The Journey to Freedom Podcast
Journey to Freedom serves as an exclusive extension of the Living Boldly with Purpose podcast series—a platform that inspires powerful transformation and growth. Journey freedom is a podcast hosted by Brian E. Arnold. The Journey to Freedom is an our best life blueprint exclusively designed for black men where we create a foundational freedom plan. There are five pillars: Identity, Trust, Finances, Health and Faith.
The Journey to Freedom Podcast
The Ham Ends Theory: How We Keep Making the Same Mistakes
Questioning the status quo often makes you an outsider, but as Django discovered, that position offers unique insights. On this episode of Journey Free Podcast, author and entrepreneur Django shares how being told he "wasn't Black enough" growing up prompted him to question identity itself, opening doors rather than closing them.
Django takes us through his evolution from corporate America—where his persistent "why?" questions weren't welcome—to founding a company that revolutionizes how authors publish and profit from their work. His refreshing approach to business rejects the traditional exploitation model, instead creating win-win scenarios where creators thrive.
The conversation tackles our community's struggle with trust. Django shares a pivotal moment when a mentor challenged his defensive instinct to protect ideas with NDAs, pointing out that "99% of people have no interest in your idea." This opened Django to the liberating realization that "the ability to be open and unafraid creates more opportunities than being afraid everyone wants to steal your stuff."
We explore the profound connection between honesty and trust. "We can only trust others to the extent we can trust ourselves," Django reflects, noting how we rationalize our own dishonesty while expecting honesty from others. This insight transforms how we approach relationships and business dealings alike.
Perhaps most compelling is Django's take on questioning established norms—like the story of cutting ham ends because ovens were once too small, a practice continued long after larger ovens became available. His upcoming book "They Lied to You" examines these societal habits we've never thought to question.
Rather than offering easy answers, Django leaves us with powerful questions: "What kind of life do you want to gift your time?" and "What could you be if you were unafraid?" These serve as tools for your own journey to freedom, because sometimes the path forward begins not with finding answers, but with learning to ask better questions.
The ability opens you up to more opportunities than being afraid that everyone wants to steal your stuff or take your stuff. So I can say like, without a doubt, having to just let go of the chance that someone could steal my stuff has actually opened up the opportunity for me to trust like a lot All right, good morning.
Speaker 2:This is another edition of the Journey Free Podcast. I'm Dr B, I'm your host. Oh man, as always and if you guys have been following me and subscribed to this stuff, you realize how excited I get talking to people, and you know especially Black men, who are doing things in this world that are making a difference and an impact, and it's not every day that you probably run into folks that are making it happen. We have so much to decide. I do a podcast on Sunday nights which is called why Love Waits, and we're trying to explore why this cross between Black women and Black men isn't happening for families. You know, when we think about families where 50%, almost 50% of Black women 49 point something percent of black women over the age of 40 have never been married, and of that you know, of that 50% that have never been married, 75% of them all have one child, at least one child. So you think of that statistics and you go wait, what has happened to our families? What has happened to you know, the groups of folks and I'm excited you're having, you're having a baby coming up here pretty soon and, uh, that's super exciting. But as we've been, you know, talking and working through this and the uh, the demantelization of the guest families and fathers from families and thinking about, you know, the even the 20s, 30s, 40s and 50s in our country where we were segregated but your families were strong, our, our education was strong and then we we decided to get into, you know, be integrated, and all these other things have happened and I just believe so much in family and so much in in trying to to figure this out, because, you know, one of the things that we were talking about even before the show is, you know, when we find things that are who's willing to go and start doing the things to fix it?
Speaker 2:And just today, to hear your story, to hear where you're at, the exciting things that you're doing, when I think about Journey to Freedom and I think about people living in purpose, being willing to serve others, I don't know if you can live in purpose without serving others. You know, I guess it's possible, but I don't know how that you could do that. You know, when I think about us living our best lives in fulfillment, in happiness, and wondering, you know, I see, you know, when we're learning and we're creating, we're happy about that. When we're loving and we're in a relationship, we're happy about that. When we're loving and we're in a relationship, we're happy about that, you know. And when we're giving and contributing, we're happy about that.
Speaker 2:And so, you know, today I was listening to you know, somebody else's podcast and they were talking about, you know, in order to have love and connection, you have to have conflict, you know, because there's going to be conflict in every relationship and it's how we resolve those conflicts that determines whether we do well. And you don't really know what love is all about until you know what love's not about.
Speaker 1:You know there's two sides of every coin.
Speaker 2:I guess you know. I think Byron Goldman says there's. Have you ever seen a one-sided piece of bread? Have you ever seen a one-sided piece of paper? Have you ever seen a one-sided coin? You don't, because they don't exist. There's two sides to everything. So, excited to have you on today, excited that you're here. I can't wait to have this conversation and be able to chop it up, and I want you to start with your story, like I do with all of our guests. You know, start wherever you believe is the best place in your life to start with us, from your mom's womb or somewhere in the middle. But the floor is yours and then we'll just chop it up after your story. So thanks for being on today.
Speaker 1:Yeah, well, I can say I typically start like right after college.
Speaker 1:You know, I was a public relations major you know, didn't really think much of college, immediately got into technology sales and I don't know. It just wasn't as enjoyable. And, as someone who has always asked why are we doing things? In a certain way it was just really difficult for me in corporate America because I was always asking why. I was always asking what's the point of this, or I would ask questions about the future. Yes, we hit our number for this month, but what about in a year when some of the things that are going really well aren't, what are we doing to prepare? And I found out like the majority of people don't feel that way. They don't care about what's going to happen in a year or 10 years. They typically care about like what are we doing right now? Are we doing what we need to do right now? Cool, and so eventually I left corporate America.
Speaker 1:Some different things happened where I just was like I can't do this anymore, to be honest. And so I had some ideas of apps that I had been working on while I was there and I just decided like, hey, I'm just going to try to keep doing this. And people had reached out because I had released some apps and they were like can I learn more? And I got super into like personal development and just trying to change my life and so in that process I spent like 60k on like masterminds and coaching and all kinds of other things and in the end when I ran out of money I just kind of lost, fell out of those groups. You know it was like did I want it enough? Had I tried enough? And I was asking myself I didn't know. You know, I just like I genuinely didn't have an answer. And so at that point I kind of got a little bit more into spirituality, where I started wondering if it wasn't so much about the answers, because there were those moments where the answers were really good and it felt good and it felt right. But then sometimes those answers weren't the right ones anymore. And so I started working on questions, like asking myself a question every day, and maybe it's a different question that I had been asking, maybe the quality of the questions I had or maybe the questions I thought mattered, they didn't matter as much. So I kept asking those questions and that's what actually started helping me become a little bit, I guess, more free in general, like I started asking better questions of myself, and eventually that's what turned into my book.
Speaker 1:So my book is called I Hope you Wake Up. I have another book that's going to be coming out soon called they Lied to you, and really like. The premise of the book is like what if the problems that we have as a culture aren't so much about the answers that we're arguing about, but more about the questions? And so I take the time to try to ask what are some of the illusions that we believe are true? And that's what's leading to some of the challenges we're having. And so in all of this, I've been working building apps for all kinds of companies Fortune 500 startups and then I had this idea to help authors. So I'm an author, like I showed you, and I just thought it was ridiculous that Amazon keeps such a large percentage and doesn't tell readers what they can actually, or doesn't tell authors who's actually read their book. So I made the company that pays 85% to 90% royalties within 72 hours, which is industry leading.
Speaker 1:We're focused on helping authors actually sell their book.
Speaker 1:We work really hard to create a win-win process, because I think the future is creators.
Speaker 1:I think creators are going to be the people that make it possible. They're going to be like the ones that make money at the end of the day, because more and more of our everyday tasks like I don't know accounting or law or whatever, are becoming more and more AI-based. It's easier for me to ask AI a question and then just take the answer to my lawyer and save a bunch of money. I think more and more people are going to have to lean on the creativity, and I think if you are the person driving the sale, you should make more money and actually be able to make a living doing it. So now that's where we are. I literally just got back from London from the book fair. I'm working really hard to keep working with all these authors. We're distributing authors now. I mean it's just incredible. So I'm excited to see what the future holds as I release the new book and then scale the company out to work with just our customers, the authors and publishers out there.
Speaker 2:Cool. Well, I mean, I love your. You know the part of you know we're doing this. I went to the masterminds. I didn't learn. I started asking questions. When I think about identity, like you are, I mean, you kind of really showed us a lot about what you do or what you did. But who are you? What? What like when you shaped your identity growing up to become the person who said, okay, wait a minute, I want to go into technology or I want to go to this, or you know my, you know my parents that I could do this, but I decided I could do that. How was your identity shaped in the communities that you grew up in?
Speaker 1:well, I feel really blessed at the fact that in some ways I didn't always get to fit in like I was always. I'm not going to sit here and say like I didn't get along with people or that, like I was bullied, but like in general I didn't necessarily fit in super well with a group and like especially where I grew up and like where my family was from, like my cousins and stuff. Sometimes it didn't feel like I was like black enough, you know, like I was just like.
Speaker 1:I got that a lot growing up. I wasn't black enough. My dad's like pretty light skinned, so he also like kind of understands that concept of hearing that and I'd ask him about it. But it's like it's weird when you know you're black but people act like, for some reason, you don't fit in mold. And People act like, for some reason, you don't fit in mold and it just makes you ask a question like what does it mean to be black?
Speaker 1:If someone black looks at you and says you're just not black enough, it's not to say that they're right, wrong or whatever, but it at least makes you question the identity that you have, which if you're never questioned in your identity, then you can become very concrete in that without ever thinking about it. So it caused me to ask myself what does it mean to be Black? Or what does it mean to be a man? Or what does it mean to be an entrepreneur, whatever those things are? And you start to realize that oftentimes we care a lot more about the validation of the words than even, sometimes, what they actually mean. And by being so concrete on what I believe my identity is, we can miss out on opportunities because we're saying to ourselves that's not me or that's not us, or you know, that's for those people over there which I still did for a long time.
Speaker 1:I'll even like as a joke, I used to tell people like black people don't wear flip-flops, and then one day I wore some flip-flops to the beach and I was like, wow, like this is a lot better, there's something to this. So you know, like you can end up just even like that's kind of it's a joke and it's funny about that, but like I kind of missed out on this opportunity because I want to wear sneaks to the, to the beach. You know, I'm like I'm fly or whatever, but then it was like I started wearing flip-flops. I'm like man, this is a lot easier and like this makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 1:But our identities can connected to others but can also keep us from the opportunities that are out there and so like that's why I just like as an identity, I'm very lucky that in some ways, I wasn't always accepted into any one space, because it made me ask so much of what it meant to be a part of that space and that helped me to just you know, I can be okay with the fact that I know I'm black, but it also doesn't matter to me so much that people, maybe maybe someone else, might say you're not black enough for this space or you're not. You're not like me in this way, you know. So that's just. I guess that's the best way I can kind of describe my relationship.
Speaker 2:I like where that, where that's going, because I think one of the things that has been a travesty. Or just how, our America. I guess, when I think about America, the number one thing that they've wanted us to know about ourselves, but the number one thing that they want us to believe, is that the most important part about us is being black, when a hundred percent is not. You know, I'm a father, I'm a husband, I'm a, you know, an entrepreneur, all these things that are my identity. But they want me to put that I'm Black up front. You know as, because they want me to, because of whatever.
Speaker 2:I think it's a lot of the inferiority that we believe that we have, or that we're not enough, and all the things that Blackness represents, that they want to say okay, for the last 400 years you haven't been part of our site, but the most important part about you is that the color of your skin, when it really isn't, you know, and so much of what we say and we bring together and we get stuck on, is in this culture of okay, what does that mean? To even be Black, right?
Speaker 2:And we're always trying to figure it out. And how do I move myself through our society? When you were growing up, when you had your, you were growing up when you had your, you know your parents that were, you know, helping you with your idea. Like we all shape, ours were the communities and the things you were in, you know, I guess geared towards uh, this is what we do as a family, or was it? You know, kind of what was that upbringing like?
Speaker 1:well, I was homeschooled until high school and I was kind of out in the countryside.
Speaker 1:So my family is a little bit like non-traditional in maybe how I was raised as a black person, just because I don't know many black people that were homeschooled, and it was like a more. There were more white people in that area, just like living out, and it was northern virginia, just kind of middle of nowhere. But my family it's funny I can, I cantrack a little bit so, like my entire family on my dad's side, is originally from Shelby, north Carolina, and my grandfather, when he decided, hey, I want to go to a place where there's more opportunity, moved to Reston, to, you know, basically be able to work at NASA and for the government at the time. And so my dad grew up in sort of a predominantly different sort of area. But then in turn my dad wanted us to have a certain opportunity and grow up in an area that was just a little bit better. So then we moved to a better, you know, like just county as a, as an infrastructure, I guess is a better way to put it, because I look at some of the infrastructures that some of my family grew up in that's extended and I definitely can see some of the opportunity that I had, that I maybe took for granted, but in all of that, what I can say is is that my parents because I was homeschooled did a really good job of saying, hey, this is who we are, as like the degrees, like that's my last name and this is what we do as a family.
Speaker 1:And in some ways, though, because some of that fell apart when I got older, it again empowered me to question why I do things, because sometimes as a family, you can get so caught up in the identity.
Speaker 1:There are these jokes that people always do where it's almost like kind of cultish how a family can be.
Speaker 1:But if you never have anything that causes you to question it, then you just sort of are just accepting things for what they were.
Speaker 1:So, because everything kind of fell apart in some ways as I got older, it actually made me ask again questions about who am I, what do I want to do, does this work for me in this frame of my life or not? And it's really helped me through that process to be as open to all the opportunities that are available to me. I'm not just stuck in one place saying this is how I have to be, no matter what, even though I'm unhappy, or even though I hate it, or even though it's not even working anymore, I'm able to be, you know, open to that. So I tell my parents all the time I'm so thankful for how things ended up going, because I don't know that I would have ever even known to ask those questions if they hadn't made my identity so strong as a kid to then, you know, things not work out, and that's like the beauty of every time something doesn't work out, you end up kind of giving yourself the opportunity to learn.
Speaker 2:So of every time something doesn't work out, you end up kind of giving yourself the opportunity to learn. Yeah, and I would love to know. I mean so you go one through eighth grade and then you go to public school, I guess.
Speaker 2:Yeah, public school. What was that transition like? I mean, was the school way different because you had friends and stuff that were there? Or was it like I've been learning? I've already learned all this stuff. Why am I here? Because usually folks that are homeschooled are so great and their thought process is so different. Now you're getting into our indoctrination camps or whatever schools we call it. You're learning how to be an employee is pretty much what we teach here.
Speaker 1:You have all different types of things. I think my parents, for better or worse, just always asked me why, like, why, and they would make me ask the question why. I did do a lot of reading growing up and I learned a lot about just a lot of different things Like from. I realized like I'm probably in the top like 0.5% of understanding, like biblical scriptures and like stories, like just that was a big part of our, our learning, learning process. There's a lot to critical thinking that they taught and so school doesn't really give you the space for that. It's very much a. This is what we're learning and why are you asking why? Why are you asking why you have to take AP calculus? Why are you asking why the honors program exists or whatever? So that was the hardest part for me going in high school and college. I'm a super social person, so being social with people isn't difficult. I was like joking a little bit like of a there's I have a lot of empathy and like an openness trait. So when I meet someone I'm automatically very like I don't really care what I think, I'm trying to understand what you think. So that makes it very easy to like shift in between different places.
Speaker 1:But when I was, I remember I was in an accounting class in college and I just was like why are we doing this? And the teacher was like you know, what do you mean? Why are we doing this? And I was like I don't understand why we're doing this, like I think it's dumb. Can you tell me, can you, can you validate your why we're doing it this way? And you know, I mean the same. They don't really have an answer. So yeah, so that was like that was the thing that was the most funny about it. It was like I was like why are we doing? I just that was the hardest part about school. I'd just be like why are we doing this? And no one ever could give me a good answer which you know, I just would always keep that in my back pocket of like I don't know that this matters at all. So that was the hardest part about like the switch to high school is just people not being able to validate the reason that we're doing things.
Speaker 2:So I think it kind of translates into you working for somebody else as well as you have and say wait a minute, why am I doing this? Why am I putting this time, doing this all day long? Because it's really creating profit for the company, am I just? You know, especially when you have like? I guess if you're in jobs and you have managers and stuff. When I was teaching, I would always push some principles this is dumb. How are we teaching kids like this? I went to university and I was an administrator and so I ran my department a little bit different than other professors did. They're like well, why do you want me to do this? I don't want this. You know, like you said, this is dumb. It doesn't make any sense. You know, if the university is trying to make money, then why are we doing stuff counterproductive? You know, to me, if I passed every student and they've learned the information, then that's a good thing. Why do you want me to have a percentage that don't have?
Speaker 1:I remember that was when I changed my major from business to communications. There was this professor I had and he just was like started the class off just kind of saying that he had like a higher than 50% failure rate and I just kind of was like I was like why are like does that doesn't make you a bad teacher? Like I just don't understand like does that?
Speaker 2:doesn't it make you a bad teacher? Like I just don't understand.
Speaker 1:Like learning for a test like why is your barometer of success, or validation of success, not 100% of my students pass? Like I don't understand. I didn't understand it genuinely. So I asked him about it and he was just, like you know, this is a class that makes or breaks students to find out if this is what they want to do. And I'm like, yeah, but like, but, like you're the teacher, I don't understand. Like, conceptually, can you explain to me why you think it's good to have students fail? Like wouldn't that? And he, I don't know.
Speaker 1:Like that was when you, when I was getting older, I started realizing that a lot of times we eventually just say like, accept an answer to be yes, like you just stop asking why. So you finally get to a point it validates some part of your existence and so this is, this is yes from now on. And when you ask questions of people about why they do something a certain way and they haven't actually asked that question, they typically get very angry. Like I really pissed off a lot of professors and teachers for this basic reason of asking why, like, why? And they're like what do you mean why?
Speaker 1:Like who asked why what's wrong? They're like what do you mean? Why, like? Who asked why? What's wrong with you? Who do you think you are django? I'm like, I don't know. I don't even know who I am. I'm just asking why. So that was something that I think is really interesting, like with you describing that with like the like, the percentage of people who need to pass like. Why wouldn't you want a hundred percent? Why wouldn't that be the way that we set up success as a teacher?
Speaker 2:I don't yeah, I don't know. To me that means that I'm 50% failure. 50% of my students don't pass my class. That means I didn't teach them what they were supposed to learn in order to pass. I still love it because it reminded me of the story of the ham. They cut off the ends of the ham at Thanksgiving and then they put it in the oven. And then they you know they were. So you know, one of the I guess it was one of the children said well, why do you cut off the ends of the ham? Every year we come home and you cut off the ends of the ham and put it in the oven, and then she goes. I don't know why. Well, let's call grandma Grandma. Why do we do it? I don't know if my grandma did it Great grandma, still alive. And you know, great grandma, why do you cut off the ends of the ham before you put them in the oven? She said because the oven wasn't big enough.
Speaker 1:And I didn't have the oven.
Speaker 2:You know, like you said, we just accept the answers.
Speaker 2:You know the reason we did it was because I didn't have an oven that would fit the ham, so I cut the ends off and then it just became a tradition and people do it. Oh my gosh, I love where we're going when I think about trust, because that's kind of one of we've got to trust the people that are around that we're in proximity to and our associations, and so one of the reasons that I even started Journey to Freedom because this would be a second we were struggling as a community to trust. We have trouble trusting ourselves, we have trouble trusting each other, we have trouble trusting our women. We have trouble trusting our women. We have trouble trusting white men, whatever the society is that we do.
Speaker 2:Although trust is so important, how has your ability to trust, you know, impacted your career? The things that you're doing? I mean, you're able to go to London Do you trust the people that are overseas more than you do the people that are here? Is it just because you have a relationship that you create relationships? When you think about trust, I can say this is.
Speaker 1:There are a few moments that I can actually highlight along this line of trust. I remember when I was first creating like a full scale, trying to do a company, there was a black guy that I just remember. I called him, my mom had connected me with him. He was like he could help me with building the product and I was like, hey, I need you to sign an NDA before I tell you the idea. And he was like Django, let me tell you something Like. And he went through this whole part he like explained to me that 99% of people have no interest in your idea and then, of that, 1% of the people who maybe have interest could ever steal your idea. So you're going to have to trust and just be open to the numbers, the percentage chance of this. And I feel like I run into this within, like the black community more than any other community, where there's like kind of a general distrust that people are going to steal something. Um, like people will reach out to me because now you know, I got built a venture, backed startup, I've done certain things that are like Django, I got this great idea. I want to tell you about it. It's going to change your world, um, but I need you to sign the NDA first. I'm like it's like I just tell the same story to everyone. It's connected. Like me and my co-founder, when me and him first met, I told him the idea that I had he. He told me he loved the idea. We started building. Before we ever created a company or did anything, he was developing it, I was just working and then we signed contracts later. I'm not saying that that's the best thing to do, but, like the open, the ability to be open and unafraid opens you up to more opportunities than being afraid that everyone wants to steal your stuff or take your stuff. So I can say, like, without a doubt, having to just let go of the chance that someone could steal my stuff has actually opened up the opportunity for me to trust, like a lot.
Speaker 1:And then the other side of this that I've noticed is we typically can only trust others to the extent that we can trust, like ourselves. And so, like when I first got into corporate America and even when I was in college, there's like this underlying thing where you need to get stuff in writing because you, if you don't have it in writing, you can't prove that it actually happened. And I remember one day I was like, if we're saying that I have to get it in writing because the person, when the time comes, may lie, we're saying that we understand that we all will lie if it means that we'll get what we want. And I do think, as a culture like, we're not very honest with ourselves about the fact that we are very comfortable with lying if we feel like it's what's best for us. And then we rationalize after Amazon, so big, it doesn't matter that we had to do a return. You know, this isn't for me to hit my number and feed my kids, so I need to do this in order to do this.
Speaker 1:So, like what I started to recognize within myself was part of my inability to trust others was as much about like in those moments where you know I'm at a crossroads, where I can get the thing that I want and you know in turn, you know, you know or or be honest. I truthfully wasn't willing to be honest, so I've been able to trust more the more honest that I've been willing to be. Granted, it doesn't always work out in my favor, right, like sometimes if I just lied and yelled and cussed out somebody on the Amazon hotline. I would have gotten the return and the other stuff. But because I'm being nice, you know I don't get the thing. But I definitely had to start deciding that I would be trustworthy and honest myself, even though maybe the rest of the other people decide not to be, because I don't know how it would ever get better if. If I'm just not willing to do that. So I can say that about trust too. Like those are those two sides of moments where I can really say like trust helped me a lot.
Speaker 2:I love that because we think just the fact that you're saying people are willing to lie and to rationalize. I do a three mile walk every day and at least the other day I'm just thinking you know somebody I don't know who, this is on a podcast I was on and they started talking about you know our propensity to lie and I was thinking, well, jesus, without sin, went 33 years without lying. You know, when I start thinking of myself, the advice I say to myself on a weekly basis, the things that I do to rationalize, and I love the fact that that is important to you and it's something that you're thinking about. And then I think about, like contracts in our world are based on a mutual distrust. We don't know what a contract is. Both of us don't trust each other, so we're going to put in a contract that puts parameters around a mutual distrust and I think, like a covenant, where it's, you know this is based on hey, we're going to do this together or we'll die trying, you know, and just that whole process of how do we start building and I think a lot of it comes out and you can can you know, test this is there's just a belief, especially in our community that there's so much left. You know I think of our last. You know not. You know, I think the world's got abundance, there's a million resources, but we're worried somebody's going to steal my one idea. We're worried that I can't come up with another idea. This is my one idea that I'll have for the rest of my life and you know, and fear.
Speaker 2:The fear is that we paralyze ourselves because of this fear of lack. When I think of just this, all the folks that I've been talking to since our election, and all based on fear. Well, what if they take this? What if we? And we're going down these paths of what ifs? And you know, on my call outside somebody was actually talking about that they're going to take benefits away from veterans. You know, in a big way, and I just I don't see it. There's other things they're going to be able to do, the folks that serve their country and how they got to do it. But literally in fear, like, well, I guess I'm not going to spend any of my money ever again because you know, or I'm going to move to London because, whatever those fears are and just what your thought on lack versus abundance and opportunity, and you know the world where we live. We use our minds and imagination to create it. We're not using our hands anymore, and so our minds and imagination to create. We're not using our our hands anymore, and so our minds are indefinite.
Speaker 1:Yeah I can agree with that. I think I've been working on a thought so I could misspeak on this, but, like it's very easy to to create an identity with another group based on looks. I would say it's the easiest one. So you know, for instance, like being in London or going overseas or reading history, you find out that, like, even if all the people look the same, they found ways to split themselves into groups, right. So, like in America I think it was, it's been the easiest to try to identify a separation of groups by look. And then we even, like, got into the point of you may look the part, but then we're still, like giving names to how you're different, octoroon or whatever. The number is right. But the thing that's interesting is the identity of a group in most cases ends at a point where we say these people are excluded from the group. And it's really easy to have a very like strong ourselves group thought process when we can really truly identify like this is what we're up against.
Speaker 1:So, like when I talked to my grandfather, for instance, who you know did sit-ins and all these other things, there was a, there was a strong unification of it's us versus them, like we. We have to do this together, otherwise, like it's just not going to work. I think that's where a lot of our like strength, uh, came from. Like it's from the identity of there's no question that we're against these people and like my grandfather actually told me that he always kind of wished for separate but equal, like that was what he wanted. He didn't want to integrate at all, he didn't want it to be like mlb, he wanted to be negro leagues and in this league he wanted it to be. He just wanted it to be equal. Because he recognized that like there was a value to like us being us, like us identifying and being able to very easily identify ourselves as this. And so the thing that's interesting about all this is, like now the question is, like what is it that we value?
Speaker 1:Like that's where I, like I have a really hard time. It like it always comes comes down to money. Like there's always those jokes Like would you punch your mom until for like a million dollars, and then like the videos, like that sky, like punching a wall or whatever, like it's his mom or like like I just feel like the value at the core is the money, and so if the money is the only thing that matters in this case. How can you ever trust like anyone because we're all like, basically, we've all admitted to the fact that we're not. It's not about like trusting ourselves and trusting to do the right thing or being a part of this group. It's just like it's about the money, like, and so then, in turn, like it is a scarcity mindset, because you're like I gotta get the money as fast as possible. I gotta figure out how to get it by any means possible. I gotta get rich or die trying. I gotta like it always.
Speaker 1:Like this is the only time that I have to do this, because you know it's just perfect timing, otherwise, like I'll never be able to get back, because it's almost like who's your group, who's the? Who are we building the foundation for? What are we, you know, doing to go forward Like? I'll finish it with this thought this is this is a video that I made recently. The the shard, which is one of our more famous buildings in london, took three years to build. Big ben took 10 years to build the. I forget I say the word wrong all the time. It's like the west westminster abbey, like the abbey, that's nearby there took 250 years to build.
Speaker 1:the person who created that, who knew like hey, this is what we're going to build, knew that in their, their entire lifetime. There's no chance you're going to see this, but there's enough trust and a belief in what could be in the future of like the foundation that we have, that you would start to build something and people would spend their entire lives for like four generations, to build something that none of them would get to see. And I think that's like really only possible if at the baseline, there's trust and then on the next level, there's an idea that it's not about the scarcity of like this is the only idea we have. It's like we're building towards something bigger than just money or financial freedom or whatever the thing is Like. That's sort of where, like I was trying to, I in a way like this is how I've just been thinking about it lately Like maybe in that baseline there's this loss of both trust and then, in turn, a fear of not getting enough of what's yours, that we can never really like come together to build this bigger thing, because we're all very much in like our little boxes left or right or whatever.
Speaker 1:It just makes it very difficult to view things from an abundance perspective, where you're saying I could potentially build something that could last a lifetime because me and this group are coming together to build something beyond ourselves. So that's like I don't have the idea fully fleshed. That's why it takes so long to describe. But it's just all like I'm working through that as I'm writing this book and I just I don't really understand what it is. But there's something in what I'm saying. That's true. I just don't have the word for it yet, if that makes sense.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I love what you're saying because it makes you think do we have to just jump into this scarcity mindset? Yeah, because it's very. I was watching a show last night and as I was thinking about it I've been thinking about the same concept and the show. The guy on the show is saying I have this opportunity to be wealthy. And he goes to his wife and he says Wife, I would like to be wealthy, but in order for me to be wealthy, that means I have to take from somebody who already has what I want, because there's not enough for both of us to have, so I'm going to take.
Speaker 2:And then they gave some kind of analogy about you know. So you're saying that I, you know, in order to do that, I have to take. I have to go to the queen and you know, in the cat that's in the castle and if I want her cap I gotta throw her out right. And the wife goes. Well, darling, if you got the take from somebody, make sure you, you, you, you take them to the point where you throw them off the building. That's high enough that they'll can never come back and take it back, kind of like, oh my god, that they can never come back and take it back. I'm like, oh my God, that's the issue in our country, that's the issue everywhere is people say in order for me to have, I must have to take you can make your life, I wonder.
Speaker 1:So, like again, this comes back to identity, maybe a little bit. If the furthest thing that you identify with is like yourself and what you're going to get, I think we end up in the place we're at, when, like, for instance, we're saying, hey, social Security is going to run out soon and people are like, yeah, I agree, we should fix it, but like I don't want to lose mine. So whatever you do, don't do that for me Right.
Speaker 1:For me right Like, hey, medicaid is gonna run out of money. We all agree on that, Like what's funny to me is, like no one I've never heard anyone say Social Security is not going to run out of money. I've heard this for like 10 years now that we're like just kind of staring down a black hole and the argument back is, though, I'm not willing to trade off for whatever is mine, so, in turn, we never fix the problem. We just kind of like kick the can down the road, and I just kind of feel like that is our biggest challenge, as, like a culture is like individually, we do, like obviously I don't know what the balance is.
Speaker 1:To some extent, if everyone wants everything, then no one ever gets anything, in a way, because we just keep sort of causing more problems, because everyone's sort of like fighting against themselves, in a way, because you're like'm willing to see, I want to see change. I'm just not willing to see change now, so, like maybe we'll leave it to the kids or maybe, you know, we'll take from this other group that's not me but like, as long as that's sort of our back and forth, I don't really know how we can ever move forward, cause, no, it's not like sacrifice is almost the wrong word. It's like we're just not open to another way of doing things, cause we're like this is how it's always been done. You know, like you reach a certain age, you get so security.
Speaker 1:I paid my part period. And it's like, yeah, but it's going to run out, and it's like, okay, well, it's not my problem, I did, I did my part, it should work. You know, I don't care. I don't know how we can ever move forward if everything's always about at least just the largest group maybe is is is how it kind of functions right now, like whoever has the largest voice just decides. This is how we're going to do it for now, and then the next group becomes a larger voice because they're so pissed off about not getting what they wanted. I don't know, but yeah.
Speaker 2:So help me on this one, because this is this is just me and my thought process here, and you took that accounting class I'm assuming you passed it, so you can understand this. Every time that we actually say we're going to run out of money, we just make more. And then we say, well, we're going to borrow from China or whoever else, well, they're just making up money right to loan it. It's like, do we just keep making up money? Do we just keep making money? Or eventually it's going to run out of money? It's just, we print it and then we say this is how we trade goods back and forth.
Speaker 1:Well, I think this is what I find interesting, so like I run a venture act startup, so I have a very interesting thought process on this.
Speaker 2:If.
Speaker 1:I go out and I raise a round. For, let's say, we get to the point where I'm going to raise a billion dollar round at you know, and we're going to raise $200 million on that, we're going to dilute everyone who has shares by 20%. That's just how that works. We are going to create shares out of thin air to create value so that people can invest in this, and then, technically speaking, all of us have less of the company, but hopefully it's worth more. Theoretically, what I see going on is is like we have a problem right now because we don't know how to not spend more than currently exists, so then we just print more to kick the can down the road. The challenge is is like the longer you do that at some point, like we just get to a point, like we can say there's inflation, not inflation, change the cpi numbers however we want, but like we can't pretend that saying that a pot of like let's's just say, for lack of better numbers, like a billion and a trillion, doesn't cause the person who has a fixed income of a hundred thousand to lose the ability to like, do something right, like, like. At the end of the day, the assets, the assets that exist can't change that much. There's only so much chicken, so many cows, so much lumber. You're just slowly increasing the price because, in order to maintain the percentage of the size, it just is what it is.
Speaker 1:So I, like I hear the arguments everyone makes like we have to do this, but like you don't have to do anything. You choose to do something and typically when someone tells me they have to do something, it's typically the easiest thing for them to do, which I think that's the case we're in. It's like I don't again, like I said before, I don't want to give up my money that I get for social security. I'm not giving it up. Okay, you're not giving it up, we're not going to change anything. So we're just going to print more and then take some of the print and put it over here and then you know it just artificially inflates the amount of available currency.
Speaker 1:So I mean I don't, you can do that, I guess, until people are angry, enough that they're angry. I mean we've seen this happen before having in Britain, having in Germany, having in Russia. I mean this isn't like a new concept. You just print until everyone's too poor we just saw it in Venezuela Like eventually, dollars will be toilet paper if we keep up with this. But I mean like I don't, I don't, I don't have an answer. It doesn't really seem like anyone's ever really been able to get this in control when they have the ability to do it, because I think we lack control in general as humans. So I don't know, that's my rant. I don't talk about it too much, but I just think it's funny because-.
Speaker 2:I'm glad I got you to do it, though. I'm glad I got you to do it, yeah, yeah, you got me to do it.
Speaker 1:I don't know how. It seems like elementary math if we, if we're like on the playground and there's x amount of toys, there's not a choice to go out and you just introduce more toys. It doesn't make people better at sharing, it just means there's more toys here. So, like the, the toys have less value, right, like they would be less valuable to the kids because you don't have to share them around. So there's, I mean, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker 2:I just I feel like it's easy, but everyone makes it more complicated than it needs to be yeah um, you talked about you, your journey, and you talked about where you know you went to these masterminds, and then you said you became more spiritual, maybe kind of talk about your spiritual journey a little bit and how that impacts and and reacts to the things that you do now, uh, in life, whatever that is yeah, yeah, I think.
Speaker 1:Uh, I think what's interesting is when I look back at the masterminds and stuff, it reminded me a lot of church. So growing up in church it was kind of a very similar structure. Music that's very uplifting. Everyone is there with a common cause. You bring in people to speak. I remember back in the day I'd go to my grandma's church. A guest speaker comes in halfway through the singing and then they come up and they talk. There's sort of an end where we typically would do a tithe for that person, but in this case the person would sell us the book and we'd be like, wow, what an amazing book. And then this person also has a mastermind we should go to, which reminded me a lot of a church. Church, like, it's just interesting that the structures, when I think back to it, are so similar, and so that's what eventually kind of got me to the place.
Speaker 1:We're starting to realize that there is a value to it. It's not that people did something wrong. I think there's something to like the human condition that enjoys being in a space with like-minded people where we are all working towards some positive common goal. And in all of these cases, money can become an issue, right, like you get to like a mega church size. Or you get to the point where people are, like you got to give that 10% tithe, even if it's your last. Very similar issue, right, like where money becomes an underlying prescriber of success for the church or for the mastermind. So, like, I loved being there, I loved the space, I loved the feeling, I loved the music, I love the joy, I love feeling like I had an opportunity to build something. But I definitely realized that you can get so caught up in the validation of the space that you can lose track of the goal that you actually had. Like, my goal has always been to, like, support creators, help them in any way I can and eventually, when I have the means, help orphans and foster kids. But then, like, what I realized now is is, in some ways, I got so caught up in the validation of that space, like I was giving money to maintain the validation of that space, even when that space wasn't necessarily being helpful for the goals that I actually have. So, like, for me, I've recognized that there's a, there's a value to being around people who are, again, like, like-minded, want to be positive, want to grow, want to be there with you and that can be found almost anywhere. If you are actually like that which I found that I had to be honest with myself. I wasn't like that. I wanted to be negative. I wanted to be like. You know, this is just the way the world is it's crappy, it's this, it's that. And as I've changed my language and worked on being more positive, I've just had more positive people in my life, and sometimes I still go to church or different churches.
Speaker 1:Sometimes I, you know, just try to be open in the space and ask people about what they feel and you just get surprised when people are actually open and communicative, some people get angry. I can't. Like I said, people typically get angry when you ask a why that they're not ready to have a conversation about. But that's what I can say for sure, like it's something beautiful about that space. But you do need to ask yourself, like what is it that I'm getting out of this space? Because even in church, like I've had this I had it happen to me in churches where, like it's not really about the faith anymore, it's not really about your relationship with God. Maybe it's about what I feel, like I am here. Sometimes it's about, you know, like the money that you're getting out of it or whatever the case is. So that's sort of. That's sort of where I ended up, at least on like the religious part.
Speaker 1:From a spiritual perspective, nothing has been better than just being honest with myself and asking the questions of myself every day. That, uh, that I have to be honest with myself to answer Like am I really putting my best foot forward? Um, do I really just like, do I have to be honest with myself to answer Like am I really putting my best foot forward? Do I really just like do I want to be right more than I want to be happy today? Like, am I arguing with people for no reason just so that I can get that like emotional? You know, oomph, that I proved that person wrong. You know, am I taking the time to pray and ask not for stuff, but more of like clarity and openness to what's around me, instead of it being like I need to get this next thing? So it's a weird journey, but I think it just never ends Sometimes. We're always looking for an answer and I think it's more about just asking the right questions.
Speaker 2:Again, like I was saying before, Thank you for sharing those questions too, because I think, when you say I'm asking myself the questions, my thought was what questions are you?
Speaker 1:asking. One of the questions I had to ask myself was like, can you like one of the questions of my book? It's like, can you unconditionally love anyone if you don't unconditionally love everyone? Because, like, I knew that I had said I unconditionally love certain people but I had conditions on others. So, like, is the unconditional love that I'm saying is unconditional, I just haven't found the conditions yet, because I have conditions already set where I would shut people out. Maybe what I say the condition is is like blood. Maybe I say the condition is whatever, but like, I've actually really set conditions. So really no one actually can be loved unconditionally. I'm really choosing conditional love. But like, at least I became aware of it, you know, I like suddenly now I'm asking myself like, wow, I'm like.
Speaker 1:Another question I asked was like, which version of the voice in my head am I Like? Seriously, do you ever like think about the fact that you can be like having some weird conversation in your head where you're both the negative and the positive? You know, when you wake up, you set an alarm for 5 am, so a part of you knows that you should wake up and do this thing, but then there's this other voice. That's like I don't really want to work out today, but like, are you thinking I never had thought about the fact that, like I'm neither voice though Like I'm, I'm actually not either it's because they're both there but like, maybe I'm more the the the awareness of the voice? I don't, I don't know, but like it's pretty weird that you have two different people going off in your head about not getting up for this workout and I think it's also weird we identify with one more than the other.
Speaker 1:What if I'm neither of those voices and I'm the person who knows what I have the capability of doing? And is the reason I set the alarm before. Like you just start to if you're willing to ask those questions that maybe you've never asked before, because no one ever thought to even give you those words, all of a sudden you're like wow, like yeah, it's weird. Maybe I can just be nicer to myself and, like you know, go work out because I love working out. Or maybe myself, and like you know, go work out because I love working out. Or maybe I can love people just because you know I'm grateful that they're in my life. Or you know, whatever, whatever you decide, I don't really care what people decide. That's why I didn't give answers.
Speaker 2:I just want people to have the words to ask a question, to decide for themselves well, you're absolutely confirming to me that the spiritual, invisible world is, to me, more real than the world we actually live in, because we do the thoughts that we have on a daily basis. That you know, the fact that you and I can have this conversation from a different part of the world, that it's whatever, it's just, oh my gosh, I love it. I wanted you know, talk a little bit about. You know, for black men they say their average age is going to be you know that we die at is 72.
Speaker 2:There's so many men that I talk to that have so much to give, but they're just not healthy. They're just. You know they're fighting their weight or they're fighting their. You know all of the diseases that high blood pressure and diabetes and you're young enough now where it's probably not impacting you the way I've been turned 60 last week, and so you know it's a bigger thought in my mind. You know I want to live to my dad's 86 and he's still running track meets and you know my mom's 80 and she's doing phenomenal. And I'm thinking, you know, for my own mortality. What are some things that you're doing now to make sure and I don't want to just mean physical health, because I also want to talk about mental health a little bit because, as we're thinking all these thoughts and you're asking all these questions, how do you keep your mind? I love that you're writing books and get out of it. I want you to stay healthy.
Speaker 1:Well, I have an interesting thought about this. So at one point I was like 260 pounds, but all very big, very fat, and I decided I wanted to lose the weight. So I got I went pretty david goggins if you know who that is very like two a days. We're going after it. Um, eventually I cut out meat completely for a period of time and I was vegan. I did fasting. I fasted for over like a week a couple of times, like period of time and I was vegan. I did fasting. I fasted for over like a week a couple of times like a water fast. And what was interesting in all of this because I've been from 260 to 198 to like I hover at like 230. It's a healthy weight I did carnivore, where I literally only ate meat.
Speaker 1:What was really interesting in all of this is I realized that, like there's a quote that I say all the time it's like it's neither good nor bad thinking makes it. So I realized that like and I wrote this in my book the chains that I had forged, where I was unhappy with myself and I ate too much and I did all these different things, became the same chains I would create for myself when it came to like fasting and other places, because I could really only accept myself to the ability of like the validation that I got, so like my unhealthy relationship with food came from a place of love for my family, because I ate the most out of anybody and it was always like a joke that Django could get anything. I used to be called like a vacuum. I eat a pizza, I eat a sub. So it grew until I was older and I wasn't working out as much, turned into a problem and I like couldn't stop eating because I didn't understand, like I couldn't not finish the plate because of things that happened in my childhood that weren't even negative. It was just like I never asked. Then I got to a healthy relationship with food. I felt like, but then all of a sudden I can't accept myself if I don't go to the gym and I'm like Django, you piece of trash, like you're supposed to get to the gym every day, even though I've been to the gym every day for the last three years and I realized, like the aches and pains that I had being like big and fat. I now had working out every day and pushing my body so far that it was like breaking down in some ways, or fasting, even though I didn't need to fast. So there's this issue.
Speaker 1:I think sometimes of like, asking the question of like, why am I doing this? Why can't I be, why can't I do things for the love of myself, rather than it being like I'm a piece of trash? And I got to beat myself up to do the right thing. And that's where I finally got to a shift where, like, it's not about doing things because I need to be better or I you know this has to be for the future. Generations or my ancestors are watching.
Speaker 1:Like, why can't I just love myself to do the thing that I need to do today? Like, why can't I just like wake up and say, whether it's praying, whether it's doing things that are unconventional to what other people might say, or it's doing things for my physical health, like, why can't I do that from like a space of saying that I love myself enough? I also just recognize in general within the black community between guys, it's weird for us to say that we love each other. I see a lot of people trying to make like content, to say like we should do it more often, but trying to make like content, to say like we should do it more often. But the truth of the matter is we can only give the love that we have already and most of us only love ourselves to the condition that we can accept ourselves, whatever that means. Like if it's I'm the workout person, I'm the hood person, I'm the, I'm the hard person, I'm the father, whatever, like, you can only love yourself to the extent that you can give that to yourself. You can only give that out to the extent you give to yourself. So I just really like it took coming all the way back to saying like I'm going to do things because I just care about myself, because I just love myself, cause I like, cause it's cool to be, to just like like myself.
Speaker 1:I just like spent so long fixing, trying to fix myself. But it's like you like, if it's a, why am I viewing myself as like a problem that needs to be fixed? Why can't it just be that I'm I'm living and I'm happy and I'm enjoying life and I'm doing things? Because it's like, why wouldn't I want to go to the gym? Why wouldn't I want to eat this watermelon rather than the skittles? Why is it a problem for me to eat skittles if I haven't had any artificial sugar for a year, like why can't I just accept myself in this moment to do whatever I think is best for myself, mentally or physically, and that's like that's the place that eventually I got to for throughout all of the spaces that I've been in, from vegan to carnivore, to being big, to being small, to all those different things.
Speaker 2:So yeah, wow, man, you just have me thinking like my mind is being blown right now, because I think we were only as good as the questions that we asked you and you're asking yourself all these just incredible questions. You know, the book that you wrote is. I hope you wake up. You know, and I'm I feel like I'm waking up. You know, having a conversation with you, but I have been selfish and I have talked. You know so much about, um, you know what? What I wanted to know about who you are, uh, django, what I would love to you know. What I wanted to know about who you are, jango, what I would love to you know. Take this last 10 minutes that we have together and just kind of let you talk about your books and your company and whatever it is that we didn't talk about.
Speaker 2:That you would love for us to talk about, because I want to make sure that our audience and the folks who listen to this get a real version of vision of what is possible.
Speaker 1:Well, the I told you that the book I'm working on right now is called they lied to you and I don't want to give too much of the structure of it out. But like earlier I said that like when you get to corporate America, when you're in school, people kind of tell you the unwritten rules of how honest people are going to be, like when I got into especially now owning my own company. It's not about what happened, it's about what you can prove. It's like we live in this world very much of like we've all accepted it conceptually. You have to have like a paper trail. You have to know and like have in writing what the truth is. And I think it's because as a culture we've just kind of accepted this idea of like lying not just to each other, but like to ourselves, to wake up and rationalize why I'm not where I want to be or anything else. And so like I hope you wake up. As a book was more about like what if reality isn't what you thought it was? And then this next book they lied to you is how did we get here? Like, potentially, what lies did we just accept as true across the board, from the teachers, the family, the concepts, things that work for our ancestors. That was only because at the time they oh, wow, that's huge, large enough. So they cut the size of the ham off and then we just kept doing it, even though maybe we're not in that same place, maybe that did, maybe that was all they had at that time. But now we're still sort of doing the same things, even though we're maybe not in that same place. So like that's what that second book is and eventually there'll be a third book, but I haven't I try not to say, but it'll basically be what, maybe, where we can go forward with that.
Speaker 1:So like in my mind, because I've asked all these questions, the reason I created my company, wrote by Me is that I realized like there's all these concepts that people talk about, when you hear them talk about rich people and what they do and how they did it and how they took from people and how it. It doesn't have to be that I take from other people. It could be that we do an industry-leading standard where readers are the winners and we win because the I'm sorry authors are the winners and we don't need a whole bunch of money at every step. But it's not about like maximizing the profit out of every single step. But I could still win. As a company, I still could, you know, become a billionaire.
Speaker 1:But like do it in a way that helps people be able to achieve their goals and dreams. You know, and like I also recognize that maybe the oven is finally large enough for me to be able to do that right. Maybe up to this point we've always had to cut the ham a certain way because the technology wasn't there, or intellectually we were. I don't know what it was, but I see a path that maybe I can do that and that's why we're so focused on, like helping the authors and publishers cutting through the noise. We could have taken a higher percentage, but I really wanted to like make sure that we created as win-win of a scenario as possible, and I'm trying to do the same thing in my book. So my hope is, my dream is to give people because it may not be me like right, my company could fail, no one could like my books.
Speaker 1:But maybe from this conversation someone else goes, maybe life could be different. And that's like the stepping stone, that's how, like you know, the Abbey gets built in 250 years. Maybe I don't get to see it, but conceptually, maybe we could do like capitalism in a different light. Rather than it being like exploiting people. It's about bringing everybody together for us to win together.
Speaker 1:There's enough for everyone. It's just like we just have to believe that already, which is what I believe. I believe there is enough for everyone. There's enough for people to not be hungry. There's enough. We just have to figure out a way to disseminate things in a way which does require someone to make a decision right, like even when people talk about like socialism and other concepts, someone eventually is the person who says this is where we're spending the money, even if, unless you're like trying to vote on it, but even then, after you vote on it, someone could say the vote's not true or whatever.
Speaker 1:So I hope is that I can just shine that light to the world that, like you know again what if what we think has to be is an illusion, maybe if we start asking how got here and why, like, maybe we, maybe they did lie to us, and we can start to figure out why we even got here, and then how can we move forward is like that next thought that I have. So I'm more than happy to connect with any authors if they need help to get their book out there to distribute it to. You know, come up with plans. We're always looking to help authors. And then if you want to check out the book, you can check it out at my link. It's wrotebyme forward slash Django, which I'll share with you and we'll put in. It has everything. So yeah, I'll send that over to you.
Speaker 2:Okay, any websites or anything that we need to go to.
Speaker 1:That's the main one. So if you go to wrotebyme, forward slash Django. That is my way to get my books but also to follow me on all my social links, and then that's my company too. So if you go to ropebyme, that's how you actually find. So I always joke, I'm my own customer. I pay full price for it because I want to show people I really believe in it. So that's the best way to connect with me and find everything there.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Thank you. What are some closing thoughts that you'd love to give everybody who's listening to us today that is saying wait a minute. I know I, I know I'm more, I know you know that I'm not enough is not where I want to be, I want to be.
Speaker 1:I know I'm more uh, I think I think sometimes I can be. I will just be honest. I think I can be a frustrating person to listen to because I don't really leave you with, like the keys to the answer. But but that is like by design. I think, like we were raised in school in certain places where we looked to someone to give us the right answer and then that gave us the validation that we're on the right path. And so, in turn, we've looked for that as we've gotten older and I don't want to tell people like I don't want to tell you how to do things, I just want to potentially give you the questions that you never had that could give, that could lead you to the answer that you can be happy with. And so, yes, maybe you're questioning yourself and you're like, what's that next step? I'm not going to tell you what's working out three times a day or that it's, you know, quitting your job and doing other things. I'm just going to say, like maybe we could ask like how we got here or why we're okay with being here, or what could we be if I was unafraid.
Speaker 1:If you ask the question one of my favorite questions what kind of life do you want to gift your time. If you knew the exact amount of time that you had left, what would you do? And that's just like that's what I try to leave people with. It's not about me giving you an answer. It's just more about me potentially giving you a structure of words that could help you in the next steps of like well, actually, that could help you in the next steps of like well, actually, I'd like to do this. I'd like to own a little ice cream shop. I'd like to go have a farm. I'd like to stay in my nine to five. I actually love it here. I just feel like there was maybe something I was missing. You know, who knows I don't, but you definitely do, and that answer is in you. So I believe in you.
Speaker 2:100 somebody to tell us, tell me how to do this, tell me how to get here, tell me. And then we realize after we go through some of that process that that's not what we want. But if we learn how to ask the right questions right, if we learn how to learn the way that God has put us on the search to be able to do, then there's abundance, there's infinite ways that we can take that, and so what I got out of our conversation today is I'm not frustrated, I'm more excited because I get to think about the questions that I do need to ask them the questions that I do need to put, and so thank you for being on the show today, django.
Speaker 2:This has been amazing. I can't wait to talk to you some more and to you know, to follow your life and the things that you're doing For to follow your life and the things that you're doing For those of you that say, hey, this was a good episode. If you find somebody that you know could benefit from it, hey, send it over to them, let them listen to it. Hit the notification button. We're giving as many of these that we possibly can to folks, and I just want you to remember that you, my friend, have got this great gift. We'd love it if you allow them to to, and we look forward to seeing you on the next one. You guys have an amazing day. Thank you for being on. I appreciate it.