These Fukken Feelings Podcast© - Harnessing Inner Resilience: A Deep Dive into Chazz Scott's Philosophies on Authentic Success | Season 2.5 Ep. 118

Episode Date: August 11, 2023

Send us a Text Message.Dive into one of our most enlightening episodes yet, as Micah and Rebecca sit down with the indomitable Chazz Scott. An embodiment of resilience, determination, and unwavering optimism, Chazz’s journey is a testament to the transformative power of positive thinking and its potential to redefine success.From the life-changing pages of Dr. Norman Vincent Peale’s iconic work to the intellectually charged atmosphere of a renowned national laboratory, Chazz’s trajectory is n...

you don't have to be positive all the time it's perfectly okay to feel sad angry annoyed frustrated scared and anxious having feelings doesn't make you a negative person it doesn't even make you weak it makes you human and we are here to talk through it all we welcome you to these fucking feelings podcast a safe space for all who needs it grab a drink and take a seat. The session begins now. Micah, got Rebecca over here with me and our special guest today, Chaz Scott. What's up, Chaz? What's going on? How are you guys doing? We are tired.

So we just feel on our show that no one can introduce and sell you the way that you can sell you. So tell us a little bit about yourself and our audience. Yeah, sure, sure. Let's see. I actually went to school down to Hampton University in Virginia. And then that time, I kind of had a tough moment in my life where I was just looking for like my self-identity, trying to figure out what was next in terms of school. I was more so kind of just depressed, but I never really knew I was depressed until after the fact. And that actually led me to a book that is titled Power Positive Thinking by Dr. Norman Vincent Peale, which basically completely transformed my life.

That allowed me to kind of go down the rabbit hole of reading and studying every personal development book, you know, in spirituality and psychology and human development potential, even metaphysics and stuff like that, just to try to understand my place in life. And then at that point in time, I said, oh my goodness, all of this information has really transformed my life in the way that I show up and my confidence and who I am, as well as managing my inner dialogue, I was like, man, we have got to give this information to youth. So we started a nonprofit called Positively Caviar, where we give mental wellness workshops to underserved youth in Baltimore and D.C. And we've been doing that for about six or seven years now.

And we've really been enjoying it. And since that time, actually actually people kept coming up to us asking for, you know, do you do these types of workshops or, um, uh, resources for, you know, people that are much older, like parents and stuff. And we didn't have that obviously, we're mainly focused on living in 18. So that's when I started doing mindset and resilience coaching with corporations and organizations beyond that, which led me to write my first book being published next month titled Success Starts With Them. So that's a little bit about me. Pretty cool. And just to let you know, we're going to get out the way now.

We're going to request an autographed copy of this book because that's what we do. We collect these books, right? But we'll pay for it. We're not asking them for freeed copy of this book. Yeah. Because that's what we do. We collect these books, right? But we'll pay for it. We're not asking them for free. We'll pay for the book. We just want it autographed so that we can say. To add to our collection. Right.

And then I can sell it in a couple of years for a million dollars or so. Of course. It's like we're here saving books and they're trying to ban them. You know what I'm saying? We're going to be moving to a bigger office soon. So we're going to be showcasing all of our authors we've interviewed in that new office. So we'd like to add Jelf. Yeah.

Pretty cool. Absolutely. You got it. So now that we got that out the way. Funny, I'm actually, I grew up in Suffolk, Virginia. Okay. Yeah. And I too was depressed until I left. Until you left. Yeah. I kind of, it was moving away that kind of saved me a little bit or a lot of it. Yeah. It was, it's pretty cool. Wow. Right. Until you met us, me and our, our producer, you know, that's when he became truly happy. Right. Right. Until he met us, me and our producer. You know, that's when he became truly

happy. Right. Right, Micah. So we're going to talk about you, Chaz. So now it's pretty cool. You teach this, you say 11 to 18? Yeah. 11 through 18 primarily. Okay. And what kind of lessons are you teaching at that age? Sure. So really we're giving them the coping skills to not only just cope, but also thrive. So we're sitting around positive psychology. So traditionally, you know, when psychology was first started, their whole center of baseline in terms of health and well-being was let's study an individual that is unhappy. Okay. Now there's nothing wrong with that. However, the more that you focus on, the more that continues to grow. Now, psychotherapy and cognitive-based therapy, many of those therapies are very, very effective. Positive psychology came along just a couple of years ago by Martin Singelman out of UPenn, which says,

let's study an individual who is happy. Let's study an individual who is doing the things that they're supposed to be doing and feeling comfortable about life. Let's take that, use that as a baseline, and then develop methods around that as opposed to the opposite. Correct. develop methods around that as opposed to the opposite. So what we're doing is giving them skills to how to cope and disrupt negative self-talk. The importance of understanding that every situation isn't permanent, it's not personal, and it's not pervasive. The three P's that positive psychology kind of talk about, which if many of those are agreed upon for that individual, you know, they'll slip into depression or helplessness. So we're giving them these fun, interactive activities that are that they're interested in.

Right. You got to get kids interested in stuff. You can't just sit there and talk to them and expect that they're going to listen to you or be interested to actually use those tools when they leave the classroom. So we come in, we give them that like great atmosphere. We give them the activities, experiential activities, so they can take those tools and take them beyond the classroom. And we meet with them, trying to do our workshops on a more monthly, consistent basis with the youth, but really depends on the principles and the budgets and stuff like that. So, of course. And now mindfulness and self-talks, would you say there's two different things? I would say, so here's my whole kind of basis on this. I don't really get too caught up in the nomenclature,

but since we're on a podcast and it's very clear that we kind of depict things, I'll discuss it, right? So mindfulness is simply paying attention to your thought, your pattern of thought. Every time that you think, it's either stimulated from an internal reaction or stimulated from an external stimuli. Okay. Now paying mindful, being mindful, mindfulness, even meditation, you're becoming much more aware of that external and internal stimuli that is creating thoughts and emotions that rise and fall. Right. And many times, I think it's probably 40 to 50% of our lives, we're totally unconscious. We're just a pattern of habits. And we don't even know what we're doing.

We're just kind of just going through the motions, as people say. And we have no idea how our behaviors are unconsciously manifesting and influencing how we feel. So being mindful, mindfulness, meditation, all of these tools, self-talk help to uncover that pattern of thought. So you give yourself space to have choice in your life. Many people don't have choice in their lives because their thoughts are very unconscious. You know, when I started reading all these books, I'll tell you something. I never even knew there was this voice inside of my head. Nobody even tells you that. But when you start reading, when you start doing personal development,

you start researching this stuff. You're like, wow, there's a voice in my head that's influencing my actions and my non-action. That's influencing when I'm confident, when I'm not confident. That's influencing when I speak up and when I don't speak up in meetings. Wow. I can engage in this conversation with myself and ensure that it's progressively moving towards where I want to go. I didn't know I was in control. I didn't know I could influence my self-talk. So mindfulness, meditation, all of those exercises help you do that so you can create space between the moment of stimuli and response so you can make a choice. Pretty cool. So, um, dang, it slipped my mind that quick. I turned my head and I lost the question. But how do, I guess, how do youth react to what you guys offer? So at first, I'll be honest with you, they do not want to be there.

Typically, we do after school programming, or they're pulled away from lunch, and they're coming into a setting and they're like, why are we here? But typically, we'll have music and we create an open atmosphere and we have pizza and soda, all that good stuff. So at first they're like, why are we here? But as you begin to kind of tell them these exercises, shape it in a way where these skills that you can use can actually increase the quality of your life, right? Because every human being wants to be happy, spiritual nature to be happy. They're excited. They want to learn more. They want to become better people. They want to understand how to cope better because growing up in these underserved communities in these environments, it's very tough for them to have people to say, you can do this. You can overcome.

There's not somebody in their ear that's telling them something, giving them encouraging words. And we're giving them encouraging words and empowerment and creating a space to do so, as well as a community environment to break down the stigmas, because we found that many underserved youth don't actively seek the formal mental health tools that they need. So we create an informal environment that disrupts the stigmas that allows them to seek the tools. Now I'll tell you a story. We did a workshop in, I think this was Cherry Hill in Baltimore, right outside of Baltimore, Baltimore city. So we were discussing, you know, what is, somebody described to me negative

self-talk. Somebody give me an example. You know, somebody said, I can't do this. I can't do that. I'm stressed. My parents pissed me off, blah, blah, blah. And then somebody said under their breath, it was this little girl, I forgot her name. But she said, you know, I've had thoughts about killing myself. Okay. Now, I don't know if she was specifically talking about herself or is that she was giving an example. But what I can tell you is creating these spaces and allowing for us to have open discussions about these stigmatized, you know, stigmatized stuff can be difficult. So what tends to happen is, guess what happened? People said, no, no, no, you're not supposed to think like that. No, that is exactly what we have to disrupt

because we've all had thoughts where we feel like we want to hurt ourselves or we feel like it's so bad. I just want to let it go. Okay. That is, that is literally in terms of the human progression and the human journey. Many of us go through that, but many of us don't talk about it. I've went through it. Okay. When things get, things get tough and your fight or flight senses are racing and you can't think straight. The first thing that you want to do is end the pain. Okay. So that allowed us to create a space. And I said to everybody, we've all had those thoughts before. It's good that you're talking about them. Number one, there's resources available. Number two, there's a community of folks in here that can help you through it. Okay. That gets rid of the stigma and creating those open spaces, informal open spaces, because many, many youth go to formal structures and they're not going to talk openly about these topics, allows them to seek the formal mental health services that they need or seek the informal mental health services that we offer. Right. And I'm going to guess that it had to be hard hearing that from

someone so young, you know, being on the receiving end of, you know, if you want to kill yourself and it's like, wow, you know, to me, I think that's, you know, I never, we started off our season, um, with, uh, Maddie and it's, she's a 15 year old girl who was getting bullied. And we kind of basically talked about that, but those were a couple of her thoughts, you know, and I was, uh, yeah, I was floored, but I also wasn't prepared for it. You know, I wasn't prepared for her to say that. I didn't think it was that deep, you know, and, and it's like, Oh, I got to give her the right answer.

So how do you know you give the right answers? I guess is my question, if that was a question. Yeah, yeah, no, I hear you. I mean, I think intuitively we know in terms of a human, right, we want to be happy and we want to live out the fullest expression of ourselves. So when I'm put in situations like that, you always want to give people a perspective. That perspective is you're not alone. Right. Okay. That's very important. So when we create this community-like atmosphere

in this workshop environment, they're allowed to open up, but that also allows everybody to express how they're feeling on a day-to-day basis. You know, something that's extremely important, you know, as I continue to grow and something I've realized, and the studies have actually proved this, is ensuring that you have people that you can go to where you can express your emotions and can provide you comfort, you know, solace, different perspectives, right? If you don't have that, it's really hard for you to overcome certain situations because you don't necessarily have a community of folks that can assist you, right? Friends, family,

you're the average of the five people you surround yourself with. So it's important that we surround ourselves with people that want to empower us, that can give us new perspectives and can give us space for comfort and allow us to share our emotions. Not, you know, they call me Mr. Positivity because I'm like super positive, but I can tell you life is hard. Life can be very tough. And you need a community of people around you that can support you, that can empower you, and that can provide you that space of comfort. Do you, you might have already said this, so I'm not sure, but do you have programs similar for adults as you do children? Yeah, so it's definitely different. So when we do our mental wellness workshops with Positively Caviar, we're focused on coping skills. So with me professionally in the book that I just about to publish next month, I mostly do mindset and resilience. So that's, you know, how to disrupt negative self-talk, meditation, exercise, self-care, you know, how can you promote those qualities so you can be a better individual in any hat that you're wearing so you can improve your productivity,

your performance, your quality of life. So that's what I do. I do coaching. So on my website, you know, people book with me if they want to improve their productivity or their mental wellness or resilience in that area. It's pretty cool that they had to see such change in the adolescents you were working with in order to want it themselves you know like hey do you do this for adults because you know it seems to be working for these young folks yeah all right so sad to be pretty cool for you um i did have one question what are some things uh like in your book um what are some of the greatest topics? I know you're talking, obviously, about the mindset and so forth and whatnot, but what are some other

heavy hitters in that book we can expect to read about? Sure, sure, sure. It's all I think about. So the book is titled Success Starts With Them. The subtitle is Achieve Your Potential Through Radical Self-Care. So in my life, when I graduated from school, Hampton University, I got the job I wanted. I got the car I wanted. I got the nice apartment in Arlington, Virginia that I wanted looking over the Potomac in DC. And I was still unhappy and depressed. I worked harder and I was still unhappy and depressed and didn't have that inner growth. I had learned all these tools and personal development, but I wasn't taking action and integrating them in my life. Right? So that sent me on a path of everything that I've learned and everything

I've been teaching youth. Why am I not utilizing it in my own life? And why am I still unhappy? I have all these material items. I got the $100,000 salary. I got the BMW. I'm living in Arlington, Virginia. Why am I not happy? So what I realized was I needed new principles and integrative habits to increase the quality of my life right now. I wasn't going to wait to accomplish a goal to be happy. I wasn't going to wait to get a certain salary to fill abundance. I was tired of waiting. I wanted my happiness and my joy in the here and now. So that sent me on a path of really changing my relationship of what success is. Right. And

success is really building from the inside out to influence your external reality. So you brought up some of the things that are in the book. Right? One of the things that I've, I've, um, the principal point behind the book is ensuring that, you know, your success in life is only viable as your wellbeing. So put your wellbeing first, and then the success will come after the fact. Here's an example. Back in 2007, a group of German scientists wanted to understand how aerobic exercise influenced the brain. So they had two groups of people. One set of group learned vocabulary words after they had aerobic exercise. Looks like I'm getting some feedback. And then the group learned the new vocabulary words

before doing aerobic exercise. So the group that learned the new vocabulary words 20% faster was the group that learned the new vocabulary words after they did an aerobic exercise, right? So what does this mean? As we engage in exercise, aerobic in particular, whether it be running, jogging, hitting the cycle, exercise, right? It actually enhances your mental capacities in terms of productivity and performance as well as focus so you can get to your goal faster.

So many people are like, oh, I don't have enough time to exercise. You don't understand how much stress I'm under. I understand how much stress you're under, but if you exercise first, tell me how you feel afterwards. So what I do is when I do my writing in the morning, I do a mile run in the morning and then I do my meditation and then I go right into writing because I know I've optimized my brain for increased focus and concentration for that time period after I've done an aerobic exercise. And there's tons of studies that have shown that at least 150 minutes of exercise a week is up to 1.5 times more effective than antidepressant and cognitive-based therapy, right? Both of those tools are very important and effective. However, when you integrate it

with consistent exercise throughout the week, it also enhances your quality of life because you get the dopamine hit, what's called your default mode network, which is that self-referential part of your brain that constantly worries about the past, regrets the future, worries about the past, shuts off, right? So your mind is more clear after an exercise. So these are the integrative practices that you can do to enhance the quality of your life right now, not later, right now. So that's one of them. Well, I decided a long time ago that I was smart enough, so I don't do no exercise. I don't need no more.

My mom always says, you're too smart for your own good. So, you know, I'm going to take my mom advice. He was like, that was corny. But honestly, speaking of studies, I actually heard a pretty cool study this week about christian like um i don't know like anything to do with jesus they were saying that people who will listen to 15 minutes a day of like a sermon or read the bible for 15 minutes or even just listen to gospel music for 15 minutes. Like it released chemicals in the brain that they never knew it did before. And it actually makes people get better. So yeah. Have you ever heard that before? I have. I'm glad that you brought that up, Micah. So

Lisa Miller, you can write her name down. She wrote the book, The Awakened Brain, but she actually discusses, she's a neuroscientist, I think she's a neuroscientist. Anyway, she's in the sciences and she studied how spirituality actually influences your mental health. And what you're touching upon is something extremely critical, right? We don't often realize how much of our pattern of thought is ultimately influenced by our beliefs, right? You know, when something happens negatively in our lives, we could either say, God is condemning me,

or God is preparing me for my next opportunity, right? It's based upon our pattern of thought, which is based upon our belief. So our beliefs on what we perceive and how life tends to show up for us is all based upon our spiritual beliefs, right? So I agree with you. For me, when I do my meditation, you know, I do my prayers, you know, that creates a state of comfort for me. And there's tons of chemicals that are released into the brain when you do these integrative practices daily to make you more resilient, to change your pattern of thought, and to give you a sense of understanding that your life is happening the way it should be. And it's a journey that you can learn from, not just struggle through. Right. It sounds kind of like, if I were to paraphrase what you were saying, it basically

was like, find your safe place, find what makes you comfortable, because that in itself will start your healing. That's kind of what I heard. Is that not what you meant? No, absolutely, man. I think everybody should have a safe space. For me, you know, when I wake up in the morning, so I have like the stuff I talk about in the book about having a morning routine to kick off your day. I typically wake up around 5 a.m. and I do that is because I've seen the effects that it's had on my life the way I treat my wife the emotional regulation that I had at work the emotional regulation empathy and compassion that I have for myself and when I started to see the positive effects of my life through this daily kind of meditation I was was like, yeah, you know, I'm not going to miss

a day because my life is getting better when I do this simple act in the morning. And then of course, I went down the rabbit hole of how meditation tends to affect your neurochemicals, how meditation affects your pattern of thought and psychology, and that inner alignment of who you are that just sort of really compels me to do it more. So yes, I would offer to anybody that's listening is, you know, find your safe space. And that doesn't have to be meditation. That doesn't have to be prayer. It could be journaling. It could be walking in nature. Do whatever it is that comforts you so you can do what you're supposed to do on this earth and fully live out your potential. Definitely. Really, really well said. And you actually answered my next question because I'm one of those people, I can't meditate. I've tried.

First of all, I feel like 10 seconds is three hours. And then I started to think about how I want to build a house and decorate my meditation room, but I can't quiet my mind enough to actually meditate. So what I've started doing is like creative visualizations and just how I wanted to see my life, how I want other people's lives to be. And all of it is happy, but it's like I started doing that. So it was cool that you said it doesn't have to be meditation because my question was, do you think it could have the same effect? And I guess it's yes. No, it does. And Mike, I'm glad that you brought that up because, you know, in my studies and what I've actually been teaching folks is you want to calm down your brain. So typically most of our lives were in what's called beta state throughout our day.

But as you begin to cycle down when you're about to go to sleep, you go from beta to alpha to theta and then delta, right? And these are these slower brain waves. And what you want to do is allow yourself to calm down throughout the day. As soon as we wake up in the morning, there's marketing conglomerates, social media, somebody is trying to get your attention when you touch that phone. And you don't have control over your thoughts. I make it very apparent in my life to not touch my phone as soon as I wake up. But it just cycles me throughout my day. It's just crazy. But the important point of all of this is

you've got to put your brain in a state of coherence, of rest, creative visualization. Love that because you're not, I don't know if you have your eyes closed, but you're typically not having a whole lot of stimuli come in. You're sending in yourself, you're grounding yourself. Your brainwaves are coming down from beta to alpha to theta, and you're becoming more aware of what you're thinking, of where you're going, and you're not affected by all this external stimuli that causes us to feel like states of anxiety or stress. So I love, I actually have a book titled creative visualization that I just read this year. That's excellent. But I, I, that's what I use at the end of my meditations, visualize how I want the day to go, um, my goals for the future. Um,

and there's lots of neuroscience and that backs up the claims in terms of how visualization actually affects our subconscious mind and the behaviors that are associated to what we want to do. And it's actually a shortcut to success, which I also talk about in my book. Because if you think about it, when you do your visualization, I'm sure you're visualizing your goals, what you want to do, what you want to accomplish, who you want to become. What tends to happen is you're laying down the neural circuitry in your brain, the software that allows you to take that path when the behavior is appropriate. It makes it easier between thought and execution. It's a cheat code. You're laying down the software so you can take action in the future.

No wonder why people tell me I ain't from this earth. I think that's why. No. He was like, you don't have to stop the whole vibe. That's smarter. Actually, I do have a question though about like naysayers because um i'm actually a very

positive person too and i get a lot of backlash for being so positive so i was wondering is that something that you dealt with and um you know as mr positivity and how do you not fall into it? Micah, this is like one of my favorite questions. So one thing that I've recognized is majority of the people on Earth, especially in highly civilized communities, they're constantly on their phones. They're listening to the news. They're constantly in a fight or flight state, which often produces negativity, negative emotions. That's why you kind of have to peel yourself back from the news and do mindfulness techniques, do all these things that we know we're supposed to do for our mental well-being. So when somebody comes around and super positive, they're like,

how are you so positive with all this negative stuff happening? Right? Why are you so positive with all this negative stuff happening? Right. Right? Why are you so positive with people? Sorry, go ahead. I was just going to say it definitely seems foreign at times for sure. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And the thing about it is it's uncomfortable for people to see other people positive in certain areas in their lives. And what I've noticed is, for me, I'm very keenly aware of my surroundings. So if I know somebody who's maybe going through a tough time, I'm here for empathy and compassion. I'm not going to be, hey, just think positive.

I mean, the title of the book that changed my life was Power Positive Thinking. But we do know that just thinking positive isn't necessarily going to create the circumstances necessary for a better quality of life. Right. There are other things that you can do besides just saying a blanket statement like that. But one one thing that I've often realized is just being aware of how your vibration of how you feel influences others. Typically, what happens is as you start to become more around them more often, they'll pick up off of how you feel and it'll start to influence them, even if they can't consciously feel it. But I'm not like overly positive to the extent where it's uncomfortable. I'm just a caring, empathy, compassion, patient individual. And when the time is needed, I'll provide them with some advice. When the time is needed, I'll provide

them with some encouragement. When the time is not needed and they don't have a receptive mind or they're not interested in what I have to offer, that's fine, right? We have family members and friends who aren't in the space that we are. And our job is not to, you know, put them aside. Our job is to create a space where, you know, we all can elevate and we draw the circle big enough so everybody fits. And if people are interested, we have tools, we have resources and your life gets better. I'm actually having a struggle with that right now because I've, I'm, I learned how I always tell people I found peace. You know, I finally, I know what peace is. And my issue is that I kind of want to alienate everybody because it's so much negativity in this world. So I always want to be by myself,

you know, and it's like, it's, it's, I feel like it's a bad thing because I'm not sharing the things that I learned because I just want to be by myself, you know, kind of a part of reason making the podcast. Cause I felt like, you know, like people need to lean and people need to know that you can be at peace on this earth. You know, I don't, I don't want to believe that there is a God that created me to be miserable and only be happy when I'm with him because I'm still being him all the time. Right. So it's like, I just want to be happy now and enjoy this life. But because of that, sometimes I don't want to deal with people. I don't want to, with people i don't want to

you know put myself in that company because it's like i never know what i'm gonna get and like i rather i'm traveling to vegas in august by myself you know it's like who goes to vegas by yourself like i do i just don't want to go with no one that could potentially mess up my trip you know it's like how do you get yourself to not be selfish because I think that could be selfish a little bit I don't think so yeah yeah I mean I I think you know you know this human journey is very interesting right you know when you start to kind of get on your path of peace and success and joy um you often, obviously, you want to share it with as many people as you can, especially your family and friends. And one of the things that I've discovered

is, you know, people, especially close to you, you know, when they see you joyful, you know, they'll question you or it's different for them because that causes them to look at their own lives. And it's really that kind of self-conflict of if he's doing better or he's happy, you know, what am I doing with my life? And that's just an unconscious response. They don't even know that they're doing it because they're in fight or flight. Right. So, but what I like to say is, you know, I have people in my life that are one minute friends, five minute friends, a week long vacation friends, one month friends. And I don't mean to say that in a way where I'm pushing them out of my life, out of my life. But there are certain people in your life that, you know, you can't go on a long stay vacation with.

You just know that. Right. You know that, you know, your neighbor down the street, you're not going to kick it with them and have a beer for a night. You guys are respectful, but you're just not in that space. That energy isn't there. circle big enough. And if they're open and willing and interested in the things that I've learned, you know, they can ask and, you know, you'll provide them and they'll have a receptive mind, but you don't give information to a mind that's not receptive because they'll take it and use it against you. And, you know, I think it's just critically important to live out your life to the fullest expression of who you are. Be happy, be abundant, be successful, do the best that you can. Because as you live out the fullest expression of yourself, there will be a question that your family member or your friend will ask you. Why are you so happy? How are you so successful? Well, here's what I do. Here's the books I read. Here's the podcast I do. Here's right. The question will come. But you have to live out the fullest expression of who you are.

Definitely. That was actually really good. I was like, what you trying with fine in finding that true happiness that Micah, um, himself has, uh, I struggle with, you know, depression and all that stuff. And that's why, kind of why I'm here. Um, because I'm pretty good. I'm going to say expert, but not really. But I don't know where even my first step would be in trying to find that real happy place. I mean, I've listened to several different podcasts. Obviously, I've been a host to them. And I've learned different techniques and so forth, but just listening to you talk about, you know, all those different things just now, it just, I don't know if I'll, I don't know. I want to find what Micah has, but I gotta, I just, I don't know.

I think it starts with your safe, your safe space, you know, where you're comfortable. You know, I feel like all of our episodes kind of mirrored that thing. You know, it's like, be comfortable. So it's an environment thing first? No, it doesn't. Well, not necessarily environment. It's just you, where you're potentially, where you're at ease. I mean, I'm going to let Chaz talk my bad.

I get to talk to her all the time. Go ahead and give it to her. No, I agree. You know, safe space is important. You know, I think, you know, when we think about the totality of our lives, you know, we're all searching for peace and well-being and joy. And, you know, I can only speak for myself and then kind of what I've been seeing or coaching folks with is you want to do something daily that grounds you, that centers you. And it doesn't have to be all of these crazy techniques that all these personal development speakers are talking about. It can literally be something that you enjoyed to do

when you were a child. I guarantee you there's something that you've done as a child that's really excited you, that's really expressed the fullest expression of you, that can allow you to, you know, express those positive emotions. And, you know, for me particularly, that happened to be kind of, so I do like running, I play basketball, you know, those activities stimulate and make me feel good. You know, for other people, it could be playing the violin when they were a child and they totally forgot that they enjoyed it. But they started to pick up that habit of playing it daily, just five minutes a day. And it started to have an effect on their pattern of thought for weeks on weeks on end. And then, you know, different topic, but same thing, which is when we talk about negative emotions, you know, the types of food that we eat, you know, you want to have more fruits and veggies in your diet. You want to get your omega-3 fatty acids, right?

You want to take your vitamins if you can, multivitamins, because we know that in terms of upgrading the neurocircuitry of your brain and feeling comfortable with what you have in your brain, we want to make sure you have the necessary nutrition and nutrients. So we do know that vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids and having a healthy, balanced diet, more fruits and veggies can tend to enhance the quality of your life too. I can't take vitamins. I just found that out recently. I almost died. So it was cool. I just felt that it was cool.

It was like, if you can, because I'm like, now everybody can take them. Right. I tried to start taking vitamins, stuff like that. And like kidneys started going really bad. And it's like. It was bad. Weird. Yeah, I went.

It was so bad. And it was just like an everyday multivitamin. And then I was taking vitamin D. And I don't know if it was the combination or just it was like my health went so bad. Like I legit thought I was going to die. It has to do with his health background. And because I'm an alien, but. I think we're all aliens.

I love it. So mental health, you know, I feel like now is being talked about more than normal, but I feel like it's still something people laugh about. I get it a lot because I make a lot of TikTok posts and a lot of Instagrams and, you know, people call me corny or cheesy or like, get off my page with this crap. And it's like, you know, so I know there's still a stigma on mental health. Like how, what do you say to someone who is trying to get out of that space? You know, someone that knows that I need help, but, you know, black people don't get help. And I say that because I've heard before, you know, what therapy is stuff so I think people were like to me, I feel like when I get those comments, it's really someone who wants to take part in it.

No, someone who's saying, is this person really happy? Like, is are they living in their truth? Like, I want to know more. But instead of saying that, I'm just going to call you a faggot. So it was like I know what it means when they say it, but I don't know how to respond to it. Like, how would you bring somebody out of that space into like getting them to consider life coaching or just dealing with their mental health, period? Sorry, I didn't mean to make the question so long. very relevant because you know you can scroll on social media you can scroll on Facebook and Twitter you can see any number of people speaking about mental health and I think it's really critical I encourage individuals such as yourself and you guys continue to push out this material because you never know who may need it in that certain moment when they're ready that's one of the things that I've realized is,

you know, I talked about this, which is a human soul is on their own progression in life. And when the human soul is ready for change and transformation, new resources, new ideas, they will seek it. If the human soul is not ready, they will not seek it. So our human progression is very interesting in terms of our journey in life. And you can only give to a receptive mind. But in terms of social media and putting out this information to anybody who's interested, I think it's especially important because I know people out there are searching for tools, searching for resources, and social media has created kind of this superhighway of information that can really elevate the quality of your life if you search the right things and follow the right people. I started unfollowing a whole lot of people on my timeline because I realized, wait a minute,

I'm talking about my pattern of thought and my self-talk and it's influenced by what I see. If I start scrolling and see something that I don't like to see, I'm shooting myself in the foot. So I'm just going to go ahead and unfollow that to make sure I see things that I want to see so I can be happy. That makes a whole lot of sense. So I unfollow those people. But it's really critical to continue to push out the material. And when they're ready, they'll seek it. Right. All you can be is that positive inspiration for others. So they can say, oh, you know, if you can do it, I can do it because I've been there. Right. OK, good answer. So now I love the Real Housewives of Atlanta.

I can't give it up. I cannot give it up. And I felt like you were telling me to give it up, Chaz. No. I actually want to be the first male peach holder, right? So that's my goal in life, is to be the first male peach holder. Andy Cohen, I'm talking to you, on the

Real Housewives of Atlanta. But you know it's going to be some drama. But I wanted to ask you kind of, we asked all our guests, like what's a guilty pleasure that you have that you're kind of really don't talk about. Oh man, a guilty pleasure that I have. Um, oh man, I have to think of this. So, so for me, I'm like super critical of my diet because I know how it affects how I feel. But I really, really love sitting on the couch and eating a bowl of chips and a guacamole. It's not too bad, but I can, I can down a bag in one sitting. Very quickly. I'm like, that's still a vegetable you know it's hyper processed food it is um but uh yeah for me and then also like um what's that dessert i absolutely love um my wife loves key lime pie. So I actually started to really like key lime pie. You always got to get just a bite of hers.

Yeah. And then I'm like, I want a little bit more. And typically what happens is if I eat late at night, my stomach gets upset and I'm like, I wish I wouldn't have ate that. Like, cause now it's messing with my sleep. You know, I'll think of some other guilty pleasures, but it really happens to be around food. I'm really particular. I almost bought, cause I love lemon meringue pie. It's my favorite. And actually my favorite is the store-bought one. And I went to the grocery store yesterday and

there it was sitting on the, on the shelf. And I walked by and I thought, oh, I really want that. And then I thought, no, I'm not going to do it because if I buy it, I'm going to eat the whole thing. Literally, maybe not one day, but it will be all me. So I did a good job and I didn't buy it. Yes. That's great. That's good. That's huge. That's how you know you're strong. You got a good mentality. Okay, that was good. I'm trying. Tomorrow I'm going to buy her a lemon meringue cake and put it on her desk. Don't do it.

So supportive, isn't he? I just want to see if she's still going to be strong. Why you got to do that? I don't know how strong I'll be. So how do you like control, not to say control, but how do you, I guess, that's the word I'm looking for, filter or process emotions when dealing with so much serious topics? Especially talking to inner youth and especially when sometimes those inner youth doesn't have anybody other than you that's really supportive? I'm glad you asked that because I was trying to figure out how to ask that kind of similar question, but I couldn't quite formulate it in my mind because you know how I'm good. I fumbled through that too, though, but it ended up being like 30 minutes long. But

did you understand the question? Because I don't think I could repeat it. Well, maybe let me rephrase it and let me see if I understand it so how do I filter information as it relates to how I feel and what I'm seeing or help me understand what you mean by filtering yeah kind of like how do you stay grounded when you're hearing you know a story from 11th year old you stay positive after hearing all of right it's like how do you you, you know, me, I'm empathic. So if you cry, I'm gonna cry with you. I don't even know why you're crying. You could just be having allergies and I'm gonna cry because I think you said like, that's how you'd be like,

I just sneezed. And I'd be like, oh, that was it. Oh, dang, I cried for no reason. But, you know, how do you like me? I don't know. It's like a funny question. And I say that because I know a lot of kids who don't have a support system and who, you know, I hear just out in the grocery store, you know, like, what are you stupid? You know, or just things and, you know, you just observe and you see life and you see like some of these parents that are raising these kids. And I'm pretty sure these are some of the kids that attend your sessions. So it's how do you not like go jack up the dad because, you know. Yeah. Like how do you stay grounded? You took the question to a different level. I know I did.

Sorry, I get a little. Now the question is really confusing. But now I guess what you said is right. Like how do you process or just how do you just remain positive in those situations? I guess that it probably could have just been that. That was it. Yes. Right. No, I think that's a good question because I think a lot of us have to deal with stress and see certain things that we want to see or feel things that we don't want to experience. So for me, you know, when I'm teaching youth or, you know, if something actually happens in my life that I don't like, and I have a negative emotion,

what tends to happen for me now that I recognize, you know, I have thoughts that arise and then thoughts that kind of settle or emotions that arise, emotions that settle, I feel the emotion, I let it rise, and then I let it fall. I don't try to repress it. I don't try and push it down because we know that emotions that are repressed begin to manifest in physical ailments. So you want to allow that emotion to complete its cycle. So if you feel a negative emotion, the best thing that you can do, I can say this, if you feel a negative thought arising, the best thing that you can do is ask yourself, is this thought true? Is there any valid examples that can support what I'm thinking. Because many times the thoughts that we have

are not true and they're not real. Many of the thoughts that you have throughout your day are not real or false, right? Many times it's either exaggerated, it's our imagination spinning up. So the best thing that you can do from like a psychology point of view is think to yourself, wait a minute. That that guy was like really pissed off at me. Why did he get so angry at me? Was it me or was he having a bad day? The guy that just cut me off side of the road off of 95 around Washington, D.C. because the traffic's so terrible. Right. Was that me? I will fly.

I do not drive to D.C. Just to let you know. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, no, I hear you. It's very stressful. But the question you ask yourself is, okay, he just got into my lane, right, kind of curved in front of me. The question you ask yourself is, wait a minute, maybe he's having a bad lane, right? Kind of curbed in front of me. The question you ask yourself is,

wait a minute, maybe he's having a bad day, right? Maybe he or that individual is going through something and they got to get to their destination. It's not me. I don't have to be negative. I don't have to allow his emotions or his external circumstances influence how I feel internally. So many times it can be like that. And I also will say that my meditations daily really help with that. So if I experience a negative emotion in the day, I feel it and let it rise. But also when I go into meditations or creative visualization, I also feel the emotions. My thoughts will begin to calm and then their solace, solace and comfort in knowing that I'm OK. I'm literally OK. It's just my thoughts that are spinning up my fight or flight senses that are allowing myself to imagine things that aren't necessarily true or aren't necessarily real. What I've come to my realization is our bodies are trying to protect

us. When we experience negative emotions or we have a negative thought, our fight or flight senses come up because that's the amygdala response. We're trying to run away from a threat. Your body is trying to build the capacity so you can run away from that threat. Your body is doing what it's supposed to do. Now, what we want to do is make sure that we realize that fact, but also have some tools to realize that your body is doing what it's supposed to do. But we're not running from a saber-toothed tiger anymore back in the prehistoric age. We're now dealing with how people look at us, how people compare us, social media, the negative effects of what we see on social media when we compare ourselves with other people. That's that same fight or flight response as if we were running

from a saber-toothed tiger. So we want to understand that from a contextual context point of view, and then also have tools that we can use daily to kind of cope, not only cope, but thrive after the fact. Okay. And I see that you mix a lot of physical health with like mental health. I feel like you're teaching a lot that they have to kind of, you have to take care of both of them, you know, which is cool

because, you know, we've had interviews where people were like, well, you ain't got to exercise at all, you know, as long as you do this. And I'm like, okay. So it's cool that you give a different perspective and um yeah like you almost make me want to exercise you know i'm saying so what well hey micah i gotta be honest with you that is the best thing i've heard all day because literally my book

is full of knowledge what i've just, to encourage people to do that. So I'm glad that that is compelling. Like the stuff I'm telling you is like compelling. Right. But you don't have to exercise. I think sweating and yoga and stretching, not necessarily the traditional forms of exercise, but those types of practices where you're just sweating, going and hitting the sauna, very, very important. Yeah. And it's funny because I thought the other day, I was like, I got to start stretching again.

I used to be a dancer when I was younger, many, many moons ago. And I stretched a lot. I don't know. I just like stretching. But I thought about that. Radical. Use radical in your title. Let's talk about it. So the reason why I used radical is because when most people think of self-care, we think of bubble baths, lighting the candles, getting a massage. I absolutely love all that stuff. I just got a massage last week. I needed it. Right. But when we talk about radical in terms of the success starts within my book, we're talking about uncovering those self-limiting beliefs, those undercover beliefs that may be reinforcing the behaviors and actions that you're taking and not taking. We're talking about understanding your pattern of thought. We're talking about your self-image, how you feel internally. We're talking about practices and things that you can do daily that can completely transform your life if you do them regularly. So that's why I use the term radical self-care.

You know, I'll give you an example of self-limiting beliefs. You know, many of our brains, our subconscious mind in particular, I mean, we're sucking up like 11 million bits of information per second. It's a lot of information coming in, right? From each of our five senses, our conscious mind only sucks up or is consciously aware of 50 bits of information per second, right? So there's information coming in that you cannot necessarily unconsciously realize that it's influencing how you feel. So that's why you need to be very aware of what you're scrolling on social media, what's the type of music that you listen to, the type of movies that you watch, because what you do throughout the day, you carry it into sleep with you. So an example would be when you're watching

a scary movie right before you go to sleep, you're scared, you go to sleep, and then you have a dream about the scary movie. Well, where do you think it came from? It came from your pattern of thought throughout the day. And that further enriches into your subconscious mind. So I don't recommend scrolling on social media and watching things that aren't necessarily good for your health to be transparent. When is your book coming out? I know you're saying next month, but do you have a date? Yeah, the date is July 25th, and it's already available for pre-order, Barnes & Noble's, Amazon, anywhere that you can get books, it's available. It took me about three years to write. And it actually took me like 55 different publishers and agents before I could actually find somebody who was interested in publishing my book.

Moral of the story, don't stop with your dreams. Keep going. So I always like to share that. Cool. And we're actually going to air this episode on July 25th so that people can order your book as soon as they watch this episode. So you're watching it today. The book is available to buy.

And we'll do that. We'll list all your contact information, of course, on our website. But any last words of encouragement for our viewers before we go? Yeah, just a couple of words. I think everything that we've discussed today, you know, main goal is to give people hope, is to give people encouragement and empowerment and to let them know that there are resources out there to improve the quality of your life and what you want, which is joy, success, love, abundance, what you want is also seeking you. But if you start taking those first steps, those things that you want will start actively coming into your life. And, you know,

just take the first step, you know, anybody that you see that is happy, ask them, why are you always so happy? Anybody that you see has a successful relationship, how do you have a successful relationship? Somebody who's really good at money, how are you good at money? And then do exactly what they do so you can get those same results. And just be open, be patient, have empathy for yourself and compassion. This is our journey of life. We don't know everything. But if you go seek the resources, life gets better.

And now you say thrive a lot as well. So you want people to thrive. What does that mean to you? So thrive is, I'll use it in context of my book, which is really truly living out the fullest expression of yourself, your potential. When you're doing your thing, you know when you're happy. For me, I love sharing information about enhancing the quality of people's lives. So when I leave this podcast, I'm very happy because I'm living out the fullest expression of myself. And that could be anything for anybody else that's listening. And we want to make sure

that we have the practices that can really give us the adequate resources that our bodies need to truly live out our potential. You can't live out your potential if you don't have a decent amount of sleep. You can't live out your potential if you don't have good community of folks around you. And you can't live out your potential if you don't have a good diet. So it's really important that you do the things that you need to do so you can really thrive and truly actualize those things that you know you're that you need to do so you can really thrive and truly actualize those things that you know you're on this earth to do. And even if you don't know, you'll still put yourself in a

better position to find out when you do these things to enhance the quality of your life. Okay. And I did say last question, but it's one more. Corporate America, because I know, look, I know you said that you deal withhour resilient or mindset workshop for organizations as well as corporations with their employees. more resilient strategies to help ensure that the quality of the employees are thriving, because if the quality employees are thriving, that means business is thriving. So we know since the pandemic, how important it is to really dive deep into our mental well-being, physical well-being, spiritual well-being, and how that can enhance the, not only the quality of the individuals, but the quality and the effectiveness of organizations. Awesome. Perfect. Yes. Thank you. I just wanted to, and the reason I thought about that, I'm actually, we're planning a fleet summit for our day job. And I've been trying to

think like, oh, they asked me to figure out something and I'm going to recommend you because I'm like, we should do this. We're in the transportation industry. And I know sometimes it can be really, really hard because people want things now. So I think what you offer may be helpful. So yeah, we'll reach out to you about that. Definitely. And we thank you for coming on. Thanks for sharing all your knowledge. We will be in contact much uh we're going to send you a pillow as well too because that's going to be the trade-off for the book so we send you a pillow for the autograph book but like i said we will pay for the book okay and you just gotta sign it and uh thank you for coming on thank you guys for watching, and we'll see you next time.