Higher Learning with Van Lathan and Rachel Lindsay - The Hunger Crisis in Gaza and Solution-Focused Therapy With Elliott Connie

Episode Date: July 29, 2025

Van and Rachel discuss the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza, talk about Dr. Umar’s plea for help, and give N3on an apology rating before Elliott Connie joins to discuss his methods for mental wellness. (0:00)  Intro (0:45)  The Humanitarian Crisis in Gaza (46:06) Dr. Umar’s Plea for Help (59:46)  N3ON Apology Rating (1:25:20)  Tyler Perry on Ownership & ‘Sinners’ (1:32:30)  Elliott Connie Joins the Show Host: Van Lathan Jr. and Rachel Lindsay Guest: Elliott Connie Producer: Donnie Beacham Jr. and Ashleigh Smith Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Yo, yeah, yo, thought warriors. What is up? Higher Learning is on. Is I Van Lathen Jr.? And it's me, Rachel and Lindsay. You guys make sure to like and subscribe on YouTube. Okay? Like and subscribe on YouTube.

Higher Learning is the podcast. If you're watching it on YouTube, like and subscribe. Later on in the show, we have psychotherapist Elliot Connie joining us to talk about his book, but also to talk about how to show up as a better partner in a relationship and how to rewire your brain. How to ask the right questions. Ask the right questions, yeah. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters.

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And we're going to start off on the other side of the world in Gaza. We're going to start there on the podcast today. Now look, before we get into the happenings, in Gaza and the reaction to the genocide and starvation campaign that's happening there, I want to say something real quick, Rachel, if that's okay. Go ahead. First of all, before we get into it, I just want to let people know,

I condemn everything. Everything is condemned. I normally don't like to play the condemn game, but you have to play it here because it's being used as a distraction. So everything is condemned. I condemn killings in Sudan. I can condemn killings

in Myanmar, the killing of the Kurds. I condemn the persecution of the Uyghurs. I condemn ISIS attacks in the Congo. The Congo is something that we need to get to on the podcast. I have a couple of people that want to come and talk to us about that. I condemn every situation in the world where people are being murdered and harmed and maimed for ethno-political reasons. It's all condemned.

Everything is condemned. Rightly off the top, it's all condemned. Okay. That of course includes the brutal Hamas attacks of October 7th, the innocent people that were killed, the hostages that were taken. It's all condemned. It's the worst parts of humanity happening all over the world. What happened to the country of Israel on October 7th, all condemned. It's condemned. So now that whoever is listening has heard me, condemn everything. It's all condemned. I've played the condemned game. Is it okay? Am I now qualified now to discuss starving Palestinian children? No. Well, I better be because that's what we're about to talk about. Well, you should be. But it's all condemned. Everything is condemned. Okay. So because we don't have a lot of time to obfuscate and to him and Hall and to play semantic games. People are starving.

And so it's all condemned. So when you ask, why didn't you say any that's condemned, it's been condemned? Now, something jumped out at me about this. I was on somebody's Instagram stories. Uh-huh. And I saw two stories posted back to back that really told me all I need to know about where this is right now. I saw somebody post on their stories. A clip from Baddies, Zeus Network Show.

And how much they can't wait for one particular character from Baddies, who is apparently dating the guy who runs Zeus Network, how much they love her and how they can't wait to see her again. All right. And the very next post after that was a starving Palestinian. which tells me something. Israel cannot hide from accountability in terms of what's going on in Gaza.

There's no excuse that it's going to work. There's no amount of explanation or propaganda that is going to take people's eye off the ball. When I saw that from this person who is not particularly political and certainly not geopolitical, what that told me is that the suffering of the Gazans,

of the Palestinian people in Gaza, has gone mainstream. And that is both, we haven't been good enough on this issue to me, meaning we haven't been, we haven't drilled down on it enough, right? But I think a lot of people are coming to it now because it takes a certain type of person

to ignore a starving baby and thousands of babies have been starved thousands of them thousands of them have been killed thousands of them have been starved right it takes a certain type of person to ignore that and if Israel thought that the entire world

was going to see an emaciated child and then dozens hundreds of emaciated children thousands of emaciated children and then turn the page, they were wrong. And I think that they're finding out in this moment that they were wrong. They were wrong. The world will not tolerate. Specifically what's happening there now.

The, in my opinion, intentional starvation campaign to lead to an ethnic cleansing. operation and a genocide operation that is happening there. The immiseration of the people there so that the far right government of Israel can expand territory into Gaza, plant a flag there so that Trump and Kushner and Netanyahu can turn it into the Riviera of the Middle East, that people aren't going to allow that to happen, at least they're not going to allow it to happen without even saying something about it. So, you know, as we discuss this now, and we're going to get into the issue, like, as much as we can, with our knowledge of geopolitics, our historical knowledge of this issue and what's happening right now,

I want people to understand that the veil is off. It's not going back on. The veil is off. It's not going back on. I understand from the people that I talk to in the conversations that I have how difficult it is to be a Muslim in the world right now, how difficult it is to be a Jew in the world right now, to be from these different religious ethno groups to where people are using what's happening in a specific part of the world really to pit you against each other and make you unsafe everywhere. I get that. I've had the conversations with my Muslim friends. I've had the conversation. with my Jewish friends who are afraid that the disdain and the anger that people have at Israel will spill over to anti-Semitism that will be here in America and Europe all over the place. I get it. I understand it. I've had the conversations. I've delved into it.

I've talked to people. And I'm not saying that any of them are wrong. I'm saying, though, that either you're pro-children starving or you're, you're, pro-children starving or you're anti-children starving and that there is no middle. Yeah, that's what it feels like. The reason when you said I condemn everything and can I now talk about children starving,

people starving, and I said no, is because of what I felt like I experienced this weekend. It doesn't seem like you can have this conversation to your point. It's either one extreme or the other and there doesn't seem like you can have a good faith conversation about it. That's what it feels like. We haven't talked about it. What did you experience this weekend?

Well, I'm going to tell you. We haven't talked about it as much as we, you know, should or need to be on the podcast. And I feel like I haven't been posting as much as I normally would or should on social media. And I typically do do that. And I had to ask myself, like, why am I not doing that? Why am I scrolling and I'm seeing all of these things and I'm not repurposing it, sending it to our group chat, to necessarily talk about as a subject? I'm scrolling past it and I'm like, why am I doing that?

And I think part of it and maybe people, this is what people want, is that fear, I fear like, not even fear, I don't know, maybe that's too strong of a word, but having these, I feel like I cannot talk about it without people coming at me. And when it's just to me, it's people are starving, period. There's really no, there's no but, there's no and. People are starving about it. This weekend, after I had these conversations with myself talking, I was like, I'm, I'm, I'm, Why am I not posting? I'm posting on my social media. I posted a picture of a starving child.

I then posted what was happening, no blame, right? Didn't even say it's because of this, this or this. Just posted what was happening, posted ways that you could donate. I lost over a thousand followers and counting just because I posted about children starving. I was bombarded with messages and not comments, messages about me saying that I was spreading misinformation, that I was blaming Israel. And I typically don't write people back, but I started to write people back saying, is this you projecting? Because not once have I blamed anybody. I didn't even get into any of that. I just posted, children are starving.

This is how you can help. This is what is happening. didn't happen overnight. It has been happening. We've been warned about this. Starvation didn't happen just this weekend when it became, you know, to your points, people who weren't even involved in politics starting this. They've been talking about it for over a year, that this is where we were headed. I got accused of being anti-Semitic in addition to that I was spreading the wrong thing. And it's like, I am watching firsthand accounts from journalists. from aid workers, from volunteers, from doctors who have boots on the ground, who are there

talking about what's happening, telling the world what's happening down there. And it just blows my mind that there are people who seem to be living in this bubble where they want to ignore the facts, which are that people are starving. You know, I would have people send me post that say, oh, New York Times posted a wrong, that child is not even a child that's in Palestine, or look at this video of all these trucks of food that the UN is not passing into Gaza. And it's like, why are you ignoring what I am saying? It's as if you can't talk about it because then you are accused of being anti-Semitic or these people feel like the world is against them and not even acknowledging what is happening

to your point or how troubled things are. I would watch videos that say, yes, there is a humanitarian crisis, but Hamas, but the UN, but the hostages. And it's like, people are starving. And I, yeah, I don't want to be too emotional as I'm talking about this, but it was very frustrating that I'm trying to use my platform to talk about factual things that are happening. But I'm being accused of being something else. And we're ignoring this humanitarian crisis that is happening in Gaza and that has been. happening. Okay. Some very inconvenient news for those people

that we're talking to you. And the inconvenient part is it's Israel's fault. And there is blame. And that blame is on the government of Israel and the IDF. Which is why I said they were projecting. Okay. So let's talk about what's happening right now. And let's give you. into some of the short-term and long-term of it. According to the integrated food security phase classification, IPC, and the UN reports over one million Palestinians in Gaza are experiencing catastrophic food insecurity. Children are dying from malnutrition and dehydration.

But I should say this. It is not just children that are dying of this. reports that are coming from inside Gaza also point us to hospital workers, aid workers, and other people who simply cannot get enough food. Right. There are a couple of different things that are happening that are affecting the amount of food that is being let into Gaza.

Sure. And also the type of food. that is being left in Tagasa because there are specific food that is giving out during situations like this that pack nutrition in they have like different types of pasts and different types of biscuits and things like that

that you can give to someone that will provide them the necessary nutrients that they need for a little while. So there are different people that I've been talking to that I've been talking about the fact that even the type of food and the type of aid that is getting into, like what is somebody supposed to do with like a bag of flour?

In this situation, it's better than nothing, and you might be able to make some hard tack out of it or something like that if you can get back to it. But the types of food, the types of stuff that are getting in there might not even, it might not be what the people need. There's no baby formula for women that can't breastfeed themselves

because they are too malnourished. So they are too malnourished to breastfeed because they don't have what they need in their bodies to produce nutritious milk. And then the kid can't get that. And then there's not enough formula. Right. Now, UNICEF and the WFP confirmed that starvation deaths have occurred, particularly the babies who don't have what they need. to be able to survive these types of conditions are the ones that are being affected the most. But we're being told and we are a reading that there are people from all different types of phases of life that are experiencing malnutrition and Gaza.

Man, last week, you know, as I'm watching some of the people who are doing great reporting on this, breaking points, Sateo, Sam Cedar, as I'm watching these people who are talking, about this, I saw something with Cindy fucking McCain on it. Cindy McCain, as the story was in its previous iteration, because we're now talking about the starvation. Two weeks ago, what the story was, was that the IDF was killing people who were trying to get food. The starvation has come to a head. But the entryway into this story was that aid workers were witnessing the IDF fire upon people who are trying to get food.

And you have Cindy McCain sitting there who is not a bastion of what I would call the left, who is just someone who is working with the World Food Program. someone who is working with people on the ground there to get food to people who is saying, hey, it's not safe for people to go and get the food that they need. The way the IDF is setting this up, and it is the IDF that is setting this up, if anyone is blaming the UN for the fact that there is not enough food getting to people in Gaza, the reason why that is is because a lot of times the UN doesn't think that it's safe for their people to be there giving the food out.

Yeah. Because they're in danger. They're in live firing zones, live combat zones. And the IDF is attacking people. We have reports on the ground that they are attacking people that are seeking aid. Yeah. Wait, get this. Additionally, I was listening to a doctor from the UK who was down there working in

Gaza, who had come back, talking to Democracy Now, and he was saying there were kids who were trying to get food around 13 years old. And when they would come in, the way that they were shot at made it seem like they were having fun and it was target practice. So maybe five would come in with headshots. And then the next day they'd come in with shots to the testicles. And then the next day they'd all come in with shots to their legs. It was as if they were target practice. as they were trying to get food. So I don't know if they're shooting at them. They were playing with them.

By the way, I want to let you guys know something here that some of this stuff, Israel has not denied in terms of the firing upon people that are waiting for eight. Like people that are saying that this is propaganda. Some of this stuff is that we're talking about. I mean, obviously some of it, I watched something before we got here. Some of it is people just saying, hey, all of this is coming from Hamas propaganda and it's being accepted by the West and you're actually committing

a blood liable by calling a foreign government into question for the way they are prosecuting a war that they say is to remove a threat to their country from just south of them, right? Why that has to, why that war for the security of Israel has to include start. Why it has to include the obliteration of over 70% of the infrastructure of Gaza? Why it has to include our president and other world leaders, excuse me, other leaders from inside Israel openly talking about the ethnic cleansing of Gaza. Why, if this is just about the Gazans, have we seen an incredible uptick. in violence and settlement action in the West Bank. Why?

If no part of this is about revenge or retribution or holding people under your thumb, then why has there been an uptick of violence and settler action in the West Bank, which that is true? Yeah. Right. So, you know, as we discuss this, I guess the questions we're trying to get to is you hear this all the time. You hear what responsibility does Israel have for the lives of gods and people? Is starvation as a weapon, a war crime under international law?

It is. It's ethnic cleansing of a people, a war crime under international law. It is. is the genocidal talk that is coming from the far right that exists in Israel, Smoltrich, the finance minister. Yes, that it is just and moral to starve. So have these guys, along with obviously Benjamin Netanyahu, who's aligned himself with the far right voices in Israel,

who's aligned himself with the worst actors in Israel, who have specific design. signs on that part of the world on Gaza, on the West Bank, like who support illegal settlements under international law in the West Bank. And when I say illegal settlements, guys, I'm not talking about people who have gone someplace into land that international law recognizes is not there and set up a tent. That's not what these settlements are.

I would encourage anyone to investigate what they're. these settlements in the West Bank actually are. What they are are sophisticated societies that Israeli settlers, a lot of times financially backed by people inside the United States of America, have gone there and set up stuff that looks like neighborhoods in the valley. They have literally taken the people's land. They have literally taken their land. So you have that happening there with pinstrokes and the IDF as being the tip of the spear to go in there and protect settlers and enable them to take people's lands and then in Gaza what you have is a war

where the stated mission is to defeat Hamas and bring the hostages back. However, the actual mission seems to be to cleanse Gaza of its people by starving them, destroying their infrastructure, and forcibly moving them to some other place. And so to me, we can have a conversation where we kind of beat around the bush

of what's going on, or we can talk about that there is a far-right political contagion that is affecting the world everywhere, everywhere. And what's happening there is not that much different than what's happening here. Sure. As you have people who are playing purity politics and who are labeling anyone that they don't want to live with, for whatever reason, as people that have to go and have to be cleansed. This is in no way to overlook October 7. Of course. Of course.

From a trauma level must have been shocking and awing to not just Israeli people living in Israel, but to Jews everywhere. To Jews everywhere. But my question to these people who I talk to, to people that don't know how to feel is what is it that you want now? The proportional numbers from what happened on October 7th to what has happened since then, have been blown out of the water. More children have been killed since October 7th than civilians that were killed on October 7th. And if there is to be a lasting peace in the region,

then we have to be honest about what's going on. Well, if you care about innocent lives, it shouldn't matter what their ethnicity is. If you talk about October 7th and the innocent lives that were lost, And obviously, as we've said numerous times in this podcast, it was terrorism. It was a tragedy. Innocent people lost their lives.

And you have to equally care about innocent people losing their lives now. And I understand that people want justice for what happened. But this is not what justice looks like. Justice does not look like shooting at people desperately trying to get food. It doesn't look like watching people starve and turning a blind eye to it. doesn't look like, hey, we understand this is happening and we recognize it, but it's their fault. It's not our fault. It's their fault that this is happening. That's not what it can be. We cannot live in a society like that. I saw somebody say something, write something on social media,

and they said, if a city can be reduced to rubble with its people held captive inside, if they can be starved in full view of the world, everything is permitted and this threatens us all. And I think people just need to sit with that. If you can sit and keep scrolling and watch what's happening and go on with your lives and not be moved by it, not feel a certain way, just keep on moving as if it doesn't exist, then we're all doomed. People might be wondering what the structure of this is. There's an organization called the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. It's a very new organization. It's a private organization established in February 21st.

2025 by with the back end of the U.S. and Israeli government. And they're supposed to be distributing food and other aid in Gaza. Now, here's the issue. They have about four places where they do this. Right. And so those four places are in different spots in Gaza. And there are about two million people there, roundabout. And they have to walk to these places.

Right. To get this aid. This journey is arduous. It's dangerous. You're walking through combat zones. You're walking to places where the IDF is there. And sometimes people are seeing the aid trucks themselves and trying to get to the trucks before they get to these spots where this stuff is being given out. The IDF is firing on these people.

Yeah. The IDF is firing on these people. They're firing on them. They're firing on them. And a part of this, once again, going back to it, is because the UN is not able to get the type of aid they need to get in there because they cannot guarantee the safety of their people. Not only can they not guarantee the safety of their people from the IDF.

they can't guarantee the health of their people and that their people will be able to get enough food. I want people to understand something. International journalists are not allowed by the Israelis to be in Gaza. So when people are talking about the fact that we're hearing this and we're hearing that and we're talking to people on the ground,

I'm not saying that I believe the actual accounts on the ground from people who are trying to get this food to people. But I know one thing, I know that it would be much easier to get stories on the ground. If international journalists were simply allowed to do their jobs and cover what's going on there. Now, the Israelis say that the reason why they don't let them do that is because it's too dangerous. That is horseshit, just to let everybody know, that's bullshit. international journalists have been covering goings on in war zones forever.

And these are people who would love to be down there. I should say that in the past there have been journalists who have been killed and those killings have sometimes been blamed on terrorist forces that exist in this part. come to find out later on with a couple of these people that it was actually Israeli fire that killed them. So if you're talking about the fact that journalists are in danger down there, which they would certainly be, you'd have to ask yourself who they would be in danger from

as well as whether or not they were actually in danger. This is what you're never, ever, ever going to hear me do. anytime we discuss this issue is make excuses for Hamas. I believe that Hamas and the terrorist attack that happened on October 7th was despicable.

I believe that Hamas has done a piss poor, selfish job of governing and running Gaza. There is no intellectual way to get past that. But I'm telling you, if the

dignity, humanity, and the sanity, the sanity of the Palestinian people isn't recognized. There will always be a Hamas. There's something that people might not know here. Just to let you guys know. There is a group called the Haganah that existed before the IDF. There were actually three different paramilitary groups that existed prior to the creation of the state of Israel. the Haganah, the Irgun, and the Leahy, right? Those are three different groups.

They were responsible for a terrorist attack. Resistance groups, paramilitary groups that existed in Israel that were trying to fend off the British occupation. At that time, they bombed the King David Hotel in 1947. Civilians were killed. A terrorist action. A terrorist action. By the way, two of the people involved in that, two of the people involved in these groups went on to become prime ministers of Israel.

So it's not as if they went, hey, you were one of these guys. No, that group, the Haganah, became the IDF, and then the people that were involved in that were embraced by Israeli society, right? because there was an understanding that in a situation where an occupying group has another group under their thumb, that there will not always be the highest standard of humanity in responding to that. That doesn't excuse it. Correct. But what I am saying is that there is context to the desperation of people that has to be considered when we're having conversations about this, particularly if you want a safe Israel,

the best thing that can happen for Israel to be safe. And you're never going to hear this from Netanyahu or Ben Gavir or Smolstricht. Some of these people live in illegal settlements in the West Bank. They live there. You're never going to hear this from them. But the best thing for safety in that region, for safety of people who are living in Tel Aviv or Jerusalem, the best thing to happen is that there is,

some type of dignity, some type of self-determination, some type of health and security for Palestinian people that are living in Gaza and in the West Bank. Now, if you believe in that, then what you will believe in, what you'll do is you'll work with international organizations, the United States of America, that is funding all of this will push for

full recognition of state of Palestine which the French have just Yes, they just acknowledged that they will. And without the involvement of Hamas, we will

endeavor into and invest into the rebuilding of Palestine and the changing of the relationship, rebelling of Gaza's I say, and the changing of the relationship between the people of Gaza and the people of Israel. Well, I think that that's what has to happen, too, is there has to be global worldwide pressure.

I mean, when we talk about what the finance minister said when he said, he said there's no way, and I'm paraphrasing, that we can starve two million people, even if it is just immoral to get the hostages back. That's what he said. So they know that if there's global pressure for them to feed Palestinians, for them to repair and rebuild Gaza, for them to recognize and acknowledge it as a state, as a group of people, then there's no way that they're going to be able to avoid it. So I think that that is what has to happen is there has to continue to be this international global pressure of recognizing

Palestinian people and rebuilding that land and recognizing it as a state. It's the only way. And to that point, having your government being captured

by the far right robs the Israeli people, in my opinion, of having decision makers that are thinking about the long-term safety and security of Israel. Which is why you're seeing some resistance within Israel. Right.

Now, I'll say this. Yo, as much as I have read or as much information as I have gotten on the formation of the state of Israel and how it happened and who had to lose. There's no other way for me to look at Israel as a settler colonial project that was dreamed up with a very specific political motive by guys like Herzl and Jabotinsky, right? There's no other way to look at that. However, Israel exists and Israel is there and Israel will be there. So now the question, and this might be in trouble with some of, of my more leftist friends.

Now, this question is as much a question about the safety of Israel as it is about the safety of Palestine. Now, Palestine, Gaza, they are the ones that have been under control and occupation and brutal to me, brutal to me, conditions imposed on them by Israel. particularly since 1967, which was the time that they were occupied. Israel left Gaza, and I think it was 2005 or 2007, somewhere around there. However, they maintained the occupation by controlling the land and the sea and everything going in and out of Gaza, the electricity, all of that stuff. Everything going in and out of Gaza, right?

Still occupied. So what I'm saying is security happens through friendship, particularly with people that you share borders with. You share border with someone. Understanding leads to security. Shared humanity leads to security. Trade. Cooperation leads to security.

What leads to war is oppression. Always. Full stop. Always. That's what oppression leads to. It doesn't matter if it's one person that goes, fuck it.

I can't handle any. more. So Israel and his supporters have legitimately to mean two options. One option seems to be the ethnic cleansing genocide and destruction of the Ghazan people, which there are plenty of people in the Israeli government. And to be honest with you, in Israel itself, that would be just fine with that. And we have to be honest about that, particularly after the horror that they saw on October 7. They're just like, fuck it. We can't live with them.

If my kids can't go to a concert without knowing that they'll be able to come home, then all those people got to go. But I'm telling you, that's not the way. The way is to end this brutal genocide that's happening in Gaza, this starvation campaign that's happening in Gaza, and recognize that

Those are human beings that love their families, that love their culture, that love their land. They don't want to go. That love their land as much as anyone else and treating them like human beings. Not saying this is going to be easy. I'm not saying this is going to be easy. But I can tell you what you don't do. How you don't do it is this. Number one, you don't have the people in your government

actually empower the worst actors in Gaza, which is what Benjamin Netanyahu did and had, has admitted to doing. And I'm sorry, but it's a fact that he admitted to making sure Hamas was enriched. At a Lukul party meeting in 2019, he said as much, because that kills the possibility of the two-state solution. Why wouldn't you want that?

because you are captured by the furthest right voices in Israel who just want the land. They don't want any cooperation. They just want the land. All it is to say that you cannot be okay, you cannot ignore, you cannot try to spin starving kids. Right. It's what's happening right now. So if you love Palestine, if you love Gaza, you should love peace and determination, self-determination for the people. If you love Israel, you should love peace and self-determination.

And if you are Israeli, you should be demanding that your government find a solution to this problem without and stop creating more horror to it. There's no way around it. That's the reality. That's what's happened. Like that's it. That's what's happening, guys. That's what's going on. And whoever doesn't want to fuck with me because I said it, God bless you.

I mean, you know harm. And, you know, I hope that we qualified ourselves to be able to speak about this. I hope that people don't think that this is coming from a place of some type of latent anti-Semitism that we have. I've reached out to a bunch of different people I know. I'm like, man, you know, what's the right way to talk about this? And almost every answer I got back was to repeat propaganda and things that I know are not true. No. That's what they told you to do?

That's not what they. It's, it's, they weren't doing it on purpose. But there is a part of this, like, people were saying, you hear things like, you hear things like the IDF is the most moral army in the world. Well, and you'll compare past, like I got into a conversation with a friend of mine. They were like, do you know how many people are like, how many people were killed and Hiroshima and Nagasaki and all of these other paths? I'm like, yeah, you guys understand. The Geneva Convention came after that.

Like, you know, we have tried to rectify the way we view war and the way we view how many innocent people have to die. Right. And if you're asking me to hold the water of the United States military, then you're asking the wrong fucking guy. That's not going to happen over here. What I'm going to tell you right now is the war in Iraq, it was wrong. And during that time, there were Americans, many Americans, a lot of Americans that realized that what happened was a war crime,

that we were essentially jenying up a reason to invade and brutalize a country that we didn't like using something that happened to us. Right? This is different insofar as we know that Hamas was responsible for October 7th. And we should not ever, ever, ever look past just how difficult October 7th, how impossible October 7th was for any Jewish person that has watched their group of people be systematically killed or not watched, been told about the systematic killing of Jews in pogroms in Russia, in the Holocaust being ousted from all types of places.

They want to have safety and security and a place that is free from the historic persecution of Jewish people is totally understandable. It's totally understandable. And after October 7th and how that looked and what happened there, it's totally understandable that for some people, they might have snapped.

I'm asking them to snap back because we can see this. And we ain't going nowhere. And that's it. Yeah. Well sad. Dr. Umar. Hard left term.

Or is it a right turn? Because we were just on some real leftist shit. It's a hard turn. How about that? And by the way, just let you know, any of my friends that want to come on and talk to us about that, a rabbi lamb who we've had on before,

any of my people that want to come on and discuss this. Where does he stand? Rabbi Lamb is obviously... Oh, I know. But that doesn't mean that every person who's Jewish... Rabbi Lamb is with the, he with the, he's, he doesn't mean that every Jewish person. I know, but you're right, but particularly Rabbi Lamb, and a lot of other people that I know,

I have some amazing Jewish people in my life, like super duper amazing Jewish people in my life. My doctor, my, uh, electrophysiologist, um, Dr. Cooper, like legitimately, this guy helped save my life. I would never want to do anything, anything to make him feel bad or to, he's got a beautiful family, beautiful little daughter. I want the safety and security for him for sure. And I just think that the way that you get to safety and security for these people in my life, who I care so much about, to my Muslim friends in my life that I care so much about, People can say whatever they say about Islam. I watch my cousin become a beautiful, pious, amazing man through his dedication to Islam.

His dedication to what I believe are the true teachings of the Quran, the true teachings of Islam. Is the whatever, I'm not going to get into litigating religions. But what I'm saying is the way to get to this is peace. self-determination. Yes. And security for all people's in the region. For all people's in the region. And out oppression and power and starvation, that's not going to make Israel safer.

Starving babies is not going to make anyone turn the page on what's going on there. We're not tolerating this shit. Right, right. This episode is brought to you by Spectrum Business, Fast, Reliable Internet. means everything for your business and even this podcast. That's why I trust Spectrum business to keep companies of all sizes connected with internet, advanced Wi-Fi, phone, TV, mobile services, plus 24-7 U.S.-based support. Millions of business owners already trust Spectrum business. So visit spectrum.com slash business to learn more. Restrictions apply. Services not available in all areas.

This episode is brought to you by WeatherTech. Everyone knows Winter is the MVP and make it a mess. You don't need weather tech floor liners in the summer, unless you hit the beach or go camping. Then you'd want a cargo liner. Or a road trip goes sideways, ketchup goes rogue, ice cream drips. Yeah, you'd be pretty happy about those weather tech seat protectors. So just to be clear as the mud, you're inevitably going to step into the summer. You don't need weather tech unless you plan on doing summer. Visit weathertech.com today.

Dr. Umar needs help from the people, Rachel. something happened. Okay, Donnie played Dr. Dr. Umar has access to no money right now because my personal account contains all of my money. I only send it to Apple Pay and PayPal as necessary. So the Prince of Pan-Africanism for the first time in my life is without any digital currency.

So for my loyal supporters out there, for my loyal supporters, if you can spare a few dollars so I can take care of Queen Mother Eifatun and myself until my bank account is frozen or canceled so I can get my money back and open up a new account, please hit my Apple pay or hit my PayPal. My personal PayPal account is Umar the psychologist at yahoo.com. So that's PayPal.

dot me slash Umar the psychologist. PayPal. PayPal. Dot me slash Umar the psychologist. PayPal. Okay, that's enough. Cut that off. No, no, no.

Play that. How many times he keeps making sure y'all got the exact. email address. Well, he repeats things. Okay? That's what he does. I'm sorry, I'm not as well versed in Dr. Umar as you are. First of all, before we have this conversation, can you be objective on this because you and Dr. Umar have had some smoke in the past? We haven't had any smoke. I've never spoken to him personally.

All he's done is post me because he did. Because he does not believe in interracial marriage, maybe interracial anything. He does not believe in he's homophobic. And he encourages people not to vote. Like the list goes on and on and on about how problematic Dr. Umar is. And those are all the things that I need to know. We don't have smoke, love for him to come on this podcast, but do not believe in paying him to come on the podcast.

We don't need him that bad. But I would love to have a conversation with him specifically about this. Okay. He has confirmed that he's a grifter. People have suspected this about him. Because of the school and that type of... Because he's been talking about this school. for a decade. The school

does not exist for young black boys for education, for their mental health, all of that. As he is, is he a psychologist? Yeah, he went, yeah, he's a psychologist. Okay. Pete, he has been asking people to donate money for years.

School does not exist. It's not the first time he's asked for donations for something that didn't happen. He was trying to reopen some HBCU. Never happened. He continues to ask for money, and there are no results from it. Now you are asking for personal money, which is very suspicious. Your bank accounts are frozen because of fraud. My thing is, let's just say this is true, right? Because somebody's trying to hack into your bank accounts. You don't have a friend, a family member, something else, another

bank account in a different bank? How many bank accounts do you have? How many different banks do you have? I got a lot. Exactly. All right? That's all I needed. I needed to hear multiple. So you don't have multiple bank accounts where you can seek money in different areas. The fact that this is the avenue you decided to take by turning to social media and asking people to personally pay you and then expecting, I'd be curious to know how much money you received, expecting people to say, sure, let me dig into my pockets and help this man finance something that still continues to be a dream deferred or finance something for a woman that you just named

that we don't even know who that is. Not you don't need money. Both of y'all need money. The man is a grifter. Okay. So I just ask Chat GBTBT for an update on Dr. Umar's school. On June 14th, 2025, the interior of the school was vandalized.

Resulting in the destruction. Fraud, vantilize. It's like there's always something. Of the school's 5,000 book library along with cultural artifacts and educational supplies. The structure has remained intact. Due to the severity of the damage from what happened this summer, heard about this a little bit.

The school's planned opening has been postponed. It's now projected to open September of 26. So it's going to open up next year. The school's going to open up. Well, not now. Dr. Umar has publicly expressed disappointment over the incident and emphasized that recovery efforts and replacement campaigns are already underway. He's promoted this for over a decade,

frequently announcing opening dates in, including a target day of September 3rd, 2024. So people should know that the target date of the opening of the school was September 2024. So he was one year behind and now he's going to be two years behind on that target day. All right. He has said that it's near the finish line, but it's not quite there yet. All right, this is what I would say.

I'm not going to fully zag here, all right, but I am going to say this. You don't want Dr. Umar or a Dr. Umar type to be funded by corporate means. Are you asking me? No, I'm telling me. Okay. Okay. I'm telling you this. If there is someone who believes themselves to be speaking truth to power on the condition of black people or black people in America, a scholar on pan-Africanism, you'd never

want that person to work at a place like Spotify or work at a place that is too corporate. Mm-hmm. Because there's an entanglement that happens there when that person does that, that would either stop them from speaking on things when they need to or complicate the way that they speak on them. Okay. And there are people that are saying right now, man, are you talking about your... Yeah.

There are complications that I would have to deal with in addressing certain issues in certain ways that a Dr. Umar or somebody else that was community funded would not have to deal with. That's just a fact. Okay. That's a reality. Now, I'm always going to be true to myself. It's always going to cost me. I'm never going to be the biggest guy sitting behind the mic. I'm never going to have the most friends.

I'm never going to have any of that stuff because there are certain things that just get to me and have an example. condition, all that stuff. But if Dr. Umar is in financial trouble and he goes to the people to come back and get bread, you would actually want that. You wouldn't want. Sure, if I believed in what he was doing. If you believed in what he was doing, you would actually want that. You wouldn't want a Dr. Umar or a sister soldier or whomever else that you're talking about.

You want those people to be funded by people. You want people to be funding them. Even the $90 million that Black Lives Matter got, the Black Lives Matter Global Network Foundation got in the wake of the George Floyd killing, you want that. You want that to be funded by private donations from people. I get that. You don't want them to get $100 million from the Defense Department or from Microsoft

or something like that because that money comes with all different types of things. So him asking. for people, for money, because he needs it. You're talking about, though, when he's talking about building something for the community. Right now, he's asking for personal money. Well, even personal money. He says he can't pay his bills.

Right. Even personal money. Nothing about this seems fishy to you, Van. Yes, but at the same, I mean, the only reason why it feels fishy to me is because of the status of the school. I think it's very fair for anyone. And Dr. Umar is somebody who holds people accountable

all the time for whatever he thinks that they've done wrong. I think it's very fair for anyone, for anyone to be like, man, what at school at? For anyone to be like whenever you are asking people for money for what it is that you're doing or saying or how you're showing up. It's always fair for people to be like, yo, you're trying to get money out of people. But I just, what I'm telling people is the alternative to that is having people who are sort of more like us who get paid from a big, corporation and then they're getting paid for a big corporation, they might not have the problems that Dr. Umar has in terms of how he is getting his shit off, but they have other sorts of problems. So I wouldn't have to, I've never sell anything to people who follow me or people who follow

this, but never have to sell anything to them. I never have to sell anything to them because a corporation is paying me. And I've never been told what to say or what not to say or whatever, never in any way working for the ringer and Spotify, anyway, never have. never have been told, hey, you've gone too far there, never. Don't think that they would, right? Because they know me a little too well. But there is a thing there. There is a trade-off there.

Everything that you're saying makes sense. What he's doing right now does not. I totally understand what you mean about community efforts to support what it is that you're trying to do and not have the influence of the man telling you how you need to do it because they're giving you the money and the only reason that you're up and operating or existing

or continue to stay afloat or whatever it may be. is because of their financial support. So, of course, they feel like that they can have an input. I get it. There needs to be a separation. That is a valid point. It does not feel like that's what's going on. I was looking at some of what the comments were saying,

and there were people who were giving input who have affiliation to banking or an understanding of the banking industry. And multiple people were like, it sounds like your accounts were frozen because you being investigative for some fraudulent activity on your behalf, not whether it's money that's coming in, how you're spending it, whatever. it may be, there were multiple people who were bringing attention to that. And that's what it feels

like. My bank has been hacked before. My bank has been hacked. I was able to walk it, like my bank card. My bank card was hacked and people were spending it. I was able to make a phone call, verify that these charges were not a part of my, were not on my behalf. And it didn't shut down my whole bank. So I'd be very curious. I would need more detail to fully understand what's going on. but it feels fishy. And again, I repeat, there's no friend that you can call. There's no angel investor. There's no loyal supporter that you have that can help you stay afloat

till Monday when you can call your bank and fix this rather than you come into supporters. It just feels, and you throw on somebody else's name in there. Why are we supporting her? We don't even know who that is. I think that's his woman. Okay. So look, it... Also, you can get away with...

not paying your bills for a couple of months. 19 Key said, I don't understand why Dr. Umar doesn't just start a business like a digital or online academy and make money, offer classes, mentorship. Use WOP, school, or build your own platform and have the largest digital homeschooling institute for young boys. Why the donation route? I think that's another thing that a lot of people are asking.

Why hasn't Dr. Umar built some sort of infrastructure to be financially self-sufficient? during times like this. But once again, in that situation, you look at it and you go, hey, he goes out and he speaks, he goes out and he does interviews and people get, he gets paid for that. That's his business.

The only thing I am saying is this. I get people's skepticism with Dr. Umar. I get it. I get the skepticism. However, I just want to make sure that people know that people in general, scholars, speakers, activists, whomever that are asking you for donations

that does not necessarily make them a grifter because you want those people to be funded by the people and free of corporate and political shackles as much as they possibly take. Which is why I'm bringing up other things. And let me ask you, let me just say this, do you think that most people, because what Dr. Umar goes viral for

or what he is mainly known for is not him trying to build that school. It's the outrageous comments that he makes... He's an entertainer at this point. Yes. So, like, you have to let that settle in for a second. If I believe in your mission to educate young black boys

and to protect their mental health and to really promote the diaspora and all of that and connecting us and bringing us together, all valid things, even though he's problematic in some of his thinking, so I'd be concerned about

what would be taught to some of these things. young boys. If that's your mission, why don't most people know you from that? People who watched him on Druski's show, I guarantee you majority of those people have no idea that he's trying to build this school.

What they know him for is not liking white and black to mix. That's the thing. And, you know, the 50 lashes. He's funny. I mean, you can't knock that. Nah, dog. You can't deny it, man. He is funny.

Like you can't deny it. You can't deny. You can't deny. All right. Oh. Oh. Apology rating time. We haven't done this in a second.

Apology rating from Neon, who is a streamer. Now, Donnie, I would like to play Neon's apology first. Wait a second. Donnie. I don't think you can do the apology first. Do you do the apology first or do you do Neon's pass first? because we got a lot of, we got a lot of sound for you guys.

Donnie, what do you think? We got to go in sequence time. We got to see what he's apologizing for. Okay. Well, so Neon is a streamer. He's a very popular streamer. He's been a very popular streamer for a while.

And these are just some of the past things that he said on stream in public for everyone to hear. Donnie rolls some of Neon's greatest hits. I fucking hate you, black people. I will whip you. Stupid whore. Dumbass black monkey tree. Stop my dick, bitch.

Don't like to find that people like lots of lives on 9-11. Dead-ass, you dumb black tree. I don't know what motherfuckers think this is, bro, but this is not. This is not Section 8, bro. This is not Section 8. This is not the hood. I'm not trying to be weird. But this is not that, bro.

This is not a place where motherfuckers who usually sleep next to cockroaches can sleep in a nice house in the hills, bro. What's your least favorite race? I don't have a least favorite race. Yeah, right. I don't have your worst experience with a race. For me, I have a really bad story, but... What's your story? Some black guy tays.

and robbed him with $50,000. Is that a real story? I swear to God. And then another black guy. Like in what such a way like... And another black guy, my dad fired her, or was a girl? He fired her because she's, you know, they're fucking lazy and just stupid. So basically what happened was she came late for work.

He fired her and then she came with her boyfriend and robbed the entire place. His cell phone store, I swear to God. So you're just like, you just make assumptions. Yeah, and then like every time my mom sees a black guy, she locks the door. Same, bro, you're literally me. I fucking hate them, bro. No, whoa, no, no, I don't hate them. I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I don't go fucking hideous.

And when I saw Ruby Rose, bro, that changed my perspective on life. I swear to God, no trouble. Like, say, yes, yes, you. Holy, I'm talking about fucking Black Rock. Like, what are you saying, bro? On my mother's life, I'm not even letting you pay to fuck me, you ugly bitch. The fuck. Fuck you, Kai.

Foll, what do you need to go outside? Bitch, the fuck? I won't fuck your mom, bitch. I won't fuck the shot of that fat hairy tumming. Bitch, fuck you. He threw Harriet into it. There's more. There's more we could go through it.

Well, yeah, he built a whole. There's years of content. Years of content of him just saying the crows. crazy as most racist, outrageous shit. I'll say this, man. You know what? Before we get into it, we have to play Neon's apology.

Now, we have to tell you why Neons apologizing. He went on the Breakfast Club, and the Breakfast Club held him accountable. Just hilarious in particular. And I've been critical about some of her interviews or things that she said before. So I want to give her props where props are due. She talks about it, how she doesn't like doing interviews,

talks about that she did the research, and grateful for it because she came with receipts and held him very much so accountable for his past and didn't let him think that this was just going to be a friendly interview. You don't get to backtrack because you're sitting in a room with black people when all you've done is criticize black people. Right. And it's important to say that

I say this again, guys, this is the value of the Breakfast Club platform. I know people hate when I say this. The value of the Reefest Club platform, the value of the breakfast club platform is you get to see how someone acts when they think they're talking to black people. And that is so important, man. Because you can go anywhere, you can go whatever, you go here, you can go there, you can say whatever you want to say, act however you want to act. You can talk about the questions that are asked or I would have asked this or I would have done that.

Cool, whatever. But the Breakfast Club right now remains to me the only platform, the only platform that when people go there, they think and they know that they're talking to black people. Sure. So you get to, you get to, you get to assess how they act when they're in a room full of black people. You get to see that. That's why it's valuable to see politicians go on there. That's why it's valuable to see people like Neon go on there. And Neon tried it.

He was like all the shit that he's done and said or whatever, he's really been, you know, insulated from any direct accountability because he's saying it to white people or to these ridiculous coon-ass niggas niggas that be in the same room with him and don't hold them accountable for it. I don't like to call people coons,

but I really don't. But that's some coon shit. Like I don't like to call a black man a coon because I think that that, my daddy always said, look, you call somebody a coon, blah, blah, blah. He didn't. I don't like, but that, being around this,

you got to have more respect for yourself than that. Agreed. Okay. Or just black people. Because a lot of times people who put themselves in these situation other themselves and think, oh, he's not talking about me. He's talking about them. It's just having respect for black people.

Precisely. All right. So Neon comes back and Neon is pressing the Breakfast Club. The interview, Jess Laird drops another video about Neon. And Neon, who is now, I think, 20 years old. Yeah. Apologizes.

What is up, guys? I just wanted to make this video really quick to talk about everything that's going on on the internet, things from my past, and just sincerely talk to you guys, human to human. And first and foremost, I just want to take account of... Donnie Paul.

You know, Donnie Paul. Wait a minute, bro. I love this type of shit. No, we can't be humans now, nigga. I hate it. Fuck that. No. No, no, fuck that shit, daw. We can't be humans now. was monkeys a second ago. No, no.

We evolved mighty fucking quick. That was a quick evolution right there. I would have been making monkey sounds when he was on the breakfast club. I wouldn't even talk. Think about how long human evolution actually took, right? Took a long fucking time.

Millions and millions of years. We evolved because they got on your ass. We evolved from monkeys to humans. in like two years. No, get to the part of what he says, why he did it. Okay, cool. I'm just saying, that's crazy to me. Like, that's a quick evolution

from monkeys to humans, neon, bro. Like, that's some Charles Darwin on steroids. Well, he's got a reason for that. Run the rest of it. I've said or done in the past to anyone that I've talked shit to, to anyone I've said anything insane to, to anyone that I've made a remark to.

I'm very genuinely sorry from the bottom of my heart, deep inside. That is not the person that I am, and I want to apologize and take a accountability and tell you that that is not, not, not, not okay. It's not. I was, you know, I started doing streaming. I started doing YouTube when I was 12, 13 years old. I never really saw anything. I never saw any, any like growth. I never saw anything. And then when I was 17, 18 years old, I started realizing that shock factor had a lot of value. When you would say crazy shit, when you would do things that no one else would do, it would bring your views up. And all I wanted in life was to be big. All I wanted in

life was views. All I wanted in life was clout. And I was on a cloud high. Stop. Stop it right there. Okay, so, Neon, I'm talking to you right now. You're not helping yourself. Okay? We know. As black people, we know. Like, we know, we know that the easiest way. It's just about to say it.

The easiest way to do it. We know that the easiest way to get on in America is to say, fuck these niggas. We know that. And it works. Yeah, you don't have to tell us that. You don't have to tell us that you just wanted to be big. And so the easiest way to be big was to dehumanize, debase, and be disrespectful to black people. Like, bro, we know, like, we know, man, to either imitate us or assassinate us is a very easy way to get a whole bunch of people in America to watch what it is that you're doing.

Like, we know that. Yeah. Roll the shit, Donnie. My numbers go up off of me saying the most insane. stupid vulgar shit possible, which I completely entirely regret. Stop it, Donnie. Stop it. Racist.

Just say it. Racist. My numbers went up because I was being a racist. And America lost a racist. Leon, bro, we know. Neo, why are you like looking? I don't want to hear anymore. Like, no, we got, okay, we got to let them.

It's like a four minute apology. I know, but just neon, I promise you, bro. Like, neon is on this shit. Neon is on here talking to us. This apropology is actually a bigger N-word than he's talking to us like, we don't get it. Like, Neon, we get it. Because there will be people who will say, like Charlemagne. Keep going on.

I don't know. I'm seeing these clips resurfaced now and I'm looking at them. I'm like, wow. Like, it makes my stomach hurt. Like, how could I sit there and say those things? How could I have done those things? And, you know, knowing that people see that, knowing that my family sees that. But I think the first step of all of this.

You know, this past 9 to 10 months, my entire content has changed. Everything has changed around. And there's actually a story I have. When I was close to my 20th birthday, I was with my family, I was with my friends. And we were just talking, chilling, having a good time, whatever it is. And I realized I sat down there for a second and I thought about it. I was like, why the fuck do I not act like this on my stream? Why do I not talk like this on my stream?

Why do I put on this act and do all these things on stream and act a certain way and say certain things for views and clicks? so corny, it's lame, it's pathetic. Why would I do all these things? When in reality, that's not what I want. That's not the person I am. That's not who I am. Why would I do that? Okay, it is who you are. Okay, it is who you are. I don't, I don't buy. First off, I think we know what the apology rating is. I don't even have to say anything. You, you, you got it. You get it. This is who you are. I just, just stay racist at this point. This is how I feel. Those, the clips that we played of all the things that he were saying, that wasn't 10 years ago. That wasn't five years ago.

That wasn't three years ago. That was 2023. That was 2024. And now you want us to believe that you were just doing that for clout. Now, the way that you were saying it, the passion, the emotion, the way you would talk directly, like you would be on stream talking to a black woman, calling out a Kai Sinat saying those things. You felt that you're telling. I don't know if he was making up those stories about his dad and his mom about what happened to them with what. Black people, I don't think he was. I think he was just using that to justify his racism, but you're racist. And so when I hear you apologize to us, apologize, air quotes, talk to us in this way. It makes me, I don't, you are still racist to me. I just don't believe you can make that heart of a turn. And the reason I said, when I mentioned Charlemagne Zane, I'm not saying Charlemagne necessarily accepted this apology, but there was something he did when he was on the breakfast club that really bothered me because he was trying to stay

true to things, not be a hypocrite, to use his words. So he said to him, how old were you when you did this? When he's talking to Neon, he said, how old were you? And he was like, I was 18, a fucking adult. Okay, I'm not saying he's, say mine is 30, but he's 18. He's 20 now. So this is two years ago. Yeah, we evolved. We evolved. From monkeys to humans. So he said, okay, you were a kid. And he was like, I got to do that for me. And he starts laughing. And everybody starts laughing. And he's like, I'm not saying it because I'm, you know, like, taking up for you. saying it because of me because otherwise I'd be a hypocrite because basically he's done things in his past and he's got to keep the same energy. I have to disagree with that. I understand not wanting

to be a hypocrite and holding on to that, but I have to disagree because he says something like also, he goes on to say, well, you can't control, this is Charleston. You can't control what people type in your chat because that's what Neon was saying. He's like, yeah, people type race and stuff. He can't control it. Neon made them type that. That's what I'm saying. You cultivated and created this audience that allowed people to feel empowered while you were screaming racist and derogatory things about black people. They align themselves with you.

You yourself said you had no one. You started racist comments about black people and then you had an audience full of people. Why else do you think you grew your audience? What else do you think that they're coming back for? You have created racism and it bothers me when people say, that's not me, I can't help that. You built that.

That is you. You built a racist empire. And it reminds me, when I was listening to him explain this, it's like, this reminds me the Bachelor. The Bachelor would say, no, no, no, the Bachelor would say for 15 years, they gave you a certain product, right? And that product was to be the most eligible and desirable person in America, a person who is fitting for finding love, you have to be white.

For 15 years, that's what they said, until I came along, right? And then there were three more years. And then it was like, okay, now it's time to let another one in when they brought in Matt James. My point is... Remember him? Come on, man. I'm sorry to cut your wisdom. No, no, no, no.

My point being is you built this product, you cultivated this audience. So when you change the product of what you were giving them and now you're saying, no, you don't have to look like this to find love. Everybody's entitled to love. You had pushback. And it came out in a racist way. You had people saying derogatory comments to not just us as leads to other people of color because you built this. You aligned yourself with this.

And now you're like, well, it's not our fault. It's not our fault that happened. It is your fault. So I can't, so I have to disagree and give pushback to the breakfast club, Charlemagne, in particular, because I can't say, you can't say that's the audience doing that. You can't say, well, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't have the same energy. No, there has to be a point where you say what you did was wrong and it was racist and you are months allegedly removed away from it. And you're really only removed from it because now people are calling you out for what you did and trying to hold you accountable.

Okay. So I'll do a couple of things. So let's get the official apology rating. What is it? Negatives. Negative. Negative. Okay.

So I'll do a couple of things. I'll speak to the Charlemagne thing. So he's just acknowledging the obvious fact that he's the. wrong person to talk about somebody who is who said controversial things in the past who said some discussing things in the past and is saying that now they changed

and they grew from it. If he sits there right there and he says that people are going to go, how are you talking? Right. So the way to do that is like right now I can talk a lot of shit. I worked at TMZ for a long time, right? So I'm just, I'm not going to be able to get in a room and be like, you guys,

you shouldn't do things for sensational purposes. Like, I'm not, I just can't do it. Like, I'm not the one you can't talk about the evils and the dangers of reality TV and how fucked up it is. You could, if you were coming from the standpoint of this is what it costs me. So if I tell people right now, if I get into a situation, the message is going to be lost, is what I'm saying. If I get on a high horse and look, my horse is plenty high already, right?

All right, my horse is plenty high already. But if I get on a high horse about how somebody else is sourcing news or what there, it's just not going to be effective. It's not going to be effective. It's something that I probably don't have the latitude to do. And that's me, that's a self, I look at that as a self-awareness situation. But can't you say, can't you still do it and say, I did these things too? I've learned from it so I can still call out what?

That's a way to go about it, right? That's a way to go about it. But just like not sitting in front of millions of people as a direct hypocrite is not something that I can hold the Breakfast Club platform for him. Because it's really, when you look at it, it's not just him. It was their brain, right? And they really, we're doing a lot of Charlemagne Dick Rodden right here. You know what, Glazer the Week? Van Lathan.

We were looking for glaze of the week, but glaze of the week is Van Lathen glazing the breakfast club. I don't think you're glazing. Glaze of the week. We're doing a lot. I'm doing a lot of glazing right here. Glazing of the week, Van Lathan.

But I'm saying that's over a course of, you know, X amount of years of them doing that thing and becoming a more... Evolved. Evolved. Evolving. Okay. A more evolved.

A more evolved platform. So sitting there and going, hey, you know what, I'm not the best person to come down on you in this situation, but let's talk about it. I probably would have handled that the same way because I worked at a very scandalous, infamous place. And that is a part of my story. There's nothing I can do about it. A part of my story, I'm never going to be pure enough for some people. A part of my story is, hey, no matter what you were saying or what you were trying to do when you were there, no matter what happened with you and Kanye West, no matter you defending the people, no matter all the stuff that I could bring up to where I was like, hey, I was the lone voice in the room.

You were there. You accepted the paycheck. It's a part of you. It's who you are. You wear it. You deal with it. That's a part of that, right? So does that stop you from endeavoring into the conversation about evolution, change, and growth?

No, but it does kind of stop you from riding in on a white horse and acting completely pure as the driven snow when you're sitting in front of somebody who said the stuff and done the stuff. I just think there's a way to do it. I'm not saying you're the only person that had that thought. I'm saying I get where he was coming from because I'm kind of in the same boat. Now, back to neon, because however we made this about the breakfast club, it's like whatever. How it like, back to neon. Neon there is an answer here. Four.

There's an answer for Neon's redemption. Oh. There is. There always is. There always is a path for redemption. But here's the thing about non-black people and the way that they look at redemption when it comes to black people. They look at it

through the lens of emotion. They never look at it structurally. Right. They build structures on the degradation of black people and they respond with feelings. They build, they get houses

and they get boats and they get shows and they get access off the degradation of black people and they respond with emotion, with feeling, right? The late Hulk Hogan could have put himself

into a place where he actually atoned for what he did. There are millions of black kids around the country who want to be wrestlers who want to wrestle who still wanted to be like

Hulk Hogan even after Hulk Hogan showed himself to be who he is. He could have invested in them. He could have said, do you know what? The feet of,

that I put out there that reinforce some of the most vile stereotypes in black people, there's a cost to that. I have to pay to offset that cost. There are a bunch of black people, black kids out there that want to be streamers,

that want to get into the profession that neon built on the back of black trauma and black pain. he could empower them. He could spend double the amount of time empowering them.

He could do, he could spend the time to learn why what he did was so harmful and helpful, excuse me, why what he did was so harmful and hateful. He could also directly address, not in a roundabout if I hurt or whatever people, directly address the people that he has talked to in those videos, listen to them, directly apologize to Kaysanaat. Apologize to Kaysanat's mom. And then beyond that, don't just apologize to black people.

Be an asset to black people. Have utility to black people. Have usefulness to black people. Become someone that is not a part of the exploitation of black people, become something that very few white people are, which is a part of the empowerment and the upward mobility

and the platforming of black people. All that that you built off the backs of what it is that we go through, give a little bit of it back. Like, give a little bit of it back. It would take a long time because... Well, it would take a long time. Well, it would take longer than it took for us

to evolve from monkeys to human beings. I'll tell you that much. But what would it also take? It would take him actually caring. It would take sincerity, which is essentially what you're at. asking for. Everybody that asks about, like, what can I do? What can I do? These apologies are useless. They're meaningless.

They don't mean anything. What does matter is the lives that you change and the people that are empowered because of you, especially if you built it off of. Exactly. So that's not enough, Mion. And it's shocking and just pointed this out in the room. He had two black people in the room, security, because he has to walk around with security for because of all the things, the enemies, I guess, that he has created from his platform. And he had a black videographer. But what's interesting was he also said he had a black publicist

who Lauren said she knew. She's like, oh, that's my girl. You would, I would just... Probably how you got on the show. That, probably, but I would also just think with a black publicist, and I hope maybe she's listening or somebody passes on. You're coming at the black people. No, no, no, no, no. I was going to say,

well, I couldn't do it. I'll just say that. But I wasn't coming at them. I was going to say is hopefully they are listening or maybe somebody can pass this on of you really want to help your client or you want to tell your client what they need to do because I can't imagine

he didn't ask the black people around him what should I do? I don't know if he did. I would think he would. Why the fuck are you paying your publicist if you're not going to ask or how you should handle this? Shout out to Lauren, man. Shout out to Lauren LaRosa.

How are you going to, how are you, how do you not ask the person that you pay and publicists are very expensive, who happens to be black, what you should do. I would just imagine, take whatever Van said, all of that and do it. I don't, I know,

I don't have a problem with the publicist. No, no, no, no. I'm not saying, you didn't like the fact that I gave Neon the blueprint to get back. Well, because I know he won't do it. Well, I'm just saying, all I'm saying is. Because he's already told us he's about the fame, the money, the platform.

He built it. Now that you built it, now you want to take it back. and then say, well, it's not my fault. You're already telling us who you are. All right. We got Elliott Connie coming up in a second. I got glazed of the week.

I gave myself glazed of the week, so that's done. There might be two glazes of the week this week. Before we get out of here, though. And we got a lot of stuff to talk about, you guys. We got a lot of stuff. We're backed up. We got to take some podcasts, Benefiber. We got to talk about gerrymandering that's happening in Ohio.

In Texas. In Texas. Jermanding in Ohio. Texas. How are the Democrats going to deal with that? We got to bring somebody on to talk about that. We got to talk about more WNBA stuff. We didn't even get a chance to talk about the fucking, what happened.

It was the fucking, I forgot about it, whatever. We even really talked about the Epstein. Did we even talk about Epstein? There's so much stuff. There's so much stuff. But it was important that we talked about. We didn't talk about RG3 and Shaq and Angel. We never got around to that.

But it was important and we hadn't gotten around to and I hate to even phrase to say it like that, gotten around to, but we had not addressed what's happening in Gaza, and that was very important that we did that today. We might give you guys a whole episode on Thursday on Epstein. You always say that, but we're not. We need to get into some of this gerrymanding. But we, the people, Molly from P68, shout out to PCCC8.

Shout out to everybody there. P68, the best looking group of political activists that I've seen to this date is Molly, Darrell, Raymond, and Melissa, who are running it, I have to call P68 out because they got to let some ugly people in, right? You got good-looking Raymond, you got chocolate Daryl,

you got Latina Melissa, and then you got Molly who says that she's black, but, you know, I don't know if the identity is. Jeez. But these are my people. We're going to have a host and a litany of guests that come on at P-S-6-A-S word. So shout out to them,

help P-68. They're doing great work. but we got to talk about Tyler Perry before we go. He was on Kurt Franklin's podcast, Den of Kings. I didn't even know he had a podcast. I bet it's going to be good. And he spoke about his relationship with Ryan Kugler and advising Ryan Kugler on his ownership deal for Senai's.

This is what Tyler Perry had to say. I started 26 and you 38. People think then this Instagram life is, I'm supposed to have it tomorrow. Yes. I'm supposed to have it tomorrow. They won't put the time. That's been 12 years of grinding.

Yes. And it's been all of those years of learning and educating yourself. See, a lot of us as black man, I couldn't call my father, my uncle, and go, hey, I just made a million dollars. What do I do? Nobody talked to us about taxes. We didn't have the knowledge. So now, looking at a 38-year-old black man who is getting the knowledge to be able to pass on to his kids.

Yes. To be able to, and I see you even lecturing to people as you travel, telling them, like, this is how you do it. When this deal with Ryan Coogler, everybody's talking about the sinners deal, oh my God, he got this amazing deal. Listen, I called that brother up as I did a lot of them. I called him up after Black Panther. I said, listen, here is how you do it.

The deal that he has, my first movie, it'll be 20 years this year from Guy of Ravit. Congratulations. I called him up and said, here is how you do that deal. And to see that they were able to pull it off, I applaud him, man. I'm excited for him. That's right. Because that's what it's about holding on to the ownership.

That's what changes. You don't like it. Not really, man. I have no problem with this. I'll let you go off on it because I know we're about to head out. I have no problem with it. Tyler Perry says, and I'm not one to usually just really like stand ten toes down. No, I don't have a problem with him like that.

But I'm just saying, to me, I think this is a bit of exaggeration for people to be upset by this. I think that something key that he said is that he typically does this. He says it took 12 years from him to get to where he started, to where he first had his big break. And it seems like he's gained a wealth of knowledge and doesn't want to be. it to be another 12 years for somebody for somebody else to have to do what he did. Now that he has gained access and the knowledge, he says that he typically when he sees black directors or people in a similar position, he calls them up to share the wealth. What's the problem with that?

That I did it first of always comes off like Slickside hating to me. Okay. I'm just being for real. So you don't have a problem he did it. You have a problem that he said it. Yeah. That I did it first stuff always comes off at Slickside Hap. hating to me. It's self

congratulatory. I never like it, right? I never like it. Now, if you are Tyler Perry and you've done all of this stuff for the industry and you've had all of these firsts and you've built this power base, this self

sufficient, really kingdom of movie making and television production, and no one gives you really the credit that you deserve for it. You guys, we are not forgetting about the things that recently happened in the life of Tyler Perry

and the allegations that people have made about him. We're talking about Tyler Perry, the filmmaker and businessman. If you've done all of that and you don't really get the credit that you deserve or you think that you deserve, that might compel you a little bit to be like, hey, just to let you know this is not the first person that did that. I did it first. I did it. It's me.

Whenever people do that. It didn't come across that. It always comes across as slick side hating to me. It always does. Like, always comes across like, hey, man, I give you an example. You know it comes across the slick side hating to me? What? You see a beautiful woman out there living a life.

Man, I had it first, man. I was with it. Nigga, that ain't enough for me. Of course. You're not even talking about helping somebody or. Helping, whatever. Or even if she, even if you take that woman and it's like, she dressed, she wasn't dressing that way before I got with her.

I actually showed her how to dress. It's not about you showing her how to dress. It's not about you showing her how to do this. It's about her. She's doing her thing. Anytime you take somebody's success and use it as a look at me moment. You have to take it that way, but okay. I'm not, look, I love Tyler Perry.

I just didn't see this as a look at me. I think Tyler Perry is criminally underappreciated for what he did as a black filmmaker for the audience that he served and was able to cultivate, whatever. I'm not even going to talk about, oh, yeah, but you don't have to love them. I'm talking about the fact that the Tyler Perry filmmaking experiment has been ridiculously successful. I'm just talking to the wind. Y'all know this.

Y'all know this. I personally think he doesn't feel like people look at him in that way. So even the way he said it, if you look at it, I'm really sorry. psychoanalysis, even the way you said it. This Ryan Cougar deal, oh, the deal that everybody's talking about. That's some slick side hating, bro. I'm sorry, man. Like, that's some slick side hating, bro.

He did. He did. He's like, that deal to all this big deal to everyone. So I had that deal. I'm sorry, bro. That's some slick side hating. You might have won me over. And it's, and it's, I get it.

By the way. It's exactly. I don't think that it's the same when OGs hate. Okay. I think Like for better or worse. Okay, so like when I hear

Sometimes when I hear the guys on the inside the NBA They behave. But hey But It's either funny Or you get it Or is it that when you reach a certain age There's just a level of respect

That kind of comes with this So it's like, ah, that's just old man's heart. You don't look at your hating the same. We look at, it's like, it's like, yeah, I can't believe. Is Shaq hating on Rudy Gobert? Yeah. Yeah, he is. He's hating on Rudy Gobert.

Rudy Gobert made a lot of money. Jack is hating on Rudy Gobert. But at the same time, you kind of like, is Shaq, he the man. If he wants to say that Rudy Gobert is making too much money and he should have made that money, if Shaq is hating on Rudy Gobert, you kind of accept it a little bit different. But is it Hayden? Yeah, it's Hayden. It's Hayden.

It's Hayden. Is this Hayden? Yeah, it is, but he did it first, and he feels like he wants to be in the conversation about why the young bucks should listen to him. So he had to bring out the slick side hating, but it's slick side hating. It is. It's the mannerisms got me. It's like, whoa, this deal. Everybody wants to talk about Sanders.

You got to hate it. I mean, you got, y'all didn't talk about my deal. I did this back in a, y'all didn't talk about my deal. All right, fair. Some slick side hating. Fair, fair, fair. We got Elliot Connie coming up. A nice interview with a.

black therapists, whenever we have an interview that people respond to in a certain way, we always come back with some therapy for y'all. Hold on the other side of this break. For adults with Crohn's disease or ulcerative colitis symptoms, every choice matters. Tramphia offers self-injection or intravenous infusion from the start. Trimfaya is administered as injections under the skin or infusions through a vein every four weeks, followed by injections under the skin every four or eight weeks. If your doctor decides that you can self-inject Tramphia, proper training is required.

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Green's new wraps have got you. Real ingredients? Zero shortcuts. Everything you love in one hand. Think Green Goddess Chicken, garlic aoli, crumbled bacon, corn salsa, 40 grams of protein made to keep up with whatever comes next. New sweetgreen wraps hit different. Order now at order.com. How are I learning the audience? We have Elliott E. Connie joining us right now.

The book is Change Your Questions, Change Your Future. That is something that's very close to my heart. I read a different book called Predictably Irrational. and it's by a behavioral economist, and one very powerful part of the book was about how so much of life is in the question and not the answer. That was more specifically dedicated towards

how us as human beings are manipulated by questions. I don't think that is the thrust of this book. No. Elliot, thank you for joining us on Higher Learning. What is the thrust of this book? You know, I've been to practice in Cyclotherapy, for nearly 20 years and I always wanted to write a book that would truly and like deeply inspire people. I think the best thing that people can do is realize that life is whatever it is you created

to be. And what you create is very much related to the way that you talk to yourself. And we all talk about it. Like psychotherapists talk about self-talk and all that stuff. But we don't talk so much about the questions that you ask yourself are by far the most important things you could ever do. So I want people to learn that. ask themselves questions like, what if my idea succeeded as opposed to what if everything goes wrong? Or the most important question you can ever ask yourself is, what is it that I want? Most people, shockingly, never ask themselves, what do I want? They always ask themselves, what do I not want?

And then try to build a life away from that. But truly successful people and true people who have found joy and happiness, those people ask themselves, what do I want? and they spend their energy pursuing it. And then we call that all kinds of words, like that's manifestation or whatever. And we just think, oh, that person is good at that. But all they did was ask themselves, what do I want to become?

And then start living a life that put them in that direction. So that's what that book is. We want to teach you how to ask the kinds of questions that change the direction that your life is heading in and understand that that's totally into how you ask yourself questions. Are human beings, are human beings, one second, Rich, I'm sorry about that. I jumped in on, Rach, that's wrong.

Are human beings hardwired to prioritize catastrophe? Yes. Human beings are hardwired to try to solve problems. Right. Like, if you think about, like, how we are here, you know, as a species, we don't have fangs, claws, venom, we don't fly, we don't run particularly fast. But what we have is these big, huge brains. and those big huge brains are hardwired to notice and look for problems.

And we now live in a world where we think the best way to solve a problem is to like super analyze the problem. But luckily, we're not living in caves anymore. We're not running from saber tooth tigers. We live in a very sophisticated world. And your brain is capable of highly sophisticated things. And you should teach your brain to realize the best way to solve a problem is to identify what you want on the other side of that problem. And when you do that, your life becomes unimaginable. completely different.

So somebody listening to this might think, okay, I understand it. I hear what you're saying and I understand it. Change your questions, change your future. So where would I start? Like what's the first question? Because to get in that mindset, yes, please. First question is, what do I want to become?

That's the very first question. What do I want to become? When you ask yourself that question and truly spend time with it, then you start orienting your life towards that. That's the very first question everybody should ask. Hmm. I think that it's a question that people should ask, but it's often a question that people don't know the answer to.

Right. I see, I disagree. I think everyone knows. I think everyone knows. They just haven't given language to it. And if you really sit and think with it, you'll give language to it and you'll develop courage. Because oftentimes, the what do I want question?

What do I want to become question? there are difficult barriers between where I'm sitting and the answer to that question. And people shy away from because the other thing human beings are hardwired to do is to be comfortable. We make decisions that make us more comfortable constantly. And sometimes the answer to that question is an uncomfortable answer. When I was a kid, I grew up, I had anxiety, depression, and I was living in a home that was not safe. It was just a difficult spot. And when I started asking myself, like, what am I trying to become?

I knew I wanted to help people. And that meant I got to get into college because the only way I thought I could help people, I didn't know I was going to be a psychotherapist, get a master's degree and all that. But I just thought like I got to get a degree, get an education. So that meant when my friends would call me and sometimes be like, hey, we're going over here. We're going to go do this. We're going to do that. I was like, no, because I now understand what this thing I'm trying to do is.

So I got to miss some of that so I can become this. And some people are afraid to ask himself that question. Like, what if? And these are the hard questions, but these are the questions you have to ask yourself. What if I'm married with two kids living in a hectic city like L.A.? And I ask myself that question, like, what is it I really want to be? And the answer is, I want to be on a farm in Texas. You're going to have to make some significant life changes to make that happen.

And most people are afraid of that. But I think joy is on the other side of those uncomfortable conversations and decisions. And now that I've been practicing psychotherapy for so long, people ask me all the time, like, you know, why do people come to therapy? And they expect me to say depression, anxiety, alcoholism. But people come to therapy because they made decisions in their early 20s that are incongruent to who they are in their 30s and 40. And we drink and we have bad coping mechanisms to deal with those incongruencies. And if you can ask yourself those questions, then you just stay more in line with who you're supposed to be. It's interesting you say that because I

The person I was in my 20s Obviously not who I am right now at 40 But I guess I struggle with the question of where to start Kind of like what Van was talking about About like what you really know Because forever for me I was like I want to be a lawyer I want to be a lawyer I want to be a lawyer I became a lawyer

And it never fulfilled me And I but I was but if you ask me If I asked myself the question what is it that I want to become It would have been a lawyer So I almost feel like, is the, should the question not be so, or the answer not be so specific? Or maybe, because for you, for example, you said, you knew you wanted to help people, not specifically what you were going to be. Correct. But it's a general question.

Is that how maybe people should be thinking? No, no, no, the answer can be quite specific. Like, it's wonderful that you become a lawyer. But what you have to do is be comfortable growing and evolving. I became a psychotherapist. And for many, many years, you'll know this because you're from, you're from Dallas. I had an office in a place called Keller, Texas, many, many years. And I would see 40 to 50 clients a week, six days a week.

It was a long, and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. And then one day I woke up and I was like, I don't want to do this anymore. I started having ideas about books I wanted to write. I started having ideas about spending time on the road, lecturing at conferences and speaking in events. I started having ideas about reaching people in other ways. So it's wonderful to be specific.

Great. Just be open to getting there. being like, you know what, I've evolved into something else. Now what I thought I wanted to do is no longer all I want to do. I still see clients, but I just got to a point where exclusively seeing clients was not serving me. I didn't want to do that anymore. I've had a couple of different therapists. I always keep a hot new therapist.

And there were two specific moments that I remember in therapy. One where I was triggered. and one where I had my eyes opened up to the entire world. I want to kind of get your opinion on both of these moments. The first moment was a therapist who had a very direct stop. And he told me, he said, the best thing about human beings, their brains is also the worst thing.

And that's that your brain is always working on your behalf. He said that whenever you, he's like even if you were addicted to something, your brain is soothing your body with that thing that you're addicted to. Your brain is thinking, hey, this is what you want. These are the neural pathways that are opened. True. The harder part of existing is endeavoring to change your brain.

To change your brain based upon new pathways, new things that you want to open up. I remember he said, I mean, you could use psychedelics to open up some new pets. And I was like, hey, don't take me down the road of psychedelics quite yet. But I think as I've repeated that to people, I think that's a very, very difficult thing for people to come to terms with. The fact that your brain is not telling you the wrong thing to do. It's telling you to do something that it thinks works for you. but it may not be working for you in your life. So habit forming is about changing the pathways in your brain

to affect an outcome that you intellectually want. And that's very difficult to do. 100%. And I'm going to give you a hack. I want to respond to that. And then I'm going to give you a hack to like get to that. To that point, I want to like your brain is constantly seeking. Think of your brain as a like open field, right?

just a plush, green open field when you're born, just an open field. And when you do behaviors, it's like you're walking on that open field. And the more you do the same behavior, the more that path is worn. Your brain wants to stay on the worn path. Okay, that's how I want everybody to think their brain. The brain wants to stay on the worn path. An example of that is I saw this couple one time. And, you know, wonderful looking couple, they come in and sit down.

And I started doing the therapy. and the woman is like, I'm very dissatisfied in this relationship. I don't think he loves me. And the boyfriend, they're not married yet. They're engaged, actually. The fiancé is saying, like, I don't know how you could say that. Like, I do this, this, this, this, and this.

Like, what are you saying? And what it comes down to is you don't hit me. And I don't think you love me because you don't hit me. Now, if you look in this woman's history, her father was abusive, her early boyfriends were abusive, her later boyfriends are abusive, her first husband was abusive. So she, her brain is diagnosing this man as not loving me because she can't bring him to the level of intensity that she's used to.

So she is believing that this lack of intensity is lack of love. Now that might sound crazy. Like, what do you mean? Like this guy's not hitting her. It's a first boyfriend she's ever had who doesn't physically hit her. But that also means it's the first boyfriend she's ever had who doesn't have to do real hard work to make up for the fact. of these hit her. There's always like a little honeymoon phase after abusive cycles that are like

flowers, gifts, and she's now living a relationship without that. And her brain is telling her this is not the worn path. So that therapy became, you have to get used to being treated well. Because unfortunately, you've had a life where you weren't. So your brain has normed to the idea that relationships have these incredible intense moments, good and bad. And this guy's presenting you with real, like, stable health. And the therapy was constantly about, okay, this is another thing I got to used to got it. And over the course of a few months,

she was like realizing, like, this is what I should have had before, and I can now get used to it. And her brain is just, like, wiring a new path. And, like, everybody does things by routine. Like, I woke up this morning, eventually brush my teeth. If you want to, like, trick, well, you know, you get up. I got a glass of, water. I've moved around.

You better hit them choppers as soon as you get up, I had a few other things to do. I had to let my cameraman anyway. You do not have to explain yourself to you. You let the cameraman before you hit them choppers? A hundred percent. 100%. Don't let you make you do that. A hundred percent.

But like if you want if you want to see how hard it is to rewrite your brain like tomorrow morning and you wake up, brush your teeth with your off hand. Your brain will remind you this is not a worn path. this is something that we don't do. So much so that you'll almost forget that you plan to do it

because you just go into autopilot. Right? You just go into autopilot. Like I started taking supplements. I hired a nutritionist about a year ago. She put me all these supplements and all these health things. And it's now such a routine that I will take all of these pills, all these supplements and be like,

did I take them? Because my brain just went in autopilot. So imagine if you are A, have been born into an environment. where your brain is autopileting towards something unhealthy, but then imagine what happens when you rewire it and it starts autopileting

towards healthy. And I will also tell you, like the quickest way, I told you I was going to give you a hat, the quickest way to rewire your brain is through your language. It's without question. The quickest way to rewire

human brains through the language that you feed it. Say more. Well, like some people say, like, you know, like you guys have created this amazing podcast. Okay.

Oh, it's amazing. Safe language. But it's amazing. Trying to keep it in real. Being honest with myself. Create this amazing platform and, you know, everybody in the world wants a podcast and you guys have like gotten to a level that most people don't get to in the podcast space.

When you started, you didn't know ultimately what the thing would be. And most people say, like you would call each other and be like, hey, if we succeed, it'll look like this. But if you start saying when we succeed, da-da-da-da. Your brain starts going, oh, we're going to succeed. Oh, got it. So like when you use language that is like finite to the goal that you want to achieve, when you set off the degree, you're an L1, right?

You're in law school as an L1. If you say like when I become a lawyer, I'm going to do this, this and this. Your brain just goes, oh, so we're we're lawyering now. Got it. When you say if you've allowed doubt into your brain and doubt is a cancer, you got to get that shit out. Mm-hmm. As a psychotherapist, what area of life do you feel like people seek or need the help in when they come to?

All of them. All of them. Yeah. Like, I mean, we... Like work, success, love, loneliness. I think all of it. I think all of it. I think that we just get off track and then we experience the symptoms at work. We experience the symptoms in our romantic life.

We experience the symptoms, all of it. But I think where people need to just come back to like that centered place of like, who am I and who am I trying to be? become. Do you think all those symptoms are related? Of course, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, like I know, so I don't know you. We've texted and chatted over the last few months or even years, whatever it is,

but you don't strike me as a 9 to 5 office guy. Like, is that fair? I had to do it at one point, but no, you don't love that. No, I don't love that. It's not awesome. If you had to get a job where it's like, go sit and stick in this beautiful, but even when I did it, I created an immense, it's interesting that you would say this. So for years at TMZ, it was, it wasn't nine to five. It was basically six to five, right?

And I created little many vacations throughout the day. Okay. To where I could walk outside, see this, everybody knew, especially once I had clouded up, everybody knew that right after the first show, I was going for a walk. Right after the second show, I was going for a walk. I'm talking about like, Van is out of the office for like 40, or 45 minutes walking around live visit. Okay. I love that. That's

exactly my point right now. How close are two of y'all? Like friends? Yeah. I'm just kidding. We're friends. We're friends. You took it there. We're friends. But I could cause him great harm. Okay. If

I somehow came into his life and gave him no choice, you have to stop doing all of these creative things. You have to stop doing all of the things where you share your passions and opinion, you have to go work as like an accountant sitting in an office, no people pushing paper count numbers. You would say, you would call me and be like, he's different. He's drinking more than he used to. He's staying up later or waking up earlier. He's gained a ton of weight or lost a ton of weight. You would notice a difference. Now, you would call me and say,

Van needs help. He's drinking. But that's actually not the case. Van needs help because he got off the path of what is right for him. Right? So it's not the drink. The drinking is a symptom of being just off the path. And so many people say, like, what do people need? They need help being authentic. Because sometimes the authentic, when I was growing up, my dad was overbearing, aggressive, abusive. And it's crazy to say this, but I genuinely believe it came from two places. He loved us so much. He wanted us to succeed. And he had so much fear of abandoning. He was scared. He was scared. He was scared to death of abandonment.

But he would tell me, like, you're going to go into finance. You're going to go into finance. But I knew I wanted to help people. When I became a psychology major, you get that, all those comments. Like, I don't love you no more. Like, all these. That's how you get knocked off your path of authenticity. Like, I don't want to deal with this.

So I'm going to become an accountant because I want to plead. But you can't be a people pleaser. You have to be a person pleaser, like an interpersonal pleaser. and be your most authentic self and people get in trouble because they get knocked off their path by real reasons. Like I get somebody pregnant, young,

and now I got to get this job. Like real reasons knock you off our path, but my job is to help you get back on your path. And if I did that, let's say I did therapy with him. We don't even talk about alcohol. Most of the time in the therapy that I do, we don't talk about what the problem is.

We just talk about who was truly van. And through that conversation, Van, it's like, man, you're right. I shouldn't. The office job, yeah, it pays a lot more, but I was getting something even more. more beneficial. Ellie, you're right.

Thank you for the session. I'm going to call Rachel see if we can restart the podcast and get back on. You would call me and be like, he's back. He's not drinking anymore.

He's no longer losing or gain weight or his sleep to be normal. Like you'd say he's back. And you would think, God, you help him with his drinking. But that's not what I helped him with.

I helped him remember exactly who he is and helped him make choices that are congruent with being exactly who he is. Second thing that a therapist told me, my psychiatrist, shout out to Dr. Jamal Bowman, okay, Dr. Bowman is like, hey,

this helps me with the medications and stuff. I remember when I was going. I was getting off Lexa Pro, gave me a comprehensive weaning off Lexpro plan and a way to check in with him to make sure things were going good. So shout out to Dr. Bowman. But I also saw a therapist, and it was a white therapist. and he told me he said therapy

I have to do therapy for you in a little bit of a different way and he goes why because he goes I have to consider your trauma as a black guy I thought I don't like that type of shit from white people you don't tell me about maybe I don't have it

and you know you don't know my first thing to do was to be like what do you mean by that what are you talking about I knew I shouldn't let no white man therapies me. I was what do you mean by that? He goes, well, you know, he gives me,

he goes, give me an example of problems that you saw or things that affected you growing up. And reflexively, I went, you know, we did this and we did that and we did this, we did that, we did this, and we did, I told a whole long story.

And he goes, now, in what you just told me is economic instability, He goes, there is imprisonment. There is violence. He goes, there's all these types of things that are happening to you at a very formative time, like in your life. They are normal to you, but I can't convince you that they are abnormal or not that you shouldn't have had to go through those things if unless I understand that condition. So he goes on like when I started dealing with a lot of black men, he deals with a lot of athletes. He's like, I had to educate myself on some historic things, some things like that to be able to talk to someone and pull them out of expecting that trauma is normal.

Yes. And trauma is normal, but the specific condition of being black in America, that that's normal. is there a different way that you've seen that you have to approach therapy with black men specifically? Man, that's a good, that's a great question. So first thing I want to say is like compliments to that therapist because you have to consider the unique individual that you're talking to. And you also have to consider the communal experience that person has, has lived through. As a man, I have to do it when I do therapy with women. Like women don't live in the same world that I live in.

Right? In the same way that there's white privilege, there's male privilege. And I have to be aware like, oh, she's a female. She grew up in the South. Like there are certain things. What's that? She's a what? Female.

How dare you, Elliot? I don't know. Apparently that's offensive. That's just, it does not bother me. How dare you? I can't believe you. Continue on your journey. I see you got some ways to go yourself.

I'm working on. As soon as you said it, I was like, he's going to stop. How dare you? You're fine. Okay. Thank you for considering me. Yes. I see. This is what we're doing. But so the answer, short answer question is no. I don't think there's something that like this is what we have to consider with black men. I think as therapists we have to consider VAN because all black people are not created equally. Certainly. Like to tell you a funny story, well, a funny but like ridiculous. You know, I graduated with a master's degree in 2006. And, you know, 2006 was not 1968. And my best friend, who's now a lawyer, prosecutor, we were in graduate school together.

Okay, I forgot. Sorry. I don't even know why you're shaking your head. My dad said the best, if you really want to make a difference, be a prosecutor. Cops everywhere. That's my boy said. It's not being a public defender. It's being a prosecutor because you're in charge of the charges.

I have so much respect for this, dude. I fully expected to come here and, like, bon, with van. But I've now realized. You learn. I'm just talking to, I'm just talking. Just talking to Rachel. Talking to cop language. Anyway, so, you know, in 2005, 2006, me and my best friend Matthew,

we're reading a book about how to do therapy. It's like when you're in graduate school, you've got to study a multicultural class. You've got to take the course. Reading this book, and the first chapter of this book was amazing. Don't stereotype people, get to know people as individuals. Everybody has their own unique story. Chapter two was.

was here's how to do therapy with the Asian people. Chapter three was, here's how to do therapy with women. Chapter four was, here's how to do therapy with black people. And it described us as black people are concrete, so do not use abstract language in therapy, blah, both. And I'm looking at this, I'm like, you've got to be kidding me. Now, I've gone to undergraduate school with my buddy Matthew, and we are not, he grew up in Fort Worth, Texas.

I grew up in Massachusetts. We are not the same. So you will make what that guy did, that therapist, like, and seriously, shout out to him. He considered the context in which you grew up, but he also considered Vann within that context. Matthew and I both grew up as black men in America, but my experience in Boston, Massachusetts was very different than his experience in Fort Worth, Texas. Right. So we need to consider the environment that you came from, but we also need to consider the individual, the individual that you were going through that environment. And that's more important.

Because if I simply, if I simply treat like, oh, you're a black guy. I know I do therapy with those people. I read that multicultural book. I watched the podcast and Elliot said, do these things for black people. That's racism in and of itself. Because you're putting me in a box and then treating me based upon my classification in that box.

And the truth is a black man from Seattle is not the same as a black man from New York City, who's not the same as a black man from South Florida, who's not the same as a black man from Mississippi, who's not, you know what I mean? Like the black experience is very, very, very. I mean, it's very complex. Yeah.

No, for sure. I want to move over to relationships. Okay, sorry. Now you're going to turn back this way. Watch. Well, because you write about it. You talk about it right about the five simple habits. Yes.

To bring out the best in your relationships. Don't ask me what the five simple habits are. Well, okay. Well, then what's the one thing? And I say this with, you know, I'm coming off a divorce. and I can't say as much as I dislike my ex, I know that I played a part in the reasons that we got divorced. There's no such thing as all somebody's fault.

Right. There's 99% but there's not 100%. Correct. That's probably what the percentages. But what is like, you know, as I'm going back and I'm dating again and, you know, like I want to bring my best self into the relationship, but also, you know, to make the relationship healthier, like what is the, since you can't remember the five things.

If you had me the list, if I can't remember several books ago. That's fine. That's fine. Like what... What is a good habit? Because like I, like,

for like my girlfriends, we have these discussions, you know, all of this. Like, what's the good thing? I'm going to give you two. Okay, great. I think if people understood these two things, um,

connected what I said, her is about authenticity. Okay. Um, date somebody who, like, be yourself. Don't date. I'm dating her because she's hot. I'm dating him because he's hot.

Like, connected authenticity, but I'm giving you two. And if people can get good at these two things, they'll be very successful. Number one, get curious about your partner's happiness. And what I mean by that is like, and we all do that. We'll be in a situation and you walk into a room and you'll see your partner sad. And inevitably, are you okay? What is wrong?

What has happened? What we don't do, but need to, is if I walk into our room and I see my room and I see partner happy, I need to ask, what is right? What is contributed to this happiness? Have I done anything that I need to know to keep doing? So getting curious about what happiness looks like within the life of your partner is wildly powerful. I love that. We become experts on problem and ignorant on happiness. And it needs to be the other way around. As I will absolutely, I walk into a room and I'm metaphorically like, walking to a room and I'll see you sad. What's happening? Did I do something wrong, do I need to fix it? Why not say, what's happening? Did I do something right? That I need

to keep up. And that gives you the ability to say, you know what you did? You did these few things that really made me happy. I just came out of this divorce where this person wasn't well to me, and then you brought me coffee this morning. It is wild how often people don't realize the simple things I'm doing, like contribute to your happiness, because we don't ask. Like, we don't ask. The second thing is when you get into a relationship, you have to accept that your partner's dreams are now your responsibility. And you have to behave as if that is true.

Wow. That's true. I agree. Your partner's dreams are a little bit more about it. But I agree. I think a lot of people just went, I agree. It's tough.

Keep going. But first of all, the most powerful thing we have is dreams. Okay. The most powerful thing we have is like hope for future. Okay. So if we get into the relationship and it's like, you know, first date kind of stuff, so what are you working on with it? Well, I want to become a lawyer.

If I decide to sign up in this relationship, you becoming a lawyer is now my responsibility. So, excuse me, I can't do things that interrupt you. your ability to become an attorney and expect a relationship to be healthy. Because if not, you're going to create a ton of resentment that at some point is going to become a part of that relationship. Worse than that. Worse than that. I'm going to break her soul.

And that's not okay. Okay. So what if the dream stays a dream? What if they're always dreaming and always hoping and it's not, and you see that it really is, it's always going to stay in that state? Like, what do you do with that? Because at some point, as a partnership, you have to say, hey, it's not working or maybe you don't say that. But what do you do when you see them not working?

Shut up. Man, this is a, this is a, am I not asking a logical question? You are. I'm going to, I'm going to be very personal here. Okay. Lay, come on. I'm a therapist. I'm going to be very personal.

All right. Instead of speaking of hypotheticals. All right. I was with someone where the dream was always a dream. That wasn't a dream. And I always supported. I always supported. I'm talking moving.

I'm talking offering my assistants to work in it. To work with it. I'm talking using a platform to help my platform to help build it. And it just, it wasn't there. That wasn't a dream. Okay. Then what was it? Well, because, like, I can ask you what's your dream.

Okay. And you might answer. At one point in your life, you would have told me to become an attorney. Okay. But I can tell how accurate that is based upon the actions that you take. So you're just talking. Right. So if you tell me, maybe the dream was to get into a relationship with you.

But maybe I'm just using words that, like, you will be impressed by. This makes sense. So, like, when people tell you their dream, you have to also observe the accurate. of their behavior and is it congruent to the words that you just gave me. And what you're telling me is incongruence. This person was saying one thing and then doing something that didn't fit with one thing they were saying. But the truth is still, your dream is my responsibility. You did exactly what you should do.

They told you a dream. I used your platform. I supported you. I gave you advice and words, blah, blah, blah. You didn't take action. So I get to be like, oh, I'm going to go support somebody else's dream because you're not benefiting from me supporting your dream. Well, I think I also had to be real with myself about you're just talking.

about it rather than acting on it. That was something that was hard to accept to. But he's probably already acted on what his actual dream is. Yite. He was. He was. He was telling you this is what, anyway. But I think that that's a, I just see me and my girlfriends talk about that.

Well, seriously, two things. Get curious about happiness and accept that your partner's dreams of your responsibility. What if what What if What makes them happy Is annoying to you? Like what if a nigger is happy playing the game? You know?

What if I'm at my happiest With Shohei Otani up In the eighth inning on MLB 25 to show And I just want to get a hit on the game, man. What if I'm just on the game, man? What if I'm happy on the basketball court? What if I come home and I go, you know what? Just for this one time I turned back the clock today

and I was able to get you, I was cooking these, you know, what if that's happy? But you always being brought back into this is what should make you happy. What if I'm happy on the fucking game, man? What if it's the game, Elliot? There's nothing wrong with that. I don't, that's not how I feel. Why would you feel anything other than,

I don't feel like there are certain things that you could do that make you happy that maybe your partner, they don't like that. For some reason, this is what he's speaking to. For some reason, there are certain things that you could do that just annoy women. They just get annoyed. I think that goes both ways, though. I agree. I actually agree with that. Because we think differently.

We just, yes. I've seen so many men be like, the girl is watching Potomac or whatever. And they're like, why are you looking at this dumb ass shit? I'm like, shut out. Let her watch her fucking show. Like, let her watch her show. Like, why do you care that she like that?

Like what? But then at the same time, I see it the same way, them niggas be on the game. And they'd be like, why you got to play the game all the time? But my previous game is important, man. My previous statement addressed that. Most people, remember what I said, the two things, get curious about happiness and support your other person's dreams.

I didn't say use that person to make you happy. What is happening in that moment when I walk into the room and I see my partner watching whatever, it's like, oh, I'm not happy right now. But that's the moment you'd be like, my job is to support them in their dreams. So they've had a rough day. I remember when I was in college, I was dating a girl. And at the time, there was this new show that completely blew up, daytime talk show called The View. and this girl I was dating loved watching the view every single day.

Man, I couldn't have cared less about that show. I didn't want to watch that. But I wanted to make her happy. So, like, I'm going to sit here and watch the view with you. Watch it with her. And in the same vein, I love playing video. I play video games to this day. I have a very long day.

I travel a lot. I work with a lot of clients. I work. I speak at all kinds of events. Sometimes I'm like, I'm just going to sit here and play Madden. And I expect my partner to be like, oh, he's unwinding. Yeah. But relationship becomes...

I don't want her to come play the game with me. No. No, no, no. I get that. Just you think it to unwind. I get that. We ain't got to play the game. It's my game.

I think what... Because I've never had a problem with that, right? Like, people have things that they use to de-stress. It's if you're... It becomes a priority over... Like, it's one thing if you come home from work or you wake up in the morning and this is what you do. It's like working out. It's your hobby, whatever.

Right. But if you're prioritizing that over... our relationship, then I feel like that slides into the problem. I'm talking about the people who play all day. I dated the people who play all day, every day, with their friends and give no time to their relationship. I think that's when it's excessive. But look, when I say you have to accept that your partner's dreams

are your responsibility, I'm not saying to give up who you are to do so. So like you get to say, I don't want to support that dream. what we tend to do is we stay in the relationship and try to change the motherfucker. That's true. Like that's what we do. What we should do is say you need someone who also wants to play video games all day long

or at least is not triggered by it. So I'm going to vacate this relationship to leave space for that person. And I'm going to go find someone for whom I can't support their dreams. That's a very important point. I think what it comes down to in situations like this. Sometimes if we look at the game, Potomac dynamic, is that men want to control women. And so they don't, a lot of times want a woman watching something

that they don't think benefits her. They want to shape her brain. They don't want her to watch Potomac because they don't want her to be like the women on Potomac because they have a problem with that, so they're trying to stop. that, right? And men want to control women.

They have been socialized to believe that women should do what they say and that they should be able to set standards for women. I think it's true. Okay. On the flip side, I think that a lot of times in situations

where women don't feel like they're getting enough attention from men, that they resent that. I think that's true. I think that's true. And that they go, why are, it's not why are you playing the game so much. It's why are you playing the game

when you could be devoting that time to me? I think that's 100% accurate. And we got to let go, man. Sometimes it's about the game. I feel like you've been in this situation of time. Actually, not as much with the game. I mean, there was one time. So, like, there was one time with Spider-Man, too.

I don't think y'all understand Spider-Man, too. I'm going to be real. I don't think y'all understand Spider-Man, too. Elliot, you are Spider-Man. man, shout out to the people who made that game. It was one thing to play a game where you're playing. Yeah. In Spider-Man 2, you are Spider-Man.

Like, I'm sitting down at the house all day long, and I'm like, how am I supposed to do anything else when I'm swinging through New York helping people? But I am Spider-Man. It's like, it was like no other experience I've had my life. And at a certain point, I did kind of start to feel for it because at a certain point, you sit down. It's like, yo, I bought my own TV for the other room

so I could sit there at night with a throat, with a throw blanket over me. Like, even Bozeman, the dog would nose the door and come into the door and just stare at me. Like, nigga, you still doing this? I'm saving New York. Let's give me a minute. I'm fighting craving. I'm fighting venom.

Like, I am Spider-Man. So anyway. Um, okay, if you had, the book is, change your questions, change your future, overcome challenges, create a new vision for your life using the principles of solution based. The solution focus brief therapy. I do want to ask about this. What is solution focused therapy? Um, that was a, that was a hard left from this conversation about Spider-Man. I don't think guys understand, man, but Spider-Man too. But okay, I want to respond to that. Then I'll happily explain solution focus brief there. Of course you can overdo anything.

Right. But just remember, getting into a relationship is the single most unselfish thing you should do. And we tend to treat it selfishly. And when you truly are in a relationship where unselfishness is reciprocated, that's when you know. So when you were sharing that. other than finding it hilarious. You know you're in a relationship that's really healthy, and you know you're in a relationship where love is the center

when you experience joy through your partner. So if I walk into a room and I see Van being Spider-Man and saving New York, then in an unselfish way, I'll be like, I wanted to cuddle tonight, but I like that he's happy. So I'm willing to not cuddle so that he can be happy. when that is reciprocated, when it happens in reverse, I don't want to watch Potomac tonight, but I love that she's smiling and laughing right now.

So I wanted to watch something else to do something else, but I'm foregoing that because this is your moment, and I want you to enjoy it. So I'm going to sit right next to you and watch this show. When that is reciprocated, the relationship is indestructible. I love that. That's beautiful. Okay.

Okay. He just went off on that, like, Spider-Rexamination. me in two. And then it was like, so tell me, but I really, honestly, I want people to understand this.

We get in a relationship of being selfish. I want to date you because, like, you make me happy. Or I want to date you because you make me happy. But the truth is,

you have to understand that I want to get this relationship so that I can make you happy. And when that is reciprocated, it's wild. I mean, it's wild. All right. So,

Solution was brief there. if you've ever gone to therapy before, man, you disclosing people listening, the most common question you get asked when you walk into a therapist office is what brings you in. And that question orientes you and your brain to the problem.

Now, going back to what we said earlier, but rewiring your brain. I actually don't want you thinking about the problem because I don't want you wearing that path out. So let's say you had some sort of a trauma and I say, so what brings you in today? I just made your brain think about the trauma. And all you're doing is wearing out that path.

The first question that I'm going to ask when people come into therapy are what are your best hopes from this therapy? Because I actually want you thinking about change. I don't want you thinking about the problem. I want you thinking about change. Now that's so disruptive that, I don't know what percentage, a very high percentage in the 90s, when I say, what are your best hope when I'm talking, the most common, answer I get is I don't know. Not because they don't actually know, but because we're so used to think about the problem, you just ask me about hope. I need a minute. So solution to focus

grief therapy, it's an approach that's based upon focusing on outcomes instead of problem, focusing on impact, difference, and transformation instead of what has gone wrong in your life. I love that. All right. Last question. Or just for you to talk about your podcast. Yes. Aha moments. Yes. Tell us about it.

All of the things. Man, I really got, like, I really, really want to make a difference in this world. Like, I think this world is fucked up. Yeah. Because we've lost the ability to be compassionate for other people's experiences. We've lost the ability to be unselfish. We think the world needs to look the way that I wanted to look based upon where I grew up how I grew up and we fight literally go to war over these ideas. And I got with my team.

I told you all, like I pivoted instead of doing therapy full time. I started writing books, doing those other things. And then the digital world pops up. And I got with my team. And I was like, I just want to inspire people. So we decided one of the ways to do that is we created a daily podcast that we call the aha moments. And every single day, it's literally like five minutes, 10 minutes long. but it's me sharing things with the idea that I want to put more positivity and inspiration into the ethos for people to consume. I mean, there's so much, and I say this clinically, like there's so much stuff that is causing us harm mentally being consumed.

I just wanted a little piece of the internet where I could put something that would like cause people to heal and cause people to think and cause people to love themselves and love each other. So every single day, we make, you know, a five to ten minute episode where people get to listen and hear something that hopefully will inspire them. Oh, it's fantastic. I need that every day. I also need them to hurry up with Spider-Man 3. That is so no.

On the goddamn game. Change your questions. Change your future. I'm so glad we were able to sit down with you. Who's your co-author here? Dr. Adam Froer. He is one of my best friends. and brilliant researcher,

and we've written a couple of books together. You white? Yes. Go get the book, listen to the podcast, and also, I will really encourage you guys to pay attention to the ascent of Elliot Connie, who is becoming a really important voice in the world of mental health,

And somebody who, I collect these figures literally like trading cards. I got a trading card of soothsayers, right? And I go to different people at different times. But every once in a while, you just need to exhale. And you're one of the people that helps me exhale. So thank you, brother. That means the world to me. And one of the few times in the last couple of years that Charlemagne has been right.

all right so just he's right more often than a few times he's right about but I'm fucking with him but he told me about how amazing you are and he was he was not wrong about that thank you man that means I mean I know it sounds crazy but I just I grew up knowing with like

darknesses like true darkness and I developed a habit purely by accident that the way I like pulled myself out of that darkness. It wasn't psychedelics, wasn't therapy. I just started, like, hoping for like, man, today was horrible. I literally don't know how it survived that. I was super suicidal. And then I would see something like, happy Gilmore 2 is coming out. And I would be like, okay, if I can get to Happy Gilmore 2. I hope that's a good movie. And the only way I can

know if I'm right, if I got to live to get to that. And then when I got to Happy Gilmore 2, it would be like, okay, the new King of the Hill revival is coming out in two weeks. Now I got to You know, I just literally, like, hoped myself. And when I realized, I went to grad school thinking, like, this was something that everybody knew. And I'm in grad school studying problems and diagnosis and assessment. And I was like, but that ain't how I saved myself. I want people to really know, like, hope for a brilliant future. Like, the career and things that y'all have built.

Like, if you think back to the darkest time in your life when you were, like, really struggling, And if I had told you like, like, bro, you're going to build this like amazing media platform and have a voice that is so significant. And like, you're going to go on to achieve your dream of becoming an attorney. And then you're going to create this amazing platform. If I convince the young girl who was struggling, young boy who was struggling, I told him that, you instantly become stronger. Like, oh, I can deal with this because I want that. Right. We have to be able to like create that. That's literally the hope.

It's just creating a vision for a more desirable future and then you get stronger in the moment. And like I get goosebumps. Like that's literally the kind of content I want to put out. Like I know I would go more viral if I were like screaming at people like, but that's not who I am and that's not what to put out. So I was like, I've just had this little piece of the internet and just in an authentic loving way tell people like hope will save you every time.

We just don't spend enough time creating the vision for the future that we want. So that means a lot that you said that to me. It means a ton that you guys had me here. Thank you. For real, just thank. Elliot, thank you for joining us on Higher Learning. Go get the book. Follow Elliot on all social medias and be a part of the journey.

And, you know, continue to do the things that you love, no matter what people say about it. You have to do it by yourself. Thank you for joining us. Thank you. Appreciate it. All right. Take the thin caps off. I do not stop learning.

I'm barely listening, Jr., and I take nothing back. I'm Rachel and Lindsay. Bye, guys.