Finding Mastery with Dr. Michael Gervais - It All Comes Down to Grit | Journalist, Shea Serrano

Episode Date: July 8, 2020

This week’s conversation is with Shea Serrano, an author and journalist.His books include The Rap Year Book, Basketball (and Other Things), and Movies (and Other Things), all three of which were New York Times best-sellersTwo of them were number one on the list and one was picked by Barack Obama as one of his favorite books of the year.Shea is also known for his work with the sports and pop culture websites, The Ringer and Grantland.This conversation is as real as it gets.Shea used to be a teacher and he loved it -- but he couldn’t afford to take care of his family.He had to figure out what else he could do and that led him to writing.Shea’s story is about perseverance.It’s about outworking the competition so he could provide for those closest to him.It’s about pushing fear aside and going for it._________________Subscribe to our Youtube Channel for more powerful conversations at the intersection of high performance, leadership, and meaning: https://www.youtube.com/c/FindingMasteryGet exclusive discounts and support our amazing sponsors! Go to: https://findingmastery.com/sponsors/Subscribe to the Finding Mastery newsletter for weekly high performance insights: https://www.findingmastery.com/newsletter Download Dr. Mike's Morning Mindset Routine! https://www.findingmastery.com/morningmindsetFollow us on Instagram, LinkedIn, and X.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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stay present and engaged with my thinking and writing. If you wanna slow down, if you wanna work smarter, I highly encourage you to check them out. Visit remarkable.com to learn more and grab your paper pro today. Growing up where I grew up or how I grew up, like you watch your family do the hard stuff anyway. I mentioned my mom, she worked at that corner store for 29 years. She's getting up every day. Her shift begins at like 4 in the morning or whatever. So she's going and doing that. My dad has been driving a city bus at this point for 33 years.

Same thing. He's up every morning, 3 o'clock, to be down there by 345 to do whatever. Like, I'm watching my people do that. My uncles do that. My aunts do that. And it's like, oh, I don't have to get up and go dig a fucking trench. You're telling me I just got to send 45 emails today. Like I can do that. No problem. All right. Welcome back or welcome to the Finding Mastery podcast. I'm Michael Gervais, and by trade and training, I'm a sport and performance psychologist, as well as the

co-founder of Compete to Create. The whole idea behind these conversations, behind this podcast, is to learn from people who have committed their life efforts towards mastery. We want to better understand how do they organize their inner life? How do they use their mind to build and refine their craft? And how do they use their mind to build and refine their understanding of what's possible for them? Finding Mastery is brought to you by LinkedIn Sales Solutions. In any high-performing environment that I've been part of, from elite teams to executive

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for longevity. And I love that David is making that easier. So if you're trying to hit your daily protein goals with something seamless, I'd love for you to go check them out. Get a free variety pack, a $25 value and 10% off for life when you head to davidprotein.com slash finding mastery. That's David, D-A-V-I-D, protein, P-R-O-T-E-I-N.com slash finding mastery. Now this week's conversation is with Shea Serrano. He's an author and a journalist and how he's become is incredible. His books include The Rap Year Book, Basketball and Other Things, and Movies and Other Things. And all three were New York Times

bestsellers. And two of them were number one on the list. And one was picked by Barack Obama. That's one of his favorite books of the year. How cool is that? Shay's a legend. And this conversation, it's real. And Shay used to be a teacher. He loved it.

He couldn't afford to take care of his family. So he had to figure out some kind of way to figure that out. And it led him to writing. Shay's story is, it's about perseverance. It's about having a vision. It's about one step in front of the other. It's about having purpose. It's about competing, like flat out competing with yourself to take those next steps, even when they're difficult, even when you're in deep waters and it's hard to figure out the right step. And I'll tell you what, sometimes you got to push fear aside. Sometimes you got to understand it, embrace it. Sometimes you got to swallow it. Sometimes you got to wink at it, nod at it, but he understands how to work with fear. And when it comes to the writing process,

there's definitely fear involved. Like of all the words in your native tongue, choosing the right words that capture the ideas that you understand most and to do it in a way that you get the simplicity of it, but never abandon the depth. And so in Shay's words, once I start typing, I read the stuff that I'm writing and I go, oh, this is, I think this is pretty cool. This is like kind of good. And then you feel like that the whole time you're working on it by the end of the, whatever it is I'm writing, I swear it's the best thing that's ever been written. Like in the history of words, then as soon as you turn it in, you get terrified because now other people are going to see it. If you care about the thing you're, you're, you know, inside of you going to

be worried about when somebody tells you they don't care about it or that sucks. And with that, let's jump right into this week's conversation with Shea Serrano. Shea, how you doing? What up, boy? Yeah. You start with some fire, huh? You live with fire, don't you? I live with three children.

So at the moment, yes, a house full of fire. I love how you think differently, dude. This is why I wanted to have this conversation with you. All right. Because you think differently. I think you see the world differently. I think that your experiences are so dynamic and risk-taking and bold that I'm super excited to have this conversation with you

i think you're you're hyping me up a little too much i'm excited for like everybody to by the end of this be like that was fucking very regular very regular okay good or sometimes sometimes the the average is strikingly interesting so let's see let's see what we have here. Okay, so let's start with a frame. If you could, let's say, how many chapters of your life have you had? Let's say the book is not finished, okay? But how many chapters have you had in your life?

I would say the chapter headings are chapter one. This is going to cover all of being a kid and growing up and then getting into college. Because I was the first person in my family to go to college. This was a big thing. I was like, within our group, there was nothing that I could do wrong at this moment. Once I got in, they're like, oh shit, he made it. So that would be like chapter one.

He's like, Shay gets into college. Chapter two would be Shay chapter one he like shay gets into college chapter two would be shay meets laramie because laramie was really like i don't know without laramie none of this shit works she's just the centerpiece of of everything she's like the you know the person i go to with whatever it is that i have to go to somebody with so shay meets laramie. Number three, Shay becomes a dad. When the twins are born, everything was like, everything became very real in that moment. Like the pregnancy complications that Laramie had, you know, four months into the pregnancy, she goes into labor. They're telling us the kids are going to you're gonna you know this is very very quickly

a grow up moment you're 26 27 years old you've never i've never been through anything like that before with like stakes that high legit oh shit time to become a grown-up so she goes to college shea meets laramie shea has kids shea becomes a writer because that changed the whole trajectory of like my professional life. And then I guess the last one is going to be Shay dies. The men in my family have died early on early. Like my dad right now is 57 and that's the oldest we've ever gotten. Every day is like he sets a new record. So I would guess if I'm 39, I'm like 80% of the way done. Like I'm almost out of here would be a guess. I hope not. I hope I'm wrong. I hope I'm one of those like old Mexicans that you see, they pop up on Twitter and it's like this person celebrating

their 104th birthday and their skin just looks like a fucking boot. Like that's what I want to be. But I'm just guessing the opposite way. Okay. So let's pause there. So there's this insight that about vision, holding a vision for yourself. And coach Carol taught this to me, head coach of the Seattle Seahawks. He was doing some work with some folks and he learned very quickly. This was inner city conversations with people that were struggling, right? So he was purposely going into communities where families were struggling, not communities, but the family was struggling. And he said, you know what? It hit him that there was this idea that I'm either going to go to jail or die trying. I'm going to die early or I'm going to be in jail. And he said, Mike, that's a vision.

That's the vision they held for themselves. They hold for themselves. So of course they're going to make it real in some respects. It's going to come to fruition. So let me, let me hold that idea for you. Like, what is the vision for your age? Like, do you, is it foggy or is it like 120, 101, 75, 58? Like, where are you in that vision? When you say vision, you're talking about like how long do i think i'm going to live well yeah but it's like really about your future you know like do you see yourself living a um a full long life or a full short life because your history i hope it's a full long life shit i think i'm gonna end up doing whatever my dad did is my guess. You know, maybe like the goal

here is his dad died very early on. He's outlived him. Maybe I will outlive mine and my sons will outlive me. The length I'm referring to here. So, you know, I'm just going to sort of follow what he does. Let's take whatever he passes away, whatever age he is when my father dies let's add seven years to that and that's going to be the goal so minimum right now my goal is 64 can i get into it with you here i would love that what why not why not say um 22 years why not say 50 years why not why not why not extend it like Like further? Why seven? Well, I think I think this is the same as like when you're if you're exercising, and you're like, I'm going to do some push ups. How many do you think you could do?

I don't know why like, why would I say 1000 push ups, some ridiculous number that doesn't feel feasible, like I'm going to give up quicker. you tell me to do a thousand pushups versus if you say like do 31 pushups. I probably can't do 31 pushups right now, but I'm going to try harder to get to that number because it's like, oh, it's closer. You know what I'm saying? So if I go, oh, I'm going to try to live to be 64, that seems like something I could do. Like if I exercise a little bit and live slightly healthier, I could probably get to 64. And then, you know, maybe I can get to 65 now or 67. It seems silly to be like, oh, I want to be 120. Like I'm not fucking Rob Lowe from Parks and Rec.

You know what I'm saying? Like that's not me. Yeah. You know what? I appreciate the way you're responding because it's like, listen, I'm going to base my assessment of my future on my history, what I've seen, like frameworks that are real. And my family tends to die young. And I made up a story that it's about disease or health, but I don't know if that's, is that accurate? Uh, heart attacks,

mostly. Yeah. Okay. All right. Okay. So then then can i can i double click on this one more time go ahead yeah so let's say you get to that age will you level up two years or will you level up another seven what do you think you'll do at 65 if i get if my dad died today and my goal was 64 65 and i got to 64 65 yeah i would keep i would keep pressing because at that uh if i get to 64 then that means my my kids are now in their 30s or something like that and that means they probably have kids i get to be a grandpa for a while so yeah i think you know just try to find some stuff to stick around for as those days come what is your pursuit? Like what are you pursuing in life? Money is money is like the, the, the answer here, because that's the, like, not necessarily like

the main thing, but it's what I need to get to the main thing. The main thing here is I just want to take care of my people. That's how it is. I've got like a very close group around me, a group of family members around me. And I would like to be responsible for like them having a better life. That's been the whole goal with all of this stuff. And it starts out small. It starts out, Laramie and I, we have three kids. So you're like, okay, first we need to, this is a conversation Laramie and I have had. I'm like, okay, the first thing we need to do is we need to make sure like that the boys are taken care of. If something terrible were to happen, like what have we left for them at this moment right now? So we're just slowly building that

up, building that up, building that up. And then once we got to a spot where we felt like, okay, the boys are good here. All right, let's open this up a little bit. Now, let me talk to my ma. And I'm like, ma, my ma worked at a corner store at a gas station for 29 years. And I was like, ma, you don't have to do this job anymore if you don't want to. We can take care of you now. And she's like, all right, cool. She quits the job. So now we're taking care of her, buy her a little house, buy her a car, pay all of her bills. She's good to go. And it's like, okay, cool. Once we've done that, let's go to dad. Dad, do you want to retire now? Cool. Let's set all of that stuff up. Alright. You two are taken care of. Now let me go to my, I've got three younger sisters. I'm like, alright, let me go to the first one.

Be like, okay, are you good? Let's take care of you and your kids. You know what I'm saying? Like slowly, slowly opening that up. So when I say my goal here is money, like I need the money to do the things I want to do because that makes me feel good. Yeah. So purpose is taking care of other people, right? Yeah, that sounds right. Yeah. Okay.

And then what is that threshold? Like what is taking care of your three kids? Is this like a yacht? Each of them has their own. Oh, no, no, no, no, no. Right. I know I'm being silly, but like, what is the, what's the taking care of look like for you in your mind and heart?

The taking care of for me looks like number one, the first main thing was if they want to go to college, let's have that taken care of. Because Laramie and I both have student loans that we are still to this day paying down. It's like, it'd be great if they didn't have to worry about that. So we set that up for each of the boys and we like put money in there until, till we can like get enough that it would pay for if they want to do four years out of whatever school, a UTSA, which is right down the road. It's like, all right, we've, we've got that. The next thing is like, is there a way to set up a trust that will pay them a certain amount every

month for however many years? That way, if they get into a spot where will pay them a certain amount every month for however many years. That way, if they get into a spot where if there's a job they want to do but doesn't provide for them the way it needs to provide, they can do that job without worry of the other part. Before I was a writer, I was a teacher. I did this for nine years. I taught at a middle school in South Houston, and I loved it. It was one of those jobs where you start doing it, and you go like, oh, this is what I'm supposed to be doing with my life. It was one of those. And then life started to happen for me and for Laramie, and you realize, oh, you can't take care of a family of four or a family of five on teacher salaries, making $40,000 a year maybe. Like $1,100 every two weeks was the paycheck, and I couldn't do it anymore.

I was like, well, you know, writing was paying me way more than teaching. So I had to move over to, to writing. Um, if I, if I could just like decide and do all of this stuff I'm doing now, but I could teach while doing it, like that would be what I would want to do. And I would like for that to be an option for the boys. If one of the boys is like, oh, I want to work at a nonprofit to do whatever, to help this community, but they're only going to pay me $31,000 a year or something to do this. You can't live off of that.

So it would be cool if there was like, oh, every month I get $3,000 paid to me that pays for the bills for most of them and I can do the job that I want to do. We don't need to be rich. I don't need for them to be millionaires. I just need for them to do the thing they want to do with their life. That's what I feel like, like I owe that responsibility to them. I figured in not such eloquent ways that you would say that some, because I think that when, from a distance distance the way i've been tracking your arc is

that you did just that but you didn't have the net that you want to provide to your kids right and so in your language you were broke that sounds right yeah right and so walk me through this is a big deal to me okay so i don't want to be light on any of this like in my mind i'm not like you you can do take it take us any direction you want but like what is it like first of all what is your heritage how do you identify i'm mexican i get technically mexican american both my parents are mexican okay my father-in-law has educated me about the hyphen and so he is he came to america with um 20 in his pocket at age 15. And he says, Mike, I've never, they've never allowed me to be fully American because I've always been Latin

American. And he's a, he's a man of full agency. He's like, yeah, that's the way that they, he's got full agency. He ended up like crushing, um, his experience in life. That being said, what is it like? I want to know, so Mexican American. Okay. So frame that in just a moment. Let's go into what was it like for you to be Mexican American, broke, and then get into this position where you're like, I'm going to change, but there's no net underneath of me. And I could be overdramatic. And so chin check me if I'm wrong here. Yeah, it was not anything as dramatic as that. That's not like a conversation you have with yourself. You just, you don't think about, and two parts here, you don't think about being Mexican American until you are around people who are not that.

Like, and I grew up in, I grew up on the South side of San Antonio. Every room that I walked into, every classroom, every barbershop, every restaurant looked like me, every person in there, large, it's largely Hispanic, 90 something percent Hispanic on that side of town. So it was like, oh, there are lots of Serranos and there are lots of brown eyes and there are lots of shaved heads with the goatee and the tattoos or whatever like that's that's what that's what everybody looks like i leave to go to college and all of a sudden the population there is the the school was like 15 000 kids i think there were maybe like 100 mexicans there like total so it's really a culture shock to walk out of one school you know southwest high school predominantly hispanic go to this new school and

all of a sudden it's like mostly white there's a large black population a smaller asian population but i think latino was the the smallest of the of all of the subgroups or somewhere near there so you don't start thinking about it until until then you know what i'm saying and it becomes like a part of your life when you realize oh shit is shit is a little bit different i met laramie laramie is is black and like even all of these years later we've been together 20 years there's still like differences that we have in in our cultures where like we approach things from with a different set of eyes so again this is not something you think about until you have to think about it it's the same with with money you grow up and everybody's poor oh this is

just what it looks like oh cool like your your your family is in jail this week so is mine like that sort of situation you know um and then you get out of that and you realize like oh shit laramie's family is not poor and you go to her i go to her house for the first time and they've got like these big front doors and everything looks so elegant it's like oh shit all your furniture matches and like you know what I'm saying? Like it just looked different. You don't have to confront those ideas until you have to confront those ideas. That's all that it was.

There was no like grand plotting or anything. Somebody opened the door and I looked in there and I said, oh, that looks nice. Like I want to be, I want my space to look more like that. How do I do that? And then you just start chasing shit down. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Momentus. When it comes to high performance, whether you're leading a team, raising a family, pushing physical limits, or simply trying to be better today than you were yesterday, what you put in your body matters. And that's why I trust

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Again, that's Felix Gray. You spell it F-E-L-I-X-G-R-A-Y.com and use the code FINDINGMASTERY20 at FelixGray.com for 20% off. Okay, so I want to get to the part where you took a risk. And maybe you're saying the risk wasn't dramatic, but I just love the idea that you've fundamentally changed the way that your family structure worked from the way you grew up to the way it is now. I think that that's one of the significantly difficult things to do for most humans is to move up a level, if you will, you know, or expand your opportunities.

So can you teach on that a little bit and even tell me a story like about the exact intersection where you decided to make some changes? You know, I wish that I had like a really cool tale to give about like how I put in plan, I put in motion this great big plan of how like five years later, it's going to look different. But that was not the case at all. The way that it worked for me was I was teaching, Laramie was teaching, she got pregnant with a twin, she couldn't work anymore. All of a sudden, we only had one salary to live on. And you realize very quickly, these numbers don't fit. We have too much in the bill column and not enough in the income column I need to like float us until she can get back to work about six months later

and so it's like all right I need to make four hundred dollars extra a month how can I do that I start applying to work at like I'm gonna can I work at Target can I work at a grocery store can I be a waiter at a different restaurant and I went on a few interviews in each of the interviews they were like oh we can't hire you because you already have a full time job. You can't work when we need you to work. So like, this isn't going to work out. I'm like, all right, well, that fucking sucks. So I'm at home Googling work from home jobs. Writer was one of them. And I click on it. I'm reading through the list and it's like, oh, you need to be a writer is like the internet and, uh, and a computer. And then you can be a

writer. There you go. So I said, well, I have both of those things. Let me try to, to do that. And then I just started researching. Um, we're living in Houston at the time. I like grab every local Houston newspaper that I can get. I'm looking through finding who editors are. I'm just emailing people trying to like figure out a way way in because again, I'm not trying to change my career. I love teaching. I want to be teaching. I'm just trying to make an extra 400 bucks a month or whatever the number is. And you know, I get like my first article in this little tiny, it's called the Near Northwest Banner. It was like a legitimate newsletter that this woman and man were printing up in their garage and then like handing out to people in the neighborhood and they paid me 15 to write about the texans for them

and i did that and then i wrote one about the astros and then i took those two pieces to the houston press and it was like hey look i'm a writer for real i've written for papers can i write for y'all and then i was like able to make friends with this guy who connected me to an editor there. And then I started working there and it just kept going like that. Each time you like you get in a spot, uh, you get a couple assignments and you like spread your wings a little bit and then you take those to whatever the next bigger spot is. So I'm like, okay, cool. I went from the Houston press. Now I'm going to pitch like LA weekly or the village voice. And then when I get in there, I'm like, all right, cool. Now I can pitch MTV or Rolling Stone or ESPN. And you're just slowly working your way up, not really thinking too far ahead. You're just like,

what's the next thing that I can do to make a little bit more money? And then that's when like all of a sudden it's two years later and you look around and you're you're making not a ton but maybe like two thousand bucks a month freelance writing and you're like oh shit I make twenty two hundred dollars a month teaching full-time two thousand dollars a month freelancing part-time maybe there's a way that I can like do more of this and then I got like my first job offer to go work at ESPN and I took like a part-time contract for that. And then that became a full-time thing. And it just, you know, things just kept happening in that path. Like one little thing each time. It's like a, like that's, that's literally how you climb a ladder is fucking one rung at a time. You don't fucking go from the bottom straight to

the top. You know what I'm saying? I'm so glad that we talked about this because I had a different thought about how you did it. And, and what you just described is actually my path as well, which is like most, most people don't know this about me, but for years, my first office was in a janitor's closet in an old school that had no windows. And I was, and that's where I would see, you know, I was starting to work my craft a little bit and I was having to chase out rats. There was a rat problem in the office. So, right. It's not, it's not glamorous at all. And it was just like, and then, you know, there was a little, I did some good work and it kind of clicked. And then there was an introduction to another person and another, and just kind of kept expanding in these very small ways. But I see myself as somebody who has

high work ethic and high agency, meaning that I can, I can co-create an experience with, with environments and people. And I'm not like at the whips end of whatever they want. Right. And, and I don't think that I'm just creating whatever it is that I want. It's a co-creation and I'm hearing that word agency for you. Right. Like, like the sense that you can make a difference in a space. Is that fair to say? That's, that's fair to say now.

Now I have some confidence in that capacity. At the time, though, no, I was just doing whatever somebody told me to do to get like an extra $40. What made you believe that you could go from a $40 gig to an $80 gig? Like what made you believe that you could actually take those steps once you got into those rooms? Yeah. Well, once you get into the rooms, you realize that people who who are in there you sort of build them up in your head that they're just like these mythic creatures who whatever they they have some sort of unnamed talent or skill that you don't have and then you get in the rooms and you talk to the people and you realize like oh there are there are

definitely people in any industry who are just innately more talented than everybody else that will always be the be the case we're talking about writing like i can name you five writers like sean finnessy for example you read his stuff and you're like oh you were born to do this wesley morris gia tolentino like these these characters you read their stuff and you're like i could never do what they do ever. But that's a small, small percentage of the people who make up the writing industry. All of the rest of them, we're all working with like the same skill set. It's just a matter of like who's going to knock on the door the loudest? Who's going to stand there the longest?

Who's going to try the hardest? And once I realized like that's all that this is this is just like straight up endurance challenge oh I'm fucking good I can I can't run fast but I could run for a long time you know what I'm saying and that's just what that's what it felt like okay all right so that that is like this internal skill of perseverance of effort if you will a sense of resiliency to bounce around and forward, hopefully when it gets hard. And then, so then what gives you the right, and I don't mean this in an aggressive way, but what gives you that, what gives you the right to say, I know I can go for a long time. I can do hard things. Like, how do you, how do you, how do you back that up inside of yourself? Cause

obviously you have the external, um, arc that I even like that I've been able to watch. You're like, oh shit, look at that. But internally, what gives you the right to say, no, I can do hard things? I would guess because growing up where I grew up or how I grew up, you watch your family do the hard stuff anyway. I mentioned my mom, she worked at that corner store for 29 years. She's getting up every day. Her shift begins at like four in the morning or whatever. So she's, she's going and doing, doing that. My dad has been driving a city bus at this point for 33 years. Same thing. He's up every morning, three o'clock to be down there by,

by three 45 to do whatever. Like you, i'm watching my people do that my uncles do that my aunts do that and it's like oh like i don't i don't have to get up and go dig a fucking trench you're telling me i just got to send 45 emails today like i can do that no problem this is different so this is part of your family dna right hard work and okay. I don't know if this is, um, man, I'm trying to figure out this racism, anti-racism space. Like I'm really at a very contemplative place trying to sort it out. And what is it like right now with your wife being black, your, and you being brown, what is that like for you? It's not any different, really.

If you like, you know what I'm saying? It's not, it's not anything. This was not like some great revelation when people realized, oh, like there's a lot of foul shit happening right now. Because for me,

it's been happening for my whole life. For Laramie, it's been happening in her whole life. like you just see it all of the time it's cool that we that like a lot of these ideas are being confronted now a lot of the like there's there's an acknowledgement there seems to be maybe it's just the people who i follow on twitter you always have to account for that but there seems to be an acknowledgement that people are realizing the structure of the United States of America is set up as such that lives of non-white people are regarded as less than. And it's cool to like watch this become a big thing. We're in the middle of a, of a civic movement

that we have not seen in like 50 or 60 years. Like this is a big thing that's happening right now. So like, you know, to be alive during this particular moment is cool. It sucks, but it's also, you know, less sucky than if we were all ignoring it. Yeah. So on the idea, the movement, the center of the movement was Black Lives Matter. And so as soon as somebody says, well, Brown Lives Matter, it becomes, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, is that a dilution of this, the epicenter of the experience of being black in America? You know, is that racist? Are you trying to shed a little bit here from the actual core issue? And so my wife, my wife is going back and forth a little bit like this is epic.

And then and then the other thought, which is like. Yeah, you know, like Brown is not included yet. And I wonder if it will be. And, you know, but it's like this, it's a small note. But I'm wondering what that's like for you. I would say that's a tricky question to answer on the surface. But ultimately, ultimately, ultimately ultimately it's very easy there is no experience that you can liken to being black in america there's just not period

there's there's there's no like conversation to be had about that i don't know what that feels like i know what it feels like to be mexican in america that's it that's all that i know same as you know what it feels like to be white in america and we can be like we can commiserate me and like laramie can commiserate over like certain versions of shared experiences but ultimately i can never know what it feels like to look at the news and see a thing and be like oh this is this looks like me um in like me in the capacity that she can. So I don't think there's ever a reason to respond to the phrase Black Lives Matter with any other version of that thing.

Like it's just, that's not what this is. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, totally. So that's a conversation that Laramie and I have had on very few occasions because we both sort of understand the differences here. It wasn't like when all of the, like, news was focused on the family separations at the borders. She wasn't like, oh, but don't forget about the police shoot. Like, these things can all exist at the same time. You know what I'm saying?

We can confront all of these exist at the same time. You know what I'm saying? We can confront all of these ideas at the same time. We don't have to like try to always include every single part of every single thing into these moments. Like don't fucking – don't do that. That's what's up right there is that we can hold space. We can hold the container to do and stand for all things that are of injustice. How about it? Yeah. Go for it. Yeah, right?

That's the idea, that we can hold that space and we can take action in each one of those, whether it's the ones you mentioned or trafficking and or, and or, and or, right? There are a thousand of them. There are a thousand versions of this story. There are endless groups of people who are being oppressed for whatever reason. We don't have to, you know, acknowledging that we are specifically talking about one thing at one particular moment doesn't minimize anything else. If anything, it like increases the validity of everything. What do you think the most important step is to close the racial divide? I think, I think a lot of the, a lot of the onus

here is going to fall on white people, honestly. And I don't know if that's like a, a sacrifice most of them are willing to make because we can, you know, the other side of it, we can fuss and like make our points known and tell you all of the things, but, you know, think on it like here's a, here's a sloppy metaphor. If you've got like two kids playing and one kid has nine toys and the other one has two toys, ultimately the kid with nine is going to have to decide to give some of the toys away to the other one. That's where we are, I think, with things. We are being very loud and very clear about the injustices that are occurring. And now it's time for some of y'all to hand over some of

y'all's toys. And those toys in the metaphor are seats at tables, right? Like positions of influence and decision-making. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That works. You know, I think we all have a role to play in this situation. My role is not like the legislation of reform.

That's not me. I'm just like an idea will pop up and I'll go like, oh, that seems like a good idea. We should maybe let's try that. I'll support that. You know what I'm saying? Like that's where, where I am. Finding Mastery is brought to you by Cozy Earth. Over the years, I've learned that recovery doesn't just happen when we sleep. It starts with how we transition and wind down. And that's why I've built intentional routines into the way that I close my day. And Cozy Earth has become a new part of that. Their bedding, it's incredibly soft, like next level soft. And what surprised me the most is how much it actually helps regulate temperature. I tend to run warm at night and these sheets have helped me sleep cooler and more consistently, which has made a meaningful difference in how

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i when i look at your headlines and your taglines they're awesome dude they're straight from the heart they're clear they're concise and uh there's definitely a theme involved in it you know like foh you know like what walk us through how foh came up to be. Walk us through like, you know, just some of the taglines and how you come up with them. Okay, so it always feels weird to me to explain like things that happen on Twitter away from Twitter because there's no way to do it

without sounding insane. With regard to the FOH, that's shorthand for the phrase fuck out of here, which is shorthand for the phrase get the fuck out here, which is shorthand for the phrase, get the fuck out of here. This started as like a silly rallying cry in 2015. The way it happened is my first real book was coming out. And when you put a book out, a publisher will determine how many copies of the book they're going to print up in the beginning.

And if they think it won't sell a lot, they print up a few and there you go. Um, that's like the background information you need. But so the book is coming out and I was trying to get people to buy the book. I'm on Twitter. I think I maybe have like 40,000 people following me at the time. And I'm like, Oh, go buy the book from this bookstore today. And there you go. Some people went and bought the book. And we end up like selling out at that store because that store maybe had six copies of the book or three copies of the book. But it sounds cool to be like, oh, we bought all the copies at this book because everybody assumes there's fucking a thousand copies at every store. So we go to the next.

We're like when they tell us that they've sold out, we move to the next store and we like sell out there. And then we're like, oh, let's get them from Amazon. And we sell out on Amazon. And we're just sort of going around. And somebody makes the joke that we are like a shitty version of an army. Just sort of going around causing trouble at different places. Because like a store's website crashed a couple of times. And then somebody gave it the name the FOH Army.

That's where the tag name came from. Because it was like a joke. Like people were saying nobody was going to buy the book. And we're telling them, get the fuck out of here. We're going to go buy the book. It was something silly like that. This is just me trying to remember it from five years ago. But that's how it started. And then like a year later or so, this is October of 2015. So the book had come out. then I was writing full time at the, at this moment. And the place where I was working, this place named Grantland closed down. They just shut down. They're out of here forever. And I had signed a one year contract. So I still have eight months on my

contract to sort of do whatever I want. And they, they, they're going to pay me my paychecks every two weeks. So we start, I say we, me and Arturo Torres, this, uh, the illustrator of all my books, him and I start a newsletter to just like stay practiced. Cause I wasn't writing anywhere and he wasn't drawing anywhere. So we start this illustrated newsletter and it's like supposed to be just a silly little thing. But after a week or two, we have, you know, 30,000 people subscribe to it. And people are asking, you know, you're, you're putting this out for free. Let, you know, can I this out for free let you know can i send you a dollar can i send you two dollars blah blah we came like this running joke because

we kept telling them no and then finally after four weeks of doing this we put a donation button in one of the newsletters and we sent it out and then like that morning we like four thousand five thousand dollars or whatever it was just sort of showed up in in our paypal account or venmo or whichever one it was and we had talked about it beforehand because i was still getting a check from my job i didn't know if i was like breaking rules by taking money from somewhere else so i didn't want the money um arturo was freelancing so i was like telling him i don't pay you very much for the art let me give you like a thousand bucks, 1500 bucks or something. He's like, all right, cool.

So we did that. And then we'd sent the rest to the shelter in Dallas that he spent some time in as a kid, him and his mom and his brothers called the Genesis Woman Shelter. So we sent the rest of the money to there. And then we posted screenshots of it on Twitter. We're like, here's how much money we got. Here's what I gave Arturo. Here's where I sent the rest of it. Like surprise, you guys, you dummies accidentally donated to this place.

And everybody made like a big fuss about it. Oh, that's so cool. You like gave away money, blah, blah, blah. And that's how it started. And that was, you know, I think maybe 2016, maybe late 2015, something like that. And it just sort of grew from there. We did it again a few weeks later, and then we donated it to another place. And then it was like, we realized very quickly, we could just be like, hey, give us some money, and we'll donate it. And people start sending money in. And it started out as like small things like $1,000, $3,000, $5,000. And then like, the first real actual big one that we did was when Hurricane Harvey hit Houston. And you know, the neighborhood that I lived in flooded and there was like a lot of

crazy shit going on. And we were stranded outside of Houston at the time and I didn't know what to do. So I was just like, I guess send me some money and I'll get it to the places in Houston that are helping. And in like eight or nine hours, we had 130 something thousand dollars, like more money than I'd ever seen in my account in my life. And I panicked and I was like, oh, fuck, I'm going to prison. The IRS is going to get me. This is this is awful. I like tried to turn it off real fast. I don't nobody send me any more money. I don't know what to do. And then thankfully, the people at Venmo and PayPal reached reached out and they're like we saw this activity what's going on i explained to them what it was and they go oh cool we can help with that

this guy named josh crisco i'll never forget him um he was like i got you just tell me where you want the money to go and i'll get it to them and now i don't even have to like take it out of my venmo account it just goes straight into the non-profits but we did that and then it just became like a thing and now it's like anytime we're gonna donate money to a place i go like all right i'm in for 50 bucks y'all can send in money if you want and it's like a bunch of five dollar ten dollar donations and it always adds up to a ton like just during when all of this like fucking coronavirus shit happened this we started doing this on March 12th. Over like a two or three month stretch, we donated $250,000, $260,000

of just straight cash to different places, different people, just off of these like little donations. But that's what the FOH is. That's all that it is. It's just like a bunch of people on the internet who will send in five bucks when we need it. It's awesome. I mean, the whole thing is like, it's like an accident that took place, but really it was based on a decision or a mindset or a philosophy that you had, which is, hey, money is to do good for others. And it was question number one from jump. That's what you

said. Like your pursuit is for money, but the purpose is to do good for others. And it was question number one from jump. That's what you said. Like your pursuit is for money, but the purpose is to do good for others. And then it does, it does not, you, you are not complicated in the approach that you said, well, when I had some money, I stayed true to my purpose and I gave it to these, you know, these organizations. And so that, so again, I want to pivot back to mindset or philosophy, you know, and in that, because yours seems really clear to me. And it's marked by the consistency of the tone of what you write in, systematic change, or do you think an accident happens and then you're forced to change your mindset? And I'm loaded the way I'm going to, I think about this and I'll share my opinion, but how do you see that? I don't know. Fucking, I have no idea. Maybe at some, at, at some point inside of everybody's body there's like a there's like an urge or a voice telling you to do something uh that's hard to speak to that's

hard to address when i look back at it it very much feels like an accident it like we weren't anticipating to like take money for the newsletter for. And then once we saw people wanted to do it, we didn't say, oh, we should donate money. It'll be like a good thing to do. We legit were like, oh, you know what would be fucking funny is if we took this money. And then like the Joker in Batman, we just didn't do anything. We set it on fire somehow. Let's just give it away to a plate. That's what it was.

It wasn't like, oh, I feel like I'm a good person. Let me go do a good thing. It wasn't that. It was this other thing. We just thought it would be a clever, funny thing to do. And then it became like a thing people were expecting us to do. So we just started doing it. So is your part of your life approach, is it, and this is more tonal or stylistic, if you will, is it an irreverent off access, funny, like the Joker thing? Right. Or is it serious and intense and purposeful? Like, like I would love to hear in your words, the style that you, that you come from, because your purpose is clear, but you've got, this this is what this is why i'm stoked to talk to you like you got a really cool style and so um i'd like to hear how you describe your your approach your style my approach or my style to like being alive life yeah your your your craft

included because that's how i that's how i first met you right like through your craft yeah yeah that makes sense okay so all i want to do is like just make some cool shit with people I like professionally that's like the whole thing that I want to do if I like meet somebody oh you're cool like you want to do a thing I saw Arturo's artwork and I was like hey we should do let's do a thing together and then we started working together or I like might try to pitch a tv show with somebody I'm like oh you're cool you want to do like a thing let Let's try a thing and see what happens. So that's like professionally that's my whole thing. I think outside of that, just like as a general mode of existence,

I want to try to do as much stuff as possible, but I don't want to take credit for any of it. I want to be like in the background being like uh you know i this is just this is just like some shit i got lucky and it worked out and like cool let's let's keep it moving we don't need to talk about much more beyond that if that makes sense is that is that your form of humility yeah yeah yeah i'm trying to be as humble as possible because i'm not like any of the shit that i'm doing I have not like invented anything or created anything. I'm just doing a thing somebody else has already done.

I didn't like invent writing or a style of writing or anything like that. I'm just doing it in a way that feels good to me. And then like some other people respond to it because it feels good to them. Some people hate it. I see it on the internet all the time. This guy fucking, his writing is terrible. I see that. That's just what it is. But some people do respond to them. Some people hate it. I see it on the internet all the time. This guy fucking, his writing is terrible. How does he, I see that. I like, that's just what it is. Um, but some people

do respond to it and you know, when you see that, so let's say, let's imagine there's space. There's like, um, I don't know. There's, there's not a really a container for thoughts, right? But let's just say that you got 18 hours or 14 hours, you're awake, whatever it is. And there's a container for those thoughts that you can possibly have. How much of those thoughts that you allocate throughout the day are towards like, I just want to do cool things with great people, you know, and versus what I think takes up a lot of space for people is what are they thinking about what I'm doing? So, yeah, I'd like to know how you deal with that space about what are they thinking about me? I try to not spend energy at all on that thing. It's impossible to like avoid all of it,

but I do a very good job of like, I don't Google my name. I don't read reviews. You can usually tell from a headline if like somebody's saying some nice shit about you. And I might like, if I see it, skim it. Or like they wrote about the movie book, the last book I did in the New York Times. And I was incredibly nervous because I heard they were going to do it beforehand.

And so like I read that one and I read it with like squinted eyes to see are they going to shred me apart. And fortunately they said like nice things about it and felt really, really great. But mostly I just avoid all of that stuff. I don't search my name on Twitter. I don't read the reviews on Amazon or anything like that. Like I don't want to see any of it. Don't like, I don't want people to bring it to my doorstep. Okay, so that's your strategy. What comes before that? I'm imagining, I don't want to fill in the holes here, but I'm imagining the strategy is to put it to the side and squint and not look and not have it be at your doorstep. So not be part of it.

Yeah. But what becomes before that, it's really hard it's too it's too triggering it's too open wounded when people are is that what comes before for you yeah there's no there's like no way to not think about that stuff about like what people are going to say about a thing but i've been doing this at this point for 10 years or so, 12 years, something like that. Like you just get good at compartmentalizing. It's like if you're skydiving. Have you ever been skydiving?

I have. Surely you have. You look like you have a face like I've done some skydiving in my life. Like you just I could see your fucking your very thick hair flickering in the like you look great in a pic great in a skydiving picture anyways i've gone skydiving twice in my life i wanted to see what it was like and then i went uh laramie wanted to do it after that but you're terrified you're 100 terrified in the airplane uh as as it like circles its way up into the sky they fucking open that door and then it's just like chaos inside the airplane you're a hundred percent absolutely terrified but your body still goes

because you take that fear you move it a little bit to the side you don't disappear it it doesn't like ever leave you're nervous before every basketball game but you still go out there and you and you try and you still like jump out of the airplane or whatever. It's the same thing here. Like every time I sit down to write a thing, I'm like terrified that it's going to suck and people are going to read it and they're going to tell me that it sucks, but I can't worry about that because if I don't write it, then they don't give me any money and then I can't pay for everything. How do you manage that, that moment? Because it sounds to me like the fear of other

people's opinions is important, is a big fear, or it's a fear that you recognize. If you could take me into how you wrestle with that, like in that moment when you're staring at a blank screen, how do you work with that fear? Just what we're talking about. You just move it. You're like, all right, I'm scared, but let me put in this box over here for a few minutes and let me start typing. And then once I start typing,

I read the stuff that I'm writing and I go, oh, this is, I think this is pretty cool. This is kind of good. And then you feel like that the whole time you're working on it. By the end of the, whatever it is I'm writing, I swear it's the best thing that's ever been written, like in the history of words.

Then as soon as you turn it in, you get terrified because now other people are going to see it. But yeah, you just move it to the side a little bit and then give it a go. Okay. Okay. I love it because you make it super simple. Like I recognize that thought. I recognize that feeling. I just kind of shift that and put it in a box. Like you'll deal with it later type of thing.

So you're not consumed with it in this moment. But then you know what I heard you say? Is then I fall in love. I fall in love with the choices I'm making. Not like a self-love, but I'm falling in love with this thing I'm trying to explain or express. And I'm making these little choices and I'm like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh no, no, no, no, no. Wait, hold on. And then, so there's this iterative kind of thing and you fall in love with it because I'm putting that lens on there because as soon as you press send, you ship it off, then that fear comes back up. Like, man, hold on. I got too many thoughts in my head because if you didn't love it, there'd be no fear, right? Because you, man, hold on. I got too many thoughts in my head because if you didn't

love it, there'd be no fear, right? Because you're like, this is shit. Let me see if I can get over on them. It's totally different than, boy, this feels really amazing. Oh my God, what if they don't love my baby? What if they think my baby is ugly? That type of thing, right? Yeah, that's exactly what it is. if you care about the thing you're you're you know inside of you're going to be worried about when somebody tells you they don't care about it or that sucks okay so let's pull on that thread a little bit about vulnerability because that's a that's a moment of vulnerability are you skilled are you how do you do vulnerability are you like no no i don't do any of that. Or it's like, no, what I just said, even saying it was vulnerable.

Like, can you talk about vulnerability for a moment? I, I guess, I guess I could talk about vulnerability. It doesn't feel like I think anything more needs to be said about it because ultimately all that this is, is you're scared and you just admit that you're scared and then you keep it moving like it doesn't seem like that big of a thing to me i love that but that's your frame for a lot of people what other people think of them keeps them constricted and tight and it doesn't allow them to give express express themselves in any way and you're saying no fear is fear like i'm scared i just gotta say it it's human but so that's your frame

this is a very powerful way to go through life which is no i got fear yeah it's hard yeah but i got it it's silly to argue that you don't i mean maybe there's somebody's somebody out there. Maybe this is like, did you ever see that movie? What's it called? On Earth or something Earth with Will Smith when he doesn't experience fear. Like maybe there's somebody like that, but that's not me. And I don't want to try to like pretend that I'm not afraid of moments. The boys and I talk about this all the time. Larry and I talk about this all the time.

Like it's okay to be afraid of a situation, but it's not okay for you to like let that fear affect you in like any real way or preventative way you just gotta fucking go just go just do it you're scared i get it fucking but go so you know what i heard you say is i don't want to pretend that's awesome that's great okay right i don't i don't i know i know you think i'm from another planet but like i don't want to pretend yeah what what does it mean to keep it real to you it just it just means to just be honest that's all it is that's all that keeping it real to you? It just means to just be honest. That's all it is. That's all that keeping it real is. Just be honest and do the stuff your heart is telling you to do or your brain is telling you to do. Do you lead with your heart or your mind? Probably depends on the situation. Like professionally, mostly my mind.

Occasionally my heart will get in there and grab the steering wheel, but mostly it's by my brain. And then with Laramie or with the boys, it's the opposite. I'm just like, let me just hug you. Let me just kiss on your forehead for a minute. What mental skills or mindset skills do you use to deal with very difficult, emotionally charged moments?

Usually it flows like in a very predictable pattern. If something terrible happens, whatever it is, just a thing that makes me feel not good. It could be something that happened to somebody else or a thing that happened to me or somebody in my family or just like a thing didn't turn out the way I wanted it to turn out or had hoped that it would turn out. Usually the pattern is, like, we'll see the thing on a screen somewhere. Let's say I got it rejected for, I pitched a movie and they decided after all they didn't want it.

And I read the email from the agent and the agent is like, no, they decided they're going against it. And then I get sad because I've been working on this thing for three months. And then I go in my bedroom and I like lay in the bed for a few minutes. And I look at my phone and I just sort of scroll endlessly and don't do anything at all but just be sad. For however long that lasts. Two hours, three hours, whatever it is. And then I take a breath and then

I get out of the bed and then I go find Laramie. And then I start talking to her and then I realize like, we'll just try another thing. This, this happened. Let's, you know, well, let's figure out what the next thing is. And then you just go do it again. And it's the same thing with life stuff. A sucky thing happens, and you feel bad about it for a bit, and you let it sit with you, and then you're like, all right, what can I do so that this doesn't happen again? And usually it's like a very predictable or an easy answer to find. Sometimes it's not.

Like the stuff that really gets you, the stuff that really gets me is the stuff that I can't control. Like if I could be having just the best day at work, I got all the right emails I wanted. I got all of the good tweets I wanted. I checked my like sales numbers and they're all good and I'm feeling great. And then I come home and then like my youngest son tells me he had a bad day at school and like somebody said a thing to him and now he's sad and like as soon as that happens it just fucking everything falls apart again and you just have to sit there and like just be sad with your kid uh for a little while or whatever and then like you know it goes away eventually and that's how it works for like all

of this stuff it will that badness will go away eventually and then you like try again and there you go that's the whole thing it's awesome so i this is what i hear you saying is like i feel emotions and i don't run from i feel emotions yeah you gotta you gotta allow yourself that airspace to like feel whatever it is you're you're feeling because oftentimes you the emotions that you're having even if they're not correct they they're usually like not supposed to be correct they're just like things you're feeling and you just got to get them out of your get them out of your body if that makes sense and then once they're once they're

out then you feel better actually it's really's really good research. What you just, what you're just eloquently from a very applied practical standpoint, you're saying, this is how I do it. This is how it makes sense. You're standing right on the shoulders of great research, which is if you can name, yeah. When, if you can name an emotion, um, just the fact of naming it actually changes it. It dilutes it just a little bit. just kind of lets the the edges of the container be more porous and then it um it's the beginning process of moving through it and so just naming it changes it which is really cool yeah that's emotional intelligence by the way right like that's a part of emotional intelligence yeah see so laramie is uh going to school for therapy so i'm like getting all the yeah yeah she's like a proper therapist yeah that's what's

up okay there you go i'm cheating on this test here that you're giving me yeah you know you actually know okay so let's go let's go grand for a moment how do you finish this thought it all comes down to what what comes down to what are we talking about yeah it it all comes down to it all comes down to grit i'm gonna i'm gonna pick grit because it rhymes and i like it all comes down to grit that's great that like i see i see that listen i see that on the when you play like middle school or high school sports and they always like have a saying painted above the door that you slap on your way out to like the field or the, that's, it all begins with grit. I could see that painted on a seventh grade locker room. So how about this?

Is that the world's leading researcher on grit, Angela Duckworth, she has found that it is actually one of the um more significant predictors of success of achievement yeah that's what we're talking about before yeah percentage of the people small percentage super talented you're never going to catch them you're never going to be as good at basketball as lebron james but you know all the rest of them you got a shot shot, you got a chance, just fucking outwork them. Well, okay. Well, let's, let's talk about talent. Like let's talk about LeBron James and Westbrook and, and fill in the blanks that like the tip of the arrow folks, what's your take on them? And I know that's a big question, but what is your take on like how they organize their life? Because you've been studying, you've been watching, like how do they organize their life because you've been studying you've been watching like how do they organize their life i think it's fascinating i think it's fascinating for somebody to be as good at a thing as as

lebron is at basketball or russell westbrook is at basketball you're talking about on in on the entire planet these guys are in the very top they're in the room with like that have the 10 seats or whatever pick Pick the 10 greatest basketball players alive right now. And it's just crazy to me to think that somebody can be that good at a thing because you can't it can't just be like a certain level of talent. You have to not only have that talent, but you also have to like have the other part of it, too. You have to be willing to do all of the work, which is how you end up with like the videos of LeBron in the offseason at like four in the morning doing whatever.

Like he's, he's working harder than everybody else. And also he's just better than everybody else. That's a crazy combination. I think anybody at the top of their field is doing probably a version of that. And that to me is really, really interesting. How do you work? What do you do to sharpen your sword to, you know, refine your craft? I just fucking sit at the computer and type into it all of the time. I try to read as much as possible. Uh, you know, I've, I identified a few of the writers earlier. I always read their stuff

or like I trying to find other people who are writing in ways that are, that are interesting. And, uh, you know, just sitting there typing and hoping it works out. Do you have structure in the way that you write? Yeah, I have a lot of structure. My whole day is structured. It is, yeah, okay. And then do you have structure in the paragraphs

or pages or passages that you write, or is it a bit more formless? No, I have structure going in. I think generally speaking, if I'm writing anything at all, there's like a reason I'm writing it. There's a, there's like a central point that I'm trying to make. And it can be something very direct. Like the, when I wrote the basketball book, one of the chapters, the first chapter in the book it says okay michael jordan let's just we're going to like not argue about this michael jordan is the greatest basketball player of all time let's just assume everybody feels that way all right cool

what version of michael jordan is the best version of michael jordan we've ever seen and then it was like all right let me compare all of the years michael jordan played basketball and figure out which of these uh which of these was the most devastating. When was he at his absolute best? Like that's like an easy thing to chase down because you just have some numbers. But it starts out very clearly, this is the point I'm trying to make. So every sentence that I write should help me arrive at that point. If it doesn't help me arrive to that point, then I just delete it and keep moving.

I'm just like carving, carving, carving until I get to where I'm trying to go. It's the same thing with anything that I write. There's always like a central thing that I'm writing my way toward. And sometimes you state it specifically. Other times you don't. I just wrote a short story that'll come out on July 15. And I do not state in there what like the reason is for me writing the story or what the point is I'm trying to make. But probably if you read it in the back of your

brain, you're going to go like, oh, okay, I understand because the sentences will lead you there. But that's the path that I'm taking whenever I'm writing something. Identify this thing. Cool. Write your way toward it. Okay. So for you, the key for success is or a key of success is? Just outwork them.

That's what I'm going to keep coming back to. That's my only trick. That's my only real skill. What is, um, as a writer, is there a favorite phrase that is guiding you right now? Or maybe it's a lyric, maybe it's something you made up or it's a bit of poetry, you know, is there something that helps guide you? Uh, I can think of probably like 50 different ones. Almost all of them are from music or like a thing somebody said, like whatever. Robert De Niro's character in Goodfellas,

there's like a part where he tells a kid, you know, don't take no shit from nobody, something like that. This is when Joe Pesci's character shoots uh spider and spider tells him afterward after he shoots him in the foot he like heals up and then tells him go fuck yourself and then they make a big fuss about it whatever stuff like that like you grab a hold of little things uh and then you know draw whatever strength you can from them there's a rapper that i really like his name is cousin stiz this is a kid out of boston i started listening to the year 2015 the year when i when the place where i was working got

shut down and like i came across his music and it was really to me inspiring but he was always saying like one or two things in each of the albums that really jumped out at me uh he has one line it's very simple but he's just screaming it i remember when you doubted me and like that's great i love that there's some other ones where he's like don't tell him your plans just believe in them and go shit like that jay-z has a line where he's like oh you don't like you don't what is it something you don't take shit or they don't believe you cool me neither like let's go make the world believe us there's a version of that i was just you don't, what is it? Something you don't take shit or they don't believe you. Cool. Me neither.

Like, let's go make the world believe us. There's a version of that. I was just listening to that album today, but there's always, yeah, there's, they're all sort of following the same underdog theme of like,

just, you know, you gotta, you gotta just do it. Somebody is going to get to do the thing you want to do. So fucking, it might as well be you. If you were to ask 20 people, you know, for your three words that describe you, do you

think you'd be surprised by those three words? Absolutely not. If you ask Twitter to describe me in three words, the three words you're going to get shoot your shot, which is like a phrase that we say all of the time and it's just like just try to do the thing you want to do but that's been like a running theme for years at this point which I I stole it from a student of mine I mean not even a student of mine I stole it from a student at the school when I was teaching it was like the most inspiring thing that I had ever seen I'll tell you this story it's very quick very quick story, but this was Valentine's Day. You know, Valentine's Day at a middle school is like a very

exciting time. You've got kids walking around with like flowers they're going to give or like a teddy bear or chocolates or whatever. Oftentimes, you will have situations where a kid is like, this is the time that they're going to make their move and they're going to tell somebody that they like them. And that was the case with this one particular student. We were passing in between classes. Let's say it's between third and fourth period or whatever. So I'm standing at my door because that's what you do when you're the teacher to make sure, number one, that no kids are fighting in the hallway, but also number two, to like greet the kids as they're coming in. Hey, how you doing? Good to see you. Can't wait to teach you today,

blah, blah, blah. So I'm standing there at the door. The kids are coming in. I see this kid walking down the hallway and he's carrying a Valentine's day bundle. It's like a bear and flowers and chocolate or whatever. And he walks up to this girl and this is happening, you know, several feet in front of me and he hands it to her and she looks at it and she looks at him and then she like shakes him, and then she, like, shakes her head no, and she gives it back to him, and walks away, and I was, like, crushed, crushed for this poor young man that he had just had his heart broken, I was, like, I can't even imagine how terrible you must feel, I'm so glad that I'm not, like, your father, and I have to deal with this, the emotional, like, turbulence of this moment, I was, like, it was, I was expecting for this to be a catastrophic event for this young man. And he

like turns to walk away and I'm staring at him just like eyes as big as cue balls. Just like, oh man, that's, I'm so sorry. I don't, I can't find it in me to say any words, but I'm looking at him and he looks at me and he sees me looking at him and he realizes I've just watched this exchange. And all he does, I'll never forget it forever, is he shrugs his shoulders and he says, shooters shoot. And then he walked away and I was like, holy fucking shit. This is my life philosophy from here going forward. Shooters shoot. He did not care a bit. If he did care, he didn't show it. He shrugged it off and just kept on about his day. And I was like, that's it. This is the young man that I want to be like when I become an adult. In many ways, you're an epitome for this concept that I'm trying to understand, FOPO,

fear of people's opinions. You're living it. That kid taught it to you. He did. Right. Yeah. I'll never forget it. That is awesome. Can I share my experience with you? Please, please do. Highly intelligent, off access. So you see things differently, you know? Um, there's an, uh, irreverence that comes with it, but it's truly just an authenticity and your, your emotional part of life is, I, it sounds too simple to say a lover, but you've got big capacity for emotions. So I see you as highly intelligent, off-access and authentic, and a lover.

And so I've really enjoyed this conversation. So thank you for reminding me of those core attributes and values. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, and I know you want to, the humility of saying, ah, just a hard worker. You got, for sure. Yeah. And I know you want to, you know, the humility of saying, ah, just some hard worker, you got some serious assets, you know? And so it's, you know, I, I, I appreciate it. Well, thanks for saying nice things.

Okay. Um, where can people fall and be part of what you're doing? They can just, I'm mostly on Twitter. It's just my name, Shea Serrano. And you will very quickly see that I am not a genius of any sort. I'm just a fucking Mexican with an internet connection. That's all that it is. Shea, I appreciate you. Thank you for, thank you for this. All right, homie. Yeah, if there's a, and I want to make sure people go get your books, right?

So let's make sure that that happens as well. Right. Yeah. Go get those books. Cause that's how I pay for all of everything. I appreciate you. All right. Later.

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