Dear Legacy… The Pivot, The Grind, The Quiet Work | Legacy Recap Vol. 2

In this episode of Dear Legacy…, Kevin B. the Brand takes a step back not to slow down, but to see what’s really been built.

This is Legacy Recap Vol. 2…
and this isn’t just a recap it’s a realignment.

From navigating life’s interruptions…
to questioning the way we approach the grind…
to understanding that as your vision grows, the work gets quieter…
and finally, recognizing how conversations shape who we become…

This episode brings together the lessons from Episodes 6 through 9 into one connected message:

How you respond when life shifts
How you move when nobody’s watching
And how your thoughts, words, and conversations shape your legacy in real time

Because this journey isn’t about one big moment…
it’s about how you handle the small one over and over again.

If you’ve been on this journey, this episode will ground you.
If you’re just stepping in… this is where you catch up.

Chapters & Timestamps 

00:00 – Introduction to Dear Legacy Recap
06:38 – Life Interruptions & Adjustments (Episode 6)
15:03 – The Grind: Busy vs. Productive (Episode 7)
22:44 – Vision Expansion & Quiet Work (Episode 8)
30:50 – Conversations That Shape Our Legacy (Episode 9)
38:17 – The Power of Individual Stories
43:38 – Listening & Internal Conversations
51:01 – Navigating Life’s Interruptions (In Real Time)
57:24 – The Conversations That Shape Us
01:06:10 – Intentional Living & Legacy Building

Why You Should Watch / Listen

This episode is for anyone who feels like they’re in the middle of building something…
but doesn’t always see the progress.

Because this isn’t motivation…
this is perspective.

You’ll walk away with:

• A deeper understanding of how to respond when life interrupts your plan
• Clarity on the difference between being busy vs. building something meaningful
• A reminder that quiet work is where real growth happens
• And awareness that your conversations especially with yourself shape everything

This episode will make you stop and ask yourself:

Am I reacting… or adjusting?
Am I building… or just staying busy?
Am I moving with intention… or just moving?

If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe to Dear Legacy, drop a comment, follow us on social media, and share it with someone building their legacy in real time.

Till then Go Define it, Go Build it, Live it.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

We so focused on the grind sometimes that we have to realize that being being busy is not the real grind. Being productive is the grind. Putting out the good product is the grind. I can't want you to join a join a movement, get on this journey with me when I'm putting out shit product. When we're talking about nonsense. I'm trying to give you and me good things to think about and actually do along this journey, right? Exhaustion is not a badge of honor. We talked about that. Being tired doesn't make you more successful. It doesn't. It just makes you tired. Take this journey with me. Let's define it. Let's build it. Let's live it together. Welcome back. Welcome back. Welcome back, y'all. It's your boy Kevin B the Brand. And this is another week of Deer Legacy. I think I put too much ice in here. Oh boy. It's gonna tip over. Bear with me. You know I gotta get my Red Bull in. Got it all. Alright. It's your boy Kevin B the Brand. It's another week of Deer Legacy. And this is Deer Legacy The Recap, Volume 2. Um, this is something that we created after our first five episodes, which was good to like kind of recap of what we what we discussed, what we talked about. And it's always good to take a quick second to reflect on what we do and what we building, how we live in this legacy talk stuff, right? And um before we get to the next episode, I want to do a recap with you guys because we had we had some pretty cool conversations lately. And I just want um those that are just now tuning in and don't feel like going to listen to the last four episodes, let's talk about them right here. Give a quick summary, and then maybe it'll maybe it'll make you want to go listen to a certain episode that you just didn't know about, right? So before we get into this open scribe letter to Dear Legacy, I just want to take a second to really step back and slow down. But just as we did in our first five episodes, like I said, to make sure we're actually seeing what we've been building. Because if you're if you've been rocking with me, you know the last few episodes, we've we've had some real conversations. Not surface level stuff. We we we're we're trying to get away from the surface level stuff that we normally talk about, especially like when we're with our boys, we're our friends, you know, everything's good, everything's everything's kosher, and we're you know, we're living our best life, right? But that's not that's not really how it goes. You know, it all just sounds good, but this is real life, and that's what we're doing here on Dear Legacy. We started with what happens with um what what happens when life when when life interrupts our plan, right? And being honest about how easy it is to feel like you got thrown off track, but also understanding in that same time life is going to shift doesn't mean that your vision is over, right? Then we got into the the grind part of it all and really checking ourselves. Like we are what we are actually building, something meaningful. And and along the way, we we talked in that same episode that we're not just staying busy. We're not here to just wear exhaustion like it's a badge of honor, like it means something. Then we just shifted gear and we talked about what happens when your vision starts to get bigger, bigger than what you even imagine. And now we actually have to, the work has to get quieter, less talking, less explaining, more discipline, more focus, more doing what needs to be done, even when nobody sees it at all. And then the last episode we just had last week, we took a we took a step even deeper and talked about like the conversations that we have, the conversations that shaped us while either prior to this journey, while we're on this journey, listening to these episodes, the ones that directed us, the ones that we even try to avoid sometimes. And even the conversations that we have with ourselves every single day, whether it be positive, negative, or shape shifting and making the vision get bigger and making us grind a little bit more, you know. That's that's what that last conversation was really about. And when you really sit with all that, you start to realize something. That is, it isn't just a bunch of separate conversations, it's all connected. I try my best to make sure that we're creating story arcs, right? And I put these topics together and and try to make it seem like with what we're building off of the last episode or talking about something that we don't normally talk about, because we want to normalize certain certain stuff and we want to distigmatize other things. Like we have to realize how we respond when life shifts. It affects how we show up in the work. How you approach the work affects the kind of vision you're building. And how you think and how you communicate affects the impact you have on people along the way every single day. And sometimes you don't even realize how much you've been learning or how much you've been growing until you slow down for a second, like we're doing right now, and really think about what we've done, how we've done it, how somebody else has done something to us or haven't done something to us, the conversation that we just had, the people that we met along the way. This is how we're going to build this legacy in real time. How we're living it every single day while we're building it. When we we're not here to just leave it all behind. That is the overall goal that we build something that's so sustainable that it is being passed down. But are we living in the moment at the same time? So today, I'm not here to introduce something new. We're gonna take a step back. This is the legacy recap. I'm here to make sure that we actually talking about what we at, what we've already talked about. We're going to be living it, building it, and let's just recap those past four episodes. Was it four? Six, seven, eight, nine. Yeah, four episodes. The past four episodes. Last time we did five. So um, let's let's go back for a second. In episode six, we talked about the moment we all face when life interrupts the plan. Because no matter how prepared you are, no matter how clear your vision is, at some point life is going to interrupt what you thought was supposed to happen. Every day, something is going to test what we thought was going to happen. This episode right here was supposed to be recorded two days ago. It's supposed to be released today. But now you're probably not going to get it for another 24 to 48 hours. Why? Because no matter how much we planned, something is going to happen. That's just how life is. But the beauty in how life is is you still have an option. You still have a say-so of what's going to happen next. A delay is better than not at all. You know, I and I said, like, no, no, I mean, I could share it. Nothing, thank God there's nothing drastic, but we had to take our son to the emergency room. Up till two, um, got home around two in the morning. I be trying to do marathons, guys, but two in the morning, I gotta get at least a couple hours of sleep. So that means we're not getting recorded on Monday. Tuesday, we have another show. But then life had done its own thing. You know, I had to go deal with a client's investment property where I'm meeting with the tenants and I'm I'm doing this, and then now we're doing a whole back and forth. And now it's a 27-minute commute one way, meet with clients, come back the other way. By the time you get back, there's other stuff that you got to be doing. It's because you miss things throughout the day, but you want to make sure that it's not piling up for the next day. We're gonna have to sacrifice those two recordings. Now we got two shows that we did not record. Are we gonna scrap it and not do anything for the week? Life is gonna happen. You just now got to adjust with what life just gave you. And then, you know, I've done this a couple of times now where we've done marathon recordings. Three shows one night, one sitting, four and a half hours. But that's because I want to, I want to embody what I'm telling you that I'm doing. Life happened. So what? Let's keep moving. We know we have to produce. Because I can't sit here and tell you for nine episodes this is how we're building it, living it, and you know, it's the hybrid stuff. We're gonna do this, we're gonna do that along the way. But then the moment something gets a little bit shaky, I'm like, you know what? Well, we'll catch them next week. It can't be. You have to practice what you preach. That's how we're building this legacy. That's why it's a journey for us to do together. Plans don't always unfold the way we expect. But that doesn't matter either. Because the interruptions are gonna happen, but that doesn't mean it's a failure. Those are actually the moments that I look forward to because it's gonna show me how bad do I really want this? How bad are we, how disciplined are we to make sure that we're still gonna put something out? Every week, yes, there's a date. Every Wednesday, you're gonna get Dear Legacy, every Thursday, you're gonna get Please Excuse My Balls, every Tuesday, you're gonna get Roots to Reality, Mondays and Wednesday, bookend my quick thought of the days. Saturdays are not gonna be given some real estate for operation yet. I have the schedule. But because it doesn't come out on Wednesday, does that mean scrap it? We're not gonna do it on Wednesday anymore. No, it's still the same message that's gonna come out, whether it's Friday, Wednesday, Thursday, Saturday. You just gotta be disciplined now and actually do the work that needs to be done. Do the quiet work when nobody's watching. You guys don't know that I what will happen on Monday would happen on Tuesday. But I still gotta do the work because you know every week I'm putting out a new episode. You're watching. Somebody else is watching, your team's watching. You owe it to you and to those that are supporting you. Feeling thrown off versus actually being off track. I was thrown off. I'm not off track. The work is still going to get done. That's the difference between pausing and quitting. I paused. There's a delay now, but I'm not quitting. That's where we gotta dig deep into this thing. And I'm battling a cold on top of it. Learning how to adjust rather than just disappearing is one of the key things that you're gonna have to you're gonna have to focus on and stay disciplined while you're on this journey. Whatever your journey may be. Growth happens in the pivot, not in the plan. The plan is just there so we can know, okay, we checked off here, we checked off that. But sometimes those check boxes, just remember, when you're when you're in the journal and you're putting these, if it's not pre-populated for you, because sometimes I use the the notebooks that have plain sheets, right? You're putting the boxes, you're putting the boxes. Even if you look down at that sheet, is it going straight down? It's not going straight down. There's going to be a pivot. There's gonna be, and it doesn't have to be all the time sequential. You know what? I don't think I'm gonna be able to get to task three today. But I could hit four or five. Some of us is gonna stop at three and be like, I'll just get to the list tomorrow. No, look at what else is on that list. That's the pivot part. You could have the plan. The plan is great to see, physically see. But then we're gonna pivot from when something goes wrong. Okay, what can I accomplish? Now that the, you know, the Monday thing happened, I was gone to two in the morning, but I had my iPad. I could do my research still. I could still work on my run of shows, I could still get my quick uh start planning out my quick thoughts of the days. What am I gonna say for this real estate stuff that I'm putting out? So you could still be checking off on the list. You just happen to miss one part of that list. You see what I'm saying? Like the the pivot part. The plan is still there. We just had to pivot. A lot of times we think something is going wrong when in reality it's just going differently. It's not wrong, it's just different. And if I'm being honest with you, what what's a moment in my life where things didn't go as planned? I just I I just said it. Prime example. Monday. Then I was like, okay, I'll do, I'll do it on Tuesday. No, Tuesday said no, got a different plan for you, baby. It ain't gonna work like that. Then we're gonna go to Wednesday. And if I could even, we could even go back further. Let's let's dive deeper. I don't even want to tell you the example about what happened Monday, Tuesday. You know, there was at one point the plan was to get a post-secondary degree. I wanted to go to law school. Did I want to be a lawyer? No. Did the full year of law school. COVID came in. Pivot. You know what? I knew I was more of an entrepreneur. I'm gonna go get my master's, get my master's, come out of that stuff, and I'm like, you know, now I'm gonna be that entrepreneur. Pivot. We got offered an opportunity. Now we're gonna do the nine to five and still be an entrepreneur. You see what I'm saying? Like, the plan was still there. Got the post-secondary degree, but we had to pivot along the way. I knew I wanted to be an entrepreneur, but we had to pivot along the way. Just because life interrupted the plan, or just because you had to pivot along the way, doesn't mean your vision is over. Because the vision was always five years down the road, ten years down the road. We're not doing this in a one-year vacuum, we're not doing this in a 90-day vacuum. And once you really understand that, you stop reacting to everything. Like it's the end of the road. And you start being more intentional about how you move, especially when it comes to the work. Because that leaves us right into something we we talked about in episode seven. Episode seven was all about the way we approach the grind. Because somewhere along the way, we started thinking about being exhausted meant we're making progress. I was dog tired at two in the morning. Could I have sat down and tried to do the, but I was like, that that'd be dumb. Honestly, it'd be dumb. It's two in the morning. You just you just went through a roller coaster ride because you're watching your child having to go to the emergency room. Now every now you you're coming down of the of that that crazy fear scare, like what's gonna go wrong, and you realize there was nothing even that deep in the first place, it's just something simple. And now you're home. You could have been like, you know what, I'm gonna bang it out, blah, blah, blah. And then you know you still gotta get up around even if you change your alarm clock from 4.45 to let's call it six, you're gonna be dog tired because you was already up the day before at 4 45. Then you came home, you was doing all this stuff, and you was about to sit down and record, but then you have to go to the emergency room around 10 o'clock, then you're there till 2 o'clock. It ain't like you're taking a sleeping at the hospital. You might try to squeeze and steal a couple minutes here or there. But why do all that? Because we was gonna because we're gonna stay busy? Busy is not productive. I'm gonna get on here, I'm gonna start recording stuff, and then I'm I'm slurring, I'm I'm I'm not paying attention. What was my thought process here? What what what was I what was I talking about in these don't and it's not a good product. It's not a good product. Just because I was busy, just because I got to check number three on the list, I could go into back through the journal and be like, ooh, check, I accomplished it. But is it a good accomplishment at that point? We so focused on the grind sometimes that we have to realize that being pizzy being busy is not the real grind. Being productive is the grind. Putting out the good product is the grind. I can't want you to join a join a movement, get on this journey with me when I'm putting out shit product. When we're talking about nonsense. I'm trying to give you and me good things to think about and actually do along this journey. Right? Exhaustion is not a badge of honor. We talked about that. Being tired doesn't make you more successful. It doesn't. It just makes you tired. It if anything, being tired is gonna cost you along the way. Because at some point, it's gonna catch up with you. There's only so much vacations we could take to catch up with that. There's only and then on the weekend, if you're like me working a nine to five, your weekend is very valuable. And then not only from the nine to five is valuable, you're a husband, you're a father, even more time you gotta give away. So when you're exhausted or ready for that, who's gonna have to pay that brunt? Is it gonna be the product? Is it gonna be your family? Is it gonna be your friends? Is it gonna be the job because now everything piled up and now Monday came around? And you know, like I said in a thought of the day before, we're ready to hit the reset. By Friday, we're always ready to hit the reset and be like, you know what? I'm gonna start on Monday. Why? Because you were exhausted and now you're trying to play catch up. Instead, nah, it's two in the morning. I'm not gonna be as good as I'm supposed to be. Let me go and take my nap. Because that's what it was. It was a nap, you know? But it's okay. I realized in that moment I did not have to check that box right then and there. I was able to pivot. The plan is not changing. I'm still gonna give you a product every single week on all three shows. Unless I've already predetermined that there's not gonna be something, and I would have been told you. Because we're not grinding without direction out here. We're grinding with purpose. We're grinding within the plan. Within the plan. The plan could be two pages long. You could bounce from page two to page one, page one, flip it and add a page three, and add page three. It doesn't matter so long as it's within the plan and you're grinding within that, grinding within reason. We're not here to prove anything to anybody. Not even to yourself. We've talked about this. We're not we're not we're not gonna we're not proving something. We're building something. There's a massive difference between the two. When we're when we're moving and maneuvering because we're trying to prove something to somebody else, prove something that we look look at me type stuff, looking for the celebrations of accolades, it's only gonna go so far. But when you're building something, building it in silence, putting in the work, staying consistent, staying within the plan, knowing how to pivot, knowing what's being busy and what's being productive, that's different. It's about losing presence while chasing success. Right. Sometimes you're not going to be present in certain things, but when you're not gonna be present in certain things, the things that's within the plan, we have to we have to stay present in it. Or the chase is gonna be for not. Chasing success is going to it's going you need that innate ability to be present in certain situations and step back in others. That's where sustainability is gonna come from. That's what truly matters in this in this chase with success. Just because you're doing a lot doesn't mean you're doing anything at all. Have there been moments where I thought I was grinding, but I was really I was just staying busy and not moving forward. Absolutely. I'm like you. I'm talking to myself in the same moment. We we've talked about this journey, you know, building my own personal brand, having a pivot for that, and sitting on Dear Legacy for two years. For two years. And when I say sitting on, it's not like I'm not doing nothing about it. I gotta research, I gotta do this, I gotta have the right lighting, I gotta get the right mics, I gotta get the cameras, I need this, I need that, I need that. No. You're staying busy. You're staying busy by doing all this research, you're staying busy by looking into all this different stuff that you want to use, you're staying busy, but you're not. Doing anything. You're not productive. Two years. Two years you lost. What what what changed from what did I learn out of those two years? Yeah, I might have figured out a couple products here or there. Yeah, I might have known what cameras to use, blah blah blah. But was it is the message changing? Is the products that you plan on releasing, is that gonna change? No. Remember, exhaustion doesn't equal progress. And once you stop chasing the grind like that, you start seeing your vision differently. Because now it's not about doing more, it's about doing what matters. And that's where we got this idea inside episode eight. That's when your vision gets bigger and the work actually gets quieter. What do you mean by that? The vision gets bigger over time. You you've written out the plan. And as you start checking some things off, guess what? For every one thing you check off, you're probably gonna add two more things. That's just how it goes. We're ambitious. We're chasing after something, we're building something, and along the way, while we're pivoting, we start to realize oh, wait, this works perfect with the brand. This is perfect for the journey. This is what they need, this is what I need. We're fulfilling these things. But the quiet part of why you're doing all this is less talking and an explanation. Because we don't have to keep talking about what we're doing, just do it. You ever you ever heard uh the movie uh The Field of Dreams, I believe it is? Yeah, Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. Build it. Stay out in that that field by yourself, making a baseball field in the middle of the corn. You know what I mean? People might have seen it from afar. They're like, what is this crazy guy doing? He's building a baseball field randomly over here. But they came though. They showed up and they bought in. Less talking, more execution. That's what we that's what we talked about in episode eight. That's the quiet work, the discipline behind the scenes. You lost Monday, you lost Tuesday. Well, sit your ass down on month on Wednesday and do a marathon. Because Thursday, we don't have time, we don't have the space to where we're gonna be able to do one of these other recorders. I don't want to wake up at four in the morning and try to record before this first light comes in because I'm still in the temp space upstairs. Right? Thursday evening, you're picking up your son, and now your time does not belong to you until he goes to school the next day. Oh, wait, Friday, he's off. So you have no choice. We have to pivot. We have to keep the discipline because we said every week there's going to be a new episode. So if every week there's gonna be a new episode, you might say Wednesday, but okay. Wednesday, to Wednesday, nothing gets released. Friday, it could get released. Hell, it could even get released on Saturday. Because the week doesn't start until Sunday. That's the discipline part. Are you gonna be a little tired? I know I talked about don't be exhausted and all that stuff. I'm gonna be tired. But I know what my Thursday looks like. I know where I could pivot and maneuver. Okay, I ain't gotta wake up at 4:30. I'm gonna wake up at 6 instead. I just gained a couple hours, I just gained an hour and a half. Don't seem like much, but it makes a drastic difference. I'm gonna be able to steal my nap, and I told y'all in all these episodes, I'm gonna kill the naps. I'm gonna get my 20 minutes somewhere. Where it's gonna give me that little boost that I just needed to get back on track. Because we're not doing this for validation. If we're doing it for the validation, where you're gonna get your likes, you're gonna get your clicks, and maybe you'll go viral. But once you go viral, you know how hard it is to grab that attention of those people again? You mean to tell me you're gonna catch a million people again? Multiple times? I mean, I mean, Hove did it. He had us in the queue two for for for three damn days. Then he had in another show, and I probably I'm pretty sure there was another million people in there. But that man pushing 60, and he put in a body of work for over 30 years. Over 30 years of a body of work. That's not a viral sensation. That's something that he built intentionally. He was more about the results. He stayed patient. Everybody was telling him no along the way. Him, Biggs, Dame. They said, alright, y'all keep telling us no. We we believe in what we're doing right here, and people are gonna get on this journey with us. Rockefeller Records, and we're gonna we're gonna be those dudes. Because we are those dudes. Watch us work. 96. Now we're in 2026, 30 years later, one announcement, a million people in the queue, multiple days. You see my story? I was numbered 776,000 at one point. That means there was another 300-something thousand people behind me. Because he put in that quiet work. They believed in this stuff. They had to pivot along the way. You know? They they they they had the separations, they had the fallouts, they created billionaires, lost billionaires, more music came out, go to the scandals, got married, had children, come back around, do another album, be vulnerable, grow up, gave you the blueberries. But you trying to do it in 90 days. Make it make sense to me. You you trying to do it in 90 days in a day of social media where you're damn near a dime a dozen. You heard me say before, so what? Everybody got a story, bro. What makes you different? Put in the work quietly. Because as you're doing this, your responsibility is gonna increase also. Because people's gonna join the movement. But when they join the movement, how are you getting them to stay there? That's why you do it from from more than just the clicks, the likes, and trying to go viral. Every one person that that comes over to this Dear Legacy thing, I'm watching it grow. It was two views. And I try not to look at the views, but I'm human, guys. I'm I'm gonna look, especially when you go upload this. The analytics thing is right there. I see it. I see it. You know, I can't I can't ignore it. You know? Oh my god, this show's doing better than this show. Uh maybe I should just focus on no. Every show serves its own purpose. It's the unseen work that we're putting behind the scenes that's going to build everything. The more serious you get about what you're building, the less you feel the need to explain it. What's something I've been building that nobody really sees yet? Honestly, outside of the seven or ten people that faithfully checks in, and let's call it nine, because one of them is my wife, my number one fan, but yeah, I I can't count that one. She watches it and then watches it again. You know what I mean? But like this thing that I'm building right here is being built in the in the in the quiet moments. It's the ecosystem that's being built behind it, right? The things that's going to start coming out in Q in the Q2, Q3, Q4, what's gonna come two years from now, three years from now. It's not just a podcast. We said this. This is a movement, it's a journey that we're taking on together. But at the same time, it's still a business. I'm building it quietly back here. The work nobody sees is usually the work that builds everything. And while you're doing all that quiet work, something else is happening at the same time. You're still having conversations. And those conversations are shaping everything without you even realizing it. Because at the end of the day, in episode nine, we really talked about that quiet part that is shaping us, our legacies, through the conversations that carry weight in more ways than one. You know, for me, I think, and this is why I wanted to take a um do a legacy recap after nine as opposed to after ten, right? That could that one to me is probably that is my I'm gonna say that's my reasonable doubt. That conversation, that piece right there, because I think a lot of us were so focused on the the check marks, the things that could be seen, and how it's shaping this legacy thing that we're trying to that not trying, let's let's remove that word. This legacy thing that we are building, we're so focused on the tangibles, the things that people could see, and we know like this moment right here changed my life. But we forget that this conversations that's being had, whether with yourself, whether it be your spouse, your friend, your homeboy, that strange man on the corner that says something, that triggers something in your mind, or that platoon song, that first song, uh a musical album, blueprint. Let's stick to the Jay-Z theme. There's things out there, the 444 album, Blueprint 3, Magna Carter. Even the ones that wasn't as great, kingdom come. You learn from these things. American Gangster. I could keep going on and on. And then you you you go to how you pivot to pivot and listen to other things that that's changing you. Those conversations, whether it be one line, one album, one sitting, I had a conversation today, today, that I promise you is going to change my life. One hour, one hour is going to change my life. And in that episode nine, we we talked about it. There's two things to this day that still shapes my mindset that I that was told to me in the military. The first one was so what? What's next? I just got promoted. I'm excited, and my first S first Sarn Lee literally looked at me in my excitement, knowing all that we went through, the things that he put me through to make sure that I was ready and prepared to go in front of that NCO board and get my promotional status. He looked at me and said, So what, what's next? Not to break down the or or not see the accomplishments that I that I did. He didn't want me to get start patting myself on the shoulder and then getting complacent. When we achieve certain things, I think a lot of us we we sit there and we we start patting ourselves on the back, then we're pop in the bottles and we're we're excited. Yes, celebrate your wins. But what's next? Is this where it ends? For me, I told you in that episode, it's never gonna end for me. I'm always gonna want more. I told Tiffany, I'm always gonna be working. Do I have I have this thing that I say, I have a fuck you number, 55. 55 is my fuck you number. Because I never want to rely on nobody's social security, I never want to rely on no pension plans and none of that stuff. I want to build something that at 55, I could tell anybody, fuck you. I don't want to do it. Fuck you, I'm not working. That's my number. That's what I told myself. But now that's the number. What's the monetary value to make me be able to say that fuck you? What did I build along the way to be able to say that fuck you at 55? That's 14 years from now. It started six years ago. Six years ago? I don't know. I don't know when the hell it started. But which and ever. 14 years from now, I want to be able to tell anybody in who who's asking me for something that I don't have to do this. And that's what I mean by fuck you. It's not being arrogant, it's not being an asshole. It's it's not literal fuck you. It's lit, it's it's it's on this from point, like, nah, I ain't gotta do that. I've reached the status where I want to be at. I I've hit the the goals, the the plans to the point where it's like, it's not meaning that I'm not gonna work, I'm not gonna do anything. I don't know, I'm not gonna know how to not work. I'm always gonna work. That's the spirit in me. That's the plan in me. There's there's no end date to this. Because the moment I hit something, I already have the next goal in mind. And that's what First Horror was trying to tell me. So what's next? We're not plateauing out here. There's got to be something else that we're striving for. And if you and if you reach the thing that it is, and there is no what's next, this is what I want to accomplish with my life, and I've reached it. I'm happy, I'm content, great. I am not disregarding what you're doing. For me, it's just different. And that's why, and that's the that's the main part of the defining part of your legacy. Define what it actually means for you. Define what it is that you're trying to do with this journey. What is the goal? What's the 20-year? What's your number? What's the number? What's your financial number attached to that number? I could say 55 is my F you number all day, every day. But you can't really say FU if you make it to $100,000 and you think you're gonna tell somebody F you. No. No. $100,000, even an investment, and you're getting the best rate of returns, you're still making change. You can't live off of that. So, what are you gonna live off of the money that you made? So that means you're not leaving anything behind. So that's not an FU number. That's you being arrogant at that point. Because you think you're more than what you are. That's why I said we gotta, there's certain things in life, and in today's conversation, that that's one of the things that I got out of it. I could have my FU number, but did we actually break down what that FU number actually really looks like? Because there's gotta be a monetary value attached to it. What's that number? Is it six figures, seven figures, eight, nine? What is going to be that thing that's going to allow you to say, nah, I don't want to do it? To the point where some people's gonna look at you like you're crazy. I can't believe I can't believe he said no to that. I'm giving you an opportunity. No. I'm free. Financially free, mentally free, emotionally free, my family straight, the next generation straight. I ain't gotta do it. I'd rather go set sale somewhere else. I'd rather go golf. I'd rather just sit in my house and enjoy my mortgage, whatever it is that's gonna work for you, you gotta know and define that for yourself. That's what we're building towards. These conversations shape the directions that we're gonna go in. These conversations, and then the next one, I'm sorry, was for my platoon sergeant. I forget what the context was, but I remember the line and I still live to it, still to this day. That man told me, so what, bro? Everybody got a story. What makes yours different? And I wish I could remember the context of what was happening in that conversation because context does matter, but for me, it was so profound that I realized, even in doing this, I'm a dime a dozen. I'm a shining dime. I'm bright as fuck, you know what I mean? I'm I'm him. But there's a lot of other hymns out there too. There's a reason why in multiple, there's a reason why there's this Tiger Woods, there's there's Tom Brady, there's Jay-Z, there's Serena Williams, there's Bill Russell, there's LeBron James. Greatest of all times, right? But does that does that diminish? Does that diminish Larry Bird? Does that diminish Nas? Does that diminish Peyton Manning? It doesn't diminish any of those people. They did what they were supposed to do. They reached their pinnacle. They they reach, it's just these, these, these guys are something different. They're different. You can strive to be them, but if you fall short, I'll take Payne Manning's life over. If I'm reaching for Tom Brady and I reach paying manning, am I really losing? Timing matters in these conversations, and I think I think that's that's that's when I learned in that when he said everybody got a story, what makes yours different. Separate yourself. Stand out, not because you're trying to go viral, stand out for being him. There's a plenty of himself, there's plenty of hers. In a sea full of, there's a sea full of people. There's him that stand out there, there's her that stay out there. And then there's the greatest of all times. Just because you don't reach greatest of all time doesn't mean that you failed. You're still him. And that's what I got in those in those conversations. In the conversation today, it made me realize like I didn't really fully develop that 55 number. Now I gotta go back to the journal, find where I developed that plan and figure out okay, what what what do we need to develop off of this to make sure that this thing that we're building is not for not. Because the words that we're we're getting from people, the words that we're getting from ourselves and the way that we talk about ourselves, and the way that we talk about our businesses, and the way that we talk about our jobs, and the way that we talk about our families, it matters. Is developing thought processes. You know, some people, some people believe that they could talk things into fruition. I talked my wife into fruition. What I was dreaming for, what I was hoping for, I talked that into fruition. I didn't know it was gonna come years later, a whole other marriage later. That wasn't the timing that it was supposed to be in. But words matter. They're gonna build us, they're gonna break us, they're gonna shape us. But imagine what you're saying about yourself right now. Imagine what you're saying about the thing that you're chasing, imagine what you're saying about in those rooms when you're over-explaining something to somebody else, as opposed to just doing the work, as opposed to just jotting it down. It's a conversation between me and you, you and I at night, and our thoughts, what we develop, what we're building. But at the same time, while we're doing realizing words matter and all that, listening matters just as much. These three conversations that I hold on to, these albums from from Hove, you know, these moments in time that I'm thinking about, I had to listen. I had to listen with my ears, listen with my eyes. I had to see certain things and realize like that that that matters. I need to pay attention to that. Oh my God. Did he just what did he just say? And then go back and sit in it. So what what's next? I could have looked at that and for for somebody else, it probably would have broken down like, damn. I did all that and it didn't even matter. No. Sit. Think. He's not trying to break you down. He's telling you, keep striving for more. Good job, young fella, but keep striving for more. You you see where I'm at right here? I'm I gave you the tools. I I laid out something for you, and I don't want you to get complacent here because I see more in you. So what's next? When Sarin Balcom told me, everybody got a story, bro. What makes yours different? Everybody does got a story. Everybody got a sob story, everybody got a high story, everybody got a happy story. What makes yours different? You trying to stand out amongst all these. You trying to get, you trying to become him, you trying to become her. Some of us are starting to be the next greatest of all time. But what makes your story different? I had to listen to those things and actually digest those things. Then have those conversations with myself, the internal dialogues. And it's not even it's not even what people are saying to me. What am I leaving? What am I leaving when I leave people? Now I get all these wisdoms and nuggets and all that stuff, and I'm I'm building this and uh. But I don't get back on this thing. I don't go and grab somebody and mentor them. Because first on Lee saw some in me, Sean Balcom saw some of me, my dad saw some in me to sit down and give me time. Time is the most valuable commodity. And when you're a busy person and you carve out an hour of your day to drop some wisdom and nuggets onto you and give you another blueprint, another way of seeing things. So I'm going to keep it to myself. I don't count Caden. Caden's gonna get that naturally. I have to bring it back. I have to go back and grab somebody by the hands and be like, hey, hey, hey, I see something in you. Just like they saw it in me when I didn't see it. Some conversations don't feel big in that moment, but they stay with you for years. Like I said, those three conversations, and one happened today. Because the next thing that is asking me is what conversations stayed with me that actually changed how I moved to in the military. I've been 10 years out of the military and it's been shaping my life ever since I heard that thing. Ever since I heard those two things, it's it's shaped me. And I'm pretty sure before those two things, there was probably other things that were shaping me, but it wasn't as impactful. It wasn't the right time for me to hear it and digest it and listen to it and really break it down and have those internal conversations with myself. Right? And then today I'm thinking like I'm chugging along. Yo, I got the businesses, I'm an entrepreneur, I'm jet saying, I got the wife, I got the kid, I got the house, the cause. One hour conversation. Ooh. I don't think I'm where I'm where I thought I was. I need to sit down and go digest this. Let me go back to the journal. Not this journal. I gotta go back about three journals ago when I first laid out that plan. That's why I tell y'all journaling is key. We don't just chuck them once we're done. Because those are part of our story, those are part of our blueprint. That's what's making us him. Because we're going back to check. Two years ago, quarter two, uh that's when I did that. I'm not, I'm just paraphrasing. That's when I made this plan of the 55. Now I need to go back there because I just had a conversation and I don't think how I thought I defined it. I don't think I really developed that definition of what that 55 FU means. I don't think I ever put a monetary value to it. I knew what the vision was. I know what I'm building towards, but there's a piece that was missing. And today's conversation taught me and made me sit there and be like, I'm not being maniacal enough. Am I still chasing keeping up with the Joneses? Or am I chasing actually building this legacy thing? Two different things, two different pathways. My opinion, one is leading me towards rich, another one's making me wealthy. That's what I got. Now I gotta go back. Not to the drawing board, because we're not resetting, we're not restarting. We're pivoting. Remember that key words. Pivoting. Ooh, that's another one that I always used to hear when I was in law school. And my wife will attest to this also. Words matter. We had a professor that said that all the time. It'll be two little words in a in a paragraph that changes the whole dynamic of a case, of a uh how a trial's gonna go. And he always used to say that. This is important, words matter, and he just kept saying over and over, over and over. Oh, words matter, words matter. And it was a running joke that we would say all the time. And to the point where you're out of class and you say, Words matter, counselor, but it does. A few words changes the outcome of a case, case law, how judges preside over cases, how attorneys are gonna fight those cases, how juries are gonna retain the information that these people are given. I'm not talking about the media, the the meet how the media can spin cases and all that. I'm talking about like the words in that paragraph inside that judicial book that they're using for a case law. Two, three words change. Laws are enacted. People's lives change. Literally, people's lives change. Off of a couple words, you're now either guilty or not guilty. That's what we're talking about in conversation. Words that's staying with us. So what? What's next? Everybody got a story, bro. What makes yours different? 55 is great, but what's the number attached to 55? The conversations you have today shape the life you live tomorrow. And when you step back and look at all of that together, it starts to hit a little different. You know, these four episodes that we just kind of broke down, and I do want you to go back and listen to those episodes because we really dive deep into it. It starts to it starts to hit different. You start to intentionally now start building this legacy. We're still chasing, but we're running with a purpose. There's a finish line. There's a finish line. We're not just running around in circles. So let me flip it back on you for a second. Not just to think about what we talked about, but to really look at your own life. You know how I always do it. Let's let's let's let's let's get a couple questions going. So, question one going back to when life interrupts. Where has life interrupted your plan and how did you respond? Did you adjust or did you disappear? Because life is going to shift you. That part isn't optional. The real question is what you do next. Do you find another way forward, or do you sit in that moment longer than you need to be? I think that's where a lot of us are, to include myself. Sometimes we sit in the thing a little bit too long. And then that's where the derailment happens. Now it's no longer a pivot. It's derailed. We think we went wrong. And now we're trying to change things. Nothing went wrong. Nothing went wrong. You're not wrong. Go back to your book and see what step did we skip. Can we get back to that step? We said it in that episode. Life life is not an easy track, anyways. It was built chaotic. And for for some of us, we thrive in the chaos. Some of us need to learn how to move in the chaos, and others they crumble in the chaos. That's okay. That journey was not for you. An interruption doesn't end your path. Your response determines if you keep going. Question two. The grind. Are you actually building something meaningful right now? Or are you just staying busy? A lot of us are in the rat race. We're just staying busy. We're not, we're not, we're not building something. We're not building something meaningful right now. We're just staying busy. And because the illusion of staying busy makes us think we're being productive, we think we're building something, and then 20 years are gonna go by. And it's a shoulda cudda waters. I look back at the last 20 years. You know how many shoulda cuda waters I I have that I see clear as day that I should have done, I could have done, but it's okay. At 40, I could still figure this shit out. At 65, we in a different ballgame at that point. Because the two could look the same. You can fill your day with plenty of activities and still not be moving forward. You could be tired and still not be progressing. Being busy can feel like progress, but only intentional work moves you forward. Intentional work. Let's go to question three. The quiet work. Are you willing to do the quiet work? Not only are you willing to do the quiet work, is are you willing to do it when nobody sees it yet? Or do you need the recognition to stay constant? I told y'all. I think it's about consistently nine views on these episodes. I don't want to compare this to the other shows. Other shows, they they stand on their own. But here, the one that's my baby that I'm trying to build, the one that I see way clearer than the other stuff. If I'm going off of numbers, pack this shit up and let's go. Consistently. I'm not even in double digits yet, consistently. And one of them I can't even really count. It's my number one fan, you know? And I'm pretty sure my kid watched a couple episodes, so some of those are like skewed, also, right? But am I gonna stay consistent? Even though I'm not getting the likes, I'm not getting the follows, I'm not getting the monetization. But I didn't. It's either gonna come or it's not gonna come, but you know what's not gonna stop, what's not gonna stop coming? Me staying consistent. Because the reality is most of the work that actually changes our lives happens before anyone even notices it. I've said this time and time again. There's no such thing as overnight success. We view it as overnight success because we were not paying attention until it went viral, until they had a hundred thousand views or 70,000 or 70,000 followers. You think it's overnight success, but you know how long that person was building, how long they was grinding, how many shows they did, how many, how many videos they had to put out? Go back and look. When you started watching, what episode was it? When you started watching, how many poster did they put up? When you started watching how many small free shows were they putting out there before they started being able to sit and and have a 10,000, 10,000 people room, a 5,000 people room, a 1,000 people room. At some point they had to start where there was only friends and family in the audience for free. And even then you couldn't get them to show up, but they kept doing it. Because they did it when nobody else noticed it. And if you can't stay consistent in those moments, it's going to be hard to sustain the success when it does show up. Mm-hmm. How are you going to sustain the success when it shows up when you could you don't even have the the what am I looking for? You don't have the the the ecosystem. That's not even the right word that I'm look for. It's you don't have you didn't build this thing to where it's a well-oiled machine. You're in, you're out, oh my god, the view suck. I could skip this week, let me skip that week. I'm gonna disappear for, I'm gonna take a couple weeks off. That's okay, nobody's gonna miss it. Yeah. The eight people is gonna miss it. The eight people that consistently showed up for you, they're missing it. And they need that to feed their soul, to feed their fire. Now they gotta go find it somewhere else. Guess what? You just hit the reset button. And they already seen you. You left them once. What makes it think they're gonna trust you to come back to you again? You see, you see what happens when you're not consistent? Now, when the success comes, you're not ready for it. You can't be because it's gonna take one single moment that we don't know and it gone viral, and now you have to keep showing up. But you created bad habits along the way. Every week, I'm giving you something. I might be delayed, it might not be on that day that I say it's gonna come out, but every week I'm giving you something. You know that for a fact. I'm giving you something. If you need recognition to stay consistent, the vision isn't strong enough yet. It's not strong enough yet. Yeah, and you're gonna have to keep building on it. Question four, conversations. What conversations are shaping your life right now? And be real with yourself. I told you today I had a conversation that's that's that's going to impact me and change my life. A lot of things are going to change because of a conversation, a one-hour conversation today. But I had to be real with myself. I had to be willing to listen. I had to be willing to be vulnerable in that conversation also. It wasn't a oh, you know, sugar cutter, sugar sh sugar-coated conversation. No, got real, got deep. Asked tough questions, and I had to answer them. Right? You asked for this. You wanted mentorship, you wanted guidance, you want help. And don't waste that person's time. We're not hearing what I told you, the most valuable commodity anybody has is their time. And when you see that person and you're like, you know what, they're doing what I'm trying to do, I'm gonna reach out. And then they gave you that time, they sat down with you, they gave you things that you could do to fix your situation or help your situation or shape your situation. You're gonna waste their time. You won't. You're not wasting their time, you're wasting your time. Because they're where you already want to be. Or are they keeping you comfortable? Because there's some conversations we are having, but we're keeping the right people around us that's gonna make us feel like we're doing something a whole lot more. They're keeping you comfortable. Right, wrong, or indifferent. Every conversation leaves something behind. A thought, a feeling, a shift in perspective. The conversations around you will either stretch you or settle you. Let us sit. The conversations around you will either stretch you or settle you. Or they're gonna have you just settle right where you're at. Close the notebook, close the journals, it's done. You've reached. Did you? Or did you keep the wrong people around you? Did you listen to the wrong conversation? Were you having the wrong internal conversations? Were you doing it for the views, the likes? Are you in and are you out? One more question I have. What are you leaving with people? Because right now we're talking about, well, we're on a take business, right? I'm taking this, I'm taking this, I'm taking that. But what are you giving back in these interactions, in these conversations? It can't just be a one-way street. You're giving off information also. You're giving off feelings also, you're shaping somebody's perspective, right, wrong, and indifferent. It could be a conversation that you leave them and you're like, you know what, I'm gonna show that motherfucker, right? I'm him. Athletes do it all the time. Oh, they wrote me off, I'm gonna show them. We hear it all the time. Jason Tatum's gonna world. He wrote a, he wrote a he wrote an essay in class saying he's gonna be an NBA star, and the teacher told him straight up, I think you need to rewrite this. Because I don't think that's attainable. He could have stopped right then and there. That that teacher would have not allowed us to get championship number 19 here in Boston. Because she would have crushed his soul. Instead, you know, he admits it, he went home crying, and now his mama, she set him straight. She gave him the conversation that he needed. Not a yes conversation. Well, what are you gonna do about it? That was his so what? What's next moment? Everybody got a story, bro. What makes yours different? You think you're the first person that some teacher tried to tear down and say that you you're dreaming too big? And this is not just for my athletes, my entrepreneurs, my people that's in a nine-to-five, and somebody else is telling them that, uh, this is where you're at. Go prove them wrong. This is the good proof wrong. And the way you prove them wrong is do the quiet work. Bellow it up in the background. Jason Tatum's mom said, All right, if you want this, this is what you gotta do. This is what you gotta, this is what we're gonna, this is what we're gonna do. The early mornings, the camps, the this, the that. And along the way, it got better. It got better. He put in the quiet work. McDonald's all American. Oh, okay, we're going to Duke. Okay, when you're at Duke, we're going into the league. All he now all this man knows is playoffs. Top five in MVP votings, first team all NBA, champion. It all would have been for not if he just listened to the wrong conversation. Or if somebody else didn't give him the right conversation at the right time. Because whether you realize it or not, people carry what you give them. Your words, your tone, your presence. Every interaction leaves something behind. Make sure it's something worth carrying. And when you really sit with that, you start to see the bigger picture. Let's wrap up the show. This isn't just about one moment. It's not just about one dire decision. It's about how you respond when life shifts. It's about how you move when nobody's watching. That part is key. How you move when nobody's watching. They used to say that to us all the time in the military. Somebody's always watching. And you never you never think about it until one day you're being summoned by your battalion commander with your first sergeant. Now your first sergeant's yelling at you like, what is it that you do? Why are we being summoned to go stand on this man's carpet and explain what it what did you do? What did you do? And you're sitting there baffled, and then come to realize he was watching. Don't know where he's watching from. And you know what that conversation was? You need to put him on track to go to NCO. Send him to the NCO Academy. I seen X, I seen Y, I seen Z. And you're thinking about X, Y, and Z, and like, where the fuck was he at to be seeing this shit? Simple walking by, doing what you were supposed to be doing, and they're watching and they saw. And now, this person that only seen you about three, four occasions, is telling your leadership, this potential here. We need to work with it. Let's develop it. Send them here, send them that, send them promotion. Now you grind it for three months. You finally get to that part, and then your leader, who's probably proud of shit of you, because the BC said you're worth something. We put in the work and you're actually living up to it. And what's he turn around and tell you? So what's next? Alright, cool. You lived up to this hype. What's the next level of the hype? Can you achieve that? Now you did it off of because these people said. Can you do it because you can? It's about how you respond when life shifts. It's about how you move when nobody's watching, guys. It's about how you show up in the conversations that matter. Because life is going to interrupt your plan. We know this. That's part of it. And when it does, you're going to have a choice adjust or disappear. Then once you get back moving, you're going to be faced with how you work. Are you building something meaningful? You should damn near every day go back to your journal and said, What did I do today that's going to impact this journey? What did I do today that's building on something meaningful? Or You're gonna sit down and you're gonna look at it and realize I was just staying busy. I was just trying to prove something. But as the vision grows, the work is going to get quieter. We got to get it quieter. Less talking, less explaining, more discipline, way more focus, more doing what needs to be done, even when nobody else sees it. And all throughout that process, it's going to be difficult. It's going to be hard. But are you going to have the conversations that need to be had? Conversations with people, conversations within your environment. Are you seeking out mentorship? Are you seeping out guidance from the right people? Because not everybody that got a voice is supposed to be, is what you're supposed to be listening to. And most importantly, what are the conversations that you're having with yourself? And all those things combined, that's what shapes your life. Not one big moment, not one big decision, but how you handle the small moments over and over again. And the more you grow, the more you realize something simple. You can't just move through life reacting to everything. You have to slow down sometimes. You have to think. You have to really process what you're learning, what you're feeling, and where you're trying to go. We're not moving through this through this dark room aimlessly. Because when you take the time to understand your thoughts, your actions become more intentional. Your work becomes more focused. Your conversations become more meaningful. And that's what this journey is really about. Not just talking about legacy, but learning how to actually live it week by week, conversation by conversation, decision by decision. Because there's still more to unpack. More growth, more perspective, more real conversations we need to have about life, about family, leadership, purpose, and what it actually really looks like to build something that lasts. Legacy isn't built in the big moments, it's built in how you show up every single day. So we can't rush it. We have to stay intentional. We have to stay disciplined. Stay aware of how you're moving through your life. Because the way you're living right now is the legacy you're creating in real time. If this episode gave you something to think about, subscribe to Dear Legacy, drop a comment, follow us on social media, and share it with someone who you believe is building their legacy in real time. If you want to dive deeper into these topics, check out the past episodes. Till then, go define it, go build it, go live it. See y'all next week. Peace.