Test Your Luck

The man behind the hustling grind is his pride, courage, determination and perseverance. Welcome to no looks given. And just like that we are back live at the no Lux given podcast. I'm Dana Keith, I got my co host luck. Luck in a building Brother Brother luck, which I appreciate you being here. Look, y'all thank you so much for tuning in to the No Lucks Given podcast. This has grown. We are like Episode 19. So if you guys rock with us, if you listen on Spotify, Apple podcast, make sure you tune in there. Otherwise, if you'd like the video version, check out YouTube. That's where we're going to play those. And then we have a Patreon chef brother like Patreon, which we'll get into a little bit here in the back into this episode. But welcome set a no let's get on podcast What's up, brother? How you doing? Man?

You know what? I'm glad to just take a few minutes out of a crazy crazy crazy week. Yeah, and and just chop it up. But you man, I think we have great conversations and we always get deep. Yeah. And I like to make sure we make time for this is so important.

No, this is good, especially like just natural organic conversations. And, you know, between me and you like like just kind of catching up where we're at right now might be a great conversation, you know, speaking about, you know, where you're at, in business, where you're at, in mindset where you're at, you know, just in life. So let me just do my personal checking. Because I used to do this in early of goes, Hey, how you doing? Brother? How's your week been? Man?

Man? I'm good. You know, I think it's a it's important to have those check ins because, you know, there's so much stuff happens on just an everyday basis. And Yep, you know, you you've got to just kind of slow down and process and then decide, you know, this is how I'm going to move forward. Yeah. And it takes having a good circle and people around you to ask that question. Yeah, yeah, I put a post out earlier that literally talked about this. Who's your 12? Yeah, who's in your circle feeding you right now who's in your circle? feed you? Yeah, that's beautiful. I love that conversation. Keep going. You know, I get chills you is real, though. Because like, you know, we chase these relationships in the workplace, we chase them and in our personal lives, you chase these relationships, and we're looking for acceptance, we're looking for validation. And and sometimes those relationships aren't. So they're not what you need, right? They're not they're not going to feed your soul. These people don't believe in what you believe in. They don't follow the same lifestyle that you follow, right or not, they're not adding anything to your lifestyle. You're not anything to their lifestyle. Right, right. So you know, why are we wasting time so I love that you do that check in man because you know, you want to circle you know, you're going to serve now

I appreciate you, man. That's love 100% and real quick, we have to address the elephant in the room real quick. You have a brace what's wrong with this brace and why we do it? I gotta go check one thing on my the camera,

you know. So, of course, you know, I'll braced up today. Um, you know, that's the reality. My birthday is coming up, but I'm getting old. Now, you know, I have some, some tendons in my arm that just started to swell real bad. So the doctor was like, two weeks, no golf, no physical activity on that arm. And we're gonna put you on antibiotics to kind of take down the swelling. So you know, it was just, it was enough pain to where I went to the doctor, which you know, most people know, right? You just kind of like, I can hold on, I can go take some ibuprofen. I can, I can wait. But I finally went to the doctor and she was like, You should have came like, a month ago. Because it's been like two months that I've been dealing with this pain. So and

that's so funny, because I think that that literally is a is an analogy to like how we treat like mental health, like, you know, we can feel the pain and we don't address it for ourselves. But let somebody that we care about feel that pain, we would strongly encourage them to get help. Yeah, no, absolutely. Yeah, that's a crazy thing that you know, it took, you know, just a little bit of personal self care to go make that true.

Yeah. And think about it like this, like you're big on your physical fitness as well. You work out your physical Why don't you work out your mental.

Right, right. Right. And and I think that like how we work out that mental, let's have that conversation like, like, how do we work out our mental like, break that down to us? Because I think I have some good examples in my mind, but go ahead.

Well, the first part is, you know, when we talk about strengthening your mental health, I think you have to be open and willing. That's that's the first piece right? Which which requires trust. So you got to kind of look at Like, who do you trust well enough to actually have that kind of conversation with like, here's what I'm dealing with. Here's what I'm frustrated about, right is what I'm going through. Right? You know, I don't need you to solve I just need you to hear me.

That's that's important. If somebody somebody just to hear right,

you need those venting sessions and yeah, you know, sometimes it's it's a professional, you're right and there's nothing wrong. I've gone through therapy. My therapist was amazing. He helped me work through a lot of things that I didn't realize were affecting me today from our past right, and and how I was approaching every day in every situation. Hear

us interesting because, you know, just yesterday I had an incident with a family member and I, I just thought to myself the whole time and this this is this is good for me to have these conversations. Because I thought to myself the whole time, let's problem solve let's problem solve. Let's problem solve. And I listening to you right there. I took a second, I literally brought myself back to that moment yesterday. And I thought to myself, maybe I needed to hear them first. Before we problem solve,

yeah, ya know what I mean? Because a lot of us are the heroes in the story, right? We are we want to be the hero in the story. Your father, right? You're the protector, right? You're the provider. Right? Right. You have to embrace that role every day of your life. So when it comes to other people, you naturally fall into that role. 100%. Right. But but some people don't need that, right? Yeah, Tina and I talked about this all the time, we're both leaders within our industry, we're both leaders within our positions at work. And we're so quick to want to solve for each other because we care about each other. We love each other. Yeah. And it's one of those things where it's like, Hey, I

Dana Keith 06:00
just need to be hurt. I just need to be heard for a moment. That's powerful. And then another thing that I thought about when we first initiated this conversation was how do we work on our mental health? Right, or our mind, I think was the right question. How do we work on our mind? I think it's like, like, in real time, like, every day you work on it, because, like, I brought myself to incident yesterday was like, you know, going through those situations is how you learn, you know, whether, whether if you fail initially, you just have a negative mindset initially, but then you push through and find the positive instead of staying in the negative. Yeah, no, I'm saying like, just like going through life in that way of working on your mind through like, whatever you go through, it could be something so simple as like, for example, somebody cut me off in traffic. I am trying like to like, I'm trying not to curse when people eat me off now. So I'm just trying to like you're I'm not going I'm you know, saying it's not that terrible. Yeah, but just something like that. Just that little mindset. I'll give you another one. You ready? Here you go. I ran a stop sign in my in my like, residential breaker. Yeah. Such a rule breaker, right. So I ran a stop sign in my apartment complex. I mean, if you live there, nobody stops there. But you only stopped there if you don't live there. Yeah. So somebody who stopped at their stop sign saw me just run right by through mine. And he like flipped out of his car, like that would normally make me flip out like a boy or get out. I tried to say just talking to that person in the car. And it's so funny that this is my example. But it's so real. That something so simple is that like, something like that, because, bro like for the first few minutes, I'm just thinking, bro, pull over, like get out your damn car,

Chef Brother Luck 07:40
you know, I'm saying, you know, the, here's the funniest part about that. We carry we carry this edge, especially in this country, we carry this edge of you're worried about somebody taking advantage of you. So you have to have defensive mindset at all times. Right? We're all being hard. Right? But like, you have to maintain this edge. When when you're out and about in the world. Right? And it wasn't until I went to Japan, where like, they bow at you when they when they honk. Yeah. Yeah, they're still serving the hospitality is still such a big piece of their culture and respect, right? It made me like, oh, wow, I gotta, I gotta calm this down. Because like,

but isn't that such an advantage in the mental game to just have that as a prerequisite? You're saying like, they're just polite on the road. So that's, that's that everyday life that I'll show and explain y'all?

Well, you know, it's it's awareness. And I think that's where you kind of have to start, it's a great word. Mental Health Awareness is so key is so important. Because if you don't know where your body's at, where your mindsets at and how you actually respond, yeah, and where you're heading, you can't handle it. Like I have to know like, I've come to these recent experiences where I have started to get into that deep deep depressive, dark shutdown mindset. Yeah. And I'm actually aware of it now. I'm like, Man, you know, I can see the responses from people around me I can see how Tina's you know, where her body language is of concern. Yeah, like I see myself shutting down. Right. So I have to be aware of that. So I can start to do the things that I need to do to get out of that. And I can get out of it faster. If I'm aware of ensure aware

and then like once you're aware because I when I was a kid and I still had this problem now I'm a damn adult. But like when I get into negative kind of like yesterday example, to push through the positive you have to be aware of that but what helps you when you're in that like when t is t is like yo you're in a funk. What helps you get over that funk? You know, to get now once you're aware, what is that next step, but

you have to choose and I think the choice, that decision that you're faced with every moment of your life, you have to make a choice to either fall victim to it or persevere beyond it. Yeah. And I think the awareness for me has been one of the greatest pieces is like when I know I'm getting into those funks. And I know how dark those can get and how long they can be. Right? Right. That's not something that's an hour, right? This is gonna be a couple of weeks. Right? Right. This is a couple of days of being shut down and depressed and just just isolating myself from the world, right? I don't want to live like that. So I have to make that choice. To say, you know what, I got to get out of this. I got I got it. I got to change my mindset, I have to take ownership of my actions of my demeanor, of how I'm coming across. And I also got to find the source of why

Yeah, why am I here? Yeah, what feeling Are you going to? Because that's one thing that I will tell you is just something that I'm just trying to practice in, like, real time in my real life is just that acknowledgement. Like, Hey, I feel this way. Just acknowledge that shit. Yeah, cuz sometimes, like, I work around that acknowledgement. And then I can't move past it. You know what I'm saying? So just that acknowledgement, so that awareness is so key to me. But I find in this is just me reflecting guys, I find that I'm easily aware of other people. I'm very observant, but when I'm in that damn moment that's got me heated, whatever it is, that does got my my feelings boiling. Like it's, it's tougher for me to grab my own versus I can easily pinpoint, like, watch somebody boil, you know, I'm saying, so I'm trying to figure out what it is to, to bring me back to today's in I mean, I know what I do, but you're saying, like, how can I like actively work on it? You know what I'm saying? But it's just an awareness thing. And I'm trying to be a better fucking person. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, if t is on the live, I can't curse on the live.

No, I you know, we all we all have mental health issues. And as we go through our day to day, it doesn't matter what your career is, right? I'm a chef, you're a filmmaker. Yeah, no matter what we're going through life still works his way into the workplace. And when you throw the pressures of life, and you throw the pressures of work on top of each other, and you're not aware of where your head's at, yeah, and you don't know how to get yourself out of these mindsets that leads you down some really dark places. You know, and for me, as I'm working through my book right now, my memoir, it's Yeah, let's talk. It's crazy how how, like, honest and real and uncomfortable. It's getting because I'm writing some stuff down. Yeah, that I don't think I've really, I haven't talked about or I've kind of shut away I put in a closet. And and I have to deal with them because I'm trying to communicate them. So I can put it out there. Right? Because my goal with this is to hopefully help other people realize like you're not alone. You're not by yourself. You're not crazy shows again, right? That that's that's what it is that you're not alone. Right? Yeah, the way you feel, I feel the way you think you're going through it, and you're by yourself and you're crazy. And like all this stuff's going on. But in reality, my everybody's filling this right, a lot of people just hide it better.

100% a lot of people how to better. That's crazy, you know, and I get shows, you know, on my arm because I filled it in my soul. You know what I mean? mental health and just like that, that mental awareness to me and this is like the simplest break down but you know, don't don't torch me get you guys don't torture me. But it's about you know, trying to find that light. So what I'm doing, like when I'm in that hot moment, is find something like when I mean like I just mean positive, grateful something in the in the light direction. Versus because I get in this dark place. And you described earlier, you said that it happens and it goes for like weeks. But it is that spiral effect. And once you start getting into it, you you, you keep going to it. You know what I mean? So acknowledging is really helping me so I'm just even shit like this. Like talking it out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, it helps me get to some type of clarity.

On the good thing, too, is like, you know, as you talk about, it's because we have trust, right, we built trust. Yeah. And and we confide in each other and we actually share it to the world. Yeah, but it's, it's because we're comfortable enough to do that. Right. There's, we've lost the shame. Yeah. And our insecurities. We've lost the shame and being able to talk about mental health or being able to talk about therapy, or BNL. Talk about, you know, feeling weak. Yeah, without losing masculinity.

Right. Right. Right. Or, or having emotions because I'm be really young, I'm emotional as hell. And like, for real, like, emotional as hell. And I always blame you know, ever since I had my son, look, I cried during Disney movies now like is bad, but just just having emotions and not being afraid of having emotions. You know what you said this earlier about, like getting in your memoir. And I thought about this I want to share this with everybody. wifey is calling you. But I want to share this with everybody listening. And my question to you and I think that this will translate very easily is that as you're helping in writing those things out that are You know, emotional and very sentimental, you know, sensitive subjects? Do you find that although the aim is to help someone else do you find that it's helping you to, to go back to these things?

Absolutely. I mean, self reflection is such a big piece. And a lot of self reflection comes when you're trying to help somebody else. Because you're sharing, you're sharing a piece of your story, to hopefully make them feel a bit more comfortable or less alone. You know, I was I was expressing condolences to somebody earlier. And I'm like, man, I know what it feels like to lose somebody that close. You know, so you share some of those stories, but it forces you to kind of deal with what you had in the past. Right? You know, you're talking about today. So reflection is extremely important. But you know, when you're when you're talking about moving forward, that's where you have to start setting yourself up with small goals and small wins. Right. I love that. That's, that's that, because when you think about most of why we get into these folks is because somebody hurt us. Somebody, somebody broke our trust, somebody did something to us, right? Right, something happened to push you here. So you you have to find joy somehow. And it's, it's through small wins. Yeah. Because small wins add up, and they add up and they add up. So I think that's a another key piece of what you can be doing to help get you out of those funks. And focus on your mental health. And your awareness is, you know, start setting yourself up with small goals.

Yes, small goals, knock them out, and then count those wins. You know, I had a speech with Leah. And my speech was it kind of started out with, you know, how did we get here? I don't want to take a moment. And you know, this was my speech. But I want to take a moment and think about how we got here. Let's let's think about not only like what what you did to get you here, but think about all the things you accomplish along that way. Because if if we first and was it you were I think was my father, I had a consult with him. I was you like my father figure, brother. So but I had to tell my real father last night, and he said that, you know, there's so many things that he did in our lives that he just completely forgets about. You know, like, I'll give you the example he was talking about, like coaching our baseball teams. Like he just he totally just forgot he did those things. And like, those are like, you know, saying I'm 5678 like, he's my assistant coach, like, Yeah, I was always fucking scared. Because my day if I fuck up my dad's here, you're saying, at any rate, um, it's so easy to forget about all the things that you've done all the things that matter, whether they're accomplishments, to your family, to your business, to your personal life, like we have to stack those wins. And just acknowledging what you've accomplished to even get here, before you set sight. Like, you know, there's always a say, like, the most important day is tomorrow, right? Or like today, whatever. But you have to appreciate yesterday to even, like, have the right mindset. So that's one of my things within the speech was about, you know, congratulating yourself on where you've, where you've been, and what you've accomplished thus far. Well, and I already great,

I love that you just hit this, you have to compliment yourself, right? And that always comes back down to the basics, you have to love yourself. A lot of us look in the mirror and then we don't like the personnel. You see. We don't like the person we see. We don't like how we feel we feel like we can be doing better with our physical health, we should be looking a certain way we measure ourselves against what we see on social media, you're like, Oh, this person's doing this, and I'm not doing that. Right, my life is screwed up. You have to start to love yourself that that is so key in the self discovery process is realizing that a lot of us don't like ourselves. You know, so how do you expect other people to lie in here?

Yeah, yeah, that's it's it's really tough. It's, it's, it's such a deep like subject because a lot of things come back to self, you know what I mean? But then this is where it also translates into your circle. You know what I mean? Because I always think like, you know, who's going to be picking you up? out? You know, I'm saying and if if your circle is, you know, by nature, you know, people that you've been with forever doing the same things forever nothing progressing in your your path or your passion, then you know, that really isn't nothing to bring you up.

Yeah, if you're around people who aren't celebrating your wins, yeah, then those people need to be removed out of your life. Yeah, celebrate the wins, you know, and like I celebrate a lot of people's wins.

Because deep if you celebrate my wins, you gotta go You gotta go

go you know, my mother in law said it the best she said, You know, when when, when when people are removed out of your life? Yeah, that's just God. That's just God weeding your garden weeding your garden? Yeah, you know, because you need the flowers to bloom and I want to have good people in my life, that that actually know me, but also are there for me and don't want nothing. Right, right. And that's so important for me is those were relationships because I want to put effort into those. And I realized how backwards I had it for so long. Yeah, you know, I was chasing relationships with people that didn't really know me. Right. And I didn't really know them, you know, we're acquainted, we're colleagues. But you know, we don't really know each other.

Yeah. So how, and this is, this is good, we might have this discussion, because, you know, a lot of people in this is my thesis, but a lot of people are friends with who they work with, because they're around them. So what is your idea of colleagues and friends? You know, let's just have that conversation,

you know, a colleague, a colleague, is somebody you work with, or they're in your same industry? Yeah. And the challenge with that, and we make a lot of friends through work. is some some blossom, some do really well, some don't. But most of the time, a lot of those don't last because you're chasing the same things. You're trying to accomplish the same goals. So at some point, the competition becomes real. Yeah, right. We're gonna battle for for recognition, we're going to battle for supremacy. Like, it's, it's going to break down at some point, because we're trying to get ahead of each other. Right competition. So yeah, I hope you celebrate my wins. But at the end of the day, I'm trying to I'm trying to win too. Yeah. So that competition is always going to be the challenge when when it comes to your colleagues. So you just have to be aware of it. I've had a lot of friends in this industry. And I've lost a lot of friends in this industry. And it's, it's, it's such a blow every time it happens. Because I really thought this person was my friend. I really thought this was somebody I was going to rock with for a long time. Right. And, you know, I the decisions that they made or the decisions that I made. Were selfish on both of our parts. Yeah, this as some because it was about us. It was about our careers. Yeah. And that was something that was so hard to go through, and it breaks you.

Yeah. Right. How do you how do you manage that? That dynamic? You know what I mean? whether whether it's your personal relationship with with your wife, or even like friends, because I think that, you know that that dynamic is very interesting in regards to like, you know, competitive personnel and then then the business, you know what I mean? So, how do you manage that?

Yeah, I mean, the first thing is, you got to look at who's calling you. Yeah, to just check on you. Yeah, right. They don't want nothing.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't say this enough. But thank you for checking on me, bro. You always do me. But yeah,

you have to, though, and I think you have to really look at those relationships in your life and say, you know, this is the person that calls me and checks on me all the time. They don't ever want nothing. They don't need nothing. Yeah, they're they're just interested in me as a person. And that's something that's so different than somebody you work with. Because, you know, there's usually a need there. Yeah, like, I need you to help in this position. Or, or Hey, you know, we're trying to get this project done, or Hey, do you want to come do this? So, you know, you have to look at that first part of what are you investing your time and then analyze how much time you're giving to those relationships? And who are you sacrificing for, like, we all got 24 hours. So right out of that 24 hours, who are you making that time for?

To him? That's crazy, cuz that's, that's, that is the balance, you know what I mean? It's like, you know, you can invest into your career or these relationships and spend time over here, or you can invest over there. And there's no right answer, there is no right answer. Because, you know, in my mind, I just, you know, thought about an interview I watched. He's a dope entrepreneur huge, like YouTube following based but his value tainment. And this entrepreneurs name is like, Patrick Bett David, I wanted to make sure I get it, right. But he was talking about that. When he went to find his wife. He wrote down exactly what he wanted. I mean, he was so specific. And it was strictly because there was no way that he would be the man that comes home at six o'clock every day. Yeah, you know what I mean? But he's willing to invest into those business relationships to help his family down the long run. So there's, like always this balancing teeter totter that this is the reason why I say there's no right answer. Because, you know, you could be investing in your family or your business. And like, as long as like it, I don't know the right answer, but as long as I believe, you know, it's productive in one way or the other. You know, I mean, I think that you have some opportunity there. I don't think that I got the NCR, I'm not sway,

sway. Speaking of sway, sway, you ain't got the answer. Sway logos or sways radio, waves radio, I

just caught wind of that. Talk about like, how you like, just go do these things because you went from helped me out with the name shade. Say 45. You went we were driving in Denver, and you just said I'm gonna get on that show. Yeah, I'll show you where you went and got on that show. I did. So tell me about how you get to sway in the morning on the radio? Well, look, you know, I had to be, I'm a fan. I'm a fan.

A lot of us are, I had a lot of people actually catch that which, which was crazy, because it was like a three minute, three minute piece. But at the end of the day, we talked about small wins, right. And for me, shet settings, short term goals are so important. One of my goals was to have a quick conversation with sway, and I was driving to work, it was like 630 in the morning. Yeah. And I was listening to the show, and there was an opportunity to call in to tell us what you what you winning is winning Wednesdays okay. And you know what, I was just feeling we're feeling good. And then when I call the God through, which never happens, yeah. And you know, I just, I got the opportunity, and you have to seize moments like that. So you know, it's cool. But it's just the beginning, we just scratched the surface of some of these goals, like they're all coming together. And I think that's so important for your small wins is set these short term goals to accomplish the larger one, what is the larger goal there? And

I think what I want to take away from that is that even a small win is a relationship. You know what I mean? It might be that business relationship to lead you to the next thing, because I have sway on my wall. Yeah, like me and my, I started this whole thing with a rapper. He's my best friend, he raps. And like, we always wanted to get to suede. That was our dream to get to sway somehow, some way gets us way. Yeah, in the for you to be on a radio with sway. And it was just like, one degree away, you'll see. Yeah, yeah, that was the dose relationships.

But the beauty is, is as we keep moving forward, and we continue to do these amazing things. It's going to open up more conversations. I'm a firm believer in you know, if we meet and and regardless of your celebrity or your normal person, I mean, they're gonna vibe with you or not, yes, at the end of the day, it doesn't matter your status, you're still a regular person. Right? Right. Right. So I'm either gonna vibe with you or not, but either way, I'm hoping to make at least some type of introduction, some type of front porch that I'm establishing Yeah, so we can start a conversation. So when we do run into each other than any time it's something to build on something to build on. You know, I was always take I always take cat sushi, for example. So So cat sushi from Top Chef, is an amazing person. And like, I'll be ready to fight over kassu g like, yeah, say some. Yeah, but you know, he's ridiculous. But he has a great heart. He really does. And, you know, cat Susie and I met through social media. He we have never filmed together. Yeah. But we met on social media. And, you know, he was just trolling messing with us, because we were the new cast members for Top Chef. And, you know, I kind of did you know, some checking on him. I was like, Who is this cat? Like, what's going on? And they were like, you know, have some fun with them. So yeah, we just started this back and forth. And the the thing that was really unique was we actually Oh,

alright, we got we got this is the first time nurse time this has happened. Live, we have Wi Fi luck calling in and brother had to add to make sure he answered. Well, you know, I want to I want to make sure she's Oh, yeah, yeah. So you know, somebody showed love a by the way, real quick. I want to tap in what I G. What question do you have for them? Because I want to know, how are your relationships going? What is working for y'all? Can I get some feedback in the comments? Like, even on Facebook? I Geez, all those things. I want to know what is working for y'all like, what kind of issues or what kind of things are y'all dealing with in terms of relationships? and How are y'all pushing through? Because, like, um, you know, obviously, it doesn't have to be business or personal. But you know, I'm just curious, you know, I'm saying because right now, this is a, an interesting time period. Like, you know, I'm saying we're, we're getting back to, I don't know, if we just say this, because there we go. We get it back to a little bit of normality in life to where we get back to socialize and things like that. How are y'all doing mentally? Even mental health? How are y'all doing with you? First, I want to hear some feedback from IGN. And Facebook. Can y'all give me some? Yeah, the the COVID depression is a real thing. Yeah, it's a real thing. And then, you know, what it also is, is is is the COVID confusion. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I don't want to get deep into this, because, you know, I go ham, and I don't want to be that person on the platform. But I do want to represent represent, anyways, um, the confusion, it's, it's the confusion that and then it's opposition. It's like, oh, we're against each other. Now. You know, I'm saying, that's, that's the part that I'm not with, ya know, it's,

it's been it's been a tough 18 months, you know, and I think everybody's kind of going through it, but like, we all are going through it. So which is which is one of the reasons we like to express, you know, we need to be talking about this. We need to voice what's going on. I mean, you know, I was I was kind of bringing up katsuji as far as like relationships, but like, this is somebody that I've become friends with, through multiple experiences through multiple conversations, but he's one of those people are called just to check on me I don't care about your personality on social media or television, I've gotten to know you who you are, I'm just gonna call you to check on you. Right? Like that's, that's, that's a real friendship that's developing, shout out

the people who call your friends just to check up on them. If you're not doing it. Yo, that's my call to action today, after this podcast because you can't hang up now, after this podcast, I need y'all to call somebody just to check up on someone you love. or someone you know, you want to show love to? And just check up on her don't ask for nothing. Always, you know, always think about this when you say this, like, bro always says like, he wants people around that want nothing from him. And always think like, you know, if somebody can add value, then they're a part of like your life and value is debatable. What is value it like, if you just, like, provide me emotional value. That's value, y'all. That's a friendship doesn't have somebody to just listen to, you know, saying, or if it's like a business value. Like, I'm just a business conversation, like I get that from you all the time. Like, that's value. Yeah. So like, like, you could give something of value without wanting anything back as

well. And here's, here's the reality of the situation. The phone works two ways. So you know, we all have people in our lives that we need to call and check on but we waited for them to call and check on us. Oh, hey,

somebody listening knows exactly who they supposed to call now.

I've got a few of those. And I have to make the effort to call and and knock down that wall. Right? Because it's a choice, right? Tomorrow is not promised, and you don't want things left unsaid. So make that effort put whatever you need to put underneath the rug and move on and not live in that place. You know, it's so hard to live in this mindset of like, I don't trust you. So I'm not going to talk to you know, that's exhausting man. Yeah, you know, I was watching this interview with DMX and he said, You know, I just I trust people to be who they are a Snake Snake a liar is a liar a thief a thief. And and I don't put no effort into, into not trusting Yeah, I'm not gonna try to work through like who you are, I just won't trust the snake, you know, saying what it is like, you know, I love the fact that like you have to, you have to force yourself to be uncomfortable and deal with things because that's honestly one of the parts that's, that's affecting your mental health as well.

I trust them to be who they are. Absolutely. That's, that's as deep as deep.

And think about this, we all have our own reflection, we have our own perspective, or perception that they think who we are. So you just got to embrace that and talk through that and work through that. But it's exhausting trying not to talk to people and and it is put these guards up around like the world and right, you know, how

do you balance that? Because there's such a balance in that because Because for me, like I do go into this like, mode of where I really don't talk to nobody, I don't call nobody. I don't text them by I'm only on social to promote certain things. And to be honest, like, that's when I get the most done. Yeah. So how do you balance like, you know, feeding in feeding other souls? And then how do you balance watering yourself? Yeah, if that makes sense. You know, what

do you say? So So a good friend of mine, and I talked about this earlier, a good friend of mine said, he asked me, he said, If Jesus had 12 disciples, who's your 12? Right? Who's your toes? Your 12? That's the question, who's your twos, your 12? Who are you putting time into who's around you who's feeding your soul? Because those are the relationships you should be putting the most. And now within that 12, there's two or three that are extremely close to you, right? My wife is one of them, right? So you have to kind of realize like, who is those 12 people that are going to keep you real, that are going to keep you honest, that you can have straight up conversations with and that you can get the reality of because social media is not real. That's right, right. This is such a glimpse of everybody's best hits. Yeah, that we cannot measure.

You can make a real connection. You make some sense, but it takes effort. Would you say though,

there takes so much effort to build relationships? Right? And then you got to follow up on them? Yeah. When Tina told me when she said, You don't have any friends because you choose not to

who tea? Why are you going for the sole like, well, I asked for it is one of my 12 Yeah, yeah. Why don't I have friends? I love that. I said that. So you could say that? Yeah. I love the point that that just made I asked why don't you need those people?

And she she's the one who said it's because you put up walls that say you're too busy, that you're traveling the world that you're running restaurants that you're on television, that that you're you're doing podcasts, you're doing all this stuff and you're too busy to go to a barbecue, right? You're too busy to hang out, you're too busy to go have a drink with you aren't letting down those walls, then you've got everybody right here, you know, at a distance because that's where you want them you have to change that choice.

Does That one hit me that one hit me hard. I was like, oh, man, I gotta digest that real quick. Because, you know, how do you help with that wall?

You know what I mean? Because, obviously, like the 12 people you trust and when I thought about it, like, Jesus was helping them more than they were helping helping him. So who are the 12 people you're helping is kind of like, what what comes comes to my mind, but it does have to be your inner circle.

Also question like, what's behind that wall? Right? What's the point of a wall? A wall is defense. Right? you're protecting yourself.

I feel like the wall in my world is, is is that is like, in this is interesting to have this conversation. Because I do have like a public persona. But then I have a very private life. Like, I have a very private life. So my wall is that private life, you know, I'm saying, like I don't I, I allow you to look through that window. But there's a wall, there is just one just a window you can get through. It's more of a people than a window. Maybe. I probably I probably needed to hear that like through.

But it's so real. Because, you know, for one, it's exhausting to be a personality and be a person. Yeah, that's exhausting. Right? Yeah. And I think we create personas, through work through careers through social media through through, you know, whatever you're doing, right, that are the exact opposite of who you are. So are just a figment like just a piece of it. Yeah, you're acting, you get to be that person a little bit. So, you know, when you when you try to live both lives, man, that becomes exhausting. And you know, I hated the fact that it was like, am I talking to chef or am I talking to brother? I know I just I waited I went back to that, in my mind. I hated the ad we've had this time I want to be the same person. Yeah, you know, you have to question what's on the other side of your wall. If you're putting up walls in your life, what's on the other side of that wall? For me, I'm protecting myself with that wall from pain from from people who broke my trust. Oh, my God.

armor. Its armor has armor. Yeah, and they got holes all in it, it's got tons of pulled out from the bad guys. So you know, you gotta you gotta like, you gotta let the if you let that wall down, to tap into whatever you're going to tap in over there. This is somebody needs to hear this because I need to hear it.

You know, if you're gonna if you're gonna drop that wall and tap into whatever's on the other side of that, like we talked about a lot about like tapping into pain. Yeah, because pain is a great motivator, right? But once you drop that wall, you better be prepared to deal with everything that came through with paints, right, right, because you have no more defense. Dang, you let it in. Right, right. So that's why we break so hard. When we tap into the things on the other side of the wall, or we go into the other other side of the wall. You've got to deal with those things. On the other side of the wall. I've read this phenomenal book by Carlos Whittaker. Y'all

got to you got to deal with those things on the other side of wall. Sorry, you read that thing. Go ahead, finish.

So So I read. One of my favorite one of my favorite books that I've recently read, in the last couple years was was to kill a spider. And it's by Carlos Whittaker. If you don't follow collars with collars, Whitaker, you should this is an amazing human. He's a phenomenal writer. But you know, he essentially talks about the spider. And when you walk into a spider web, your first reaction is to, you know, get it off, get it off, get it off, and you swing and they clear, and you shut the door or you run out the room or wherever. But when you come back, all those webs are there. They've all reappeared. Because you never dealt with the spiders.

You deal with the webs you never phenomenal. Phenomenal but you didn't you didn't get to the root source. You know that?

You got to deal with your spiders. You know, for me, I like to write a lot of my spiders. Yeah. You know?

Yeah, writing is helping me to, you know, yes. How has that been for you like the writing process? speak about that? Because just for people who don't know, this is called the no looks given podcast and brother Luke has a book coming out no looks given. Yes. And this is about his life. This is to inspire some somebody. This whole podcast is predicated on the principles of pride, courage, determination, and dedication. Yeah. So like, like, we want to motivate and inspire somebody. So going back to my question, how is the writing process helping you? You know, have awareness and kind of go through these mental mental hurdles? Yeah, even friendships in those those those walls, like, how is it helping you identify those,

you know, one of the one of the exercises we've been doing with with this book, as we've been writing has been timeline, writing out your timeline to understand what you were going through a certain ages, the good and the bad. And I found it so amazing, looking at this from from such a high level perspective of like, oh, here's the last 40 years that I noticed, you know, my worst times were usually followed by my best times and vice versa. Or sometimes it was at the same time. Yeah, you know, and as I've been going through this, this, this writing process I'm dealing with a lot of stuff is Oh, starting conversations. I wasn't ready to have Yeah, you know, I'm having to So people I didn't think I would be having talks with, right. And you know, it's changing my mentality. But at the same time I'm trying to articulate what do I want to say? Yeah. And to Who am I trying to say it to? So, you know, as we kind of get into this memoir, I think it's memoir. It's mentorship, and it's motivational. Yeah, like, for me, it's all three of these things. So I've got to tell this story. And I'm in the middle, I'm in the middle of another book I'm reading right now. And it's about how to write a story. You know, and a story is, is a character who experiences conflict and overcome songs, right. And that's why you fall in love with that character. So, you know, how do you look at your own life and say, here's the conflicts that I've gone through. Here's how I'm overcoming them. Yeah. And how do you express that to the world? Yeah. So they can they can share for you? Right? Because everybody needs the cheering section. Yeah, you do. You know, you want somebody to clap for you. You want some might be behind you. So you got to find those 12 people who are going to be your biggest cheerleaders.