The Viall Files - E313 Tyler Merritt - Default to Love

Episode Date: September 1, 2021

Today on the Viall Files, Nick sits down once again with friend-of-the-show, the inspirational Tyler Merritt. Tyler and Nick don’t hold back, diving right into Tyler’s new book, I Take My Coffee Black, where he recounts hilarious stories from his life while weaving in lessons on privilege, the legacy of lynching and sharecropping, and so much more. In their raw conversation, Tyler shares with us his recent cross with cancer and some of the gut-wrenching moments he experienced while facing the truth of his diagnosis. The two go on to discuss how to keep anger in perspective, what Tyler does to protect his peace, and about the honest conversation he had with his new friend Chris Harrison. Tyler shows us how he defaults to love and why the question should always be, “how can I love this person better?” Grab a tissue, this one will tug at your heart strings. “If you make a mistake, I don’t care who you are, you always have the opportunity to make it right.” Please make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss an episode and as always send in your relationship questions to [e-mail] to be a part of our Monday episodes.   For merch please visit www.viallfiles.com today! THANK YOU TO OUR SPONSORS: Vizzy: http://www.vizzyhardseltzer.com/VIALL To find out where you can purchase Vizzy Episode Socials:  Viall Files @viallfiles Nick Viall @nickviall Tyler Merritt @TTMProject @thetylermerrittproject www.tylermerrittbook.com See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

what's going on everybody welcome back to another episode of the vile files i am your host nick joined by ali and amanda chrissy is off this week. And ladies, how are you doing today? Just delightful. Wonderful. I truly, two seconds ago, got a text saying I was approved for a new apartment and I will now be living next to three of my exes in the same neighborhood. I put that together last night, the neighborhood that my roommate and I have always wanted to move into. I realized there's three, not, I wouldn't say they're all exes,

but three people I've been involved with. Involved with. Is one of them that same ex that you were afraid to like run into that moved to? Yes. Well, thank God you don't have a dog because it's not like you have to like walk a dog

and run into them. You can just stay hunkered down. I can't. I'm not entirely sure how much of this was on accident. No, I know. It was truly something where like we'd said we wanted to live here all along. And then I was like thinking about it and I was like, oh, wait, like this is really close to where this one guy lived. And I at least so I'd known like the ex who lived there.

Like I knew he was in that area. But then I just sort of realized, I was like, oh boy, these are really stacking up. Well, good luck with that. I mean, I don't even think you really have to still run into them unless you want to. Right.

I feel like it's, and I was, I thought about, I was like, should I text my ex to see where he lives? No. Before I sign on a unit, like what if I end up in the same building? She wants to run into them so bad.

That's the thing. You literally said, you don't have to run into them so bad. That's the thing. You literally said you don't have to run into them unless you want to. And I was going to say Amanda wants to. She wouldn't have brought it up if she didn't want to.

I don't need to run into them. I could text him. We're on great terms, but I'm currently taking some space. You sound like Carrie Bradshaw right now. How dare you? In a world, in a city

where there's millions of people, will you run into, I don't know. That is the most offensive thing you could have said to me after the way you've been talking about Carrie these past two weeks. Every single day you come in

and you have a new qualm with Carrie or a new observation about the way she is toxic. So to call me Carrie. We've all been Carrie. I think that's the takeaway. So I had to wonder, was it a coincidence that all my exes lived in Los Feliz or did I manifest it?

We've all I think that's the thing. We carry Bradshaw can be a hero if we just look at it through a lens of we have to learn by mistakes, not flawed flawed hero i'm right i'm i'm right in the scene where she like gets pulled into like a class of like you know women who want to know how to meet guys right and they kind of roast her because they're like giving like well why are you have you ever been married are you are you in a relationship now and she's like no she just approaches it the wrong way if she just is like i'll tell you what not to do that's what i do that's all i ever do on the show is like here here's how i up in the past and everything i've ever if every advice i've given you is because like i've done i've made the

mistakes like i've walked and i'm trying to save you the time yeah so apparently in the reboot carrie has a podcast and it's like the updated version of her column. I don't know if she still has the column or if she just replaced it with the podcast. And I was like, oh, my God. It's literally Nick Viall. Well, is it a do what you don't do? Well, she has a podcast. And then Sarah Ramirez also has a podcast.

She was in Grey's Anatomy and now is in. Actually, I'm not sure what pronouns they use. So I'm going to use they. They are now in the reboot as well and have a podcast she was in Grey's Anatomy and now is in actually I'm not sure what pronouns they use so I'm gonna use they um they are now in the reboot as well and have a podcast and like they have each other on their podcast and like Sarah is trying to you know enlighten people on it being Carrie you mean enlightened no Sarah's podcast is trying to enlighten people on like a more like open approach like love and I And I think, you know, Carrie enters the picture as like the heteronormative woman. And then they kind of like collab to have a more like inclusive podcast

space. I don't know. That's what I've heard. Huh? Well, we are, we are working on some sort of sex in the city breakdown. I mean,

I just, it's, it's consumed my life. I've been so fascinated by sex in the city. It's wonderful. Uh, we have a really great episode for you. The wonderful, uh, Tyler Merritt is back to talk about his new book. I take my coffee black. Also, it's a really powerful conversation. I think, um, with, you know, really just talking about how we process and deal with our anger, I think with, you know, really just talking about how we process and deal with our anger, how we can choose or not choose to lead with love and have that be our default as well as to protect our peace. These are all things that Tyler gets into.

Tyler also talks about his recent friendship with Chris Harrison that has evolved over the past several months. And he shares an interesting perspective about that. But truly a wonderful episode, all because of Tyler. You will definitely want to check out his new book. You can pre-order it right now. I Take My Coffee Black. You definitely want to check that out. And I really hope you enjoy this episode. I think it's always nice to get Tyler's perspective and someone that comes from a place of a lot of self-reflection and growth on his end, especially with the times that we live in

where it's just very easy to feel angry and be angry and justify be so. But where does that really get us? And what can we do with that? So I want to thank Tyler for coming on. I really hope you enjoy this episode. Don't forget to send in your questions at asknickatcastme.com, cast with a K.

For our Ask Nick episodes, subscribe, rate us five stars. We always appreciate those five-star reviews. And if there's nothing else, let's get to Tyler. Tyler, welcome back to the show. It's good to have you. I'm glad to be back, man. It's good to see you, bro. How have you been, man? What have you been up to? Man, that's a big question. Outside of writing a book and getting cancer during COVID, you know, just chilling. Nothing too crazy, nothing outstanding.

I'm just out here trying to change the world and not die while I do it, you know just chilling not nothing too crazy nothing outstanding i'm just out here trying to change the world and not die while i do it you know yeah it was actually uh pretty scary when i found out that you were uh fighting cancer and having surgery but it sounds like all things are are headed in the right direction so that that's really very encouraging to hear more than anything yeah and listen man i want to just say this right now because I might not get around to saying it, but I want to say this publicly. Thank you, bro. Like you and Wells and Ben, when I was diagnosed, I reached out to you because, you know, we're on text that I want that. And I don't think you really understand how much your simple words of encouragement or checking in kind of really meant, man, because I went from just walking this normal everyday life going, just finish my book. Life is good. I turned it in and like two days later, man, they were like, yeah, you have this 28 pounds tumor and a rare form of cancer. And we're going to have to chop into your body and remove a kidney and hopefully you'll make it. And, you know, I don't get to say this publicly, but you legit were a part of my text thread of people when I was in the hospital and you checked up on me, man. And I cannot tell you how much that meant to me.

And I'll express this a little bit more to people on my feed when we meet later. But, bro, thank you, man. And I love you for it. You've earned a place in my heart forever and ever and ever. I really appreciate it. Well, I love you back, and I'm just glad to hear that you're okay. And yeah, easy to do. And in the sense that, I guess I was just really worried about you and it was really nice to, you know, especially in a world where sometimes you just, you just want to hear some good news. It was, you know, it was really nice and encouraging to,

you know, see you on the road to recovery but we have you on to obviously you know have you back uh talk about your new book i take my coffee black we had you on man it's probably a bit funny it's been over a year that we first had you on obviously you know right after you know when our country was kind of in a you know state of mourning and confusion and and anger you know following the the george floyd um murder and you were really gracious with coming on and sharing your perspective you know uh before you call the cops your video that you know jimmy kimmel gave a platform to and then i found it and you know you came on for those of you didn't listen to you should go back and listen to it it was a

great episode but you really tried to it seemed like with that goal with the video before you call the cops and we talked about this on the podcast you wanted to humanize yourself right you talk about who you were where you come from your interests and music and sports or where you're from and your upbringing all of which many people regardless of the color of their skin could relate to right and the the idea that you know before you call the cops just like see me as a human and i think that was really kind of important for people to hear an eye opening and your book i take my coffee black seems to be an extension of that you continue that conversation of talking about your your story

your upbringing your parents upbringing growing up in the South and talking about racism and gang culture and the pressures of a young black man and all those things. But you go a step further in your book and you even talk about some of your not so appealing kind of struggles as a person, as a man. And I thought that was really interesting. And I guess I want to ask, like, what was your goal of the book as you wrote this? And it's what it seemed like is, again, in a continuation of this is me as a human, good and bad. And it seemed like you were hoping to say, you know, maybe this is some and some sort of version this is could be all of us and and maybe like i felt more even more empathetic to you as a human going in because it

helped me think about like well how did i how does this relate to me what are my feelings but am i getting that right in terms of like what your goal was for the book and what kind of prompted you to write this? And what are you hoping people get out of it as they read it? Yeah, man. First, let me say, we're in a time period now where a lot of people want to write a book or they have opportunities to, or they just want to write for writer's sake. I didn't have to write a book. I wasn't sitting here like itching, like, man, somebody please come and ask me to do this. I can make something up really quick and maybe make some money from it. It was the opposite of that. This is a book that everybody needs to read. I'm not just saying that

because I wrote it. I'm saying it because it's special. It's special in a way that I could have never anticipated. I just could have never anticipated. So I decided if I was going to write a book that I was going to gamble on proximity. What I mean by that is, man, I've let you walk with me, a six foot two black man, through this book in a way that very few people will let you walk with them, period. I didn't want to just write another How to Be an Anti-Racist because all of those books are fantastic and great and good. And I just didn't feel like I needed to put another one of those type books into the world. Instead, what I do is I go, hey, if you want to take a little bit of time, I'm going to let you walk with me. But if you walk with me, I want you to know this shit is about to get real. And so I just don't talk about my experience as a black person.

I talk about my experiences as a man. So I talk about my struggles. And this is super surprising because there's a faith element to it where I talk about God, but I talk about my real honest struggle with women and how I was hurt at a really young age and how it jacked me up for the rest of my life. How I walk through relationships unapologetically. And I had to reach out to some of these girls and be like, yo, I'm going to tell a story about when I screwed you over hard. Are you OK with that? And I'm saying, yeah, just don't use my name. Like, all right, cool. best friends going, hey, I'm going to let people know about when you called me and just said,

I'm there with you, bro. Even though you're going through some stuff you don't think you're ever going to get out of. Is that okay? They're like, yeah, man. Tell your story. Tell you. And so this book is kind of tricky. It's tricky, right? You open it up and you're like, oh, here's this book about the Black experience. He's giving me some history lessons and it's super funny, which is one of the reasons Jimmy signed on. Jimmy read it and was like, this shit's funny, but this shit is real. And he was shocked that I was telling him this stuff. I was telling him, you know, although it's funny and it's serious and it's all those things, when it comes down to it, it's just me going, I'm going to bet that if I walk with you in proximity and let you get to know me on a true, honest, personal level, that it's going to pay off by you having empathy, God willing, you having love, and more in hope that you will have a better understanding about your fellow man. And it's not just like, A, for a white person to

read. You'll see, you know, some of the praise for it comes from like Joy Reid and Michael Still and Roy Wood Jr. Black people that read it and are like, yo, we are not monolithic. And you are telling my story as well. And about halfway through the book, man, you even start asking yourself, is this through the antagonist or the protagonist of the story? Like, I'm not even really sure if I even like this dude anymore. You know, we're filled in a world where all things seem alike and we have to make difficult choices,

especially when we can't have a hard time telling the difference between one versus the other. You know, like we want to find that intangible thing. Like, you know, for me, it was like being the bachelor. How do you decide who is the person that's, you know, you're going to fall in love with? For me, it was nobody. But the point is, is that Vizzy Hard Seltzer, what I'm trying to say is Vizzy hard seltzer makes the choice easy, right? In a world where we're trying to find the most refreshing drink that's good for

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The best part is 100 calories or less made with real cane sugar. Every sip of Vizzy is more exhilarating than ever. Vizzy Lemonade has zero sugar per 12-ounce servings. Upgrade your hard seltzer to Vizzy. Find out where you can purchase Vizzy at VizzyHardSeltzer.com slash V-I-A-L-L. That is VizzyHardSeltzer.com slash V-I-A-L-L. Must be 21 years or older. Well, as I was going to say, it's just kind of like you said.

It's just a very honest story about you, the person good and the bad right which if you go in and read it with kind of that understanding you probably will have moments of liking you or disliking you but hopefully with the disliking you i think it's always important for us to kind of, you know, look in the mirror, so to speak, and ask ourselves, have we been some sort of version of this person? It's always very easy to relate to people when you hear stories about how they were hurt, right? And then it's easy to go like, yeah, I was hurt too. I was wrong, right? It's hard. It's much harder to hear a story about when someone hurt someone, when, when you, someone hurt someone else and say, yeah, I've, I've been that person.

I've done the damage, et cetera, et cetera. We, you know, reading your book and I want to circle back to that, you know, your relationship with women. You know, we talk a lot about your relationships and dating in this podcast. We have an audience, a large number of which are women listening to this. And I think it's really nice to hear from a man's perspective, especially in an honest approach of like things they regret about their relationships with women. You know, triggered is a word we're hearing a lot more and more. You know, that triggered me. I feel triggered, right? Because, you know, we is a word we're hearing a lot more and more, you know, that triggered me. I feel triggered, right? Because, you know, we've have our scars. We have these things that happen to us. And you talk a lot about, again, like why, you know, your chapter, I got 99 problems and most

of them are women. And that might even be triggering when people reading it but like clearly something happened to you that triggered you right it triggered your relationship with women for years to come and i wanted to discuss that a little bit to you know maybe we can learn from you know we have these interactions with men and women depending on if you're a man or a woman and depending on your you know whether you're gay or straight and the type of relationship you're having. Relationships are hard. Feelings are involved.

We often get it wrong. And when we have a real bad experience, that can trigger us for future relationships. And I'd love to have that discussion with you about how can we try to avoid having our past situations, our scars, our trauma, avoid us from being triggered in the future to not either hurt other people or hurt ourselves in future relationships?

Without giving too much away of the actual story, there's a story I go into called the ice cream story. story. There's a story I go into called the ice cream story. And I think it's important in relationships, bro, for people to, in the moment of hurt, when something happens to you in a relationship, it ends up scarring you on some level, especially in a romantic relationship. I think it is incredibly important to attempt to be aware of what's happening around you in the entirety of that moment. Not just in that singular thing that that person has done to you or said to you or walked you through, but what is going on in the entirety of your life that may allow you to have either a deeper effect of that moment or to be tormented in a way that

you might not have been tormented if the rest of the world wasn't happening at that moment. So in my life, I was super duper young and I, I spent a lot of my life not having faith as a young kid. And then in high school, I, you know, I have a chapter that says I was doing perfectly fine and damn it, here comes Jesus. And then I have this like spiritual experience. And so suddenly now I went from being this kid that didn't really have a whole lot of rules or like guilt that I ever dealt with or anything like that. And then suddenly I become, you know, Jesus-y and suddenly I'm dealing with guilt and God. And I probably shouldn't do this.

And I probably shouldn't do that. And then I end up having like my first Christian girlfriend. So then when I ended up having the experience that I had with her, which I detail in a much more personal way than I probably should have in the book, it fucks me up. Am I allowed to say that word yeah you can swear yeah and at the risk of spoiling it because there's so much stuff so much good stuff in the book that there's plenty but like you know i'd love you know if you could

provide some detail in terms of like what was it that like affected you or triggered you and what was it you know because again i think so much of our own problems and relationships like you said come from things that happen to us and yes like we need to recognize when we were hurt or when we feel victimized but like you said to try and it's so hard like i agree with you like try to look at the world around you but we don't like like we don't do that, you know, especially when we're at our end. And I'm curious, how did you learn to teach yourself to do that? It's easy to do that in retrospect. Let's be clear.

I didn't do that until 20 years later when I was able to look back and now I can teach on it. But in that moment, I, my problem was, man, is I mixed my relationship with God and my understanding, my useful understanding of who I thought God was with my romantic relationship of we're not supposed to have sex. We're not supposed to do all of these physical things as a high schooler. Here's my new God relationships. relationships and then I was decked with a bunch of mistrust and in a way that was scandalous. She did some things to me that even as I talk to you right now, make me anxious to think about the mistrust that was construed at such a young age. So, and now it was tricky, bro, because now it wasn't just about me and this girl. It was about me, this girl and God. So now I'm looking at God going, oh, I'm supposed to, you're supposed

to protect me and all these things. And we're supposed to do the right things. But what happens when this person fucks you up under the mantle of, of you? So, so check it in that moment for me nick i was having like this this world changing moment because it wasn't just about her and sometimes in our relationship we aren't able to have that perspective like the same thing that someone might say to you when you're 33 years old, that somebody said to you when you were 22, it's just not going to affect you the same because now your world has changed. Maybe you have a cute dog and a super hot girlfriend. Someone comes along and says something and you go, don't really care. My life is good. But when you were 22 and you didn't have any money in your bank and you were trying to figure out what the world was coming against you in a different way, that same comment can jack you up for the next 10 years of your life.

What's difficult, Nick, is I don't think that we as individuals tend to have that perspective on the moment. And what I try to talk about in the book is I let you walk with me and the whole time you're walking along going, dude, you never dealt with your shit. And because you never dealt with your shit, you're letting this mess up the rest of your life. And the hope is, is that we can look into these moments, man, and not walk through the same thing and learn from this cosmic moment, what's really happening here that's triggering all this and does this female or this male or whoever you're in a relationship with do they really have this much power over me to affect the next 15 or 20 years of my life or was i in a place that made me vulnerable to to crap yeah i'm guessing like you said it happened when you were younger in high school

and we're learning and so much of what we believe is what we was instilled by our parents and we believe our parents to be righteous and all-knowing and then we kind of realize well shit you know you talk about your i think your mom had you at 19, 20 years old, right? Like, well, fuck, if I was responsible to a human life at 19 or 20, like I might get a couple things wrong, you know? And then we struggle with that. And then, like, it's interesting that you talk about, like, your relationship, like God and someone who grew up Catholic. It can be very – and then you date someone else who's religious

and everyone's just trying to instill you know that's that's what's fucked up and crazy about young relationships is you know we always say like the road to hell is paved with good intentions like you have two people trying to do the right thing you have two people trying to instill their values that they've learned at a young age into the values of their partner who they believe that they love and then they they hit this fucking like wall and you know under the guise of good intentions and and this i believe i'm right and you know especially of god coming into the picture of like what the ramifications of what what if what if the person i love gets it wrong because I was taught that like God is, you know, this

is wrong and this is right. And then, man, a lot of potential toxic events can happen and shame and guilt. And like you said, trust. And as someone who is active with his faith as a pastor, what do you teach young people now to try to avoid these pitfalls? Because like when you kind of paint that picture, you know, faith and God and religion are supposed to be good things, right? But we know through studying history, that's not always the case, you know, and forgetting about like wars and all those things, just talking about like two young kids in a relationship, trying to connect,

trying to like figure themselves out, have done a lot of damage to each other all while trying to do good or, or project their beliefs onto others. And I'm just wondering, like, what did you learn from your own experiences? And what do you tell young people now how to avoid that? Because you're right. Perspective is the answer, but we don't have that perspective when we are younger. Back when I was a youth pastor, and I was super scared, man, back in my younger days when I was pastoring at a church, because I didn't want to mess any kids up. And that's really what it came down to, right?

I worked in a church talking to kids, and I worked at this high school talking to kids, this mostly black high school here in Nashville, Tennessee, East Magna High School. And I would go and speak to these kids every Friday. And I was looking in the eyes of these kids who were living real everyday lives, like they were struggling at home with the parents, school, this, that, and the other. Then I had my like homeschool youth group kids over my church. I would try to implement in their life the same thing that I try to implement every single day. And everybody's like, now, and I really mean this, Nick, like, I don't mean this like hyperbolic or trying to be overdramatic or having people try to look at me like, oh,

that's a sweet black dude. I really do believe that we have to train ourselves for our default to be love. Our default has to be love. So it's not even like a choice of, hey, what decision should I make with this? Your first thought should be, how can I love somebody through this? How can I love my friend in a situation they're walking through? How can I love that person that screwed me over into a place where they won't screw over the next person? And as difficult as that is, if our default is love, that is more a reflection of my faith than anything else. I was asked once, you know, if you only had a minute to kind of tell people about God and faith and all that stuff that you are into and had been for all of your life,

what would you tell people? I would tell them that you need to find a way to love the people around you the best you can, the quickest you can do it. Because I really, truly believe that that's the way that God looks at us. Let me be really clear, bro. I don't work in a church no more. I am not the guy to come to you for super duper huge spiritual advice. But I will tell you this, if you want to sit down and talk about loving people, I am your dude. Because when it comes down to it, I have a relationship with the God that chose to keep loving me through my shit. And in my book, I let you know about my shit in a way that if I'm being really honest with you, Nick, as I sit here right now, I still regret because it hasn't come out yet.

I still am questioning if I should have let people in that deep because it was a way that I only let God in. But that's how I deal with young kids now, man. Above anything. man, above anything. If you see, if I see a kid that was in my youth group or that I spoke to from the football team 10 years from now, I want them to be able to see me and go, yo, man, the thing I remember the most about you is you had this love thing on lock. You were constantly trying to make us love people. And if that is what people remember about me when I'm gone, I don't know if people cry in your podcast, so you might want to cut this. Bro, right before my cancer diagnosis, I wasn't, here's the truth. I wasn't sure if,

I wasn't sure if I, if I was was gonna come out of it. And I because you just you just you just don't know with the rare form of cancer. And one of my doctors sat me down and went, Yeah, we're gonna have to have a urologist come in because if we cut certain places, and you might have to be a bag on the rest of your life, and you might not make it. And he was saying this really casually. I mean, he was the coolest dude ever, but I had this genuine moment, man, of being like, shit, if I don't come out of this.

And I told a really small group of people, I didn't even tell you and Ben and Wells until like it was time for me to go into surgery. Yeah, it was like a few minutes, yeah. Yeah, I told a very small group of people. But I had a moment, man, where I was genuinely like, if I don't wake up from this, like, I feel right now like I have so much stuff I still need to do in my life. But if I don't wake up from this, like, what will people have said about me? Well, they have said, you know, that guy from that Before You Call It Cops video passed away or that actor that I saw in that Lifetime movie or whatever. But I remember, man, right before I went into surgery with my mom next to me, I was cracking jokes with the nurses and everything.

But I remember on my deathbed, man, on my deathbed, bro, thinking to myself, I hope people remember me for my love. Like, that was a moment that I had, man. I remember thinking, like, if I don't come out of this and somebody talks about me, sure, I want them to talk about how I was all about racial reconciliation. Sure, I want people to talk about how I was all about racial reconciliation. Sure, I want people to talk about how I was funny and all of that. But I want you, Nick, I want you to be able to say to Ben, like, yo, you introduced me to that Tyler dude and he supports me, man. He's cool as shit because I feel like he loves me in a way that's significant. because i feel like he loves me in a way that's significant and so that's that's what i that's what i try to pass on and that's how i justify my relationship with god man whether you're muslim whether you're a pagan whatever you're whatever man like i just i just want the love to connect

us and as generic as that sounds the truth bro yeah no i mean it's uh i know yeah i mean i'm sure some people independent on who's listening and who has a relationship with god or not and yeah like people could roll their eyes or sound generic but you know knowing you obviously it comes from an extraordinary place of of sincerity one question i have for you as it relates to like you know you talk about leading with love and that sounds great and especially for you it's such a point of emphasis in your life and for the people who are it sounds great but how do you deal with anger right as someone who tries to always lead with love and be like well how do i you know again love thy neighbor and it's easy you got your mom and your friends and, and whatever, but the person you, like you said that, that the woman in your don't call the

cops. So the woman you knew was judging you and made you feel like you were doing something wrong. And you're just like, Hey, listen, I'm listening to show tunes right now. You know, you must've felt some anger. You must've felt a lot of things, but even on a day-to-day life in a relationship with a woman and you first feel anger, how do you deal with that? Uh, have you been able, you know, how'd you deal with it when you're younger and how do you deal with it now? So that allow you to get to a place where you can put that pause button, have the perspective and say, I'm going to choose to love this person despite my anger. Well, I'm going to say one thing. I'm going to say one thing that's going to sound pretty, um, simple. I'm going to say one thing. I'm going to say one thing that's going to sound pretty simple.

I'm going to say one thing that's probably going to piss some people off. We like both. But here's the truth. Because of who I am, because of what I do, and the fact that I have now become a public figure where people are like, I'm going to go to Tyler because he doesn't scream at me. He tries to explain things to me. People tend to think that he doesn't scream at me. He tries to explain things to me. People tend to think that I don't get angry. People tend to think that I don't have a raging bull inside of

me. But here's the deal. Before I go on social media and I talk to people or I put a video out or I make some sort of commentary, I have walked through my anger in a way that I have tried to figure out what's the best way to communicate. If I just let my anger unleash every minute, bro, I'm a black man in America. I should stay angry. I should stay angry, Nick. I can guarantee right now that I could turn my TV on and it will give me five reasons why I as a black man sitting in America should be angry. I've been through relationships where girls have done stupid shit. And of course I've done stupid shit as well that should fester and keep me feeling a certain way.

Here's one way that keeps me from exploding to the entirety of the world. First thing that I have to do is I have to protect my peace. Okay. I have to protect my peace. I have to make sure that I have surrounded myself with individuals that are not assholes. Okay. I have to make sure that I surround myself with individuals that when I decide that I'm going to be on fire over something that I can look at them. They can say to me, go ahead, Tyler, let your shit out. I'm not going to judge you for this. I'm not going to argue with you in a privileged way and go, I don't know. I'm going to let you have your moment. I'm going to let you get it all out. I'm going to let you set this place on fire right

now. But you do know that after you set this place on fire and you burn this shit down, you're going to have to clean it up. And I'm going to be here with you to do that. So I protect my peace by having a safe environment to be able to be angry. Next, with being angry, I have to understand perspective. For every white friend of mine that I have that gets angry at some other white friend for saying some stupid shit about a black person, I find myself going, I just need to know what their heart is, man. Like, I got too many fish to fry to be worried about the stupid shit you're concerned about because your friend said the N-word in a rap song. Like, I got bigger things to be concerned about. Am I going to put my anger here? What's the perspective on this? What am I really angry about here? And then kind of deal with that and walk through. Evaluating what I'm really angry about. Am I angry because old people dropped the N-word or am I angry because this person said this N-word in a rap song? Whatever it is, in the big group of things, i still have

my life i'm here i called my mom she said i love you i'm good i put my anger into perspective getting back to protecting my peace man because i'm i do activism on social media bro i've had people come online and say things like f your mom f your family blah blah blah this that or you broke n-word you I had somebody just recently on YouTube come along and say something like hey I haven't I only see you around white people so I feel like

you put this whole thing on about talking about your black experience I'm like what the fuck do you don't know me like you don't you don't know me you don't know who my friends are you know what i'm saying like that's the stuff that makes me want to pick up my and leave here's the thing though i've learned how to protect my peace two and a half years ago i tried to answer every single question in the book

now i got people around me that usually catch that kind of nonsense before i get to see it because i ain't got time to listen to folks sometimes, bro. I'm trying to protect my peace. And so that's how I deal with anger on a certain level. But then here's a tangible thing that might piss people off. Interesting fact about me. I do not drink. I've never drank before in my life. One, because I have addictive behaviors.

And if I started to drink today, Nick, you would genuinely be like, I talked to Tyler once, whatever happened to him, you would genuinely be like, I talked to Tyler once, whatever happened to him? And they'd be like, he's drunk somewhere out in the hallway. But I come from a household where my mom and dad, my dad drank a bit, a bit, and he was an angry drunk. He's fine now. He's cool. God, he doesn't know how to work technology. So I'm going to see this podcast, but he, he was an angry drunk and I watched that as a kid. And that allowed me to build a boundary for my anger going, looking at that situation going, I have a choice to make. I can lean into

my anger by deciding that I want to introduce alcohol into my life, and most likely I'll probably be an angry drunk too. Or I can make a tangible decision that that's not who I'm going to be. And that same mentality has followed my life throughout the way that I've walked through life, so that when I do get angry, I'm able to evaluate it from a baseline, a true baseline of who I am. It's not affected by me waking up the next morning going, honey, I was really drunk last night. Or I don't remember what I said. No, I'm fully aware of what I say when I'm angry.

And then it gives me an ability to apologize to individuals that I need to once I go over the deep end. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I love that you said that too because and it's tough because if someone can be angry at you and how they handle their anger often will make you angry right and then you're sitting there trying to understand what is it about what they're saying to you that is triggering to you and then you can't help yourself by wanting to like explain to them that i'm not your problem

which they almost always aren't in a place to want to hear that from you because you're the person triggering them like how do you it's it's like how you know i don't i don't have the answer i don't know if you do either but like how do you know i like to protect your peace that's for sure because i certainly try to do that right i try to avoid the the landmines that are out there and especially when you're engaging with the internet or social media but sometimes it has its way of finding you you know people will be like hey tyler have you seen this someone talking shit about you or vice versa and that could just spiral you but like how have you figured out how to like approach someone especially if you don't even have an intimate relationship with them to try to come

to a common ground because i find myself and i don't know is it my ego that wants to like prove them wrong or am I coming from a place of how do I I want you to seem like you know it's like something happened to me recently where like you know obviously I'm a white man I can't relate to your black experience of racism, but we all can feel like people don't see us for who we are, right? They project judgments and stereotypes or whatever. People can look at me and I can represent something to them that can have them treat me a certain way. And that can just be, I think really, like you said, like when your video, when you talked about that woman,

one like feeling that really came out is that like how discouraged you felt. Like does that helpless feeling of no matter what, I'm trying so hard to bring myself to this woman's level and it's not working and it's it's so it's such a defeating feeling and i don't have an answer for that sometimes but like have you like what do you do in that moment where you're trying so hard to like process your anger empathize put them and it still doesn't work do you know is it just protecting your peace and walking away like

how do you like and even then when you walk away it's still like in your it's in your head then you're thinking about it at least for me you ruminate and you wonder like how is there is there anything i can do is there a takeaway here like how do you go about that yeah well for those that either haven't read the book or don't or don't know what we're talking about, there's a moment in the very beginning of the book where I experience this white woman and I see her and to not scare her, I talk about how I have to make myself smaller. How I take off my headphones, take off my bandana, lower my hoodie, take off my sunglasses. And I say, if you only knew what I had to do to make myself smaller to keep

you from freaking out. And later I deal with all the anger that's kind of associated with that. I'm going to say this and I'm probably not going to say it well, but someone needs to put this on a bumper sticker at some point, probably. Everybody deserves to be loved. And like I said, love is my default. Love is the place that I want to operate the whole gamut of my life from. Let me get one thing straight. Everybody doesn't deserve my space truly love me and understand me be close to me. Everybody does not deserve the right to be in your circle. And the reason why that's important is because when it comes to moments like anger, when it comes to moments of trying to figure out how you want to walk through some dialogue that somebody said to you that may have hurt your feelings. Look,

if you live in somewhere in Produnk, Kentucky, I'm never going to see you again. And I've let your two sentences be a dagger to my soul. And I'm set up. I'm that guy. I talk about this in the book. I'm that guy that if 99 people say to me, Tyler, that was brilliant. And then one person comes along and is like, eh. I'm stuck on the eh for the next three days. I'm like, okay, what could I have done to make that one individual not say, right. But the thing about it, when I was younger, that one person would have my, my peace for the next month of my life. That individual may not deserve to be in my circle. That person may not deserve to be able to get that close to me. But I think the mistake that we make sometimes, man, is we get stuck on

caring about people and what they think, man, when they don't deserve your energy. I think about this with you. And I think about this a lot, man. You have a shit ton of people who are clawing at your energy, and people do not understand how their two or three words can be a prick in your skin. words can be a prick in your skin. And they may seem, they may seem like they have no power because they underestimate how much power their words have. But then it lands back on us to decide on how much power we're going to give them. So that woman who I had to make myself smaller for, the reason why I made myself smaller for her

is because my default is love. I want to love everybody. But once you decide that you're going to freak out, judge me and think that I'm just nothing but a no good nigger, I have to decide on what kind of energy I'm going to take to try to correct that in you. All I can really do is hope by the proximity that you have in me, by who you see me as,

by what I project out to you and the rest of the world, that you come to a conclusion that you were wrong and that I'm the shit in the best way possible, not in a cocky way, but in a, I'm a black King kind of way, you know, because my hope is that you will have proximity to me in such a way to realize that we can get past this. I didn't mean I got to give you my energy once I, you know, it's been brought to me about how you may feel about my skin tone or what you think I did or didn't do.

Even in relationships, man, with ex-girlfriends, ex-boyfriends, ex-whatever. And just because they invested in our life in such a way for so many years, I mean, you gotta still let them be in your circle. Let's get that shit. I know that's not direction we're going, but. No, that's really shit. I know that's not direction we're going, but. No, that's really helpful.

I love that. It's always, it's a good, it's a good reminder. And especially when you refer to like the power we people have or we give them, it's always a struggle, you know, like how much, the more we amplify and try to deal with our anger, we're always at risk of amplifying the power people might have over us and and so and struggling with uh again being right or your ego

or really pro like you know do you you know i always talk about like you know at that desire to have people like us or to be you know know, like you talk about that one versus the 99 compliments and things like that. No, that's really helpful. You are obviously someone who's done a lot of work on themselves and you maybe as an older man, you have that perspective and in pitfalls. perspective and in pitfalls and we live in a climate where people are often telling everyone to do the work to improve to get help or etc etc what is your point of view on our responsibility if at all to let people know we're doing the work you know versus let people know we're doing the work, you know, versus, you know, we talk about, you know, we have these words like performative and things like that. And in the social media,

people are always like, you know, it's always like a lot, it seems like a lot of white people yelling at other white people about like what white privileges or what they're doing wrong or the work they need to do. And what, yeah, what is your point of view on that in terms of, whether it's talking about race or like a person like myself who constantly wants, how do we continue to become less and less ignorant versus topics that I'm sure I have a lot of ignorance and things like that. And is it our responsibility if we've made mistakes to be like, no, no, i'm doing the work you know people

always say like what have you done like i want i need to know do we need to like update people on that or or do we need to just show it through our actions over time because i'm going to talk specifically having to do with race and racial tension and all that okay i'm going to talk i can't talk about the whole everything but i I'm going to talk very specifically about individuals who are doing work in racial reconciliation in this side or the other. This is going to lean heavily towards a lot of the people that are familiar with you and a lot of people that listen to this podcast. I'm going to talk very specifically about an individual by the name of Chris Harrison. I think I said this on your podcast before, because this is something I say all the time. Black people are not monolithic. We are not monolithic. We don't all feel the same

way about everything. We joke a lot and be like, you know, Black people do this. But we all have different ways that we feel about people. So let me be clear here when I tell you that I can't speak on behalf of every Black person in America, but I can speak on behalf of me and a handful of Black people that I have in my life on some stuff I'm about to say to you. Sure. I'm going to use Chris as an example.

When Chris had that, the famous mix-up with Rachel, some people really lost their shit about it. And I saw people on social media lose their shit. I saw people who follow me from Bachelor Nation who lost their shit about it in a negative way. I saw people who said things like, I know somebody who's going to lose their job. There's a hosting position open. I saw a lot of people say a lot of different things about this.

I saw a lot of people say a lot of different things about this. 98.9% of those individuals who were saying shit were white. At least that I saw. Now, let me be clear. Like I said, black people aren't monolithic. Maybe there was a whole community of black people. Like, millions of black, millions and millions and millions of black Bachelor fans out there that were losing their shit, baby, that I just missed. I saw some of them, but most of the stuff that I saw were white people eating this dude up. Now, what people did not know is, yo, you know who called me, called me and had no reason to, didn't to call because it's not like i had seven million

followers who were leaning on my words or that i could run over to tmz and be like listen to this phone call that i got chris harrison called me man ben hooked chris and i up and chris basically said yo man i'm in a place in my life right now where this is a time to learn some shit. And I'm not trying to learn on this big, wide scale to go and tell America about it. I just need to learn some shit. And Ben said, you know what? I got a couple of people for you to talk to, but one person you can talk to is my boy, Tyler. So I need you to understand this, Nick. Chris Harrison does not need to call me at all. He doesn't need to do that. Not only, and he could have just sent me a text and been like, hey, buddy, do you have any words

on being black and how, watch this video. What do you think? No, this dude texted me and went, hey, Tyler, I'm friends with Ben. Can I talk to you? And I was like, yeah, cool. We can talk sometimes. He's like, no, you have time now. I'm like, damn, you're okay. And he called me for the first time. And this wasn't because he was in the fire. At this time, some time had gone by. So he wasn't like in the crux of this trying to fix something. trying to fix something. He called me and I sat in this chair talking to him on speakerphone for three and a half hours the first time we ever talked, Nick. And I ripped that dude a new one for the first 30 minutes. Not like in a mean way, but just in a way of being like, dude, I don't know you because I think this is really important. Oftentimes with Black people, I'm just trying to figure out one or two things, bro. I'm trying to figure out, are you on my side or are you not? Are you on our side or are you not? Do you have a dark heart? Do you have a dark heart or are you somebody who we can reconcile and walk through some shit with? And when Chris first called me, I didn't know. I didn't know that

dude from Adam. But I started talking to that dude and we get further and further into this stuff, I didn't know that dude from Adam. But I start talking to that dude, and we get further and further into this stuff, man. This dude begins to get super real with me. And I'm not talking like skin surfacy real, Nick. I'm talking like, okay, break this down to me. Or even saying to me, hey, this is how I feel about something. And me going, yeah, that's cool and all, but you do understand that that's coming from a place of privilege. And him going, I don't understand why. And I said, let me explain. And him going, yeah, that's cool and all, but you do understand that that's coming from a place from privilege. And him going, I don't understand why.

And I said, let me explain. And him going, damn. Damn. Three and a half hours later, I hang up the phone with this dude, man. I'm looking at my phone and I'm going, I think I just made a new friend. Not just a new friend because he's trying to deal with some racial shit, but I just spent three and a half hours on the phone with this white man who doesn't know me from Adam,

who him and I put our lives on the line to get to know each other better in a way that actually meant something. Him and I are still friends to this day. I just talked to him an hour ago. I talked to him an hour ago because I was like, yo, I haven't told anybody about conversations you and I have. This might come up with Nick, and I hope you're okay with that. And his initial reaction was, look, man, I'm not trying to let people know that I'm out here trying to do this. And I was like, here's the thing.

I know that. Bro, we talked eight months ago or however long ago it was. I know you ain't over here trying to do that, bro. What I do know though, is that I had an experience with you. And I'm all the better for it. And so now when I'm on social media and I see people talk shit about Chris Harrison, that dude's not just a figure to me, Nick.

That dude's just not some guy. That dude has become my friend. So now if you're talking shit about Chris, you're talking shit about my friend and I'm a black dude. So if you want to tell me white person, how you feel about your, your, your white friend, Chris, I'm going to tell you how I feel about this dude who I see who's doing some actual work, not some falsified work shit, not some, hey, guys, I'm out here doing the work stuff. Some stuff that is genuine. Some stuff that is like, hey, Tyler, what's going on? Can we just talk today just to catch up stuff? And the moral of the story is I don't care where you put it. I don't care if you want to tell the world you're doing the work.

I don't care if you want to put out a press statement saying I'm doing the work. you're doing the work. I don't care if you want to put out a press statement saying I'm doing the work. Because what happens is, is with Black people, I don't know if we, again, we're not on Monolithic, I don't think we care so much about who knows what work you're doing. We just want to know whose side you're on and are you walking towards reconciliation? Are you walking the right way because if you're not i don't got time for you but if you come to me and you're like hey i think i want to go this way but i need you to jump on board because i got bigger shit to worry about than whether or not you made you said this or you did that or you whatever i need to know your heart so whether you want to put it on a pedestal whether we want to tell the world about it is the work really being done And in the world of, in the realm of my boy, Chris Harrison,

this was a dude who actually, and even after dude didn't have his job anymore, it's not like he suddenly just didn't talk to me anymore. This dude was still like, in fact, him and I never talked about him not having his job. Him and I should still continue talking about our relationship and about how he is growing and trying to be a better individual. So I say all that to say, man, I'll take that all day. I'll take that all day. If you want to make a mistake, I don't care who you are.

You always have the opportunity, the ability to make it right, whether it's with racial reconciliation, whether it's in relationships with one person or the other. If you don't have a dark heart and you want to take the step forward in the right direction, you can sign me up. I'm going to be on your team all day long. I don't even know if i answered your question no that was great because i'm i'm just thinking about our in the entirety of our conversation and i guess you know because you know like what's the takeaway of this story and i really appreciate

you you you sharing that uh but like you said like maybe it just comes like how do you how do you apply that right because like you said like you know it just comes, like how do you apply that, right? Because like you said, like, you know, we want to hold, you know, people talk about holding people accountable. You know, like, you know, it's not cancel culture, it's accountability. Yeah, I agree, you know. And so is it our responsibility to hold everyone accountable regardless of the color of your skin? But like you said, if your default, like your default is love, right? And so I'm assuming with that mindset, you're approaching everyone. It's like, it's like you give everyone the benefit of the

doubt, I guess, until you, they prove you wrong otherwise. So, you know, whether it's Chris Harrison or someone else who makes a mistake, right? says or does something fucked up um and then it sounds like you're choosing to uh lead with love and give them the benefit of the doubt to find out you know again are they on your side or not but you're it sounds like you approach it with an optimism that they might be unless they prove you otherwise so whether you know they're doing the work or they're tweeting it or putting on their social etc etc that certainly doesn't mean it's not i do think like in a take it we always we want answers right away and like we've become just a very impatient society of the way technology has

allowed us to like demand on demand literally everything especially when it comes from people's responses to like you know something goes on in the news and everyone's like well what does someone think about or what is someone doing you're just like i've been like i know i'm addicted to my phone but i've actually been like off it for two hours or something like that and we're constantly and like you said it's almost like you know that's the difference between leaning with love or projecting our anger onto every situation and i guess it's really just up to the people listening or or in the world like you know if it takes a lot of perspective to get to the place you're at tyler to lead with that love but you're gonna see yeah let me just say this though man we have so many of our insecurities

that that want to fumble that lead with love concept right yeah we have so many of our insecurities that are so against the idea of of of hoping that somebody has the right intention and i want to be clear i'm not naive again i am so a black man in america i am not naive that everybody is just walking around trying to do the right thing that's not the place that we live in yeah but i choose to decide that my first, my default, my default is going to be how can I love this person better? And even at the risk that I might get hurt and bring you back to the book, I spent most of my life not doing that. It was the opposite. It was how can I hurt you first? How can I hurt you first? And, you know, now I'm a little bit older. I look back now and go, the only thing that's going to matter when we're done with all this,

man, is how well did I love Nick? How well did I love Nick? When all this shit is over, Nick. How well did I love Nick when all this shit is over? I don't want Nick to remember that funny joke I told on his podcast. I want Nick to say of my funeral. Um, I didn't know Tyler that well, but I knew he loved me. Yeah. All great stuff, Tyler. And it's, um, yeah, it's, uh, it's a, it's an excellent book. I, I highly recommend, uh, people, uh, read it. I I'm, I'm a listener. I listened to the book. Uh, if you like an audio book, Tyler brings his charisma and energy into the audio book. He makes it, uh, an experience rather than a read, if I may say so, uh, myself, but you know, we could go on and on, Tyler, and you always bring a really fresh and interesting perspective about life. And, you know, it's really always nice to have you on. We live in a discouraging time, a lot of anger,

a lot of angst, a lot of frustration out there, a lot of people feeling triggered and rightfully so. lot of frustration out there, a lot of people feeling triggered and rightfully so. But as you've talked about, and we spent the past hour talking about like, we can either choose to have love be our default, or we can choose to let our anger consume us or insecurities consume us and not only hurt others, but hurt ourselves. I was thinking about literally, I didn't even realize we're going to talk about this specifically on this podcast, but I was kind of thinking to myself, like, what has my anger ever really done for me? You know, like anger is a valuable feeling

that can help us overcome things. They talk about the stages of grief and things like that, but like anger is just a catalyst to help us maybe remove ourselves from a bad situation like we can get angry and say well i i don't deserve this like why i shouldn't be victimized by this but we can't let ourselves stay in anger right because anger is not a landing place like it's it's a place that if it like festers and grows will consume us and consume the people around us. And I think it's just something we have to try to challenge ourselves to get to that place where we can be angry,

but how do we turn that anger into love and, and have it be our default? Like you said, I love it. At the risk of getting it wrong at the risk of getting hurt and having love be your default isn't isn't you being a fool isn't isn't you not holding people accountable you can still have filters you can still like you said like I love you know you didn't call up to Chris and be like hey Chris like you know I mean you you can still be honest with people you can still project frustrations and anger and still have love be your default. So I love, I love hearing that.

It's a, it's a fresh perspective, Tyler. And I really always appreciate you coming on. Any final thoughts that you have? Obviously let people know where they can find you in your book, but how can you help us wrap this up and your poetic ways? TylerMarrickBook.com pre-order i'm not sure when this is posting but the book comes out september 14th and um but pre-orders

are now because this episode will be out next week oh sweet sweet yeah pre pre-orders help all of us book writers out so So yeah, pre-orders. And the audio book really is fun. It has Jimmy Kimmel on it. It has my mom on it, my dad on it. If you're a musical theater fan, it has the James Monroe Iglehart Sony Award winner on it.

It's a good time. But so tithermarriabook.com, go check it out. And follow me on Insta or wherever because I would love to say what's up to y'all. Um, I'm pretty active there as well. Um, I just want to say this man, uh, before we go, I appreciate you, man. And, um, I appreciate Enid too, who I just recently met. Uh, Chrissy couldn't be here today, but she hit me up a couple of days ago. Um, and when we were able to talk. What you're doing is important, man. And some days you may wake up

and feel like it is more than others. Some days you may wake up and be like, it's just another thing that I do. But I really do believe that people give us the opportunity to have an impact on their lives. And it's up to us to figure out if we're gonna step forward and do that. We don't always get it right.

We don't always say the right thing. Sometimes we make mistakes, but you're more than just a podcast, Nick. You're more than just a guy who shares his thoughts here and there. audience to speak their mind and share their hearts by asking people like me, a black man, six foot two, a dreadlock, who only wants to make sure that we come together and love each other more, a place to say their words. What you're doing is important, Nick, and don't ever fucking doubt it, my brother. No, I appreciate you saying that. And I appreciate you.

And likewise, all the things that you're doing, Tyler. Thank you guys for listening. Can't thank Tyler enough for coming on. Don't forget to subscribe. Rate five stars if you have the time. Sending your questions at asknick at castmedia.com. Cast with a K for our Ask Nick episodes that are on Monday. Go pre-order Tyler's book. You won't regret it.

I personally love the audio version. And if you're a reader, you both are available now for pre-order. And if there's nothing else, we will see you back on Monday. you