October 28, 2025 • 37 mins
On this episode, Michelle sits down with author, entrepreneur, and clarity coach Cornelius Lindsey for an honest and vulnerable conversation about what it truly means to “not care” — in the most freeing way possible. Drawing from his book I Don’t Care: The Freedom of Letting Go, Cornelius opens up about the heavy cost of caring too much about expectations, reputation, and the approval of others, and how that pressure once pushed him to the darkest places in his life. He also shares the pivotal moment that saved him, his journey through burnout and pastoral leadership, and how he continues to heal after discovering life-changing truths about his family. CHECK IN to this episode if you’re battling burnout, struggling with people-pleasing, or learning to choose yourself again.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hello, everyone, welcome to another
amazing episode of Checking In, where we are checking in
with all things mental health, your finances, and just everything.
(00:25):
And I'm really excited about today's episode because I've learned
a lot in just the sample of this book, and
it has helped me tremendously. I might talk about it
a little bit, but it's not about me. It is
truly about this amazing guest, Cornelius Lindsay, husband, father, entrepreneur,
(00:48):
clarity coach. Well ask him what that means as well,
and author of the book I don't care the freedom
of letting go haling from Mississippi, but living in Come on,
living in the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles, California, y'all,
come on, come on in and welcome Cornelius Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yo, I appreciate that. I love that from this you
took me all the way back to birth.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Come on, Mississippi. Now, how did you end up? Just
just give us a small taste, just a little blurb.
You in Mississippi, was in Georgia, yep.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Born in Mississippi, moved to Georgia when I was thirteen
started high school there, big culture shock. I went from
you know, country country, backwoods, Mississippi small town to to
south South Atlanta, Riverdale, Lake Cole and that was I mean,
you know, I went. I went from Tommy Hill figure
(01:48):
the noug if you buck you.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Know, wait Many Hill figure in Mississippi.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, Tommy Hill Tommy Hill figure was huge. If you
had like it was like it was Tommy Hill figure.
And I don't know if you remember isoid yep.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, you get that at like stores like you know
them fancy department stores, herds and all. And then if
you was lucky, it would be at TJ Max Yep. Yeah,
absolutely absolutely, So I'm excited y'all are based in California now,
(02:30):
so again from Mississippi, the Atlanta, Georgia area all the
way to California.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
But you have found.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yourself writing a book called I Don't Care The Freedom
of letting Them. Now, when people see these words in
big yellow letters, it can almost I was like, I
don't care, but shouldn't you care?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I want to dive right in. In the first few
I think paragraphs of your book, you said that caring cost.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You hm.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Rod's pretty heavy, right. What did you mean when you
said caring cost you?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Uh? You know we hear, we hear all the time,
we say all the time, I don't care. Yes, the
problem is we don't know what it means. And just
like that same, that same dichotomy you found yourself in
in that moment of being like I see the title,
But are I supposed to care? I was supposed to
care about something and then you know, like with my
(03:42):
with my Christian faith, the Bible actually cared, actually says
in one Peter, he says to Casher, cares on God,
he said, because he cares for you. But even even
in in in practical terms, what does that mean? What
does that look like?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
So?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Are you saying I shouldn't care about going to work?
Are you saying I shouldn't care about being in a relationship?
I want to be married?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
What are like? What? What are what? Are you honestly saying?
So when I say caring caring too much or killed me?
When I when I talked about that, that was me
saying that I didn't know what to cast off. So
I cared about what people thought about me. I cared
about being the good boy. That's how I grew up.
Everybody said I was a good boy. You was a
good boy. I said, yes, ma'am, oh ma'am. I got
(04:25):
good grades, and I was paying attention and I was obedient.
I was in the four h club, and I was
a good boy. And then I became you know, I
got I got saved. I became the man of God.
And you come the man of God. You pray, you
pray for an hour, and you do this. And so
I had these labels that were placed on me that
it was like I had to live up to them,
(04:46):
and caring what everybody thought about me, caring what you
know about what what I was going to do next
in my life. Like all that care, it weighed down
to the point where it robbed me of my individuality
and it me of being who I believe, you know,
God really wanted me to be.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Mm hmmm, who did you write this book for?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So? I wrote it. I wrote the book. It's probably
a horrible, horrible answer, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say
it anyway.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Not horrible.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I wrote. I wrote every every book I've written, including this.
I wrote it for myself. I wrote it for myself.
But I wrote it for the person in mind who
has felt like they're the black sheep, the lone wolf,
the misunderstood, the forgotten, the ignored, the castaway. I wrote
(05:45):
it for those people who are tired of pretending, tired
of hiding, tired of code switching. UH. I wrote it
for those people who they have a life that they
want to live outside of what their parents tell them,
outside of what UH their mentor is trying to pigeonhole
(06:06):
them into. They have business they want to start, but
they won't because they're afraid of making sure everything is perfect.
I wrote it. I wrote it for those people who
are in the marriage, for the for that married couple
who is considering getting a divorce without realizing that before
they burn the whole bridge, and before they destroy the
(06:27):
whole thing, there's only maybe a couple of things they
need to change to have the best marriage and best
family of their life. So I wrote it with those
individuals in mind. And that's the reason why throughout the
book you'll see so many examples that I give. Where
I talk about my wife and I almost divorcing, I'll
talk about, you know, stepping away from from from pastoral ministry.
(06:49):
I talk about my own story so that people have
an understanding and they know, Okay, this is real. And
now because I've seen this, I can I can I
can grow, and I can move away.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
To thank you for sharing who you wrote this book for.
When you said that when you stepped away from pastoring,
I can imagine that a lot of people's identities are
wrapped up in being a pastor. So when you say
you stepped away, did you already have the I don't
(07:23):
care mentality or was it like this is life or death?
And I'm not saying that because I already know the answer,
because I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, the crazy thing is I tried to step away
many years before that. I tried to hand the church
over to to to my executive pastor or my associate
pastor many years before that. And the problem is the
church just didn't want it. They wouldn't live. They were like, nope,
my pastor, I like when you preach, when they come,
(07:54):
I don't like it. So you felt honest, and you
I she stood up. We had we had three services
at the time. During the first, during the first second,
going to the second service, I told I told my sister,
I said, hey, get everybody, get all the leaders in line.
Put them up in the in the sanctuary. Let me
have a conversation with them. They didn't know what was
(08:15):
going to talk about. I just threw it on him.
I said, Hey, I just want to let you know
today I'm gonna step down as as senior pastor. I'm
gonna let blah blah blah, and he's gonna do it.
And they and want to Grocer raise her hands. She said, nah,
uh no, you ain't, because I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Know how you thought you was just gonna come up
in here and say you was just gonna let us go.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Right, And so I felt the tug even then, like
well I can't. I can't. I can't abandon them. I
can't just leave them. Yeah. But during most of that time,
I suffered from depression and suicidal ideation. I was I
was encouraging everybody on Sunday morning, and I would go
(08:53):
home fully discouraged. I would I felt so empty most
of the time. I felt like I was helping everybody
else and there was nobody there to help me. And
I mean everybody was pulling on me, everybody needed something
from me. And then when people got finished with me,
they just threw me away. They left the church, they
(09:16):
walked away. They talked about me, they did. They would
talk about every bad thing. They never talked about any
good thing. And I was so depressed. December. December of
twenty nineteen was a day I'll never forget it. I mean,
I took the gun out, I was getting ready to
use it, and my daughter saved my life. One thirty
(09:37):
in the morning. My youngest son was actually sleep in
my bed, my wife was sleeping. I pulled the gun
out from right next to the night stand, right next
to me. I'm crying that my daughter. I see her silhouette,
her shadow, and I look and I say Taylor, and
she's rubbing her eyes. She said, Daddy, She said, Daddy,
can I lay with you? And I was like, oh yeah, baby,
And I'm like, hold on one second. I had to
take the gun off of I put the safety back on,
(09:58):
put it back into the case, put it back into
the thing. And I realized in that moment, I'm not good,
I'm not healthy. Yeah, And so it was killing me.
And I was still trying to I was still trying
to stay in something that was that was taking me out. Yeah,
promised myself, especially during COVID when everything's shut down. I
(10:22):
was like, you know what, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, So at the time, did you have therapists, did
you do sabbaticals? Did you do anything to counter burnout?
Which burnout it was about? I literally have a question
about burnout. But we're already here, so I'll get to
it after this. But I'm only saying this because a
(10:45):
lot of people. You're probably in certain places in the workplace,
you're probably a public figure. You're probably the son or
daughter and of someone, and you feel like you have
to stay in something you don't want to, but you
keep it to yourself because you're performing. You have a
mask on, but really on the inside, you are crumbling.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You are dying, even though you.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Haven't physically left us yet. As a pastor, was that
frowned upon or how are you not able to, I
guess get the help you needed?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I mean, yes, frowned upon? I mean you know, who wants?
Who wants to know? I mean, and you know, now
it's probably become a little bit more you know, a
little bit more acceptable. But who wants who wants to know?
Who wants to know that their pastor is going to
get therapy? You know, it's almost like it's almost like
you don't you don't want to hear about you don't
want to hear about Superman needing help.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Okay, I see absolutely, yeah, you know, even though we'll
we'll say all day well, I mean, Superman is just
Clark Kent.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
We'll say all day, well, you know my pastor is human. Well,
he's human. He's human until he makes a human kill idea,
and he's no longer human anymore. It is now he's
the leader.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, we select what we want him to be human with. Oh,
him and his wife are having a baby. Oh he
lost his mom. But the inner the inner stuff, Oh no,
It's almost like we haven't learned how to even be
vulnerable with ourselves and our loved ones, let alone when
(12:23):
somebody else's humanity, you know, is a is you know.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
At risk.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Some of our burnout is literally caring what people think,
especially when it comes to you having to make a decision.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
For you and your well being.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I've been talking to people about burnout because I have
been feeling burnt out, like you know, on the stage
for a whole year and haven't really taken.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
A real break.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
But like, well, you know, you have the name you have,
the you have that that, and it's like you really
just want to say I'm tired, but you're scared of
looking like, uh, maybe a liability or we can't depend
on you. You knew what this you knew what this
job entailed when you signed up for it.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's what I tell you. You know what this when
when it when it comes to burnout, it is we're
constantly putting so much out than what's going in. And
I had to get into a rhythm of rest. I
had to get into a replenishment cycle, recognizing that this
is what is important to me. Actually, and I write
(13:37):
about this in the book. I had a guy who
I saw in target. He walked up to me. He
was yeah, he walked up and he said he was upset,
and he said, you know, you abandon us. This is
after I I separated from pastoring, and said you abandon us.
And I wanted so bad to just kind of go
off in that moment, but I just I stopped and
(13:58):
I looked at him and full honesty, and I said,
you know what, you don't realize it, but it was
killing me. And the thing you don't you also don't realize,
is that y'all leave the church all the time. Y'all
will leave it and go to another church down the street.
Y'all get a new friend and a heartbeat, but you
don't take any time to consider or even be compassionate
(14:21):
enough to consider, well, how was how was he doing?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
How is he? And so when you talk about that
burnout piece, it's like you you become so enthralled with
the idea of I need to be this for somebody else.
It is a it is a legit superhero complex. All
that a way recognize that my humanity was a lot
more important than this idea that people needed me, and
(14:51):
I couldn't even. I couldn't even. At one point I said, well,
you know, I want to do this because my family
needs me and wish they did. But you know the
thing that ticked me off the most, you asked me
about this with therapists and stuff. My therapist looked at
me and he asked me a question, Michelle that I
want I want it so bad to throw the pillow
at him. He said no, he said, Cornelius. He said,
(15:13):
what do you like to do for fun? And it
angered me because I thought, I don't know, I'm not
supposed to have fun. I'm only supposed to be productive.
I'm supposed to work. I'm supposed to produce. I self
published twelve books in six years. That that's that's what
(15:36):
I'm supposed to do. I'm I'm hosting. I'm hosting, you know,
conferences almost once a quarter. I'm supposed to do this.
I have businesses on the side. I'm this is fun.
I'm not supposed to have fun. And what he what
he did in that moment was he started to chip
away at that superhero wall that I was creating of
(15:58):
trying to trying to build my value off of my performance. Yes, sir,
I had to get away from it, and so I figured,
I'm not going to burn out anymore for these negroes.
I'm leaving.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yes me, you want to talk about the freedom of
letting go. There is freedom in letting go, letting go
of titles and expectations. It does not mean you don't care.
It really is a thing of y'all. How can I
go on, like you said, when I am pouring out
(16:32):
more than I am receiving. Now, was there an expectation
to receive from people? Or did you eventually learn yet?
I got to do this, I have to pour back
into me or God as well.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, I did get to the point I think. I think,
I think people will teach you that they just don't
have it to give, and you have to think. You know,
the church is widely considered as a as you know,
similar to that of the hospital. Yeah, you know, you
(17:08):
don't really expect for a sick patient to come in
and be able to be able to you know, prescribe
medicine to the doctor. So because we have created that
warped system and that warped cycle, it becomes extremely difficult
too for anybody to assume that, you know, they're supposed
to give back to me, and so they they didn't.
(17:33):
And that part, that part was was challenging. And that's
and that's also where in the book where I criticize
the system that I believe that we've created in church. Uh,
that that ignores humanity, that ignores true community because it's
filled with production.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
And so we have we have a lot of these
different things that kind of that kind of nullifies the
idea that you are you are in a safe environment
where you can be fed and other people. I had
people and people would say to me they would say, well,
you're the pastor. You need a pastor, Michelle. I would
get a pastor. And I remember there was one pastor
who I said, look, I called him and I talked
(18:16):
to him for about fifteen minutes and I was talking
to tell him how depressed I was. When I got finished,
he paused and he said, man, that really sounds horrible.
He said, do you mind helping me grow my social media? What? Okay?
(18:36):
All right? Well there we go, or or you know,
I go to another pastor and I said, I just
need mentorship. I need somebody who's there. I just need
somebody I could talk to. And it's like, well, in
order for you to be part of this, you know,
you have to join my cohort and it'll be this
amount of month, or in order for you to do this,
you have to do this. Or you know a pastor
(18:57):
who came to me and he said, you know, you're
my spiritual son. He actually called me spiritual son. And
I was like, okay, well this is great. Why have
somebody I could talk to? And then I call, I call,
I text, I text, and then his wife says, oh,
you know, unfortunately he doesn't he doesn't know how to
be a good father. And I already have father issues.
So it's hard when you come to me and you
(19:17):
say that I'm the song when you don't know how
to be a father. So it's just like, well, why
even come to me. I already have daddy issues, and
so I don't I don't need to add to this.
And so even there where they say, well you need
a pastor, well I get a pastor. And it's sad
because I had to pay for a therapist because I
couldn't find anybody else to confide in. I had to
(19:39):
pay for a professional just because I didn't have anybody
else that can fight in. Because as a in my
line of work in ministry, I would I would love
to be able to say that we could preachers could
talk to each other, but most preachers are lonely because,
if I'm honest, most of them are in competition with
themselves and with the other churches down the street. So
(20:01):
it's more competition in ministry than there is the NFL.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Heck in the music industry, like can you get it?
Because so many people, by the way, really they really
are doing music for the art of it. If the
if the awards and accolades come yes, I mean you're
doing for the art and for the coin, but there
is no I actually noticed, and I'm and I hate
(20:30):
to have said this, but there was a time I
was walking through something.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I was like, man, it's safer over here in the club.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Mmmm.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Then it is where I'm supposed to get my cup fields,
you know, as far as with people of faith, it's
safer over here.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
You know, we're not in competition.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It's come on over our girl.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
We're good. We got you, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
But I've learned to to to to balance all of that,
and I am sorry that that happened to you. I
have to have more thoughts too.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
About that gets exactly what you're what you're saying too.
I mean, I write in a book about about me
starting alcoholics anonymous in twenty twenty three. Uh, And that
was mostly because twenty two, twenty thirty two, so my
mom shared with me that the man who raised me
wasn't my father. And so I'm thirty six years old
(21:29):
and I'm just now figuring out that this man who
I've always thought was my dad wasn't. And so you know,
the that day I decided I got to kick this habit.
So I started AA, and alcoholics anonymous became.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
That was actually because I was already in a phase
of deconstruction. Yeah, but A became the place where my
faith in Jesus Christ and my faith my faith in
God was fortified. I was around, I saw humanity for
the first and I was loved despite any of my issues.
(22:04):
I was by a group of strangers, by a group
of men who had no shame but were full of
compassion and forgiveness, and we learned about these principles that
were true to the scripture. So I definitely hear when
you say, you know the club and then the churches.
It's a very real thing in learning how to balance that.
It's extremely important.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Absolutely. Now I will have to now T T Michelle,
do have to say, I have found some people in
church and ministries that, seriously, when you know you want
to talk about I feel like some of them are
like Jesus's first cousin. I can say and I can
name names of who I felt that I can rock
(22:49):
with I want to go back to. And by the way,
there's so much to discuss here when you talk about
you just discovered who your father is. And there are
so many people here walking through that. What has that
(23:12):
done to you as it relates to I don't care.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
It's tough because now I'm I am really taking in
my own message. I write it. I write in a
book about not burning not burning down your life, and
so upon finding out about it, I was ready to
burn my life down. I was ready to just forget
it all, walk away, Like how could you lie to
me for thirty six years? Then when I met my
(23:39):
when I met my father, it was like, you know,
how could you? How could you know I exist? How
could you watch me on social media? How could you?
It's like how.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
How?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And and not say anything? Like not not saying anything?
I will I'm so angry to the point where now
I'm I write about in the book about grief and
about ashes, Yes, talk about how ashes become. Ashes can
be two things. It can either be a grave or
a garden. And so I am in the process right
(24:17):
now of grieving the relationship with my father that I
will never have. Jesus, And That's where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
In the print, was that the part where you met
a man whose house had just burned down?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, and his perspective blew you away where you were like,
I'm sorry for your loss, and he was like, what
are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I was.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I was sitting there on the sauna and a guy
who was sitting there and he asked me, while I
was there, the next one he was there and he
said yeah, he said, my house is burned down, and
I said.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
You're in asauna.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, I was in asauna and I was like. I
looked at him and I said. My first reaction was
I'm so sorry. And he said why are you sorry?
And I said, well, your house burned down. I said
that's that's devastating, and he said, well that's one way
you can look at it. He said, but I see
it as an opportunity. And we had this whole conversation
about what he was planning to build. And I looked
(25:15):
at him. I said, so you lost everything? He said,
my wife and I came here with He said, we
close it. We bought he said, clothes, We bought a target.
And he was like, he said, but now I get
a chance to have a whole new wardrobe. He said,
I really.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Who was his life coach, right? You know? Was he
a believer?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
He wasn't. He wasn't he's a Buddhist. He wasn't. He
wasn't a believer, wasn't a believer at all. I shared
my face with him, he is h his Buddhist and
he was like, you know, he said, he's like yeah,
he said, he said, uh, he said something. Oh man,
I won't get exact right, but he said he said
(25:55):
my house. He said, our house burned down. He said,
but we didn't burn with it.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Now, wait a minute, believer or not. I've run through
this door, through the door.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh, my house burned down, but we did not burn
with it. Yeah, you don't have to be a believer Buddhist, Catholic,
Muslim like that could be universal right now.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I also want to.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Go back to what part of you you were like
between sixteen and nineteen.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I think when.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
You said I wrote, I said, you really didn't care
when you asked a professor if they had a business
and that professor said no, and you said, well, how
can you teach me about entrepreneurship? Oh yeah, as they
kicked you out.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I was. I was. I was a sophomore at
the University of Georgia. I was taking a intro to Entrepreneurship,
intro business whatever, this class. And I walked in, I
put my bag down, I did what I normally did.
I walked up. I would always greet my professors, and
so I asked the professor. I said, I said, have
you ever have you ever started or you ever ran
(27:09):
a business before? And he said no, And so I said,
how can you teach me how to do something you've
never done? And he said, cordeli the stuff and go
out of my class. And I got out. I left
his class, and I dropped out of college because in
my mind, I said, there's no way that I'm going
to sit here and pay hundreds of dollars for a
(27:30):
book that was written by a man who hasn't even
done what I want to do. Like I am, Michelle,
I'm all for taking constructive criticism, but I refuse to
take constructive criticism from someone who hasn't constructed anything.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Has not constructed nothing that's so good, good, absolutely absolutely,
and going on to even that. I love how you
differentiate caring what a close friend or mentor things versus
someone unfamiliar with your journey, Right, those are your work,
so not only that you cannot I cannot take constructive
(28:07):
criticism unless.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You like was my granny.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Somehow grannies just be having wisdom about black eyed peas
to business. I don't know how if you ain't my granny,
I don't want to hear it, right, because we do
hear you can't take Even my own sister I meant
I said something like that to her one year. She said,
that's not all the way true. And some older people
(28:33):
somehow have a wisdom even though they ain't building nothing
but right.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think, I think, I think that the wisdom. I
think that wisdom comes raight from God, which is why
I talk about caring about if this hurts as a mentor.
This person is somebody who you know, arguably you trust.
We're trusting that God will give them wisdom. Yeah, specifically
from a teacher. He's not. He's not. I don't. I'm
not paying to be here in the college to get wisdom.
(29:03):
I'm paying to get your knowledge and and and unfortunately,
even you.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Say that sounds so smart mouth, but it's fact. It's true, y'all.
I promise y'all, he's not being a smart butt.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
It's fat did your.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Parents what did you do with it? Like? Come on now, like, no,
it's he's not being it's it's fact.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
It's fact.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
It's taking me thirty minutes to even get get to
more questions about your book because just it's just been
so rich just all around.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I think the.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
What the meat and spirit of your book is about
has been pretty much in this entire conversation. So I
do want to to encourage everyone to get his book.
I don't care because the freedom of letting go, and
I have the question is not caring?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Is there an art to caring?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Some people say there is an art to communitytion, like
is there an art to letting go? I also want
to say too more about y'all. These are just so
many things that have gone on in his book that
he discusses of the good things that have happened in
his life that have got him to this place, and
some not so good things that can almost get you
(30:21):
callous into a place where you don't care in the
most negative way. And it's a scary time when people
can say what they want to say about you online
and it wrecks your reputation. You talk about how the closest.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
People to you left.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
You didn't ask for clarity, just bounced, you are still
thriving today and also being comfortable with being misunderstood. There's
so many highlights that I took off of this book
because I wanted to make sure that I was like,
can you get to a place where you say I
(30:58):
don't care and just tell everybody to fall? You know
what I mean? And I don't think that that's a
life when you really look at it.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
None of us want to live right.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And I'll say this, and the book is about selective care.
That's what I tell people that I don't care. Mentality
is about selective care. I'm not telling people not to care.
I'm telling people to choose what they truly care about.
And the way I give it to you is and
you'll see it throughout the book. I am really big
(31:33):
as a coach when I sit down when I talk
to professionals, when I coach businesses, I always ask them
three things. What is your vision? Where are you going?
What is your mission? How are you going to get there?
But the last one is important to the I don't
care mentality, And what are your values? Because if you
can't tell me what you stand for, then that means
you'll fall for anything. The reason why it's so difficult
(31:57):
for us to tell people know is because we don't
know our values. We talk a great deal about our boundaries, Well,
this is my boundary. Well we base boundaries off of values.
I based off of my values. So if I have
a value, then now I can base the rule off
of it. So I tell people it's a lot easier
(32:17):
for you to take in the itn' care mentality when
you identify your values. Like for me and my wife,
one of our values is hospitality without pretension. We like
to be hospitable, we like to sit with people at
the table without pretension or whatever. This suffit piety. So
because of that, we're able to not care that you
(32:38):
know about other things. Because this is this is a
value of ours, we're able to say no to things
that that you know. We can say no to other
dinner parties that don't meet that same value because it's
not it's not hospitable. It's a dinner party, but it's
very pretentious, it's everything else, so we can say no
to it. When you adding to find your values, what's
(33:01):
important to you, it's a lot easier for you to
know what to care about and what to cast away.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Y'all. I promise, y'all, this was the last thing I
was gonna say what to care about. There's something in
his book that I that suck out to me. It
says entitlement dies when you care about the right things.
Now what Instagram says you should want mansions, followers, fancy cars,
But what likes you up? He says, For me, it
was my marriage and family. I almost lost it. Fixing
(33:27):
it meant raw conversations, couple's therapy, and showing up every
day even when it hurts.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
You say, what's your thing? A dream you buried? Y'all?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
How many dreams have y'all buried? And you're not working
towards a friend you've ghosted? You said, figure it out
and pour your heart into it. That's what you care about, Cornelius.
That's a may z.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
And I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I feel like you've had to go through a lot
to even be able to write that right, right right,
Figure it out and pour your heart into it. Thank
you so much for checking in with us today, y'all. There,
I guess this book it's not about I don't care
(34:25):
in the most tempered, tantrum type of way. He's actually
giving us steps and tools, and if I'm not mistaken,
you do something that's called clarity coaching.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Okay, So if someone is listening and you feel like
you need a lot a little more clarity, not only
on what we were talking about. You can get more
clarity if you go and read the whole entire book.
I don't care the freedom of letting go. What platforms
is it available?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
To get it on Amazon? It's an audible, I have
evil hard copy soft copy. You get it on Barnesandnoble
dot com. You can also check out my website queneinslndsay
dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Amazing clarity coaching. I've heard of life coaching, but some
of us have not heard of clarity coaching.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
And then I can let you go.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Because y'all, I want y'all to get this in as
we say, get it in your spirit.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Tell us about clarity coaching.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, so very simple. There are areas of your life
where you're confused. Clarity is enlightenment. Once you get Once
you get enlightened, then you can be confident. So when
you when you're like a married couple, they're like, well,
I think we should get a divorce. Well, there could
be maybe one or two things that we can resolve.
Once we resolve those two things, you get clarity about it,
You get confidence in your marriage again. You're in a
(35:39):
transition as a pastor, as a leader. You want to
exit the music industry. Okay, well let's get some clarity
on where you're going, what's the vision, what's the mission,
where your values? And we can then you can get
some confidence and moving forward. So I help people to
find clarity so they can move forward with confidence.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Amazing, All right, anytime, anytime, you are more, more more
than welcome. There's so many things that we can continue
to talk about. And I'm grateful for you today, and
y'all give it up for Cornelius Lindsay. Checking In with
(37:34):
Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcast,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Checking In with Michelle Williams, a production of
iHeartRadio and The Black Effect. Hello, everyone, welcome to another
amazing episode of Checking In, where we are checking in
with all things mental health, your finances, and just everything.
(00:25):
And I'm really excited about today's episode because I've learned
a lot in just the sample of this book, and
it has helped me tremendously. I might talk about it
a little bit, but it's not about me. It is
truly about this amazing guest, Cornelius Lindsay, husband, father, entrepreneur,
(00:48):
clarity coach. Well ask him what that means as well,
and author of the book I don't care the freedom
of letting go haling from Mississippi, but living in Come on,
living in the quiet suburbs of Los Angeles, California, y'all,
come on, come on in and welcome Cornelius Lindsay.
Speaker 2 (01:10):
Yo, I appreciate that. I love that from this you
took me all the way back to birth.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Come on, Mississippi. Now, how did you end up? Just
just give us a small taste, just a little blurb.
You in Mississippi, was in Georgia, yep.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
Born in Mississippi, moved to Georgia when I was thirteen
started high school there, big culture shock. I went from
you know, country country, backwoods, Mississippi small town to to
south South Atlanta, Riverdale, Lake Cole and that was I mean,
you know, I went. I went from Tommy Hill figure
(01:48):
the noug if you buck you.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
Know, wait Many Hill figure in Mississippi.
Speaker 2 (01:54):
Yeah, Tommy Hill Tommy Hill figure was huge. If you
had like it was like it was Tommy Hill figure.
And I don't know if you remember isoid yep.
Speaker 1 (02:09):
Yeah, you get that at like stores like you know
them fancy department stores, herds and all. And then if
you was lucky, it would be at TJ Max Yep. Yeah,
absolutely absolutely, So I'm excited y'all are based in California now,
(02:30):
so again from Mississippi, the Atlanta, Georgia area all the
way to California.
Speaker 3 (02:38):
But you have found.
Speaker 1 (02:39):
Yourself writing a book called I Don't Care The Freedom
of letting Them. Now, when people see these words in
big yellow letters, it can almost I was like, I
don't care, but shouldn't you care?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
Right?
Speaker 1 (02:58):
I want to dive right in. In the first few
I think paragraphs of your book, you said that caring cost.
Speaker 2 (03:07):
You hm.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Rod's pretty heavy, right. What did you mean when you
said caring cost you?
Speaker 2 (03:20):
Uh? You know we hear, we hear all the time,
we say all the time, I don't care. Yes, the
problem is we don't know what it means. And just
like that same, that same dichotomy you found yourself in
in that moment of being like I see the title,
But are I supposed to care? I was supposed to
care about something and then you know, like with my
(03:42):
with my Christian faith, the Bible actually cared, actually says
in one Peter, he says to Casher, cares on God,
he said, because he cares for you. But even even
in in in practical terms, what does that mean? What
does that look like?
Speaker 3 (03:55):
So?
Speaker 2 (03:55):
Are you saying I shouldn't care about going to work?
Are you saying I shouldn't care about being in a relationship?
I want to be married?
Speaker 1 (04:02):
Like?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
What are like? What? What are what? Are you honestly saying?
So when I say caring caring too much or killed me?
When I when I talked about that, that was me
saying that I didn't know what to cast off. So
I cared about what people thought about me. I cared
about being the good boy. That's how I grew up.
Everybody said I was a good boy. You was a
good boy. I said, yes, ma'am, oh ma'am. I got
(04:25):
good grades, and I was paying attention and I was obedient.
I was in the four h club, and I was
a good boy. And then I became you know, I
got I got saved. I became the man of God.
And you come the man of God. You pray, you
pray for an hour, and you do this. And so
I had these labels that were placed on me that
it was like I had to live up to them,
(04:46):
and caring what everybody thought about me, caring what you
know about what what I was going to do next
in my life. Like all that care, it weighed down
to the point where it robbed me of my individuality
and it me of being who I believe, you know,
God really wanted me to be.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
Mm hmmm, who did you write this book for?
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Uh?
Speaker 2 (05:09):
So? I wrote it. I wrote the book. It's probably
a horrible, horrible answer, but I'm gonna I'm gonna say
it anyway.
Speaker 1 (05:20):
Not horrible.
Speaker 2 (05:23):
I wrote. I wrote every every book I've written, including this.
I wrote it for myself. I wrote it for myself.
But I wrote it for the person in mind who
has felt like they're the black sheep, the lone wolf,
the misunderstood, the forgotten, the ignored, the castaway. I wrote
(05:45):
it for those people who are tired of pretending, tired
of hiding, tired of code switching. UH. I wrote it
for those people who they have a life that they
want to live outside of what their parents tell them,
outside of what UH their mentor is trying to pigeonhole
(06:06):
them into. They have business they want to start, but
they won't because they're afraid of making sure everything is perfect.
I wrote it. I wrote it for those people who
are in the marriage, for the for that married couple
who is considering getting a divorce without realizing that before
they burn the whole bridge, and before they destroy the
(06:27):
whole thing, there's only maybe a couple of things they
need to change to have the best marriage and best
family of their life. So I wrote it with those
individuals in mind. And that's the reason why throughout the
book you'll see so many examples that I give. Where
I talk about my wife and I almost divorcing, I'll
talk about, you know, stepping away from from from pastoral ministry.
(06:49):
I talk about my own story so that people have
an understanding and they know, Okay, this is real. And
now because I've seen this, I can I can I
can grow, and I can move away.
Speaker 1 (06:59):
To thank you for sharing who you wrote this book for.
When you said that when you stepped away from pastoring,
I can imagine that a lot of people's identities are
wrapped up in being a pastor. So when you say
you stepped away, did you already have the I don't
(07:23):
care mentality or was it like this is life or death?
And I'm not saying that because I already know the answer,
because I don't.
Speaker 2 (07:33):
Yeah, the crazy thing is I tried to step away
many years before that. I tried to hand the church
over to to to my executive pastor or my associate
pastor many years before that. And the problem is the
church just didn't want it. They wouldn't live. They were like, nope,
my pastor, I like when you preach, when they come,
(07:54):
I don't like it. So you felt honest, and you
I she stood up. We had we had three services
at the time. During the first, during the first second,
going to the second service, I told I told my sister,
I said, hey, get everybody, get all the leaders in line.
Put them up in the in the sanctuary. Let me
have a conversation with them. They didn't know what was
(08:15):
going to talk about. I just threw it on him.
I said, Hey, I just want to let you know
today I'm gonna step down as as senior pastor. I'm
gonna let blah blah blah, and he's gonna do it.
And they and want to Grocer raise her hands. She said, nah,
uh no, you ain't, because I don't.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
Know how you thought you was just gonna come up
in here and say you was just gonna let us go.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
Right, And so I felt the tug even then, like
well I can't. I can't. I can't abandon them. I
can't just leave them. Yeah. But during most of that time,
I suffered from depression and suicidal ideation. I was I
was encouraging everybody on Sunday morning, and I would go
(08:53):
home fully discouraged. I would I felt so empty most
of the time. I felt like I was helping everybody
else and there was nobody there to help me. And
I mean everybody was pulling on me, everybody needed something
from me. And then when people got finished with me,
they just threw me away. They left the church, they
(09:16):
walked away. They talked about me, they did. They would
talk about every bad thing. They never talked about any
good thing. And I was so depressed. December. December of
twenty nineteen was a day I'll never forget it. I mean,
I took the gun out, I was getting ready to
use it, and my daughter saved my life. One thirty
(09:37):
in the morning. My youngest son was actually sleep in
my bed, my wife was sleeping. I pulled the gun
out from right next to the night stand, right next
to me. I'm crying that my daughter. I see her silhouette,
her shadow, and I look and I say Taylor, and
she's rubbing her eyes. She said, Daddy, She said, Daddy,
can I lay with you? And I was like, oh yeah, baby,
And I'm like, hold on one second. I had to
take the gun off of I put the safety back on,
(09:58):
put it back into the case, put it back into
the thing. And I realized in that moment, I'm not good,
I'm not healthy. Yeah, And so it was killing me.
And I was still trying to I was still trying
to stay in something that was that was taking me out. Yeah,
promised myself, especially during COVID when everything's shut down. I
(10:22):
was like, you know what, I'm done.
Speaker 1 (10:24):
Yeah, So at the time, did you have therapists, did
you do sabbaticals? Did you do anything to counter burnout?
Which burnout it was about? I literally have a question
about burnout. But we're already here, so I'll get to
it after this. But I'm only saying this because a
(10:45):
lot of people. You're probably in certain places in the workplace,
you're probably a public figure. You're probably the son or
daughter and of someone, and you feel like you have
to stay in something you don't want to, but you
keep it to yourself because you're performing. You have a
mask on, but really on the inside, you are crumbling.
Speaker 3 (11:08):
You are dying, even though you.
Speaker 1 (11:11):
Haven't physically left us yet. As a pastor, was that
frowned upon or how are you not able to, I
guess get the help you needed?
Speaker 2 (11:24):
I mean, yes, frowned upon? I mean you know, who wants?
Who wants to know? I mean, and you know, now
it's probably become a little bit more you know, a
little bit more acceptable. But who wants who wants to know?
Who wants to know that their pastor is going to
get therapy? You know, it's almost like it's almost like
you don't you don't want to hear about you don't
want to hear about Superman needing help.
Speaker 1 (11:45):
Okay, I see absolutely, yeah, you know, even though we'll
we'll say all day well, I mean, Superman is just
Clark Kent.
Speaker 2 (11:52):
We'll say all day, well, you know my pastor is human. Well,
he's human. He's human until he makes a human kill idea,
and he's no longer human anymore. It is now he's
the leader.
Speaker 1 (12:03):
Yeah, we select what we want him to be human with. Oh,
him and his wife are having a baby. Oh he
lost his mom. But the inner the inner stuff, Oh no,
It's almost like we haven't learned how to even be
vulnerable with ourselves and our loved ones, let alone when
(12:23):
somebody else's humanity, you know, is a is you know.
Speaker 3 (12:28):
At risk.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Some of our burnout is literally caring what people think,
especially when it comes to you having to make a decision.
Speaker 3 (12:39):
For you and your well being.
Speaker 1 (12:43):
I've been talking to people about burnout because I have
been feeling burnt out, like you know, on the stage
for a whole year and haven't really taken.
Speaker 3 (12:54):
A real break.
Speaker 1 (12:56):
But like, well, you know, you have the name you have,
the you have that that, and it's like you really
just want to say I'm tired, but you're scared of
looking like, uh, maybe a liability or we can't depend
on you. You knew what this you knew what this
job entailed when you signed up for it.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
That's what I tell you. You know what this when
when it when it comes to burnout, it is we're
constantly putting so much out than what's going in. And
I had to get into a rhythm of rest. I
had to get into a replenishment cycle, recognizing that this
is what is important to me. Actually, and I write
(13:37):
about this in the book. I had a guy who
I saw in target. He walked up to me. He
was yeah, he walked up and he said he was upset,
and he said, you know, you abandon us. This is
after I I separated from pastoring, and said you abandon us.
And I wanted so bad to just kind of go
off in that moment, but I just I stopped and
(13:58):
I looked at him and full honesty, and I said,
you know what, you don't realize it, but it was
killing me. And the thing you don't you also don't realize,
is that y'all leave the church all the time. Y'all
will leave it and go to another church down the street.
Y'all get a new friend and a heartbeat, but you
don't take any time to consider or even be compassionate
(14:21):
enough to consider, well, how was how was he doing?
Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah?
Speaker 2 (14:24):
How is he? And so when you talk about that
burnout piece, it's like you you become so enthralled with
the idea of I need to be this for somebody else.
It is a it is a legit superhero complex. All
that a way recognize that my humanity was a lot
more important than this idea that people needed me, and
(14:51):
I couldn't even. I couldn't even. At one point I said, well,
you know, I want to do this because my family
needs me and wish they did. But you know the
thing that ticked me off the most, you asked me
about this with therapists and stuff. My therapist looked at
me and he asked me a question, Michelle that I
want I want it so bad to throw the pillow
at him. He said no, he said, Cornelius. He said,
(15:13):
what do you like to do for fun? And it
angered me because I thought, I don't know, I'm not
supposed to have fun. I'm only supposed to be productive.
I'm supposed to work. I'm supposed to produce. I self
published twelve books in six years. That that's that's what
(15:36):
I'm supposed to do. I'm I'm hosting. I'm hosting, you know,
conferences almost once a quarter. I'm supposed to do this.
I have businesses on the side. I'm this is fun.
I'm not supposed to have fun. And what he what
he did in that moment was he started to chip
away at that superhero wall that I was creating of
(15:58):
trying to trying to build my value off of my performance. Yes, sir,
I had to get away from it, and so I figured,
I'm not going to burn out anymore for these negroes.
I'm leaving.
Speaker 1 (16:11):
Yes me, you want to talk about the freedom of
letting go. There is freedom in letting go, letting go
of titles and expectations. It does not mean you don't care.
It really is a thing of y'all. How can I
go on, like you said, when I am pouring out
(16:32):
more than I am receiving. Now, was there an expectation
to receive from people? Or did you eventually learn yet?
I got to do this, I have to pour back
into me or God as well.
Speaker 2 (16:47):
Yeah, I did get to the point I think. I think,
I think people will teach you that they just don't
have it to give, and you have to think. You know,
the church is widely considered as a as you know,
similar to that of the hospital. Yeah, you know, you
(17:08):
don't really expect for a sick patient to come in
and be able to be able to you know, prescribe
medicine to the doctor. So because we have created that
warped system and that warped cycle, it becomes extremely difficult
too for anybody to assume that, you know, they're supposed
to give back to me, and so they they didn't.
(17:33):
And that part, that part was was challenging. And that's
and that's also where in the book where I criticize
the system that I believe that we've created in church. Uh,
that that ignores humanity, that ignores true community because it's
filled with production.
Speaker 3 (17:52):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
And so we have we have a lot of these
different things that kind of that kind of nullifies the
idea that you are you are in a safe environment
where you can be fed and other people. I had
people and people would say to me they would say, well,
you're the pastor. You need a pastor, Michelle. I would
get a pastor. And I remember there was one pastor
who I said, look, I called him and I talked
(18:16):
to him for about fifteen minutes and I was talking
to tell him how depressed I was. When I got finished,
he paused and he said, man, that really sounds horrible.
He said, do you mind helping me grow my social media? What? Okay?
(18:36):
All right? Well there we go, or or you know,
I go to another pastor and I said, I just
need mentorship. I need somebody who's there. I just need
somebody I could talk to. And it's like, well, in
order for you to be part of this, you know,
you have to join my cohort and it'll be this
amount of month, or in order for you to do this,
you have to do this. Or you know a pastor
(18:57):
who came to me and he said, you know, you're
my spiritual son. He actually called me spiritual son. And
I was like, okay, well this is great. Why have
somebody I could talk to? And then I call, I call,
I text, I text, and then his wife says, oh,
you know, unfortunately he doesn't he doesn't know how to
be a good father. And I already have father issues.
So it's hard when you come to me and you
(19:17):
say that I'm the song when you don't know how
to be a father. So it's just like, well, why
even come to me. I already have daddy issues, and
so I don't I don't need to add to this.
And so even there where they say, well you need
a pastor, well I get a pastor. And it's sad
because I had to pay for a therapist because I
couldn't find anybody else to confide in. I had to
(19:39):
pay for a professional just because I didn't have anybody
else that can fight in. Because as a in my
line of work in ministry, I would I would love
to be able to say that we could preachers could
talk to each other, but most preachers are lonely because,
if I'm honest, most of them are in competition with
themselves and with the other churches down the street. So
(20:01):
it's more competition in ministry than there is the NFL.
Speaker 1 (20:07):
Heck in the music industry, like can you get it?
Because so many people, by the way, really they really
are doing music for the art of it. If the
if the awards and accolades come yes, I mean you're
doing for the art and for the coin, but there
is no I actually noticed, and I'm and I hate
(20:30):
to have said this, but there was a time I
was walking through something.
Speaker 3 (20:33):
I was like, man, it's safer over here in the club.
Speaker 2 (20:37):
Mmmm.
Speaker 1 (20:39):
Then it is where I'm supposed to get my cup fields,
you know, as far as with people of faith, it's
safer over here.
Speaker 3 (20:49):
You know, we're not in competition.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
It's come on over our girl.
Speaker 3 (20:52):
Come on, come on, come on, come on, come on.
We're good. We got you, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
But I've learned to to to to balance all of that,
and I am sorry that that happened to you. I
have to have more thoughts too.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
About that gets exactly what you're what you're saying too.
I mean, I write in a book about about me
starting alcoholics anonymous in twenty twenty three. Uh, And that
was mostly because twenty two, twenty thirty two, so my
mom shared with me that the man who raised me
wasn't my father. And so I'm thirty six years old
(21:29):
and I'm just now figuring out that this man who
I've always thought was my dad wasn't. And so you know,
the that day I decided I got to kick this habit.
So I started AA, and alcoholics anonymous became.
Speaker 1 (21:43):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (21:44):
That was actually because I was already in a phase
of deconstruction. Yeah, but A became the place where my
faith in Jesus Christ and my faith my faith in
God was fortified. I was around, I saw humanity for
the first and I was loved despite any of my issues.
(22:04):
I was by a group of strangers, by a group
of men who had no shame but were full of
compassion and forgiveness, and we learned about these principles that
were true to the scripture. So I definitely hear when
you say, you know the club and then the churches.
It's a very real thing in learning how to balance that.
It's extremely important.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Absolutely. Now I will have to now T T Michelle,
do have to say, I have found some people in
church and ministries that, seriously, when you know you want
to talk about I feel like some of them are
like Jesus's first cousin. I can say and I can
name names of who I felt that I can rock
(22:49):
with I want to go back to. And by the way,
there's so much to discuss here when you talk about
you just discovered who your father is. And there are
so many people here walking through that. What has that
(23:12):
done to you as it relates to I don't care.
Speaker 2 (23:18):
It's tough because now I'm I am really taking in
my own message. I write it. I write in a
book about not burning not burning down your life, and
so upon finding out about it, I was ready to
burn my life down. I was ready to just forget
it all, walk away, Like how could you lie to
me for thirty six years? Then when I met my
(23:39):
when I met my father, it was like, you know,
how could you? How could you know I exist? How
could you watch me on social media? How could you?
It's like how.
Speaker 3 (23:52):
How?
Speaker 2 (23:54):
And and not say anything? Like not not saying anything?
I will I'm so angry to the point where now
I'm I write about in the book about grief and
about ashes, Yes, talk about how ashes become. Ashes can
be two things. It can either be a grave or
a garden. And so I am in the process right
(24:17):
now of grieving the relationship with my father that I
will never have. Jesus, And That's where I'm at right now.
Speaker 1 (24:28):
In the print, was that the part where you met
a man whose house had just burned down?
Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yes?
Speaker 1 (24:34):
Yeah, and his perspective blew you away where you were like,
I'm sorry for your loss, and he was like, what
are you talking about?
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Yep?
Speaker 1 (24:42):
I was.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I was sitting there on the sauna and a guy
who was sitting there and he asked me, while I
was there, the next one he was there and he
said yeah, he said, my house is burned down, and
I said.
Speaker 3 (24:51):
You're in asauna.
Speaker 2 (24:52):
Yeah, I was in asauna and I was like. I
looked at him and I said. My first reaction was
I'm so sorry. And he said why are you sorry?
And I said, well, your house burned down. I said
that's that's devastating, and he said, well that's one way
you can look at it. He said, but I see
it as an opportunity. And we had this whole conversation
about what he was planning to build. And I looked
(25:15):
at him. I said, so you lost everything? He said,
my wife and I came here with He said, we
close it. We bought he said, clothes, We bought a target.
And he was like, he said, but now I get
a chance to have a whole new wardrobe. He said,
I really.
Speaker 1 (25:29):
Who was his life coach, right? You know? Was he
a believer?
Speaker 2 (25:35):
He wasn't. He wasn't he's a Buddhist. He wasn't. He
wasn't a believer, wasn't a believer at all. I shared
my face with him, he is h his Buddhist and
he was like, you know, he said, he's like yeah,
he said, he said, uh, he said something. Oh man,
I won't get exact right, but he said he said
(25:55):
my house. He said, our house burned down. He said,
but we didn't burn with it.
Speaker 1 (26:02):
Now, wait a minute, believer or not. I've run through
this door, through the door.
Speaker 2 (26:08):
Yep.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Oh, my house burned down, but we did not burn
with it. Yeah, you don't have to be a believer Buddhist, Catholic,
Muslim like that could be universal right now.
Speaker 3 (26:26):
I also want to.
Speaker 1 (26:27):
Go back to what part of you you were like
between sixteen and nineteen.
Speaker 3 (26:32):
I think when.
Speaker 1 (26:35):
You said I wrote, I said, you really didn't care
when you asked a professor if they had a business
and that professor said no, and you said, well, how
can you teach me about entrepreneurship? Oh yeah, as they
kicked you out.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Yeah, I was. I was. I was a sophomore at
the University of Georgia. I was taking a intro to Entrepreneurship,
intro business whatever, this class. And I walked in, I
put my bag down, I did what I normally did.
I walked up. I would always greet my professors, and
so I asked the professor. I said, I said, have
you ever have you ever started or you ever ran
(27:09):
a business before? And he said no, And so I said,
how can you teach me how to do something you've
never done? And he said, cordeli the stuff and go
out of my class. And I got out. I left
his class, and I dropped out of college because in
my mind, I said, there's no way that I'm going
to sit here and pay hundreds of dollars for a
(27:30):
book that was written by a man who hasn't even
done what I want to do. Like I am, Michelle,
I'm all for taking constructive criticism, but I refuse to
take constructive criticism from someone who hasn't constructed anything.
Speaker 1 (27:44):
Has not constructed nothing that's so good, good, absolutely absolutely,
and going on to even that. I love how you
differentiate caring what a close friend or mentor things versus
someone unfamiliar with your journey, Right, those are your work,
so not only that you cannot I cannot take constructive
(28:07):
criticism unless.
Speaker 3 (28:08):
You like was my granny.
Speaker 1 (28:10):
Somehow grannies just be having wisdom about black eyed peas
to business. I don't know how if you ain't my granny,
I don't want to hear it, right, because we do
hear you can't take Even my own sister I meant
I said something like that to her one year. She said,
that's not all the way true. And some older people
(28:33):
somehow have a wisdom even though they ain't building nothing
but right.
Speaker 2 (28:41):
I think, I think, I think that the wisdom. I
think that wisdom comes raight from God, which is why
I talk about caring about if this hurts as a mentor.
This person is somebody who you know, arguably you trust.
We're trusting that God will give them wisdom. Yeah, specifically
from a teacher. He's not. He's not. I don't. I'm
not paying to be here in the college to get wisdom.
(29:03):
I'm paying to get your knowledge and and and unfortunately,
even you.
Speaker 1 (29:08):
Say that sounds so smart mouth, but it's fact. It's true, y'all.
I promise y'all, he's not being a smart butt.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
It's fat did your.
Speaker 1 (29:19):
Parents what did you do with it? Like? Come on now, like, no,
it's he's not being it's it's fact.
Speaker 3 (29:26):
It's fact.
Speaker 1 (29:28):
It's taking me thirty minutes to even get get to
more questions about your book because just it's just been
so rich just all around.
Speaker 3 (29:37):
I think the.
Speaker 1 (29:40):
What the meat and spirit of your book is about
has been pretty much in this entire conversation. So I
do want to to encourage everyone to get his book.
I don't care because the freedom of letting go, and
I have the question is not caring?
Speaker 3 (29:56):
Is there an art to caring?
Speaker 1 (29:58):
Some people say there is an art to communitytion, like
is there an art to letting go? I also want
to say too more about y'all. These are just so
many things that have gone on in his book that
he discusses of the good things that have happened in
his life that have got him to this place, and
some not so good things that can almost get you
(30:21):
callous into a place where you don't care in the
most negative way. And it's a scary time when people
can say what they want to say about you online
and it wrecks your reputation. You talk about how the closest.
Speaker 3 (30:35):
People to you left.
Speaker 1 (30:37):
You didn't ask for clarity, just bounced, you are still
thriving today and also being comfortable with being misunderstood. There's
so many highlights that I took off of this book
because I wanted to make sure that I was like,
can you get to a place where you say I
(30:58):
don't care and just tell everybody to fall? You know
what I mean? And I don't think that that's a
life when you really look at it.
Speaker 3 (31:09):
None of us want to live right.
Speaker 2 (31:11):
And I'll say this, and the book is about selective care.
That's what I tell people that I don't care. Mentality
is about selective care. I'm not telling people not to care.
I'm telling people to choose what they truly care about.
And the way I give it to you is and
you'll see it throughout the book. I am really big
(31:33):
as a coach when I sit down when I talk
to professionals, when I coach businesses, I always ask them
three things. What is your vision? Where are you going?
What is your mission? How are you going to get there?
But the last one is important to the I don't
care mentality, And what are your values? Because if you
can't tell me what you stand for, then that means
you'll fall for anything. The reason why it's so difficult
(31:57):
for us to tell people know is because we don't
know our values. We talk a great deal about our boundaries, Well,
this is my boundary. Well we base boundaries off of values.
I based off of my values. So if I have
a value, then now I can base the rule off
of it. So I tell people it's a lot easier
(32:17):
for you to take in the itn' care mentality when
you identify your values. Like for me and my wife,
one of our values is hospitality without pretension. We like
to be hospitable, we like to sit with people at
the table without pretension or whatever. This suffit piety. So
because of that, we're able to not care that you
(32:38):
know about other things. Because this is this is a
value of ours, we're able to say no to things
that that you know. We can say no to other
dinner parties that don't meet that same value because it's
not it's not hospitable. It's a dinner party, but it's
very pretentious, it's everything else, so we can say no
to it. When you adding to find your values, what's
(33:01):
important to you, it's a lot easier for you to
know what to care about and what to cast away.
Speaker 1 (33:05):
Y'all. I promise, y'all, this was the last thing I
was gonna say what to care about. There's something in
his book that I that suck out to me. It
says entitlement dies when you care about the right things.
Now what Instagram says you should want mansions, followers, fancy cars,
But what likes you up? He says, For me, it
was my marriage and family. I almost lost it. Fixing
(33:27):
it meant raw conversations, couple's therapy, and showing up every
day even when it hurts.
Speaker 3 (33:33):
You say, what's your thing? A dream you buried? Y'all?
Speaker 1 (33:38):
How many dreams have y'all buried? And you're not working
towards a friend you've ghosted? You said, figure it out
and pour your heart into it. That's what you care about, Cornelius.
That's a may z.
Speaker 3 (33:59):
And I'm sorry. I'm sorry.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
I feel like you've had to go through a lot
to even be able to write that right, right right,
Figure it out and pour your heart into it. Thank
you so much for checking in with us today, y'all. There,
I guess this book it's not about I don't care
(34:25):
in the most tempered, tantrum type of way. He's actually
giving us steps and tools, and if I'm not mistaken,
you do something that's called clarity coaching.
Speaker 2 (34:37):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (34:39):
Okay, So if someone is listening and you feel like
you need a lot a little more clarity, not only
on what we were talking about. You can get more
clarity if you go and read the whole entire book.
I don't care the freedom of letting go. What platforms
is it available?
Speaker 2 (34:52):
To get it on Amazon? It's an audible, I have
evil hard copy soft copy. You get it on Barnesandnoble
dot com. You can also check out my website queneinslndsay
dot com.
Speaker 1 (35:02):
Amazing clarity coaching. I've heard of life coaching, but some
of us have not heard of clarity coaching.
Speaker 3 (35:10):
And then I can let you go.
Speaker 1 (35:11):
Because y'all, I want y'all to get this in as
we say, get it in your spirit.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Tell us about clarity coaching.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
Yeah, so very simple. There are areas of your life
where you're confused. Clarity is enlightenment. Once you get Once
you get enlightened, then you can be confident. So when
you when you're like a married couple, they're like, well,
I think we should get a divorce. Well, there could
be maybe one or two things that we can resolve.
Once we resolve those two things, you get clarity about it,
You get confidence in your marriage again. You're in a
(35:39):
transition as a pastor, as a leader. You want to
exit the music industry. Okay, well let's get some clarity
on where you're going, what's the vision, what's the mission,
where your values? And we can then you can get
some confidence and moving forward. So I help people to
find clarity so they can move forward with confidence.
Speaker 1 (35:54):
Amazing, All right, anytime, anytime, you are more, more more
than welcome. There's so many things that we can continue
to talk about. And I'm grateful for you today, and
y'all give it up for Cornelius Lindsay. Checking In with
(37:34):
Michelle Williams is a production of iHeartRadio and The Black Effect.
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