Dear Legacy... Stop Lying to Yourself | EP 13 | Dear Legacy...Podcast

You already know what needs to change. You've known for a while.The question is are you finally ready to stop lying to yourself about it?

WHY YOU SHOULD WATCH / LISTEN

This episode hits different because Kevin doesn't just talk about self-honesty he lives it on mic. EP 13 is the follow-up to the signal from EP 12, and this time we go straight to the truth behind it. Kevin breaks down the three lies we tell ourselves every day, the three things we keep avoiding, and the three steps that actually lead to growth. He's putting himself on blast about two years of 'I'll start when,' the logo redesigns, the perfect conditions that never came, and the consistency that keeps slipping. No fluff. No motivation speech. Just real talk about what it actually looks like to stop making excuses and start owning your situation. If you've been circling something you know you need to face this is the episode.

FULL EPISODE WRITE-UP

Dear Legacy... Stop Lying to Yourself | EP 13

There's a moment where everything becomes clear. Not because something new happened but because you finally stop avoiding what you already knew.

EP 13 is the truth behind the signal. Kevin B the Brand isn't delivering this from a distance. He's in it with you, naming his own version of the exact thing he's asking you to face.

The Lies We Tell Ourselves

It starts with small stuff. The quiet justifications. The phrases we come back to every time we don't do what we said.

"I'll start when." Kevin spent two years there. Three logo iterations, a full studio build, waiting on perfect conditions while people with a phone and a cheap mic had already started building real audiences. The right time wasn't coming. It was passing.

"I don't have time." But the calendar doesn't lie. Hours on gear research and email signatures while the real work sat untouched. Your time reflects your real priorities not the ones you say out loud.

"This is just how it is." The quietest one. You stop questioning. Start normalizing frustration. Kevin talks about Tiffany hitting him with: "I'm going to have to push back on that." Because she believes in the vision more than he sometimes does. That's what this episode does too.

What You're Avoiding

Once the lies become normal, you start steering around things.

The real work: Kevin breaks down the priority list vs. the secondary list. Most people crush the secondary list and call it a win. If your two top priorities didn't move, you didn't win the day. The thing you keep skipping is usually the thing that would change everything.

Your comfort: He doesn't like change. Says it directly. But staying safe has a price. His eight-year-old Kaiden is building a YouTube channel, willing to risk embarrassment. Kevin had to ask himself why he was less bold than his kid.

Blame: The moment you stop owning it, you lose the ability to change it. Kevin pulls a JAY-Z line: you can't control a situation you don't own. You can't grow what you hand to someone else.

Choosing Honesty and Ownership

None of this is about tearing yourself down. It's about getting clear. 

Call it what it is. Not the version you've been telling people the real one. You can't deal with what you won't name.

Own it without shame. Responsibility isn't punishment, it's power. Kevin talks about reminding himself "I'm him" not for the crowd, for himself. Shame keeps you stuck. Ownership moves you.

Move with clarity. Once you're honest and own it, the path clears. Kevin catches himself using "life be life" mid-episode and calls it out. That's not a reason. It's cover.

Kevin closes with five questions awareness to honesty to decision and answers the last one live on mic. His one thing: consistency.

Growth doesn't start when everything is perfect. It starts the moment you stop lying to yourself.

Define it. Build it. Live it.

CHAPTERS & TIMESTAMPS:

00:00 — Welcome Back — EP 13 & the Truth Behind the Signal

02:26 — Have You Been Honest With Yourself?

03:02 — Clarity Comes When You Stop Avoiding

07:00 — The Small Lies That Keep You Stuck

09:00 — The Most Dangerous Lie: "I'll Start When"

12:12 — Two Years. Three Logos. Just Start.

15:04 — "I Don't Have Time" or "Not My Priority"?

17:34 — Your Calendar Doesn't Lie

20:55 — "This Is Just How It Is" — The Quiet Trap

25:56 — Priority List vs. Secondary List

33:23 — Avoiding the Real Work

41:13 — Consistency, Change & the Cycle We Repeat

46:03 — The Comfort Zone Is Costing You

51:10 — Comfort Keeps You Safe. And the Same.

52:59 — Blame Nobody. Own Everything.

58:08 — You Built the Studio. Now Show Up.

01:02:17 — Choosing Honesty Is Choosing Ownership

01:04:12 — Call It What It Is

01:11:06 — Ownership Without Shame — It's Power

01:20:07 — Moving Forward With Clarity

01:27:00 — 5 Questions That Flip It Back on You

01:31:04 — Kevin's Answer Live: Consistency

01:32:38 — Stop Lying to Yourself. That's Where It Starts.

Define it. Build it. Live it.

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

End of the day, you got one place to look at. And that's with you. That's where the shift gotta begin. That's with me. Stop using these stupid ass excuses. Welcome back, welcome back, welcome back, y'all. It's your boy Kevin B. The Brand, and you're all with another episode of Dear Legacy. This is number 13, y'all. Um, my favorite number, one of my favorite numbers, number 13. Um I think it was one of my favorite numbers uh because I wanted to rebel. A lot of people used to be like 13 is an unlucky number. And I was like, all right, I'm gonna make it unluck, I'm gonna make it lucky. You know what I mean? Like lucky seven and all that. Um, anyways, off a tangent or whatever. Uh welcome back, guys. Um thank you for tuning in. And if this is your first time here, uh I want to pick up where I left off last at number episode number 12. Um when we talked about that feeling, that quiet, hard-to-name feeling that sometimes that we we tend to deal with um when life is off, right? And you know, I I've I haven't sugarcoated for you guys. It's uh sometimes life be life and life, life makes things hard. I'm recording this episode right now, and it was supposed to be released today. So that means you're probably not gonna get this for another day and a half, two days from now. Um but you're getting it, right? And and I I don't I don't like I said, I I tell you guys the truth. I think when we when you're on a journey together and you're building something and we're talking truthfulness and talking about building this legacy the way that we wanted to um build it, we gotta be vulnerable. We gotta be transparent about certain things. And this this one was a it was a tough week for for various reasons, and I've been pushing through. And and it's it's it's crazy to see coming from the last episode, like we talked about at 12, where that feeling that we feel, and it's just you know things are off, but just don't know why, and you're just trying to push through the stuff and that and the confusion and all that stuff, and and knowing that it's a signal that's pointing you to somewhere all at the same time, right? Um, and if you if you sat with that, if you actually paid attention to it, then you would already know what was what it was pointing you to. And we've probably known for a while. And the question is, have you been honest about that situation? Right? Because this is where episode 13 is gonna live. Not the signal, but the truth behind it. And that's where we're going today. Excuse me for all the pauses. It's like I have my iPad up with my notes, and I keep missing where I'm trying to be. Um, because I don't want to go on a tangent neither, right? I'm trying to stay on topic with you guys. So um let's just let's just jump uh jump into it. Because there's a moment where everything becomes clear. Not because something new happened, but because you finally stopped avoiding what you've been, you've already known. You ever catch yourself saying the right things, making the right plans, and talking about the things that you're going to do, right? But not actually doing it. And I think that's where I've been in the past few days and why I'm late actually recording this situation now, right? Because it's like I've been saying and I've been planning, but I just haven't been able to do that thing. Not because I don't want to, because I have fun when I'm doing this, right? It's it's I I like putting out the messages out there. Um working and putting it together, gathering my thoughts. It's it's something that I like doing because I get to, it's another form of therapy for me, right? And and it's like I said, if you guys have been with me for this journey, it's I'm trying to get it to a point where now we could open up the floor for others to come out there and start sharing their journey, start sharing what their legacy looks like. But before I get there, I want to hit those points that I said that I wanted to hit. One for you to get to know me and for us to have these real conversations and we start learning things about ourselves before we start hearing from others. Because one thing that I do know is we'll hear things from others, and then it'll sound amazing, it'll be great, and it's motivational, and and we want to go do that thing, and then not realizing that we're not ready to go do that thing, or that thing was not for us, it just sounded great, but you missed the part that you were supposed to hear to help you get to your great part, right? And and yeah, um, so this week it was it was a little bit off to say the least. And again, like I said, for various reasons. And it wasn't like I didn't want to, like I literally was trying to, but I just couldn't, right? Um, and sometimes there's just something that's in you that's just holding you back for whatever reason that may be. And instead of calling it what it is, we dress it up and say we just need more time. We say we're waiting for the right moment. We say that we're still trying to figure things out. But if we're being honest, that's not what it is. The truth is you already know what needs to change. You've been known. You've just been avoiding it. And that's where people stay stuck. Not because they don't have the answers, but because they're not being honest with themselves. And I think for us today, we just gotta stop avoiding that situation. And we're gonna call it what it is. Because the moment you stop trying, because the moment you stop trying to lie to yourself about the situation that you're in, I feel as though that's the moment things will start to change. But I think first we gotta address the elephant in the room, the lies that we tell ourselves in order to make ourselves feel good in that moment. But before we even get into that, we gotta get into the deepest stuff. I want to start to tell you about the stories we tell ourselves every single day. What stories is that? Because most of the time we're not lying in a big dramatic way. It's the small things that we're lying about. The quiet justifications of certain situations, right? The phrases we keep repeating, the reasons we we come back to every time. We don't know what we what we said we would, and and then feel reasonable. It's all lies. They feel real, but deep down we know the difference, right? The difference between what it really is, a reason and an excuse. And that's why and that's what we need to look at right now, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:29

This thing's reading wrong.

SPEAKER_00 8:51

Prime example, one of the famous lines that we always say, right? I'll start when. And a dot dot dot is not the legacy, dot dot dot. Yeah I mean it it's it's legitimately fill in the blank because that is one of the most infamous lines that we'll ever hear. I'll start when. And then the when is the when? When do we actually stop? Because waiting for the right conditions is just another way of us not starting. That's all you're doing. I'll start when I get enough money. I'll start when I get the right equipment, I'll start when I lose these couple of pounds, I'll start when. When is when? Because waiting for the right time instead of actually making the decision now is way more detriment to the success that you could have later on. Convincing yourself you need to have a better conditions for that first, for more money, more time, more certainty, planning it out over and over in your head, but never taking the first step. That was me. I told you guys this took two years before it actually came to fruition. This is the third iteration of this logo. Third iteration. Why did I focus so much on the logo and not putting the message out there? I was so focused on getting the right equipment. I was so focused on getting the right aesthetics. Went from this space when it was just an empty basement and no studs, no nothing, and putting up backdrops and getting the table and all that other stuff, and then just to turn around and be like, oh, we're gonna finish the basement and actually build out the studio. And then now I got to find a makeshift space. I got to make that space look perfect before I could actually hit the record button. Why? It all goes back to I'll start when. I'll start when it looks this way. I'll start when I get this camera, I'll start when I get this microphone. In reality, I was just delaying the process for whatever reason, maybe out of fear, maybe overthinking stuff, maybe going down rabbit holes and maybe trying to compare myself to other people, but yet I'm seeing it comparing myself to other people that's already press put press record. They've they're not doing the I'll start when they already started. At one point, they had to start. You think they was going, they was comparing themselves to everybody else? You think they're so concerned about what if they I don't get the likes, I don't get the views. At some point, everybody started with just two to five views, and they consistently built those two to five views to 15 views, 30 views, 45, 100, 150, 1000. But all they had to do is press record. They just had to start. They didn't keep saying, I'll start when, I'll start when. Because my my whole thing is I'll start when with no date, no actual plan in motion, still tweaking things that yes, your logo matters. Yes, the thought processes behind these do matter. But at the same time, it don't matter. Because we could figure that shit out later on. But we just delaying the inevitable right now. The right time has been coming for a while now, and it just keeps moving. It'll come, it'll pass you. It'll come, it'll pass you. That's how time works. It's not gonna pause and wait and be like, hey, I'm here, I'm who you've been looking for. This is the right time. You just gotta make the right time work for you. And if I'm being real with myself, what I've been putting off, I already knew I needed to start. I've been knowing I needed to start Dead Legacy, right? I had the plans, I had done all the research, I knew everything I needed to do. And I kept saying, Oh, I'm gonna go sell this house and with the commission, then I'll be able to get the cameras, the lights, the this, the that, the. No, I didn't need all that. Most people start with just a phone. A phone and get you a decent mic and your laptop. You're good to go. You build from there. I didn't have to go this route. I chose to go this route for whatever reason it may be. Perfect can call it call it perfect conditions, but I could have started this thing back when I thought it was supposed to start. I wanna I I think the original date was supposed to be, if I remember correctly, I have made the bet with Alex. And before the bet with Alex, there was a date before that, and I think the date with Alex was for like end of July or something like that. Then end of July became October. Then in October, we're like, well, I don't want to do things in the middle of uh the holiday break, so I'll just wait. And then eventually, I just had to say, fuck it. And I hit record, put the trailer out, put the teaser out. I wanted to build up a bunch of episodes beforehand, and it didn't work out to that favorite. And I was like, all right, well, in January I could record a bunch of episodes, and then I'll do the release for February. No, I had to tell myself in that moment if we don't have the time to bank up the episodes, then we're just not gonna bank the episode. We're just gonna put the tail, the trailer out, we're gonna put the teaser out, and every week we're gonna sit our asses down and record an episode. And when we find a couple of free times, then we'll bank a couple episodes here or there. Till then, just got to keep going. And when later becomes your default, your start is telling yourself another story. That's what I want you guys to stop avoiding. That's what I want you guys to avoid. Because the next thing you're gonna tell yourself is you don't have the time. Right? Because you're spending time, because the time you're spending, you're, you're, you're literally just questioning whether it's gonna go, it's going the way you said that it wanted to go. That's why you're questioning it. You're you're you're you're you're you're telling yourself you don't have time, but yet you made time for other situations. I made time to do the research on a bunch of different stuff. I made time to break down this thing, go to the store and and pick out that, and then look on Amazon and look on DJI and look on this and look on that, look on road, you know what I mean? We had the time for all that. Why can't we make the time to just sit down and say, I'm going to start? Saying you don't have the time while spending hours on things that you don't move forward with. Third iteration of this logo. Third. You know how many meetings I had to have? You know how many times I had to sit down? Hey, I'd rather it this way, I'd rather it that way. We could have just put the word, dear legacy, and then figure out the logo later on. You know what I mean? Your calendar and your priorities don't match what the truth is actually telling you. And that, and that, and that's the God's honest truth. Your priorities and calendars just not matching. That's the truth. Distractions are real, and so are your choices, right? You choose to get distracted by certain things. I don't know if you guys remember the day that I would uh it was a few episodes back, I was supposed to be recording some stuff, and I got frustrated over um by sending an email out on my Apple iPad, and it kept saying, get Outlook for Mac. And I got irritated because I would always have to erase that and then put my name and then put my and I knew on my list of stuff that I wanted to do is get my signatures done. I waste, and I'm not gonna say I wasted because it was something that was on my list, but it wasn't top priority at the time. Top priority at the time was to do, I think I forget what I was supposed to be doing. I think I was supposed to be recording or doing something else, and I took that two to three hours of time where I could have been doing something else and bumped things out of the way. That was a choice. I made that choice, you know. And by making that choice, I can't then in turn say, I don't have time. I have the time. But I chose what to do with my time also at the same time. So you can't say you don't have time. The things you make time for reveal what you actually value. Not what you say you value, but what you actually value. Do I think I actually value email signatures? No. But are you putting the value and the effort and the work into the thing that you said that that is the importance, that is the priority? And I think that's where we lie to ourselves. I think that's where the disconnect comes when we're saying I'll do it when or I don't have time. I don't have time often really means this isn't a priority right now. And if somebody looked at how I spent my time last week, would it reflect what I say I'm building? Going back to last week, put personal issues aside, put things that you're going through aside. No. Because what I said I'm trying to build is this thing with you guys. It's my other pod, it's my other businesses. I'm getting getting real getting more clients in for real estate, get putting more content out there to grow my movement and my channels and all that other stuff. I wasn't. I didn't put out any videos for real estate. I didn't put out any episode for Dear Legacy. I got one episode out for um Please Excuse My Balls, but Roots to Reality, we stack episodes. So there's episodes in the bank for that one. So in actuality, am I doing what I said I want to do? Last week, um, well, last week I didn't, I said I was gonna not be going to the gym. I was gonna wait till the first to start going to the gym, so I'm not gonna hold myself accountable for that. But at the same time, it's still not reflecting what I say I'm trying to build. And that's the God's honest truth. You don't find time, you decide what matters, and your actions will always reflect your real priorities, not the ones that you say out loud. And after a while, those small excuses stop feeling like excuses. They start feeling like facts. When you keep telling yourself, I'll get to it when you start believing the the lies that you tell yourself. When you start telling yourself I don't have time, and you start filling it in with a bunch of that's when you start filling it with a bunch of busy stuff, because you have to make that real. I'm not working on the thing that I said I want to do because I don't have time. See, look at it. My my calendar's so full. No, that's busy work. That's what you're doing right now. You you're you're staying busy to justify the lies that you're telling yourself. This is just how it is. Because at some point, uh acceptance without intention becomes a trap. So now you start telling yourself that this is just how it is. Is it though? Settling into situations you're not actually okay with, but stopped questioning it. That's what you just did. It is what it is. You're settling. You started believing the lies, so now you're gonna settle it so you don't question your movements and your decisions that you're making right now. You start normalizing the frustrations instead of addressing the s the the the the frustrations that you're having. And I'm not saying here to say you gotta go beat yourself up because you're you're frustrated with yourself because you're not getting the things that you said that you want to get done.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

Excuse me.

SPEAKER_00 21:59

It's just At this point, you're convincing yourself things can't change. When when really you just haven't pushed back on them. You know, one of the one of the best things Tiffany ever tells me is I start telling some stuff and she'll listen. She'll listen attentively. And then once I hear this one line, oh, I know the raw truth is about to come. When she goes, I'm gonna have to push you back on you on that. I'm gonna have to push you a little on that. Or I'm gonna have to push back on that. And in the moment, I probably don't want to hear that. But I understand she's pushing back on my thought process and the words that I'm putting out into that atmosphere. Because I'm starting to believe essentially the bullshit that I'm spitting. And as my partner, as somebody who believes in the vision more than I believe in the vision, she got to push back on it. That's and I'm I'm forever grateful for that woman. Because most people, and I said this the other day, I was having a conversation with a couple of people, and I was like, I'm the friend that's gonna tell you what you need to hear, not what you want to hear. And that's what Tiffany is for me. My partner in crime. I'm gonna sit there with the woe it's me, the world's against me, I don't have time, and I'm really trying to make this thing successful and da-da-da-da-da-da-da. Well, I'm gonna push you back a little bit on that because remember when you were doing this over here, and I had asked you, I said, Hey, I thought you said you were gonna record, hey, I thought you said you were gonna do this, hey, and you was like, oh no, I'm gonna do this, and said, Oh, I'm working on this. You made a choice. You had the time. You weren't waiting for no perfect time. For whatever reason, you're not living in your truth right now, and now I gotta push you to your truth. Accepting things that face value because change feels too uncertain or too hard, that's what we're doing when we're lying to ourselves. Because deep down you know it shouldn't be this way. You just stop saying it out loud. And the reason why you stopped saying out loud is because you started believing the words that you were telling yourself. That's a problem. It really is. You really have to ask yourself, where in my life have I been accepting something that I know needs to change? And for me, I would honestly have to say that it's not even procrastination anymore. It's it's it's still along the lines of I say that I want to do this, but I could get easily distracted in that. Even though that might be something that needs to get done at some point, it's it's almost as if like I have, when I sit in the journal, I put my priorities list and I write it down, but then I go against the grain. I go to the secondary list. Why? Because the secondary list, and I I think a lot of people will relate to this once I say it. The secondary list is easier task. That's why it's a secondary list. The priority list is harder tasks. It's gonna be more time consuming. It's gonna make, it's going to challenge us, and we'd rather work on these secondary ones, because at the end of the day, once the secondary ones get done and the priorities don't get done, you still tell yourself and believe that you were actually successful and you won the day. But in reality, did you win the day? I can't say that you did win the day because if you have two top priorities that you're supposed to get done, and you got none of them done, but out of the five secondary priorities, you got three done. Somebody's gonna tell you, and somebody's gonna actually believe that they won. They won the day. And they didn't. You told yourself this is the priority, and you did not do it. So how are you counting that as a win? And I know it sounds like I'm contradicting what I'd be telling you guys on Thoughts of the Days and even on this. You got to take the small wins. But the small wins would have been hey, I started my priorities list, I got halfway through my priorities list, I didn't accomplish both of them, and I didn't even make it to my secondary list. But man, am I further along with that first priority that I wanted to get done? And now when tomorrow comes in, I'm not gonna add a new priority. I'm gonna finish that first one and then get to the second one. And the secondary ones, they could wait because they're secondary. They're not priorities. We could shift secondaries. Secondaries are usually tasks that's after you complete the priorities, other things that you could get done. And it's not a priority because these are the priorities. Recording is the priority, releasing is the priority. Making sure my email signatures are perfect in line and it has all the information that you need. Guess what, Playboy? Nobody's emailing that inbox because you ain't give them nothing to email you about. I hope you get, I hope you get what that means, right? Because like I didn't do the priorities by recording, editing, and releasing to get out to the masses to start this movement, and then when somebody wants to be a guest on the show, or when somebody wants to partner with the show, or wants to do a collaboration with the show, it's not there for them to see. So why does it fucking matter what the email inbox says? Because nobody's emailing you to email them back. You see what I mean? And I think that's how we got to look at these priority lists and these secondary lists to stop lying to ourselves. Because yes, I accomplished a task that needed to get done, but it didn't need to get done now. It's a pointless task. I spent months working on a logo that yes, it matters. Yes, it means something to me, and I love the meaning behind it. I love the way the font is and all that other good jazz. But I could have just wrote Dear Legacy and left it at that, and it would have still worked. And then guess what? I could have redone a whole new logo rebranding. Acceptance without intention becomes limitation. And the moment you stop questioning something is the moment it starts uh controlling you. Right? And once that mindset settles in, you stop, you stop um being aware of the situation, you stop looking inward, you you think, hey, I'm still getting things done, so I'm winning, I'm being successful. But if you go back to what the greater picture is, you're not being successful. Or just not. And once you stop looking inward and you start looking outward, that's when it starts to get dangerous. You know what I mean? Because we're not looking at oneself, we're gonna now start blaming everything else. Don't have time. I'll start when. These are the lies, and then now you start blaming everything else. Oh my God, the job has got me so freaking busy, and that's why I can't get my project stuff done. Oh my god, I don't have clients. That's why my real estate portfolio is not growing. Are you cold calling? Are you sending out the flyers? Are you uh following up with past clients? Are you doing marketing on social media? Are you meeting the clients where they're at? Stop lying to ourselves, man. Sometimes now I want to get into that next core theme, which is what are we actually avoiding at that time? Right? And once those lies that you told yourself start to start to become your normalcy, something else starts to happen, right? Right underneath your very nose when you're not paying attention. You start avoiding things. Not always consciously, not always on purpose. But there's there are things in life where you're steering around every single day. Just steering yourself clear around it. The hard conversations, the uncomfortable decisions, the not getting to the priority list and sticking to the secondary list, the real work. And the reason we avoid them usually comes down to the same three things. So let's call those things out. Avoiding the real work. Because being busy and making progress are two completely different things. I just kind of broke that down for you, right? Go into the secondary list rather than accomplishing at least half of the priority list. Staying productive with things that feel safe instead of doing what actually moves you forward. And I think a lot of us have that problem, right? We'd rather stay in our little comfort bubble, stays nice and safe, where we don't have to really challenge ourselves with anything. And and in doing that, we make ourselves feel as though we're doing something, but we're really avoiding the things that we need to be doing. The things that we say that is going to elevate us to the next level, that's going to move the legacy forward. Those are the things that we're avoiding because it's too hard, it's too difficult. We don't want to deal with it right now. I'd rather, I'd rather feel like I accomplished something. I want wins, so I'm going to go to the secondary list. Because I got to get those wins. The real work really usually lives outside your uncomfortable spaces. And those are the those are the ones that we keep skipping, right? The uncomfortable spaces. Doing the things that feel productive on the surface, but don't really actually change anything. Easy tasks that we give that give us that feeling of progress without the result of real progress. We check the box. Secondary list is checking boxes. Progress, that's in the priorities list. That's in the actual doing of the harder part. If it's hard, chances are that's the part you need to be doing. If it comes easy, if you finish it quickly, maybe you're just, maybe that's just your talent, and that's why you were able to finish something so quickly. I don't want somebody to think, oh, just because I finished so fast, I mean like, oh my God. Uh Kev said, then that means I'm not really doing the priority list. No, that's not what I'm saying. That's not what I'm saying at all. Some people just got God-given talent, whereas some things that might be a priority list, they just burning through it. And then maybe that's them probably lying to themselves also by putting secondary items in a priority list so it looks better at the end of the day. That's the thought. The things you keep avoiding is usually the things that matter most. Ain't that the truth? Avoiding recording, avoiding doing the cool calls, avoid doing, avoid doing uh uh the the the being outside. The things that you know you need to do in order to grow, in order to that's going to benefit you, that's the stuff that you keep avoiding. Avoiding those conversations at work to find out why you why you keep getting passed over or or why what is it that I need to do in order to get to that next level for the promotion, right? I think a lot of us will sit in our little bubble, want a promotion, want to get to that next level, but yet we're not seeking out a direct line supervisor and be like, hey, at some point I want to get here. Can you explain to me what I where am I missing? Where am I falling short? Where am I having? We don't want to hear those conversations. So you'd rather just sit there knowing that you need to figure out why it is that you're not getting to that next level to fill in that gap, to have that uncomfortable conversation where they're gonna read you and tell you, hell, they might tell you in that situation, you're just not ready. And some people don't want to hear that part, so they'd rather just not have the conversation. Rather than be like, you're just not ready. So have a follow-up question. What do I need? What do I need to do to get ready? I can't just take that I'm not ready. What do I need to do to get ready in your eyes to get to that next promotion? Those are my nine to fibers. My entrepreneurs, our question, our question, our baseline questions is why am I avoiding this thing? Is this something that I really want, or is it something that is popular and I wanted to do the popular thing, but I don't have that God-given talent, that innate thing to get me to that next level, or uh, or maybe it's not even a talent-level thing. Maybe it's just not a passion level thing, right? Because some of us might have the talent to do certain things, but if the passion's not there, the talent ain't never gonna match. The talent will fizzle out. You will burn out if there's no passion. Microphone, passion. Easy. Script writing, notes, developing speeches in public, perfect. I could give you a speech on the fly all day, every day. Just give me a room, give me an audience. Now, when I got sit here like this, me, you, that's it. Nobody to talk with, bounce a little idea, see where this conversation's gonna go, feel the conversation in the pockets, and then that's me. I could do that all day, every day. This part, I gotta work at. I gotta work at this part. Because the freestyle in the speech, the freestyle in the show, that's cool. But we need the cadence. We need structure. Why do we need the structure? Because we don't want to be going off on tangents. We want to make sure that we're staying on message, staying on brands, that people can get the information that you said that you're trying to give them. And I and I asked, what's the one thing that we're we we know could actually move us forward? But for whatever reasons, we're just not. Honestly, guys, I can't answer that. I hope that you could answer it for yourself, but I'm still trying to figure that one out. Because I know the things that'll propel me forward. And it's not like I'm not doing the things, it's just I'm not staying consistent with the things. Because that's another key element of this whole thing. You could be doing it, but are you gonna stay consistent? Are we going to stay consistent when there's no views, no likes? It's hard, you're tired. Life been life. I am living proof. Life life, and sometimes I fall back. And now you that's out there, that's been with me faithfully listening, you're tuning in, and there's nothing there. What are you gonna do? You want that information, so you're gonna go get it somewhere else. And we all know, those of us that's in business, those of us that studied marketing and all this other great tools, we understand once you lose somebody, it's harder to get them back. Fresh eyeballs is easy to grab. You might even capture. Retain, that's consistency. You did the first two parts. Now consistency is fucking you up. Because we out here just being busy and thinking that it's the same thing as making progress. And sometimes it's just to keep you from avoiding the things that you don't want to actually deal with. You don't want to change. I I'll I'll raise my hand right here. I don't like change. I don't like change one fucking bit. Change irks my nerves. And I understand in order to evolve, in order to grow, things gotta change. But boy, let me tell you, I don't fuck with change. And I don't fuck with it because of the unknown, to be honest. Once things start going a certain way, I like it just like this. But at the same time, I want it to be growing like this. But in order for it to be growing like this, things need to be changing. And then once you throw another monkey in the ring, the moment things start changing for the better, then we stop losing that consistency. Once we start losing that consistency, we go back to lying to ourselves. And the cycle just starts to repeat. Now you're now you're playing catch up, now you're doing the woe with me situations. You see how you see how easily one thing could derail a lot of other things. It's crazy. And most of the time we avoid it for all of one reason to protect our comfort. Because comfort feels safe, but it's costing you more than you realize. That's the part. It feels safe. We all want safety, but some my entrepreneurs and my hybrids ain't nothing safe about being a business and being being an entrepreneur. That shit could be booming today, tomorrow, gone. Throw it in the trash like a hot uh hot garbage on a summer's night. Bad. Bad. And then you start to climb back up again. It's a crazy roller coaster ride. But if it's something that you said that you want, if it's something that you're passionate about, if it's something that you have some innate talent, a God-given ability about, it it's hard to, it's hard to walk away from that. It really is. But when you stay in that safe zone, it's costing you all of that. And you have the talent. You have the gumption, you have the thing that's going to take it to the next level, but you're so afraid and avoiding things that it's costing you. It's costing you to be safe. Choosing what's familiar versus what's necessary is costing you staying in certain situations, building bad habits, relationships that you probably should have severed a long time ago, whether it be for your relationships with your your spouse, whether it be relationships. With friends, relationship with family, some of those things that you don't realize, these bad habits and these relationships that we keep around because it's comforting, it's a safe zone. It's killing you slowly at the same time. They're derailing you. Because your peace is not protected. And then we talked about this on another episode. You gotta protect your peace in this journey. This shit already ain't easy. And you and you giving up, you giving away your most prize possession time, and then you're gonna give away peace on top of it? I don't know. That's a tough one to swallow. Avoiding discomfort even when growth is on the other side. You know what's on the other side if you do the things. But you're avoiding it. Why? I know if I do this and stay consistent here, I'm going to grow. But for some reason I avoid it because of potential discomfort, because it's not safe, because it's unknown. If you really think about it, so much in your life already has been unknown. And you charted it. Right, wrong, or indifferent. You still did it. So why is it this part that you're afraid of? You came out on the other side on so many different situations. What makes you think this one can't be the same? Because you've been lying to yourself. Then you started believing those lies. Then, in order to not face the facts, you just avoid those same situations. We sit here holding on to things that are just not even working for us. Rather than just letting go, let God and take on that scary moment. The longer you're willing to stay comfortable, the harder it's gonna get to move. And I think even with starting with Dear Legacy, it was staying in my comfort zone. Because it's not like I'm shy behind the mic. I'm the most free behind the mic. But that little person inside is wow, what if people don't like it? What if people don't gravitate towards it? What if I don't get the views? What if I don't get the likes? Now I'm just looking stupid on YouTube at 40 plus. That's when I'm going onto YouTube to do this thing. I'm trying to figure out my life as a father, a husband, trying to gain businesses, and then I'm gonna put my life on the line for everybody to see. I'm being vulnerable for people to make fun of me. It's scary. I get it. But in reverse, why aren't we thinking about I could be helping somebody? Why aren't we thinking about I could go viral? Why aren't we thinking about this is another stream of income that I could create? What am I not thinking about? The groups of people that I come together that's like-minded, that's trying to build a legacy, the fathers that feel as though that they're not being seen, can now finally be seen in a place where it's cluttered, it's loud. You worried about views, you worried about likes, you worried about being embarrassed. Meanwhile, your eight-year-old don't give a flying fuck about none of that shit. And he swears he has a phobia of being embarrassed. He says it's a thing. I don't know. I don't know, whatever. But he's he's willing to do the scary thing. Even with his fear of embarrassment, he still says, I want my YouTube. Even with all that, the uncomfortable, the unknown. Well, what if they don't like me? What if they don't like my drawings and my game that I'm creating? Yeah, but if five people like it, is that enough? That'd be cool. What if a hundred people like it? Is that enough? That'd be great. What if a thousand people like it? Oh my God, then I will try to figure out how I'm gonna sell it. That's the conversation of an eight-year-old. But I'm I'm worried about the the same like the same thing I'm telling him. I need to be telling myself. What if five people tune in consistently? That'd be great. What if 15 people tuned in consistently? Shit, that'd be awesome. What if a thousand people consistently showed up every week for you? Shit, we got some. I'm not here for a hundred thousand. That's great. I would love it. I would love to build out a hundred K plus, two hundred K plus a million. But in order to get to a million, I gotta make the one. And I gotta make the one keep coming back. That one turns to three, three turns to five, five to seven, seven to thirteen, thirteen to twenty-two, twenty-two to thirty-one, thirty-one to forty-one, forty-one to fifty, fifty to a hundred, a hundred to a thousand. Just takes one. But in order to get the one, I gotta get out of my comfort zone. Gotta get out that comfort zone. Cause we all out here sitting there holding on to something that's not right just because it's comfortable. And I know for a fact there's something that I'm holding on to right now. I ain't gonna say it, but I know. If you know me personally or you really want to know what I'm talking about, DM me. Because I'll tell you, you know, there's this certain shit that I'm holding on to right now that I know I should probably remove it, pivot from it, or not or in order to get to the next levels that I'm trying to get to. From being scary. But you gotta think about it at the same time. I am a whole ass husband, I am a whole ass dad, and I got responsibilities. So it's not just about being scary, it's about being reasonably logical thinking. But that don't mean stay in this little bubble. You could be logically thinking, you could think with reason and all that shit all you want, but still go chase after this situation at the same time. Comfort will keep you safe, but it'll also keep you the same. Comfort will keep you safe, but it will also keep you the same. Because growth is always gonna require you to step outside of it. And sometimes you ain't even gotta go far, baby. You just got to step outside of it. Might not even be a long distance. You just gotta get the one. One will turn into a thousand. But you gotta make them want to grow to a thousand by staying consistent, stop lying to yourself, and don't avoid the situations that you know you need to be doing. Because one thing's for sure, two things for certain. If you stay there long enough, you start needing a reason for why it's not your fault. Because nobody's ever gonna blame themselves. Why? Right? It's that person's in my way. It's I didn't get it because of you, and it's so saturated. Nobody's gonna hear my voice.

SPEAKER_01 52:49

How do you know?

SPEAKER_00 52:58

You're just saying that as part, we might as well go back to the first segment. That's that's that's a whole new lie that we're telling ourselves. When we're blaming everybody else and never ourselves, we have a bigger problem that we need to address. Because the moment you stop owning it, that's when you lose the control, that's when you lose the ability to change it. You no longer in control of the situation. You can't control a situation you don't own. You know, the greatest rapper of all time just had a crazy, crazy freestyle, you know, taking shots at uh another rapper that I am a fan of, but you know, it's hove all day. I, you know, and you could ask my wife, I said it. I love I love the Iceman album, except for three lines, three bars. I could have done without, you know, but music is an art form, and he that man wanted to express himself, and he expressed himself, but come for the goat. The ghost's coming right back, you know. You know who the fuck his name is, it's Hove, right? That man said, and I'm paraphrasing because I don't remember the line verbatim right now, but he said, Don't don't talk tough to me when those folks own your masters. You can't control a situation if you don't own it. You could try your best to control a situation, but if you don't own it, what you changing? And I go back to when you're blaming everybody else, but not looking at yourself. How you changing that shit? Because now you no longer control it. You're saying it's those things and that thing is why I'm in this situation. So you you just lost all control now. You don't own this, they own it. Because you out here blaming timing, circumstances, other people, and letting yourself off of the hook. It's easy to point to them and not you. But in reality, you should always, and and and maybe it's part of we gotta take our ego out of the situation because all honesty, if you do the inner work first, nine times out of ten, you're probably gonna realize that damn, I'm fucking it up for myself. Maybe it isn't them. Now, it could be them, but not all of it is on them. You play a vital role in this also. Shifting the responsibility is a comfortable short-term situation, but it keeps you exactly where you are. You're not growing, you're not developing, you're not learning, you're staying in your comfort little bubble. It's safe there. I get it. We all want safety. But just remember that safety's costing you. But don't blame other people because you wanted to play safe. Don't blame other people because you've been making excuses for two years. Don't blame other people because you didn't stay consistent after lying to yourself. There's only so many times we can say life was life. Life can't have life every other week. Not for some of us. Not for some of us that are trying to do things out there that require you to do the inner work, to stay consistent, to show up when life is life. That's when you really want to show up. Not everything is your fault, but your responses to everything is your responsibility. What? It's not your fault, but it's your responsibility? Which one is it? Which one? Because if it's your responsibility, it's your fault. If it's not your fault, it was never your responsibility. You could definitely be acknowledging what happened and still own what you need to do next. Where have you been placing blame? When I actually have more control than I've ever been willing to admit. When I was upstairs, I could only record at certain hours of the day because of the lights was coming into the blinds and all that other stuff. Now, I built a perfect condition type studio for me to always create, whether it be for real estate, whether it be for media, whether it be for speaking engagements, whether it be a space to write for my writing that I keep putting off. You want all these things, but yet you stay putting things off, not staying consistent. So who are we really fooling at this time? I understand you can't control everything. But you can't control, but excuse me, you can't grow if you don't own anything. Ownership is where you put you your your true power lies. That's where it starts. You can't control everything. And when I think about it, just in that bullet that I just saw, I thought, because that's the reflection piece, and it automatically hit me. It was like, I can't control everything. But I can't use that line as a crutch neither, because there are some things that I can control. And I'm choosing not to control it. So how can I ever own this thing that I say that I want? Until I take that true ownership, that's when I could actually take control of this situation. Whether I can control everything or not. And when you stop looking around for somebody else or something else to blame, and now this new fucking line that I keep saying, and I just I just realize it in a moment. I hate that line now. Life be life'. What in the fuck does that actually mean? Like literally just sitting here recording this episode, I said it about like three, four times, and I know when I talk to people, I'll be like, man, life was life in. Man, I didn't get to it because you know, life be life and oh, my next favorite one that I always say, the devil out here playing. The devil could be out here playing all he wants, but I'm covered by Jesus, and I know this. So why I'm letting the devil win. It's crazy to me. Life be life and so take on life. Take it on. You ain't trying to change, you ain't trying to to change the whole goddamn world. But you let life be life and take control of your life. Take control of the situations that you said that you want. End of the day, you got one place to look at. And that's with you. That's where the shift gotta begin. That's with me. Stop using these stupid ass excuses. Cause in all reality, life ain't life in. The devil ain't out here playing. You. You out here making these choices. You out here not showing up for yourself. You the one not going to the priorities list. You the one going to the secondary list. You the one telling yourself these lies. But once we figure out that we want that change, that's when we start choosing honesty. And once we choose honesty, that's when we gain our ownership back. Now, here's where it gets real. Because this isn't about tearing yourself down. I know I it was heavy. But we're not here to tear each other down. This was me actually legitimately. I think I wrote this script a few weeks back with all my bullet point notes, and it was triggering me. So it feels as though like I'm beating us down and I'm beating myself up.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:23

We're not here to tear down.

SPEAKER_00 1:03:26

It's not about guilt. It's not about shame. For sure not to beat yourself up. It's just to ask ourselves some true, honest questions. Because once we ask ourselves these true, honest questions, that's when we start to get some clarity of the situation. And there are steps to getting there. Calling it what it is, owning it without pushing yourself for it. Right? We got to be moving forward with clarity. That's where growth actually lives. So let's get to the segment, call it what it is. Because growth doesn't start with motivation. I could give you all the thoughts of the days, I could give you my best speeches, I could give you my best rants. But none of that is actually gonna change anything until you're ready to change something. But you gotta be honest with yourself. It's where it starts. We gotta name what's actually going on instead of softening it. I just recorded another part for Roose to Reality. And in the conversation, we were talking about fathering our sons, right? Um And when we were talking about it, we one of the main things that we said is we talk to our sons like and have adult conversations with them. So why are we not having adult conversations with ourselves? Instead, we're using kid gloves and we're softening the situation rather than just being honest and really digging into it. Dropping the justifications you've been you've been carrying around. That's what we need to do. Stop justifying everything that's gone wrong. Seeing your situation clearly, not the version you've been telling people, but the real version. The I don't have it near me. The journaling actually. Utilizing that journaling the way you tell the people to do it. There's the priorities, and then there's the secondaries. Why are we jumping straight to the secondaries when we haven't even really scratched the surface of the priorities? That's seeing the situation clearly on what I'm doing wrong. That's now seeing the version of myself that I'm telling you guys that I'm being on this journey. This thing doesn't require an audience. That's why I think this is like the greatest form, because it's just me and you. No audience yet. Speaking into existence. No audience yet. Except for my faithful. My faithful that show up every week. Every week that shows up. And even when I don't drop something, you still come back the following week. The numbers dwindled down a little bit. I lost two or two along the way. I think consistently we've been at seven or eight. I think now we're consistently at five or six. But that's my fault. The two that left, it's because I was not showing up for you. So why should they show up for me? I got to be able to do this without an audience. Because it doesn't require audience. It requires me to be able to do the quiet work, me to be honest with myself, me to stop lying to myself, me to own my shit. Once we can start seeing things clearly, that's when you can finally deal with it. You gotta ask yourself, well, the what's what's the honest version of where I am right now? Not the one that I said out loud, but the one I am right now. And if I'm being frank, I'm not saying there's a massive disconnect, but there's a little disconnect. There is. I'm still placating to the safe side sometimes. I'm still placating to the comfort level sometimes. Now, I I step out, but it's not like I'm stepping out 10 toes down. I'm stepping down, I'm stepping out and I'm dipping my toe, and I felt a little chilled, and now I'm pulling back. Rather than just being like, you know what? Fuck it. Throw my whole body in that pool, and we're gonna just it's gonna be cold for three seconds, then you're gonna pop up out that water, you're gonna stand 10 toes down, and guess what? Feel the warmth of the sun off your body, and nothing else is cold. Because it feels amazing right now because you was already hot. You was hot on that sideline, you was hot not getting it done, you was hot not being consistent, and you it's not enough to just put your toe in no more. Because when you just put your toe in and you pull back, it sends chills through your whole body. Now you got scared. You're trying to protect yourself. You're trying to, you don't want to look inward and be like, you know what? It really isn't that cold. I'm really hot over here. The logical thing to do is to just put my whole body in, chill it down for the three seconds, but I know when I stand up, it's gonna be perfect. Because I'm not trying to be perfect out here in the hot sun. I'm trying to be perfect in that water, standing ten toes down, feeling nice and cool. And guess what? Half your body's not gonna be hot, half your body's gonna be cold. That's what caught life is when you're stepping out. When you're stepping out on that thing, it's a crazy ride. Half hot now, half cold. But you know what you could do? That half of you that's hot, you just slide the fuck back in there. Slide back in there, take a quick little dip, refresh. That's the rebranding part. That's the part where it's like, damn, I lost a little bit of I'm not gonna get lost though, because I could just dip myself back in there. I dip myself back in and I step back up on my, and you know, you know what never changed? I'm still 10 toes down in that. That's crazy. That's growth. That's the growth part. Because we're doing the inner work. We're not standing in the safe zone, we're not playing as safe, we're not staying in our comfort, we're stepping out. Boy, is it so much better than that water. Even when you come out that water, you strut different, you feel different. It's no longer hot like that no more. Because you're chilled. And once you call it what it is, you now got the own it part. But here's what you need to understand about that. Ownership without shame is still kind of difficult. Because taking responsibility isn't punishment, it's power. You see how we just reframed that? It ain't no longer it taking on that responsibility is no longer punishment. It's power. Owning where you are doesn't mean you're judging yourself for how you got there. It's just holding yourself accountable. It's holding yourself accountable. Not a weapon to turn against yourself, but it's just a tool to hold yourself accountable, to know if I'm holding myself to this standard right here. I should always be able to look inward. I should always be able to look at that man in the mirror and know that I'm not gonna play this Whoa With Me game. I'm owning the situation right now. I'm gonna stay, hey, hey, I think I'm falling off a little bit. Hey, fella, let's get back out there. We know what we gotta do. Here's a standard. In case you forgot, this is the standard. You you set the standard because you owned your shit. So now this is the fucking standard that we're gonna be. In the pool, cool, chilling. All right? We slipping a little bit, our shoulders is out the water. Maybe instead of staying at at the at the four feet, let's let's go down to the five feet. That way our neck is still out. Just our head is out. So we're breathing. We ain't treading water. We're ten toes down, we're breathing. We living, we maintaining. Life ain't life, and the devil ain't playing. The goal isn't about making you feel bad about the moves that you're making. You just gotta make the moves. The moves are gonna be different. It's supposed to be different. It's supposed to be hard. You want this. Show us that you want it. Because some of us walk around here shameful because when we look and hold ourselves accountable, we're like, damn, then we get to the woe, it's me. We're down on ourselves with being no. Taking responsibility and accountability and doing the work within is not supposed to be a weapon used against you. It's supposed to, you you out here looking for motivation from everybody else when you could be motivating yourself. One of my things that I go around and I tell, I tell, I'm him.

SPEAKER_01 1:14:08

I'm him.

SPEAKER_00 1:14:11

Every time I say it, it's not for other people to see and and agree and say, yeah, you you him. That's for me. I have to remind myself, I'm him. Behind this mic, I'm him. Not not rapping, Mike, like speaking like parting like you you rappers out there, stay over there. Y'all him over there. I'm not him there. Overall, I'm him for sure. I'm that dude. I'm confident in myself. And I have to do that in order to remind myself who the fuck I am. You know, Hove did that interview for the whole GQ spread, and he was asked a question about the whole Kendrick and Drake shit. And I think his answer was profound. And it's not like he ain't never said it before, but in that moment, he said, why in the fuck do I care about their beef? Respectfully, I'm hove. And that man walks around with a certain bravado that, damn, you really gotta think about it. That man goes to sleep and wakes up knowing I'm that motherfucker. It ain't because he's a billionaire, it ain't because of a it's because he knows when he walks into that fucking room, he walks in as himself. He don't care who he's meeting with, because he's him. I'm in this meeting with you. I'm bro, I'm blessing you with my presence because I'm him. You need me, I don't need you. Because I already, I already created something for myself, and I know if this don't work out, I'm still gonna be great because I'm gonna do the hard work. Especially if you told me no. I'm gonna fucking do that hard work and I'm gonna show you why you should have never fucking said no to me. Been doing that since 96. But I'm afraid to do some consistent shit 90 days, some consistent shit for 120 days for six months, for a year. I'd rather stay safe for two years and never put nothing out. And I sound aggressive right now, but I'm not beating myself up. I just want you to realize certain things. There's that internal work that I have to I have to keep doing nonstop. Like you got to look at it. Some people, it's a body of work of 30 plus years. And then you got to think about the 30 plus years that we know of from 96 to 2026. What about the years when they were shopping shit around and everybody was telling them no? What about the years when they was putting the project together for them to even give to people for them to tell them no? You see what I'm saying? Like now that man wakes up and says, I'm him. And how can you say he's not him? Look what he's accomplished. Right, wrong, or indifferent. Look what he accomplished by simply saying, I'm him. Staying true to himself and staying ten toes down and staying consistent and putting in the hard work, not staying in a safe zone, stepping out of his comfort zone because he was doing his own shit over here. Even his own family told him, nah, you're not it. Step aside, young fella. Put chip on it, battery in the back, went, stay consistent until it happened. Because he knew where he was going. You know where you're going. You know what you got to do. Remind yourself that you're him. When you're reminding yourself of that, I want you to take real ownership right now, without using it against yourself, without using it to feel that they're not enough. I want you to take ownership so you can remind yourself that I'm him. Because once you take ownership of whatever it is that you're going inward, and you know what it is that you got to do in order to get that growth and get into that next level, remind yourself you're him. Take control, and in order to take control, you have to own your shit. Ownership isn't punishment, it's power. And the moment you take responsibility, you take that control back. And once you own it, you're now in position to now actually move forward. Nothing is going to stop you but you. There's going to be forces and elements out there to slow you down. There's going to be forces and elements in your way. Hell, it might not even work. I'm not going to sit here and tell you what you want to hear. I'm here to tell you what it is. It might not even work. No matter how much passion you put behind it, no matter how much work you do, no matter how much you stay consistent, it still just might not work. That's okay. We're going to learn from it and we're going to keep growing. That does not mean you're no longer him. What made you him is taking control and taking ownership, taking responsibility, no more telling yourself lies, coming out of your comfort zone, standing 10 toes down, and you could say you did it. You attempted, you tried, you succeeded, you failed, you stumbled, you grew. Whatever comes after that part of taking ownership is what's going to let you know that you're him. Take ownership so we can move forward. Because moving forward with clarity is the best thing you could possibly do for yourself. There's no more confusion of what needs to happen. Because we're clear as day. We took the ownership. We took on our responsibility. We're no longer lying to ourselves. We actually have a plan, not the delays of two years playing around with things that are not on the priority list and dealing with the secondary list to make it seem as if we're winning the days and being successful, when in reality all we're doing is being busy. No, that's not what we're doing. We have a plan. We have a deadline. We have dates in place. We're executing. That's what we're doing now. The moment we take that ownership and we start moving with clarity, there's no more confusion. The direction is clear when you start pretending with yourself. Things are no longer the way they are. Life is no longer life, and the devil out here trying to play with your name.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:57

Man, that ginger ale is flat now.

SPEAKER_00 1:22:00

It's the small steps that we gotta take. Alright? It's the it's it's the the the small wins. And when I say the small wins, I'm not talking about going back to that secondary list. I'm talking about legitimately completing your priorities list. You didn't finish number one on that priorities list for the day, and you have number two still there. That means tomorrow we're gonna pick up at number one and we're gonna finish that. We're gonna also look, why didn't we finish those two priority lists? Are our priorities too grand to be completing in a day? Because I want us to set ourselves up for success. And I'm I'm a big what did I put? Oh, here it is. I sit here, I do my journaling, I have my priorities list, and then y'all be reading a little bit too fast for me. I want to turn this around, but like I have these laundry lists that just keeps growing. And I I have the date here. It's from 6'1. From 6-1, we're currently 6-3, and I've crossed off one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, seven items. I have four that are technically priority.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:44

Oh, I could cross that off. Eight. Eight.

SPEAKER_00 1:23:47

And there's about seventeen on one page, and I don't know how much is on the second page. Because that was the secondary list. 17 items I put on the priority list to get done on 6-1. Was that realistic? Maybe. I don't know what else is on what's really on that list. But maybe it shouldn't have been 17. Maybe I should have kept it at right around 12. Right? If I kept it at 12 and I had eight done, that's a good pivot point. But that's data. That's data for me. I'm not being realistic with my time. I'm not time blocking properly. And when you're time blocking, are you allowing other things to come into that space of the time block that you put off? If I say I'm gonna block off this time for writing, I shouldn't, and writing for for my Substack, writing for the book, that should not be writing for bullet points and my scripts and all that shit for the pods. Those are you have your own block over here. And I think for me, if I'm being honest, I think that's one of my biggest mistakes that I do. I think this list is realistic. But I think my time blocking is what's messing me up.

SPEAKER_01 1:25:29

We have to remember we don't have to fix everything right in that moment.

SPEAKER_00 1:25:34

We just have to keep moving. Keep moving in that forward direction or whatever the priorities list is. Even if we don't finish that full priorities list, that is more of a win than completing three out of the five secondary lists. Because they're secondary items. You put them a secondary item for a reason. So why are you treating it like a priority? So if you're being honest with yourself, figure out what steps you need to take next. Clarity doesn't come with motivation. I could sit here and tell you all this and you listened. I appreciate you for listening, but it wasn't more, it wasn't about motivation. It was about you actually taking ownership and control of your situation, whatever it may be. Nine to five, entrepreneur, hybrid, fatherhood, husband, whatever the situation may be.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:51

Clarity does not need motivation, it just needs movement.

SPEAKER_00 1:26:58

And once you know, boy, once you know that part, it's hard to not act. Something wrong with my mic, Stan. I'm gonna use the other one going forward. And once you know that, guys, I promise you, it's different. So now it's not about what you know, it's about what you're going to do with it. Let's flip it back on you so we can wrap up. Question I have for you is what have you been telling yourself that you know is fully not true? Because we all have them. The stories we've told so many times, they stop, they stop sounding like excuses. They start to sound like facts. But facts don't require you to keep convincing yourself. Excuses do. The truth doesn't always Feel good, but it'll always move you forward. Next question: What have you been avoiding that you know actually matters? Because avoidance is quiet. It doesn't announce itself, it just shows up in the excuses, in the delay, in the feeling that something something important keeps getting pushed back. And over time, that thing doesn't disappear. It just grows louder. Avoidance doesn't remove the problem, it just delays the growth. But that's it. Avoidance doesn't remove the problem, it just delays the growth. Question three. Where have you been making excuses instead of making decisions? Because is God's honest truth, there's a difference. An excuse explains why you didn't do it. A decision moves you towards what you will do. And the moment you stop reaching for the excuse, you take control of the decision. Excuses are gonna, they're there to protect your comfort level. The decisions are there to change your direction. Question four. What would your life actually look like if you stopped lying to yourself starting today? Not the life that you're talking about, the one you'd actually be building. Think about it for a second, right? Because honestly, don't just change how you feel about things, it changes how you move. And once you move different, your life starts to look different. So, in essence, honesty just creates clarity. And the clarity creates the movement. Just gotta be honest with ourselves. Stop lying to ourselves, man. And if we're being completely honest right now, what's one thing you know needs to change? Not two things, not a whole fucking list, just one thing. Because you know what it is. Like even in Center here, and I'm trying to think about this question, it would have to be consistency. You was riding a quick little wave of consistency, but that's the one thing. If I change that one thing, it changes so much different avenues for so many different lanes. We've been circling around this whole episode, and once you name it, you can't pretend that you don't know it or see it anymore. You've already known, you've been known. I knew right now, right off the rip of mine. The moment I asked the question to you guys, I knew right then and there. Not a list, not a paragraph, not an LSF. I knew one thing, one word, consistency. It got it going good when I was consistent. The moment I fell off, things started dropping. This is not hypotheticals. This is facts and numbers to back it. But now that I know and I can't unsee it and I've put it out there, you guys now know. What am I going to decide? And what are you going to decide to do with that? And once you're honest with yourself, everything starts to shift. Not all at once, but it will shift. It will. And you know it will because you know by being honest with yourself that that's the thing that I need to change in order to change the direction to keep me moving forward. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:55

For me, consistency. For you, what is it? Let's wrap it up. The truth is, you already known.

SPEAKER_00 1:33:08

You've been known. You just haven't faced it yet. And that's not weakness by any means. That's just being human. But staying there, that's the choice. You know, this life-be life and stuff, the devil out here playing, the excuses that we make for ourselves. When we do that and we stay there after we after we figure it out and we still stay there, that's a choice. Because the moment you decide to stop avoiding it, to stop making the excuses, stop telling yourself the stories and keep that keep you in your comfort zone, everything changes. Not because life suddenly got easier, but because you finally got it clear. And when you're clear, you're moving different. You're deciding different. You show up different. So if you've been waiting, if you've been avoiding, if you've been telling yourself, I'll get to it later, this is your moment. Your moment to be honest with yourself. Call it what it is, and take the step you already know you need to take. Because feeling off was a signal. This right here, this is the truth behind that signal. And growth doesn't start when everything is perfect. It starts the moment you stop lying to yourself. So let's be honest with ourselves. We deserve that. We deserve to be him. If this episode gave you something to think about, go ahead and subscribe to Dear Legacy. Drop a comment. I'd love to hear you being honest with yourself. If you don't feel like being vulnerable enough in the in the comments, go ahead and DM me. I want you to know that I see you and I believe that you're him. Because let's not get this shit twisted. I'm him. And just because I'm him doesn't mean you can't be him. You've been him since birth. Now go prove it. Follow us on social media and share with someone you know that's building their legacy in real time. Till then, go define it. Build it, live it. It's your boy Kevin B. The Brandon. I'll see you next week. I promise. Peace.