The Rich Roll Podcast - Karamo Brown Is Culture

Episode Date: January 11, 2021

You can’t grow if you don’t confront that which limits you. So face it. Ask for help. Have the hard conversations. Commit to the work. And I promise, your life will change. I’ve seen it come to pass countless times—in myself and many others. But few have more experience with personal transformation than Karamo Brown—a man who overcame tremendous adversity to enliven the best in others. The ‘culture’ expert on Netflix’s massive hit show Queer Eye, Karamo is a father, former social worker, and psychotherapist who was first introduced to audiences on MTV’s The Real World in 2004. He continued to build their trust as a host on Dr. Drew Live, HuffPost Live, and Access Hollywood Live. Karamo’s self-titled primer on emotional healing, Karamo: My Story Of Embracing Purpose, Healing, is an inspiring must-read for anyone grappling with adversity. In addition, he is the founder of 6in10, an organization that provides mental health support and education to the LGBTQ+ community, and the co-founder of Mantl, a skin-care line for bald men. Today he shares his powerful story, dropping pearls of guidance in the process. This is a conversation about culture beyond art museums and the ballet. It’s about how people feel about themselves and others, how they relate to the world around them, and how their shared labels, burdens, and experiences affect their daily lives in ways both subtle and profound. It’s also about the culture of Karamo. Raised in the South by a Jamaican father and Cuban mother in predominantly white neighborhoods, it’s a story of overcoming personal issues of colorism, physical and emotional abuse. Alcohol and drug addiction. And public infamy. But more than anything, this is a conversation about what holds people back. It’s about the importance of exploring our difficulties. And what’s required to transcend our past, move forward, and ultimately live our best lives. FULL BLOG & SHOW NOTES: bit.ly/richroll573 YouTube: bit.ly/karamobrown573 I adore this man and I love this conversation. Peace + Plants, Rich

I didn't have the luxury being black, gay, immigrant parents to not try to reach out to those who were different from me. I didn't have that luxury. The only way I've succeeded and found a healthy boundary is by saying, I got to meet you where you're at. Because that person was never going to meet me. And so it's always been my burden, but always has been my greatest triumph of being able to say, I know I can meet you where you're at. And I think, you know, like as a society, we need to get rid of cancel culture and switch it with counsel culture. I think that we have gotten to a place where it's easy to jump on a bad wagon and cancel someone. But then what we forget is that once you've canceled them, they get further pushed into a group of people who believe and feel the same way they feel. It's very rare where someone who's been canceled actually changes privately or publicly.

All they do is they revert back to a group that believes what they believe. And I think that's part of the problem. Giving people opportunities to grow and learn instead of canceling them is, I think, so important. But to do that, you have to have a group of people who understand the importance of empathetic listening. Because when you can let someone communicate, when we can communicate together, when you communicate to yourself honestly, the world will open up. Hey, friends. This is Karamo from Netflix's Queer Eye, and I'm on the Rich Roll podcast.

And I'm very excited about this. The Rich Roll podcast. Welcome to the podcast. Karamo from Queer Eye is indeed here. We made it happen. It is glorious and coming up in a few. But before we dive in. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety. And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved

ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because, unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. Thank you. disorders, gambling addictions, and more. Navigating their site is simple. Search by insurance coverage, location, treatment type, you name it. Plus, you can read reviews from

former patients to help you decide. Whether you're a busy exec, a parent of a struggling teen, or battling addiction yourself, I feel you. I empathize with you. I really do. And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. We're brought to you today by recovery.com. I've been in recovery for a long time. It's not hyperbolic to say that I owe everything good in my life to sobriety.

And it all began with treatment and experience that I had that quite literally saved my life. And in the many years since, I've in turn helped many suffering addicts and their loved ones find treatment. And with that, I know all too well just how confusing and how overwhelming and how challenging it can be to find the right place and the right level of care, especially because unfortunately, not all treatment resources adhere to ethical practices. It's a real problem. A problem I'm now happy and proud to share has been solved by the people at recovery.com who created an online support portal designed to guide, to support, and empower you to find the ideal level of care tailored to your personal needs. They've partnered with the best global behavioral

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And they have treatment options for you. Life in recovery is wonderful. And recovery.com is your partner in starting that journey. When you or a loved one need help, go to recovery.com and take the first step towards recovery. To find the best treatment option for you or a loved one, again, go to recovery.com. Okay, for the few unfamiliar, Karamo is the culture expert on the hit Netflix show, Queer Eye. I fell head over heels for this man,

binging all five seasons of Queer Eye with my family during the early months of this pandemic. And what I take away from it is this unbelievable ability that this human being has to help such a wide diversity of people confront and work through their pain and ultimately transform their lives. And I think it's a gift that he has, a profound one at that.

Couple months ago, during an episode of Roll On, I was waxing poetic about Queer Eye, showering Karamo with love. And amazingly, he happened to catch the show. He DMed me, which blew my mind. And so here we are, gotta love the universe. So let's do it. This is me and the lovely and gorgeous Karamo Brown.

Well, welcome to my home. I'm so delighted to have you here. It's been a little bit in the making to get you here, but I'm so excited. Everybody, I mean, I've been doing this for eight years. I've never seen my family more excited for somebody to come over here. The whole turnout here to welcome you.

And you asked a minute ago, like, I thought we were gonna do that in the black box room I'm glad to come over here. The whole turnout here to welcome you. I appreciate that. You asked a minute ago, like, I thought we were gonna do that in the black box room where we have been recording. Historically, we've always done the podcast here. We have another room on the other side, but when COVID hit, we moved it out to a neutral space just for safety reasons.

But with you, it's like, I can't record a podcast with Karamo. Like he has to come to the house. That's the whole thing. I appreciate it. This is what you do. Your house is gorgeous. I appreciate that.

And we find out we're neighbors. Yeah, I can't believe that. That's a mind blower. And we've got the doors open and I've never sat so far away from a podcast guest before. So we've undertaken safety protocols to make sure we're safe. I know you've been tested a lot as have I. So we can kind of breathe, relax,

and enjoy each other's company, man. You reached out to me, which blew my mind because I had mentioned in a podcast with my buddy, Adam, that our whole family had been enjoying Queer Eye. And I was late to the party. Like my relationship with Queer Eye was the original cast in series. Yeah.

So the new one launched in 2018, right? Yep. It's been five seasons. The joke is whenever there's a Republican in office, Queer Eye needs to come back. So ratings go up. Yeah, exactly. And I had never watched your you know, your version,

the new iteration of the show until the beginning of the pandemic. And we just latched onto it as a family. And it's like the one show that we can all enjoy. Like if you met my whole family, lots of ages, and you know, going on here, and we would just look forward to it every night. We went through all five seasons

and it was just absolutely delightful. And I was like, I can't believe I didn't know about this show. And I was raving about it on the podcast and I couldn't believe it when you reached out to me because of course I'd wanna talk to you. You're my guy. Well, the love is mutual, obviously. Me reaching out to you is because I was like super fan.

I just love the way you have conversations, the way you engage your guests. And I always, even though I'm on this show, I don't have this Hollywood mentality yet. And I hope to never get that Hollywood mentality. So I'm always like, hey, you're really cool. Do you think I'm cool too? I feel like a seventh grader all the time.

I do too, it's funny. Yeah, it is. And I'll never forget Jaya, our youngest who you met, who's a huge fan of you and the show. I was like, Jaya, Karamo DM'd me. He wants to come on the show. And she just looked at me confused. She's like, what could he possibly

wanna talk to you about? Jaya, your dad is cool. Your dad is really cool. Yeah, you're doing me a solid in the eyes of my daughter being here. Awesome. Is Jai the one that helped direct me? No, that was Mathis.

Jai is the one with the reddish color. Yes, reddish color. Yeah, she's 13. Nice. Anyway, happy to be here today with you. Same. And I wanna kind of unpack the show and your personal story,

but in thinking about how to approach this with you, I was thinking about like what makes Queer Eye so magical? And I think what it is in my mind at least, and I'm interested in what you think, to me it's like this antidote to our very kind of acrimonious divided culture at the moment, because it's so infused with hope and love and compassion and understanding.

It's devoid of all the judgment that seems to be the touchstone of all other forms of media that are popular or that we're consuming right now. And I can only presume that that was very intentional from the get-go. Yeah, it was. I have told this once before that one of the reasons I believe that the five of us got the job

is because when they got down to the final casting where they brought like 60 to 70 guys in to like do chemistry tests to see which five. So people are different categories and they just start putting you together. One of the things where within the first hour, myself, Bobby and Tan connected, then it was Antony within an hour and a half. And then Jonathan within two hours was because they would take you in this room and they

would ask you questions and people will come out and say, what did they ask you? And we were the only five that were willing to tell what was being asked in the room. Other people were, you know, were like, I'm not telling you, you're my competition. But we just didn't feel like, we were thinking to ourselves, well, I was personally and now talking to the guys. And I still get these little goosebumps. We were thinking, well, if the show is to make people better, the best people should get it. But you should be wanting to make people better, the best people should get it, but you should be wanting to make people better. And if you can't do it in a casting, then how are you authentically going to do it out here?

Because, you know, like every round someone would get cut and you never know who's going to be. So if I'm getting cut and I could have maybe helped you a little bit along your way, then, you know, why not? And the casting director said it was so apparent because they were listening in on everything that we would come out and we would be like, yeah, here's what happened. Oh, here's some advice for you. Here's how you could do it.

And I think that was part of, on top of the chemistry, on top of all of us being great at what we do, I think it was them seeing like, these people actually are living this idea of not dividing, not judging, not hurting others. Like they really just wanna help because they're doing it in the casting. The universe is abundant.

Yeah. As opposed to a zero sum game situation. Completely. And the casting was like a year and a half for this show, right? Some crazy long period of time. Yeah, for some, my casting was only two weeks. So I had actually, Jonathan had been in for a year and a half

I think Tan had been in for a year and a half. I came in two weeks before they were doing that chemistry test. I found out about the show through watching, watch what happens live with Andy Cohen, Carson Kressley, who's in the original cast, was on. And he was saying they were rebooting the show. And I called my agent.

And my agent got on this, told me, no, you already have a job because I was filming a show for MTV. Said, we're not going to put you up for it. And I got off that phone and I was like, I'm not accepting this now. This is not a no that I'm okay with. And I called him back and kept saying, we need to keep working. We need to figure this out. And not in an egotistical or mean way.

It was just like, sometimes you have to follow and trust your instincts. And I think that the universe will, or people in your circles will sometimes make you doubt what you know to be true. And I knew that whether I got the show or not, I needed to be exposed to this opportunity and to these people. And I kept saying, you got to, you got to for a week. And finally, my agent found someone who he knew in casting from a long time ago.

And they were like, we'll give him 10 minutes on, this is before Zoom. I almost said Zoom, Skype. And we're like, we can Skype him and see if he's even worthy to come to the chemistry test. Wow, and it, cause it had already been going on for so long. Already been going on. Late into the game.

Yeah, and they said after the 10 minutes, they were like, we'll bring you in. Wow. And I asked why was it? And they were like, well, you were the first person who talked about the culture category from a mental health standpoint. Everyone else was artists, musicians, playwrights.

You were the first one that said mental health need to be the component of the show that was missing. And they were like, we were interested and curious of what you wanna do with it. And obviously it worked. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It worked. That term culture though, is a legacy of the original show. And I think I said in the other podcast, I was Yeah, yeah, yeah. It worked. That term culture though

is a legacy of the original show. And I think I said in the other podcast, I was like, I'm confused. Like, cause it's not like, what you do is so much broader. Culture just seems a misnomer to characterize your function on the program. Yeah, I agree with you.

And it was a struggle for me season one because people, especially season one, people would be like, we don't know what he does because it was the show was being established so it was like he's having long conversations what what is his thing especially when you have people who do physical attributes like you see a home you see someone's hair you see what's on their plate you see their fashion you know having a long conversation people were like i don't get it you know um and when you don't have a title that clearly helps people understand that he's working on the mental and emotional state, it was hard. But I had to release my ego and say, if people don't get what I'm doing, as long as the person we're helping, that's all that matters.

And people finally figured it out. They're like, oh, he's the guy. And I think it's because of the crying. Like every time I'd get on a screen, the person would start crying. They're like, okay, we can, oh, we understand what's going on here. Yeah, and so.

Well, I'm crying. My family's crying. We're all crying. You know, it's like, oh my God, who knew this was gonna be such an emotional journey? Week in, week out, like you just crush it. Like there's no like missteps. Was there ever an episode where you spent a week with somebody and you're like, this isn't working? You just crush it. Like there's no like missteps.

Was there ever an episode where you spent a week with somebody and you're like, this isn't working? Yeah, twice. I always joke to people, if you go back and watch the episodes, if Jonathan doesn't twirl out the room, you can tell, cause he's probably the one that's gonna always share

through his body language, what we're all feeling collectively. If he doesn't twirl out of a room, it most likely means that we were just ready to go. So you've been like two days in and just pull up the stakes and like, we're done with this, it's not happening. There's two people for sure that I know. And it pisses me off if I can be very honest with you.

Like when I think back about those people, so I keep up with all of the individuals we've ever helped, especially with my role of- Yeah, that was a big question that I had. Yeah, I think it's important. You can't, I don't think it's healthy to open people up and not give them an opportunity to still do, to speak to you, to talk about whatever you talk

to them about, give them that sort of aftercare. And the show does provide aftercare as well. So it's not all on me. Oh, that's good to know. Yeah, so we make sure that they're good, but there are some individuals that, the two that I'm thinking of that made me so mad because we have so many people who apply

and who would love this opportunity. And when you get someone who slipped through the cracks somehow and then comes here and doesn't take full advantage of five experts in their field, take advantage of a crew of 70 people, take advantage of all this exposure that you could get afterwards. And they're just like, eh, I don't,

you know, it just upsets me. And like, you know, it's a few things really, really upset me, but that's one of the ones. Yeah, well, they're, I mean, they're not ready. I mean, that's a fear response, isn't it? Oh, completely a fear response, but you know what the show is. So who doesn't want Bobby to come in

and like completely redo their house like by snapping his fingers. Well, that's the thing. And what we realize and they've, our casting department is great. They've started to get savvy on that. Is it just because they want the free house makeover? Right. And I think that's the key

where these two individuals were like, yeah, come and do my house. And they played the game with the other categories. But now we're, that's like the last thing that they find out that they might get. Yeah. Well, all of you guys could be experts in your respective fields,

but the chemistry that you guys have together is clearly the gold. I mean, it's unbelievable the way that you guys have together is clearly the gold. I mean, it's unbelievable the way that you guys gel together. So taking it back to that casting experience, was the casting director like, okay, you go in and you do your audition and then you come out and then they're watching

like how everybody's interacting with each other? Cause that's key. Like if you don't have that, the show is not gonna work. Yeah, they were watching both inside the room and outside the room to see. And like I said, it took us an hour and a half on the first day for the five of us to come together. And the ironic part is the five of us didn't know if we were competing against each other, if we were in the same category now. So we were hanging and didn't know because it wasn't until the second day that they gave everyone stickers that said like your culture, your food. So I didn't know what category anyone could be in.

And they didn't know what category I was in. And I think that helped that we organically found each other. We awesomely were not in the same category. We were also diverse. And it was like sort of like I think things just work out the way that they need to because you know and then once we got into the room they would bring other people in and you would you know eventually it just was the five of us in there right and then they had this other um another five five squad who was i guess their other choice which were all phenomenal people

um but i still remember on that last night, I was like, they were like, well, we'll tell which one of you groups are gonna make it. I looked at the other group and I was like, you are great, but I'm sorry, you're not getting this. I was like, sorry, you're not getting this at all. Poor guys. I still keep up with them.

They're all good now. It's gotta be a little disorienting with the success of the show though. I mean, you guys just got Emmy nomination. It's like a cultural phenomenon. Yeah, it's humbling. I mean, you've been on TV for a while doing all kinds of different stuff,

but nothing at this scale. No, no, no. Yeah, after college, I did the real world and then stopped doing anything because I went on my journey of sobriety and take care of my kids and then came back out here to establish a real career in television. So for four years, I was doing like digital shows for the Oprah Winfrey Network.

I worked at HuffPost Live and things of that nature. And so this was my real first job ever, even though those were all jobs. And it is overwhelming and it's humbling because, again, I promise you if you meet any of us, none of us have gotten that celebrity bug. You know how you meet people in this town and you're just like, you're like, come on now. Like you're still a human being. I know how you put on your pants.

I know how you brush your teeth. Like, well, let's treat each other as if we're all the same just because we have a little bit more money, if you have a little bit more success, we have to remember those things are fleeting. And the five of us remember that. And so luckily we have each other to ground each other, which is nice.

That's beautiful. I mean, that's literally just walking the talk of the show. You know what I mean? We try. Yeah, well, you've done the work, you know? I mean, your background is pretty extraordinary in the obstacles that you've had to face and overcome to get to this place.

So let's like take it back there for a minute. Sure. Growing up in the South. Yeah. Growing up in the South, immigrant parents. Texas and Florida, right? Texas and Florida. My parents are Jamaican and Cuban.

So, you know, being a little gay black boy to immigrant parents growing up in Texas and Florida had its moments. Let's say, you know, the least, you know, you could feel the you could feel you could see the racism, the homophobia. And I was just the direct target because one of the things that I always say, my father would always he he had this map, like old school map, like not MapQuest or Waze. And he would go through it and he would basically redline the school districts and see what apartment complex we could live in so that we could go to the school that was best funded. And unfortunately, the way our system is worked out, mostly the best funded schools are in predominantly white neighborhoods. And so I was always that one apartment complex that was right on the outskirt of these $1 million, $2 million, $3 million homes. And then I walked into the school and I'm one of three African-Americans or one of five children of color, one of two kids who had immigrant parents. children of color, one of two kids who had immigrant parents. I was the only one in high school that had decided to let people into their life about my sexuality. So it caused this extreme

conflict consistently. It was like my existence was always in conflict with where I was. And as a child, you don't understand why your life is conflict and why you are the reason for conflict. And as I got older, I started to realize that this was the biggest blessing, all these different identities and managing them because now I use those conflicts as tools to help other people navigate their own.

I use those conflicts to be more empathetic, to like understand where people are coming from versus it could have made the opposite of me being like. Victim. Yeah. F the world. Well, your dad's intention feels like it came from a good place. Like he's trying to find the best school, the best school district and all of that. It's like a by-product of that is everything that you had to go through and suffer. Yeah, and as dads, I appreciate it. So I don't talk about that in the bad thing. The one thing I do talk about

and the reason I bring that story out specifically is because that's still the problem today. We have an underfunded education system and it only gets worse as you get into low-income neighborhoods. And I think sometimes we have to really take a look and say, what is wrong with us as a society when kids are not our priority?

That's the biggest thing for me. Like when we saw with the gun violence, cause you know, that was my high school, Marjory Stoneman Douglas, where the high school students were- Yeah, Parkland. I always think if those kids dying can't get us to get some comprehensive gun legislation,

if kids not being able to eat in school and passing out can't get us to start feeding kids. If like, what, who are we as society? If we won't even take care of our children. Like, and that's one of the thing that blows my mind. And I'm sure as you, as well as a parent, it's like, there's no way one of your kids friends would come in here and say, I'm hungry, or I don't have a book to read. And you'd be like, sorry, go home.

You would feed them and give them a book. And, you know, it just blows my mind. Yeah, was your high school the same high schools? I mean, was it a different high school? No, the same high school. Marjorie Selman Douglas. Yeah, that was my high school. And you went back and visited after this happened?

Yeah, I did. And I started working with the school because a lot of the kids were going through trauma. And so they called on alumni. But the thing for me about that incident, which a lot of the kids were going through trauma and so they called on alumni but the thing for me about that incident which a lot of people don't know is that one of the teachers he was protecting the students and he got killed was actually my high school we went to high school together we graduated the same time and so when I watched it on the news not only was I like feeling this anxiety of being a father with my kids going to school, also watching my high school be shot up and the kids and, you know, seeing their fear and hitting home there.

But then a day later to see someone I actually graduated from. And I remember when he sent the Facebook message to say he was going back there to teach, you know, and now dead. Like, it made me feel like I was 16 again, because I'm like, ah, too close to home. But you know. Wow. And with conflicting emotions probably about that time in your life and that experience.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, so. When did, you know, the sexual identity aspect of growing up, you know, come to identity aspect of growing up, you know, come to be a thing. I mean, you can't, you sort of came to terms with that around 16 or so. 15. 15. Yeah, it came across very quickly.

I mean, you know, Zach Morris on Saved by the Bell helped that a lot, you know, I kind of figured it out very quickly, like, oh, I like boys. And so I think the journey to accepting and love myself was a difficult one because my father was Jamaican, is Jamaican. And the music and the culture previously, they've gotten a lot better, subscribed to a lot of homophobic ways. And so there was a song called Boom Bye Bye by an artist called Boozhoo Bantan. And the song went like this,

Boom Bye Bye in a Batibuay, which means homosexuals head. You're not supposed to promote these nasty men, you have to kill them dead. And that song would be playing at family functions consistently. And it had a great beat and people are dancing to it. And the whole song is about killing any gay men on site that are, and this was like number one on the radio.

And number like 10 on the radio here in the States. So I want you to imagine a popular song that's promoting killing gay men. And I'm five, seven, eight, nine, and these songs are playing. And so it made me feel fearful for my own life. It made me feel, unsure about the love that my parents really have. Because if you could sing that song, unknowing that I was gay, then do you really love me?

Once I say this to you, are you gonna try to kill me? Those are the type of things you play in your head. That's horrible, man. Yeah. Yeah. But I think about that, we still haven't gotten to a place with some rap, pop, some rock lyrics, they still promote this

and people don't realize that you saying no homo has a connotation to someone who could be, who identifies part of the LGBTQ community and who's having self-esteem issues. And every time you say no homo has a connotation to someone who could be who identifies part of the lgbtq community and who's having self-esteem issues and every time you say no homo how does that affect their self-esteem because you're saying that if i do something no homo means it's not yeah it's bad so like i'm not bad that's bad i'm not bad and so i think it's just about being clear about what are you subscribing to and like really watching your language because language has power of how it affects people's moods, self-esteem, growth, everything. Yeah.

Wow, that's heavy. And where are you at with your dad these days? We have a like, you're good, I'm good. Like, hey, you you know you stay there i try the problem is is that even my father's 70 now um i've we had many years that we didn't talk at all um but then like as i got older i did try to reach out and he just could not he just still to this day cannot reconcile his religion with his relationship with his son and i think that's a problem when you can't reconcile your religion with your relationships with his son. And I think that's a problem. When you can't reconcile your religion

with your relationships, then there's an issue there. Because for me, the religion is teaching you to have healthy relationships through love, but somehow the Bible is then teaching a different version of what could be coming out of other people's mouth or what's supposed to be. And so he's just never been able to reconcile it. And so I had to come to the place and say, you know what?

Since you can't reconcile that decision, I have to make a decision for myself. I have to love me more than I love you. I have to trust me more than I trust you. I have to be there for myself more than you could ever be there for me. And then that was sort of the first step in taking away the pressure of feeling like

I have to have this relationship with my father just because he has a title father. Right, right, that's the thing. I mean, I feel like most people have some version of issues with their parents and it's the rare case that somebody can really process it and heal from it and get to the other side of it where they're not carrying around this burdensome,

you know, resentment and anger and, you know, constantly looking in the rear view mirror, like analyzing what that experience was like. Like that takes a lot of work and most people just compartmentalize it and move on. Well, one of the things that I used to tell myself and I try to help, especially when I worked in social services,

I would tell kids as sort of something that to springboard them to a happier, healthier life is that whatever situation happened didn't happen to you. It happened for you. And I think that language right there, it didn't happen to me. It happened for me. It's such a beautiful way of helping you to understand that, yes, you had an experience that was traumatic. But what could you learn from this experience? How can you grow? How can you be healthier?

How can you be the best version of yourself? How can you start to heal? Because when you say, it happened to me, you live in this place of letting the trauma overtake you. It's always like, this happened to me. I wasn't good enough. I wasn't strong enough to handle this. What did I do to make this, allow this to happen? Why wasn't I loved enough? You start to do all these whys instead of saying, this happened for me so that I could understand that I could be stronger,

that I could love myself. And so when I think about the relationship that I have with my father and uncles who couldn't reconcile their religion with their relationship with me because of my sexuality, I say, you know what? That happened for me so that I could be here today, stronger, loving myself more versus it happened to me. Yeah. It's, it's easier to be on the other side of it though. And look at it that way. Like, like, like intellectually. Yeah, of course. But when you're in it, you're, when you're mired in it, it's very hard to like, see your way through and to really grab onto that. Oh, a hundred percent. That's why I think that they should teach meditation. I think one of the things that I think

that they should have not taken out of school was quiet time. I think, you know, they got it right in kindergarten and pre-K when you have quiet time, because what would happen is that it would allow all the kids to settle their nerves, to take a moment to reflect, to recharge. And I think we get into this as a culture, a society,

it's like you have to go, go, go, go, go. And you don't look at social media, everything, and people don't slow down. And I think that if we had an opportunity for people to take a step back, especially in traumatic moments, through an organized, you know, through school where they're like, let's stop.

So you can process what's going on. I think it would allow people to then get to that intellectual place at a younger age versus being older because no one allowed me to stop. So I felt like I had to continue to run. I felt like I continue had to fight because of the fact that I was like, if I stop, they win. When actually, if I would have stopped sooner, I would have healed quicker. I would have won because I would have had more understanding that this is your shit. This is not my shit. You know what I mean?

So that's, I talk about education a lot in kids. Yeah, well, I mean, there's so many things, you know, we're both parents. I mean, there's so many things that I wish we could change about the educational system. And right now in the midst of this pandemic, when everyone's at home and on Zoom, I mean, prior to this, the incidents of mental health issues among teens was extraordinary.

Now it's spiking like crazy, depression, anxiety, stress, all the like, and there's no kind of institutional programming around well-being in the educational system, whether it's private or public. Like my great desire, and I'll be projecting my own experience, but I want my children, my daughters to emerge from their educations

feeling a sense of empowerment and self-esteem and agency over their lives and a feeling of capability that they can manage the world. Like all of these life skills that are so much more important than memorization or, you know, whatever's being tested this week. Agreed. We just completely turn a blind eye to this fundamental aspect of, you know, how to live successfully and be happy and productive and fulfilled. Yeah. And I think that's part of the reason why, you know, as American culture,

like we are not number one anymore, you know what I mean? Because we are missing such a key fundamental piece here of like, people need education, they do need the memorization, they need to go those things, but that's 25% of what has made me successful in my life. You know, like the skills I learned in school, obviously, yes, I have them, but it's through the life experiences and it's through, like you just said, having agency over myself and over my emotions and being able to communicate and being able to take care of my mental health

and being able to do all these things that schools don't talk about, the life skills, you know? It's like the fulfillment you get from balancing a checkbook or knowing your credit's good. Like, no, people just need it. Like little things, I think that we've missed the boat on that. And I think that we need to get back to a place where we start to evaluate how we're really grooming

our generations to succeed. And right now, I think we're grooming them not in the best way. Like they, luckily some of our kids have us at home where we're like, no, we want you to be empowered. We want you to use your voice. We want you to understand how the world really works. But there's other kids who feel like if I don't get an A here, then I'm not worthy. And that's not, I don't think that's healthy. Yeah, I don't think so either. Yeah. As you're talking, I'm thinking about, you know,

the many times throughout the show, there's always the situation where you go on a walk or you're driving in a car with, you know, this week's person. Yeah. And the heart to heart is happy. It's coming, you happy, it's coming, you know it's coming. And you have this unbelievable facility for not just being able to kind of extract out the most important aspects of what's dysfunctional

about this person and how to help them see their way forward, but an extraordinary ability to communicate it in a very clear and digestible way. Like it's very concise and it's done with compassion and without judgment. So the person is able to really kind of take it in. And I would imagine for a lot of people who, you know,

the millions of people that are tuning into this show, like most of them maybe are, have never had any experience with therapy or mental health. Like you're their first introduction to some of these ideas that have been certainly life-changing in your own life and for all the people that you touch. Yeah, it is and it's pretty amazing to think

that I am their first introduction. And I take that responsibility very serious. And also the rest of the guys, we all take that responsibility because even though that's my main focus, you know, one of the things I do love about the rest of the guys, we all take that responsibility because even though that's my main focus, you know, one of the things that I do love about the rest of the cast, especially Jonathan, he and I connect deep on this is that we both are very much about like mental health and like the awareness. And we do understand that there's a lot of people who are in countries because we're, you know, it's Netflix. So we're global now. Like, you know, I've traveled now.

I was last year, my family, we were blessed enough to go to Bali for two weeks. And we're in this jungle. And this kid and his mom went up, and they're like, where are you? And I'm like, this is amazing. You can't, like, you just can't, you know what I mean? And they're just asking for a hug. And I'm thinking, like, I'm in the middle of Bali in the jungle. And this kid

knows me because of this show and what he knows about me is that you're supposed to check in with yourself and you're supposed to love yourself and you're supposed to and I was like that just blew my mind but um so I take the responsibility it's you know very it's very important to me I love it um because I hopefully we're giving people and hopefully I'm giving people ways of really checking in with themselves that are not so much over their head. I think a lot of times these concepts can go over people's heads.

So I always try to like break it down, not because I think people need things to be dumbed down to them, but sometimes in our busy lives, you just need something that you're like, oh, I can grab this. Here's the one thing that I can do. Yeah, I can do this.

Not something that's so big that you're like, I can't, it's gonna consume me. Just do this one thing that I can do. Yeah, I can do this. You know, like not something that's so big that you're like, I can't, it's gonna consume me. Just do this one thing. Here you go, let's start with this. Yeah, well, as they say in the secret halls of recovery, you can't transmit something you haven't got, right? Yeah, man. And that goes back to what you were saying earlier about,

you know, is this happening to you or is it happening for you? Like when you can imbue that idea that it back to what you were saying earlier about, you know, is this happening to you or is it happening for you? Like when you can imbue that idea that it's happening for you and avail yourself of the opportunity to, you know, really like bear hug it and use it as a modality to heal, as opposed to become a victim, you can emerge stronger from that.

And, you know, you've only shared a few of the many things that you've had to do. I mean, you had like, you found out you had a son when you were in your early 20s. He's like almost your age. It is funny. We were in the car literally three days ago and he was like, just sitting there randomly.

He was like, when you're 65, I'll be 50. And I was like, yeah. And he was like, no one's gonna think you're my dad. And I was like, I mean, you know, it happens now. People think we're brothers. You know what I mean? But yeah, the one girl that I had, she was my best friend. We lost our virginity to each other.

It's, you know, it was also the catalyst for me to start letting people into my life in regards to my sexuality. It was like, okay, I know this is not for me. And so it was one of those things where I was like, okay, I know this is not for me. And so it was one of those things where I was like, yeah, I guess this is it. And then she moved away, you know, I'm 40. And so people who are younger might not get this, but if you didn't have someone's address or home phone, you weren't.

That was it. That was it. And so once she moved, it was done. And then years later, there's that stack of papers on my doorstep for back child support. You didn't know that she got pregnant. She moved away? She moved away way.

Yeah, it was, she got pregnant in, if I do the math back, I guess it was like May. And then we were out of school by June. So we went on summer break and then she moved during summer break. So that was it. Yeah, that was it. So your son was 10 when you were informed, right?

Yeah, 10 years old. And it was like, what in the world? And at this point I had been going through, I mean, it was like party LA Central, you know? I just got off the real world. I'm done with college. The real world back then, it was like, if you were on reality television,

I don't know if it's same now, but back then it was like, you would do these club tours and you would go to tours and they would pay you $20,000 to party when I would have partied for free. And so it's like, I'm 23, partying, doing all these things. They're giving you drugs. They're just, you know, taking care of you. And I just got really unhealthy, really depressed.

And it was because I didn't really focus on the trauma from my past. You know, I wasn't looking at what was making me feel like this behavior was okay. Why was it okay for me to destroy myself? Why was it okay? Why was I so okay with hurting me? And so as my son, I found the paperwork. It was at the same time when I was finally starting to heal and saying, you know what? Enough is enough. I don't want to hurt me anymore. You know, the world does enough of hurting me. I don't want to hurt me anymore. And so I started to heal, get help for my addictions. And then now it was like this kid

and it was the perfect thing. I tell people all the time, he saved my life because I don't know what would have happened if I would have found out at 16 that I was a father. I don't know if I'd be sitting here right now. I don't know. And I don't like to speculate, but I do know that at that moment,

I needed something ground, life-changing to step in and like really make me commit to who I wanted to be and to stop hurting myself. Yeah, the universe delivered. Delivered, right, on my doorstep. Timing was perfect. Yeah, on my doorstep. And so I moved back to Texas to get custody of him.

It was a crazy moment. I then got custody of his little brother, same mother, different fathers, because he was having some troubles with the state. And because of my work in social services, I was like, I can take him for temporary. And temporary turned into, he's 20 now. He was eight at the time. who, you know, he's 20 now, he was eight at the time. And so it, but it helped me to understand like, oh, you can be better now than for yourself, but for them. So you're like 26, 27, and you're like, I'm adopting, I got a son and I'm adopting this other kid. And now I'm a single dad of two, leaving LA and my fancy TV, real world life, and moving back to Texas.

It wasn't that fancy. It wasn't that fancy. Fancy for most people, 20 grand to go party. That sounds like pretty good. But then this is the funny part. I would get 20 grand to go party. And then maybe three days later, I'd be like, how's my phone bill getting turned off? And I was realizing because you're 23 and you don't know how to manage $20,000.

So it was like, hey, everybody get in the, you know, we're all, I'm buying a trip. We're all going. And then, oh, you want those shoes? Sure, get those shoes. We're all doing it. And then you're like, oh, because I didn't know, you know. So did you just like get struck sober or did you go to like 12 step or treatment

or how did you do that? I did not. I did it on my own, which I regret. I wish that I would have had someone to guide me, but my family, especially in African-American cultures and immigrant cultures, therapy, addiction recovery is not something that they're educated on. And a lot of times, and I'm not trying to generalize,

but from my experience, the community that I was in of African-American people or immigrants just did not know about therapy, did not know about rehab, didn't have the money or the resources. And so it was sort of like this thing of like, pray on it, you know, like, or just not. But you studied this stuff in college, right? Like you were a therapist and a social worker. Like you must've had some. Let me tell you something. This is the thing. It's funny. Chris and I, there's a guy here named Chris that I'm dating. He might or might not be sitting right behind you. Right behind me. Yeah.

Hi. But we were just having this conversation because it's like sometimes I'm great at helping every other person. But you don't understand how fast that training goes out of my mind. There it is. When it comes to me. There it is. It me. It just goes. And anybody who tells you like, oh no, I've been trained and I know how to just do... This is why doctors don't perform on themselves or why lawyers don't represent themselves in court because

you sometimes don't advocate for yourself in the way you need to. And yes, I had the knowledge. And I always look back and I'm like, if somebody would have been in front of me, I would have known exactly what to say to them. But when it's you, I was like, I don't know what to do here. Like, oh, I'm screwed. And so the knowledge helps to some degree once I got to a place where I was kind of better. But for the most part, it didn't help at all, you know, because I was like, I was in such a destructive path. You know what I mean?

Like, I just could not get out of my own way. I was so complacent with hurting me. And I don't mean physically hurting me, but I just realized that every choice I made was always going to lead me to something that put me in a situation that I was uncomfortable with. It put me in relationships that I shouldn't have been in, both friendships and intimate.

Every decision I was making was about hurting me and it was never conscious. It was like, and it wasn't until I got a little bit more sober decision I was making was about hurting me and it was never conscious. It was like, and it wasn't until I got a little bit more sober that I was able to evaluate that, to understand how the drugs and alcohol were triggering that, what trauma I was experiencing. You know, it was a lot of that what, why, how that I went through.

But at some point you must have enlisted other people to help guide you through that process. You weren't all doing this in your head, were you? Kind of. Wow. I wish that I could, you know, because I have one sister, her name is Camelia. She and I are the closest out of my sisters.

She was the only one that was like, come here, but she didn't have the language. So she was, she is a doctor at pharmacy. And so she kind of understood the drugs I was taking. And she would be like, she would come to me and these are things that I already kind of knew. Let me guess like cocaine for sure. Loved cocaine.

That would be an understatement. I'm not promoting this to anybody watching. Ecstasy, MDMA. Ecstasy, coke, weed. I never did like any heroin crack or anything like that. But it was a lot of like pills, XC anything and then the liquor. And then some nights it'd be all of them because you know, you'd get to the party at 10 or 11

and someone you'd start off with cocaine. And then by one, someone gives you a pill. And then by, you know, you're drinking through that and then you get more Coke and then you get more pills. And so she was there to say, hey, this is how your body chemistry is reacting to these drugs, which was also kind of nice for me to hear

because it was like, okay, now I'm seeing how it's like playing into my depression, my anxiety. And that also made me realize like, I don't have to be depressed. I don't have to be anxious. I can relieve this substance and then do more work and relieve myself of some of

these feelings. And so that was nice. She was the only one kind of- That's an interesting level of self-awareness and maturity for somebody who's kind of doing it internally, right? Like not doing it in a structured modality. But I suppose, you know, God's like, dude, you're like way off the reservation i'm gonna throw these these two kids at you exactly and you need to pay attention like if this doesn't get your attention i don't know what to do well that's what it was that's why i say the kids sent me a lot because i was like if i can't pay attention to myself then how am i going to pay attention to them and i'm like you then just pass on these, you know, these trauma bonds and these generational wounds.

And like, and instead of like saying, hey, before you have a kid, you should, you actually need to get a license to heal yourself a bit. You know what I mean? And we're always a work in progress. But I just think it's interesting that as adults, we end up trying to heal ourselves while we're trying to raise somebody else. And then they're now adults. And then now the light bulbs click because we're in our 30s or 40s. And we're like, oh crap. I should have said this to you when you were 10.

I mean, I've done so much work to grow from the person that I was into the person that I am now, but it is remarkable the extent to which I continue to repeat these habitual patterns that are reflective of things that my parents did. I mean, I think so many of us, we parent in opposition to the way that we're parented. Like we have some wound and we're like,

I'm never gonna be like that with my kid, but we kind of go too far in the other direction. And I found myself nonetheless, despite adopting that mentality, perpetuating something that I didn't like about the way that I was parented because it's so hardwired into me. So hardwired.

And the only way that I can become, that I'm made aware of it is for example, if Julie reflects it back to me, or I do therapy with a group of guys and I'll share something and they'll be like, you're doing it again. I was like, really, how am I? I still can't see it.

And so these kids become your gurus, right? Because they reflect back to you, your wounding and your pain and your patterns and what it is that you need to work on. That seems to be a reservoir that you never get to the bottom of. Yeah, but if you're defensive when they're mirroring it back,

then that's where you start to pass on that trauma and those wounds because then they start to pick it up. Because once you're defensive, they're like, well, okay, dad doesn't want to hear this. Mom doesn't want to hear this. And then they start to pick up the same behavior unconsciously. You know, I was talking, I read some the other day, which I thought was just really great that I want to share is how, you know, those of us who were kids and experienced trauma or were teenagers or young adults and experienced addiction or trauma, you have learned how to turn red flags green. And I thought that was so great. When you're in this space of dealing with your trauma,

there's a red flag that pops up when you're dealing with your kids or dealing with life, where you know that something is not right here, but you've turned that red flag into a green flag and given yourself permission to go. And I think that if we can start to learn how to stop turning these red flags into green flags and teaching our kids how to stop turning red flags into green flags, it helps them to find the courage and the strength to be able to say,

this behavior is not okay. And I'm not going to go along with it. I'm not going to repeat it. I'm not going to do any of the things that I've been taught to do because I can see the red flag. And I think that visual of, like, someone taking a red flag, you know, like, woo-hoo, don't go here. And being like, let me paint this green. I'm going to go now. This is safe.

I think it's just such a great visual for us to hold on to. Don't go here and being like, let me paint this green. I'm going to go now. This is safe. I think it's just such a great visual for us to hold on to as we're told, you know, as someone reflects back to us something that we're doing where we can say, oh, you reflected it back. Great. Let's all remember this is a red flag. None of us turn this green. None of us. You don't do it. You don't do it in a relationship. And if you feel like you're about to, tell everyone in your circle what red flags there is.

You know, instead of like being in a relationship and then being like, oh, I gotta find out two years later, all the red flags, when be a little bit more honest and vulnerable about it. Right, right. Yeah, I mean, the, you know, early days of any relationship, you know, is basically like a grand play in pretend. We're all pretending. This person we think that they wanna be with

and takes time before the cracks start showing. But can you imagine if we got to a space where we could just give those red flags at the beginning? Right. And then how you could start to heal yourself and heal your relationship so much quicker. I just think that's just a beautiful, I mean, it's a little lofty and like probably won't happen,

but it's great that I'm trying to, I wanna learn how to practice that more. Yeah, it's hard. I'm such a pathological people pleaser. And it's like, I mean, even today, it's like Karama's coming over here. Like I want Karama to like me. You know what I mean?

Like I am very invested in that. So you're a seventh grader too. It's like the same thing, we're both here. And I'm like, well, what is that about? Like, so for me, it's still this struggle of trying to detach from that aspect of my personality, which I accept, but I'm always, you know, trying to overcome on some level,

which is a close cousin to, you know to external validation and the role that that plays. It's like doing a podcast, lots of people are gonna listen to it. I like the fact that, you know what I mean? Like what aspect of that is fine and what aspect of that becomes unhealthy and moves you further apart from the truth that you're trying to get at in these conversations.

Yeah, I think for me, anytime I'm in those spaces, I gotta think to myself, am I doing this because I know that I'm enough or am I doing this because I don't believe I'm enough and so that validation is more important to me. And I think just practicing that awareness that I am enough, I am okay, sort of is the fine line for me of like remembering

that it's, yes, I might still have some of that people pleasing in me. But the more you can realize that you're enough so you don't have to please other people. You're enough so even if the validation comes or it doesn't come, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. Because you're enough. And I think that's the practice. That's the daily reminder for yourself. That's what you have to be, to, you know, to hug on to and, you know, hook into. Because when you start to believe that, it seems very like, woohoo, but it's at the truth of the core of like, I don't have to please you because I'm enough.

I don't have, you know, like, it's funny that you would say, like, you're thinking, like, am I going to like you when I'm the one who hit you up and told you that I loved you? You know what I mean? But it's something that we all play with in our minds, you know, and that narrative got put in your mind from someone in your childhood. You know, I don't want to go too deep with you, but someone in your past has said to you and made you feel at some point like you weren't enough. And so then you start to feel like if I make these actions and I do these things, then I'll be worthy. I'm good enough, I'm here. But then when you achieve those things,

of course it's not enough and you have to chase that like a dragon for the rest of your life. I mean, yeah, my upbringing was all, not that I had a, it's like this weird thing as I feel guilty talking about this. This is something I explored with Gabor Mate. He's like, your parents did the best they could. It's not about them being good or bad.

But I think that there was a conditional aspect to the love in that we love you more when you're excelling, right? Like it was a very education and achievement oriented household. And I got validation out of playing that game and succeeding at that game. And that gets cemented into my hard wiring that today

at 54, I'm still playing out that pattern in a very dysfunctional way. Yeah, I mean, what you just said there about the validation in that unhealthy way is I think something that most people experience in their homes. And it goes back to that conversation we had earlier about schools and sort of like what the life skills were not receiving because you come home, you get an A, everyone's cheering, they put it on the fridge. But when you say,

I found a passion that makes me happy that might not tell your parents you can make money, they don't react the same way. I also think about this. When I was raising my kids, I had this philosophy in my home that if you told me the truth, you would never get in trouble. And I think we do a disservice to children in the way that we're grooming them of when you tell your kids to be honest, but when they're honest, they get punished. What kind of backwards way of training and teaching someone? It's similar to like, you do good. So now you get what you, you're, you're, you're going to, you feel loved. It's like a backwards way that we really have to look at like the way that we're, we're, what we're teaching unconsciously and consciously to each other. And so for in my house, if my kids got in trouble and they told me the truth, they didn't

get punished. They got rewarded with a hug, with love, with more support, with quality time. And now we have a relationship, my kids don't lie to me anymore because now they don't fear coming and telling me the truth. And I broke this sort of cycle in my household. And I'm not saying there's other cycles that are not still getting perpetuated, but in my household, at, where my kids don't feel like they need to lie to get that validation externally because they know their truth is good enough. And, you know, it's one of those things where, again, if someone would have told you that, hey, make an F. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person. I'm still going to love you. I'm still going to celebrate you as a human being.

What would that have done for you, you know, like as a child? That would have been amazing for you? You know, like as a child, that would have been amazing for you. Yeah, but bridging that gap, like overcoming that patterning intellectually versus emotionally is a journey, right? Like you can say, look, if you tell me the truth, I'm not gonna get mad at you.

And then you're like, you're mad, but you're trying not to act mad because you know it's the wrong thing. That's very different from, you know, really coming with a genuine, authentic, you know, sense of compassion into that dynamic. Oh, completely. Well, that's where, like I said before,

the rewarding, understanding what the reward is gonna be, understanding what your intention. So the word reward for me is also synonymous with intention. So my intention here is through my actions to show you that I love you, to give you this reward of like, yes, I feel something inside. But externally, you're going to only be embraced by love. You're only going to be embraced by positivity. And it does take time.

You know, it does take effort. And this is where training does help me because as a parent it helped me to realize like this is not gonna be healthy If I do something opposite, but um, it does take time, but everyone can get there You know We forget that we all it takes for you to change your self-esteem or the way that you're living is To practice the same thing daily, you know that's all you have to do if you get up in the morning time you look in the mirror and you or the first thing you Do is you downplay yourself and say, oh look at how I look here. Look Oh, look at my hair. It's going down. You're practicing every day,

knocking your self-esteem down. If you practice in the morning time, coming in and saying to your kids, hey, are you ready for school? You know, whatever that first statement is, you're practicing like what is most important and what is most valuable to you versus coming in the room. Like I used to do this with my kids as well. I would come in the room in the morning time and before I would wake them up and say, we gotta get to work, I would give them a kiss and just be like, did you sleep well? And I would sit with them for like 10, 15 minutes

to understand that my value is not how fast you're gonna get ready for school. Not saying that's not a value, but that's not the top of my priority list. And I think that we can all learn how to practice what's our intention, what's our values more versus making these knee jerk reactions of I'm busy. What happens when you walk in the door?

Do you go straight to the TV? Do you go straight to your phone? Or do you take a moment to connect? And if you practice day by day doing that, then things get better. Yeah. What is the, what's the current blind spot with you? Like what's the thing that trips you up and-

With me? Causes the struggle. Yeah. Ooh. I mean, right now it's, I guess a lot of like, cause I'm out of one relationship that I was in for 10 years and- You were engaged for a long time, right? Yeah, we were engaged for a year and a half. And so it's a lot of like understanding,

like the things that I didn't even know were lurking underneath the surface that I guess I didn't heal from or like were bothering me and like how that can just come out in a second now and like being like, oh, I need to really go back through and like really evaluate what was happening

in this relationship and really being truthful with myself about like things and how they made me feel. And so I think that's the thing that's tripping me up right now of like, you know, you think that you have a handle on a relationship, but you realize that every relationship is different and every relationship needs to be evaluated differently and equally. And I think that's such an important thing because I got out of the relationship thinking, I'm fine, everything's good. We ended in a healthy place and then I was like,

oh no, I'm not fine, I'm not. There was things that were lurking underneath that weren't the big traumatic things but they were still there and like finding that balance. And even under the best circumstances, when you've been with somebody for a very long time and then suddenly you're not, if you think you're not dealing with some kind of, you know, latent emotional

issue, you're in complete denial, right? Completely. Yeah. Yeah. You know, and I say this, it's not regards to me, but I just want to give your listeners a thing. It's okay to tell people don't rush my healing. I think sometimes we feel as if like when we're grieving and we're going through something, whether it's like the actual physical death of someone, actually the end of a relationship, or even just grieving the financial security you thought you were going to have, whatever you're grieving. And especially in this COVID world, I think sometimes, you know, we put a timeline on other people's grief and other people's way of healing. And it's okay to tell people don't put a timeline on it.

Like I don't like or appreciate like when I hear friends saying, oh my gosh, you're still not over that guy. You know, it's like, just because you've gotten over it doesn't mean you can't, you can rush my healing. A better response is what are ways that I can support you? How can I get you the help you can get, you need so that you can feel like you can heal, so that you can go through this grieving process. But I think as a culture, we rush people's grieving too much. And I just wanna tell people that it's okay

to tell someone you don't rush my process of healing. Yeah, that's beautiful. I think that's super important. I think it's equally applicable to the people in your lives that you create expectations around where they should be with where you're at, like whether it's your dad and how he feels about how you're living your life.

Oh my gosh. We all hear the story of the newly sober, he's got 30 days and he's angry that no one's embracing him back into their lives after he's torched everyone for years. That's a different kind of healing. And you got to be patient with the people that you love that are in your circle. But allow them to have their own journey with whatever it is that you're undergoing.

Yeah, let them have their journey. I think, you know, that's some of the things. Like when I tell people, there's two things I want to say to that. Because the first is you got to let other people have that healing, that journey. And I think that's why I say it's so important for people to know that and to understand it. It's a dual thing. It's both sides. Because I always tell people when I let people into my life regarding my sexuality, I don't use the term coming out. I think it does. It gives the power to the wrong person. Yeah. Explain that a little bit. Well, when you say coming out, it gives the power to the other person to accept

or deny you. And the process that I actually did was let people in. And when you let someone in, you have the power to deny or love yourself, accept or deny yourself. And so it has nothing to do with you. It's about I'm letting you in. And if you don't want to be here with me, then that's fine because I still love me. So if you've done the work on yourself, I always think about it as your body is a temple. So if you're letting someone into your sexuality, into some part of your life,

if you open that front door and you say, come on in, and they say, I don't want to, if you've done the work on your home, you close that door and you walk in your own home and you feel comfortable and you feel loved. And so I think it gives the person back the power and the understanding to that. It's not about them accepting and denying you. It's about you loving yourself more. And also this whole antiquated idea of, like, coming out the closet. I don't know where the hell this closet is. And if there is a closet, I want to find it.

There better be a pot of gold in it for all the BS I've been through. Then I want to burn down this closet so nobody else has to come out of it. You know, like, it's all about letting people in. has to come out of it. You know, like it's all about letting people in. But when I was letting people in, I would say, I understand that in my mind, I have been dealing with and understanding and loving my sexuality and who I am for five years

before I let anyone know. So when I let certain people know, I realized they had to grieve an entire identity that they have constructed in their minds. And I'm not saying that it's my fault or that, you know, they have any blame or I have any blame, but you have to understand that if this is what I've known about you, and one day you say, nope, erase that. This is something different. Yes, you want them to get to a point where they can accept you and love you for who you are, but they have to have their time to grieve. And so I think you have to give people their time to heal. So like when I worked in social services and I worked

with kids, I would say, understand that it took you five years in your mind and talking to other little friends to get to where you are. It might take your mom or your sister or your cousin five years too. We all would love the beautiful stories that we see on TV where people just are like, I accept you and I love you right here off the spot. But most of the time when that happens, it's because that person had some type of inclination and they were already doing the healing on their own. Or they had a friend in their past that they were healing on their own and healing their biases and everything else. But you have to take that time to let other people heal as well. And so it's okay for a parent to say, I need a little time to grieve and to heal myself.

It doesn't mean I don't love you. I love you. I need a time to process and heal. But secondly, on what you were saying, when you were talking about the sobriety and like the guy who's like 30 day chip, I think there's something else that we do. And this is something I say all the time,

which is comparison is the thief of joy. When you compare yourself and your experiences to other people, you steal your own joy. And I think as a culture, we do that way too often. We look at people on Instagram and instead of thinking about what we have in our own lives and how beautiful the small and big things that we have, we end up comparing our bodies, our minds, our inner circles, you know, little trinkets that you have to what other people have. And you have to what other people have. And you have to stop doing that. If you have 30 days, don't compare yourself to what other people are, you know, what they're not doing.

They're not accepting you. Again, they're on their healing journey of healing, but just don't compare yourself to anything else. Just know it will happen in your own time. Don't steal your own joy focusing on something else. You can also steal that joy by comparing yourself to an idealized version of yourself or a past version of yourself. So you don't actually even need that other person. You don't need it. You can just start looking at your old ideal. I can do this all in my head. Oh my gosh.

That's such a great point because I have a girlfriend who right now is on a physical health journey where her body has changed after children. And she constantly, it's like, oh, my old body and I want that body. And I'm like, as just the human biology, none of our bodies will ever be the same as they were from day one.

And so you have to be okay and accept that your body where it is now is enough. And if you want to make, if you want to work out to be healthier, but you have to stop comparing yourself to that old body, like you said, because you're now stealing the joy of being like, there's something beautiful about whatever body you're in now. There's something great about it. And find what that is. Again, going back to practicing in the mirror, what is one thing on this new body that you can love about yourself

versus comparing yourself to an old body? Stop stealing your own joy by comparing yourself to others or your old version of yourself. I think it's so critical. I'm glad you added that piece. Yeah, and in addition to that, more broadly, like outside of the context of sharing some aspect of who you are and being attached

to how people are gonna receive that, the growth is in understanding that how people feel about you on some fundamental level really isn't your business. At all. And even if it was, you're unable to control that. Completely. And the extent to which human beings try to do that,

I think is really the engine of so much unhappiness. Like we're all trying to control our environments, position ourselves to be received in a certain way. And it's all this delusional attempt to manipulate the world so that it appears as we would like it to be. And the freedom only comes in the surrender to the idea that that is beyond our ability to control and to make peace with that,

to accept the fact that that's them, I'm me, I'm only in charge of myself, how I feel about myself, my actions, my reactions, my thoughts. Yeah. How did you get to that place where you got that freedom? I'm still working on it. You're still doing it. You know what I mean?

I mean, I got sober in 98 and spent a long time in a treatment center and very much steeped in the recovery community here in LA. And I do therapy and I have my wife who is, been instrumental in helping guide me through a lot of, you know, these pitfalls. She's pretty amazing, we met briefly. Yeah, identifying my shortcomings and, you know,

just being a, I don't mean that in a negative way, I mean that in a way of being able to see what I can't see and being able to communicate, hey, you might wanna look at this, like you're doing this thing, like maybe think about that or is there a better way to do that? Completely.

But you know, I'm the furthest from perfect and it's a strange situation, like in hosting this podcast and people will say like, how do you do this or how do you do that? I'm like, dude, like I'm trying to, why do you think I'm doing this? I'm trying to figure this out. We're figuring this out together.

I don't stand on any kind of pedestal in terms of knowing answers that other people don't. I grapple with this stuff mightily every single day. Yeah, I gotta tell you, I'm the same way. I'm the same way, but like I shared with you earlier, when it comes to myself, sometimes, of course I'm able to especially identify someone's trauma or triggers and help them to kind of navigate through that.

But I'm still learning constantly myself. We're all human beings. And I think that freedom of letting go is something that we all strive to. And I feel like I get closer on some days. And other days I'm like, damn, I missed the boat today. I just really missed it. But it's also forgiving myself. I'm big on that.

Like I once a day will say to myself, I forgive you. I literally would do it in the morning sometimes. I'll do it in the night. I'll just look at myself in the mirror and I'll be like, I forgive you. And it's my way of saying like, you know, you're human. You made that mistake today. But what are you going to do tomorrow? How are you going to make a better choice tomorrow?

And I think sometimes people are scared to make the better choice tomorrow because they haven't forgiven themselves for what they did yesterday. let me go and see if I can rebuild the bridge that I burnt with someone else by acknowledging through not being defensive what I've done. I try to start conversations really quickly with like, listen, I know what I did. Let me be very clear. We don't have to spend two hours of pretending.

I know what I did and I'm sorry. And I think forgiving myself first of the actions and then saying, will you forgive me? And allowing someone to be on their journey of saying, yes or no, I might need some time is okay. And I think that's how I get to that freedom as well. Yeah, by doing your own inventory and then leading with honesty, integrity, and vulnerability.

Like when you initiate those challenging conversations from a perspective of, let me just own up front, the integrity and vulnerability. Like when you initiate those challenging conversations from a perspective of, let me just own upfront, like my side of this equation that went sideways, you're in a much better situation in terms of being able to navigate to a healthy place. And it also takes down the defense. I'm telling anybody who's listening, they should try it.

Like if you're in a situation with somebody, we all know at our core, what role we played for the most part in the demise of relationships, intimate or personal or friendships. You know what you did. You might not want to acknowledge. You might not want to say it out loud.

You might not. But you know. I'm telling you, next time you're in a space with that person, just acknowledge it. Just say it. Just go for it. I'm telling you, it's going to create a healthier relationship like you can't even imagine. Just being like, it's just surrendering. It's like, I get it. I did it. I'm telling you it's going to create a healthier relationship like you can't even imagine. Just being like, it's just surrendering. It's like, I get it, I did it, I'm sorry.

Like, I'm not gonna defend it right now, I did it. You know, and we can have a conversation later about why I might have done it, but I'm not gonna defend it, I just did it, sorry. That's the mistake I think a lot of people make. Like they'll do that, but then there's always a butt, you know, or- They'll do the butt.

Just leave the butts out. Get rid of the butt, just yeah, like let it land without that is always much better. Well, I think what you, like your true gift is that you carry this vibration and you do it, you do it in a masculine body and you enter into these, you know, scenarios with these various individuals on the TV show, you help them, you know,

see their way through their own kind of mental and emotional hurdles. But in a broader sense, you're giving men permission to grapple with and confront their emotions in a culture in which, you know, we've come a long way, but let's face it, like there's still a long way to go in terms of getting the average dude to think about things like vulnerability and inventory and, you know,

loving oneself and even talking about their fears. Yeah, we, you know, I don't know where in our culture we went wrong. I don't know where, I don't know where in our culture we went wrong. I don't know where. I don't know when. But, like, this idea that men aren't vulnerable, that they don't hurt, that they don't have, you know. Well, actually, I do have an idea of where this shit started. Like, for me, I believe, you know, I believe there is a God, but I think it's narrow-minded to believe that God is a man.

When we see everything on this earth, it's created and formed by women. Yeah, the female is the creator. I'm like, no, he's, you know, a guy all of a sudden did this. And so, and I revere women because the people who are usually my spiritual guides, my mentors have always been women. So I think that women are the most powerful beings on this face of this earth. And I think that when we sort of put women into a category because we were intimidated or afraid of their awesome power is when men started to feel this sort of like need to say, well, okay, I'm stronger now because I'm limiting you and I'm going to have this power and say that I look, look, I'm strong.

Look, because of your wholeness, you cry. I don't cry. I've diminished that, you know? And I think we did it to ourselves. And then I think through time, it got perpetuated through movies, stereotypes, and you know, and then even some women started to subscribe to it.

Like my man's not strong if he shows emotion or something of that nature. But I think what's happening now is we're seeing that shift because of the shift of our culture with mental health, this period of like, we can't keep on going ignoring this. We saw what happened to our grandparents and our great grandparents. And we're seeing what happens when generations

completely ignore their mental health and only focus on their physical health. And I think men are starting to wake up to like, I have to be better for myself. I have to be better for the women in my lives. I have to be better for my kids. I have to be better. And they want to be better. And that's the thing that I always tell people on Queer Eye. They're like, what's the magic touch? You know, anybody can talk about your trauma. The reason that these men have these emotional moments with me is because I'm giving them permission to know that their masculinity is not invalidated by emotion. And I think it's so important for men just to know that whatever you've constructed

of masculinity in your mind is not going to be broken just because you say to someone, I'm scared. Because you say to someone, I'm confused. It actually say to someone like, I'm confused. It actually makes you stronger, sexier. It makes you all these things that you're actually thinking are not. Like, I've never ran into a woman who was like, oh, I'm dating this guy. And he was honest with me. And it turned me off. That's not a thing, guys. Like, you know what I mean? Or like, oh my gosh, you know, we had a conversation and he let me in. Now I'm turned off. That's literally the exact opposite that men should learn. And I think if we can start telling them that,

it even just gives them more permission just to be open and honest about who they are and what they're feeling. Yeah, I think the real emotional heart of the show is born out of those moments where you and your colleagues are showing, you know, this person a level of compassion that they've never experienced in their life before.

And when you sit down and give them permission to be vulnerable or to ask them questions that nobody has ever asked them before, like that's where you're like, and you could see the look on their face and the way that their body is like, this is new to this person. Like no one has ever shown that kind of unconditional love

and support for this person in their entire life. Yeah. And you know, it's for me, it's so special because I remember the day I was probably like in, I was probably in ninth grade, the minute that I realized that I needed to start giving compassion to myself and to others in that way. And so it's interesting and amazing that now I have a career where I do it publicly and on television. But there's a story I want to share

with you really quickly that I used to play football in high school. And I remember we would play football and while we were practicing, the girls would be doing their running around the track. And I remember I got tackled because I was wide receiver and my leg was busted up. I mean, I was screwed up. And all I remember is my coach screaming at me, Brown, get up, Brown, run it off, Brown. And I'm sitting here and I'm crying. He's like, Brown, suck it up. Go Brown, get up. And I'm like in pain. And then I remember this girl and I'm not going to say her name because I'm still friends with her, but she was running a hurdle and she tripped on the hurdle and she had the tiniest scratch on her knee. And that same coach that was just telling me to run off my then, I found out,

broken leg was like, ran to her with everyone else and was like, oh my gosh, what is wrong? What is going on? Are you okay? Okay. Are you fine? And that was the day I was like, F this. If you don't want to give me compassion and love, I got to give it to myself. And then I'm going to then try to give to other people. And literally I quit football and became a peer counselor. I'm not even joking that his reaction set me on a whole new path of like, I'm now going to be a peer counselor for other kids here. Also, it got me out of like, you know, second and fifth period because I was able to, you know, so there was another little motivation there. But I was like, if you're going to tell me that I have to endure pain without any love or support, then I'm going to make sure that other people you tell that to can leave you and come to me and, you know, get the love and support you're not giving them. And I literally started doing that then,

did it through college. And it's where I am now, ironically in my career, but I can pinpoint that moment of him screaming at me brown and this girl being on the tree, you know? Right, that's amazing, wow. It's gotta be hard to practice that, like in, you know, quote unquote, all your affairs, like especially now where culture just feels so fractured.

And I'm thinking back on the particular episode of you guys with the cop, which was that in, that was in the South somewhere. I can't remember. Yeah, we were in Atlanta for that. And yeah, that was a big one. We watched that, I think when we watched that episode, it was like right in the vortex of George Floyd.

So it was like the timing of watching that show, which was obviously taped much earlier, it was so like challenging to get on board with the idea that you guys are gonna help this guy after you get pulled over and that little stunt. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It was a difficult moment because we all felt really triggered,

especially myself, Tan and Jonathan, who had experienced police brutality because of, for Tan and I, our race or nationality. And for Jonathan, because of the fact that, you know, being non-binary, people would harass him for being a human being who has a beard, but also is in a skirt. And we understood like real police brutality. We understood that like, there are police that are not here to protect and serve you. There are some that are bad. Like there are police that are not here to protect and serve you.

There are some that are bad. And, you know, in that moment it was like, okay, this is hard. But I think one of my greatest gifts, and I was talking about this with Chris, who I mentioned earlier the other day, is I was like, I don't mind going to spaces where people see differently, who feel differently than me, and trying to make a bridge. And so I saw that as an opportunity with this cop of being like, hey, this is a moment for us to see each other. And it doesn't mean that it's going to change how you police. It doesn't mean it's going to change how your friends police. But hopefully if I tell you that my son at 16 didn't want to get his license, something that we all want to do, if I tell you this,

maybe I can get to your heart and maybe I can, instead of trying to change your mind, I can change your heart. And then the next kid you see that may look like my son, you'll stop and think, is this Karamo's son? Before you make your choice. And it was powerful. Even in the episode, he's physically bawling at the end

because he's like our car ride just meant the most to him because he was met with empathy and saying like, hey, we're at the end of the day, we want the same things. You know, we've just had these experiences that put us on a different path. But if you go back to your heart, you go back to your emotions, you can get back on that path of love

and you know, all those things. And so, you know, it's really things. And so, it's really nice. I mean, it's so powerful. And I look at that as almost like a template or an instruction manual for how to interface with the world right now. We're on the back end of like this unbelievably divisive election.

I don't know in my lifetime, a period in which we were so divided, this unbelievable breakdown in our ability to communicate in a healthy way and identify common ground. When in truth, we share so much more than that which divides us, right? And I spent a lot of time thinking about, you know, as a public facing person, like, how do I talk about this?

How do I interface with people who disagree with me? And I'm very much somebody who doesn't court controversy. I wanna build bridges, but I also feel there are moments where it's important to speak your truth, even though you know you're gonna get attacked or whatever's gonna happen with that. And everything is on such a tight trigger right now. It's like, everybody's ready to snap.

And I feel like the only way forward for our culture, if we wanna have a shot at being, you know, the United States of America is figuring out how to build those individual bridges in our personal lives. How do we communicate? Like, okay, Thanksgiving just happened. We're coming up on, you know on the broader, the bigger holidays. Like, how do you interact with people

who see the world differently from you? How can you find that common ground? And how can we really embrace the things that we share and transcend all of the divisiveness that's really dragging us down and making us anxious and depressed. And it's really, you know, it's deeply concerning to me when I look at what's happening out there. Well, the first thing I say to people is that we need to get, as a society, we need to

get rid of cancel culture and switch it with counsel culture. I think that we have gotten to a place where, you know, it's easy to jump on a bad wagon and cancel someone. But then what we forget is that once you've canceled them, they get further pushed into a group of people who believe and feel the same way they feel. It's very rare, as we've seen in these past couple years where cancel culture has been popular, it's very rare where someone who's been canceled actually changes either privately or publicly. All they do is they revert back to a group that believes what they believe. And I think that's part of the problem. Instead of canceling them, we should be giving these people opportunities to sit down and

be counseled by someone. And I think counsel culture is a very healthier way of saying your actions were wrong. Your actions were wrong because this is how it made this group of people feel. Now, let's talk about why did you feel it was okay to hurt this group of people? Why did you feel it was okay to hurt this person? What in your own past led you to think that this was okay? What part of your power or access makes you think that this is the appropriate way to react? Giving people opportunities to grow and learn instead of canceling them is I think so important. But to do that, you have to have a group of people who

understand the importance of empathetic listening. So when I go into situations where people are different than me, the first thing I think about is something my grandma used to say, my granny used to say, which is you have two of these, you have one of these, two ears, one mouth. So you're supposed to be doing one double time and one, you know, one a little less. And I think about that all the time. And so when I go into something, instead of me jumping into a conversation and like just trying to defend my point or like tell you why you're wrong or whatever, because I now know as an adult, that's going to only shut them down. I go into it and I say, hey, let's start the premise with your actions hurt this person, me, someone else. I want to hear why you made that action. And then I don't go into anything. And this is key.

I'm now listening, but within the listening, something else that I think people do is they then start to conjure up ways to defend a point of view that they don't even know yet. So you assume the other person is going to say something. So you already have your, your, your, your, your, you know, what you're going to say back. It happens in couples all the time. I see it all the time. Every time I see a breakdown in a couple, it's because they're already ready. They're defensive. It's like, I know what I'm going to say to you to get, get you back to say it back. And you have to release that. So if I'm going to listen to you, I'm going to listen to you without having a rebuttal ready. And I think that's so key. So instead of canceling you, I'm going to counsel you by listening and not

having a rebuttal. And I think you have to then also understand if, is this person in a space to actually receive this? Because I think sometimes we get blue in the face. We're trying to talk to people who are just not ready. They're just not ready. And also they're not ready because they've been triggered by the last 10 people who try to talk to them, who didn't do it properly, who all told me they were wrong. And so you have to say, well, am I really in a space to want to build trust and build a bigger connection? Like in my career so far, I've been canceled probably a lot, but I get canceled often because I do believe, yeah, I get canceled all the time. I'll give you some examples of recent.

I get canceled because people say, why would you talk to this person? Why would you interact with this person? But it goes to what we talked about at the beginning of this interview is I didn't have the luxury being black, gay, immigrant parents to not try to reach out to those who were different from me. I didn't have that luxury. I never had that luxury. The only way I've succeeded and found a healthy boundary is by saying, I got to meet you where you're at because that person was never going to meet me. And so it's always been my burden, but always has been my greatest triumph of being able to say, I know I can meet you where you're at. And I think, you know, like I got canceled last year because I called Sean Spicer, Trump's former press secretary, a nice guy, and then tried to engage. Oh, right. Because you guys did Dancing with the Stars,

right? We danced with the stars together and he, I don't agree with any of his politics, but I was like, you know what? If there's a way that I can maybe help this man to see how his actions are affecting people I love and affecting my life, maybe his heart will change just enough that when he's around some people who would never be around me, it will start to come out of him unconsciously where he's starting to talk like Karamo. He doesn't even realize it because it's like, I've hit his heart and people were like, I can't believe you said he was nice. And I was like, I didn't say his politics were nice. I said him as a human being, I could see him as a human. I could see his fears. I could see his pain. I could see the manipulation. I could see everything in him. And I could remove that and say, well, now let me try to help you to even be better. Um, I could see everything in him. And I could remove that and say, well, now let me try to help you to even be better.

I went and visited. You have to be able to do that. If the solution is you just never have anything to do with that person because they don't see the world the way that you do, we're doomed. We're doomed. And that's where we are as a culture. We are.

And that's why I say, get rid of cancel culture, put it with cancel culture, be more empathetic at listening. Really be there and not to like have not saying I believe in aliens, but if the aliens came down tomorrow, I promise you, none of us are going to be like, you're black, you're white, you're gay, you're straight. We're going to be like, oh shit, it's us against these aliens who are about to eat us all. And so not calling the aliens, you know, like if there are like they're mean, but I'm just saying like, we have to come back to a place like right now we've made each other the enemy. And like, at the end of the day, we're all trying to survive on this big planet

where things are alive and can kill us all at any moment. So let's all just come together and realize that. Yeah. Here's the pessimistic note though. You would think like replace aliens with pandemic. Like if a pandemic happened, we would all have to unite and collectively figure out how to solve this problem. And we all know what we're seeing right now, which is an exacerbation of this divide in a way that, I don't know if any of us could have predicted, but I think your point is well taken and it really is.

But even with this pandemic, I'll say this, I think the problem was not just the politicization. You're canceled. Exactly, you cancel. It's not just because they politicized it, you know, with the mask and everything else. I think it's also because, again, when you don't touch someone's emotions, then their mind will never change. And so I don't want anyone else to die from this pandemic. So let me be very clear. from this pandemic. So let me be very clear. But I think the fact that the number of deaths weren't affecting so many people's homes, that they really, a lot of people weren't seeing their

grandmas pass. People were getting, you know, recovering really quickly. If this pandemic would have really, unfortunately taken more lives. And I'm not saying that the lives that were taken were undervalued, but I think then we would have seen the common enemy. And it didn't matter how they try to politicize it. It would have been like, no, we're all in this. And I think that's where we went wrong when we were fighting people with masks. I never tried to have like the mask conversation early on because I was like, I'm not going to get to you. If you've already been told a mask is stupid, your mind is set. Your mind is set.

But if I can show you how my sister or my cousin or my aunt is sick right now and really get to you one-on-one, not just on a Facebook feed, just one-on-one, talk to somebody, that's where it got better. And I spent a lot of time in the early days of pandemic doing Zoom calls with people who did not on my podcast, which I can never use any of it because when my podcast comes back out, like it's going to be gone. But it was like, everything changes. You see differently. Can I just talk to you? And through that conversation, I would say about eight out of 10 would change their heart. And I saw it physically on their Instagram where they were all of a sudden be like, damn, I didn't know that this was really affecting someone. So that's to play on your pessimist. Well, to be sure, things like podcasts are super important because you've got to be able to create the space and the bandwidth and allow for the nuance and the back and forth.

Like this is not happening on Twitter. Yeah. And if we want a shot at bridging this divide, we've got to divorce ourselves a little bit from those platforms and invest a little bit more in the one-on-one. Amen, invest in the one-on-one. I know.

We'll round this out in a minute, but I can't let you go without asking one more thing, which is to- No, you don't need to be on Queer Eye, okay? I'm just letting you know right now, you do not need to be. You're literally the after photo of what to be on Queer Eye, okay? I'm just letting you know right now, you do not need to be, you're literally the after photo of what we do on Queer Eye. I'm just gonna let you know that right now,

you're not coming on the show. Oh, my goal is achieved. Thank you. I'm interested in your thoughts on, you know, in your experience of working with so many people, what are the common things that tend to trip people up and kind of show up as blind spots? Like, what's the thing that you, when you look around,

you see if that guy just knew this one thing, like he could transform himself or herself. Communication, it's funny as a species who uses language, whether it's through your voice, through sign language to interact with others. We are such horrible communicators. We don't communicate to ourselves what we're feeling. We don't communicate to others what we're feeling. Our communication is so broken. We get into conversations and we stop ourselves. Like we talked about earlier in the conversation where you just, you, you, you, you, you close off your voice. You stopped speaking, you stopped sharing. And I think that's the thing that I would just want most people, every person I come across with, I'm like, well, why didn't you ever tell anybody this was happening? Why didn't you ever admit to yourself that this was going on? Why didn't you ever share?

And it's like, I didn't know how to communicate this. And asking for help is weakness or scary. Asking for help is weakness. But again, asking for help is a form of communication. And so it all kind of, you know, not to go back, but if we instead in school taught people who were never going to use, you know, trigonometry ever again in their lives, a class that would teach them how to communicate. You know, I loved English and I loved reading books. It was one of my favorite subjects. But no one in that class taught me how to truly communicate what's going on.

That's not a skill we're really learning. You learn it from the streets, your home. And that's where we get caught up. I see it on Queer Eye all the time. I literally am like, why didn't you communicate this to anybody? Why didn't you communicate this to yourself? Why didn't you ask for help?

Why, what was going on? And that fear around communication is the biggest issue that stops us all. Yeah, and then the release that you see when they finally are able to do it, it's like they suddenly lose 20 pounds. Completely. So I would encourage people in your friendships,

in your relationships, as parents, highlight communication more, encourage your kids, encourage your friends to talk more, be patient with them as they're talking, which I think is so important. Like people don't always, not all of us are orators. We can just, you know, share a speech and say something. Sometimes things come out confusing and come sound wrong. You know, this is something I've been dealing with right now with someone of like being patient with them and understanding like your intention is not to hurt

me. You're just, you're just learning how to communicate in a new way. And I think it's so important because when you can let someone communicate, when we can communicate together, when you communicate to yourself honestly, world open up. Boom. That's a beautiful way to end it, my friend. You're a beautiful man, Karamo. You're an inspiration. So are you, my friend. I'm so glad to be here.

As a fan of your show, I'm so happy to be on. The honor is all mine. When does the show resume? You guys have a production schedule? What's going on? No, they haven't told us. Probably February because our show's all about connection, hugging.

The minute that goes off the show, you miss. What are you going to do? Yeah, you can't. There is no show. There is no show. We can't be six feet apart. You know what I mean? So we're trying to figure that out now.

And so for me, I don't get political, but I'm very thankful that we have a president now who's going to take the pandemic serious. And I also want to highlight the fact, which I think has gotten washed under too much, the fact that we have our first female vice president who um i just am so glad that we now have a woman in that office and i hope that and i know that um she will not be the last and i can't wait for the day that both the president vice president and speaker of the house are all women and i promise you our country is going to be great we already know what happens when men run it it's shitty we've it. I'm just being real with you. We've seen it. Wars, everything.

We started them. We did all this shit. Famine, all the shit we're talking about, we did it. Women didn't do it. We did it. So let's put them in charge. And this is the first step. And I feel very optimistic.

Beautiful. Come back and talk to me again sometime. Anytime. You tell me. We're neighbors. Peace. Peace. Bless. Beautiful. Come back and talk to me again sometime. Anytime, you tell me, we're neighbors. Peace. That my friends was full stop, full stop amazing.

Be sure to check out Karamo's book, Karamo, My Story of Embracing Purpose, Healing and Hope. Check out his podcast on Luminary and give him a follow at Karamo, of course, on both Twitter and Instagram. If you'd like to support the podcast, the easiest and most impactful thing you can do is to subscribe to it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify,

and YouTube. Sharing the show or your favorite episode with friends or on social media is of course always appreciated. And finally, for podcast updates, special offers on books, the meal planner, and many other subjects, subscribe to our newsletter, which you can find on the footer of any page on my website, richroll.com.

Today's show was produced and engineered by Jason Camiolo. The video edition of the podcast was created by Blake Curtis. Portraits by Allie Rogers. Graphic elements, courtesy of Jessica Miranda. And our theme music was created by Tyler Pyatt, Trapper Pyatt, and Hari Mathis. Appreciate the love and support.

Thank you for listening. Peace. Thank you.