer, and I've had my Vitamix for 20 years, so I hope that this juicer lasts just as long.
Speaker 2:Or as long as our love, which is forever. That's right, and so, with that being said, those things out of the way. What was a devil of the week or a challenge that you face this week?
Speaker 1:So I had breath work with Trish, and that is always a devil for me because I've been working a lot on getting like my own limiting beliefs and that's why I wanted to talk to you about them today, because that's been a real challenge for me is getting stuck in this place that's comfortable and hard to climb out of, even though it's not where I want to be. There's a reason that I stay stuck there, and so that was really my devil of the week was digging a little deeper, looking at that and looking at the emotions that came up with it for me. So a little inner child work.
Speaker 2:And for me, my double of the week, as I encountered a scenario it wasn't making rice.
Speaker 2:It wasn't making rice I could have been, but it was boom, boom, boom, bam, set it and forget it. And it was, and we were done. So it was almost a challenge, because I'm like what cups water? But no, I think a challenge for me for the week that reminds me of what you said is limiting beliefs is I encountered a scenario with a potential client that triggered me because it he reminded me of myself and other people that I knew from the days that I you know that I lived in the inner city and I grew up in the projects and had this limited belief of who and what I could be. In this particular scenario, when I encountered it just really, really, really triggered me and made me think about the ways that I have changed to where I am now, right To where I started, to where I am, and that was really like a little bit of a that's so interesting that you had that, and I wanted to actually interview you this week about your upbringing and limiting beliefs, and you know what you feel like.
Speaker 1:Your authenticity is Sure, so I was thinking about this. In every relationship, people play different roles and I think in every relationship there's that one person right, if you think of the kite and the person flying the kite. There's the one person who's like up in the air, like right, and there's the other person that's grounded on the ground, holding the string for dear life and controlling everything. So you think about those two things. Which one are you in the relationship?
Speaker 2:I don't know, it depends, because sometimes I think you're the one on the ground.
Speaker 2:I think I'm the one on the ground, but sometimes, every once in a while, I'm the, I'm the dude in the air, but I would say that I'm usually the one on the ground, like, you've got these fantastic and fantastical ideas, but this podcast was one of them, right and so? And it's so far, so good, it's been positive. So I do think you know, having limited beliefs is sometimes good because it gives you a set of rules to work in, but then when you're too limited in what you believe in it, then you're messed up, right, because then you won't take a chance. And this podcast was taking a chance and it is about taking chances.
Speaker 1:Right, and I think in our relationship I'm so much more likely to take a chance and to say no to things if I don't want to do them and I'm willing to wait for something better to come along, and I think that's where we differ. So I wanted to talk to you a little bit about your upbringing, because you were raised as a black man in the projects in Brooklyn, right In a time that New York City was not cool and hip and trendy like it is now, back when people could afford to live there, and you grew up in a very religious household, a Jehovah's Witness household, and I know that that impacted your life a lot, and so I wanted you to give a little bit of your background, of what it was like to grow up like that.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 2:So for me, I'm really not going to really be negative about the religion, because what I feel about religion even though I'm not I no longer identify as a Jehovah's Witness today I do respect.
Speaker 2:I want to start off by saying I do respect the things that I believed, that I grew up believing in, and, even though I have a difference of opinion now, there are beneficial things About that religion that I learned, and there are people that are still in that religion that benefit from it every day, so kudos to them. However, in my case, there's a podcast that I listened to you called the Critical Thinker, and the host there, jt, is an ex-Jehovah's Witness and is black and is also from the New York area, and he talks about this weird intersection that being a Jehovah's Witness and being black is because both things are ideas in which we limit ourselves. There are a lot of black people in America, and this is my experience, where my mom and dad taught me that certain things were not for me right. This is for white people, right, and that's for white people. And then the religion that I was in taught me another thing that this is for worldly people, or this is for.
Speaker 1:So can you tell us a few of those things, what was not for black people and what was too worldly for you to participate in? Oh, ok.
Speaker 2:So, on the secular point, going to college was too worldly to be participated in. Having a career, having a successful career, doing anything that was not particularly going to feed back into the organization right, and because we were not expected to do things to feed back into the organization that were only to feed back into the organization, that really limited the potential of what we could be right. Growing up in the projects in Brooklyn as a Jehovah's Witness, during that time I was only supposed to be an elder or a pioneer or something that was within the organization. At the same time, I had these pressures from people in the community, and not necessarily my family, because my mom believed in education.
Speaker 2:But growing up as I like to say someone who speaks the King's English in the projects in the 1980s, when everybody else was like yo, what's up, son, how you doing Is I encountered a limiting belief from other black folks is that I was trying to be white, if that makes sense, right. And so I had these two conflicting, limited beliefs One don't be successful because Jehovah doesn't believe in the worldly success. And then this other limiting belief from my peers and my colleagues in the community is that equated success in education with being white and it was just like this weird odd thing, and because I was caught in this weird limbo of inaction, of limits, I didn't do anything with myself for a long time.
Speaker 1:That's really interesting too, because I introduced you to my colleague this week when we were on a video call together and she's an African woman, lovely woman, very successful, well-educated, and she was telling you a story about going into a home with a black family and saying what the difference is being a black professional versus me going into home as a white professional and how the parents and the families will take a message from her and be more receptive to it than they would be for me.
Speaker 1:So it's interesting that you bring that up. And I wonder too, with the religion, right, do you? I know that the biggest thing was for you when we met was not getting any more education or furthering your education. And I remember saying to you you're limiting yourself so much, and you were like no. I have enough, this is fine. So how's that changed for you today?
Speaker 2:Well, how it's changed for me today is that I actually now have a better understanding that God does not want you to, and if you believe in God, that God does not necessarily want you to limit yourself right. There's Jason Pargent, who's one of my favorite science fiction authors. Writes that John dies of the N-series and one of his books I think it's this book is Full of Spiders has a quote in which he says that God didn't make us to watch TV on Sunday mornings waiting for the clock to run out, right, that God wants people to be dynamic and to have action, and so what I see now that's different now is that my beliefs now are, if I set out to achieve it and if I have a plan and you've helped me with this and I don't shackle myself that a lot of things are possible if we work toward them.
Speaker 1:Right, and that I don't know that author, but you always read and always share a lot of interesting stuff with me, and I think that's interesting because one of the things that you always told me growing up is that Jehovah's Witnesses were sitting and waiting for the world to end. Yeah, right, so why do anything else? Because the world is going to end. So don't spend your money, don't further your education, don't waste your time becoming anything. Just sit around and wait, yeah.
Speaker 2:But that's what the interesting thing is.
Speaker 2:I've found that that's not just that particular religion, right, and I've encountered so many people in life as I've gone through my life, and especially it's one of the things that brought me to this field was that I've met black professionals and professionals of other professionals of color who had to overcome limiting beliefs, stereotypes, stereotype threat.
Speaker 2:If you know what stereotype threat is, is this, this belief that, well, I must fall into the stereotype? Right, I must be the angry black person, I must be the smart Asian guy, I must be the cheap Jewish person. These, these are things, these are limiting beliefs that we put on ourselves, and that's what stereotype threat is. And so what I've had to do during the course of my life is overcome stereotype threat. I'm not going to be the angry black guy, but then, at the same time, I'm not going to be the funny black guy, or I'm not going to let my circumstances define me. I think the middle one, the businessman or the college drop in the school that he went to in in in the Upper East Side, their dream academy has a great saying do not let your destiny.
Speaker 1:Do not let your zip code define your destiny.
Speaker 2:And so that is the very idea of what a limited belief is I am. When I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1980s, 1970s, I was from the one one, two, two, six zip code Right. I grew up in Sumner houses. I was up the block from from Tom, from Tompkins projects, which was up the block from Marcy projects, which is where Jay-Z grew up Right. And you look at somebody like Jay-Z who grew up at the same time as me and we both escaped. I wish I had his level of success, but if Jay-Z would have limited himself to being just Sean Carter, then he would just be Sean Carter, but because Jay decided that he was going to get out of Marcy projects and use those things and didn't limit his ideas, he is now this mega billionaire today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I want to touch on that a little bit more in regards to dream. So Ben went to Dream Charter High School and they were in East Harlem so not really technically, the Upper East Side, right East Harlem and then they moved into the South Bronx in Mott Haven, and that school does a tremendous job of taking city kids from the lowest income neighborhoods and the most dangerous neighborhoods and helping them to really believe in themselves. And so I'm wondering with you because I think this is a thing I heard you say earlier about how Asians are supposed to be smart and black people are supposed to do this and white people are supposed to do this. Right, men are supposed to do this and women are supposed to do this, and there's all this stereotyping about our roles. What do you think of this? That the people that love us the most are often the ones that try to limit us because of their own fears?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so there's a couple of points I want to touch on. First, I'm going to answer your question. Right, and I do believe that's true, because in the Bible, jesus used to say that a prophet would be accepted everywhere except his own home, and what he meant by that is that when you ask the people closest to you to make a change or to unlimited their beliefs, it makes them uncomfortable, and oftentimes it comes from a place that's well intended Like I can use my mother as an example. My mother never really wanted us to really take too many risks, because she was afraid. Because what she learned as a black woman growing up in the south was that risks are for other people. Right, we play it safe, right. She grew up in an era that was like right after Jim Crow, and so there was this idea that these things are for other people, and so it's really important to not limit yourself in that extent.
Speaker 1:So basically sit in the cheap seats.
Speaker 2:Basically sit in the cheap seats.
Speaker 1:Right, trish and I were talking about that on Fridays Like, don't sit in the cheap seats and wait for someone to come and rescue you. Right, rescue yourself. Yes, and you're right when you say fear. Fear is such a low vibration emotion but we get stuck in fear everybody because it is so much harder to climb out. Right, growth is so much harder than healing. So I wonder, when you, you grew up, you started working where you work today. You've had moderate success, right, we met. And I wonder too, how do you feel now that growing up in that lifestyle kind of impacted your authenticity? Do you feel like you were who you wanted to be? Or do you feel that for the first 45 years of your life you were walking around just being what everyone else wanted you to be because that was what you had to do?
Speaker 2:Well, one of the things you like to say and I'm first time an answer question is no, I was not my authentic self for many, for many, many years of my life. Right, and even though I know I'm talking about this in the context of a black man, of a 50 year old black man, what I'm saying applies Damn good for 50. Oh, thank you very much. It's the veganism, maybe, and the bi-weekly facials.
Speaker 2:And the bi-weekly and the bi-weekly and the and the and the butter skin products, which is another commercial. You know, we got to get some sponsors, more sponsors, but what I want to, what I wanted to say is that, even though I'm quoting my experience as a black man, what I'm talking about limiting beliefs applies to white men, it applies to white women, it applies to if you're straight or you're gay, if you're Jewish or you're Asian or whatever, right? So this is just. I'm just talking about this in the lens of my kind of expectations yeah, right, of my expectations. But I really have learned to challenge myself, right, and to not set limitations on myself. If that makes sense, right. I have an idea of what I'm going to do and how I need to do it, and now, instead of automatically saying that's for somebody else, I say why is it not for me? And try to figure it out.
Speaker 1:And what were you going to say that I always say? You said I'm going to answer your question first and I'm going to say something that you always say I don't know. This is a.
Speaker 2:Albano made me lose my train of thought.
Speaker 1:Well, I was asking you, what do you think about the statement that growth is harder than healing? Because you get so comfortable in this mediocre existence, because that's what everyone expects of you. And then you said you were going to say something.
Speaker 2:Oh well, growth is harder than healing. I totally can't remember what you were going to say. Maybe it'll come back to you. It'll come back, but growth is harder than healing, because growth means that you must change. Healing just means that you're going to stand the same path, and so if I break a finger, I'm going to heal my finger, but it's still going to be the same finger. The difference between growth and healing is what if I needed to grow a sixth finger? That's nearly damn impossible. Well, it is impossible. But when you think about personal growth.
Speaker 1:Healing doesn't really make you unstuck, yes, and it's the growth that kind of takes you to the next level. So, growing up in that household, obviously there were reasons that you got out of the religion. Maybe you wouldn't have if certain circumstances in your life didn't occur. But how do you circumnavigate that as an adult? Because even when I met you, your mom and your brother are still, even now, to this day, eight years later, want you to come back to this religion and there's such a desperation in them of come back, come back, come back. And how do you circumnavigate that as an adult now? Because now you're more than halfway to a master's degree. You completed a bachelor's degree. You never thought you'd buy a house in your life and you're pretty much traveling the world regularly. You're very successful in your career. So how did you circumnavigate that as an adult, after you lived the first 45 years of your life in this place of? I'm going to be doing this and following all the rules and living the way other people want me to live.
Speaker 2:OK, so now I remember what. I was going to say oh.
Speaker 1:OK, I had to put the Before you forget Go ahead, I had to put down the glass of vino.
Speaker 2:What you like to say and it is true, and what you just said in that statement, and this is a true paraphrase is that it is better to live your own dharma poorly than the dharma of another one.
Speaker 1:well, right, yeah, that's one of my favorite quotes. The book is actually here. And then to go back Right over there, and then to go back to your, and then to go back to your no third one down in the pile right there, yeah, and then to go back to your.
Speaker 2:So to go back to your earlier question, families oftentimes want you to wear their dharma well than yours poorly, right? Or they want you to do what the fate of the family is? I'm going to find it, yeah, and so what I've learned as an adult to be successful is I have to throw off what other people want for me and I have to go for what I want for myself, and that means challenging the limited beliefs in my head, right?
Speaker 1:Right, but how did you circumnavigate that Like? What did you do and how did it impact? Were you able to just start doing? It and you didn't tell anybody, Because at some point your family's going to know that you went on to get an education and you wanted to further your career and you wanted to be somebody a little different.
Speaker 2:Well, I didn't want to be a limited in what I had anymore. I didn't want to be so many years ago. And I say this, I say this, like I said, there are a lot of beneficial things that I learned in that religion during that period of time. There's a brother that gave a talk that once. That said you can be a mediocre man with a mediocre house, with a mediocre wife, with a mediocre life right, or you can choose to be excellent and oftentimes and this is ironic that I Isn't that so interesting, though?
Speaker 1:because that's exactly the opposite message that they teach.
Speaker 2:Sometimes, yes, it's the opposite message, but that is something that I took away right from that, and that was something that always stuck with me. Right Do I want to be a mediocre man? And then we realized that the life that I was living was in total odds with what the sermon that brother gave, and one of the things that I had to come to have an understanding is I want the things that I need for myself, that I'm going to have to break, not even need, but want, Want.
Speaker 1:That I'm going to. It is OK to have high expectations for yourself and it is OK to take risks and want more.
Speaker 2:Yeah, but I was going to have to break these chains that other people put on me and, in many cases, put on myself.
Speaker 1:Right, and I want to say to you because I always say this to you and so now it's on the record, because it's being recorded, but you don't even know your superpower yet. And that's the thing that frustrates me so much about you, because I love you so much and I don't think that you realize your superpower. And in a very short time you've had such success as a therapist you have more clients than anybody I know in such a short time and you have amazing client retention, because and the thing is is that you still have your eyes closed and so I love you so much. But I always tell you that when you open your eyes and you realize your superpower, you're just going to flourish and you're going to take off and you're going to grow like you never knew that you could grow and I wish you could see that, but I think you'll see it when the time is right.
Speaker 2:Well, and it's not just about me, but it's also about for folks in this audience, and we can definitely go on this journey together, right it's?
Speaker 1:not only about you, but I want to interrupt you. I'm sorry I do that sometimes, but I think it doesn't even have to be only about you, right? Because in this situation, what I don't think, you see, is that everybody wins. You win, but your clients win, because look at the success that your clients are having in their lives since they met you. So it doesn't have to be this whole like oh, I'm a really great therapist thing and I think that's the part of you that's really humble and that might be why you don't see it. But it's like, in everybody wins situation, your clients are winning and you're winning.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you so, but what I was going to ask you is like that's great for me, but for somebody who's listening to this podcast, how could they take what I've done and how you've also overcome limiting beliefs in yourself and put that in their lives, like how could they follow? So I've kind of found what my secret sauce is and what my level of success is, and I'm, I feel, like I'm still learning mine.
Speaker 1:People have to be ready to take that leap and they have to be able to step out of that comfortable mediocrity and they need to confront the devil they don't know. They have to look at their situation and be like this is not what I want. It doesn't matter that everyone else wants it for me, but what do I need to do to bridge the gap between where I am now and where I want to be? And what is it that's holding me back? And I ask all of my clients that question as soon as I meet them when do you want to be? Where are you now? And I always ask them what is between where you are now and where you want to be? And that is such an important question to ask people.
Speaker 1:But I do want to read this quote that you were referring to. So this is a quote that I learned a long time ago when I started to study meditation and I had done a course on the Bhagavad Gita, which is like a sacred text, and there's many variations of the quote because there's so many translations of the text. But it says better is one's own dharma, though imperfectly performed, than the dharma of another well-performed Better is the death and doing of one's own dharma.
Speaker 1:The dharma of another is fraught with peril and there's many versions of it, but the whole idea is what you were saying earlier Is that you are better off living your own authentic life, whether it brings you success or failure, happiness, sadness, whatever it is. You're better off living your own authentic life than living the life that another person wants for you, because when you live the life that another person wants for you, you're never going to be happy, you're never going to feel fulfilled and you're never going to really be who you want to be. And that's really staying in that life of mediocrity and staying in that place where other people want you to stay. Which also is what I was saying before is that it's often family that hold us back or the people that love us the most because of their own fears, and they really limit us and they'd like us to be stuck in that place.
Speaker 1:A perfect example for me is when I went to college and we talked about this on an early episode is my parents, and we've worked out all these differences now and they're very proud of me and they recognize my accomplishments and my successes, but my parents when I went to college were so much like you need to go and do something that's lucrative, like who cares if you're happy. Go become this, go become that, go do this. Don't major in this, don't major in that. What are you going to do with this? And at the end of the day, I didn't do what they wanted me to do and I'm very successful and I'm so much happier. I can't imagine, if I did what they wanted me to do, where I'd be right now.
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, that's true and I think it's important. I know it's important to identify if a thought is if beliefs are yours or if beliefs belong to someone else. And that's one of the reasons why I really limit my intake of social media, limit my intake on the news, and I'm very mindful of what I take in.
Speaker 2:When we look at a lot of the conflict that is going on in the world today, it is because of limited beliefs. It is literally because I am so stuck in what I believe or my point of view or my way is right that your way could possibly not be right at all. And so when we think about limited beliefs, it not only inhibits our own self-growth, it also inhibits our ability to communicate with other people. There's no way you, as a white person, could understand me right, and there's no way that you, as a white person, but that's these ideas that we put on ourselves.
Speaker 1:I could speak on that a little bit, though, because I do know that there's racism and microaggressions, and until I took in grad school a class on multiculturalism, I never really fully realized how much white privilege there is, and we've talked about that. I understand all. I can't say. I understand it, but I've heard you come home and talk about what it's like to be a black man and to talk about the experiences of your colleagues and your peers and your friends and your classmates, and so, no, while I can never relate to that as a white woman, I can say that it's become so much more evident to me and I am so much more aware of myself and how I speak, how I perceive situations and just how I communicate in general with people, because I think I always knew it was there, but there was always a part of me that didn't fully understand it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that's really important, and we don't necessarily think of limiting beliefs in that way, right, and that they're making us have stereotypical interactions or make ourselves think of ourselves in a stereotypical way. A lot of times people can't talk to each other because they do not understand that we have common ground and when you believe specifically that your experience is only exclusive to you, that really limits your thought process and even communicating with other folks. But before I get too far off of that topic, I just really think it's important and what I've learned for myself is to challenge the beliefs that I have. Right, is it true? Is what I believe true? Is it beneficial, is it harmful? Is it worth anything? And one of the things that I still struggle with is sometimes I get in trouble for it at home and I get in trouble for it at work is because I only see my point of view.
Speaker 1:Oh, I thought you were going to say you leave tissues all over.
Speaker 2:Oh, I've got that that at work too. But because sometimes I only see, I have tunnel vision and I only believe what I believe, what I believe to be is true is I do not see the multitude of other opportunities or decisions or or other ways to overcome a hurdle.
Speaker 1:So what do you think about this saying courage? Courage is the catalyst of change.
Speaker 2:Well, as one of my colleagues used to say, people and I talk about it every week people like to be prisoners of comfort, prisoners of comfort right, and it's easy to stay in the same place I talked, I had a scenario a couple of weeks ago where I was talking to an individual and they were talking about the Riz right and this is a young. This is a young man. I had no idea what the.
Speaker 1:I don't know what that is either, so can you tell us the?
Speaker 2:Riz is charisma and and what he was talking about is how all his friends were like you know, that guy's got the Riz, that guy's got the Riz and and he's like it's not that the guy has charisma, the guy just goes outside, right he. He leaves his safe space, he's not home playing video games. He goes outside, he ventures forth, he interacts with people and he sees the world, so he gets out of his comfort zone.
Speaker 2:He gets out of his comfort zone right, and so that's one of the key things that you have to do when you are overcoming limiting thoughts is get out of your comfort zone, go outside.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's interesting. And do you think so that courage is the catalyst of change? Do you think that maybe there was a time in your life where you were afraid to change?
Speaker 2:Oh, I know for myself, I definitely was for sure and so that's what he was saying is that those kids get cared. It's kids who are scared to go outside. It's easy to stay in the comfort of your house. I mean, I know what's here, I know what's here, I know what's in this limited area. To step outside that limited area, that's scary. So, yes, courage to long story. Long story. Short courage is the catalyst to change. It takes courage to change your state. It takes courage to become, to break out of that prison.
Speaker 1:Right, it's easier to tear things down than to build them up. Yes, yeah, it's so interesting because I think I think that people become so afraid of doing things and saying things and speaking up and making a change. And in my own life, I know I was the black sheep. Right, that was a badge I wore and I think to this day I probably still wear it, but I think everyone in my family has just learned to accept it. They're like you know, she's a lost cause for us, right? But you know, how do you feel now as an adult in your own family? Because you're, there's been a lot that's been said about you, right, that you think you're better than everyone else, because now you're getting a master's degree, or you I think it was somebody in your family too right, that you just love worldly things, and what was the word that was used? You are what was the word.
Speaker 1:I don't know, I don't want, to like, throw anyone under the bus here oh, why do I love the world so much?
Speaker 2:no, but do you?
Speaker 1:remember, do you know what I'm talking about? Like righteous, that you're righteous and you just love the world. And why do you love the world so much? And the thing is is like you work hard, so you should love worldly things. If you can afford worldly things and you work hard to have them, why would you just stay sitting here doing nothing and not expanding your horizons?
Speaker 2:yeah, so, and that's interesting, right, I want to take a go back to a point in the bible that Jesus said that when you change or transform yourself, that your fellows will go and be angry with you. Because they were like, well, why? Why are you not doing the things that we're doing anymore? Right, and this goes beyond like a christian ideal, this goes beyond like a religious ideal. It is, it is factual. When you change and you break away from the rest of the pack, the rest of the pack is like yo, bro, where you going right, and it's because you're making that pack feel uh, uncomfortable with with what you're doing do you feel like you wear the black sheep badge now?
Speaker 2:um, I wouldn't say. I feel like my family and friends have told me that they're proud of me, but there's the there's an old morise song that says that sometimes we hate it when our friends become successful. And, going back to the quote from the bible and probably many of the spiritual books, it's because you make people feel uncomfortable, right, the fact that I was able to get out of the projects, um, and I, like said, I talked to a client a couple weeks ago who was using that as his, as his nah man. I'm from here and this is what I do and this is what I'm about, and I was like, dude, 30 years ago I was in the same place, I was there and and I'm and I'm not there anymore.
Speaker 2:Right, I have a cousin who grew up in in in the projects in Gowanus houses in Brooklyn and the guys like a multimillionaire in real estate, because he changed his state, he took a chance, he broke off the mental shackles, right, he, he, he stopped thinking that this is all I can be and decided that no, I want to be more so do you think that it's equally as difficult for everyone, or do you think it's harder, as a black man, to do that?
Speaker 2:wow, that's a good, that's a really good question. I think that there wasn't even in my notes. I just asked.
Speaker 1:I just just thinking of that and I brought it up. I think there's.
Speaker 2:I think everyone is. Bob Marley says and free yourself from mental slavery, right? None but ourselves can free our minds um. And so there is limiting beliefs that we all place on ourselves as black men. Courtney B Vance just wrote a great book called the invisible ache, and it's about mental illness amongst black men in America. I do think as men and as black men, we put extra. There's so many images from popular media and from outside of what we're supposed to be, of what is black masculinity? Right, we're, you know, sometimes I'm, you know it's, it's toxic, sometimes it's not masculine enough, and so there are a lot of ideas being pressed upon men and black men, especially that there's a lot of confusion that that, or do you think?
Speaker 1:it's more like evident in the black community. I think you don't see what it's like, maybe, in excellent white communities, when people step out of the box and want to do things that are different than what was, you know, the family had kind of destined for them to do, so maybe it's a different level, right, I always say to you, I work in some of the most you know unsafe neighborhoods, right, and so I'm primarily working with black and latin american families who are living in extreme poverty. Right, and I think I've said to you a hundred times in the past few years, if I were in somewhere like appalachia, it would be the same demographic but it would be white. And so in big cities, right, we predominantly see it with black and latin american communities, and maybe that's why it's so evident, do you think?
Speaker 2:yeah, yeah, I think, culturally, like they're all. I think, being american, um, and living in this capitalist society, that we all have roles that are cast upon us, um, I told somebody a couple of weeks ago hey, it's a hard time for white men too, to which they kind of gaffaud. I think it's a hard time for everybody, right, because society is telling you in so many ways this is what you're supposed to be, you're a woman, you're supposed to be this. You're a white man, you're supposed to be this. You're a black man, you're supposed to be this. You're gay, you're supposed to be this, and and there's all these ideas that society is putting on us that were supposed to be.
Speaker 2:I showed you a film trailer, uh, for an upcoming film that's coming out, the american society of, of magical negroes. Oh yes, and it's a rom-com that's coming out and it's kind of on that right, where this character is thrust into a fate that him, as a black man, that he's supposed to have, and he decides no, I want something different for myself, right? One of the reasons why I think across the spider-verse and I'm gonna digress here for a moment, not really digress, because it fits on the idea of limiting beliefs in that movie, the character Miles Morales. There's a part that so many people I know love that they're gay, jewish, black, male, female where he's talking to the vil, where he's talking to the other villain and the villain is telling him dude, you got to do this the way that we're telling you to do it, otherwise things are not going to work out for you.
Speaker 2:And Miles goes nah, man, I'm tired of people telling me my story, I'm gonna do it my way, and everybody I know that was like a that moment in the theater, right, that people of all uh backgrounds, uh ethnicity, sexuality, is like stood up and applauded because that was their story, right. And so in that moment, miles was throwing off this idea of a limited belief. He was like you guys can do it your way. If you think that's the rules, that's fine for you. It's not fine for me and, I think, for black folks. And it's interesting because Miles represents that character. He's black and Puerto Rican, so that's what he represents, but I think it's something that transcends more than black people. Right, it's something. It might be something that black men particularly deal with, but this idea that we limit ourselves and was supposed to fit in this box is something that we all struggle with.
Speaker 1:I definitely agree, and it's not even just in regards to race or gender identity, right, it's learning, disabilities and, you know, family dynamics and attachment and all of these things. So I think that's actually a great place to end. I think that was really a really interesting point that you made, and I think it's like conquer your fears and be willing to fail to achieve success. And I think that and it is one of the things I love about you right is how dedicated and how loyal you are to things. But I do, I always say this and I say this to everybody I know and Trish will vouch for me one day when you ever speak to her but, like when you realize your superpower, you're just, you're gonna be unstoppable thank you well, and and and.
Speaker 2:To that point, thank you very much for the kind words. To that point, I know a lot of the focus was on my personal journey today, but I really want to just translate this back to the folks that are listening and to take my story and your story and even the story of Miles Morales. It's a great movie, both all the spider-verse movies, part three hopefully coming in 2024. But to take these things and realize that change that life and beliefs are, you can't limit yourself right. There's no one specific set of rules that works in every situation and you know me, I don't follow rules anyway, and you know me, you live with me.
Speaker 2:I never follow rules. Go ahead, ask my boss at work, um, but I think it goes back, and I know it goes back to continuous learning and growth and what you've helped me do, which is surround myself with positivity, yeah, and have positive thoughts and positive belief in myself and in my circumstances, and believe that I can change yeah, I love that because in a couple of years you're gonna be living it when we're living in the Caribbean.
Speaker 1:Yes, I will on that note.
Speaker 2:This was another episode of the devil you don't know. And Merry Christmas and happy holidays and happy new year to all of you and your family. You so