RAWTALK - TYLER PERRY ON KANYE WEST

Episode Date: November 1, 2022

On todays episode we have someone very special in the movie & entertain industry that has made a huge impact on many, TYLER PERRY. We discuss the vision that started it all and the development of the team and film studio. We also talk about what is to come from society, media, relationships, networks, & Film. Tune in and see how got to where he is today & made a name for himself.SPONSORS:HTTPS://www.betterhelp.com/RawTalkSUBSCRIBE HERE: https://www.youtube.com/c/REALRAWTALK?sub_confirmation=1LISTEN ON APPLE PODCASTS: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rawtalk/id1294154339FOLLOW RAWTALK PODCAST:INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/getrawtalkTIKTOK | https://tiktok.com/@askrawtalkFOLLOW BRADLEY:INSTAGRAM | https://instagram.com/bradleymartynSUBSCRIBE TO RAWTALK PODCAST CLIPS: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvzSBNBOK599FqzrTZS8ScQ/?sub_confirmation=1SUBSCRIBE TO LIFE OF BRADLEY MARTYN: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCWTQG2aMDYKGDqYEGqJb1FA/?sub_confirmation=1SUBSCRIBE TO FITNESS CHANNEL: https://www.youtube.com/bradleymartynonline?sub_confirmation=1RAWGEAR: https://www.rawgear.com (CODE:RAW)

I honestly, I wanted to, first and foremost, I want to get into this podcast by saying, thank you so much for showing up because I know how valuable your time is. And yeah, I think right away getting into this, a lot of people who clicked are and probably like, what the hell is going on? Like, why did this happen? And I kind of want to get into a little bit of the story of kind of like how this came to fruition today and then obviously talk a lot more about you and in detail. I've known you for almost about 12 years now.

Yeah. And before I had anything that I have today, before anyone knew who I was, even the amount of people who do, like, no one, no one, I guess before you have stuff and before you create any sort of name for yourself at any scale, people don't typically believe in you. Yeah. You were a person that you came into my life at a time, and this was prior to social media, any kind of blow up. And I was a trainer. I had met you at a gym. I had trained you for a little bit. This was towards like the end of my career as a trainer.

And I remember I asked you something really significant because you became a friend to me. And I remember I asked you, why me? Why did I get this gift in a sense of having like a friend and a person who's like absolutely carved a path in an industry where prior to carving that path, the path did not exist? And you've done so much for,

the culture, the community, like you've literally, you've made a way that, like I said, just didn't exist. And me knowing about your story and where you came from, when you allowed me in your life as a friend and you, you know, you kind of were, I mean, straight up, I'll tell you. And I don't know, and I've told just before, but you were, you were a mentor to me. A person that in my life growing up without a father, I was so grateful to have in my life that was like someone who was accomplishing things at the highest level possible. And just, just before we get into more these questions about you, you showed me kind of like what was possible for me. You showed me that like even just seeing your success through all of the hardships and from like literally

nothing because you, you've gone through it all in a sense. I mean, you've dealt with abuse. You've dealt with having nothing to creating everything and not just for yourself, but for so many people. And like I said, prior creating like a lane that was never there for. an entire community. I just want to say thank you for being such a good friend and for changing so many people's lives, including mine. So before we get into this, I just first and foremost, I really wanted to say that. And I'm grateful to have you here, man. I think you're fucking, you've done amazing things. I'm glad to be a Brett. Brad, thank you. The, I tell you, the why me, I get that question a lot. Yeah. From a lot of people, from actors, actresses, from people

who come into my life, work from why me, why me? And I'm always, I always think, why not you. You know, why not you? Why not you having an opportunity to do something different? Why not you having tremendous success? I've got this girl that works for me right now. My name is Crystal Hazelitt, who was my stylist for years. She wanted to act. She never told me she was an actress.

She never told me she had auditioned. And she thought, you know, I hated her of work because she had auditioned, but I never saw it. So I was doing a show called Sisters. And one day I said, you know, she said, you know, can I audition? I'm like, sure. But if I give you this shot, you got to kill it. There's nothing you can do but kill it. And she killed it, man.

And she got that, why me, why me thing. Because so many great things are happening for her right now. Like she's got another show on the air. She's making a ton of money. She's happier than she's ever been in her life. But I wish more of us would embrace the fact of, instead of the question of why me, then ask why not me. But I know where you were at the time,

because I've been that myself, where you're just starting out, you're struggling, you're unsure of what your future looks like. And by the way, let me just say I'm proud I am of you, looking at everything that you've done because I was just telling your team that a lot of people have asked me to invest in gyms you never asked me to invest in anything never asked me for a dime, never asked me for anything

and you've been able to do this, manage it, grow it through all the growing pains of it all you've managed to do it all on your own figuring it out and learning as you've gone calling me a lot or a lot of conversations to walk through the business side of it but I'm really really proud of the steps you've made how you've made them and how you've managed to

to grow this into what it is. Yeah. That needs to be applauded. And I don't know if anybody tells you that, but it should be for sure. I appreciate it. And I want to say this kind of talking back, like to you,

and before we get into more of this, is it's because I, I remember moments where I saw your success and I saw how you did it and you created a lane, like I said, it didn't exist. And I remember thinking like, oh, if that, if he can do it,

then I can do it because knowing what you had been through and what you had gone through. That's what my life is about, man. Yeah. And I also want to, I also want to stay like, it seems as a lot of your, if not all of your content, movies, productions, everything that you're involved in that is created from you is very, it has

meaning. Like, it has life to it's not, it doesn't seem like it's a superficial, like it's just to get clicks or get views or make sales. Like, it seems like even like you're, everything that you've done, like the plays at the end of the plays or you have the talks and it's like there's a meaning to almost everything. And it all comes from like a deeper place and just like, I'm trying to write this script so that I can make some money and yeah and with that let's just jump back a little bit to the understanding of of the opportunity of to do this and having people see it how important that is

to see it because I didn't have anybody in my life that I saw growing up that was black and doing well I didn't see a black man doing well except the pimps and the preacher you know there was the only one of doing well in my neighborhood I Oprah was on the air and I would see her do well but But it's so important for people to see it, to know that you can make it. And in my life, I tell people this all the time, God doesn't waste my time. Like, if you're able to get to me and we become friends and you're in my life, it's for a reason, it's for you to see something that is to help you on your journey, your path, because I'll never forget working with people who were tremendously successful when I

had nothing. And I'd always get frustrated, like, why am I do this? I got so much inside of me. Then I learned to sit back and why. watch and pay attention because being in their presence, I was learning so much of stuff that I use now. So if you're ever fortunate enough to, I don't say to see anybody listening,

if you ever fortunate enough to get in the presence of people who are successful, it's not about a moment of like, oh, let me show you what I can do as much as it is, like there's something for me to learn from this person for my future. Like people show up in your lives, in our lives to help cultivate us. for whatever's next for us.

Like, I'm doing way better than any of those people ever thought they could. And I thought, man, they were at the pinnacle. But every lesson they taught me I was able to use. So it's so important, man. Why do you think it's hard for people to allow themselves to go through the hardships? It's like people kind of look for an easy way.

Because when I asked this question, because I know specifically, and I'm wondering what made me this kind of person that I saw your success. And I was like, oh, because of where he came from And I'm thinking about because of where I came from my childhood, I want to be able to almost prove to myself or prove to my mom or prove to my family or prove to you even at some point because you kind of became a mentor figure in my life, somewhat of a father figure.

I wanted to prove that like I could do something great by my own accord. And I, you know, you said earlier that I didn't ask you for anything. Like I can never take a handout. I always felt like I couldn't. I remember when even at the moment when I was doing all the social media stuff and prior to even meeting you, I had lived in my car for like, I think like four months. And I remember I could have went home. It's not like I didn't have a home to go to.

I was like, but I always had this a naif. All right, boys, this episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. Listen, it's never a bad time, ever, ever a bad time to get some help. Okay. Genuinely speaking, I am someone who has been currently going to therapy. It's convenient for me because it's like, you know, pretty close to my house. I like my therapist. But personally, I've been dealing with a lot of stuff that I'm like, man, I'm getting to a point in my life where I kind of keep getting into not necessarily the same exact issues,

but like my reaction to a lot of similar problems in my life seems to kind of repeat itself. I'm like, okay, I want to break this chain, right? So I've been going to therapy. Now, you guys would better help. You guys can do this in the convenience of your home. You don't have to travel anywhere. You don't have to drive anywhere. You don't have no traffic.

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will have biases based on like how much they know you or what they know about you or maybe a friend who thinks like they're going to get somebody from you out of being nice to you or there's so many things that kind of that's that's part of my own therapy that I need to deal with but like there's a lot of stuff that can come into like seeking help in certain situations where like if you have a therapist for example for better help you can get someone that's going to be you know non-biased to your situation so check out better help go to betterhelp.com slash rod talk to get 10% off your first consultation again guys that's better help dot com slash raw talk to get 10% off better help.com slash raw talk to get 10% off let's get back

to this podcast feeling that if I like quit or if I gave up that I was just a failure and I'm sure it ties back to like my child in in in probably greater detail but why do you like what do you think separates people who decide like almost can create that it's all like not necessarily all or nothing but I'm going to do this no matter what like what do you think that makes that person different than the person who goes, maybe I'll take this route because it's easier or maybe I'll forget that because like it's so hard now. And then they kind of like, they go the way that they don't necessarily want to go to try to, you know, circumvent what they actually want to do. And then they end up never kind of doing it. So what do you make, like, what do you think defines a person or allows

a person to go like, no, this is the thing I'm going to do. Because you clearly did this in your life as well. You're like, this is what I'm going to do with my life. No matter, even if it existed or not, you know, I'm going to create it. Yeah. Adversity. Adversity. How. much adversity, how much pain have you come through, have you dealt with? I think that that is a key, not the only thing, but that is a key to driving people to major success and pushing through. But adversity to some people destroys them. Well, that's exactly what I mean. Here's what I want you to understand. There are people who have gone through things and turned to drugs. They turn to all kinds of things because they can't cope. They need something to soothe it or help them get through

day to day. And I understand that because some of times it's so traumatic and everybody deals with things differently. But there are others who have gone through things that were really bad, really tragic, and they are using the pain and all of that to never have to go through it again. When I was a kid, my father used to beat the shit out of my mother and me and I would always tell it when I grow up, I'm going to take care of you. So everything for me was about making money to take care of her. Like whenever it was about money, it was about taking care of her. I had made so much money, man. I knew that she and I could live the rest of our lives and never spend it. And it still wasn't enough because I was still that kid

running from the fear of what that was. That drove me. Now, people who have adversity and they're not able to come through it or move through it, I often ask, well, what do you do with it? Like, there are a lot, like my generation and a lot of us grew up with faith and God and believing and prayer. For me, I don't know another way, man. And I feel sorry for people who, I'm not saying that everybody has to believe in God. Everybody believes in something different, but I feel sorry for people who don't have anywhere else to go but to something, the distraction of social media, the distraction of television, the distraction of this, the distraction of a relationship, rather than being able to sit in the pain of something and hold it and harness it to use it.

So my hope for people is that in their struggles, they realize and understand that every bit of it is about something like you in the gym and working out. Every time you lift a weight, what you're trying to do is gain a muscle. Well, that's not light work. That's hard work. You gotta take dedication, and that takes dedication and focus,

and it's the same way in life. These things that come to challenge you are not trying to destroy you, they're building muscle inside, in your brain and your mind to make you stronger and figure out how, when they show up again, which way to move. That's what I believe.

Yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting because like the whole muscle thing, like that was a physical representation of me and my internal struggle. Like, because it wasn't like, I was like, oh, this was the thing like that I got to a point where I was like, oh, I really like this and I love this and I want to get bigger. I want to get stronger. But originally it started because of the lack of, you know, father figure in my life at a young age. Obviously, I lost my father when I was six.

And then when I found the gym, I found this like camaraderie in the gym and what the gym meant to me and the like the learning moments from the younger men that were in the gym teaching me how to lift, how to do the bench press. And then it became a thing where I was like, I was so because I felt. lost and not having that. And when I started to find that in different communities, like, for example, when I played sports, I found that with coaches, when I had friends and I found that in like parents of my friends. And I always found myself gravitating towards the stuff because I was trying to almost fill a void that, you know, I wasn't able to feel otherwise. And the reason why I'm relating it to this is that I'm trying to define the difference between the people who go, something terrible happened to me. And now my life's bad. And something terrible happened to me

and then starting to see, right? Because you said, beyond the event, it's like where do you put that energy like where do I put it right so some people don't they never find the thing that is like genuinely for them or they don't allow themselves to to go towards it because maybe the doubt or the other people who are existing are saying that's a bad idea I think it's deeper than that on many levels I think it all starts at childhood I think the weight for you and the being stronger started a childhood with your father yeah I think that was a pivotal moment of being strong enough I really do I think if you really lay into that and you've shared that publicly so yeah so in that moment if you lay into that and what that

child's if you could separate yourself from seeing the child that you were and what the child saw and wanting to be stronger to to fix that you carry that subconsciously your whole life and also I think about childhood is where everything starts and every every situation everything you go through in life every moment everything your parent does everything your brother's siblings say what the bully says all of those things are putting things in your suitcase right yeah so you get you pack a bag like you're going on vacation you pack a bag you take that bag on vacation back on vacation so you can have everything that you want right so with that bag you've got everything in it it's all in it everything you need sunscreen it's all there whatever helps whatever comes up it's there right

that's a life and when you have a kid you're packing that kid's bag and if that kid runs into adversity and trauma and trouble and looks in that bag and there's nothing to help with that. What do they do? So a lot of us got bags from our parents and bullies and friends and we look in it and there's nothing to help us cope. So at some point you have to take a moment and go, you know what? They didn't prepare me for this. They didn't give me anything to deal with it. It's okay. It's okay. They weren't supposed to because if they were, then I would have it. Generally, they were supposed to his parents, but a lot of times that doesn't happen.

So what do you do? Like for me, I started to work on my own stuff because I did not want to be in a situation of having things show up and I wasn't equipped to handle the pain of it all. And I've been through some crazy shit. But nothing that I've been through in my adult life has been worse than what I suffered

at the first 28 years of my life. So those first 28 years of my life prepare me for everything that's happening. to know. Yeah. Yeah. I just think that's important to know because a lot of people, especially the younger, the younger crowd listening to this, like as they go through, because I've got a lot of questions at the end of podcast, people ask me, always do audience questions. People always talk about like I'm, you know, I'm 18 or I'm 20 something and I'm going through this or I went through this when I was young and I don't have a direction. I don't know what to do. People are so like as if,

and I think it's fair because that's all they know at that point that like, you know, this happens to me. My life is over. What do I do? But that's just the beginning like you're saying. I just want people to realize who are going through things that all these things, and I've said this many times in podcasts, they all make you who you're supposed to be. Like they're all, they're all a new opportunity to get better from. And I just, I just wish more people were able to take from those like negatives to turn into positives. But I just feel like nowadays, and I want to kind of, we'll kind of get into this topic a little bit, people are so externally focused on what's going on in life because of social media and because of the internet that we lose so much sight of

like what's going on inside here in our hearts that allows us to actually grow from the moments in our life that we need the most growth from and like genuinely looking inside and I feel like we're not taught to look inside anymore we're taught to look outside we're taught to look at the external we're taught to look and look almost at people sometimes with jealousy or envy and like this desire you want this because you know on social media let's say you're 25 and you see some kid who's 18 has a success because of you know something went viral and and there's this whole comparison game this this obviously thief of of joy we talk about this is like how does a person now move through the world in your opinion because it's changed so much and does not get caught up with what someone

else has because it was different for me to be honest like when I look at my early 20s like social media wasn't what it was today I grew in through it and I grew up through it like what do you how do you think social media is changing I feel sorry for for your generation younger because as great as social media was supposed to be what a lot of us don't realize is we're victims of algorithms yeah it's a massive double-edged yes which means that if you type in bunnies 10,000 bunnies are gonna show up and it just kind of keeps going and what what that is designed to do is to hold your attention to gather your information to learn as much about you as as

they can so that they can make billions and billions and billions of dollars at the risk and the expense of your mental health. I didn't grow up with this many people having mental health crisis and there are a lot of mental health crisis.

There are people, I have people who work for me of all ages but there's some of them come and they're so depressed, it's sad. And my whole thing is, can you turn this off? And a lot of them can't. Like, can you just not look at this

for a week or a day or two? Yeah. Like for me, if I went on social media and spent a day looking at things, if I started focusing on the news every day and what's happening spiritually, for me, I get drained, I get exhausted. And I find myself sad

because there's so much negativity, you know, so much things that are coming your way to make you think what they want you to think. Yeah. And having a seven-year-old man, I worry about him. Like he doesn't have, he doesn't watch television. He has an iPad to watch shows maybe 20, 30 minutes of his cartoons and stuff,

but I want him to be clear about who he is as a person and as a man first, a boy into young man before he gets inundated with these algorithms telling them who they are. So I worry, and as I watch all this mental health, and I worry about a lot of people much younger than me taking in all this stuff because it's a double-edged short. As great as it can be for many things,

it is definitely something that can be extremely toxic. So if you can, and here's a challenge to you, if you can't turn it off for a day, then you're addicted to it. If you can't put it down, if you can't walk away from it, if you have to have your phone every five minutes at dinner and every meal, if you have to be, just, if you cannot put it down, then it's got you. Yeah. I'm not saying, I'm not saying throw it away, get rid of it. I'm just saying, just put it down for a while and check in with yourself. Like for me, I have to be in silence to hear if I'm okay. Like if I go through something, I have to be in silence so I can pray, be.

clear like am i okay how do i feel about this what do i really think so i'm asking myself these questions rather than some algorithm feeding me how to feel yeah yeah and that's what i think the problem comes in because like i don't think enough people are taught like this idea like we're just because it's just normal it's just like what we think is well that's just life today and that's the world today so it's so just accepted that like i said i think we're getting further and further away from like true human nature like because it's where does this go and you know we're going farther we get this neuralink thing that Elon Musk is talking about where it's like now you're going to have this phone, this device basically in your brain where you could think of something

or I could send you a message based on a thought like to like this crazy degree of we're getting so far away from being human that do you ever think it's going to like mess things up I mean it feels like I think it already has yeah I think it already has I look at I look at like people being bullied online cyberbullying and people being bullied and and people you know saying this person made me feel uncomfortable with this person, all of that to have an opportunity to be empowered and have a voice, it's phenomenal. It's phenomenal.

Absolutely. However, if you feel that everything is bullying you, everything, like you go to the store and the lady said, you can't have that, you have to leave. If you feel like somebody says, move, you're in the way in the line at the grocery store and you say that's bullying, even if it was set that kind, right? Yeah.

it's I just worried that it's made people overly sensitive it's that I just worry about the sensitivity that it's causing it's like hold on a second because because listen I can say they there's no way in hell they could have grew up the way I did because everything was bullying everything was getting your ass beat everything was all those things so I'm glad there's an outlet and a place and a voice opportunity for people to voice their concerns but I also want people to identify what it really is yeah right well that's what I'm saying it's like it's it's it's taking away from our human ability to identify like real problems in our life and go like everything's a fucking problem and feel real pain feel real pain in the sense of like like I had

I've had people working for me man I'm just like you know oh I've this I've got to go I've got to go what's him you okay yes we've worked five hours I need to go home you work you work five hours yes this is too much I've worked five hours I don't want to work five and a half hours that's too much. I'd be like, okay, well, you're going home there. So I was going home. Wow. Yeah, but me growing up 16, 18, 20 hours a day, just working all day long still. Yeah, and I want to sit on your come-up, I mean, we were talking about this earlier, not on the pop, we were talking about this prior, but is it true that you did 365 shows, 360, like, when you're doing the plays? A live plays, plus, in a year. No, sometimes more than that. So there was eight shows on the weekend. So, yeah,

more than that every day grinding it out showing up city to city there was no there was no oh i'm tired no man i got i got 30 000 people coming this week to see these live plays they want to see my dear heller i don't know why but i sure but i got out there and i bust my ass because i knew i was building something right yeah and and i knew what it was like to work for somebody else and when i'd work for those other people i honored them i made sure i did a good job because i i there's a scripture in the bible that says how you honor another man's god will bless you with you your own. So when you're working for somebody else and you've got a dream of your own, make sure you're taking care of that job as you're moving towards yours. You know what I mean?

Yeah. So, yeah, no, 300, that's nothing for me to work that hard and grind it out. But that's why I'm here at this place. Like even now, having thousands of employees at the studio coming to work every day, looking at young people your age and younger coming in, having an opportunity to be in a business that they never thought they could be in, you know, directing and writing and and acting and making millions of dollars and their whole lives changed coming to say, man, I just bought my mom a house. Man, I just did this.

I paid off my suit and law. All of that stuff, man, makes me feel incredible. Because at this point, there's no other reason for me to keep going working that hard. Yeah. I can be on an island on the boat somewhere, right? But what's happening for them is why I'm showing up every day. I find this so interesting about you,

you said about this honor idea and this like respect. Even your father, someone that you obviously had the most tumultuous relationship with, you still bought him a house. You still did the things that he did for him. you despite everything. Why do you think it's so hard for people to, I don't know, to overcome, I guess, like, negative points and still be able to look back and be like still honor people with love

despite where they've come, like what they've been through with them. You know what I'm saying? Like I've had so many moments where, and I've talked to you about this where I feel completely taking advantage of my business partners and I'm dealing with all picking up pieces and all this stuff. And it's hard for me sometimes, genuinely speaking, to like, I just have a little bit harder time to process those things. but I know that I need to,

and I know that it's what's going to help me get to the next level. Why do you think it's so difficult sometimes to, like, to release that, to let go, to give the honor, to give the love regardless and continue to move? It was harder when I was younger, but as I got older, I realized something. I started looking back on what would have happened if that didn't happen. If you can find the patterns in your life from the chaos,

if you can find what if, like, like, you know, I talked about this thing. with IRS, you know, having being audited, right? And them having to give you $9 million back here. Yeah, but you just took my story. You didn't let me tell the audience. You just took the whole hook of the story. I'm a storyteller here.

Let me get to it. No, no, no, no. What I was saying about it is just having, you know, I was so annoyed during that audit. I was so annoyed. I was just like, these people, why they harassed me? And I was just angry and frustrated. I just said, you know, I hear that voice say, just surrender.

And in that surrendering, I just go, okay, because I'm writing crazy checks. $100,000 check, $100,000 check. Another hundred for accountants because of this audit it's going on for three years. I've gone, what hell's going on? But when I surrender it and said, okay, something's got to be here. I've got to learn something. I'll just walk through it. Surrender to it. Find out

in this audit, I don't owe them any money. They owe me $9 million. Right? So what it taught me was, okay, everything that seems horrible may not be so when you get to the other side of it and there's a lesson in it. And also, I got rid of the people who made me overpaid

$9 million and didn't know it. So I bought in another team who was able to really point out things to me. So sometimes lessons don't come as simple little, hey, here you go, pat on the back. You're going to be okay. Sometimes they're bigger, harder lessons. And when they are, if you can find, hear me when I say this, if you can find the reason and why you went through it, it's easier. It's not easy. It's easier to forgive those people and move on and let go.

But I don't believe anything that has happened in my life has happened because it was just happening because everything good and bad that has happened in my life happened for a purpose and every time I look back on it, it was a reason. Case in point. I had an opportunity to do a TV show with CBS. They wanted to do the Tyler Perry show or two and a half a minute.

And I got into the meetings and it was just, I hated every minute of it. I didn't like the notes. I just didn't want to do it. And I was like, God, if I just get out of this, I'll never look back. my agent calls me up he said Tyler we hate to tell you this but Chuck Lurie has decided to go with two and a half men I know you're really upset I was like yeah I'm really upset I was happy at hell

man I was thankful but had that not happened and I signed that deal I wouldn't out of Atlanta started House of Pain which probably has about 500 400 or 500 episodes right now yeah all of my shows have hundreds of episodes because the audience is so endearing and I wouldn't own everything that I own had I went that way so everything you go through if you can clearly find a reason. And somebody's going right now, Tyler, oh, fuck that bullshit. What are you saying?

No, this is horrible what I'm going through. But I promise you, 99% of the time, if you look back on it, you go, if that wouldn't have happened, I wouldn't have been in this great place. Yeah, and I wouldn't have learned this. I would have learned that. Right.

And if you keep, listen, I'll say this to you, if you keep finding yourself in the same situations with different people, you're not learning the lesson. and then it's going to get harder and harder and uglier and uglier and I learned that early on and go you know what God I ain't got to go through this two or three times this the lesson here I got it I'm never doing this again

and I promise you there's not been one time in my life where I went through something and that I learned the lesson and did the right thing that I had to go through that lesson again it's like school once you learn that lesson I promise you you never go through it again but you've got to write it down make sure it's clear that you understand what you were supposed to learn yeah yeah damn And that's funny, because this also reminds me that we had a conversation about you opening all the studios in Atlanta.

And I wanted to talk to you a little bit about not just the lessons, but the vision. People told you when you were opening these studios, I think it was like, I don't know, your financial team or people that are in your circle. We're telling you not to do this. And obviously now, from what I understand, I think, didn't the Black Panther film stuff there, Walking Dead film stuff there? Like, the people have used, like mainstream Hollywood has come to use a lot of your stuff. in Atlanta because of, I don't know if it's a costing thing or a convenience thing or

I don't know the exact reasons. I mean, you can give more detail. The tax credits in Georgia. Georgia has healthy tax credits. So anytime you film there, you get 30% back. So everybody wants to film in Georgia. But there was no facilities that were a state of the art where they could film. Yeah.

Well, I have a state of the art facility in Atlanta, five minutes from downtown, five minutes from the airport, and it's phenomenal. So, so yes, exactly. And so now I want to talk about the vision of all of all this. and that included. Like, you did things, and how did you know, like, for certain? And I don't know, I guess you didn't know, maybe you didn't know for certain, but like when people would doubt you or you would doubt yourself,

how would you make these massive decisions? That's obviously one that's, you know, more in the future. You've obviously made a lot of decisions leading up to that. But for example, I called you. I remember when I was talking about opening my gym first, I was so worried about the success of it or what it could have been because I existed solely on the internet prior to opening that. gym zoo culture and I called you and I remember and I'm talking for like like an hour and I'm

stressing I'm like worry like I'm spending all this money like 500 600,000 dollars and it's gone and I'm gonna lose it and this is all like pretty much all the money I've not made to this point but I'm investing so much of myself into this thing and if it flops also too on the internet people are going to be like oh you fucking suck and I remember so stressful and so worried and I remember you said something significant to me you were like if you made it this far doing everything you've been doing, then, like, why would this just also fail? And I wanted to understand from you, and maybe you can tell your audience, like, your vision, how do you know, how do you, like, is it, does it come from your heart where you go, this is it? Like, do you, when you feel it,

like, how are you determining these things? Hold that part of the question, but let me answer this part of it, is it goes back to the lessons I've learned. Like when I, when I, my first building I bought, I said, okay, this is going to be my studio. A building was like a million five. I was just I was like, Jesus, a lot of money, but I'm gonna buy it. I bought it, I'm saying, okay, I'm gonna shoot all my movies out of here. The crew showed up to do Diary of a Mad Black Woman. They walk in the door to Tyler, what is this?

I mean, we can't shoot a movie. We gotta rent a building. This place is too small. Like, what do you mean? It's too small. There gonna be hundreds of people here. We can't shoot here. I was like, oh, okay.

So then the next building, I was like, I got that feeling like, okay, I'm gonna buy this building, I'm gonna pay for it. I made a little more money. it was like three million dollars i'm gonna pay for it up i want to cash i just i was you know because i had this thing of building for right now rather than learning to build for where you're going rather than where you are because your vision is going to be where you're going so i get in

this building it was a nightmare man i hired this contractor he's yeah it's the what my i end up on the news because this dude did not pull one permit the city down there everybody's down there just wondering what the hell's going on so and the neighbors were complaining and but I was determined to stay there. Then I had a lawyer of mine say, Tyler, go take a look at this place. I took, I went drovers on a bad side of town. Went to droves. I was like, I'm not buying this place.

It was a former Delta Reservation Center or something. And I go there, and one night I'm sitting there in front of the gates because I just want everything paid for. I'm sitting in front of the gates. I say a prayer. If I'm supposed to do this, God, make it clear. I get out and there Bible scriptures take to the gates. One of them is my favorite Bible scripture.

So I said, okay, I'm supposed to do this. See, I look for confirmation to do this. do it. I did it. And I thought, okay, great, this is it. I'm not going to ever leave this place. Fantastic. We're going to do all my shows here. Within a year and a half, people were on top of each other. They were desks in the hallways. We couldn't make, we didn't have enough space. I was just like, what is going on? And I didn't want to leave it because, you know, it was, I think it was probably, I was spending maybe $7 million a year to maintain it, which was great, right? So I thought, okay, this is good. I'll just stay here. And by this time, every time,

I did not do what I felt led to do, things started to fall apart. So I learned that if I'm feeling led to move and an opportunity comes and I don't make that move, I can expect things to get rough until I make the move. So once I learned that, I was like, okay, so when the next opportunity of Fort McPherson,

330 acres, it comes up. I go, okay, I'm going to take it. And because I had a little one acre studio, like 7,000 square feet, then like a 200,000 square feet, then a 400,000 square feet. I built up to understanding what that meant. Can you imagine me going from paying

a $10,000 light bill a month at one studio to having $180,000 light bill a month at another? I couldn't wrap my brain around that. Yeah. But understanding that each step was progress. but you didn't just go from from from from from z no many steps in between and the bible says don't despise small beginnings which simply means that if if you start not really really small i don't care who's laughing at you who's talking about don't don't despise it because that is where the

nucleus of it all is man yeah so don't despise and embrace that because had i not had any of those steps i promise you i wouldn't be in the place that i'm in even with the jobs i had as a used car salesman as a bill collector yeah you know people like that you did those jobs I was yeah and when I'm negotiating the contract I remember all of that stuff you see what I mean so all the things that you have in life all the tools that you're getting they're not they're not wasted they'll find a way in your life when you get to your purpose of your dream yeah yeah we it's just it's just so crazy nowadays like we're we're so caught up in what other people have that I think it's hard for us to listen and to find that voice inside of what's really good for us because there's

so much external I just think it's such a different place nowadays it is and I wouldn't be envious of anybody growing up in this time. I wouldn't have wanted to grow up at this time because we had the opportunity to make mistakes without it being on the internet forever. You know, we had the opportunity to say the wrong things, to go out, get drunk, get caught up and do it. But now, anything of this generation, and I worry about this for my son, anything you do is a record for life. And everything you put on the internet is a record for life. When I'm hiring people, I check their pages. Damn. I do. Wow. I'll never forget. Whitney Houston, friend of mine, one guy was,

I really wanted to hire him, go to his page. He's got Rest in Peace Whitney written in cocaine on his page. Written in like a picture? Written in cocaine, a picture on his page. A picture of the cocaine on his page. The drug were like written, the words are written. Cocaine written, rest of peace, Whitney.

Yeah, lined up in the white. And he didn't get the job because I went to his page. because what people don't understand is that everything you are putting out is telling people everything about you right yeah yeah so so people some people say that's not fair was well if you don't you know you never you never know who's who so don't post things you don't want people to really yeah you know this brings me to another question then because this is such a relevant thing I got to ask you about it what do you think about Kanye West right now and all the things that he's saying in relationship to all this wild kind of talk about Hollywood and it obviously being on the internet and you keep in never really take those things back you know it yeah two things and he's paying a big price for it i don't care how much money he's losing he's losing a lot he's paying a huge price for it and what you have to understand is this man my mother was uh worked at the jewish community center so when i was growing up uh she would be home on certain holidays so she taught us about roshoshana and different things that different jewish holidays i think i said that right and she and she um came home crying

one day because, you know, they wanted to, I was like, why are you crying? She's like they wanted to blow the place up. She took care of babies, Jewish kids in the Jewish community center. They were nursery kids. She couldn't believe that somebody could have that kind of hate, right? So, so anytime I hear somebody who makes anti-Semitic statements or blankets, blanketly pulls people into one thing, I am beyond concerned on one side of it and mortified on the other. So, I look at, you know, what happened on the 405 with, with this huge sign. Yeah. He's right. And, and they're doing the Hitler salute. And when you, when you have a voice and

you have millions of people who follow you, it's, you have to be really, really careful what you say. Yeah. You know, even if he feels that way, he has the right to feel however he does. Of course. But when you start to share it and you have a following, that's really, really difficult. But just like I don't understand how anybody, especially somebody of color whose ancestors came through horrible abuse, a lot of things that are on the same lines of what what uh jewish people went through right i i can't understand how somebody who comes from that stock that lineage could have that kind of uh make those kind of statements about another people but on the other side of it i cannot understand someone who has a mental health issue like i've

never had one i've got family members who've had one i no matter what i do or what i try to do i can never put myself in those shoes yeah so i don't know but my my hope is whatever is going on with him that it it gets better but i'm very very concerned about him yeah yeah it's it the thing that's the thing like i said that is most concerning i think is the you know not just specifically we'll talk about you know enough talk about connie but the the the blanket statements of of things on the internet uh did you hear about the andrew tate stuff i don't know what that is it's fine no worries but the blanket statements of like say okay this if you go you know jewish people or women or you make these statements and then they follow with what comes next. It becomes dangerous because you have people

who maybe because of age or because of life experience, like they could take a concept and completely run with it without like being able to identify all the details and niceties regarding to it. And they just kind of like, like those people who are, well, I don't know what the fuck they were doing, taking pictures like doing the Nazi stuff like on the 405. It's like there maybe not critically thought enough to go, okay, maybe this isn't the best thing to do or maybe there's a different sort of motive or intention there, but I think it gets dangerous on the internet, which is why, like, we've been seen a lot of, you wouldn't, I maybe not be as aware of this, but recently on social media, like people get banned or getting canceled, getting taken,

that's how I was referencing Andrew Tate thing, being canceled or taken off platforms entirely because of the things that they're saying, being like these kind of like, very, like, decisive, controversial and sometimes blanket statements of, like, groups of people. And people aren't overall, I think, and nowadays being taught to, critically think about concepts or things that are happening we're just i don't know how you could be taught to critically think when you are being inundated and told what to think by algorithms listen i've got a seven-year-old son who goes to school with every race imaginable yeah and to this day he has not come home and said the black kid said this or the jewish kid said this or the indian

kid said this he'll come in you know the girl with the red hair yeah or the way the guy who's wearing the blue shoes. And that purity, that innocence, I want him to hold on to as long as I can because this world can be really, really cold and really, really ugly. And I think that, especially being a black person who grew up in the South, whose parents grew up in a Jim Crow South, I know racism firsthand. I know what it feels like. I don't know how awful it is to be blanketed. I still, to this day, know what it's like to walk up to a store and they won't open the door because all they see is a black man before no way to his day my hand to god my hand to god my hand to god i was in a store recently in beverly hills and there was a there i was building a house

and there was a bathtub in the in the window it's on la sienic a beautiful bathtub it looked antique and i go and i'm looking the window and i go up to the door and um i knock and the woman comes and she's and she looks up and she just stops and she goes um um i said can i help you i was like i want and see the bathtub. And she's really doing this. And she goes, okay. So she reluctantly slowly opens the door staring at me the whole time. And then she goes, John, I'm up front, John, I'm up front.

We've got a cousin up here, John. I kid you not. So I go over, I look at the house. This is that a house of your building. Yeah, house I was building. I go over, look at a bathtub, beautiful bathtub, get all the information. And, you know, I think because what I was saying, to her, the questions I was asked, she realized

I knew what I was talking about. Yeah. And I was talking about prices. She gave me the price or whatever and said, okay, how long will it take to get? Well, I don't know. I'll have to ask John when he gets back. I said, okay, well, he's in the back, right? Oh, no, he's not here. I was just saying that because I'm here by myself, and we've been having

people just walk past and show up. And we've been really concerned. So, yeah. Wow. Got on the elevator at the Peninsula Hotel. Got going up, elevator stops. me and the security guard big black guy little white woman door open she looks up now y'all go ahead and door closes

we're going up the stairs so it happens all the time yeah so how do you think how do you think people can get out of that get out of that mentality is it a learn thing is just a it's totally a learn thing because as I was just talking about my son but but also it's just listen some of it is valid right

because when you see when I see certain groups of people I think okay you know I'm in Georgia If I see a certain group of people that look a certain way, I'm thinking, I'm not necessarily going to be on this side of the street. You know what I mean?

With their trucks and their rebel flags, I kind of have an opinion. So I understand, some people may say that's racist. Because if you look at some of the guys that work for me around the house, man, they are those guys and some of the best guys in the world.

They're complete, they'll tell you, their country rednecks, right? And we're out there sitting and listening to Tim McGraw having a great time. So I understand how people can judge, but I wish we would all get to a place where we could just say, hey, just at least give the person

the benefit of the doubt. I still walk down the street and people will cross the street, especially with the mask on, man. It's, you know. That's why I think, I mean, obviously it doesn't just come down to critically thinking,

comes down to how you're taught and how you're raised and what you're able. But that's why I keep getting back to this idea of thinking, right? Because people go, make a lot of these assumptions based off of just what they're to learn, what they're taught,

what someone else says and not always like their real experience. right because for someone to make that assumption you know you go into elevator she's like oh I'm going to avoid this like or maybe she did have an actual personal experience where something like that happened and she realized okay maybe maybe I need to avoid this but at the same time I just wonder if there's a way for people to ever get passes because it seems like it's almost become like this division of race specifically in America has become more and more of a problem like when it seems it should have become less and less of a problem listen as far as as

we come and you've got to give credit to how far we've come because there was a time I couldn't sit here with with you right now having this conversation yeah that's fair and even though you brought me in through the back door well that's because there's other people when they're not the COVID test I got your back okay all right just I'm just joking but but just the understanding of of how far we've come is important to acknowledge it but how far we have to go is also as important to acknowledge it you know my new movie jazz man's blues I was getting notes from different black people saying you know why do we have to keep revisiting this time? Why do we have to talk about this when it was so dark in our history?

Dammy took my question. Did I really? Yeah, it's all good luck. You guys, my next question. Well, how much time we got? No, we just keep going. No, no, no. I got a hard out.

What time is it now? How long we've been here? Fifty one minutes. We've been here 51 minutes already? Okay, great. What time is it? It is 1215. Okay.

All right. Yeah. I'll go to jazz band. But just, having them say, you know, why do we have to keep going back to these dark times, but it's so important that we remember it. Yeah. Because if we forget it, then if you forget your history, you're destined to repeat it. That's often been said. Yeah. Yeah. So how important do you think, obviously in this relationship of your history and knowing where you've come from

is ingrained in your ability and like your vision and your future of like what you can create? because you, apparently you wrote this story, the Jasmine Blue, you wrote this story 27 years ago, but you said today, now it's relevant. Like, how are you, like, obviously you know where you came from, you know what you've gone through, and obviously the culture in general, but how do you go, okay, now today is the time to do this?

Like, is, like, how do you write something that long ago and know that now it's applicable? Now it's relevant. Well, looking at what's happening in our country, man. There are so many people banning books, They don't want certain books read. They don't want people, don't want their kids to know about the history of slavery. You know, I got a friend right now, his kids in school, and they went to a parent-teacher meeting,

and the teacher says, your daughter's really, really smart, but we can only give her one award. He's like, why? He's like, she deserves all of them, why can't you get them all of them? Because we're only giving each kid one award. We don't want any of the other kids to feel bad. Things like that, right? Yeah. No winners, no losers.

And it's like, it's like. What do you think of that? though. I think it's awful. I think it's awful. I think what are we doing? What is this homogenization of our children? You know, you're teaching them just to not be great. You're teaching them to just be mediocre. Just be right. Oh, oh, you did good enough. No, man, I want my son, I want him to be pushed as hard as I was, right? Because I want him to see his fullest potential. And he's that kind of kid naturally. I think he's in the DNA. It has to be. Yeah, but my whole point to all of that is that I hope that

the banning of books and everything that's happening in America I thought here's a time to tell this story because people are trying to rewrite black history and even though this is a fictional story it is surrounded by the facts of what has happened to many of us in the past

yeah yeah back to the idea on top of this of vision right how have you because I want to talk a little bit about religion your relationship with God because I and I've talked to you about this on a personal level like I've had a pretty interesting relationship with like my belief and my acceptance or my like just I don't know general connection with God but how would you relate like your vision your

long term picture and obviously I just find it so interesting when I when I'm talking to you now and you know how you did everything in honor and respect for like your family and your mother and now how you've evolved into this massive billion dollar multi billion dollar industry man who's like you've created jobs for so many people and changed so many lives like I obviously you didn't know when you started that that was going to be your outcome right right but where along the way were you like did you start to see it come to fruition and how did God play a role in it and and how had you not ever lost connection or have you lost connection with God along the way and there was there were moments when I I never lost connection God but there were moments

when I was very angry very frustrated because I would pray and believe and I would hope they think things were going to go great and then I'd see people you know selling drugs drugs doing way better than I was and doing things and destroying a community and doing horrible things. I was just like, why is it not happening for me? I'm doing the right thing. That was really, really frustrating for me. But from very early on, I was taught to pray. And I've never stopped praying. I still pray to this day, sometimes two, three times a day. Just a prayer for me is as simple as, you know, talking to God for 30 seconds. It's very important to me to have that that foundation and that base to something much greater, much higher, because nothing, there are so

many moments in my life that I cannot explain how they happen, why they happen, the timing of them happening, that you could be the most talented person in the world, you could have no talent at all. It takes everything to line up for you, and I don't care how powerful you are, how much positive thinking you think you can do. You can't line those things up, right? I feel to me, For me, that has always been God in my life. And I'll never lose my faith. I'll never lose my belief because that is all I have. When I'm on my plane at 40,000 feet, if something goes wrong, all I have is my faith in God.

You know, if somebody gets sick, God forbid, I get sick or something, all I have is my faith. There are things that are out of our control. And for me, if I don't have my faith, you may as well go ahead and bury me. It's funny. You said that being on the plane. Remember you tell me that story about that? one mishap where you like almost had an issue which which one like you were on a plane and i don't know if a pilot like you something with like the air some shit you could have had an issue

yeah yeah yeah that's i mean so that's that's besides the point but i i kind of i don't know i've had such a hard time personally like connecting and i think uh because i grew up i grew up in it you know in a in specifically a catholic community um and i kind of like started to reject a lot of the things like i don't know some for some reason when they were coming they give money. I was like, what's the point of all this? Because I had this like weird connection with like, why if the things that really matter is like of the heart, like being good to people, then like, why is this a thing that's also involved? And I had so many questions. But I guess the thing that I'm interested to talking to you about in relationship to it is the, the,

you have this sense of certainty in it. Like you never, you never waver from that. Like I've, I've wavered. And I think like, I don't know, I think it was related to my, the idea of like, like you said even when it wasn't going your way i i don't know i sometimes had this like resentful feeling of what happened to me in my life and that like i didn't have what other people had and i felt like well you know why didn't i have these things and i think i find so i find it so interesting that like it's i don't know like all this even as i say it now it's like wow that's everything we also just talked about which is like things are happening is exactly how they're supposed to happen and it's up to you to identify those things and i think the thing that's most impressive about you is

the vision, like I keep talking about, the identification of these moments and these things and being able to turn these things into massive, like, like a crazy industry for so many people, obviously including yourself. And I just wanted to know what do you think the secret to success? Like, how did you do it? I mean, so many people probably wonder and they probably have all these goals and these dreams and aspirations, but, you know, they don't do the small details. Like, they don't learn from the mistakes because they go the left way and they say oh this is too hard right or the thing that's happened to them they go uh someone thinks it's a better idea i'm going to do this instead or i was too hurt doing this so i'm going to go do that or i'm going to avoid this even though what

what i really want like how how did you determine that no matter what like you were going to do some because i have a lot of it in myself now i know that i've doubted myself a lot getting to certain moments and coming through certain issues but how did you have so much determination in it all the one was the drive to take care of my mother like I had to do well in some way in some capacity but more than anything the understanding of what is happening

in my life right now for the first 28 years of my life I would be damned if I was going to die and let that 28 years determine who I was that amount of hell and that amount of pain was a buy-in for something

yeah everybody who's going through something there is a reason for it and I was suicidal if I if I had been successful at the suicide I would have never gotten to the other side to see what I was paying for and the paying people say oh that's so cruel you were paying for that's so ridiculous Tyler where you're paying for something no what I'm trying to get you to understand is that life is going to happen you're going to be born into some crazy situation circumstances things are going to happen but what is the other side of it to everything there's an opposite there's up there's out

down yeah no that this is and this is what starts to lead me closer to god yeah is this thing that you just said yeah because i've i've i've experienced now i feel like so much obviously very positive and good in my life but i've also experienced a lot of like evil and and i think i think that idea in relationship to obviously how you know we're talking earlier um how almost things just kind of line up perfectly and how like even even small examples of like the human body and how it's so perfectly created the brain all these things that it's like it just to me the god thing makes more sense because of those details yeah and then the idea of now like i've experienced like really evil people in situations and like so i'm like if i'm thinking evil i'm thinking devil and then i'm thinking

like okay it's good i'm thinking god right so i'm like i kind of as i've gotten older i've also gotten closer to god because of the things that i'm perceived as like very negative and very hard yeah So that's how I've, I don't know if it's a good or a bad thing, but that's the thing that continues to get me closer. I'm like, well, this is so, like, this is so bad that it's like, where does that come from? And I don't know. I get, maybe like, I don't know if it's a good thing. So everything there's an opposite. It's up down, down, end, out, left, right, east, west.

There's an opposite to everything, right? Yeah. So to all of the bad and the pain and the negativity that you're going through, there is an opposite. It's just law. There is an opposite. So if you can make your way to the opposite, I promise you that place is so sweet, so great, so much better than what you ever could imagine. When I think of my life now, I think of it as two different people. The kid that endured that and what a debt I owe him for all the things he went through, from the abuse to the rape, to the constant bombarding, to the bullying, to the skin being beaten off his back.

the things I owe that kid as a man's in there, he couldn't do anything about it. He had to sit in it and suffer. Me as a grown man, how dare I disrespect his pain by complaining by being, oh, well, I should have did this, I should have. No, no, no, no. The debt was paid for by a child. So now here I am as a man benefiting from that. So I'm going to enjoy this. I'm going to help as many people as I can. And I'm going to make that kid proud. That's my purpose and my focus. I want to wrap this up because I know you don't have a ton of time but I want to talk about one more thing

and it was also something very significant and related to this point that you just said about me and my father and I remember at one point you told me because I would have these conversations with you about this and about my situation I think I was probably one of the first person people you told about it

yeah yeah yeah um fuck I don't want to cry but why would you why would you even hold it how it feels you should let it out don't do that man let it out how it comes Uh, fuck. Just, just speak through it. I think one of the most important things that you ever taught me. You told me one time, you said, fuck. The reason why I'm so emotional is because this changed my life.

Yeah. You told me to write down almost like a letter to my six-year-old self. Yeah. in relationship to my father taking his life, hanging himself and how it affected me from my perspective as an older man to a six-year-old and like kind of telling my younger self,

hey, this is what happened. This is why, you know, like, this is why you'll be okay. This is why this is like what I know now. And that's the thing that I think is so significant, man. like is and we kind of keep talking about it but people get so caught up at where they're at and in the moment of like the negative and the darkness and the evil and they they don't see the light yeah they don't believe that there's anything and uh i remember when you told me to do this

how much how much weight it took off me because i was able to look kind of back at a situation that my perspective then was so different than my perspective now and i was able to look back from an older state and understand it it wasn't as simple as what I thought it was then, which was my father didn't love me. Yeah. And I'm not good enough.

Yeah. And I was so caught up and trying to be like strong and for my family, for my mom, for myself that like I built up so many walls and who I was. And it's crazy looking back now how much it affected even my personal relationships my my my intimate relationships

my family friends everything because I was so like I tried to be so strong and I and I looking back now it's like I didn't have to be because like it didn't make sense for me to determine my life based on you know a decision and outward like I keep talking about this is an external decision that my father may base on everything that happened in his life and who he was at that moment at that point like as a six-year-old i could never understand that because i was six i'm just understanding life everything prior to that moment is like you know oh i hurt my knee the scab the scabs up i'm healed or i spilt this oh it's cleaned up it's fixed and then being confronted with the idea of death and knowing that like oh like that what does that mean what is death what's the point of this

my father's never coming back what does that even mean like that doesn't make sense i'll see him tomorrow waking up and he's not there waking up and he's not there yeah and uh you taught me this and It was one of the things that I just wanted, I wanted to say before this ended because I want people to understand that this is, this changed my life, this writing this and giving myself that perspective, like back to my, my six-year-old self with the newly found information that I have going to that point that I went to. And I was in my mid-20s. And I just want people to understand that first and foremost, like we keep talking about is that everything, we said this earlier, everything that we go through, every hardship, every, every downfall is, is going to

be a new opportunity to learn and to grow and to become better and to go closer to where you really want to go you just have to allow it yeah and that's something that you taught me and I'll be forever grateful and I and I just really wanted to share it because I would encourage anyone to what in any form you don't necessarily be writing a letter but like go in a in and not not attack but go and try to look and learn from the completely new perspective what you know now like understand that things are supposed to like bad supposed to happen there's no way that You're not going to experience life without it. I don't know if bad it's supposed to happen, but I do, well, I can take it to a Bible, a scripture in the Bible that says, man are given a few days on earth and those days are full of trouble.

So, yes, there will be trouble, right? But there's something very, very powerful about understanding why, the why, why, why, and some people don't get it. Some things have happened so tragic to so many people that they don't get the answers to the why, right? And I feel horrible for a lot of those people. but for the most part there are a lot of things that happen and there is a why there is an understanding and if you were like the reason I wanted you to do that and I've told other people to do that as well because it's something I did I wrote a letter to my younger self and as again I feel like we're separate just to be able to tell him all of the things that I said earlier yeah so you think this

is powerful now and that change your life wait till you have a kid and that kid is six years old and you really understand how pure and innocent that six year old is and how wrong it is for that six-year-old to want to take on the burden of what his father was dealing with. But as children, we naturally do. And as children, we hold on to those things. And as children, we carry that into our adulthood, and we act out in our relationships, in our friendships, in our business. We're carrying the stuff that was given to us in our bags that wasn't ours. But I'm so glad that that was able to help you. And I hope that anybody else who's really struggling could go back to the age of the trauma

and write a letter to that person and tell them what that person being the child that you were what you felt, how bad it was for you and where you are now and what you're going to do to make sure that that part of your life and that child is proud of where you're going. It's powerful, man.

Yeah, it's powerful. That's amazing. Yeah, brother. So before we end this, let's do two audience questions. So at the end of every episode we do questions from the audience So we'll just answer.

Okay, cool. And then we'll get you out because I know that you have a, you got a hard out. Okay. You've been amazing, by the way, man. I appreciate it, but thank you. You are a legend, like just ultimate. I appreciate you. I told you I was coming, so thanks.

I'm glad we were to work it out. So do you have any of those questions ready? Yes, I do. Okay, so you guys can submit your questions at AskRodalk at gmail.com or send a DM to Raw Talk on Instagram. Yes. So the first question is, long story short, my father has a lot of problems with anger, alcohol, and drugs.

He did some really bad stuff last winter, and I didn't talk. to my family for four months because he still lives with them. I forgave him and he ended up down the same path and did the same stuff two months ago. I don't know what to do. I miss my family, but I don't want anything to do with him right now. Just need some advice on the whole situation. Appreciate giving me the time. Give me me advice. What's the name? I don't know if they want to put it, but it's DeAndre LeBlanc. Okay. What I'll say is to that is I haven't spoken to my father in probably 13 years now. When my mother died, she asked me to take care of him and I said I would. So he gets a check every month, his house, all the other stuff. But being around him was

toxic to me. I would be in the house that I built for my mother and I have a chair up at the door and I'm 40 years old because if he got drunk and came into the room and started yelling and screaming or he said something to my mother that I didn't like, I'm not that kid. And I didn't know what my reaction would be. So somebody would have ended up dead. And I often thought I would, our story would end up being Marvin Gay's story being Marvin Gay's father killed. I often thought that. So when my mother died, she was the glue that kept us together. And as much as I may want to see some of my family members, it wanted to see her, he was always around. So I had to make a choice about my own self, my own mental health, my own soul.

Am I going to continue to be around a person who makes me feel awful? Or am I going to make sure that I'm happy? And it's not selfish, it's not wrong. You have to understand that if you are a boat that's trying to rescue people and you keep putting holes in it, you're going to drown. If you put a lot of people on that boat and all those people are putting holes in the boat, they're going to drown. Even faster.

Even faster. You're going to drown. Sometimes you have to go out on your own boat. And sometimes families where you make it with friends and people around you and build that. But I wouldn't encourage anybody to be around anybody who mistreats them and makes them feel horrible. I'm sorry. And everybody who's abusive or drunk or doing all kinds of things, sure, that is a path that took them there. But at some point, they have to take some responsibility for their own shit.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think it's knowing about how to create the proper distance and what that distance looks like, which you can learn over time. and at the same time understanding that everyone and everything that like is happening to in relationship to like especially family because it's hard sometimes to let go of that because you're like well that's like that's my kin and that's my dad that's my mom but sometimes it you have to create that separation you have to like understand that it's not your problem because i i grew up thinking like oh all this is my problem and then i realized later on that like wait this is i didn't have to take this responsibility like it wasn't mine to take it made me the person i am today and i'm grateful for it but i also realized I could have, I could have, like, I could have, but I didn't know, right? It's always, it's always in hindsight. So the person, if I can give you this advice now is, like, create some sort of distance and allow yourself to be you completely external and away from this.

And don't try to come and fix this problem that, like, it's not yours to fix. I mean, you could be there and try to be there for the person, but don't put that burden on yourself like you're saying. It's hard to do. Yeah. It's very hard. But protect yourself. My mother used to say, when we make her mad, you motherfuckers ain't going to kill me.

And she would go to room, slam the door, wouldn't care for it. wouldn't talk to us for a while if we all made her upset. So I, but I understand that I ain't going to let nobody kill me. Listen, you have to, you have to respect my space. You have to come. When you come into my house, you have to come into my space. You have to respect it because I've been through all of that. I'm not going to let you be disrespectful.

I'm not going to let this man talk to me any kind of way. It ain't going to happen. Yeah, that's beautiful. So give us the next one. So this person says they recently feel like they've lost some motivation in the gym, in life, and in general. And they say they feel a bit burnt out. And so they wanted to ask any tips.

on how to re-ignite the flame or snap out of a bad groove. Did he say how old they were or anything? No. Okay. Well, I'll start that one off. I think it's normal and it's completely okay to not have moments of inspiration and not have moments of motivation all the time. And in fact, I don't think it's normal to have moments.

I have like, all your life is just like, I'm constantly motivated. I constantly want to do this because there's been tons of times where I've had to dig deep in myself and go, okay, why is this really important? And this is going to come back to the thing we were talking about earlier. you do have to strongly, strongly define your why. You have to figure out why you're doing the things you're doing. Because if you don't understand that, then when you get to something that's difficult, I mean, listen, I've had people come up to me for so many years and go, oh, man, I want to,

I want to be a fitness influencer. I want to do the things that you've done. And I'll say, why? And they go, oh, because it looks cool or I want to help people. And I say, why? And I go, oh, because, like, I want good for people. And I'll say, and I'll keep asking them, well, why do you want, like, not just this external idea that you see of me or someone that you see as like this,

figure and this motivational person but like why is it matter to you to to exist in that space and to be that for those people right so if someone says this is why this is why you have to get to like some sort of defining moment almost because like I'm thinking in my life I go why is this important to me why was this important to me why did I build all this up because I was trying to protect a kid right I was trying to protect myself and then I realized I'm looking for father figures my entire life like I was talking about earlier and I'm looking for places where I felt like appreciate or connected. So my why is very is very defined by my actual these moments in my life where I wanted to essentially find these father figures and then and then become became the father figure that

I always wanted. And that's why it's so important to me to do all the things that I've done. And along the way I got closer and closer to find that for myself. And the more I defined that, the better I got at being that and getting further in all my goals. So I just want to say to the people like you're not supposed to have this endless amount of inspiration all the time, but if you're able to connect deeply with why you're doing the thing and you can continue to like, because it changes and it shifts over time. If you're able to continue to look into that and not just like so ironic, we're talking about all the out internal external stuff and not just like the money or the things you want from it or like the popularity of what you think you're going

to get from it, um, that if you're able to go back to, okay, why does this actually matter to me right now? You're going to get so much farther. You're going to get there in so much more of efficient manner that's going to allow you to actually, you know, get all these benefits or to be super motivated to be like endlessly like excited to do something because it means something to you because it's purposeful yeah and i think people do they don't think the purpose they just think oh i want a great body but it's like okay why like i remember when i was selling personal training back in the day people would cry to me because i i learned this really early on about asking these trying to understand someone's reason and which is probably why like i i enjoy this this type

conversation so much in this type of you know medium in the space but is trying to understand why someone's doing something because people would say oh i want to i want to lose 50 pounds i'm like well why do you want to lose 50 pounds oh because i want to look better why do you want to look better oh because like i want to be healthier or why do you want to be healthier and then it goes back to like why they want to look better not so much healthier is because they felt like you know their partner wasn't happy with them wasn't sat and then they had this personal like internal like battle with themselves but they didn't feel good enough and it came down to that the idea is like i want to feel good enough the why will always take you to the real reason as many wise as you

ass, it'll get you to the truth. And eventually when something strikes that nerve, you've hit the truth. But what I would say to that person is simply, what are you feeding yourself? What are you feeding yourself if you're losing motivation? What are you feeding? And I'm not talking food. I'm talking, what are you watching? What are you reading? What are you taking in? Because I'm telling you, watch me watching a bunch of negative things will make me not want to get out of the bed. So I have to filter that out of my soul, my spirit, my mind, so that I can feed myself the positivity and the strength like if there's something online that's you know it's a podcast you such as this one something that's moving you or motivating you that's where I would tell people to to find their focus if you

start to lose motivation what are you feeding your soul if you're feeding weight and heaviness then you're going to lose motivation but if you're feeding yourself joy what you want to see what you want to look like I'll tell you this then I got to leave here and I got to and I got to pee the uh the the the having the um you know when i first started out struggling getting exposed to seeing other things meeting other people um you know i i was broke man i would go test drive nice cars just because wow fuck i can talk about this i could do that wow i could do that on open houses i would show up at open houses walking through going wow this is happening and i'm living in the house when i open the cabins the rats run up my arm in the

morning so and at night and roach's biggest horses all flying around so I would go to all of these places just to inspire myself to see other people going wow they did that then I could do it too now these weren't these weren't black people and my mother be like why are you doing that that's for white people you know she didn't know that that that that I could do this and everything I did blew her mind but again what are you feeding yourself what are you feeding yourself what are you feeding yourself spiritually mentally what are you reading what do you take yeah what are you in taking because it's the possibilities yeah like I was saying earlier is like the thing about you that inspired me was what you done and what you came from

and I was like well if he can do it I can do it and then being close to it and seeing like oh this is real yes and and the same thing like if you're sitting there watching bullshit always and like you're constantly consumed by something on like I said external and social media and it's like negative or even if it's positive it's just taking you out of like yourself and I just think we keep coming back to that but finding your wife find your purpose that's those are the most genuine things that are going to help you get to success in life and I just want to say thank you so much for coming and doing this, you're an amazing person. You've been a fucking great friend,

and I love you, man. I appreciate you for real. Thank you, man. I'm sorry, I'm leaving a puddle of pee right here. No, it's all good. I appreciate it. Go to the bathroom. I appreciate it.

Thank you.