Juneteenth Special: Money, Mindset & Motivation Through the Lens of Black Men (Part 1)

SPEAKER_00 0:06

Right, all right, all right. Money is on my mind indeed. Yes, everybody. This is your boy Darren Harvey, the money counselor, and I am your McGreakers, host of Financial State of Minds. And this is the show where we help you get to that bag, manage the bag, and grow that bag as best as possible as we discuss financial and business literacy and anything, everything to do with the almighty power of the dollar. And today's episode, very special episode. It's a special, you guys. It's a special. We got two PC guys. We got two of my favorite people on board for this episode. We got we're gonna start it off by introducing my boy Tariq Williams. Welcome back to the show, Tariq. Williams, how you doing today?

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I'm doing well. If y'all don't know, Tariq Williams, leadership burnout break through coach, giving clarity and direction to working professionals and business owners. I'm so happy to be here and be a part of this awesome conversation, Darren.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

And again, thank you for taking some time out of your day to join us and then the now, this next person. I want to tell him something live. He don't know. I've been waiting for this guy to get jumped on my show since I met him five years ago. I've never asked him because I just didn't think I was good enough for him to be on my show. I didn't think I had the stats because he he's that guy. If if you want somebody to just coach you, to just build yourself up to show you the way when it comes to anything to do with business, you gotta bring on Troy. Troy, and and Troy, I really want you to just take two minutes to explain to these people who you are and how special you are. Troy the floor is yours.

SPEAKER_02 1:39

Black men don't cry live. Don't hit me in the gut too early in this episode. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Darren. I am Troy Sanders graceful to be here. You are the dude. I'm happy to be here. I'm also known as the strategy hacker. I'm a TEDx and global keynote speaker. I've generated over 250 million for clients worldwide. I'm a Thai black man who's trying to make a bigger impact to leave a legacy after I'm gone for me, my family, my daughter. I'm a new dad. We out here trying to make things happen. I intersected the specialty of business consulting, strategic advisory, and growth development. And I've been in marketing for 15 years. So we make this thing happen. I rose with the ranks in corporate, agency, nonprofit, all of it. And I'm here to bless you all and give what I can to make sure you get to where you need to do for you not only for your mindset, but for your money, because those two things make the bigger impact for your life in the road.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

That's what's up. You know, that's crazy. I ain't getting no intro like that, but hey.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

You had a you had a whole episode before me, no just playing. That's that's a fact, though. I didn't even know that.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

So, but yeah, I I had to bring these two gentlemen because uh the the amount of respect level is uh is over 9,000. Over 9,000 on the respect level. These two are brothers of mine, these two are new fathers as well. So I wanted to team up, join forces with these two, with you two, and make a Juneteenth Black Excellence, Black Fatherhood, whatever you want to call it. This is this is a special episode, you guys. You know, Troy's here with the topics. I just want to sit down with my guys and have a nice conversation. You know, just I I know what to say, man. I'm just happy to have you guys on the show. So, Troy, I know you you got the topics, you you got the structure as you always do. So I'm gonna I'm gonna let you take over the mic for right now.

SPEAKER_02 3:32

You know, this is a very special episode, and we want our boy, the voice of the episode, the voice of the podcast to just be ready to go. Right now, I'm your your host, your moderator, extraordinaire to pass the ball like magic over here to my two go-to Kobe's over here, Darren and Tariq. So it's gonna be all flow, all go, all gas, no breaks all day. But in all seriousness, take a deep breath. Juneteenth is a celebration of freedom. But freedom being declared and freedom being fully experienced are not always the same thing. Because you can be free on paper and still feel trapped by debt. You can be successful and still be mentally exhausted, you can be motivated, moving, and actually making money, yet still feeling like you are on one emergency away from losing every single thing you built. And for black men in particular, black business owners, those pressures are elevated beyond the normalcy. We are navigating the responsibility to provide the to provide and the pressure to perform constantly and the desire to build wealth, the expectation to remain strong under immense circumstances, and the reality that many of us were taught how to survive long before we were taught how to rest, heal, and sustain our own growth. So today, Darren, Tariq, and myself, Troy, uh, we're gonna walk you through some core pieces to help you shape your freedom better on this Juneteenth episode. And we're talking about money, mindset, momentum, motivation, and mental health. Because money can give you the option, but mindset helps you recognize them. Momentum helps you move them forward. Motivation reminds you why the journey matters, and your mental health determines whether you can sustain and actually enjoy what you are building. Let me be clear. This is not just a conversation about financial freedom or business success, simply. This is a conversation about what it takes for black men, black professionals, black businesses, black owners to build lives where freedom is not only celebrated once a year, it's protected. Practice and experience every single day. Let's get into it. So I'm gonna let everyone take a breath for a second, and we're about to go to the first segment. Woo! I'm already like the tone has been set. Let's go in. Section number one, which is the premise of this show. Money on my mind all the time. Times two at dinner time. Okay, money. It's the freedom needs financial infrastructure, and money is not everything, but a lack of money can control almost everything. Money often carries more responsibility. We are always trying to get more. But as we discussed in the green room, y'all, it's not just about how much money you make, it's how much you take, how much you keep, and your habits with the associate with the money that you get. So, first thing, money is always on our mind. How do we navigate that, particularly as black men and black professionals? What is our relationship with money for both of you? And what have you learned about how to make money be a tool and not just a deterrent for your success?

SPEAKER_00 6:43

Darren, the floor is yours. Oh, Lord, loving that, loving that. Okay. So, me personally, my my relationship with money, I'm very blessed to say that I had a very positive relationship with money, which is something that a lot of people who look like me don't have right out the gate. I was lucky enough to have my father and my mother both make good, solid money and both take time to sometimes maybe not directly, but basically teach me the fundamentals of finances. The fundamentals at the basic core, what a what a five-year-old Darren would understand is hey, you have to save up uh money to buy something. Hey, wait for this sale item or wait for that sign, that red sign, that red sign at Target for your favorite cereal, you know, uh Apple Gax. Darren, you can have it, but only when it's on sale. That's one thing that sticks in my mind what when my dad or my mom was taking me to the store, to the grocery shop. Another thing that sticks in my mind is when one of my friends, who I'm still friends with to this day, came to my house, and we my house is a four-bedroom, two and a half bath, two thousand square foot house. He thinks it's a mini-mansion because he's never been in a house that big. So my experience is a bit different than the average, but I was very lucky to get those basic fundamentals of hey, save your money. Hey, delayed gratification, you may have to wait. Hey, if you do your chores and if you have good grades in school, we'll buy you that toy, we'll buy you that movie, we'll buy you that video game. And again, the main thing though is that my family had the money to do that. They had the money to do that. So I got set in the right, I got I got set in the right direction. I I got pushed towards the right direction. But even though I had that right direction, it wasn't everything. I I still had to go out on my own and learn beyond the basics, beyond survival, which is what a lot of African Americans know when it comes to money. It's just survival. I had to learn about, you know, growth development. I had to learn about abundance, which is the main difference between blacks and whites, I feel, when it comes to the conversation about money. Black people talk about money when it in a sense of survivalness, like we need money to pay our bills, we need money to do this. White people talk about it in a sense of this is the way we're gonna better our lives and everybody's lives that we care about, and even lives of people that we don't care about. So I'll stop there. But just having those fundamentals taught by my parents, I was very blessed to have that.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

So I have another grocery store story. So, for those of you who don't know on the podcast and all that, I'm blind. I became blind at the age of 16, and I live in Arizona, and my family is over in Pennsylvania. My mom was coming to visit me, so I was cleaning the house, all right? Had to clean up the spot because I needed to make sure the house was clean for mom, right? And I wanted her to be proud of her son. So, what did I do? I realized about the day before my mom was coming to the house that I had no glass cleaner in the house. I wasn't staring in the mirrors or whatever. So I was like, you know what? I gotta buy some glass cleaner. And I just found the nearest grocery store, the safe way, and got some glass cleaner for about five dollars and thirty-seven cents. And then I got back to got back to my place, cleaned all the mirrors and all that. My mom was there the next night. I'm thinking the house is shining, everything's cool, no problems, okay? Because my mom's expecting the house to probably be a mess. So she arrives in Arizona, gets to my place, and she's inspecting it now. All right, and then all of a sudden, my mom's in the bathroom and goes, Tariq, what's going on here? And in my head, I'm like, Did I not clean something? What's going on? My mother found the receipt for the glass cleaner being over five dollars, and she was like, Tariq, you spent over five dollars for a glass cleaner. That is unacceptable, Tariq. That is unacceptable, unacceptable, and not only that, the next day she took said receipt, returned the glass cleaner, okay, and went to the dollar store further down to get the glass cleaner cheaper to make sure that we saved some money. So I guess I bring up that story to say I do believe there's some type of scarcity mindset around money versus the abundance mindset, recognizing that when I think about freedom, and I was hearing you speak earlier, Troy, about the fact that we can have the freedom, we can have what it is we want. So, my relationship, my mindset when it comes to money is that the life I want, I can work to create. But I think the way that I learned about all those different things about money and what it means and connections with it, I mean, there's a lot of lessons about that scarcity piece and making sure that I spend properly and budget properly and all those different things. But the relationship that I'm working on having is that recognizing that the life I want, the amount of zeros I want in my bank account, I have to have the mindset to recognize that I want it. Okay, now go get it. And thank you for sharing that grocery store.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

I was like, where listen, I'm like, where are we going? I'm I was attentive. I was like, oh, this is about to be sweet, and you did not fail, and we're already six minutes in, like, okay, let's go, let's go. I I I I take both of you all's points and and I sit with this. And the first thing I wanted to acknowledge is that um we also understand that it's not just black people who are struggling with money, white people struggle with money, Latinas, Asians, all races, all ethnicities, all nationalities, all social economic classes. 100%. For this particular episode, we do want to also acknowledge that historically speaking, statistically speaking, and literally with your own eyes, your own ears, your own common sense of observing and living truth, black people in general have profoundly been uneducated, unaccessed in certain areas, unable to have certain advantages historically that other people have had the benefits of. So though we are acknowledging that it's not just our plight, it's Juneteenth, it's our day. So we can talk and go as heavy as we want. But I do want to premise early on, just for those who are listening, engaging, watching, that maybe don't live this active truth as we are depicting in real time. You're not, we're not disavowing you. We're not saying your struggle is not in there. We understand that, but it's our day. So we're just gonna say it once and get it out the way and cover our basis legally. Uh-huh. And just saying we understand it, but we're seeing it from the very specific standpoint of those who lived in people of color, like as businesses, professionals, and just human beings out here on this planet Earth. With that being said, you know, I think it's hard for people to think and elevate their mindset when they're born into a deficit. If they're always hungry, if they always know paycheck to paycheck, if they only know they can only get a certain amount of money, live in a certain area, have a certain vehicle. Why do you think when we get any type of bonus, any type of tax refund, any type of surplus, we don't automatically think to save, we want to spend just to give us a moment of freedom from the day to day. I'm constantly reminded I'm poor, or I'm constantly reminded I don't have enough, or I'm constantly reminded I can't do anything. So people want to take on vacation, they want to get a Gucci bag, they want to do all these things, which we're not saying you shouldn't do that. You should be able to live and enjoy the fruits of your labor, but not at the detriment of your livelihood, not at the detriment to appease a want when you have real needs to be accounted for. And that's the part that we juggle with daily, where it's not just about the uh the increase of money, your thought, your thoughts, your minds, your happiness, and what I'm premising is we're gonna get to all these micro sections. So, y'all, there will be no crumbs left on the table when we're done here. Y'all gonna be full and stuffed, and probably gonna have to go to your pastor, your partner, pray, cry, go through a list, whatever you're gonna need to. You might need counseling from Darren after this, which I will approve, or or Tariq as well, your mindset, your money. I do marketing. So we got you all covered all three trifects. If you want to, the links for all that would be in the show notes. But what I want you to understand, and I encourage you because this is gonna get really uncomfortable. I'm your voice of reason because I know Tariq and Darren are gonna hurt y'all feelings and make y'all feel some type of way. My goal is to keep y'all listening and not taking it too personal. So I'm gonna kind of give y'all in and out. We're gonna reset and go to each segment, but I need y'all to get in this right ahead space because this episode is different. This is really meant to help you get out of where you're at. And the first thing to think about is what's your number? How bad is it? You can't get help, you can't help yourself, you can't even know where to begin if you don't know where you at. You gotta confront your number, you gotta confront your situation as is. Now, if I want to take a step back and talk about me for 30 seconds to a minute here, you know, I came from nothing. So I understand the ability of hard work, but I've also experienced that hard work in this society, in our system, especially as a black man, a black professional, is not enough. You can work hard. I've watched my father work hard for 50 years working for the same company. He got a small three-month, six-month window where they they cut people and then they brought them back. But because of that window, he couldn't get his pension, even though he gave y'all all these years of his life, a whole different generation. What do you take away from that? People are working hard every day and not getting anywhere. So I won't just tell you, just work harder and it's just gonna materialize. That's not how this system works. You have to compound your efforts with access with the right people and interests and technology, all these different things we'll get into. I promise you. But I'm acknowledging that hey, you're probably thinking right now, Darren, Tariq, Troy, y'all made it, y'all successful. Let me be real with you. Y'all think because we on this podcast with these fancy mics and laughing and looking good and feeling good and saying these great words on stuff, that we don't got our own struggles. It's much harder to encourage, coach, and strategize other folk while you are still in the mess yourself. That's the next level of character. So I want you to know we we still trying to get our bags too, but we're trying to help you get yours. With that being said, and the last thing I'll say, because I I'm pulling the black Troy Pastor Troy moment where I'm like, give me two more minutes, give me two more minutes. This ain't even like what am I doing right now? Come on, bastard. We're not bringing them back. Pastor Troy is a made away. You brought me back. This is not how this is supposed to go. But all this is gonna lead to something, people. I need you to understand, we're gonna talk money and mindset, mental health, motivation, momentum, all these things that's gonna be critical to make a full totality of you to actually get to where you need to be to that real freedom. The Juneteenth set us up, but we want you to get that real freedom. And so, again, have the right mindset as you listen and listen with open ears and be can really lock into what was about to go down. With that being said, I just gonna recap really quickly that I just need y'all to understand that revenue is not the same as profit. If you really do the study and the deep work, you start learning these words are different. Mental health to non-people of color is completely different than the mental health needs and stimulus and adjacent issues and stigmas that we as black people have that I know Tariq will cover as well. So I just want to let you all understand we're really about to get deeper into this thing. With that said, the next thing I do want to echo in on this, leading from money quickly into mindset, is that freedom requires a new internal operating system, and that mindset is not pretending everything is positive. Oh, I know this is about to be good. Mindset is how we interpret pressure, opportunity, failure, responsibilities, and possibilities. And many black people were trained to survive before we were taught how to live and thrive. So, Tariq, the floor is yours. Talking about how do we activate our mindset to pursue the activation of being free?

SPEAKER_01 20:00

So, great question. And while you were speaking there, I thought about something I saw on social media months, maybe even a few years ago. Kevin Hart was speaking about living in the projects and what the projects are like, right? And in the projects, you have like the projects where, like, you know, people are living and all that. And then down the street, you have the check caching place, and then right next door to the check caching place is the liquor store. And so it's the quickest release, right? The quickest getting away from the pain. And I'll just be upfront. I've never lived in the projects, you know. My parents did well for me to be able to become who I am today and look out for me, but that's really made me think about the systems that are around us, um, as black people growing up, being able to work through some of those different situations, and that there are different systems now, depending on where we're all at and where we're living, that in some sense tries to pull us back. And so the main system, I when I think of becoming free and what freedom means, the first system honestly is mentally, is the mindset, is understanding once again that more exists mentally. Like, I can't walk out the door and not think the life that I'm visualizing for myself is not possible. Like, I think I need to visualize greatness first and more than anything, even when you're not seeing it, right? Because I think we're told that dreams are meant for sleeping. But I'm here to tell you that the only time I truly dream is when I'm awake, because my dreams are mine, and I'm trying to put my dreams into action in my reality. And when we talk about the mindset it takes to be the person you want to be, it's understanding first that it's possible. I think there's negativity all around us. And so when negativity is all around us, being optimistic, quote unquote, being positive, quote unquote, can almost seem rebellious because misery loves company, but I'm not here for it. With, you know, just the person who I am, the person that I want to be, as this the chips get stacked up around me, recognizing that I don't have to be defined by my limits and understanding that I define me every single day by the actions I deserve to take, the actions I do take on the way to the dream.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

I need to sit with that. It put me on mute. It was so I was like, my mic went on mute on purpose. I'm just talking. I said, Oh no, Troy, you need to sit back and let sit and marinate. Tariq, brother. Man.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

You know, I mean, because here's the thing, right? What when you think about Juneteenth and what it meant for that declaration of, you know, that individuals in Houston to no longer be in Texas, no longer be in that slavery and all that, and what that declaration looked like. I I think that a lot of times we talk about racism and what it means for black people to be able to work through their different situations. We always talk about it now, like we have a long way to go. And I believe that to be true. However, comma, I also don't want to dismiss the greatness that was before us to help us get to where we are now. But then part of me feels like sometimes I need to bring a different mindset to the table to pay homage, to show my appreciation, to show gratitude for the work before me. So just being real, the fact that I'm here today, the fact that we're all here today, the fact that we're listening, it's our responsibility to be who we're supposed to be to this world. Like one person, I'll say this and I'll wrap up. If you know my brand, if you know me, we are vision of hope is the brand. Speak your vision podcast. Somebody asked me one day, Tariq, what does your vision and I had to clarify vision terms of my future, right? And I said, What does my vision mean to me? It's it's simple. My vision is my responsibility for those who came before me and for me now, and to lay down a path for those coming up.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

Man, to read this literally Alan Iverson to Andre Godala right there. Because two things. One, like I mentioned before this, before the recording, um, the shirt I'm wearing that you guys may not be able to see, I'm wearing an African-American or the history of the African-American museum shirt. I got it there when I visited the the museum last year in I believe November. And that was my first time visiting that museum. And Tariq did the job. I don't have to talk a peep about mental health when it comes to answering your question, Troy. He covered all the basis. And I do, and I will say that mental health is the first and most important required step in order to find that financial freedom that will buy the true freedom that I feel we all need. Beyond black, black and beyond. Because as a former counselor, I can sit here and give you guys, I can sit here and give little Tyrone, little Jayquan, Jaden, and the projects all the mental health tools, all the tricks, all the meditation that I can to help him cope with his situation. But let's be real. His situation can be fixed simply by taking him out the hood. Or I can't say it couldn't be simply fixed, but it could be greatly improved by taking them out the hood and putting them in the boondocks. So I'm not saying money fixes all problems. I'm not even saying money always buys ultimate freedom. But money is the singular tool that can lead you to the road, that can power you, fuel you. McLaren, you're behind 100, 200 miles an hour on that freeway, speeding through the freeway of financial freedom.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:17

And I really believe that. That's if you guys know on the show, that's my background. I I came from the mental health, social economic background. And the number one thing I saw families of all races, but most of the families in the group home looked like us. They're fighting about money. That's just the fact. They're fighting about money, or the root of the problem was about money. Again, I can't reiterate. I'm saying, of course, a family's issues is not always a hundred percent only money, but it dang sure is the priority, for sure.

SPEAKER_01 26:55

Yeah, you know, Darren, it's it's definitely a priority for sure. But I I also want to just add another layer in that it's so important to even have somebody next to you or around you who believes in you. A rising tide lifts all boats, right? And I think to that project story that I was talking about with the check caching place right next to the liquor store, I I think you start it it can feel a little bit limited in what that might look like for you and understanding what your future could possibly be. Just be real, people get into things they shouldn't be getting into because they might think that that's all that's possible.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

Absolutely. I I I can't I can't agree with that more. And that's why it's so important that people like us are doing these podcasts. It's it's so important that people like who look like us are talking about mental health, are talking about money. Because even me, I'm the and I and I always say this, I'm the person who grew up middle class. But because I didn't see people who look like me talk about the things that I'm talking about now, one, I wasn't aware that it's possible that we can get it. And two, I didn't really believe it was possible for a long time. You know, that that that's that's really how I felt. And I and I'm I'm middle class. All my friends were in the project. All my friends that looked like me were in the project. So the belief, the belief, the belief in yourself is so core, is so key. That's why I said earlier at the top of what I said, it's the first element. You need that. You need that in order to become financially free, financially successful. You absolutely need that belief. And and I also acknowledge that that belief, you just a lot of people just don't get born with the belief. You just don't wake up one day and hey guys, I just believe I can make $10 million in a year, right? I just believe I can make it to the leap. I just believe that I can be a doctor, I just believe that I can be a successful entrepreneur. I just wake up that way. No, usually it usually it takes somebody like a coach to instill that into a person. And I mean a person. I meant my virgins by a person, not a child, not a teenager, a person. Because we need that no matter what the age is, we need we need that encouragement. We need that role model. We need that person to go, oh, he can do it. So that I think I can do it too. I think that is so important with everything is that modeling, is that role modeling.

SPEAKER_01 29:36

You know, it's so important. And we'll get uh I'm sorry to uh again. Obviously, I I know Troy's gonna come here pastor, is gonna come up here in a second to uh lay down the word for us. But I I just want to touch on something else that you mentioned, Darren. I was probably about seven or eight years old. This is pre-blindness. I did something wrong, which is probably on brand. And uh my mom told me that I wasn't allowed to go outside to play basketball. Okay, fine. So then, but I was upset, I had this energy, but I I needed to do something. So I wrote a story about me and a few other famous people and famous basketball players on the basketball team, and we had some uh obstacles on our basketball team that we had to work through, and then I ended becoming the MVP and we won the championship. And being so excited about that story, I forgot that I was in trouble. First thing I did was show it to my mom. My mom read the story and said, Wow, Tariq, you have a dream. And so I I think there's some definitely some truth to what you're saying, Darren. But just to add something to it, sorry, automatic light. But yeah, just to just to add something to that, I believe, even though at the time we thought my dream was to go to the NBA, but I think my dream was led more into the rioting and being able to present myself in a way to maybe maybe inspire and help others overcome their trials and tribulations. But I think that the dream was always in me. I just didn't always know how to get it out until I had other supports through some of the obstacles I had in my life, recognizing that my dream actually did make sense to some. But I understand this: my goals and dreams might be ridiculous to others, but that's okay because it's mine, not theirs.

SPEAKER_00 31:40

Absolutely. I hear you. I hear you. And dreaming, and this is and this is the last thing I'll say, and I'll let Pastor Troy take over. You said something about dream, and dreaming is so important. Another element I want to add though, is that dreaming, there shouldn't be a limit to it. Dream as big as you possibly want, and that's probably not big enough. Go go harder, go bigger. That's something that I learned as an adult. I was in my mid-20s. My parents did a good job of encouraging me. Hey, Darren, you you can be whatever you want. But that's pretty broad. As an adult, is when I had a certain coach teach me, Darren, name exactly what you want. And then once I named it, he he essentially goes, That's not big enough. And then that's I I looked at him. I was like, what do you mean having two million dollars debt-free and uh an owned house and one nice car? Is it big enough? He said, Darren, you don't you don't want more? You don't think you can have more? And that was the moment that I learned that I can dream bigger, that there's no limits to what I and anybody can dream. And I think that particularly in the African-American community, even though this is true for many communities, our dreams are dictated still by what we we see. And I and again, that's why I think modeling is so important. I only saw certain things, so that's as far as I dreamt. I only saw the basketball player. Well, I'm gonna say the stereo, all the stereotypes. I'm sorry, guys. The basketball player, the rapper, the comedian, the football player, um, the insert entertainer. Usually, I didn't really see that many businessmen when I uh at the time I was a child. They're usually just entertainers. So I that's as far as I thought I can go, because that's all I saw. And of course, you get all the the real life elements of people saying, ah, you know, that that that's too unrealistic. That that's too big. You know, come down and just you're just go to college and get a degree and just get a job and be happy and and work for it for 50 years and hopefully get a pension. They were tailoring my dreams, or they were tempering my dreams, excuse me, at that level. It wasn't until somebody stealed, hey, that's not big enough. Why are you dreaming that little? And it can't, and he's it was a black man. He straight up told me, You're probably dreaming that little because of because all you saw were people doing what you what you dream, what you were temporarily dreaming about. But go bigger, go harder, go far farther. So I just wanted to add that element, but you're Tariq, you're absolutely right.

SPEAKER_01 34:36

Dreaming is is such a key element, and a and and just a quick addition that this doesn't work though, like like Darren, Troy, people listening, we all deserve everything. We deserve the world, however, comma, you don't get what you deserve, you get what you earn. Absolutely, absolutely, you gotta work for it.

SPEAKER_02 35:02

All right, Pastor Troy. When you get back, oh my gosh, we're not doing this the rest of the time. I'm gonna take my take my collar off and go home. People who know me back home, it might hit different. I I'm not a PK kid, but uh, if you know where I'm from, you you already know. But I I would say with people, you know, there's a difference. Words matter. I'm a very I'm very particular about what words I choose to use, what words I choose to employ, what words I tell myself. And this is not something I knew overnight, this is something I've learned over years, and I'm still learning it to this day. And we want to acknowledge the fact that there's a difference between a dream, a decision, and destiny, and a difference between um determination and direction. Lots of times people use these words interchangeably, and they're not, they're all different, and you need to understand each one of them. A dream can be real just in your mind, and it may not materialize, not because you weren't able to do it, the environment was never going to allow you to do it, it was out of your control for the moment you entered this world. That sounds harsh, but that's true. Sorry, I was not born 6'8, I'm not even 6'1, so I can't even be Jalen Brunson. Okay, I will never, ever be able to be as much as I know the game, I know the plays, I know, I know the artistry of the game, I appreciate the game. I will never ever be able to play the game at that. And that dream just gonna stay a dream, and that is okay. But don't take dreams and think because this one particular dream can't be true. That defines your level of greatness, cannot be achieved. You don't even know what's in your pocket. I will say this as an analogy the sun is money, okay? Your environment is the soil, and water is your community, is the people, is the mindset. It don't care, sun is there, it ain't going nowhere, it's shining down. But if you're in the wrong environment where you're not getting enough sun because you're in too much shade, you ain't gonna grow. But it oh, we got all the sun, but you burned to a crisp, you're not growing because you don't got enough water. Oh, but you oversaturated with water, but your environment, your soil is not conducive to hold the nutrients for you to grow. You need to be a completely holistic human to engage all the levers within your being to be successful. You can't just will yourself, you can't just work yourself to be. And that's the trap. People who aren't us from the jump have access to all three most like more than likely than we do. We may get one from the jump, and we now have to work how to utilize that to get the others. And so I'm gonna also add to this part because I think mindset is a very critical component to this, to being free. One thing I can say about all three of us is that we all have a very sense of uh, I would say, like, and I'm not speaking for everyone, I'm just acknowledging uh hyper-independence. We have this willpower that come on get mine, and I'm gonna will it, I'm gonna manifest it, right? And that can look like a strength until it becomes isolation, until it leads into perfectionism, until it actually stunts your productivity growth because you're so used to doing it by yourself. It's easier to say, I'll just do it, I'll do it, than to ask for help because we don't want to look weak. When other people they ask for help from the jump and they may get it quicker than everyone else because we think I don't care how the cake is made, I think the cake to be good. I don't care if you brought took it to the cookout or you made it yourself or you bought it at Kroger, you bought it at Walmart. If it tastes good, you're getting the benefit that you brought a good tasting cake. I don't care how long it took you to make it, it's the ink product. But we think if we didn't do all the steps ourselves, the police are gonna come by and tell us you don't you didn't earn it when people aren't putting that same energy to just I want to take the time to add to that as well from both of you. What have you learned about yourself from a mindset of asking for help? And could you share a good example, if you are willing, about how that helped you kind of change your mindset around, oh, I don't have to work as hard to get what I want in this particular moment. I can ask for help, and these resources can make it much easier for me to achieve it without me being burnt out.

SPEAKER_00 39:36

Uh, Darren, I'll pass to you first if you don't mind. I was hoping you go to Tariq first because I'm bad at this, man. And you know it. You know I'm bad at asking for help. Um, not because of the I'm weak thing, or not because I might not look as strong or I can't do it by myself. None of that. It's just I've been burned so many times. I've been burned so many times, and or the people who I've really leaned on, the people who've been there from day one, they're gone. They're gone. That's my that's my immediate family. That's my that's my god brother. The day ones who were consistent every single time are gone. They're no longer living people. I want to make that clear. Not not go, I'm not talking about all the friends who we don't, we're not friends no more for ABC reason. That everyone understands that. But the people who have been most consistent in my life, the people who I depended on, I was always go to to ask for help. They're no longer with us. So there's an almost mental health psychological element to me asking for help because I don't want to depend on them because I have seen this pattern. Now, that doesn't mean I don't I do not ask for help. Um, as you as you two saw, um, I asked my girlfriend to help me out set up this this this whole setup because I'm visually impaired, I can't see everything. That that took a lot. Um, that's still taking a lot to do. But a good example of me learning to ask for help and and Troy really hitting on your point about nobody caring other than the end product is what I'm doing with the podcast. I was sitting over here editing every single episode that I've ever recorded on my own. And I used to do the video. I used to do the video. I'm straining my eyes, giving myself headaches, trying to make sure this podcast is edited as best as possible. Keep in mind, I definitely have the resources to hire an editor. Definitely. That is not a problem. But my stubborn behind is just like, nah, damn, you gotta do it on your own. You ain't you you just can't depend on nobody else. Nah, damn, you gotta do it on your own. Even if it's killing your eyes, you gotta do it on your own. And then I had to talk to a couple of people who have successful businesses where they have a staff of people. And they say, and and they kind of explain to me, not only do you I need to learn to hire people to do something that they may be better than that than I can, that they need me. They may need me, they may need me assembly to cut a check, they may need me because they may not have the structure, they don't, they may not have the skill set to build the structure. They may need me for a lot of other reasons. The short version is it's an equal exchange. And a lot of times I've never looked at help that way. It's an equal exchange. Even though I'm asking for help, the person helping is getting something of equal value in return. And that equal value, you, and I'm talking to myself, Darren, I don't get to judge that. I don't get to calculate that. It's the person who's doing the help. It can be just gratitude, yeah, it could be monetary, but that value is something I don't always have to worry about. So once I understood it from that lens, from that point of view, I started to become more comfortable about asking for help. That's when I started. So yeah.

SPEAKER_01 43:23

You know, Darren, you hit on some really important things there, man. And listening to you speak, Darren, and listening to the question, Troy. Made me think of a question somebody asked me. Um, sitting in my kitchen, my aunt who I hadn't seen in a long time, my my dad was talking about how I had recently became blind and all that. And she asked me pretty straightforward, um, what are your limits now that you're blind, Tariq? And I said, you know, I am six feet tall. And I'll never grow to be six feet eight. So what happens there is recognizing my strengths and weaknesses, right? But not giving power to my limits. You know, I'm not perfect. None of us are. But if we give power to our limits, then they can, well, I don't really have those, but if we give power to our limits, then all it does is work against us, right? But if we think about what it means to work as a team, get people around you, you know, who similar mindsets that want to continue growing, that want to help each other out, a rising tide lifts all boats. So I recognize once again that I have my weaknesses, I have my things I'm not great at. I'll never grow to be six foot seven, six foot, six foot eight. Shout out Darren. But the thing is, I know who I am, right? And my obstacles, my hardships, you know, my blindness, the this, that, and the third, the list goes on. Yeah, they're a part of me, but they don't define me. And recognizing what it means to ask for help when I need it, to once again lift each other up when we all need someone to lift us all up. You know what I mean? You know, once again, I I I'm such a big believer in what it means to lift each other up every single day.

SPEAKER_02 45:35

And speaking of lifting each other up, we're gonna take a minute with the black men, blackness of mental health to acknowledge the two great featured speakers on this episode and saying, you know, Darren and Tariq, we appreciate you, we value you, we love you. There is someone who loves you looking up to you right now, who may not say nothing to you, but you living your life just as is is a testimony of perseverance, determination, and all the things. I like to say grit greatness requires internal transformation. And for you two to both show up on this mic, dealing with what you're dealing with, navigating what you're navigating, and not let it define you, but be uh an adjacent to you is a testament to your dutiful work, continuous work, not only in your mindset, but in your determination to I'm still going to make an impact and leave my mark on this world and society. And I think a big part of black men is that we, from societal and generational stimulations and stigmas, don't take the time to acknowledge each other enough, give each other our flowers because we think it's weak or it's not cool or it's uncomfortable when actually it could be the very pillars to keep someone going in some very tough and dare say respectively dark times because we're all carrying things we don't show because we're trying to look strong for ourselves, for our partners. You tariq you talked about and I'm gonna get to a little later too, the responsibility because of your vision. And I think sometimes people get uh an adjacent to that and an appeal because ooh, more responsibility than what I already got. I got even more responsibility. We don't even want to hear the word, do it for us. We don't want to carry the weight because we're already born with so much weight. As I'm gonna give some stats here to help elevate, black Americans in particular are well documented for grief gap experiences that could be death of parents, death of loved ones, a loss of certain things that all of us on this show um have had dramatic losses, both within their own body navigations and also externally with their family dynamic, personal loved one relationships. It's more apparent for us as black people, particularly as black men, um, by three times black children experience the death of a mother by age 10. I lost mine at seven. If you want to learn about that, I have a whole TEDx talk that I go very emotional about it. I will not go into that moment right here in this moment, but we maybe we'll cover that later. Nevertheless, nearly one in four black individuals who lose their father or mother experience even Jamormatic loss before turning 20. All these stats are real, real things. And people, again, where we go with the analogy of the sun is the money, we're in the soil and the water. You're already from the jump not given the nutrients, the environment, the access that you can to thrive. You can either stay in that perpetual mindset and saying, I'm already meant to fail from the jump, and I might as well not even try and wither away, or you surround yourself with brotherhood like we're doing right now. You listen to this podcast experience and other similar entities, you get Darren as a financial coach, you get Tariq as a mental coach. Sure, you can get me as a marketing business coach, whatever you want to do to help make those investments so you can actually get out of where you're at, so you can be free. So I want one take the moment to give these two their flowers, two acknowledge that they are both coaches. Uh, you can hire them today to help you. So we do want to acknowledge that too. Uh, we ain't no scrubs out here. We're giving you free game, but we all got bills to pay, mouths to feed, and generational wealth to claim. Okay, oh, that's a line right there. Pin it, say it, and affirmation on it. And I also want to acknowledge that the statistics are real, and we are dealing with a system that is broken. You're not crazy, it is real, it is forces against you. But we want to acknowledge that these two men have gone through some things, are proven, and can help guide you through them if you are willing to open your mind to that. So, on that gas pedal, I want to go even further on the mindset by first asking these four questions for the people who are listening to regurgitate. I'm gonna pass the baton. A healthier mindset includes do I have to do this alone? Question number one. Question number two, is this truly urgent? Or am I addicted to the pressure of it? Addicted to always feeling like I'm failing. I don't want to even achieve success because I'm used to failure. Am I making this decision from vision, as Tariq would say, or fear? And lastly, am I building something sustainable or only improving that I can survive it? So, the two of you, I'm gonna go Tariq first on this question. We're still in the mental headspace. Tariq, I I know this is this is gonna be good. I I can feel it in my spirit, okay? I can feel it in my spirit. I'm excited. I'm excited. Let me take a breath. What was one of those moments? I know you got a good story on this. What was one of those moments where you realized it was just a mind thing? And that I can actually achieve what I want to do. It wasn't as hard as I thought. It was the shocker at the beginning, but once I came through it and really just mapped it out in my mind as the first big step, things started to manifest better than I can even imagine. Could you talk us through that if you don't mind?

SPEAKER_01 51:14

Wow, so many layers, so many layers. Because I was sitting here thinking about the first four questions, and then you you brought this one in, right? Wow. Repeat the question for me one more time. Let me just make sure I got it.

SPEAKER_02 51:27

Gosh, I'm moderated here, and I'm over here stuck on what he's about to say. I'm shaking in my bones. I can't remember what I'm about to ask. Basically, the question is what's a moment in your life that you were mind-sharing that you realized it was just my mindset. And once I mapped it out of my mind, things started to manifest quickly, and it like almost scared you. Like, wow, this is actually real, this is actually happening. I'm able to take it from my mind to manifestation. Could you walk us through a moment like that?

SPEAKER_01 51:54

Wow, I have so I have so many stories, right? I have so many stories. Um, and we're still talking about mindset, and I have so many stories, and I have, you know, I really understand the importance of what mindset looks like for me in my life. And when I think about the question that you just asked, I think about what the strongest mindset trait is. The strongest mindset trait I believe there is. And I don't simply like to rank these things, but we're gonna rank them today. What I truly believe is the strongest mindset trait is ultimately perspective. Okay, perspective is everything. Whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, either way you're right. You're right 100% of the time. Whether you believe you can or whether you believe you can't, either way you're right. 100% of the time. And see, I think about a moment. So I remember the first time I tried crossing the street. So for those of you who don't know, I became blind at the age of 16. I lost all of my central vision and then only had blurry peripheral vision. You don't want me sitting in the driver's seat of your regular vehicle, okay? Um but so I really struggled to be able to cross the street as a blind person because of course anybody would. You have to be able to see the cars going, you have to be able to see the different things in the street lights and all that. I had another blind person teaching me how to cross the street, and I thought this man was insane. And I remember him telling me that he was gonna give me his my opportunity to cross the street, and that he was going to go back to his office. And I was like, what? He's gonna have me do this alone? Yo, bugging, all right. And if you can imagine what it's like living your life one way, and then in a span of a few months, the world telling you you have to live it a different way, and or it's not possible, you start leaning into what the previous examples of your life were. See, the first blind person I ever met was myself. Hey, Trick, how's it going? So, with that being said, I didn't know what was possible. And so I'm standing at this street corner by myself in Ruston, Louisiana. It's humid, it's hot, and my teachers walked away from me, said, All right, Tariq, you got it. Cross street a few times and come back upstairs. And it wasn't a lighted street intersection, it wasn't um too busy of a street. All I had to do was kind of listen to some cars that were going parallel to me and then cross with those parallel cars basically. Um, because I was trying to cross my perpendicular street in front of me. And I just stood there, froze, couldn't do it. And I hear this old car pull up right in front of me, like engine gotta be busted, all right? Something wrong with this vehicle. And this man had to roll down his window and saw the look on my face and was like, you'll be all right, young man. You know, I've seen blind people here all the time. You you'll you'll be alright. And I was like, but this man doesn't even know me. What are we talking about here? You know, and so and then he drove off, and I've never met that man again. He never met me, and that that's what the situation there. But I I guess I that that was the first story that popped into my head because my first job outside of college was teaching blind people how to cross the street. So, to now be someone in that time to teach other Bible how to cross the street when at one point I couldn't do it myself. What are we talking about here? Come on now. What are we talking about? So you can't tell me what's not possible, what is possible, because I went from being the person afraid and scared to cross the street to be the person who other black people relied upon to teach them how to cross the street and travel independently. See, life is funny that way, right? Because we truly learn from some of these difficult moments in our lives. And so I it's hard for me to paint the picture exactly when I set up believing in myself in that way, Troy. But that story really sticks out to me because I was the person that was scared and couldn't do it. And then I became in charge of teaching others how to do it, and then I got to where I am now in a place of recognizing that the mindset that it took to be successful in that situation with other blind people, I realized that we all need to recognize what's possible. Real quickly, when I went into my master's program, my grandmother was always there for me. Um, and she moved back to Trinidad and Tobago. So she grew, she basically raised us um in middle school, high school years so that my parents could work. And when I was in Louisiana, she lived, she went back to Trinidad because I didn't need a babysitter anymore, right? And when that happened, her birthday was coming up, 80th birthday, December 21st. Wow, she's turning 90 this year, so it's about almost 10 years ago. I I needed to purchase a flight to be able to go see her. And to talk about the mindset and perspective shifts that I made in my life. I went to see what the price of the plane tickets were to be able to go do this. Because now we're not just crossing streets now, okay. Now we're flying, all right? We we getting on whole airports, all that, all right. And then the plane ticket was $1,600, $1,700 round trip. And the pockets wasn't looking like that for a college student, right? You did there's no money. My my job is to be good at school, and so um I'm like, okay, well, going to be there for my grandmother's 80th birthday is not an option. So where do I have to take a bus to to be able to get there? Like the the thought, the perspective never crossed my mind that I wasn't gonna get there. It never did. It's like, oh, okay. Well, that's not gonna work because money doesn't uh fall off trees unless um you know you make Darren your financial coach. But until then, until then, right, I had to think of something else. So quickly went into problem-solving mode and be able to find a way. So I took the bus, long story short, took the bus from Ruston, Louisiana to Shreveport, Louisiana, to arrive in Houston, Texas at around 2 a.m. Saturday morning. I left Ruston, Louisiana at 5 o'clock p.m., got to Houston by 2 a.m. to spend the night in the Greyhound station. 10 out of 10 would not recommend um to take the city bus to the Houston airport to be there by 11, 12 o'clock or so for my three, four o'clock flight to get to Trinidad by midnight. And so I bring that up to say it's all perspective, right? Whether you believe you can or can't, either way you're right. And the fact is, there was no way I wasn't gonna get there. I didn't know how, I didn't know where or what the chips were gonna lead. But understanding this, that truly perspective is everything. I feel like I talked too much there. I apologize. I didn't mean to ramble so much.

SPEAKER_02 59:54

Not a rambling sight, and you don't need to apologize ever again on this episode in future episodes to just speak in your truth because you're giving us all the tea. And we gracefully accept it, acknowledge it, and need more of it. Uh passing the time to Darren. Uh again, the question is Um, what's a moment when you realize it was a mindset? And once you tapped into that mindset, things started to manifest better or quicker at a greater scale than you could imagine before. Once that was involved.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:26

To hear my response and the continuation of this conversation, please check out part two coming soon.