Aware & Aggravated - 40. Self Trust Will NEVER Make Sense In The Moment

Episode Date: May 18, 2025

Self trust is tricky and sometimes makes zero sense, but it's NEVER wrong.  Substack:  https://substack.com/@leoskepi?utm_so...  Social Media: https://www.instagram.com/leoskepi https://www.tiktok.com/@leoskepi https://www.snapchat.com/add/leoskepi Merch:  https://leoskepicollection.com My App Positive Focus: (Apple) https://apps.apple.com/us/app/positive-focus/id1559260311 (Google) https://play.google.com/store/apps/detailsid=com.positivefocusapp&hl=en_US&gl=US&pli=1 Business Inquiries: [e-mail]

Hi friends, things look different. I'm in the middle of changing my podcast set. This is the whole thing about self trust. It don't make sense in the moment, but my soul want to record so bad right now and I want to make myself look good. I want to make the set look better. This is not how it's supposed to go. It's not how it's supposed to look, but I'm just going to trust it and follow it.

That's the thing about self trust. It'll be making no sense. But this last week, a whole bunch has changed. So a lot of people always want to know like, how do you trust yourself? Part of not giving a fuck is being able to trust yourself. I have a couple of examples. One is about a business deal. And I panicked because I don't have a team anymore and I started to get scared because something in me, my soul was like, no, and I couldn't figure it out. We'll get there. Then I have another example about a desire that I had. Ah, a pair of Cartier earrings. all of a sudden my soul want a pair of earrings, $11,800. That desire pissed me off so bad and that's the exact thing I'm going to go into.

The self-trust thing, when you have a desire for something, when it flares up a lot of emotion, it's not always the desire is meant to be acted on. It's meant to reflect things and dig things up. And it's all about self trust. Cause if you don't honor the desire, you're not gonna get the message and learn what you needed to learn. If I was just like, oh, I'm not getting the earrings.

No, and throw it out of my head. I wouldn't have waken up to a lot of things. We gonna get to that one. Okay, let's start with a little meeting that I had. I had an opportunity come up. All these opportunities coming up, pissing me off. They ain't doing nothing but irritating me because people will think of they're going to play in my face.

But I had this opportunity to come up and I got on this meeting and it was about a collaboration for a certain like Leo Skeppy version of a product. It was like a full like shit and shebang was supposed to be. And the meeting went fine. The idea for the project was so, yeah, I want to do it. It all sounds good. But when it came down to payment and what I would be getting for doing a collaboration and being the face of the whole fucking thing, this is one thing I'll give you as advice for business or anything. If you're ever

dealing with someone in business and they say they will give you a profit split, do not take it. You never negotiate on profit splits because companies can legally, even if there's a contract, they can legally get away with not paying you shit because people can lie and inflate the price of what things costed to make their profit look lower. That's how people evade taxes all the time. So if you're ever doing a deal with somebody, do not ever accept a profit split. But I need to take you through like the feelings of it and the whole self-trust. So I didn't realize this whole thing about the profit split. I didn't know that going into it. Like the meeting sounded good. Everything went good on the meeting. My

sister, my new manager, was on the meeting with me and she got her read of the people. I got my read of the people and after the call I felt irritated at the thought of doing it and I didn't understand why. The only thing I could kind of think of was the percentage that they were trying to offer me for this partnership sounded low to me. The way that I felt was not a logical thing. It wasn't, oh, this makes sense. Okay, I'm feeling this way just because this thing is low. This offer is low. It was like a full fledged rejection from my soul because me and my sister got on

a call, like a FaceTime after the meeting and we're discussing things and she kept, every time she would mention doing it, I got pissed. It's like a protection thing. I don't know what it was. It wasn't anger. It was like push it away. Like protect yourself. I felt like pressure and weight was on me at any thought of going forward with this.

And I didn't understand it because like I said, I didn't know the thing about the profit split. But after the meeting, I started to get a little like panicky because I didn't know if it was a good deal or not because I didn't know like typical ranges of like, what is the typical payment set up if you do a deal where it's a collaboration? It's like, it's your own product with a company. Like, how does that typically go like a collab product? It's like if Leo Skeppy did a collab product. It's like if Leo Skeppy did a collab with Patron, like a Leo Skeppy version, Leo Skeppy bottle. I don't know what

the deal structure looks like. That would be a dream for me. That's one of my big goals. I would love to do a bottle with Patron. But I don't even know the structure of these type of deals. I don't know what to ask for and how this goes. I'm not versed on that. I started to panic because something inside me, we know who it was, was telling me, no, it's not happening. And I thought maybe it's about the percentage thing. I don't know what the deal structure is. I'm over here Googling it, trying to figure it out.

There's no clear direct answer. And I asked Chad GPT about it it my therapist no actual like factual information there's like a here's an idea of what it could look like but I didn't know and then I started to actually panic because I felt alone like I had just been thrown in the deep end of a pool or like thrown into the middle of the ocean and I don't have nothing to grab there's no life raft there's no sight of like anyone that could me. I was like, shit. I felt like I was fully finned for yourself mode. Good luck.

And then old managers and shit, I was getting the urge to reach out and then I was so anxious and worried about this because I felt alone in it. And then all of a sudden, I got in a visual of my old merch launch, the fuck forgiveness collection that I launched. The deal I was in with that, I got fucked royally because it was negotiated off of a profit split. That visual clicked and I was like this panic and this worry and all this, my soul's letting

me know, you've been through this before. Then I start researching and I see how a lot of things made sense with my old deal and why I didn't get paid jack shit for the amount that I sold because these people lied about their fucking expenses. They tried to charge me $10,000 for website. They did charge me $10,000 for website design out of the percentage of what was sold. So they fucked me. I've sent plenty of emails back and forth trying to get clarity around where the fuck

is this $10,000 worth of website design. I have the domain, I own it, I told you what pictures to put where, what the fuck did you design for $10,000 worth? And there was about $80,000 worth of charges they said were cost that I know makes zero sense. But through the contract, it was negotiated profit split. So people can lie and fuck you with whatever they want. Oh this was a cost when it really wasn't so they could pocket more money. This was all getting triggered and I didn't even understand why that deal went so bad and how they got away with it but it's like this all just made sense and immediately I felt better because the people I was wanting to reach out to and ask for help

Negotiated me into that other deal. I don't know if they didn't know either or I didn't know if they I don't know what happened But people that I considered reaching out to to help me. I realized I don't need their help They got me into a bad spot before. This all makes sense now. The deal in front of me that I just got off the meeting about, it's a fuck no, because I've been through this before. But it took me listening to that voice in me that was like, nope.

It wasn't like an aggressive or like a mean or like a panic. It was just like, no. And my response to that, because I didn't understand why it was a no, is what made me anxious to freak out and panicky. But this made me feel so much more relieved because even when I do not know logically what is wrong, I got that self-trust of like something in me will tell me no. I'm being looked after by my soul. It's not going to let no shit slide. And everybody's kind of got that.

Everybody's got the gut feeling thing. Everybody's got that intuition, but it made me realize even when I'm walking into something, I don't know. My soul still told me no and honoring that, listening to that and trusting, okay, my soul said no, let me start digging and trying to understand why. My soul was tipping me off to, there's more to look at. You've been through this before and I put all the pieces together, but I only was able to do that because I stopped and paid attention to it.

In the past, I'd have probably been like, oh, I'm probably just anxious, whatever, and pushed for it anyway. Oh, it's probably just like fear. No, there's a difference between fear and being an idiot. My soul was tipping me off to that, and I'm so glad I paid attention to it and listened to it. So if you ever got like a weird feeling about something, it sometimes doesn't mean yes or no.

It might just mean look into it before you say yes or no. Like there's more to look at, there's more to become aware of. So that saved my ass big time, but it didn't make sense. Nothing made sense. All I knew was something's saying no,

and I'm gonna listen to it. So I just started looking, and then I found much more than I done. But it made me feel so much more relieved with not having a team because I don't need one. I'm smart enough where I know enough and I've experienced enough at this point.

I've also got people that have come into my life that have always kind of been there. JWoww. Let me just name drop the bitch. I love her to death. JWoww is someone who has followed me for years now. And now when I have issues or concerns, I text her because she ain't going to bullshit me. She's been fucked over in this industry more times than I could even imagine. So she's just like me. She's a Pisces too. We both like the fight.

Yeah, but we both care about people so much. And she's always looking out for people. She looks after me. I do what I can to look out for her. And it's nice, cause I've leaned on that and I've had her basically save my ass a couple times at this point. So I don't need a team of people who I'm paying to look after me.

I know enough, my soul will alert me. And if there's something really big, I got somebody to ask and I got a couple other people too. But J Balvin, when I trust him, I always say, but it does take a lot of balls to trust yourself and lean on yourself. And like, for me to say, I trust myself going forward. It's like a whole different level of self trust now. It's kind of cool. The next thing we're going into with this self trust bullshit

is the Cartier earrings. This irritated the piss out of me. we going into with this self-trust bullshit is the Cartier earrings. This irritated the piss out of me. And that's how you know something is deeper. It wasn't just about the fucking earrings. Okay? It ain't about the 12 grand. I'm in like a pivotal changing moment right now.

I've been honest with you about every single step of it, but the whole thing of the desire that came up with these goddamn earrings, I've looked at them like a year ago and I liked them. Something about them came back to my mind fully. And then I was watching a movie. I love Angela Bassett. I love Angela Bassett as a person, every role she's in. I'm obsessed with her.

I love her. Especially Marie Laveau. When she was in American Horror Story, oh please. Amber Mono Royale, oh, okay, it's not about that. This is all connected, but the song by Tina Turner, We Don't Need Another Hero, That song struck me the other day to my nuts, like to my core. Like it like got me. I don't know what it is about that song. I do know what it was. The lyrics are, we don't need another hero. We don't need to know the way home. That song came up and started playing out of nowhere on my Google.

It was full-fledged a message from my soul because like I said last week, my spark shut off and I couldn't like, I was a little confused, felt disconnected, whatever. Soul's fully back online and things are lining up again and things are making a lot of sense. But my soul, when I was kind of questioning things, that song popped up. And when I heard the lyrics, we don't need to know the way home. My soul like settled into my body. I like got like a shiver and I could like feel it. And I was like, I am home. And I've talked about in the past, like I've never felt like I've had a sense of home. Like I've never had like a home. I've just lived in houses and lived in apartments and live places, but I've never felt like I have a I've just lived in houses and lived in apartments and lived places,

but I've never felt like I have a home and it's like a homesick, like the horriest. That word is like a homesickness for a place you've never been, but you know it exists. It's like you're homesick for home, but you've never had one, but you know it's somewhere. I don't know. But I feel like my soul connected that shit and the whole thing with we don't need another hero, the performative part of the protector side of me, I don't need a hero no more.

I don't need to be like performative and my soul would like gave me this permission a few months ago and it's all worked. It's like everything's been doing so much better. Everything's growing like crazy. The more I just am myself. The internet and you guys don't want another hero. Everybody sees these heroes on social media. Everybody with the picture perfect fuck bullshit.

I don't like that. I don't care about nobody who's got the perfect life because you don't relate to what I'm going through. You don't get it. Me not having to be the hero anymore has made people connect with me and I feel more connected with y'all than ever. When I meet y'all in public now,

it's a different level of connection because you know things about me, you know what I'm actually dealing with. Yeah, I handle shit, but I'm just talking freely about it. I'm not being a hero. I'm not being the one with his life fully together. So that song, the way home is to stop being the hero, stop being performative, be who you truly are. And that's the way home. That's kind

of what that song did for me. But that song sent me on a whole fucking thing. So I go looking up Tina Turner. I'm like, Ooh, I love her. I've been listening to the best and what's love got to do with it? For like a few months now, but this, we don't need another hero song. This is my first time hearing it. Came out of nowhere, like I said. And then I'm like, let me look into this Tina Turner a little more. And I watched her documentary, like little movie thing that Angela Bassett played Tina Turner in. So I watched the movie. That's where the desire for the earrings came from. Oh, I want to poke somebody's eyes out, face me on.

But I'm watching this movie, this movie, when they start getting money, when Tina Turner and her little Ike, ah, I hate him. When they start getting money and it's going through their life, they get into the nice house. It's the seventies, the seventies, eighties vibe. I've always been obsessed with wearing jewelry, boots, gold, like the certain look I've always loved. And I've been wanting to change something about myself. I need something more going on over here. I'm not getting a face piercing.

I'm not tattooing my head. I want to, but I've been wanting something to like edge it up like chae I need something different to reflect on my face. I don't get what it is. I Don't I don't know how to word it, but I've been feeling like an itch for like something to reflect differently It's not that I'm trying to change myself But it's like I just I'm kind of following with like following it and going with it is like something wants to change something I don't know what it is. I get the desire for the earrings again. Like it pops up and I was like, wait, let me go see they're off the website.

So I was like, are they gone? I don't know. But I still have screenshotted photos of them. And I was like, these could be like an elevation of the look and like what I'm trying to, I don't know how to explain it. You get what I'm saying, right? Like the earrings would just change the look. They would feel more me.

And I don't want them only because they're Cartier. I want them for what they look like, how big they are, and like, they're a panther. And they also are very expensive. There's a lot of elements to it. And I've been hunting for other earrings similar. There's none. The specific kind that I want. There's no other earrings like that.

You think I want to go pay $12,000? No. Especially right now where everything's chaotic enough in the air. So the night I watched the movie and got the desire for the earrings, I was like, okay, whatever. I'm not buying them. I told myself, no, where I'm at right now and what's going on, I'm about to have to put up like two, $300,000 for my clothing line. I'm not about to be wasting stupid cash cause that's a lot.

And I'm about to be putting up a lot of money for a risk that I'm taking on the clothing and the sunglasses and everything going on. Think tough. So for me right now, I've felt like a weird constriction around money, not constriction, but more discernment and like be more strategic with the things that I'm buying, the money that I'm spending, etc. Whatever. And these earrings just felt like my logical brain shut me down so fast and was like 12 grand.

No, you've lost your fucking mind. And something I've been trying to do is spend money in alignment. So when my soul tells me to spend money on something, I spend it. It's worked out for the past two months very smoothly, very clean. But money has not been coming back as fast as it's going out. And I say that out of how I feel. I don't feel like money is coming back as fast as it's going. But it is. Logically, if I look at my fucking accounts, and I look at my credit cards, and I look at everything going on,

everything's leveling itself out. Everybody always says when you spend in alignment, you get matched with overflow. Where's the overflow? I need overflow to feel comfortable. I'm not good at spending what I make. I don't do that. Y'all know I have seven accounts and I have like three separate savings accounts,

a bunch of money I don't touch. I've set myself up now to be at a place where I can spend what I make and have it be a flush saving money for taxes too. But like I can spend what I make and not stress about it, but I'm still very stressed about it. I like money to be going and like building my savings no matter what. So this whole living in alignment shit, everything logically makes sense to do it. But for me to go drop the 12 grand right now for the earrings,

the way my mind shut me down so fast is like I don't have it. I've got it. I just do not feel safe to spend it. And as soon as I realized it's a safety issue, that's when I was like, ah, I gotta go into it, yeah. Like this ain't just a desire for some earrings. This is triggering the unsafety that I feel, the lack of trust and the way that life's been going, the way things been happening.

Oh my God, like the resentment also came up too, because my logical mind starts fighting with my soul. My soul's like I want them. My logical mind is like no. And there's another part of like my logical mind that's like the emotional side, that's like the justifier. And I was like, as much as I fucking do for everybody else, I can go buy some earrings if I want some earrings. And then my logical mind's like, okay, but that's stupid right now. Would you rather have these earrings or would you rather feel a little bit safer

while you're about to go dump most of your cash into a risk you're about to take? Which one seems to want, we're listening, but we keep having delays, we keep having things happen. What do you wanna do, dumbass? It's like my logical mind's fighting with the emotional one,

but my soul's over here just like, yeah, here's the desire for the earrings. So it's just going to burn a hole in your ass until you sit here with it. So my emotional mind then goes on the whole thing of like the, okay, you're right. It is illogical, but damn, as much as I do for other people, the fact that I have to sit here and watch people who are absolute pieces of shit, be able to go buy millions of dollars worth of things that they want all the time, that irritates the fuck out of me. And then it was like this old programming of like an unfairness with the universe and God and like good not being rewarded. That all started coming up. And I was like, Oh, we not doing this. We not doing this.

I'm not playing this game. I'm not getting the earrings, but it didn't go away. The desire still stayed there. So I was like, you know what, let me sit down and actually honor this desire. Okay, I want these earrings. What is all these feelings coming up about it? I learned a lot about desires and desiring things because the more money that I've made, the bigger my desires have gotten. And it's, I've noticed with myself things I used to never be able to afford, I can now afford. And I have a lot of shit I never thought I would have been able to buy. And I constantly raise the bar for the desires that I have and things that I want

because I'm used to and comfortable with the feeling of not being able to afford something. Feeling that stretch and that pull of, I have a desire for this thing, I want it, but it's up here. How do I get there? It makes me feel alive. And that's from my old, how I was before I was forcing things. Having desires nonstop was just a way of feeling alive or ignited or to feel something. When you feel very numb, that was a big thing for me to feel like I have something I'm working toward.

Or when you don't have clarity around your purpose and what you're trying to do, it's like having desires for certain things creates that stretch and that uncomfortability where you feel a little bit more alive because if you're hurt you're alive. It's awareness. Numbness is awful. Feeling a little bit fucked over, feeling irritated, feeling mad, feeling powerless is still something. So I had this association with desires in my brain. I was like I'm irritated with myself Why I'm constantly desiring more and more and more Like how much money would it actually take for me to finally shut the fuck up about things that I keep wanting to buy Because it just keeps raising its threshold like a ten thousand dollar bracelet. I'm like, but I like that one. That's 40 I

Want to crack my own skull open when I start thinking about this, like it's irritating, but when desires cause you frustration, there's messages in them. Cause now I understand the whole thing of why it kept raising. It was my way of feeling alive. I don't know how to feel safe unless I'm like forcing and running and moving and working towards something. And these desires kept me in that state of my safety was having things I'm trying to

work for and questioning my worth, questioning what I'm doing, having an excuse to not sit down and stop and be working for something higher. And this is not just monetary things. This is opportunities. This is living certain places, working with certain people. The constant desiring way above my threshold, that was my safety feeling. Was feeling very uneasy. Feeling like I have to prove my worth.

Was my sense of safety. It's what got me up and got me off the couch. It did get to a point where that became so exhausting. Like keep moving the end goal. Like what are they called? Flagpole? Flagpost? Moving the goalpost. That's the word. Like constantly moving the goalpost. You can't feel good about yourself while you're constantly just achieving and going for more and more shit. Because it's like for me to go buy this Cartier bracelet right here, it was like nine grand for me to buy that.

I had it on my list of things I wanted to buy when I finally bought it. I was excited boots. Sure. I was like, woo, but I more so felt relief. I no longer have one more thing sitting there dangling in front of my face. I have to prove my worth for and prove that I'm good enough for every single thing that I desired and got was relief. It was like, okay, one less thing off this fucking list. If I could just make this much money and buy the rest of this, I can finally just stop. It's like it it was a proving my worth thing. So that's what this desire for these goddamn earrings revealed.

Much more than you'd think. It's not, that's one thing. That's also annoying. I sound nuts to a lot of people. Maybe it's the curse of being a Pisces. I don't fucking know. Nothing's what it seems. Nothing could just be a little deal. God forbid I get cut off in traffic and I get a download about it. People are like, Leo, you so goddamn dramatic. It's like you having downloads over the stupidest things. You want a pair of earrings. It's not that deep. For me it is. It's always that deep. It's always something else. It's exhausting sometimes, but it kind of fun. But like you just sound nuts.

But like that whole desire for the earrings unlocked all of this. And it's like, wait, I understand now why I constantly keep moving the goalposts and like why I keep wanting these desires. It's like, I'm chasing that sense of relief, but I cannot feel relief. I don't feel safe in relief. So there has to be something else. It's like that chase because the comfortability is in striving and trying to earn something.

But the thing under that of earning was proving my worth. So yeah, no more of that shit. Now, the desire for the earrings is pure. It's not got nothing tied up in it. It's not none of this. I learned with this, when you get a desire, not every desire is meant to be acted on. Sometimes it's just the messenger because now that I became aware of all this and I felt it all and I'm like, wait, oh my God, it makes sense, idiot.

It's like the little messenger. You can't shoot the messenger. It's not like I'm swearing off these earrings forever. I got through all this, I understand it for what it is now. Now I see the earrings as like, okay, I like them. I don't even know if I'm gonna love them because I haven't tried them on. So let me go text my sales associate

and see if he can order them in, see if they're still available. They're available. He's like, okay, I'll order them. I said, okay, let me know when they come in. I'm not attached to an outcome. I'm not attached to nothing. I'm not over here having to prove,

oh my God, I have it in my bank account to spend it. No, it's a relaxed thing now. So when I go see the earrings, if I like them, and my soul says yes, I'll buy them. I will. I will have to trust it. That fear also, the fear of spending that I have, it doesn't make sense because like I said, I've got it. But like the fear of it is another thing that's like coming up. It's like trusting yourself, trusting my soul. It's been the past two months.

Everything I've bought has like come back in some way. The money's come back and this is the most irresponsible financial place you could be in. And a lot of people get themselves into bad situations with this, but I do have discernment tenfold. So if I go to get these earrings and something even slightly feels off, no. But the thing with saying no now is I'm not going to be walking away, not proving my worth. Before I realized all this, I would have been irritated, pissed off, went in, tried the earrings. If I loved them, I would have been pissed because I would have made myself buy them to get that sense of relief because I can't just walk out and have that

like, oh, damn, I think it's still there. I would have forced myself to buy them, but spending the money that way would have been nothing of irritation. It would have been to prove my worth and to prove I'll figure it out and okay, whatever this time it's not going to be like that. I'm not attached to getting them or not getting them. If I get there, if I don't like them, okay, I don't like them. If I love them, okay, I love them. If I want to get them or I don't want to get them, I'm walking out the store still solid.

This is not a game no more with me where it's like a mental prove your words shit. I'm over it, I'm done. So yeah, that's T with the earrings and the whole trusting yourself with that. Like when you have a desire for something, trust that it's there for a reason. Cause I tried desperately to write it off as, oh, this is just stupid.

You wanted to fuck, that doesn't even mean, like I was beating myself up like, no, sit with the desire for a second if You want something sit with it because you never know what's gonna pop his little head out. Oh Sorry It's kind of annoying but everybody who walks the path that I do we're nothing that this team's everything is more than just what it is Okay That's what it's like

Okay, so the next thing I was trying to talk about this in the beginning of this episode, but it felt forced, but now it feels like a little bit better and it wants to come out. So y'all know I've been telling you everything about my podcast deal. So I caused enough fuss where I got the attention of someone very high up in the company

and me wanting to do away with the deal. This person said, wait, what the fuck? What do you mean we're losing Leo? Someone very high at the top of this company wasn't aware of what was going on until a couple of days ago when I sent a certain email and people didn't know what to do. So they had to forward it up to get guidance. And that's when everything hit this person and they were like,

what the fuck has been going on? What do you mean? Immediately a couple of payments got made to me, but that don't change. Nothing. Immediately, a couple of payments got made to me. But that don't change nothing. I don't care whose fault it was or whose fault it wasn't. I was not honored and treated how I wanted to be treated. So for me to say, oh, I'm going to go back and continue with the deal. No, the foot is put down.

I don't make the same mistake twice. And I've been disrespected to a point where I've been pushed to be fucking irritated and want to be done with everything. Okay, I'm done with it still. I appreciate everybody making good on paying me what they owe me. The minimum guarantee is not what I was paid. I was paid what I've already made for the past few months. And then we were talking about ending the contract. And the person high up in the company was like, okay, I fully understand.

This is all through different people. I don't have direct communication with this person, but my old team at UTA is negotiating this for me. Very sweet of them. Very nice of them. They're like being the middleman because they're trying to make sure that everything goes smoothly. Because they know I'll tell everybody, go fuck themselves. But anyway, the people who are like mediating for me, I love you so bad if you're watching this, you stayed the day. They let me know that the person high at the top was like,

okay, I understand that Leo doesn't want to continue. Like I want to sit here and like fight, but like I get it was pushed to a point of like, that Leo doesn't want to continue. Like I wanna sit here and like fight, but like I get it was pushed to a point of like, he don't wanna turn around and he's not gonna. So they were respectful and they understood the position that I'm at and where I was pushed to, I'm not doing it. So then they say, okay, we'll send over like an amendment

for like the contract, whatever. And we'll let you know what pricing is for hosting, like hosting my podcast. That's something I did not realize with hosting a podcast is you gotta pay out of pocket to host it. When my podcast was small on a little network, I've changed to different networks as I've grown and as deals have happened. But every time I move networks, I lose all my stats. I'm sick of it. I've had problems in the past with losing certain episodes and shit just going crazy. I'm tired of moving platforms. Nobody knows the host. It's just where you upload before it gets to the streaming service. So like there's a middleman between Apple podcasts, Spotify, and where you list in like

SiriusXM like there's, those are the streaming platforms, but where people like me who host podcasts where you upload your episode and you store your RSS feed, where you store your IP and everything that you have going on, that's all in a certain database where you host your podcasts and then it's have going on, that's all in a certain database where you host your podcast and then it's dispersed to the streaming platforms. From my understanding, this is the way that it works. So changing to different hosts is a pain in the dick. So I was like, I'm just gonna leave my podcast

on this hosting platform and we're just not gonna put no nothing on it. No ads, no nothing. It's just gonna sit here. And I don't know how I didn't remember, but I used to have to pay to put my podcast on a certain platform. My podcast, when it was small,

I was on like a small little bullshit hosting platform. It didn't cost much. It was like 50 bucks a month, whatever. The size of my show now, my audio side is the bigger side. Hey, if you're listening, love you so bad, still looking out for you. But on my YouTube side, everybody thinks the YouTube side is like the big side. My podcast side is five times bigger than the YouTube side. Like my listeners who actually listen to the podcast, it's way bigger.

For me to host my podcast is gonna cost me a lot of fucking money at the size it is every month. So the position I'm in now is one where I'm not doing it. So my options are stop posting the audio version of the podcast, or I can pay out of pocket and have this cost me a shit ton of money every month because of the size that it is. Or the other option that the person high up at the company suggested is if you

want to stay on the platform, we can make a new contract where you leave your podcast on the platform and we'll put one minute of programmatic ads before the episode starts and at the end of the episode. That way, you don't have to pay anything out of pocket. That's the way that you get around the hosting fees is by having a podcast deal. If you don't have one with a network and with a hosting platform, you're going to have to pay out of pocket. So the way I can shortcut it is by putting a minute of like little radio ads before the episode starts and the podcast will be free for me to host and put out for all of you. But also if there's any extra money that comes from it, I doubt it's going to be shit because

the ads are just going to be like one minute in the beginning. I might make extra money from it. I don't know, but it'll be enough to cover the fees of hosting. I just wanna say, I love y'all so bad, but I'm not paying every single month to put out my podcasts for free. I'm not doing it. I'm not putting myself in that position. And I don't think any of you would tell me to do that.

I've talked about this on my sub stack. That's who I talk to now. I love my little sub stack family. I'll put the link in the description if you want to join. But I got on there and I talked to you guys about it on live about what the options are, what we should do. And everybody was saying like it makes sense for you to just do the minute of ads in the beginning and then that's it because I'm not going to be doing hosts read ads. I'm not going to be reading nothing. There will be no ads in the middle of the podcast.

So it's like, I can mediate what my soul wants of not being interrupted without costing me money. But yeah, I just want to be fully transparent about it and tell you because this whole thing of like trusting myself has landed me in so many positions where it's like, what the fuck is going on? And something about me, this is just going to be a rant for a second. I despise when I cannot just be done with somebody or be done with something. These people, any of you who got a baby daddy who's a piece of shit, I feel for you so bad.

The worst thing for me is to be dealing with you, to be hurt, to be wronged, and then I still have to tolerate you or deal with something. Oh my God, it makes me furious. I like you to be dead in my mind and never have to deal with you again. So the past few weeks I've been like,

oh, the podcast deal's done. I never have to think about it is that we washed in our hands, we get down with it. And now I'm having to revisit conversations and go forward with dealing with this again, it arcs the fuck out of me. But the person now who's gotten involved is being very respectful and is correcting a lot of the shit that went on. So I trust more now to continue with just this, not because it's gonna make me a ton of money, but because the podcast payments were honored that I've made that the person caught wind of

and sent them. So they're doing their part, and I feel comfortable enough to be working with this person, not the people who I was dealing with before, who didn't really have pull with shit, just wanted to dick me around. The person who's actually in charge, I like how this relationship has been going. They've been very respectful and very understanding. But this is me having to trust being mature about it. Because old me, how I said, I don't like things to linger.

I don't like people to be like popping up and like dealing with things over time. I wanna cut everybody off, cut everything off at whatever cost and get you out of my life, get you out of my hair. Even though I don't have none. I just never wanna deal with you again. That is how I would have handled this before

because I would feel like I had to force you out This is like I'm trying to be mature I'm trying to grow and not act how I used to because old me would have said fuck it I'm not uploading the audio podcast no more, but that's kind of selfish. I've like just for me to Scrap it all when there's over 7 million people on my audio side of my podcast who I help. I don't want to take that. It's like this sucks because I got to be responsible and like take you guys into consideration too. And also myself and I'm not going to hurt you guys to prove a point. That's oh, that's the thing. Ah, it just clicked. That's the self-trust shit. I used to hurt myself to prove a point fully.

And now I can't prove the point by hurting myself because I'd have to hurt you guys in the process. Aw, look at us. That's self-trust boots. No longer hurting yourself to prove a point. Girl, I would cut my own arm off to prove a point to the body before, but now, no, I'm not willing to hurt myself to prove a point.

And it's like, I'm not willing to hurt you guys. So you guys just mirrored that to me, reflected it to me. I'm not willing to hurt you. And it's making me say I'm no longer willing to hurt myself anymore. So that's the update with the podcast. So if you hear audio ads for the first minute, girl, skip it. I don't give a fuck. It's just to get around the fees.

Okay. One more thing before I go. I don't know how much I want to tell you about this, but the collision happened. Okay. We're not going to talk about it. I'm at him. God damn it. I feel like for this week's emoji, let's comment the knife, the knife emoji cut through the bullshit. That'll be this week's emoji. Also, I've been learning a little bit of Spanish and what I mean by learning a little Spanish. I know basic stuff. I've been learning the bad words on Tik Tok. I've been posting videos about it. We learning Spanish together. Everybody teaching me. But as always, I'll put all my social media in the description if you want to keep up with me and go watch my Spanish lessons.

Also next week's going to look different. I'm still trying to figure out this set, but we'll see. So I love you so bad. Everybody be safe. Take care of yourself and I'll talk to you guys next Sunday.