Mick Unplugged - Kier Gaines: Why Healing Starts With the Truth You Keep Avoiding

Episode Date: September 3, 2026

Mick sits down with licensed therapist, mental health advocate and author Kier Gaines for a direct conversation about emotional honesty, uncomfortable truths and the courage to begin. Kier explains why saying "you hurt my feelings" can be an act of strength, especially for men who have been conditioned to hide emotion. He and Mick unpack avoidance, awareness, curiosity, boundaries, professional value and why credentials still matter in a culture that often rewards visibility over expertise. Kier also shares the barber shop conversation that helped him recognize his mind as a valuable tool for change. He explains why his book, It All Starts When You Do, rejects shallow positivity and invites readers into the real work of self-healing. This conversation is honest, practical and deeply human. It is about telling the truth, protecting what matters and taking the first step before you feel completely ready. IN THIS EPISODE • Why emotional honesty is a form of authority, not weakness • How to move beyond surface-level wellness • Why awareness and curiosity are the first two steps toward change • The connection between boundaries, business and self-respect • Why credentials create accountability, safety and protection • How attention and notoriety can weaken integrity • The barber shop conversation that changed Kier's view of his work • Why "walking away from what does not serve you" can become avoidance • The meaning of an authentic and consistent legacy MICK'S BOOK OFFER As discussed in the episode, the first 20 people who message Mick with the words "I'm starting" will receive a copy of It All Starts When You Do, purchased by Mick. Available while the offer remains open and supplies last. CHAPTERS 00:00 The Attention Economy and Integrity 00:24 Meet Kier Gaines 01:00 Saying "You Hurt My Feelings" 04:46 The Because: Because Why Not? 07:01 Why Surface-Level Wellness Is Not Enough 10:14 It All Starts When You Do 14:12 Two Ways to Start Healing 18:15 Boundaries, Business and the Cost of Free 23:53 Hot Takes: Credentials, Safety and Anti-Intellectualism 34:13 The Room: A Barber Shop Conversation That Changed Everything 37:43 The Book, the Podcast and Mick's Offer 40:15 The Unplugged Five 44:03 Legacy, Authenticity and Kept Promises 46:00 Closing Connect & Discover Kier: Instagram: @kiergaines Instagram: @learnedthehardwaypod LinkedIn: @kiergaines   Podcast: Learned the Hard Way with Kier Gaines Facebook: @kiergaines TikTok: @kiergaines Book: It All Starts When You Do Threads: @kiergaines FOLLOW MICK ON: Spotify: MickUnplugged Instagram: @mickunplugged  Facebook: @mickunpluggedYouTube:  @MickUnpluggedPodcast  LinkedIn: @mickhunt  Website:  MickHuntOfficial.com Website: howtobeagoodleader.com Website: Leadloudseries.com Apple: MickUnplugged

The attention economy concerns me, and I think we're getting more desperate for attention. But I think the more we look for attention and notoriety, the less we hold on to some semblance of integrity and morality. And ultimately, I don't know where our humanness goes after that. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplodd, and today we are in for it. Like, we're going to be talking to a guest that's a prominent voice in health and wellness, diving deep into personal development, insightful, he's impactful, and he's done something that he doesn't know yet that we're going to talk about it. This actually changed my life. We're talking to none other than the amazing Mr. Kierre Games. Keir, how are you doing today, brother?

I'm good, Mick. What's good with you, brother? Thank you for having me on, man. Man, thank you for being here. I'm honored. There's some things we're going to talk about, but I have to give you your flowers, bro. Like, I'm all about that, especially when we talk about about mental health, which I know is the space you dominate. And we're going to talk about your amazing journey. But bro, I've been following you for a while. And you said something that you were going through that made me pause. And I was like, I'm implementing this in my life right now.

You said that you told someone they were hurting your feeling. Yeah. And when you said that, bro. every ounce of pride and ego that I had, I was able to step to the side because I understood the power of that. And so I just want to thank you for giving me that power as a man,

as a black man to be able to let somebody know, hey, that just hurt my feelings. I love you for that, brother. Hey, man, I love the fact that you picked up on that and you were able to do something with it. It's such a hard thing to admit. especially as a man and especially especially as a black man because there is this motif of being impenetrable that I think is assigned to us.

And it's unfair, man. It's unfair because you're still a person. You're still a human. But when you put that motif on for so long, you start to believe that it's true. And after a while, you don't acknowledge your own feelings. And then there's this other part of it too, where when you admit to somebody that they hurt your feelings, now they got the power to do whatever with that they want. Whatever they want.

They can say, man, put up your feelings. Just continue to steamroll you. Right. You know, they can listen. They can see you as weak and just avoid any type of conflict with you after that. It's really a mark of bravery to be able to admit something like that. It's still hard for me to admit. So, man, I love that.

I love that so much that was able to help you. I'm glad that you gave me the power to do that. I know that there are people that are watching that are listening right now. Now, I'm letting you know it's okay to let someone or someone's plural know that they hurt your feelings because feelings are real. Oh, yeah. And that's what Keir taught me, man, like the emotions that we have, the feelings that we have, they're all real. And a lot of times we keep that bottled in and it makes it worse and worse and worse. And then we put ourselves in darker places because we don't give ourselves the authority.

Mm-hmm. To communicate back to others. And so, again, I applaud you for that, bro. No, right on, man. I think the authority piece is the perfect characterization of what that is. It's giving yourself permission. And for me, just the way I grew up, the hardest part I gave myself that authority is I always confused someone who has hurt feelings with someone who's soft or weak. It's like, oh, no, I would still beat you up.

Right, right. No, that's not what this is. It's the acknowledgement of what's going on inside of me. And I think just being a man is so much about what you can controlling your external universe, what you can manipulate for financial and economic gain and how you could be seen, how you could be loved and respected. But got to love and respect yourself. Enorm people on how to love and respect you.

Hey, bro, I ain't like when you did that. You don't have to always say it that way. You hurt my feelings. And for those that don't know, I share that with my wife. She wasn't my wife at the time. She was my girlfriend. I'm like, hey, the way you talking to me is hurting my feelings, which is counterintuitive to the way that a lot of us are culturalized, man.

So thank you, man. I appreciate that. I'm glad that I was able to do something for you, brother. Absolutely, man. Absolutely. So, here, man, I start every episode by asking my guests a very specific question. And all the accomplishments in life that you've had and the things that you do that we see publicly, but a lot of things that you do that we don't see, man.

Like you, you are a, a monster of inspiration. You are a powerhouse when it comes to mental wellness. And you really give back and help. And so my question to you is what I ask everybody. Like, what's your because? That thing that's deeper than your why, right? Like Simon Sinek taught us to start with why. Awesome.

But I think that as you continue to answer that question and go deeper, what usually happens is you say, oh, this is my Y because X, Y, and Z. And I care about what you say after you say the word because. So if I were to say, Kierre Games, man, like all the things that you do, the continuation of giving back and pouring in and trying to make this universe better. What's your because? What's your purpose today, brother? Because why not?

Because why not? I think that I realized very early that I'm going to. a pretty good translator where I can take things that are pretty complicated and I can put it at our level so that it's digestible for folks. Why not? Why not have a better understanding so that you have a chance of a better relationship? Why not have a better understanding or where your feelings work so that you can anticipate them before they get there and that you can manage them once they're on top of you and that you can maintain some sense of emotional stability once they're gone so you're not just beating yourself up for what you didn't say in the

argument why not why not why not have the opportunity to know yourself better as you change throughout time and you go through grief and you go through experiences and you go through hurt you go through happiness why i don't understand why not yeah i love that dude i love that and when did you realize when did you first sit down and say hey i want to share with the world and go deeper. Because I've heard you talk a lot about depth, right? Like a lot of times, these are the words of Mick and McOnly. I think with AI now, everybody can sound really good on a subject.

Yeah, for sure. Yeah, you can write yourself a good script. But they're not going deep into it. And like, that's where I can find out who's real and who's not. When did you know that mental wellness was going to be a space that you were going deep into? That's a good question, Mick. I feel like when I learned how important it was in my own life

and I learned, you know, you have a, like when you're in a college class or when you're in any type of training and you walk in and you have an understanding of whatever subject you about to go into. Like, I know what I'm talking about. And then the more that instructor talks, the more you realize, oh,

I was on level one of 50. I thought I knew everything, but there's a science to the science to the science that I don't understand yet. And I think as I started to accumulate life, you know, like I said, my girlfriend at the time, we found out we were pregnant. She's my wife now, but this was seven, eight years ago. I started trying to figure out what it is I wanted to do with my life. I tried to better understand who I was and how I worked and why I did the things I did. And the more I would come to these understanders, the more I realized it was still so much more to go. And I realized that when we spread the problem wide and we talk about it in a very wide way,

but we don't talk about it deeply, we don't get anything done. We just feel good about discussing it. And that didn't feel complete to me. It didn't feel fulfilling. So I started just like how you don't ask the why, you ask the because. I started saying, and then what? Well, you need to be aware of these things that you think and feel. Okay.

And then what? Well, once you're aware of these things you think and feel, you have to start being able to try to determine how they affect you. Okay, and then what? Well, once you determine how they affect you, you got to determine how they affect the people around you. Okay, and then what? And when you keep asking and then what, if you're not only drilling deeper to get to the bottom of the problem, but you're also casting a wide net of your own understanding so that you're not just moving in a way that's, you're not just moving in a way that. satisfies your most surface level urges, you know, the desire to be better, desire to be love, seen, and respected. But you can walk into a feeling of self-love, into a feeling of self-respect. You can not just say, hey, man, I got these people pleasing tendencies. You can be honest. You got self-honesty, which I write about in my book. And the self-honesty says, hey, I'm afraid that people will abandon me if I don't allow them to just, you know, do the thing, uninterrupted. And then you ask, okay, and then what happens when they abandon you?

And it's just, maybe it's just me and my curiosity for life, bro. But I'm about solutions. I see the problem. What are we going to do about it, man? That's it. And that's what kindled me to start on this journey. Hey, so you talk about the book, and we're just going to go there now. So before I knew you were writing a book, been a huge fan of you.

And if people would have asked me, you know, tell me about Kier, tell me about what you love about and what you like about them. I would have said this right here. Kierre makes me think about the most uncomfortable truths. And so I call the segment of the show, I actually call the unplugged truth based on me talking about you. So I'm breaking news right now. So the second segment of my show, I always call the unplugged truth. And I got it from you because you made me think about uncomfortable truths, right?

Like the things we don't want to tell ourselves or accept about ourselves. That's right. And so then now let's talk about this book. It all starts when you do. To me is the most uncomfortable unplugged truth ever, ever, ever, ever stated because, and we're going to go into the book. But just the title, it all starts when you do, just opens up so much internal. uncomfortable in this, bro. We have to answer that question.

Yeah. Are we going to start? Are we going to start? Are we going to start? How are we going to start and when are we going to start? For sure. Yeah. Yeah.

Let me do a better job of being a book person and move the book into frame. But it's, yeah, the uncomfortable truth. One of my uncomfortable truths is when I'm really focused, I'm going to forget stuff. so I'm gonna forget to move my book in the frame and instead of just killing myself over it and just be oh man I'm so stupid I'm so dumb say hey how can we do this differently next time yeah you try to give myself some grace

some people have an uncomfortable truth of not admitting when they're overwhelmed I'm overwhelmed you can't say that why because you feel like it is a scathing indictment on your capability if you're overwhelmed maybe you ain't got the capacity because you're too weak or you're not deserving nah it's not about my capacity

It's too much going on. It's too much for one human to handle. And our family sometimes people who have these behaviors that aren't healthy and aren't adaptive, they'll say rude stuff or inflammatory or hurtful things to you. And they just say, oh, that's just the way I am. And one of the uncomfortable truths is it's too late for me to change. No, it's not. Define change.

You don't have to massively change all the time. You don't have to change who you are. Sometimes you just change a few things that you do. Let that be the same. sample test and see what happens after that. So in my mind, and with the clients that I see in therapy, one of the more like reoccurring observations that I have of folks is that the biggest breakthrough that you need is oftentimes on the other side of one of your most difficult challenges. And those difficult challenges are all usually framed in an uncomfortable truth that you do not want to confront.

you're avoiding it. And we got a lot of avoidant language that makes us okay with avoidance. And that's cool until it's not. But what you're, the only way to go through it, Mick, is to go through it, bro.

Like, it's, that's the only way. You can go around it, but it's still gonna be there. And I don't like the boogeyman chasing me down. I don't like, you know,

you ever heard of this thing? It's, my daughter is nine and there's this like tail of a snail. It's like you take some type of deal and a turtle or snail follows you for the rest of your life. And if it touches you as like poison or something, and you're like, oh, I'll just let the turtle follow me for life.

But you, because it's slow. You wouldn't think there's ever going to catch you. But you have something chasing you for the rest of your life. You never know a moment of peace. And that's how I feel about uncomfortable truth to get left on the table. Dude, I love that. And that, like, we're going to talk to the audience. We're going to talk to the people that are listening, that are watching.

because I know personally there's somebody on the other end that's like, that sounds great. I love it conceptually. How do I get started then? How do I get started with no longer avoiding? How do I get started accepting that, yeah, it really does start when I do. How do I take that first step to put hands on that wall to really start pushing and maneuvering? So I'm going to give you the floor, brother, because this is your world, this is your domain. You're the expert.

Like, there's a person right now that needs this key. No, no problem. Let's start with two light loads. I used to be a personal trainer. So you always start with the easy joints first. Let's, let's start with some jumping jacks. Two things that you can immediately do or immediately pay attention to. One is the amount awareness, awareness you have toward those things.

So being aware that the fact that you put things off is starting to affect the way that you obtain your goals or your loyalty towards certain people is starting to affect your ability to grow. Your unwillingness to put yourself out there has maybe hampered your mobility in the job market. Maybe you're not where you want to be. Maybe your inability to make the right decision. has pigeonholed you into a life that does not feel good on your skin. Some people just can blame it on everything. Or the universe didn't work out or it just wasn't time or, you know, it just wasn't meant to be.

I think it's the awareness of no, I made that mistake. No, I didn't try hard enough. No, I didn't do the best that I could. It's the awareness why knowing that that awareness is not going to feel good. Because the next thing you're going to need on top of that is the mechadone. to get yourself out of a tailspin, which is a whole other conversation. But first, it's awareness when we're talking about starting. And the other thing that you can do right now, well, you know what?

I'm sorry, let me say more more piece about awareness. Awareness is also not just allowing the thing to exist and you just kind of make a mental note of it. Call it out loud. I'm procrastinating again. I'm supposed to do that. I'm supposed to do this work two hours ago. And I'm procrastinating because I do not want to do it.

I have to, but I do not want to do it. It's telling the truth of the situation, even though it doesn't feel good to say. But I see you. I see you procrastination. You can't hide from me. You're right there and I'm calling you out. Calling you out loud verbally.

It's not just living in my head. I'm saying it out loud. That's the first thing you can do to start. The second thing you can do is start to become curious. Curiosity is such an amazing characteristic to hold. Because not only does it allow you to see something difficult, it really can lose you to think about the why, so you start moving around it. And when you get really curious and when your curiosity turns internal, like introspective,

we call that self-interrogation of automatic thoughts. So it's interrogating the first thing you think. The first thing you think, you just usually allow it to shoot from the hip like a Western field, just bang. Nah, nah, nah, nah, nah, that's just my first thought. That's the rough draft. You don't get to get met to the world. You don't get introduced to the world as the rough draft.

I wonder why I think that. I wonder what narrative is attached to that. When do I first remember starting to think this way? Who else in my life thinks this way who influences me? Interrogating your automatic thoughts and being aware of the thoughts that you have are two really good starting points to get some inertia and to get some momentum so that you can start moving in the direction that you want to move to, not just being stagnant in the ways that your life has either trained or conditioned you to be. That's why you're here, brother.

Like, that's, I promise you somebody needed that, man. And I'm going to tell you, so this is me getting personal on how you help me. Let's get personal, Mick. So my uncomfortable truth moment, you helped me overcome and you didn't even realize it, right? Like, I've seen and followed you forever. Thank you, man. I realize, and I know that there are a lot of people out there, especially if you're an entrepreneur, if you have a business,

if you do any type of consulting. And I'd be curious to get your take on this too. You help me understand that as much good as I wanted to do in the world, I can't do everything for free. And here's what I mean. It was real easy for me to say, oh, yeah, I'll help you with that. And it's my business, right? So if I've got a business that teaches emotional intelligence,

if I've got businesses that develop AI, like if you were a friend or a buddy, I'd be like, yeah, I'll help you with that. I'll do that. I won't charge you. But it would eat at me because the same amount of time and energy and effort that I was giving a client that was paying me $50,000 or $100,000. I'm giving my buddies, friends, people I liked,

I do it for free. And I know people are like, Mick, that sounds weird. You want to charge everything you do. But when I tell you the energy key that goes into doing the same thing, I started feeling awkward of, well, how can I charge someone X?

But then I do the same thing for someone for free. And mentally it was eating at me of, and here's what you help me overcome. How do I tell a friend, no, I won't, put it for free. You can pay like everyone else pays and get the best of everything that I do. And it really

sucked to tell someone no. Like it really, really sucked to tell someone no. Because my heart, the heart that I have, is I never want to leave anyone. If I make it to the top, I want everybody to come to the top with me.

But everybody's not willing to do that work. And it made me understand or it made me believe and start to see, not that purposely I was getting used. I'm not saying it that way, but people understood that I probably was going to say yes. Oh, they knew that dynamic. Yeah, of course.

And you helped me with that uncomfortable truth of, hey, Mick, can't be nice to everybody. And that was really hard. And people may seem like, yeah, that's an easy switch to turn on and turn off. But when you are me in the heart that I had, like, it was tough, bro. But now I can promise you I've overcome that. And people that know me now are like, oh, I'm not going to Mick unless I'm ready to go to Mick and I'm willing to invest in myself to be the better version.

That's right, because you normed them. You know something interesting that you said. I'm not trying to therapy as you, but you said you can't be nice to everyone. In my mind, allowing friends to get services from you. And if you're an entrepreneur, you understand this, it ain't personal. Allow my friends to get services from you that you pay for. That's not niceness to me necessarily. I think there is an element of kindness to it.

But when it becomes hurtful to you and your business, I don't know what word to put around that. But being firm is not the opposite of being nice. Listen, I love a great meal. What I don't love is getting to the end of a long day and realizing I still have to figure out what's for dinner. That's where Butcher Box has been a win for me. I like knowing I can open the freezer,

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choice for banking. Head to chime.com slash mic. That is chime.com slash mic. Sign up now. It only only takes a few minutes. CHIME is a fintech, not a bank, banking services, and CHIMCard provided by CHIMS bank partners. Qualifying direct deposits required. Terms and limits apply. Go to chime.com slash disclosures for detail. And I think that's a tough thing, especially when you got a big heart. I got a big heart, too, man.

And I had to learn to be more firm with people because folks asked, hey, can you come speak here? Can you come do this? And it's different. It's not like I'm building something that takes me 25 years to build. And then it's a lot of like that obvious time consuming work. It feels like I'm just going to go do a speech or, yeah, sure, I can go talk to your school. I can talk to your nonprofit. But what happens is my currency is time now.

So I was spreading myself very thin. And now every second that I spend out of house out of the house is time away from my family. It's time away from my wife. It's time away from my hobbies. It's time away from my peace. And it's, and me saying no to that opportunity isn't me. not being nice. It's me being protective of the things that I am assigned to protect. And my business is the thing that I'm assigned to protect. And if I'm doing 45 random free speaking events,

when I have this big one that they, because you know, when they start paying you Mick, they want you to, you got to show up, bro. Yeah, you got to show up. You got to show out and you have to perform and deliver. And it's hard to do that when you're bad. With is low. So, nah, I'm glad you did that. And one of the things I did to overcome that is when my friends have things, I got a friend who's a professional photographer. As soon as we call, I talk money first. Hey, bro, send me a quote. Yep.

Send me a quote of how much you want to charge me for this. Because I believe that if you do something really well, you should not be doing it for free. Capitalism be damned. I am sorry. Hey, that's always been my mantra. I just thought other people would resonate it back. And I got firm. I think that's better.

That's a better way to say. I definitely got firm. Yeah. It's not comfortable, though. It's not comfortable all the time, but you got to practice it. And it sounds like you practiced it enough that you're good at it. Yes. Yeah.

Yeah, you get good at the things you practice for sure. Kierre, man, like, again, a huge follower, huge fan. I want to go into some hot takes now. And by hot takes, it's nothing crazy. Here we go. But, Mick, you won't get me canceled, man. Is that what we're doing? Nope.

Not doing that at all. This is me again giving you your flowers because. my hottest take of the day is this. All right. I trust Kierre gains because, one, he's going to tell me the truth. And two, this is a hot take. He has the credentials to back it up. Oh, yeah.

And so I don't think people understand the depth of having, like, licensed credentials. I'm not talking about credentials of 200 people said, Kier's hot. You got to go follow him. you got to go listen to them. I don't mean credentials of Google reviews or social media followers or engagement.

I mean like real-ass credentials, bro. Yeah. Like licenses, continuing education of those licenses. And so this is a part of my hot take. Does it piss you off when others, and I'm not talking about anybody particularly. And I know there's been some news like I'm not even talking about that. I'm just saying it's real easy for people to put,

air quotes for those that are listening about watching credentials behind their name, man. But for somebody that's done to work, let's talk about credentials, man. Your question was, does it piss me off when people do that? Yeah. No, it doesn't piss me off.

I get a little disappointed. I get disappointed and I get concerned. I get disappointed because I think that we're living in a really interesting, an anti-intellectual moment right now where the opportunity The opportunity gap is so wide and there's so many people on the not receiving end of the opportunity, whether it's the opportunity to further your education in college, whether it's the opportunity to gain certain skills, the opportunity to learn how to research, because Googling something is not research. It's just, it's Googling. That's not what research is. Research, real research can't be found just in a simple Google search. It's not how it works. But I think there's so many people. who aspire to be, who don't have the opportunity to be,

that when someone comes, when someone is visible and they say, ah, you know, credentials don't matter or, you know, you don't have to go to college, like the anti-intellectual rhetoric, it makes them feel like, oh, well, if you say that and you're there, then it's possible for me too. Yeah. You know, I read on a sixth grade level because I was in a state with terrible education and I got socially promoted and I would love to be where you are.

And you're saying that intellectualism is not the barrier between where I am and where you are, it makes me feel like this thing is possible for me. But that's a lie, man. That's a lie. And it's so much deception. So I get disappointed, but then I get concerned because credentials are there for a reason. I know we're getting taught all the time that these things don't matter or, They're inconsequential.

Okay, I guess, but there's a lot of protection for people there. You know, it's one thing to say, even in my field, it's one thing to say I'm a therapist. And that's cool. It's one thing to say I'm a coach. You can call yourself whatever. But when you have taken the test and you have received the training and you have received the mentorship and the guidance and you have the hours, I mean the hours. I mean, the hours of practicing, you can't replicate that.

You can't replicate that. So then it becomes a safety concern when you're in front of people like a postpartum mother. When you're in front of people like a man who has self-harm and behaviors, when you're in front of people that says, hey, man, I think, what do you, you say, you're talking all that? Okay, a man says in front of you. It says, man, I've been abusing my wife for the last five years. What do you do?

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. if you're not trained and you haven't taken those continuing education units and you haven't been mentored properly and you haven't sat across from someone who's dealt with that

and walk them through it or someone who's been on the receiving end of abuse and walk them through that to some type of self-healing then you don't know what you're doing and we can say whatever we want on the internet but when it comes to helping people and being the therapist is about helping people

because the money is not good. Don't nobody get here to be rich. If you can't really make a meaningful change in those people's lives, what are you doing? Like, what is all of it for? It's just the attention economy concerns me. And I think we're getting more desperate for attention. And I think, and I'm not talking about anybody in particular

because this applies to many, many, many folks. But I think the more we look for attention and notoriety, the less we hold on to some semblance. of integrity and morality. And ultimately, it just, I don't know where our humanness goes after that. No, man. And I love that you brought up the intellectualism

because I literally was in a debate three weeks ago on that same topic. And I used very similar words to you. And I, because I get asked all the time, like, did college change your life? Could you have been where you are without college? I'm like, wait, are you talking about the social aspect of college? the intellectual aspect of college,

because those are two different things. For sure. Right? Those are two different things. And I couldn't say maybe I didn't, or maybe one helped me in a way that an other didn't. But what's critically important to me, and I don't care what field you're in.

Even if it's not college, great. But are you continuously learning? Are you continuously getting those credentials in whatever field that you're in? Because to me, credentials are safety and protection. Yeah, for sure. And how I ended this debate, and it truly was a debate, was this. You get arrested.

Do you want Pookie that can go on AI and get some answers for you? Or do you want an actual credentialed, past the bar attorney? That's right. Because here's what happens with credentialing. And this is why I believe in it. And this is why intellectualism is so important to me. And you hit on it. when something goes left, I need that licensed person that understands why it's going left, how to steer it back, how to how to make the pivots and changes that are needed, because that's their profession and that's what they do.

Not someone who can go Google search someone or put something into Claude or whatever and get a response. It's going to sound great. It's going to sound like, yep, I know what I'm talking about. But usually those perfect scenarios don't exist. And that's why you get the licenses. That's why you further the education. You continue the education because, and I know that you know this, some law might have changed in the past six months. Yeah.

Right? That now you can't say this word or this medicine exists that didn't exist. And now we got to verify it and make sure that it works. If you're not going through continuously educating yourself, keeping up with the proper credentials, not only are you outdated, but now you've eliminated safety and protection for the people that you're supposed to be there for. Absolutely. It says that I am abiding, credentials say I am abided by a set of guidelines and rules that have been

put in place by a governing body of experts, and they deem me fit to do this duty. Not only that, but if I don't do it well, I am going to be held responsible. Right. I'm going to be held responsible if I hurt someone or if I take someone off of the path that they choose. And look, man, the craziest thing about it for me is I think that the hours of practice is what we kind of sleep on. I think if I'm not mistaken, I could be wrong about this. But I think therapists in order to get our license in some states have a similar number of flight hours to a pilot. I don't think a commercial pilot, but I think a pilot.

And, you know, it's cool to land a plane when it's 70 and sunny. You know, I turn left. Yeah, what about when the wind is blowing 40 miles per hour north by northwest and there's zero visibility in this hell coming down and you can't get in touch with a radio control tower? Everybody still needs to get to the ground safely. So the training matters. But I also think intellectualism kind of did this to itself by being so exclusionary.

You know, sometimes people who are of a higher IQ or higher understanding or more worldly or more culture look down on people who aren't. And I said this on threads. You say, I love when people intelligently disagree with me. I love that. But keep in mind, intelligent doesn't mean more educated. Right. Yeah. And just like smarter doesn't mean articulate.

I know plenty of smart people that are. My grandmother was not an articulate. woman, but she was a brilliant woman. Different. Different. So I think we kind of did it to ourselves with kind of like this more superiority, value, virtue signaling type

thing. And I also think, you know, the political, the place that our country is in politically also as fuels that fire. You know, we're hearing this from the highest stations. Like, hey, that type of education is just not important. By people who have that type of education. I just,

it's fascinating, man. It's fascinated how you can control what people think by by leaning into what they believe and repeating the same thing over and over you can really bend people you can make you can break people by doing that yes sir yes sir keir man like i've always wanted to ask you this question and so this segment i'm going to call the room was there a room a moment a dinner a lunch and a meeting that truly changed your life like I can always go back to the first time that I met Damon John and had a conversation, my life changed because I realized that there were paths that I needed to take.

I realized that, oh, it's all about action. It's never about work. And I will never forget that room in that moment. Was there a room? Was there a moment? Was there a meeting that you can look back at that was like this changed the trajectory of my life or my career? I don't know if it was a room or meeting necessarily. You know what?

It was a conversation. It changed the trajectory in my life in the unlikely way. It wasn't a famous person. That's actually my barber. I ended up getting a new barber. And he has, I left my old barber because the energy was just bad. Talented dude, man. But the energy just wasn't there.

I always left the chair feeling worse than I did when I came in. Just negative, man. So negative. And I floated in between barbers from that when I landed at this guy now. And there was a point where I was afraid to take my career to the next level, kind of afraid to tell people what to do because I didn't want to say the wrong thing. Because therapists really don't tell people what to do. I was afraid to expand.

I wanted to offer courses. I'm like, man, I can't charge somebody for a course. Like, that doesn't make sense. Like, why would you, who would pay for that? And he's more of a like miring gold, like finance type of dude. And they do like the funnels and all these matrixes to make sure people buy. And that's not my ministry. Right.

If I could, I would democratize wellness and have everything I say and do be free for everyone forever. But that's not sustainable. You know, it's hard to record on these nice cameras when your family's homeless. So he really got me comfortable with the idea that your mind is a, commodity. Like your mind is the commodity. And the things that you think are obvious are not obvious to everybody. And I knew that.

But to hear the dude giving you a shape up tell you something like that. It changed the way that I see what I could be in this business, not just someone who has good ideas, but someone who can actually be a change maker. Someone who can actually have an offering that extends beyond an Instagram page. Yeah, man.

Shout out to Charles. Charles is my barber. He's a brilliant dude, man. I think he opened my eyes to that. It's crazy. All these big rooms I'd be in and it'd be the one when I'm sitting down

and getting a haircut to change my life, right? Getting the dark season, Charles said, let's have this conversation with this shape up. That's right. I love it.

Barbershop conversations, man. Oh, man. Life changing, bro. Life changing. We talk about family. We talk about our kids. We talk about ourselves. We hold each other accountable.

It's the only thing as a husband, father, entrepreneur, God, what else do I do? Media personnel, all the stuff. All the stuff I am. That's the only thing

that I do just for myself. There it is. There it is. Well, before I get you out of here with my Rapid Fire Top 5, I got to be remiss if I don't bring it up again. It all starts when you do. Everybody do me a favor.

Let's go pre-order this book now. This book will, be a New York Times bestseller, so you don't want to try to order it when it's too late. Like, let's go get it right now. And I'm going to do this, Kierre, man, like, because I believe in the mission of everything that you do. And I love this book and where it's going. The first 20 people that message me, I'm starting. And I don't care if you do it on LinkedIn, if you do it on Instagram, but message me, I'm starting. I'm going to person. I'm going to person. I'm I seriously buy a copy of this book for you.

Oh, man. That's going to be life-changing. Make you, you a different dude, bro. Not only do you have incredible lighting over there. Like, I see you glowing, bro. You got to drop the skincare routine. You got me looking assing over here. That's, man, anybody who's listening to mix audience, man.

It's not many people you meet in this business that come across this authentically. That's rare, man. Thank you, sincerely. I know that this is like, it's like a whole. thing when you're doing a book and let's just pull the curtain real quick. You know, when you, when you're on tour and you're doing a book and you're selling a book, it's really about the thing that you're trying, you're trying to get people to have this product in your hands so you can be successful. I'm trying to get people to get this in their hands so they can be successful.

You know, yeah. And it's going to do that. So I appreciate you, brother, real talk. I appreciate that. I appreciate you back. I appreciate you back. And another thing too, and I meant to do this earlier because is I've listened to the, what, nine episodes deep now, new podcast. Oh, the pod. Learn the hard way. They want some amazing things with the podcast too, so I need everybody. Here, name of the podcast, so they got it. Learn the hard way.

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Apple, Spotify, YouTube, wherever you stream your podcast. It's a really, really dope, really inspiring, really factual show. I love it from beginning to end. So, yeah, everybody makes sure that you are. are subscribing to that podcast too. So I meant to do that earlier in the intro, bro. All in good timing, bro. No worries.

There it is. All right, I'm going to get you out of here on these top five. You ready? Let's do it. All right. So you are D.C.'s finest. Yeah. What is your favorite restaurant in D.C.?

In D.C.? In Chocolate City. God. Oh, man. You put me on, oh, you know, my favorite restaurant in D. is what's my favorite restaurant who don't make you smoke me with this one

What's my favorite place? Coming out the gate hot Yeah man you came off the top road With the metal chair There is a restaurant Call Sequoia It is on 14th Street It's a sushi restaurant

I got cool with the chef man And they got this tour I don't know if you're a sushi guy But they got this fatty tuna They hit it with the blow torch squeeze a little orange zest on it. Man, this sushi's so fresh. Got great noodle dishes.

My favorite place to eat in the city. All right. I'm going to check. I'm back in D.C. in a couple of months, so I'm going to be up there. Oh, hit me up, man. Hit me up. I'll show you the time.

Let's do it. Let's do it. Who is the better cook in the household? You were wifey. Oh, man, my wife is a Haitian woman. Have you ever had Haitian food before? I have. I don't need to ask any more questions.

Yo. I'm getting embarrassed over here compared to her. She's amazing. That's one of the first things she did was cook for me when we were dating. And I tasted her coconut, jasmine, balsamati rice. And I was like, yeah, I ain't going nowhere. You never cooking rice again, all right? Yeah, I'm done.

I give up. I retired. I retire. All right. Question number three, bro. Like, what is a book you recommend that is not your book? It all starts when you do. Can I do two?

You sure can. One is, I'm reading this book right now called. You know what, no, let's start here. I will recommend Atomic Habits. I think that's a pretty, atomic habits is a good one. And the coddling of the American mind by Jonathan Hates. I'm adding that to the list right now. Oh yeah, Cottle on an American mind.

That's a pretty good one. And for Black Men specifically, Black Boy Smile by Dee Watkins is a really good book. And also Long Way Down by Jason Reynolds is a really good book. Adding that one to the list too. Yeah, I'm a huge reading, man. Black men need to read more fiction, by the way. I truly believe that.

Yeah, agree, agree. In wellness, what's one trend that needs to be challenged? Like, what's one trend you're saying that is like, I don't know if I agree with that one. In wellness? Yeah. Walk away from the things that don't serve you. I don't necessarily agree with that. I think that's well-dressed avoidance.

Sometimes things don't serve you. You need to walk away from them. But be curious about the things that don't serve you. Why don't they serve you? Is it that they don't serve you anymore? Is it that you change? Is it that they change? Is it that things changed around you?

I think that we too easily give up and walk away from things that are inconvenient for us. There it is. I like it. I like it. Last one key. Your story is being written right now. I believe that. What are two words that you want to make sure define who you are and your legacy?

I'm always weird about legacy because I find a legacy is for me to make, not enjoy. I believe that too. I believe that too. I would say, I would say authentic. I don't think there's anything that's more of a nod to your lineage than you mean who you are, who you really are. Inconsistent, man. I think it's one thing to show up.

But if you could show up in different areas in the same way, with the same fervor, with the same velocity, with the same love and the same intent on impact, I think that says a lot about you, man. So authenticity and consistency, I think those would be my two. What about you? What will be your two? Man, mine is very simple.

Kept promises. If I give you a promise, I'm going to keep it. I'm doing that. Yeah. And that's what I want, my two words. I kept promises, man. I love that.

man. I'm changing mind. My has kept promises now. I'm telling me. I ain't given it back even. I made it up. Nope. Nope. Nope.

Nope. Nope. We edited that out. No, I love that. I love that. I think more of us need to keep our promises. Not just to the world, but to ourselves, too. Yeah.

Because what that's allowed me to do is actually make the right promises, right? Like, if I tell somebody I promise, like, I know I'm going to keep. which means I don't say it a lot. Yeah. Because I'm not just going to inflate something. I'm not going to overpromise and under deliver. So if I give you my word, like, trust me, that's in me, is going to keep that word.

That makes it mean more. Nah, that's brilliant, man. I love that. Yes, sir. Well, Ki-R-Man, I know how busy you are. I know you got so much going on. I'm completely honored to have you on. Oh, man.

On is all my. LinkedIn, Instagram, YouTube, go do that. We have links to the book and the show notes in the descriptions. Remember the first 20 people that message me that you are starting. So I'm starting. I'm going to make sure you get 20 copies. If you're number 21, number 51, whatever, just go buy the book. It's okay.

It's okay. Amazon, Barnes & Noble. When it's on your local bookstore, just go get the book because it's going to change your life. And it's a book that's going to actually help you. It's a book meant for you. And I think that's why I love the intentionality around the book. So, yeah, I appreciate you.

Man, thank you for saying that. That's why I wrote a book. I appreciate you, mate. Absolutely. Absolutely. To all the viewers and listeners, remember your because is your superpower. Go unleash it.