Regular Tools? Cultural Pressure? - One Second by How to be Second

Nathan and Mondo unpack the tools they carry into every room. For Mondo, it’s story: scenes from movies and TV shows that become anchor points for belief and vision. For Nathan, it’s structure: whiteboards, frameworks, and sharp questions that unlock clarity. 

Then they get honest about the cultural pressures that have shaped their identities. Nathan unpacks the tension of growing up with unchosen expectations around race, gender, religion, and leadership, and Mondo opens up about wrestling with his own “prodigal son” standards, and the moment his faith reframed race entirely. 

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This is One Second, a conversation between two people with wildly different identities where we're exploring how we're different while embracing that we're better together. In our vernacular at How to be Second, I am a Second, and my co-host Armando Davison, is what we call a natural 1iC, or a Visionary. Enjoy.

Transcript

Nathan: 0:00

Hey, this is Nathan Young, founder and author of How to Be Second, and this is one second, a conversation between two people with wildly different identities, reacting raw to questions from people like you, and exploring how we are different while embracing that we're better together. In our vernacular at how to be second, I am a Second, and my co-host Armando Davison, is a natural OneIC. Let's just get into it. First Question: what tools do you keep ready for your work? When you go to work? What's in the bag that you're like, oh yeah, that, that's on my belt, that's in my bag, that's whatever, but like what do you keep ready to go you go to do work that you do?

Mondo: 0:44

You know, Nathan, this question is so interesting for me because when I think of like, what is the thing that I probably couldn't live without in my Batman utility belt? It's movies and TV shows. We've talked about this before, where in the relationship with a one and a second, like belief is my jam. And so part of being the believer in the dynamic, I need a story. That I've seen before or can kind of remix that I can like tie into my storytelling. So for example, literally this happened this morning. for the audience, Nathan and I are tag teaming on a foundation, in our own kind of way. But the core video. On this landing page, I didn't know how to tell the actual story, like what I really wanted to resonate for a new person that's watching it for the first time. And I was like, mano. The best way that like you can relate to somebody watching it for the first time is tying it to some movie, at least some scene. the scene that I could not get past, and we may have talked about this before, but it's the scene in the accountant. the scene in the accountant with right, the puzzle upside down me talking about, Hey, I met Nathan. This is a true story audience. I met Nathan, he showed me his diagram of business. My mind was blown so much that I was like, my brain never works like that. I was like, what is a way for me to visually represent like that moment in this video? And I was like, oh, it's somebody putting a puzzle together upside down. But then the nuance between that type of mind and the one is the young girl coming and offering that one piece that fell under the table and saying like, here's that final piece. And so there is something about the relationship of those two humans that like transcends a single villain. I'll just say, right? It's just like this is the good guy dynamic duo. The good guy dynamic duo always beats the villain. just my anchor in life is just like, here's the scenario. Is there a scene from a movie or a story arc that I've been able to watch and enjoy? And then how do I bring that to the conversation and say, Hey, do you remember when Batman did this? Or, Hey, do you remember when this happened in the movie Inception? Do you remember when Mickey Mouse did this thing? Whatever it is, that is like extremely culturally relevant. And a person's like, oh yeah. And so it's like, okay, well for their, our next sprint, we need to model that. And then just, I believe in the psychology of the other humans, whoever are on the team, they at least have a seed of hope because in their imagination they've already seen it be accomplished before. So I just need to build upon that seed. So, yeah, like what, what is my tool? It's like I, I need to have seen it happen before somewhere. So I watch a lot of movies and tv.

Nathan: 3:55

as you're unpacking this. of all, I think that's

Mondo: 3:57

First of all,

Nathan: 3:58

you mentioned like this business map thing. I was literally working on it yesterday. I mean, this is something that I use all the time. It's gonna be my answer to this, but. You are saying a are saying like stories. I don't I don't, I don't I don't think, I've been told I've. that I'm really good at like metaphor or analogy, but I make them up on the spot often, or I don't necessarily anchor them to something that somebody has an anchor to. We've been talking about examples in real life of first and second. Pair. You and I know that we've referenced like Batman and Alfred a bunch of times. I was just talking to someone who is a second London she said, oh, the new Wallace and Grommet movie just dropped. And like Wallace is this, you know, sort of like crazy inventor person and loves all of these like fun ideas and whatever, and Grommet is sort of his loyal person who's always saving him from himself and making everything actually work. She literally called Wallace kind of like a bumbler then grommet, like a fixer. But like, they wouldn't have any adventures at all if Wallace wasn't so just like, you know, I just love the world and all the stuff. if grommets were in charge, I think it would, they would all just leave really boring lives. Right? Very clean, boring lives. So as you're saying this, I'm like. This is literally something I've been hunting for recently and coming up short and trying to figure out like, why can't I find these? And you're saying that you just move naturally in the world. Like when you see stuff, you clock it and go, I'm gonna put that story, story beat in my tool. I've seen the accountant. I'm never Yeah. that scene. I am that human being and I registered it. Not at all. Oh, that's so funny because yes, when I watch that movie, I'm just like, yo, this dude as an archetype is Nathan type. That second type so much that's like, I can solve any problem. But like, there's literally scenes where it's like, who is this guy? He's like been seen in pictures like three times over the past 20 years. It's just like, yo, that is that person in the shadow that's getting all the actual stuff done, and it's so fired to me. Yes. There's something really strong in this about these characters we've been talking about this internally. I mean, literally a conversation between myself and Laura Brown, who is my second in command at how to be second, which is funny. we we're literally just talking about putting putting together like a catalog of these kinds of examples and stories Just this idea of like carrying stories in your tool belt. I have one more example for this is why this is so important. It's blowing my mind right now I know this about you. And somehow this is still shocking to me. I was on a walk with my friend Matt Posey, and we were talking about how accounting and financial statements are just the stories you want to tell. Most of the time, the only thing on there that you can sort of rely on is the very top line number, and then everything Then everything else is story to tell, and how you how you tell those stories, understanding some legalities that you have to play in, at the end of the day, what you're doing is you're navigating a storytelling structure with these documents. People who actually approach them like they're just supposed to be factually accurate, are relatively useless higher up, like you have bookkeeping, that's fine, you put all the stuff in the places, but even setting up the buckets where the money is supposed to get allocated to so that it can be on a line in the P&L somewhere is a decision you have to make at a higher level that goes story you want to tell. I've stolen this conversation. This conversation recently in funding has been between EBITDA, which is a very common, has been around for a very long time, so that you look at earnings out the bottom of this stack of things and you go, okay, cool, well I understand classically what the value of this business is because this is, its ebitda. Well, in the last 10 years somebody introduced this word called EBITDAM, and idea is it's before all of those things AND marketing. Because they story they wanted to tell is that they're a hyper-growth firm, and so the reason that they're losing fistfuls of money all the time has nothing to do with their success as a product. What they should be they should be valued on is their success as a product, EXCEPT their marketing spend, Because they’re spending so much money growth focused that you shouldn’t pay attention to that. So we're like, we're gonna hide the fact that we lost$500 million this year the guise of hypergrowth. Yo, this is so fascinating to me, to me, it's like a great example of a yes and story where I feel like I have this, extremely unique gift to like see a nuance in a story that I'm going to tell out loud to somebody else, right? Somebody gave me a compliment yesterday about just being able to influence a room with my storytelling, and I was like, thank you for that. But what you're saying is yes, on the back end though, operationally that same type of nuanced gift is there. It's just applied in a different way, and what I'm telling you right now is if you bring me back there to try to read or interpret or create for that, I'm going to fail miserably. And so being able to partner with a second, or someone who's gifted at telling a story, using that language versus me telling it. In the marketing way, right? What you're putting the 500 million towards, is just such just a dope story in itself, like how that tandem works. That's awesome. Maybe I'm wrong, but I could almost guarantee that it wasn't a finance person who came up with the idea to shove that into marketing and call it EBITDAM and get evaluated on it was definitely a ones idea, yo, what if we tried THIS?!?

Mondo: 9:31

Look, I'm telling you that and what's so dope about what you just said, right? Like at its core ones, and I'm saying this in the most respectful way, many ones are so arrogant that we believe we can just create something out of thin air. Like if the story makes sense enough that it's compelling we're like EBITDAM! Right? Like, like the second is just like, here are all the Lego pieces. I've organized them. What else am I to do? That's like you calling to us and say, bro. He needs me to create a new Lego piece, like one that's not part of this story and then just throw it on the ground and like we get so excited just creating this brand new abstract Lego piece to just make the story more dynamic. The journey that happens when you put these two archetypes together become so fun. When they're both standing or sitting in the seat that they're supposed to sit on because it's like, I'm carrying the ball. Nope, it's your turn. All right, you carry it. Nope, it's your turn. All right. I need you. I need you. And it just goes back and forth. And that valley just continues to happen. what's hitting me right now is there are so many smaller organizations where there's just one person in that seat and they're trying to juggle. Or they don't, they don't have a person to lob it to. And it's just like, yeah, guy or gal who's juggling, you might be able to juggle three balls, but not 97. It's like impossible. You need that other person sitting in that seat to share the load.

Nathan: 11:06

Can I steal it and answer my way?'cause it's boring. But I think it would be fun for people like me.

Mondo: 11:11

Yeah, go for it. Go for it. You got it.

Nathan: 11:13

Well, I mean, I've, I've already, I've sort of showed my hand a little bit, like,'cause I've already started talking about like financial statements and all this other stuff. but I was really excited when I saw this question because I, like you said that like that business map. So for people who are familiar with like big whiteboarding software like Lucidchart or Miro or things like that, I utilize those tools and I use them in a way that other people have been like, yo, we've never. We don't, we don't see people do these things with that stuff. And I'm like, but it's just a big whiteboard. You can just keep going. And so I keep thinking tools. Most of my tools are thinking tools and questions. I think of questions as tools. I think there are rules around these things. So like I have my, my business map. It's got hundreds of nodes on it at this point. and I call it my dependency map. are rules around how to use the map and navigate it and whatever. It's not a linear journey. So I keep that thing available. And I also keep a bunch of frameworks So even like storytelling frameworks,'cause I'm not gonna, I. gonna clock stories. I'm going to understand a framework of how to tell a story. And so I've collected things like. The StoryBrand framework, which is I think business made simple now, or I have all these books on my shelf and all of these like represent different frameworks and I've collected those and I've put them all into this gigantic like lucid or mural or whatever. But I think the most important part of that is. I've learned how to use those tools really well. So as I've seen people come across like, oh, they're, they're like, oh, steal my By AI of automation. give it to you for free, which is just an AI generated LinkedIn post in the first place and whatever. Um, like, this is I'm like, this is the base everybody, Like, the, I'm like, cares? Like you're walking like you're. Depot. The promise of this thing is just Home Depot being like, yo, look at all these tools. And I'm walking around like, well, right, but do you know how to use any of these things? So I have a selection of tools. I do keep a bunch of them and I generally I them in whiteboarding spaces because a lot of these tools are thinking tools, framework, tools, and work gets done within that. And also also. I. Believe. Absolutely. The podcast is actually, this podcast that we're doing right now is a really good example. We make We make space, questions. We navigate we navigate, I back and forth within that. But what we have but what we have space questions. We don't have question. We don't have time frame. so one of my So one of my rules around question get so many people are like, oh, you like, oh questions. And I'm like, no, no, no, no, no. no, You need to bring. sharp, dense questions Mm-hmm.'cause you only get so much time and you only get so much of a per. A person only has so much energy to answer questions. I've had that experience where I'm like 14 questions in and the person's just like I'm so sick of. So that's what I Yo tools.

Mondo: 14:21

that, lemme just say something real quick'cause what's super funny about your question tool. Or a framework. It's literally, I was walking home before this podcast, and for some reason I was thinking if I sat down with Barack Obama, what question would I ask that human? And I was really trying to consolidate, like, Hey, if you gave me an hour, what questions would I ask? And I was like, no, Mando, you just need to ask one dense dope question and then walk out one. It would be kind of arrogant for Obama to have delegated an hour, and then after 15 minutes of his answer, I'm like, oh, I'm good. That's all I needed. I feel like he would be like, Hey, go get that guy. Who is that? Uh, so that's, that's one piece. But literally, this is the question that I came up with and I'm just sharing it just because I just randomly was thinking about it a couple hours ago. I was like, okay, Mr. President, there was a season in your life where. Most of the world did not know who you were, but you were still called to step into a leadership role, and then there was a transition where everybody in the world knew who you were and you were called to be in a leadership role. My question is, what aha. Insight or best practice would you offer me to highlight the difference between how you showed up? To relate to other leaders on both sides of that, I don't know, pendulum, because there's just something about not having the juice and talking to other leaders versus having all the juice and talking to other leaders. And I just really would want somebody to share the insight, like, yeah, every room I walked into, I pretty much had all the juice. But this was best practice on how I needed to show up. So they didn't look at me as being a know-it-all or super arrogant or whatever. Uh, and so that would be my only question. So anyway, sorry to like take that back from you, but, uh, in case Obama is listening to this podcast, uh, he can answer that question.

Nathan: 16:26

Somebody go ask Obama this question. Here's something I love about the question. I do think that is a dense question. It asks so many other things in the one question. Right? Here's what I, here's something else I love about that question. You said, tell me what you did. What's the takeaway from what you did? You didn't say, tell me what you would do, which is to make something up.

Mondo: 16:55

Uh, yeah.

Nathan: 16:55

Right, like the reason we want that, you want to ask this question, the reason I want this question asked now is this person, a real person, really lived through that actual experience and has an answer about what they did.

Mondo: 17:15

100.

Nathan: 17:16

That's incredible.

Mondo: 17:17

That's incredible. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Because there, there's, to me, there is not a more qualified person for me to ask that question to. Like, you had no cache. Before you became president and where somebody was like, yo, Obama's coming. Right? Like you literally went quote unquote nobody to the broader society, to the one, like the main one. And so that human has to show up a certain kind of way, one Right on. Not having his chest out too much. But on the flip side, it's like, well, it has to be out enough. Or somebody are gonna look at you like, like, like, yo, you're not supposed to be in this seat. Which was a huge, like, knock on Obama when he was running for president in the first place. And so, anyways, man, like that question is the foremost, coolest question I feel like I could ask Obama. And so now that I put it out into the universe, uh, my belief is he will answer it one day.

Nathan: 18:15

Yeah, gimme before we close this que, before we close this section down we jump into the next one, gimme like a little bit of a rapid fire. Top five stories that you tend to carry with you, and then I'll shoot out a couple of tools myself.

Mondo: 18:33

Yeah, the, the number one story that I reference now. It is Ted lasso because there are so many great archetypes of humans who start one way, go through some extreme adversity, and then come out of the other side like a more healed human, but in a very like practical. Way where you can see like this person is struggling with their relationship with their wife, or this person is struggling with their relationship with the expectations of their parents, or here's conflicts between two teammates. Like they're very like tangible, relational things where it's like, this episode does a great job of creating like sitcom moments where you're like. I learned something from that, if you're looking for that. Um, outside of Ted Lasso, honestly, I just watched the most random stuff at the most random times, and somehow God just put me on this cadence where after I watched the thing, like within a week. I get to use something from that asset. And so like I use it and then I probably forget about it. And I would say like that's one of the biggest differences probably between you and I, is like my memory is so short that like I only have to cash it for a certain amount of time. I use it and then I move on to the next thing. But it allows me to like. Talk about the story with so much passion'cause it's the only thing really top of mind. And like that's just, I feel like a gift that God gave me. Like I don't need you to have this long memory, just use the tools that I give you in that week and I'm gonna give you some new tools the next, so.

Nathan: 20:19

Yeah, I do not feel that way at all. I feel more like maybe like a librarian, like. I'm

Mondo: 20:24

is dope.'cause I'm like, Hey Nathan, uh, what did you say back in, uh, 1997? You're like, hold on. And then boom, you pull it.

Nathan: 20:32

oh, literally we were trying to get a padlock off of our door.'cause we bought our house, uh, pretty recently and we had this like ceremonial padlock on there we first got it.'cause we rented it for several years before we bought it. But we obviously, we forgot the combination. So we were like, should we get bolt cutters? Should we get whatever? And I was like, yo, hang on. must have told us to lock code at some point. So I got an email out from six years ago that

Mondo: 20:54

Absolutely not.

Nathan: 20:55

it.

Mondo: 20:56

I'd have been like, yeah, where's the boat cutters?'cause uh, I'm not even gonna play that game. Like, let's cut it.

Nathan: 21:00

Yep. Yep. I found it in 10 minutes.

Mondo: 21:03

Uh, that's funny.

Nathan: 21:04

Here are a couple of tools that I use. The very first one is my business map. I refer to it constantly. This is not a tool somebody else could take. Um, except the idea of like building your own sort of like tool. She. So that, that would be the first thing is I have a tool shed, and that's the first tool that I use is a space to store my tools that I can return to consistently. And I know what that space is. And for me, I build everything in Lucidchart. So I guess Lucidchart is my tool, and then also that's where I keep my tool shed. The second one The second one is like, like I said, like I said, structures, so like funnel sales how a marketing funnel works, how product product and work. How and breakdowns break, of those things, and then and then we for. Same page page. meeting agendas. So like I believe in having a consistent agenda every single time.'cause I think there are only a few questions that matter once again, like ask the right questions in the short time. And so like I So like I have a set agenda. go I never go anywhere today my two most important questions. And those are what's going well and what do we wish were going well? Because they play, they pinch they, they potentially, so many situations. It's ridiculous, right? What's going what's going well? ask it over the course of six months of same page meetings, I can. I write If I write down answers, copy all of copy all of those at the end of six months, and I can use it as a testimonial thing. I can use it as slides, as a case study. I can use it as a way to prove A to prove value I'm, you know, like looking for a promotion or promotion. that I've done to remind myself for future, whatever. So many So many people, for testimonials at the very end of a situation. I gather them all along all, and it's and so it makes note you. the person across from Person you, you can just hand'em a document and say, can you just strike what you don't want said? And then almost every single time, unless you totally biff the relationship, they're just like, you can say all of that. All of that sounds all. said that, oh my gosh, we did do that. That's so great. Like, it almost like will restore a relationship. so I never go anywhere without those tools. And then the last thing is basically an Eisenhower Matrix. Very similar thing to that. And that is something that Tony and I came up with called the Nine Box. And it's not that HR thing. You can find it at nine box.info, or how to be second.com/the nine box. But it's a sim very similar to an Eisenhower Matrix, and it's a nine point grid like I think of everything in that.

Mondo: 23:29

Hey, what's super interesting about that is when you started talking about this Eisenhower Matrix, I'm like, what is this dude talking about? Then you're like, nine bucks, and I'm like, oh, yeah, I absolutely know what that is, but I had no idea that there was like. Another framework label for what it was. I was, I was like, Eisenhower never heard this before. So anyways, that's just the depth of you being like, Hey, everything has a label or a frame or something that's built on top of another thing. And so that's just your, your jam all day.

Nathan: 23:57

That's right. Everything we come up with is just something somebody else came up with that we're spinning or refining or whatever.

Mondo: 24:04

I love it. All right. I, I can jump to this next question because. The world is a great influencer to us all in some form or fashion, and many times there are. Cultural pressures rather it is as a business person, as a family man, as the head of a household, as a brother, as a son, uh, for me, race played a lot in my like cultural pressure type of growth experience. And so my question is. When it comes to like the world and cultural pressures, what is expected of you?

Nathan: 24:48

Man, I like to answer questions literally i've been saying since I started how to be second, that like somebody's gonna get me canceled at some point. so like, let's just be prepared for that, right outta the gate. like, look, I'm a 37-year-old white male talking about identity. We're gonna get canned at some point here. Um. So

Mondo: 25:07

I got your back. Don't worry.

Nathan: 25:09

let Culturally I think I have a few things attacking me, putting pressure on me, right? Like if I'm the submarine and I'm deep in the ocean, here's what I feel like is creating a lot of pressure. From the outside. I do think that the color of my skin has a lot to do with like, I can't, there's nothing I can do about it. I was born white and And have been I have informed my entire life life that that I frankly, like being born in America, lucky to have been born white. There's nothing I can do nothing I can do about that. So all a pressure. However, I want to navigate that. That is a pressure. I was born male. Same the. It was not a choice. It's just a cultural reality that I face. Another thing I did not choose, I grew up in a I grew up in a was incredibly, like hyper like, Um, I wouldn't say I wouldn't say scary, would say. I would say, Not that far off. And and that that. a pretty substantial cultural pressure. And I was born I was born was a big family. I had lots of brothers and sisters. And I was and I was also raised So like I never went like I never went, until college and I chose and I chose college against the judgment the judgment. uh, the most of the people around me. So, so culturally, Ly I grew up, I grew up the pressures I was facing. However, however I reacted to. that call that somebody else is gonna have to make. But those are the ones that I'm like, what's expected of me? And I would say a lot of expectations were handed to me very early on a bunch of decisions that I didn't make. And then I decided I didn't like most of those expectations and I wanted to go find somewhere else the expectations were different. I didn't feel like my I. resonated with a lot of the expectations on me. And then I chose a lot of other rooms to be in that were like business related or, different ways of navigating my faith that were more like charismatic and like literally the church that I grew up in, we weren't supposed to like put our hands in the air while we were singing. And I full broke from that. Like, I was like, Nope. But it took me decades to do that. And then I planted a vineyard church, which is like pretty charismatic. Still not. You know, but, um, but was pretty charismatic and so I chose a lot of other rooms to be in and I think I had a lot of cultural pressure that I didn't get to choose different rooms. So that's the first thing. And then the second thing is, now that I've been navigating those different ones, the continued cultural pressure is be the first in command and like. Every room Every room that I wanted. it doesn't matter how much I tell people like I want to serve. I love being second, like this on my Putting this on the wall on, when I wear my hat. You know, like I, I carry I carry this thing thing. not just the role that I play, but the identity. And I use this word, follower and culture around me hates this. I feel the pressure constantly of me being like, what healthy followership is. And people are like, being a follower is tra like, you know, like nobody should be a follower. And I'm like, tell that to the disciples of Christ. They were hung upside down. Right. We've bastardized something grandiose and beautiful. Now we think that there's this like simplistic, singular version of what it means to be a leader, and it means to strive to the top means to. Only ever use the word leader we've completely meshed together authority and leadership as concepts. So now authority automatically means that you're a leader, which that's obviously not true. And think that's so I think that's the I part the time. at the time and there's a certain amount of cultural pressure that's like one on expects expects me go in that direction. that direction. Including can like and like my current faith. And like there are lots of circles within that that are like, oh, are you the head of your household? And I'm like, my wife and I are the head of my household. Right? Like there we're the head of we're the head of our household. Like what, what are you asking? What, you know, like what are you intending me to be? And this, um, and on the flip side of that, if I leave that room or even just am in that room. Somebody in that room is also going to be like, yes, but you're white and privileged and you have all these other things, so you should be doing this other stuff and you should be uplifting everyone else. So I have two voices constantly being like, well, you have all of these things so you should be out front. so you taking this like second or second in command or whatever, or buying into this idea that you can be a healthy follower and using those terms interconnecting that with what a that actual leader is and like, and like that's not a thing that's not a thing, And at the and at the same time, pressure from the other side. you have all of these things that you were gifted without your choice, and so how dare you not use all of those things to uplift other people. And so it just And so just all the all the time. how to navigate that. But those are cultural pressures and what I feel like is expected of me. That's my feeling, insane answer to this question.

Mondo: 30:28

I think what's so cool about your answer is your vulnerability to be able to say, there's a lot of things happening. It's hard for me to say these things out loud. Yes, and I'm still gonna say them out loud, right? Like, I don't know how to say them in a way that I know everybody is gonna be like, oh yeah, you explained that really well. No, it was more like, I'm gonna say something that somebody doesn't like one day and they're probably gonna try to cancel me, but I have enough courage and awareness of myself that I'm gonna lead with. I don't know. I'm saying these things out loud, so maybe tomorrow I know a little bit more and I think that that's super dope that we've created this safe space to just be able to say things out loud that we may have to like reflect on three years from now and be like, oh yeah, like I had no real context to like what I was saying back then. Now I have a more awareness. Let me now say a good answer to this out loud at 40 as opposed to like how I feel at 37. Uh, so shout out to you for that.

Nathan: 31:37

Thank you.

Mondo: 31:38

On the flip side, uh, historically in my journey, and I wanna say this like in a way that to most humans, I have always. Shown up as the nice guy or the good guy. I say that a lot. Yes. And there are humans who have got really close to me over the years who would also say, and he's pretty narcissistic, right? And so I like wanna put these two things together because I'm gonna talk about culture. Uh, but I'm not necessarily going to like, fully resonate with the word pressure because I've lived with a level of narcissism that I had to release. But like, I never really felt pressure from somebody else's opinions of me.'cause like, honestly, I just didn't care. So one shout out to you talking about Christ and Followership because one of the quote unquote. Cultural pressures, and I'm gonna use the word expectations, one of the cultural expectations for me was to always lead.

Nathan: 32:38

Okay.

Mondo: 32:38

you're spot on. Like the expectation is never follow, always lead. And I feel like that becomes an unhealthy habit over time. If you never build a relationship with Christ and follow his word, I definitely fell in that bucket and made some unhealthy choices along the way. However, I will say that the pressure that I put on myself is definitely the story of the prodigal son. Like I always looked in the mirror and said, bro, bro, you have all the tools that a lot of humans wish they had. If you're playing a video game and you have all these attributes in the video game, when you do a create a character

Nathan: 33:17

Mm-hmm.

Mondo: 33:18

and you like build, build up their character bars. Like, I don't feel like there's a single character bar that's below 80%. Like it doesn't even matter what it is. It's like, yo, can you back stroke, swim? I'm like, yep, 80%. Like, and I, I'm not even a swimmer, right? But just to myself, like, God, just give me, gave me the gifts to just believe that I could do anything at that level. So with that prodigal son. Expectation of myself. The pressure is living up to the outcomes that I believe are expected of me, and so I share through my journey that I. In sports I'd win championships or MVP or most value whatever, like all these things and trophies and accolades or recognize in like business magazines or newspaper or whatever. Like people are like, oh yeah, Monte's that guy. But to me, I never actually felt proud of those things because in reflection I was just like. Well, duh. Like God gave me these tools that that's the, that's the standard bar. I'm supposed to be able to deliver on these qualities that you are saying that I have. And so there was always like this far reaching over the biggest mountain reach, the sky type expectations that I had for myself because I'm like, if I do anything. Regular or standard, I'm disrespecting the gifts that I've had given to me. And so when you talked about Jesus, like flipping the story upside down, what I've learned about myself was, yes, Armando Mando, you can continue to climb the ladder to get to the highest heights. But can you also go to the very last bottom spot in your environment and lead from the back? Can you lead from last place with hope, with faith, with grace? And like when I did that for the last three years, that was the first time I felt proud of myself.

Nathan: 35:23

Hmm.

Mondo: 35:24

'cause I was like, this is so hard. It was just the most challenging thing to step into a room pretty much with nothing, and like not even try to get anything from the room or anybody else, but to your point, to just be in service, not ask for anything monetary in return. Just be in service. And I feel like as a one, right? Or the one,'cause there are many people who believe they are the one. I feel like if you truly believe that about yourself, you will follow the prodigal son arc. Meaning you go out, you do all this stuff, and then eventually like you crash, bro. Guy or gal, like it's inevitable that you crash. And when you crash you can either like pick yourself up and get up and try to like keep going in the direction that you are going, or you can crash and pivot back towards God and build that relationship and be like, man, thank you for giving me the autonomy to go do things on my own, but now I'm willing to follow you. Follow your guidance. And so honestly, man, like on the cultural pressure side, for me it is living up to my own standards and like having unwavering faith that like somehow God is gonna put me in the right position at the end of the day. And I'll say real quick to just layer on top of this,'cause you brought up like a second thing. The second thing where you talk about canceling that I imagine is gonna happen in some form or fashion for myself is when I chose to follow Christ, I read a single line in the Bible. That 100% in that moment obliterated race for me, like as a construct. It was just like, yo, I grew up, went to an HBCU. I branded myself as a black tech guy. I was all for black community. Like that was at the forefront. And then like biblically, I just read it and I read it again. I was like, God, are you telling me this? And then it was like a atomic bomb that just blew up and like I could no longer like hold on to like blackness as the defining foundation of myself.

Nathan: 37:31

Hm.

Mondo: 37:32

And it was just like, no, mano, I need you to go deeper than that. Like. You are a child of God, period. And so now as I move in the world, there are a lot of organizations or beliefs that like we have to build this thing that is for black people. And I'm not saying that those things aren't necessary. They are, but my lane is not that lane. And so really trying to figure out then where do I sit in the story? Where is God guiding me? Because my call to action is not to build Wakanda, it's to build something that lives outside of or separate from Wakanda that is more inclusive to all in a way that lives outside of our realm of comprehension. And so anyways, man, that's, that's my long-winded way of talking about my cultural pressures. Uh, but I'll leave it there.

Nathan: 38:19

I have a lot that I could say to follow on. To that, and think the right thing to do is go. you. Let's honor the way we have this set up and end it right there.

Mondo: 38:32

Dope till next time.

Nathan: 38:34

Hey, it's Nathan again. If you made it to the end, that's awesome. I have a couple ways you can go deeper if you are interested, if you resonated with the way that Nathan talked about himself and how he sees the world, Nathan is me. You might be what we call a Second, which is an identity, not a role. We have a couple ways to dig into that curiosity. You can take our, am I a second assessment on our website or Howtobesecond.com/assessment. You can grab the book, How to be Second from our website or Amazon, or almost anywhere you like to buy books, including on audio. If you resonated with Mondo or you'd like to resonate that way, but you're feeling stuck, you can find Mondo on LinkedIn by searching for Aramondo That's A-R-A-M-O-N-D-O. Mondo deploys his natural 1iC'ness to support people who are stuck in themselves and their thinking to break through towards their biggest ideas and their self in a casual setting, like a walk or a phone call. If you're inspired by what we're doing here, you can support how to be second at howtobesecond.com/support Thanks again. I'm looking forward to our next conversation.