Okay, welcome back to the BFam Podcast.
Today I'm here with...
Onre Bird.
And tell us a little bit about yourself, Onre.
Okay.
So y'all know my name, Onre.
But I'm going into 11th grade at Cass Tech.
I love reading and writing.
That's something I got into more recently than not.
Also want to be a public speaker and author when I grow up as well.
Why?
Because I just feel like the lessons that I have...
Oh, the lessons that I have, I can use to help other people that needed them when I
needed them.
So what kind of lessons are we talking about?
There's a lot of different ways you can...
This can be interpreted.
Okay.
One of the lessons that I feel like I could teach other people is that it's okay to be
like a part of your environment.
You don't have to hate everything around you.
You feel me?
Because when I was growing up, I hated every single thing around me.
And that caused me to hate myself.
Go a lot deeper into that if you feel comfortable with that.
One of the things that I disliked was my father and I didn't like that I had the same name
as him.
So I grew to hate him and the name as well.
So every time somebody would ask me my name, I would always become a little choked up and
I couldn't express and tell them my name because it was directly tied to my father.
Wow.
That's deep.
And how are you going to teach the youth that, or if you even target the youth, what audience
do you want to target when you're doing your public speaking?
Everybody that needs help and is struggling.
Struggling with what?
Expressing theirself because I had such a problem with it.
How did you overcome that problem?
It's not about a how.
It's just what I did.
What did you do?
I gained pride in myself.
How?
You have to become comfortable with who you are and the things around you to grow from
them.
How do you do that though?
Like, I know it's going to be different from everybody.
I know everybody has a different experience, but you personally, how did you use your trials
and tribulations to accept yourself?
Because I know it don't just come out the blue.
You got to go through some type of molding process.
I want to hear about that.
You have to fully let go to let everything come back together.
I had to let go of everything I was feeling and what I was thinking in order to build
something brand new that I can use to help myself elevate.
So what were you feeling and thinking?
What was it that you let go of?
I was feeling a lot of frustration and negative energies because of the things around me.
How did you become aware of that though?
I had this good friend named Austin and he'll be realized to look at the bigger picture
because what you were going through is more than just that.
You feel me?
It's more, your life is more than just what you go through and you have to take a step
back, i.e. let everything go so you can see it when it comes back together.
Wow.
I love it as you're painting a picture.
Okay.
When you paint a picture, you have to look at everything around your environment to think
of what you need to paint of.
Like let's say we planted that tree over there.
I know they can't see.
I'm not going to zoom in on one branch and try and paint the tree off of that.
I got to look at everything and inspect it.
I got to get the leaves, the branches, the twigs, the birds in it.
Yeah.
Everything, the ground.
Uh huh.
You got to look at everything.
Okay.
Now, we don't want them to get looking at everything confused with being obsessed with
every minor detail.
So how do you feel about, how can I put this?
How do you feel about looking at the picture but being okay with not having all the information?
You just got to draw in the blank spots.
Be okay with not seeing everything.
So being okay to, you got to be able to improvise is what you're saying.
Yes, you have to be able to improvise.
When is the time that you've improvised in real time?
Like what's some moments you didn't have where you ain't know what you was doing at all and
you just had to step up and improvise?
Man, one of the examples of that was like the beginning of the year.
Man, that's not good enough.
No, it's okay.
It's nothing that's not good enough.
If it's the first thing that popped to your head, I mean.
Okay, one of the things I had to improvise with is I was writing the essay.
I was writing the essay for my final and I had to, I had memorized all these flashcards
and everything that I was going to write exactly because it was a closed book essay.
You just had to write about two topics for my final.
So instead of trying to think back and memorize everything that I had wrote down, I just improvised
because when you try and get everything perfect is when it starts to like fall apart.
When you try to get scattered brain when you try to.
That is something I've been learning.
The art of going with the flow, not necessarily like just molding into your environment.
Just like the example I would use would be like, instead of being like a oak tree, a
super strong oak tree that when a storm comes, it's so stiff that it breaks.
You could be like, you know, like the wheat plants you ever go by the every drive not
a time and it'd be like, what would it be like, like the farms.
Yeah, nobody know who owned the farms, but it just be farms there.
Just be like the wheat plants or whatever those, whatever they called, you know.
Yeah.
People should know what I'm talking about.
And they just, they just go with the wind.
They would have been, but they never break.
You know what I'm saying?
So being able to accept your environment for what it is and take the route or the path
of least resistance.
You know what I'm saying?
And I don't want you to get that confused with people, please.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Just make sure you, how can I put this?
Just don't become a people pleaser because once you become a people pleaser, you start
to lose track of yourself.
You know why?
Because you begin to, imposter syndrome will be become a, a big problem for you because
you constantly changing who you are for everybody else.
You gotta stand true to yourself and letting people accept you for what you are.
Yeah.
Because you just don't want to, you don't want any problems.
I don't want the path of least resistance to be confused with not wanting any problems.
Yeah.
It's easy to avoid confrontation, but you don't want to avoid confrontation by pleasing
all of those around you.
So, you gotta stand on your point from earlier, you gotta be okay with being yourself.
Yeah.
And if people can't accept that, then those not the people you should be around.
You gotta learn to, we gotta learn to let go of things that no longer serve us.
Because everybody can't go.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
Not everybody can fit in the car.
Hey, not everybody can fit in the car.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Really got four seats.
That's what I'm saying.
Hey, not all the clothes can fit in the suitcase.
You know what I'm saying?
You gotta take some clothes out and switch them out depending on what the season is.
You know what I'm saying?
I know exactly.
People come and go like seasons, just like clothes do.
And I don't want you to start seeing people as objects, but it's easier to think about
when you start to lose people.
You can't hold on to every single relationship because at some point it becomes too much
to handle.
Yeah.
And the friends you made three years ago may not represent who you are today.
Yeah.
So you need some new friends.
You know what I'm saying?
How you feel about that?
I agree with that.
And that comes back into the point of being comfortable with yourself.
Because you can't find the flow or anything that you've said before without being comfortable
with yourself.
Right.
Because what flow do you have if you don't have yourself?
I'm saying, bruh.
Like, at the end of the day.
You really are all who you got.
And I know family there for you.
Some friends there for you.
Companions, mentors, all of this there for you.
But they're not you at the end of the day.
They still themselves.
Yeah.
When we lay down, we go to sleep alone.
Even if somebody in the bed, we still asleep alone.
You know what I'm saying?
I know exactly.
Our dreams belong to us.
Our feelings belong to us.
We have to be us at the end of the day.
No matter how much help you are offered or how much help you really have.
You can help somebody all you want.
If they not willing to accept themselves for who they are, all that help you've given them
will just be going in one ear and out the other.
I see people every day struggle with comprehending who they are.
It's just stuff I observe and it's not something you can just give somebody.
You can't just tell them what it is.
It's like everybody got their own time table.
Everybody progressing at a different speed.
But when you step back from yourself and look at everybody, you'll begin to see how many
people are so uncomfortable with being themselves.
You will be truly surprised.
Man, and it's crazy.
And I feel so bad because I can't just give them the answer.
They got to find it on their own.
But I feel like we could do a better job at helping them discover that problem because
every problem start with awareness.
You'll never know it's a problem unless you become aware of it.
How do you suggest we should get people to step into awareness?
There's no way to help people step into awareness.
Why you say that?
It's just because something has to click.
It doesn't matter what I tell you or anything like that because it's always going to be
there for them to learn.
But they want to pick up the book hypothetically.
They're not going to.
Right.
So there's no way I can.
You think there's any way we can influence people to want to better themselves or is
that just something that they have to?
You have to want to get it.
You got to get it on your own.
You got to have that dog in you.
You got to deal with that dog.
You got to raise the dog.
You got to raise that dog.
Dogs don't come out trained.
You know what I'm saying?
You got to raise that dog.
You got to be patient.
And you.
I just feel so bad because there's not a lot of things out there to help people to become
aware that there is a problem.
We're talking about two different awarenesses now.
Yeah.
It's a awareness of the problem as a whole.
And it's a awareness of the problem within self.
Yeah.
I feel like that becoming aware of the problem and self is one of the hardest feats to overcome.
I struggle with it myself.
Like let me see.
It was I say a lot of us go through that phase.
I feel like a lot of people have trouble finding themselves in high school.
I was having trouble finding myself in like the fifth grade.
I know it's like crazy because I could feel myself conforming to those around me.
And it was just something I knew.
Some of us are just blessed.
You know what I'm saying?
We able to feel that we destined for something.
So I was able to sit back and recognize that who am I?
Who am I?
Who is Austin?
I was trying to self reflect at such a young age and I'm glad that I was going through
that turmoil because that was hard.
Being faced with that, still having to go through puberty, this, this and that.
Hormones flying all over the place.
You know what I'm saying?
Growing up, all sisters.
The only real male figures in my life was like my dad and my granddad.
And then I guess the kids at school.
But like they don't know more than I know because they ain't got no daddy at home.
So what's going on?
But I really had to keep asking myself who am I?
Because if you, all you gotta do is ask yourself if you want to want the answer to a question.
You may not necessarily think you know the answer, but deep down your subconscious mind
know the answer to whatever question you ask.
Your brain is like Google.
People just got to tap into that.
Your brain is like a Google.
If you sit down for 10 minutes in meditation, relax your body fully so that you're open
to all information seeking in.
All thoughts are able to flow in and out and your body is at a steady level.
If you go into your head and you ask yourself the same question and repeat it, who am I?
Who am I?
Who is Austin Enix?
You sit there long enough, the answer just gonna pop into your head.
It's like Epiphany.
You ever had an epiphany?
I have epiphanies all the time.
Me too.
I love them.
I love epiphany.
But yeah, that's just, let's get back to letting go of the things that no longer serve us.
So one thing I like to think is everybody has that moment of clarity.
And it's your choice if you want to take advantage of it or not.
For real?
Yes.
I feel like everybody, because every time I talk to somebody that's gone through a great
change, not drastically, it could be even steadily, it all started with that one moment.
Like David Goggins, if I said his name right, he just woke up one day and was like, nah.
This ain't it.
I can't live like this.
You can't live like this.
I can't die like this.
Yes.
Henri, if you died today, do you feel like you left a hole?
Yes.
You do?
Yeah.
I feel like you can impact on people and that the work you've done can be passed on to generations
behind you.
Yes.
But I feel like this is just the start.
This is just the start.
Because how old are you?
I'm 16.
You're only 16, man.
That's what I'm saying.
It's amazing how we could speed up progress, not rush it, but speed it up just by passing
on what we know.
That's what I try to do.
You know what I'm saying?
I know all this information, but say I didn't get to learn until I was like 12.
I'm trying to teach it to you when you 10.
You know what I'm saying?
You got a head start.
And why are you teaching me?
You learning it again too.
I'm saying that's another important thing.
If you want to speed up your learning process, teach somebody else the exact thing that you
are trying to learn.
And I promise you, you're going to pick it up faster.
That's already happened.
Another tip is to, if you want to remember stuff quickly, explain it to yourself and
to others like you would explain it to a third grader.
You know what I'm saying?
If you can explain something to a third grader, you for sure got it.
At that point, you got to take it down to the most simplest terms so they know what's
going on.
If you can do that to yourself, then boom.
Everything don't got to be complicated for it to be cool.
You know what I'm saying?
People get cool and complicated mixed up.
Oh, this is super difficult, so it's cool.
Nah.
I don't really got an explanation, but I know people can feel me when I'm saying like, nah,
it's not just cool because it's complicated.
If it's not shareable, how cool is it?
Exactly.
Because at some point, we're going to be like, how am I going to learn if it's too complicated?
You can't learn.
You know what I'm saying?
I don't want people to get how am I going to learn because it's too complicated mixed
up with not trying because it's too hard.
Because at the end of the day, nothing is really hard.
Everything is simple, but not easy because we got to think.
It's a process to everything.
If you can get down to the basics of your problem, it's going to be easier to find solutions.
But you don't want to try to solve the whole problem at once.
Yeah.
You're not going to paint a whole tree at once like the example.
You got to start from the ground up.
The only time that you start from the top is when you dig in the grave.
Think about that, bro.
That's the only time.
That's the only time you start from the top.
Everything else is built from the ground up.
So why wouldn't the same principle apply when you're solving problems?
So everything is simple, but not easy.
It's not necessarily hard.
It might be a challenge.
When you break it down, it's way simpler than we thought.
Life isn't that hard.
It's not.
It's simple, but not easy.
Because it's different for us.
It's different for everybody in so many different ways.
What's your perspective on life?
My perspective was like, you just got to do what you got to do.
What you mean, though?
Just make it simple on yourself.
Because in the beginning of this podcast, I was stressed and worried and overthinking.
I know if you played this back, you could hear it in my voice.
See how fast I was talking?
I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like, I was like.
But yeah, you just got to calm down sometimes.
There's a time and place for everything.
Being hyped and excited is there's a time for it.
Because if it wasn't, you wouldn't feel it.
But you got to pick when to and when not to.
You can't control your emotions, but you can control your thinking and thought process.
What?
I'm reading a book called The Dance of Anger, and it teaches people how to express their
self when they're feeling all of these overwhelming emotions.
For real?
Yes.
And the first lesson is to calm down.
Calming down, let's say you mad because I broke your door or something, right?
Yeah.
So let's say I broke your door and you angry and frustrated.
You not going to know what to do.
Right.
Until you calm down.
All those emotions just like jumping inside of you.
It's like ants in your pants.
It's sporadic.
But tell us, how do you calm down?
You just got to realize.
What you mean?
You can't just, we got to think about these people listening to us.
We can't just be like, you got to realize.
They here for help.
You know what I'm saying?
Imagine you don't know the answer.
That's what I'm saying.
Imagine you go to the teacher and ask for help.
You just got to know.
How am I supposed to know how to do this?
You didn't teach this.
Okay.
You just got to know.
So what I've learned from the videos I've watched, the books I've read is that if you
want to calm down, it all start with your breathing because your breathing is directly,
directly proportionate with your heart rate.
Yeah.
The faster you breathing, the faster your heart pounding.
And when your heart pounding, what that mean?
What's flowing?
Blood.
What's flowing?
What that get?
What that get sparking up?
Adrenaline.
Yeah.
When your adrenaline up, we create a mind fog.
This is biologically proven.
When the adrenaline is up, the brain creates a hormone that creates a literal mind fog.
So when you're angry and you can't think, it's because it's literally fog in your brain.
Your body is letting off a hormone telling you that we may be in danger.
Don't listen to yourself.
Do what we tell you to do.
And that's when we just begin to react and stuff.
Start strangling people.
And then you just chuck a pickaxe.
Stop.
Okay.
Stop.
Okay.
My fault.
No, you straight, straight, straight.
But like, real fast, oh yeah, that's when you just start to go crazy when you just,
you go into fight or flight mode.
Yeah.
And then you're able to catch the breath.
You get a hold of it.
Then you able to, okay, your thoughts are coming back.
Your heart rate slowing down.
Your body begins to relax.
Yeah.
And when the adrenaline stop pumping, your body kind of shuts down.
It's almost like a sugar rush.
Yeah.
When that adrenaline stop pumping and you get off that adrenaline rush, you're tired.
Your groggy, your body forcing itself to reset.
It's like an automatic reset.
So we got to use the breath to aid us in calming down.
Okay.
So what's the next lesson inside your book, Dancing with Anger?
The next lesson is realization.
Realization.
But it's more than just that because we've been talking about realization a lot lately.
Realization in the matter of understanding other people and why they're doing what they're
doing.
Like teach me some more.
Okay.
For example, let's say I ate the last of your chips.
Right.
You come, you kick down my door, you yelling at me and I'm confused on why you yelling
at me.
Because you ain't even heard the reason.
I'm just yelling.
You just yelling.
I just expect you to know.
And when somebody starts getting mad and lashing out at you, what is human instinct?
What is it?
Defend yourself.
Exactly.
You instantly get defensive and getting defensive, you get aggressive.
Okay.
That's the default to protect yourself in any way, shape, and form.
The mind fog.
Exactly.
All right, I'm listening.
Getting defensive is literally your mind creating fog so you can protect yourself physically
or your image mentally.
Right.
So if you can disarm this defense mechanism, I could think, oh, he mad because I ate his
chips.
Because I ate his chips.
I did eat his chips though.
And what was he saying earlier?
To first solve a problem, you have to realize there is one.
Yeah.
So after I realized the reason why you're angry, I can provide a solution.
You can buy me some more chips.
Buy you some more chips.
You can buy me a chip factory.
Exactly.
Right.
Yeah.
So you have to understand others around you to understand yourself more as well.
That is something I've been noticing, bruh.
It's hard to get mad.
I talked about this in like an earlier episode.
It's hard to get mad when you begin to understand what's going on around you.
Yeah.
Because anger comes from confusion.
Anger comes from confusion because your body like, what's going on?
Your body just want to know what's going on for real.
That's what fear is.
Everybody just don't know what's going on.
But we got to set this in another episode.
We got to fall into the fear.
Yeah.
We just got to be able to trust ourselves.
That's all we need to talk about.
How does one gain trust in themselves?
That's a good one.
How do people gain trust in they self-reserve?
Yeah.
You want me to answer first?
Let me try.
I bet.
Okay.
Gaining trust in yourself.
How I gained trust in myself.
I don't know.
You were like, I thought I had it.
I learned, and this is just from observing myself.
I learned to gain trust in yourself and to be more comfortable with yourself.
You got to treat yourself like you a whole another person.
Because we'll get to doing stuff.
Hold on.
We'll set rules for ourself, but if we break them, we like, oh, that's cool.
We always giving ourselves a pass.
And when we do that, we telling ourselves it's okay to not listen to yourself.
Now you breaking your own promises.
Do you trust anybody who break all the promises?
No.
So why would you trust yourself if you're breaking your own promises?
So to gain trust in yourself, you got to be able to make promises to yourself and then
keep them.
Now say you set a goal for yourself.
The only way you going to gain the trust by keeping that promise, you don't always got
to achieve it.
Sometimes it's okay to fail.
I want you to remember that.
It's okay to fail, but you got to at least try.
Now your body like, all right, we set this goal.
We promised we was going to do it.
We went through with it, but we failed.
But it's not going to care about the outcome or the result.
It's going to care about, did we actually go through the process of trying to get the
goal?
That's all your body need to see.
And this is going to give you a little bit more trust.
And it's a process just like it is gaining trust in others.
You got to keep proving to yourself that you can trust yourself.
You got to prove it to yourself, not for anybody else, but you got to, and you can make small
promises at five o'clock.
I'm going to do the dishes.
Set a alarm for five o'clock.
When it's five o'clock, no matter what you do, put it down, get up and go do the dishes.
That's how you gain trust in yourself.
You lose trust in yourself when you set a alarm for five o'clock, it hit, and you're
like, I don't feel like doing the dishes.
I'll do it tomorrow.
The more you put it off, the more your body like, damn man, what's going on?
It's not reliable.
Man, you want you to be reliable for you.
If you can't be reliable for you, how do I expect you to be reliable for me?
And you'll notice the more that you're reliable to yourself, the more people will be comfortable
with relying on you.
Cause they like, well, I see Henri go through with his promises all the time.
He said he going to do it.
He going to do it.
I trust him.
You know what I'm saying?
And then that's how life start to flow for you.
It start in here.
It start in here with the trust in yourself.
You got to trust the universe.
I'm reading this book.
It's called the seven spiritual laws of something.
I forget, but he was saying like, dang, I forgot what he was saying though.
He was saying like, it start with trusting in nature because we all a part of nature
deep down.
We all come from the root of the earth.
We belong to this earth.
We not other worldly.
We are part of the world that we live in and we treat the world that we live in like an
object because we think it's not alive.
We think because we can't see it move, see it feel, hear it say anything that is just
the object.
So we above it automatically.
But once you begin to listen to the wind, watch the waves go by, look at the trees sway
back and forth, look at the grass, pay attention to the rain.
You know what I'm saying?
You get a sense of self.
It starts to give back.
The more attention you give to nature, it just reflects back to you.
You know what I'm saying?
So if you ever feel like you ought to touch with yourself and you just don't know how
to get back, just go outside.
You out there.
We all out here.
We didn't always have cars.
We didn't always have houses.
We didn't always have shelter.
We was once just in nature with it.
That's why all of our ancestors were so smart.
They didn't have all this stuff dumbing them down.
They was out here with each other.
They trusted the environment that they were in.
But look where we live now though.
We in Detroit.
You know what I'm saying?
Do you trust the environment around you?
Honestly.
So how you ever supposed to be comfortable with yourself if you can't trust the nature
around you?
You can't.
That's what I'm saying, man.
So we got to be able to be one with the nature.
Then we got to understand when it's time to go.
Just like we was talking about earlier in the podcast.
We got to learn to let go of the things that no longer serve us.
Yeah, this is my hometown, but I need to see something new.
You know what I'm saying?
I can't provide for my hometown if all I know is my hometown.
It's not the, it's the experiences outside of yourself that develop your character.
It's going out and exploring and discovering the unknown that develop you as a person.
It's going out and learning them lessons so you can bring them back.
It's hard to learn.
It's hard to learn in the classroom.
You know what I'm saying?
I know.
I can tell you the information.
You can read the information.
You can memorize the information.
I can give you a test on some shit I made you memorize.
But what's more effective?
Sitting in here reading a book or going outside and observing for myself firsthand?
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
I feel like our schools got to do a better job of that.
It's not a lot of hands on learning.
Now you can have a teacher up there being interactive doing projects quote unquote.
Really just throwing you in the groups.
But I feel like our education system would be way more, way more effective if we took
some of these classes outside.
It got to be some way you can teach me arithmetic outside.
It got to be some way you can teach me math outside.
I shouldn't be learning biology or physics in the fucking classroom.
I should be able to go outside and see physics work every day.
Field trips need to be a more intimate part of school.
We got to take these kids out to explore dog.
Their only time exploring can't be when they go away to college because not everybody leaving
the crib to go to college.
You know what I'm saying?
And that's super expensive.
And then we just throwing these kids out here and college like, all right, go feed for yourself.
When birds are born, do you see the mama bird sitting there talking to the kids, telling
them how to fly?
No.
Or do you see her just let them jump out the nest?
We got to let these kids jump out the nest, man, so they can fly.
Being stuck in, you can't gain much.
It's only so much you can gain from being in one spot.
It's only so much you can gain before you plateau.
You don't want to plateau.
It can only take so much secondhand learning before you go.
You got to have a first hand learning that dog.
It's like just simply taking a driver's test on paper and learning the shit in the classroom
isn't going to teach you how to drive a car.
You got to go get your hours of driving the car.
Being able to drive comes with experience of driving.
Why can't we apply that to everything that we do or most things?
I understand that we can't apply to everything, but most things.
You want to know how?
It's our pride.
Because people don't like not being good at things.
Keep going.
I'm following that.
You will be surprised on how many things people do not start because they know they would
not be good at it.
How they know they will not do that?
They know.
They think they won't be good at it.
You're controlled by your perception of yourself.
I was just thinking about this earlier.
Thought controls everything.
None of the shit we scared of, we're not really scared of.
Our thoughts make us think that we're scared of it.
It's just your brain telling you.
Alan Watts said, he said, it's always a small version of you, a tiny version of you, a second
version of you.
You're just afraid of nothing.
And the only thing that drowns out that second you is thought.
You can drown in your thoughts.
You can physically drown in your thoughts.
You can become suffocated by your own thoughts.
You can kill yourself internally because of what you're thinking.
Now it's good to have good thoughts, but it's better to feel like you have no thoughts.
Explain more.
Being able to just, like I was talking about, being able to just flow.
Ari, I don't want to think about everything I'm doing.
I just want to do it.
And I'm okay with not understanding why I did it.
I just want to do it and experience.
You know what I'm saying?
I just want to experience.
But not a lot of people understand that thoughts control everything.
We don't approach people because we think they're not going to like us.
We don't start things because we think it's not going to work out.
We don't know it's not going to work out.
It's not 100% sure it's going to work out.
You know what I'm saying?
But it's a possibility for people to drown in their own thoughts.
And it kills that perception of themselves, or it kills that idea.
How you think people can get past the drowning factor or letting their thoughts control them?
Man, that's crazy because I've been drowning in my thoughts a lot recently.
That's something I've struggled with a lot.
Sure.
Because it will be a simple situation, but my brain will automatically think that there's
more to learn or know when most of the time that isn't the case.
Right.
So my advice to get over that is to just step back.
You got to be okay with not knowing.
Right.
And not thinking because it's okay not to know it.
We are trained and taught that it is never okay not to know.
Especially through school.
Man.
You're talking about that.
Yeah.
What is the answer to this problem?
I don't know.
And then you get in trouble for not knowing.
Yeah.
No, you don't know.
You just don't know.
It's okay to air ball.
It's okay to miss as long as you shoot again.
Yeah.
Don't miss a shot.
And then be like, well, I'm never shooting again.
Exactly.
That's a loser mindset.
You have to have a winning mindset to be persistent.
Man.
Now, and we got to let them know, winning is not always winning.
Yeah.
I know that's crazy.
I just used the same word in the same sentence, but winning is not always winning or being
a champion.
Winning is also knowing how to lose.
If I see somebody lose a game and then they come back and they, I'm not going, I'm just
using perfect as a word.
They perfect all the mistakes that they made in the last game.
He really won.
Because if you don't lose, how are you going to know how to win?
Exactly.
If you keep winning, you're just going to be like, oh, all right, and you're going to
don't fix it if it ain't broke.
Sometimes you got to break it to fix it.
You know what I'm saying?
Sometimes you got to break.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
We got to break the door.
We got to get a new key and lock.
You know what I'm saying?
You got to get a new key and lock sometimes.
Sometimes.
But keep going.
Tell me how you was able to get out of your drowning thoughts or are you still in them?
My head keep going over and under the water.
I'm not going to lie.
Because it seems so simple on paper, but it's complicated.
OK.
Like, it's just my problem is acceptance.
And I struggle to accept that.
Oh, the card don't stop.
Like you feel me?
I could also if I'm thinking the card don't stop, I could overthink everything.
Yeah.
But if I just wait 15 minutes, try it again and it start.
Yeah.
Sometimes it's not a problem.
Right.
Sometimes there's not a solution.
Oh, sometimes there's not a solution.
Not every question has a solution or answer.
Yeah.
You can't lose your mind looking for one.
But in reality, the answer is there is none.
Yeah.
Ari, I'm about to fix you right now for them drowning in your thoughts.
OK.
You know how I know it's just you against you right now?
Yeah.
Because you just perfectly explained it to me.
And now that you know that you just perfectly explained it to me, you have no excuse.
So let that be a thing again.
The only time people have an excuse is when they genuinely ignorant.
Other than that, it's really self inflicted.
You know the answer.
You just don't want to know that you know the answer.
You don't feel like taking the responsibility and knowing the answer because you don't like
how it make you feel.
Yeah.
When you when you go through it, you like, nah, a lot of people to get comfortable with
depression.
Yeah, I was comfortable with depression for a minute.
I was like, I rather feel sad.
They feel happy because.
Because I train myself to think if I'm happy for so long, I'm going to end up being sad
anyway.
So why not just stay sad all the time?
I settled for that mindset.
And you know what happened?
It manifested itself into my life.
But I listened to I listened to a podcast and he was like, yeah, I understand.
Sometimes you may think, oh, so much good things, so many good things are happening
and some bad is coming.
But check me out.
Who told you that?
Who said that is like the case?
Who said that's the truth?
Yourself.
I'm saying the light outside of yourself.
Who said that has to happen?
So where the hell did it come from?
And that's just him saying that broke me out of it like, whoa, nobody said that has to
be true.
We can create our own reality.
What are thoughts?
But we got to let go of some thinking.
We don't always got to be bringing information in, but we do have to get some information
out so we can make room for new information.
You can learn.
You can read.
That's all you want.
But if you're not getting rid of that useless knowledge that you got in your head, then
there's never going to be no storage for anything new.
Sometimes we got to clear.
We got to back our phone up and clear it out so we can make room for new for new memories.
Think about it like gardening.
Okay.
Think of all the bad information as roots and all the good information as whatever your
favorite plant is.
Right.
It's easier for you to plant new things like flowers, tomatoes, anything, even a tree.
Okay.
You want it to plant a tree, you have to get rid of all of the roots.
And that's more than just cutting the weeds.
You have to get rid of it at its source.
You got to go under.
You have to go under.
Got to go under the ground.
You got to dig it up.
Yes.
Got to get a green thong.
Yeah.
Why?
Yeah, you have to get rid of it.
Because you have to get to the reasoning, the core of the problem.
Why do you think like this?
Why do I overthink everything?
Why do I make everything so difficult and challenging on myself?
You just got to begin questioning yourself.
Yes.
You don't necessarily have to have an answer, but you just got to be able to question yourself.
Wow.
And that's the answer to how I started trusting myself.
I started questioning why.
Why am I doing this?
Exactly.
Why did I do that?
Guess what?
When there wasn't an answer, guess what I did?
I didn't overthink or anything like that.
If it wasn't a reason, if we-
You just let it go?
I just let it go.
It dissipated.
It dissipated when I realized there wasn't a reason.
Sometimes it's best to answer a question with a question.
I do that all the time.
Me too.
Somebody asks me a question, I'll be like, oh, I asked another question.
Yeah.
What if I don't want you to have all the information I got?
Or what if I don't think you ready for this information that I got?
I'm going to just ask you a question with your question.
Because a lot of times, people don't want to know what you know.
They just want you to ask the question back so they can get whatever is off their chest,
off their chest.
Yeah.
So they'll ask you a question, be like, how's your day?
How's your day?
Yeah, it's pretty good.
What about you?
Oh.
Yeah.
That's exactly how we be.
They'll drag you in, man.
They'll drag you in and they'll make you think they care about your day and they don't.
But that's OK.
They're just trying to get it off their chest, but they don't know any other way to get it
off their chest.
Other than asking.
But to ask you, but to ask you with a question.
Yeah.
Another thing I had to do, not even to trust myself, is one thing I had to do to become
a better person was to become less selfish.
Being selfish is a great thing that I think everybody should be to an extent.
Oh.
Because sometimes the lesson ain't for everybody.
Right.
Sometimes you ain't supposed to share.
Right.
You feel me?
Right.
You're not supposed to hand everybody the key because they're not going to end up using
it anyway.
Right.
They're just going to put it in any pocket.
And that's a selfish way of thinking.
But sometimes you have to do that to get to where you want to be.
Yeah.
Like if you're handed this perfect opportunity, you're just going to give it away.
No.
Exactly.
Right.
Because you got to keep some of your lessons to yourself.
Mm-hmm.
Because hey, not everything ain't meant to be shared with everybody.
It's all about balance.
And that's my third answer for the first question you asked me on how I began to trust myself.
I had to find a balance.
Okay.
Between the extent of sharing and not sharing.
Yeah.
More than just that.
What?
Positive and negative.
I had to find a balance between those two.
Sometimes I'm not going to lie.
Sometimes you have to be negative.
That's something that people don't like to hear or accept, but sometimes you have to
be negative to be more positive.
Take me down that road.
Because when I was young, I always had a chip on my shoulder would be an understatement
for what I had when I was growing up.
I thought everybody was against me and I didn't like nobody for that.
I didn't like nobody because I thought that everyone was against me.
Okay.
But I realized that it was just me against myself.
I was fighting a war in my head.
So what I perceived around me was only war.
Oh.
And once I realized it's not me versus myself.
Right.
It's me and myself.
And I can either choose to help or hurt him.
I was just about to say that, bruh, people always like it's me versus me.
It's me versus the world, bro.
You are your own dual partner.
Exactly.
Y'all running dual.
You're getting knocked, you're going to let him die, he's going through a Bible.
That's what I'm saying.
How you going to be solo yourself?
How you going to kill yourself?
You know, when people go against the war against the man in the mirror.
Oh, why we just can't become friends.
Exactly.
Why can't we work it out together?
Why I got to kick his ass?
What he doing?
Yeah.
He ain't even doing nothing.
He just doing what he think he know is right.
I had to find peace with myself.
It's a fine piece in myself.
Because the moment I stopped fighting and harming myself was the moment that things
eventually started to fall together.
Wow.
Yeah.
You know, this is sensitive topic for me.
I don't got to get too deep into it.
But a lot of physical suicide start with the suicide with itself first.
When people successfully kill themselves on the inside, that's when the other half got
to kill itself too.
It's a mind you and it's a body you.
When you kill the mind you, the only other solution is to kill the body you.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Now, sometimes you may harm the mind you really good and it may seem like you want to kill
yourself.
Right?
Right.
But if you give the mind you some time to go through the ICU and shit, you know what
I'm saying?
Get a little IV in them.
You know what I'm saying?
When you come out the induced coma, you begin to slowly recover.
Yeah.
And that's when people start to read the self-help books and start to pay attention to themselves
because you don't know how much you love something until what?
It's gone.
Right.
It's about letting go.
So you can know if you really want it or not.
Sometimes you may want something, but sometimes you got to let it go to see if it come back
to see if you really need it because we can accidentally become dependent on something.
Right?
Right.
And we will get it confused with wanting it and needing it and it actually being important
actually being important to us.
You know what I'm saying?
I can't miss you if I'm always seeing you.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
I got to let you go sometime so I can't miss you.
Yeah.
And sometimes we got to let people go so we can go down the other path and meet back up
with them.
You know what I'm saying?
Because a lot of people get the idea in their head that damn, if I let this person go, I'm
never going to see him again.
Our paths are going to stay different forever.
We're never going to meet back up.
Listen, bruh, everybody is in your life for a reason.
You meet everybody for a reason.
You go through every experience that you ever had for a reason.
Every experience, every decision, all of that.
Any decision you've ever made from the type of pencil you chose to use a year ago to the
type of pants you chose to put on when you was two years old has led to who you are today.
You know what I'm saying?
And that includes the people who have come in and out of your life.
Strangers aren't strangers.
You know what I'm saying?
Strangers are people sent to us by the universe to learn lessons from so we can keep going
without.
Think of life as a game.
You know what I'm saying?
Sometimes you got to go talk to the random dude in the corner to get some information
from him.
Now you may never see this nigga again, but he gave you the most important information
you ever learned.
God in the universe will disguise information in people that we usually ignore.
Like homeless people.
You walk past them motherfuckers every day.
But some of them niggas really be smart as hell.
And it took only one decision to fuck their whole life up.
But we wouldn't know that if we had discerned prejudice against all of them.
I'm not saying go meet and greet every hobo you see.
But have the kindness in your heart to listen to them if they talking.
Let me get back to my point though.
People will think since you breaking up with somebody or since y'all splitting apart for
a little minute that y'all never gonna see each other again.
If it's really meant for you to come back.
And this time when y'all break apart.
Boom.
You gonna come back stronger together because y'all had time to separate.
It's just like we're breaking a bone in your body.
When you break a bone in your body it's not gonna come back weaker.
Because your body don't want it to break again.
It never intended on it to break in the first place.
So when it break it come back together even stronger.
The limb come back even stronger.
Now it's gonna take more to break that bone apart.
As before it was just snap.
But now it's gonna be like oh it ain't breaking.
Oh it ain't breaking.
You know why?
Because it had time to separate and man back together even stronger.
The body learned from itself.
That's how biology work.
You know what I'm saying?
The body is literally a computer system.
And I know when you think of computer you like that's not technology.
But your body is technology.
You know what I'm saying?
It might not be the technology that we're using to record this podcast.
It may not be the technology that we're using to drive this car.
But your body is technological.
I gotta pay attention to biology class to really explain that part.
I don't really know too much about the biology class.
But I can tell you some stuff about your body.
I got some things I didn't picked up.
I do want to learn more about the body and stuff.
Or is it kinesiology that people just learn about the body and the physical parts?
I just like to know fun facts.
Yeah cells regenerate all the time.
Who you were when we started this podcast is like nowhere near who you were right now.
Or right now.
I keep saying right now because it's a different moment every time I say right now.
Or right now.
But yeah.
Yeah you get it.
And you said something interesting.
What was it?
One decision can ruin your life?
Man one decision can.
Yeah.
We always one decision from living a totally different life.
You know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
Decision may be.
Well no decision is good or bad.
I've said this before.
But think about it.
You always one decision from having a totally different life.
And we shouldn't look at that.
We shouldn't look at that and look into the eyes of that and fear.
But we should look at it with optimism.
Optimism.
Hold on.
He stopped.
Optimism.
Yeah.
Optimism.
We should always.
We should look at it with optimism like dang.
Today may be the day so I gotta keep working.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
I gotta keep grinding.
Because today may be the day I break through.
When you breaking the rock.
It's not the last hit that break it.
But it's all the hits before.
Boom.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
And it's like today was today.
You know what I'm saying?
But wake up.
We gotta wake up every morning like today may be the day.
I might break through today.
Hey today might be the day.
So I'm gonna work a little bit harder than I did yesterday so I can get closer.
You know what I'm saying?
Today may be the day.
We'll never know when we gonna get that phone call.
We'll never know when we gonna step into the room with a person that's no change in their
lives.
But like I told you earlier that's why it's important to introduce yourself to everybody
in the room.
You know what I'm saying?
Because stuff like that.
Stuff like that stick.
People like to be recognized.
People appreciate it when you give them recognition.
All of us have that part inside of us that just wants to make somebody proud.
It wants uh not recognition but uh let's just do a struggle to see.
All of us want that uh it's like right on the tip of my tongue.
We want that.
I have to simplify.
We want that sense of cooperation.
That ain't it.
We want to feel accepted.
As much as we might try to be hard but I don't care about being accepted.
I don't care if people accept me.
Biologically it's a part of our humanness to feel accepted where we are.
A lot of people become depressed or deranged because they don't feel accepted.
Acceptance is a very important part of life.
That's why we gotta come together.
So like I was saying a part of us wants to be accepted so when you walk into a room why
is the CEO more important than the janitor?
What's the difference between them?
Do they both wake up in the morning?
They both put their pants on one foot at a time?
They both put one shoe on at a time?
They both brush their teeth?
They both poop?
They both eat?
They both pee?
How does he like at the basis of how is he more important than the CEO?
How is he more important than the janitor?
He not.
They the same mother fucker.
We gotta treat them like.
They the same people.
Yeah.
We gotta treat them with the same amount of kindness.
If anything the janitor deserves more appreciation than the CEO do.
It's people like that that do those types of jobs man.
Let me take this I don't know if I'm using this saying right.
What they be saying take this on the soap box or something?
I don't need no.
Hey we gonna say it though.
Hopefully they pick up on what I'm putting down.
You about to create a saying right now go ahead.
Take this on the soap box.
Alright man.
Let's take this on the soap box.
Check me out bruh.
We need people to do those types of jobs.
I'm not cleaning the whole room but it's somebody that like oddly enough got a passion to just
clean.
Yeah.
They got a position where they gotta clean but they ain't complaining.
You don't see the janitor talk about this mother fucker.
You don't see.
This mother fucker left all the mother fucker trash again.
You know what I'm saying.
You don't see him like coming up to you and saying they might see it behind your back
but he still gonna do his job.
Yeah.
We need people like that.
We need people that's gonna do the jobs what I wanna do.
I don't wanna climb on a light pole and change the wires when my power go out.
Some dude like got that calling to just climb up on wire posing.
Change the power when my power out.
Yeah.
We need those the tiny people that the people that we often ignore.
Librarians, teachers don't get enough recognition.
The janitors don't get enough recognition.
Valet don't get enough recognition.
The doorman don't get enough recognition.
Receptionist don't get enough recognition.
Them scam callers don't get enough recognition.
I know they're annoying when they call you but think though.
If somebody wasn't calling you to scam you, you wouldn't be weary about the information
you giving out.
You wouldn't be so careful with all the information you giving out.
You would just trust everybody.
So you just gonna give it to everybody until you get scammed.
So we need those scammers keeping us on point.
I love getting that scam likely call.
You know what I'm saying.
That may be the only call I get in a week.
I'm not gonna lie.
Answer the phone.
He be like, yes hello is this Chris?
This call may be monitored.
I'll be like, nah.
I'll hang up.
But thanks for calling me keeping me on my toes for one more day.
You know what I'm saying.
I be vigilant out here.
To come out of my soap box.
Is that what they say?
I don't know what they say.
You saying it.
To get out of my soap box.
What is a soap box?
You keep putting soap in there.
Hey, let me take it out though.
I gotta take it.
It's clean.
Is that a, I don't know what a soap box.
I gotta look it up.
But I'm gonna just keep saying it wrong if it's wrong.
If it's wrong, I don't wanna be right.
It is right.
Cause you saying it.
Even if that's not a saying.
But they making it one right now.
Yeah they picking it up.
Alright bet.
So I'm gonna get out of my soap box.
Yeah.
The gender is no more important than the CEO.
And the CEO is no more important than the gender.
So shake both they hands.
Greet them both with the same, how's your day going?
Good afternoon.
Good morning.
Good evening.
How your family doing?
How are you doing today?
And listen to them for real.
Yeah.
Shake they hand with compassion.
Don't just shake it.
Shake it.
Shake it and pass some love through it.
All you gotta do is give everybody the command and it's gonna do it.
Let me see your hand.
Do you feel that love just seeping to your hand?
Yeah.
I'm just, they can't see me.
I gotta upgrade you to camera.
I get some more views I upgrade you to camera.
But.
I don't know I'm passing the love through you.
What is that?
I get some more views out of Greg at the camera, but
I'm passing the love to your hand, bro. I love you dawg. Oh my god
You're my dawg. Yeah. You're my guy. You're my guy. You're my guy. You're my guy.
They probably gonna hear that part and be like what the fuck
But dawg, but uh, stuff like that, bruh. Shake the underdog, not the underdog. Just shake everybody's hand, bruh.
And learn people names. That's important too. You gotta learn people names.
Cause that's how you feel accepted when somebody know your name.
What you got going on in your head right now? What's something, I've been talking for a minute, so what's something going on up in there?
What you thinking? I wasn't thinking too much cause in the last episode I listened to, it was episode 2.
It was episode 2. Oh you like episode 2? I loved episode 2. It was about, go listen to episode 2.
Hey if y'all are here, listen to episode 2. After this though.
Yeah, click don't hurt. No, don't click off.
Hey, you still there? If you still here, I'll say A, B, C, D, E, F, G.
Alright. They still here. We said it quick, alright.
But it was always listening even if you know what they talking about.
Oh. Yeah. I don't know if you or a girl you was with said it. I think it was a girl cause I don't think you was saying it like that.
But yeah, y'all was talking about listening. Even if you know what the person is talking about.
Cause you don't know if you can listen more. Right. Right.
That's a very important thing. You don't know what you don't know until you don't know it.
And even when you know you don't know. You still don't know.
Even when you know you don't even know if you know for real.
I don't even know if I know what I'm talking about.
I act like I do. Say it with some confidence.
Yeah. Please. Man, people gonna be like, dang, he do know what he talking about.
Do I? Do I? Yeah.
You know what I'm saying? You gotta know it.
Just.
Hmm. Yeah.
I think that's about an hour. We got about an hour in.
I feel like essentially what we saying is, man, just.
I don't even know. What's the. What you think.
Close out the gist of the episode. Go ahead. I'll let you gist out the episode.
He tired of talking. Man. Alright. Alright. Okay.
The gist of the episode was to be comfortable with being uncomfortable.
You have to be comfortable. With being who?
Yourself. Right. You gotta find yourself.
And write it. Right. Don't look over there.
His way. The day that way. Cool. I gotta go hop on that way.
No, no, no, no, because he looking at your way.
You know, why you up on his way? Yeah.
Bro. It was way harder. I don't know why you jumped off. Yeah.
Right. You can't even. You don't even know.
You don't even realize what you got when you looking at somebody else.
Exactly. So we got to learn to appreciate.
Ourself. What we got? Yeah. You just gotta.
Appreciate yourself. Yeah. Love yourself. Yeah.
You have to take care of yourself. Yeah.
Because something I realized was I didn't love myself for a long time.
Very long time. Dang. And it took me loving and accepting myself.
In order to truly do it and learn compassion.
And learn real love. Because real love isn't about receiving.
It's about giving. Wow.
We not closing out the episode right now because I just remember something.
Yeah, we ain't closing out right now.
But maybe we can close it off with this topic, but. Whatever.
Giving is the only way to receive. The more that you give, the more that you get back.
It's like the law. I think it's the law of cause and effect. Something like that.
The more that you put into something, the more it comes.
We learned this in school. X is a direct result of Y.
So we're doing direct proportions. The more that you put into.
The more you put in X, the more you get out of Y.
So we got to give more to receive more. Yeah.
But we can't give looking for reception.
We got to give to give. And then we going to receive to receive. Yeah.
I don't want to just be out here giving because we know something come back.
Because that's when the Karmic values or the Karmic law come back and eat you up.
You're like, no, I ain't giving you nothing.
Because you're just doing it not out of the kindness of your heart. Yeah.
You got to pass the love and let it be felt.
Everything you do, put a little bit of love into it. Yeah.
Everybody you meet, put a little love into it.
Dude, love don't run out. We got enough to share with everybody. Yeah.
Just give out love. Just.
Just make one person day a day.
And that's my challenge for anybody listening to this video. If you still listen.
Put one smile on one person face at least a day.
I don't care. Just one. Yeah.
And feel the surge of happiness and dopamine that hits your brain when you make somebody else's day.
When you make somebody else's smile.
Pay them a compliment. You know what I'm saying? Tell them you like their shoes.
Tell them you love their smile. Compliment their outfit.
If they don't say nothing back, if they don't say thank you, you still got what you need to get off your chest. Off your chest. Yeah.
But don't be so caught up in yourself that you forget to appreciate those around you.
Give love. Always give love. Yeah.
And that's how I'm going to close out the BFAM podcast. Thank you for listening. I love you.