Killing the Narrative, Sharing the Experience: Christopher Lacey

What is up, Chris? I think you are on mute.

How about now? I hear you now. I am doing well. I was actually just on a walk with my mom and a friend of mine who helps me with work. Nice. 45 minutes, beautiful day for it.

Yeah, I'm hoping I'm able to work on the patio today. I'm stacked until like seven o'clock tonight, but it is pretty outside. I didn't break this morning outside, so it was nice.

Yeah, I know. You live up by the woods, so you have a lot of nature to enjoy.

Yeah, I literally live in the woods on the side of a mountain.

That's goals right there, to be honest. I think I've shared that with you before. That's where I want to move to, just a secluded area in the woods.

Yeah, it helps. It's definitely helped during this time, that's for sure. But I miss traveling, I have to say. I need to travel, but whatever, what can you do? What's up? You look great, meanwhile.

I'm lucky. Thank you. I'm lucky that I have a garage gym. Over the years, I've put a lot of work into getting equipment, either from sweat equity investments or friends helping out. And yeah, I've just been making sure that my mind is right so that when we do get out of this, I'm just showing up to be the best person I can be and to have my freedom. I feel like I'm in that space. It feels good.

Awesome. Yeah, awesome. I know I bought kettlebells and bands, and then I wasn't about to buy this thing. It's called the Surge. It's really cool. You can get it at like 40 and 60 pounds, but you fill it with water and you work out. It's amazing. It's kind of like a giant barbell.

Does it have any give to it? Like, when you're holding it, is it shaking?

No, no, no. It's totally smooth. The design technology of it. So I think I'm gonna order one because it doesn't look like gyms are opening anytime soon.

Not group settings or membership-based gyms. They could do private training one-on-one with social distancing, but Equinox doesn't know that. I think that's going to be a while.

Yeah, yeah, for sure. Yeah, it may come south. It might be like Raphael come out and train me in the garage gym. We'll save an hour where it's just you and I. Let me know. So how are things at Mastermind Connect? I actually need to officially join it now because between my podcast and the school, I spent a lot of time doing mentor work. I was like, I gotta get involved with them. So how's that going?

It's great. We're doing a kind of schooling with the members where I had my course for fitness. I had modules set up, they would watch modules, I would do a Q&A weekly, and they have access to my exercise app. So that was one class. We had a guy doing life coaching, another guy talking about business.

Did you get an exercise app? This was a couple weeks ago. I outsourced it to a company that takes care of the backing of it and building that out, giving people another resource. Where I'm at now is there's so much content that I have, I'm just trying to organize it to put it on a schedule to let it go out because I just don't have the bandwidth.

I know. I sent out a text to everyone yesterday that I'm not responding to texts or taking phone calls for the next three days because I feel that. And you know this, one of the things is when you are doing work for yourself, you become so in it. Everything is you. You're every single person. So I have my company plus the university, and then panels, webinars, creating all that kind of stuff. Before I know it, my week goes by like that, and the only thing I have for myself is this hour where I work out. And so people are texting or calling, and you're like, I don't want to talk anymore.

But funny story. This past Friday, it was a long week and it was time for myself to work out. My boy shows up, he has no energy. I'm not even trying to ball, I'm just trying to work out. Then my friend Marsha, she helps me with work, and I look at him like, you have sneakers in the car? And right there she makes a face. And I'm just like, you know what guys, let's call it. I took a drive. I just got the hell away from everybody. I was like, I'm done. I just need freedom.

You just need a minute. You need a minute. And also, look, there's a lot happening to us energetically with the planets right now. We've got five planets in retrograde. Venus just went direct, so that's good. So there's a lot of internal things going on for us right now. It's forcing you to slow down, even thinking about your childhood, past relationships, how you want to communicate in future relationships. There's a lot happening on a universal scale that's impacting us. So if you're in tune to it, you notice it and you feel it.

For sure. You need to break away. Hold on a second. Say whatever you're about to say. I'll talk about Mastermind Connect. All in all, it's going well. I got you with the intro. I introduced you to Mike, the founders Mike, Manny, and JD. They'll be great for you to talk to. JD is such an intellectual, amazing human being. You got Manny who's very analytical and has that military type of movement. And then Mike is spiritual, he gets it. I feel like you'll have a great conversation with all of them. I'll put you in a group chat, let them know you're interested, and just flow. I know it'll be magic. I'm excited to see how that grows.

For real. What's your book? What's going on?

Yes, so with the book, I'm in the process of doing these interviews where I'm looking to decide sooner rather than later if I want to go down the route of making a book of quotes from the people I've met in my life that have impacted my life and other people's lives, and our leaders, to share gems for the next generation. And the other side of it is a book about health and fitness, health and wellness, where people feel like they're having issues and ways to overcome that. Through these interviews, I'm putting a platform for you to be able to talk about how you're feeling with these several issues. But more so, the book will be health and fitness or gems for the next generation. And with what you said about the planets and how we're all affected individually as well as a collective, how are you personally maneuvering through the changes happening on the planet, the changes happening in this physical realm with the nations and civil rights?

Yeah, I think it's a big question because I've gone through so many different stages since I first started. I have to break it out. The work side of me has never been busier. And I guess to start, whenever there's a crisis, a crisis brings opportunity. So I was very fortunate to be in a spot where I was able to see, okay, what's the opportunity for this? First of all, with my students, how do we pivot the learning outcomes to online? Which then brought about me producing, creating, and hosting a podcast where they get to listen to experts from all different types of backgrounds, giving them access to this because they no longer have that access. They're confined, but so that they felt connected. I think the other part of it is, and I didn't notice I was doing this to myself, I was working far more than I ever was prior to the crisis, and I didn't recognize I was burning myself out. Because before, my home is a place where I disconnect and meditate and get that moment of silence, but that no longer happened because now I was working from home all the time. I was working from home non-stop and then trying to feel comfortable in my space where I worked in this space. I honestly kind of had this moment where, and I think I'm still processing through it, feeling burnt out, exhausted. How do I navigate this? The future of what might happen with a pandemic plus what's been going on on a social level, because that's stressful. I turned 40 two weeks ago, and everything that people are talking about is not new for me. I think that added on a different level because then if you're a person who's Black in any organization, all of a sudden you're on extra Zoom calls because people want you to talk about or help them navigate this space as well.

Sorry for interrupting. You're a person in a position of influence, of power so to speak, where what you say matters because the rooms you're in are with people that are making decisions as you make decisions. And I think that's also in and of itself a level of stress because you also want to say, I'm not the voice of every person that's my color or my gender or sexual orientation, but I am one of the few in this room. For me, I have always been one of the few in the fashion industry first and foremost. There were not many that looked like me. I didn't have that mentor that was Black and an executive in fashion. That just didn't exist. So you talk about navigating that space, and then you navigate that same space in education. So yeah, to your point, when you are that voice sitting at the table, you have to be very precise in what you say and very precise in what you want the outcomes to be from what you say. And I think that brings on, because it's funny how you have to navigate the truth so that it is palpable for people so that they digest it, but that they're able to digest it and actionable results come from it. And I think the biggest part of the conversation which is stressful about it is, and what I've said is, most Black people when we're engaging with those who are White, in the back of our mind we do have it in our head that they might be racist, but it is their level of professionalism that helps us determine or decide to sway towards how racist they might be. So a lot of it could be navigated without them if they behaved in a professional manner consistently. Then the topic of racism all of a sudden isn't as important because if you're a professional person, you don't open those doors for racism to exist in a professional atmosphere. Does that make sense?

100%. Where the relationship stays in a specific manner where it doesn't stray from it, there's boundaries. And that's where it could get tricky. You know what I believe? The way the world's working, business is now becoming more about relationships. We're focusing on how that grows. So ultimately, as we start to give and take with relationships, you're gonna start to see what people's true feelings are about certain situations when they maybe let something out under their breath because they feel comfortable. Is that sort of where you were getting to?

Yeah, I think we have to. It's really just... I think the bigger issue is we've always looked at racism the wrong way. There's a lot of things I have to say about that. If we talk about racism, when we define it, we typically define it from the role of the aggressor. If we look at the definition of racism, that causes us to always think that racism is a social issue. If we really look at it, systemic racism has always been designed to oppress a group of people from an economic perspective. And the bigger issue as to why movement hasn't happened on this is because everyone thinks it's about something that's social and community, which it is, but it's really an economical thing. When people start to realize the actual cost of racism when it comes to social programs, when it comes to developing businesses in a corporate atmosphere, when it comes to all the things of how you make money, and you look at the cost that racism does to that, the conversation changes because one thing people care about more than someone else is money.

And maybe make sure that they got enough to be good and have that nut.

Exactly. So when you look at demographics and you go, okay, 51, 52% of Black adults are more inclined to spend money with a brand that cares about the same social issues as they do, that's a big deal. Because you go, all right, that same population is the population that every brand is always trying to target when they're like, how do we build community and be more authentic? But yet you kind of ostracize or take the culture from one group and then use it to make money without involving that group on the royalty side of things where now they're also getting money and profit from everything going on. So I think it's one of those things when you just look at it, if any business really did market reporting the way they should and looked at demographics, they would have seen long ago the power of the Black community, they would have seen the power of the Latinx community, they would have seen the power of the LGBTQ community. These are communities that have disposable incomes. The Latinx community is seeing far more educated Latinos in the US than has ever existed before, and with that is huge because it means their earning potential has gone up. And where are they spending money? Colgate understood this. When Colgate did it, they went to South America and they were like, you know what, we're gonna put together dental care kits for people in South America. And so now, this is so amazing what Colgate did. They did this years ago. They don't actually call it toothpaste. They seriously just go to the store and say, I want Colgate. Because they went into the community first and they understood that community, and they understood that by giving people health, by understanding what this community needed, it made them healthier, it made them far more consumer aware, and guess what? It got their market share. So where was that base? That was based on the idea of community and economy. It wasn't really about being social. That was the byproduct of it. Does that make sense? It was kind of already immersed into the conversation by saying, okay, cool, if we're in the room, it's already here. Colgate part of a lifestyle. Oh, this helps me feel better. So we in the US think of it in such a twisted way most of the time. We think things are a zero-sum total, which is, oh my gosh, if we allow this group of people to have this, then we won't have anything. But it makes more sense for more people to be able to make money so that we all make money. And when you put it in that perspective, all of a sudden the conversation changes. And that's part of my thing on racism. That's the fault because it's like, all right, now understanding that with any type of racism, there's gonna be companies trying to be affiliated with the movement to either exploit it if they're not a part of the community already, or to keep the money with the community that's actually doing the movement.

So now that poses a question for me in the sense of, who's duty is it? But you know, who should be stepping up in these communities to continue to raise this to be talked about and to be spread around the communities that are actually coming together? There's clarity as to why. The only thing I'm not seeing, which is what you mentioned, because when you're in these groups in general, you've said you have to give proper action steps. I still think that with the action steps to move forward, it's still kind of foggy. I think there needs to be something that has to do with being able to say, all right, cool, now we're gonna start to put our money into these businesses and try to create this Harlem, this Black Wall Street again.

Yeah, I mean, and those things absolutely have to occur, but we have to look all the way down. We have to start in every single sector and every industry. So even from education, what does education look like? And this is really the biggest actionable step is to start with, and I know people are upset about this, but defunding the police. The idea that people think that it means to dismantle police is crazy. We've never... I think the thing that kills me and what's so very telling about the US is nobody made this big of a deal when it was about defunding educational programs. Nobody made this big of a deal when it was about defunding social programs that helped communities. There wasn't near as big a deal or pushback about this. People let those programs become defunded and didn't care. And so that right there is a huge portion of it. If you make sure that there's money going into the neighborhoods appropriately, equitably, then everything ends up happening. Because once children are able to have that process go, then what happens as they become adults? They're no longer lost Einsteins. They're in the lingo, they're a part of the show. And that's what needs to happen. Because luckily for me, I was blessed to go to Equinox where I was just talking to a lot of people. My MBA was going through my process with one of my clients who became a mentor. Without it, I would still... I don't know where I'd be today. You need to learn certain things to be able to understand and be at a certain frequency to even be a part of this game we call life that is already being played in America. So like we said, if it starts off with education, now these kids are going to be able to grow and be smarter at a younger age, be able to be seen as young adults, which they should be treated and talked to as respectful young human beings in general.

Yeah, and I think you said something that's important. You said you had an MBA and then you had a mentor, and then you probably wouldn't be where you are in that moment. Because you went through that process of going, all right, let me find, or let me keep my mind open enough that even though I got an MBA, I want to be open to learning from someone else.

That's correct. No MBA. My MBA was like the streets. That was my MBA. It was more like a gorilla, which is even more important because one of the things, if anybody ever asked me why my career became the way it did, it's because no matter what role I was in, I always knew I wanted to learn more. There was an inquisitive nature about understanding that I only knew to the level of which I knew. And I fortunately was able to seek out people, and because of my work ethic, people were like, I want to hear what he has to say, and I'm willing to invest in it. And we have to be able to start doing this for all. I don't mean just Black, brown, I mean for socioeconomic situation. People who are at a certain level, if you're at a dinner party and you look around and everyone has the same background as you, then it's your responsibility at that point to be like, you know what, I need to diversify this. I need to start applying myself to other areas. It's truly that's why Maslow's higher hierarchy of needs exists. So you had somebody who was a mentor who was willing to do that, just like I've had those same people, and now I'm in that spot to go, now I'm doing that, and you're doing that now. So I think that's another part of it. So you go education, and then you go on the other end, people who've made it through the curve, what are they doing with that? And it's like what you mentioned, the exposure to the rooms. Because now with me, let's say I'm blessed to have the exposure to talk to people, connected. Now I'd be, if we're looking at the sense of doing our job for our species, I'd be selfish to not be going into new rooms to see what can I provide. Here are my tools, here my resources. How can I pass this down? Because that also requires work and it requires that exposure of how to mentor, how I was mentored, to then be to say, all right, I need to go to different rooms and show up. And I feel like that also adds to the whole thing where exposure is everything. If we have a couple kids especially growing up from a hood, like I went to school in the Heights before I moved to Jersey, all of this was new to me. Especially moving to suburbs, that's one whole thing I had to learn. Going to college, another thing I had to learn. Then going into the business world, learning, learning, learning. And like you said, especially in education, if kids aren't being exposed or have opportunities to see this, they won't even know it's true because of what you said where it's like you knew what you knew and you knew that there was more to learn.

And it's going to be really... I had a conversation with someone who is, if I were to ever say someone is a second mom, she is. Her name is Cheryl Stallworth, and she was actually CEO of North America's, actually of all the Americas, for one of the biggest marketing firms in the world. And she is a Black woman. She is around my mom's age. And I remember when I first met her, I was like, this woman right here is amazing. And she forced me to think about things in a different way. But anyways, the thing about Cheryl which I find so interesting, and that she and I talked about, is when she was growing up, there was this time right after civil rights where there was a movement towards the appreciation of the Black experience and trying to create a better system. So you look at the 70s and you kind of look at the 80s, and you can even see it in education at the time because you had tons of White people that were doing things like Black studies. It wasn't an elective. Black studies now is an elective in school, right? And that was not the case before. And so she and I talked about, and I go, you know something happened, and I've wanted to research this. In the 80s to the 90s, this breakdown occurred. Correct. And I don't know if it was just that, but I think there was a breakdown that occurred within the Black community relative to assimilation. So sometimes I think, and I know because I was born in 1980, my brother was born in 1974. The way my brother identified with being Black is totally different than how I identify with being Black. To the point where it's so funny because if I go back and think about my time growing up, I did a really good job of assimilating. I assimilated to the point where I don't know that I really truly rediscovered my Blackness until I was in my late 20s, early 30s. And I felt that to navigate the space, I needed to assimilate more and definitely become more colonized in my approach. And was that a detriment to the Black experience? And did other kids born in the 80s who came from a Black or person of color background have that experience? And so when you talk to Cheryl and how she regards her Blackness and how it was, it's just totally different than I think it was for me growing up. And even my brother, it's interesting.

It makes sense because you grow up in different times. That's going to give you different experiences which will ultimately give you wisdom from a different perspective. You and your brother, same blood, 70s and 80s. He had to see certain things that formulated his opinion on how to assimilate and what that meant to stay who he was. And for you, you're like, all right, cool, you stay true to yourself while still understanding, all right, I need to realize that the game, the playing field that's in front of me, I need to learn. Let me go in for it with this lens.

Yeah, I think you know what? I ended my brother with, Ryan was very much this is who I am. He had his LL Cool J poster on the wall. Because of him, I heard Eric B. and Rakim and listened to that. And for me, it was great because now when I talk about street culture, I understand what street culture came from. When we talk about in the fashion industry and have to educate... Don't mind me, I got to go to the charger, so I'm going mobile right now. But for me, I feel like I'm now as an adult deconstructing all the things I did growing up because I navigated a space quite differently in the sense that not only was I assimilating because I wanted to be liked, for people to not think of me as Black in the room, but I also was always being someone else because I didn't want people to know that I was the gay boy in the room either. So even more complex situation with navigating. I don't... It wasn't until I was 35, I have to say, that like, you know, I went on a trip. I was in Colombia, in Cartagena, and I met a shaman there. Whatever. And cool, he had a really cool conversation. It was an amazing conversation. And he said to me, he was like, you really have to discover who you are. And at the time, at age 35, if somebody asked me who I was, if your name wasn't Christopher, because we love to name everything, what are you? Who are you? I have no idea. I had spent my entire life navigating around people so that I would be accepted no matter what. So I honestly, there was one. I'm like, I don't even know if I really like that. I have to be honest. I know that I would do things like go camping because I need to say, okay, but I don't fucking like camping. You hate flies and mosquitoes. I'm like, this is not roughing it to me. But I did it because I was like, I need to prove that I'm rugged and that I can do this. And so there are things that I needed to, over the last five years, that I've had to peel back on myself and go, who am I really? Who is? And also discovering and speaking to the ten-year-old, the eight-year-old, the ten-year-old, 13-year-old Black boy growing up in Dallas, Texas, who I ignored to be something else. And so that, you know, when you, so if you were to ask me right now to bring it back to your original question, this whole thing has forced me to do that in a different way. One because we're in a pandemic, and so that level of isolation makes you slow down. You have even more time to think, which God knows I didn't need more time to think. I think it's a good thing for us to all think in the sense of slowing things down because the world is moving so fast. Small example, I'm literally just driving on the street and the speed limit is 25 miles per hour. So I'm like, you know what, let me slow down and drive the speed limit to really see what the tempo is here for us, as opposed to feeling like I got to drive 35 miles per hour to go to a place where we're constructing this idea of what's important for that given moment. And pulling back who I truly am has been interesting for me personally because I'm at the point where I was telling a girl I interviewed two days ago that I just want to be content and happy with where I'm at. Grateful that even if this is my last moment, my last second alive, I can say I lived genuinely and happily because that's all I can control is the present moment. And I said that to say that that's powerful to be able to come to terms and grips with the notion of, all right, I'm a human being. This is me. You want to accept it, cool. If not, it is what it is.

No, no, because that goes into peeling back layers. You really start to figure out... I think for me, it was reconnecting with my spirit in a way that I hadn't before. And by the way, from a kid, I was very much spiritually connected. But I think it's always been there. But I think now, this sounds crazy, but because I was able to slow myself down, I definitely feel more connected just to earth and other people. One thing about me is that anyone who's ever dated me or anyone who knows me will tell you that I use logic for everything. So when we talk about my emotions, I don't feel my emotions. I think my emotions. So that's very frustrating for people who feel because I'm like, I don't understand why you're crying. And I really would be like that. But I was like, I don't remember when I became that way because I grew up in an extremely loving home. I love my parents. I got hugs. And I'm like, where did that happen? Where was I disconnecting? What version of that boy did that happen? And I started to really kind of trace back and go, I stopped feeling emotions because feeling emotions meant that I was being weaker than my White counterparts. It meant me also being very exposed possibly as being gay. And so I was like, I will... I can... I loved to think anyway. I was always in my head thinking. And so instead of me feeling something, I just wouldn't feel it. And I mean, I just wouldn't feel. I could easily just be like, okay, so you're feeling this way because that makes no sense. And then I would totally logically put it away. And that's it. And two weeks ago, I was, and when I tell you I've been working on stuff, I was working on stuff. And I'm sitting on my patio, I'm doing work, and I started thinking about my parents for whatever reason and started thinking about myself growing up. And out of nowhere, I could not stop crying. Like crazy. Had to call my parents and was like, I don't know. I don't know. Okay, because no one... People know me not like that. I do not. And when I tell you, it was just because I was like, there were so many things I was feeling because I was thinking about what's happening in our world relative to the pandemic. And then I was thinking about how, you know, when the numbers came out and they were talking about how the numbers are really high amongst the Black and Latino population, and I was like, right, but you don't mention that they're also the essential workers. They're in the roles of doing those jobs that are customer facing, that are in hospitals, they're doing those roles. And then thinking about things that happen with the deaths of even more Black people. And it just became so overwhelming to me because it was almost as if I could just feel the sense of the earth itself. And that sounds really wild to say, I know.

No, I trust me. I'm there spiritually with you. So I hear you. I'm feeling you.

So yeah, so I think it was like, I could feel the flux of it all, and it was overwhelming to me. And I still feel like there's a level of me where I feel tired. I just feel... You know, I don't know if your grandparents or anything that you grew up with around people, but they used to use the word weary. And I remember just as a kid being like, what does it mean to feel weary? You know, what does it mean? And you know what a word is, but a word really doesn't mean anything until you feel what that must mean. And everyone that takes everything to a deeper level with life and sentences... Yeah, and I went from being, oh my gosh, I just feel tired, to quite honestly recalling the word and being like, this is what weary feels like. This is official. I always knew the definition of it, but until you feel what the definition is, it doesn't make sense.

For the past two Wednesdays, I'm glad you brought this up because I'm telling Marshall after this that that's what last Wednesday, Marcia and I, we were trying to do work. We did nothing for the whole day. We just had no energy, no ambition. We were drained. And truly to the point that it was weariness where we were just like, what is happening? And I think that what you mentioned, the connection to the earth, is just being felt deeper. There's less distractions. We're not driving, we're not moving, we're doing what we need to do. We're taking the time out to decompress, to work harder, whatever case may be. But it is a heavy time for everybody. It's intense to feel where now you just have to sit in it and process it and try to release it for that given moment. But you know, take the floor. You have to sit in it. You're being forced to sit in it. Especially right now, like I said, you've got five planets that are in retrograde. Of course, Mercury is in retrograde, and everyone is always like, oh no, Mercury is in retrograde. But this particular retrograde for Mercury is really talking about deconstructing who you are, even from breaking away from what you were like as a child, and really understanding those relationships. Saturn is in retrograde, which makes you focus on the exact same thing. Pluto went retrograde. So you have all of these planets that are pulling you inward. But we don't like to be inward facing. We're very outward faced. We feel like we need to be doing something. And then if you go on Instagram and people are always like, if you don't come out of this pandemic with a side hustle and if you aren't doing this, then you're like, wait, I should be learning Mandarin right now. I better start learning Mandarin. And it's all kinds of crazy stuff. It's that we've decided that we need to be doing something instead of just pulling back and looking inward and being okay looking inward. And being okay with that. Being okay sometimes even... I want to say, even though right now I'm tearing up thinking about it, think about the last time you even looked in the mirror and just gave yourself appreciation for how far you've come, how much you've grown. If we really sit down and think about that, that would make us cry. I've had moments in my life where it'd be an accomplishment or something that felt good, and I'm like, yo, this feels good to accomplish, and I start tearing up. Even if we're just showing ourselves love, what was that for me? I haven't done this in a couple of months, not gonna lie. When was the last time you think you even looked at the mirror and said I love you to yourself? Do you know? I never do it.

Actually, when you said that, I was like, yeah, that's something I never do. As a matter of fact, I am... My mom, when I called her when I was a mess, she was like, you're too hard on yourself. And she goes, you were like that as a kid. And I never slow down to appreciate anything that's occurred in my life. I'm always like, but it could be better. I get it. I live that life. And I've made myself tired because I'm always like, yeah, but that wasn't good enough. I have many accomplishments that have happened, and I'm like, yeah, but whatever, it's not that big of a deal. And to your point, I should sit and really go back and go, maybe those are big deals. So I think that's the biggest part about looking inward is going, you, whoever, whatever entity you are, you came here to have an experience, and you're having it. Enjoy having that experience. And I have to make sure I enjoy having that experience. And what does that mean deeply? If you really think about that, enjoying that experience, it's truly the simple stuff of waking up, being able to get up out of our beds, being able to eat, slowing back down. And I try to do that now. I'm really just trying to slow everything down and just take it for a moment because if we appreciate it more, even walking with my parents, with my mom and Marcia, I'm just enjoying watching my mom walking through her little... enjoying the sunlight, enjoying the flowers, just enjoying the other entities around us because this is magical. Like, you know what? What the fuck is this? This life is crazy. It's cool if we continue to be able to look at it that way and we're all in that state of mind and have those opportunities of equity. This year could be even more magical.

Well, exactly. And so magical. That's a really important word. And I think you had mentioned before actionable steps in response to me also saying that, which brings me to this. In that process of self-development, one of the things you always end up having to realize is what you're resisting persists. Many people have heard it over time. You hear what you resist persists, but we really don't actually think about it. And when you start to look inward and you look back at your life and you go, well, all the things that I didn't want to deal with or all the things that bothered me always seemed to come back around, always seemed to happen. And right now, we are a society with a mindset of resistance, which is a scary place for us to be as a collective. And we think that saying and hashtagging things which is anti-racism stops racism. It doesn't. The hashtag has to change to pro-humanity. You think that you stop gun violence by doing anti-gun violence laws, but it really is, what does pro-peace laws look like? It is being anti-Trump, but why be anti-Trump? Why not just be pro whoever the opponent is? We don't think in those terms. And because we don't think in those terms, it makes it very difficult to slow down and be in a state of appreciation. Here's why: you can't appreciate what you don't think exists. So if I'm always resisting what it is that I don't want to have happen, then I can't understand what could be or is happening. There's no energy flowing that way because we're just so fixated on, dammit, why the hell is this brick in the way? We think that if we say stop, stop, stop, stop, and it's quite simple. In the state of Texas, they had done, and it started in Texas and then it went out to other roadways, but it was buckle up. Actually, I'm lying. It was don't drive drunk. I don't know if you remember, but all of the signs said don't drive drunk. You always remember. And 15 years ago, it was always don't drive drunk. And even sooner than that, you probably... I keep forgetting that you and I are extremely distant in age. I'll take that as a compliment. But yeah, it is. And they switched it to drive sober. Now, obviously, they met with someone who said to them, if you tell people don't drive drunk, people drive drunk. But if you tell people to drive sober, they drive sober. So tell people what it is you want to have happen, not what it is you don't want. Have clarity with the message. That's the thing. It's clarity with the message. So what is it as a society we want to have happen? What is it as a person you want to have happen? And I think, if I were to ever say anything to anyone, and what I've even said to my students is, what is it you want to have happen? Because they'll email me with questions, and I'm like, what is it you want the end result to be? And I'm like, start at what the end result is and work your way backwards. Because everyone emails me... I have 38 students in a master's program. I have hands-on. People always will email me and ask me tell me what it is they don't want to have happen and what my advice is. And I'm like, I don't know what to do with that. Why don't you do what it is that you want to have happen?

What's interesting is I was on a call with JD two days ago. Same thing brought up. We were just talking, and he's like, you know, the one thing that's so interesting about human beings is that they know exactly what they don't want, but when you try to ask them what they want, they don't know what to say or they don't know what it is. And where does that come from? Now we're looking at where that stems from. We come into this world as a blank slate. When is that planted into our psyche, into our way of thinking? So I think that can also help. We're just trying to figure out and de-systematize the way of thinking because it's not... Well, it becomes through life experiences. So when something terrible happens to you, you remember it far more than you ever remember really amazing things that happened because the way you felt when something really shitty happened, you felt it strong through the whole body, nerves, the system. So the brain holds on to that because the ego of you is like, make sure you don't let that happen again. And what it does is it keeps a record of it for you so that you start working off of your subconscious and you start making unconscious decisions instead of conscious decisions. So an unconscious response is to say what you don't want because the brain automatically goes to, well, remember when that happened? Make sure everyone knows that that's what you don't want. That's an unconscious response. A conscious response is slowing down and saying what it is you want. An exercise that I think is really great that I do at the beginning of most of the team building sessions I do with people is I say, I'm gonna ask you who you are, but I want you to respond with a literal adjective. And most people are like, I don't even know what a literal adjective is. But it is an adjective that starts with the same sound as your first name, and you describe yourself with how you feel in that moment. Because normally you describe yourself by your profession, gender, your mom, your dad, your brothers. That's how you do it. But if you have to slow yourself down and go, okay, in this moment, I might be cantankerous Chris, or maybe I'm charismatic Chris. Or if you're Henrietta and you're hungry, you could be hungry Henrietta. Or if you're Tom, you could be tired Tom. How do you slow yourself down to consciously think about who you are at this moment in that moment? And so that's why people are far more quick to tell you what they don't want than what they do, because the unconscious has let them know what they don't want. The unconscious isn't letting you know what you do want. That's a conscious behavior. That's forward movement, which requires you to think deliberately. Okay, this is where I'm at. Where do I want to go? Right now I'm hungry. I'm looking to now be able to solve that.

Yeah, I mean, getting ready in the morning is even... You know, if you think about it, you're about to get into your car when you get ready to leave. You're like, uh, I hope there's no traffic. I don't want there to be any traffic. Leaving in their car and they go... I want it to be a smooth ride today. No one says that. It's like, there's traffic. Or exactly. Where it's like, I'm gonna be in traffic. Let me play some tunes. Let me enjoy this. Let me make it smooth in the sense of... My mentor says something where it's like, you got to play the field. What's the field looking like? Oh, traffic. Music chilling. Put some rocking like you said for your brother and just enjoy that.

See, I think that's pretty much where I am right now. One other question. Do you have time for another question? For one last question, which was phenomenal because at the end of the day, we got to talk about the social issues. It went into life-changing moments in general. And with you, it's important that you spoke on education. So I value that immensely. You just have so many keys. I already know I got to go back to the 14th minute, the 26th minute, and the 40th. Actually, I was like, listen, you have to remember where there's no worthy things because you're having me go through these videos and I can't. So no, you know what you need to do. So I'll send it over to you. So what we did with my podcast is there's a program you can get which is a transcript for you. Otter? Is it called Otter? No, it's something else. But I love it because I can't stand hearing myself. So yes, me watching and listening to the podcast, I, Josh who's the other producer and the editor, I was like, I can't do this anymore. We have to buy a program. I don't want to hear me. I'm like, I sound like such a douche. I now say I take the approach. I'm like Johnny Depp. Once I record it, I'm not even going to watch the movie. Fuck it. Just let's just keep moving. You know, I haven't listened to one of my podcasts since it's going up. Not one. But I'll tell you the same way. I haven't done the same. I haven't done it either. I just let it go. Hit the work. I just want to keep moving and riding and chilling. I'm sorry. So your last question was... Oh, um, so what would be the gem you would like to share to the next generation of leaders, to just people in the world?

Oh, jeez. Really? Bro, the other questions were fire too. This is what we do.

Oh, no, man. Remember, presence. There's no rush. Enjoy it. You got nice sun coming through the windows.

Yeah, you know, it's the reason it's difficult is because I think lately I've had so much thought on so many things. Yeah, jeez. Whoa. Yeah, you know. I think the one thing I wish I would have known, and Sarah Blondin said this also, and I wholeheartedly agree because when I heard her say it, it was quite literally after I had discovered it. Your life truly begins when you slow it down. Sitting on the floor with your legs crossed, hearing your breath. And if you don't make time to do that, there's no way you can navigate any space. So no matter how busy your life is, you have to do that. And I think when I started to do that and I started to just hear my own breath, feeling it, feeling what it felt like to go in and out, and understanding the beauty of my creation, it's really interesting. I gained a lot of clarity through it because it forced me to better understand people. And I was already really good... I'm gonna say that one thing I'm good at is navigating. Like, people, in two seconds, I'm like that.

Intuitive. Your spiritual sense is strong. We connected spiritually right off the bat.

Yeah, exactly. And I think that moment, man, I wish that we would teach that in middle school, honestly. Just teaching kids how to slow down and how to just connect with who they are. I think that's what's most important. And why I'll also say this for the gym is, the reason that's important is because we, through a society, have taught people that there's only one type of intellect. And there is... Right, there's different forms of intellect, four to be exact. And so once we teach people to slow down, they can start to connect with those other levels of intellect which makes them much better individuals. And then we're all better collectively, and then we see more magic come out of everything. If we are now like, oh, we have a collective of people that are great at so many different things, different groups of people that can work together in their craft, but then once everybody comes together and you create something that's never been done before, now that's a society that I would love to continue to be a part of.