June 17, 2025 • 32 mins
In this powerful “best of” episode of My Legacy, failure takes center stage – not as defeat, but as the starting point of transformation.
- Mel Robbins reveals how one rock-bottom moment – and a 5-second decision – changed everything.
- Sarah Jakes Roberts speaks candidly about escaping toxic relationships and finding healing in small steps, not Hollywood-type breakthroughs.
- And Larry Wilmore opens up about getting fired, rebuilding, and what it means to hold the door open for others.
Hosted by Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger, this episode is a reminder that setbacks can be setups for your greatest story.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
on the house, and I was rising to the moment
like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, and
the simplest things like getting out of bed, opening up bills,
asking for help. I couldn't make myself do any of it.
(00:24):
And the very next morning, when the alarm rang, That's
what I remembered, and I tried it, and it changed
my life, and it led to this belief that your
one decision away from a different life.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That was Mel Robbins sharing what it looks like to
hit rock bottom and the extraordinary power of taking one
small step forward. In this special episode of My Legacy,
we're diving into the raw, unfiltered truth about what it
means to fail forward. Hosts Martin Luther King the Third,
Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kielberger, and Craig Urger bring together
(01:01):
the most powerful stories from past guests, moments where failure
didn't break them, it built them. Comedian and Emmy Winner
writer Larry Wilmore on getting fired teaching him what breaks
you can remake you, and Sarah Jakes Roberts on how
healing isn't a dramatic Hollywood moment, it's small, intentional steps.
But first, Mel Robbins on how to take that first
(01:24):
step when your life is spiraling out of control.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Meil, your career is rooted in reinvention and in resilience.
You've also shared that you hit rock bottom and that
was your catalyst for change. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You know, Sawyer was very gracious and uh talking about
the good things. There were a lot of bad things,
and we have had a lot of I would call
it like invisible distance in our relationship. You know how
when you have somebody that you love very deeply and
you just wish that you could be closer, You wish
(02:00):
you could have more fun, you wish it just sort
of was more of a well oiled machine and nuts like.
And I screwed up a lot of stuff. I mean,
I had ADHD in dyslexia and was not diagnosed till
I was forty seven. And when that happens to you,
what you develop is anxiety. And so I had a
(02:21):
chronic struggle with anxiety as a young mom. When Sawyer
was born, I had severe postpartum depression. I could barely
even hold her for the first three months of her
life because of the medication and the severity of what
I was dealing with, and it impacted our relationship. And
(02:45):
when I was forty one years old, I was sitting
here listening to Sawyer talking about the radio show, and
I'm so thrilled that she has a wonderful memory of it,
because that was during a moment in time where my
life was falling apart. And when that happens to you
as a you do everything that you can to try
to shield the reality of what's happening from your children,
(03:05):
because that's not their burden to carry. And what was
happening for us is my husband had gone into the
restaurant business and it was really good until it wasn't.
And at the age of forty one with three kids
under the age of ten, so you know, I'm gonna
have to do the math you were under ten years old.
We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
(03:26):
on the house, and I was rising to the moment
like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, right
because he tried to do this and the simplest things
like getting out of bed, opening up bills, asking for help.
(03:49):
I couldn't make myself do any of it, and I
was the worst parent. I mean there were times where
she would come downstairs and this, I know you do
remember she would find Chris and I a sleep in
the living room chair because we had passed out from bourbon,
because we were trying to just suppress all the fear
(04:10):
because it was just so overwhelming. I mean, when you
can barely put gas in the tank and food on
the table, I mean, that's acute level of stress. And
then you add on to it the sense that you're
failing your kids and you're about to lose everything. And
so for me, it was paralysis. And what happened is,
(04:31):
you know, I have learned from people who are first
murdered that researched this. There's a saying in addiction treatment
and psychiatry that people only get sober when being drunk
is harder than facing the things that you're scared to face.
And what I've also learned about myself and human beings
(04:53):
in general, is people only change when they're ready to change.
And if somebody your life is not changing or they're
exhibiting challenging behavior, it's typically because they can't right now.
There's some skill that's missing. There's hope that's missing, and
for me, that was a big one. What was missing
(05:14):
for me is this hope that anything that I did
would actually matter. Because when your problems feel that big, like,
what happens is despair sets in and it's very hard
to motivate yourself when you feel like it's not going
to matter anyway. And that's how I felt. Because what
happened for me is that alarm would go off and
I'd feel the wave of anxiety because I'm eight hundred
(05:36):
grand in debt. I'm basically like feel like my life
is about to implode. And so what do I do.
I rot in bed, I stare at the ceiling, I
think about all my problems. I then hit the snooze button, which,
by the way, is making procrastination the first decision of
your day. I mean, I mean, how are you going
to win in life if your first decision is I
think I'll just avoid getting out of bed. And what
(06:00):
happened is I would literally hit the snooze button four
or five times in the morning, and then these guys
would miss a bus. You probably don't remember this, but
then I would thank God, and then I would come
racing out of the bedroom like a lunatic because they
would be waking me up. Bus would be gone. Chris
was a very smart man. He didn't want to be
there when I woke up. I mean, Martin right, and
(06:21):
so smart, and so you know, he didn't want to
be there when I got up, and so they would
be waking me up. And so now I'm yelling at
them because I am disconnected from here because I don't
understand what anxiety actually is and what it isn't and
(06:43):
I couldn't reconnect with myself and that's also part of
the neurology and the physiology of it, but you can
reconnect to yourself. And so they would then miss a bus.
Then that's just sent my whole day just down a
complete wrong way. And so what happened is I just
(07:03):
got this idea that maybe if I moved fast enough
when the alarm rang, that I could move fast enough
and beat the anxiety. That maybe if the alarm rang
and I launched myself out of bed like a rocket ship,
like literally like NASA five four three two one, that
(07:24):
if I launched myself, maybe I wouldn't be in that
bed when the anxiety and the depression and the overwhelm hit.
And it worked, and what it taught me, and this
has been the thing that has really defined a lot
of my career, is that you can build a skill
in life where you learn to not let your emotions
(07:48):
and fears about things dictate what you do. That you
are not defined by how you feel. You are not
defined by your emotion in the moment. I mean, if
you really think about it, you can't be courageous without fear.
You can't display confidence without self doubt.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
One of the things that I say to our daughter
all the time is that courage is not the absence
of fear.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It's when you do it anyway.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Yes, so it's not not feeling when we were talking
about our grandparents, so we're talking about taking a test,
you know, like it's not Lelanda not feeling it. That
that's not courage. It's when we feel it and we
do it anyway. I'm curious, what was the what was
that impetus to make you even say to come up
(08:32):
with the.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, yeah, okay, this is so So it's like Okay.
So I was sitting in my living room and the
kids have gone to bed, and Chris again, smart man,
know where to be found.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
And uh, have.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
You ever had a moment where you're giving yourself a
pep talk? I mean, that is a low moment. It's
one thing if you're giving me advice, but if you're
having to talk to yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So I'm sitting there, I'm like, all right, that's it, mel.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Tomorrow morning, it's a new you. Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
You're calling your parents and you're telling them what's happened.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You're gonna start exercising.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You gotta look for a job. Oh well, I keep
ticking off the list and then I get to and
by God, tomorrow morning, when that alarm rings, woman, you're
not gonna lay there in bed like a human pot roast,
marinating in fear. You are going to get up and
get those kids on that bus. And at that exact moment,
(09:29):
a rocket ship shot across the television screen at the
end of a commercial, and it gave me this hair
brain idea. That's it. It must be a sign from God.
Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, I'm just gonna launch
myself out of bed like a rocket ship. Now I
had had four Bourbon Manhattan that night, probably you know
(09:51):
what also opened me up to it. But I actually
do believe it was divine intervention. There is no other
explanation because the eye idea is absurd. And the very
next morning, when the alarm rang, that's what I remembered,
and I tried it, and it changed my life, and
it led to this belief that your one decision away
(10:14):
from a different life, that you still have to do
the work and five four three two one is going
to help you push through.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
The work came out. We all know five four three
two one, right, the world, Yeah, the detective read the book.
We all love it. I actually want to turn it
to you, so it okay. So when those moments happened
that the world now knows that story. Was there a
moment that you saw your mom in that transformation and
(10:42):
you said I want that strength in my life.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
A single moment. Probably not, I feel like I don't
remember necessarily a single moment that was like I want
I want that strength. I want to be as smart,
as brilliant, as confident as her and just so loved.
(11:08):
But I think it was honestly the little things that
added up. I think it was the I think it
was truly like all the small interactions, and I think
overhearing her on meetings and just like all of you
have said, like she's just brilliant and as are you. Oh,
(11:31):
thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
And did you notice that transformation, that moment that she
described from the anxiety, the stress, the to that change.
But candidly like and partially I even love the fact
that there wasn't a moment, because I even not only
changed my question because I think we so often envision
change being dramatic, the heroine arising, the melodramatic music in
(11:58):
the Hollywood moment, and instead maybe it was to your
point of series of small things and that's where the
puff found changes because it adds up.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Yeah, I think. I mean, I've always looked up to
her more than anyone in the world, and I think
it was hard because she was always gone in high
school and so I didn't really know what she was doing.
I've seen one or two times of her speaking, and
during those times, I was like, Wow, that's my mother
(12:27):
up there and seeing in her element, which was incredible.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Let me, you can address two things here because I
don't think changing your life is glamorous, and I don't
think anybody notices when you do it right. I think
it's a grueling process. And Chris and I protected our
kids as best we could because I remember the morning
they found us when we had passed out in the chairs,
and I'm like, I can't expose them to this. I
(12:54):
have a responsibility to at least pull it together for.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Them, and.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Sawyer is painting the story with a beautiful brush. And
it also created a lot of heartbreak for us, because
ultimately my husband left the restaurant business and was a
full time stay at home dad, and I was off
on the road saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to
everything I could because I was the breadwinner. And we
(13:25):
went through so many things in our marriage because I
resented the fact that I was in that position, and
I was mad that I was on the road all
the time, and I was scared about our finances. And
I also feel like our marriage is ours, it's not
their business. And so I'm happy to hear that we
insulated them from a lot of it, But the truth
(13:46):
is me not being there created a lot of distance,
and this is a huge issue inside of relationships between
parents and children, the tension between admiring somebody, and also
the mismatch of what I'm providing versus what she needs.
And I did not provide what she needed. I had
certain examples that I gave about hard work, but I
(14:10):
wasn't there, and when I was there, I wasn't present
like a lot of parents that are working, or if
you're a single parent and you're stressed out all the time,
the your kids are the only people that are going
to remember that you worked. No one else is going to.
And I very much regret the amount of time that
(14:30):
I stayed on the road because there came a point
in time where I was making enough money and we
were being super responsible and shoving a lot of it
back into savings, and so we were back in a
safe territory financially that I could have started to have
better boundaries with work, and I didn't, And it did
(14:52):
create a real distance between us because I wasn't there,
and I didn't do a good job because I was
constantly onage, constantly stressed. And there's this thing I've learned
recently that I wish we had all known, because I
would always blame my bad behavior or my bad mood
on work, and that's not an excuse. And one of
(15:16):
the things that I've learned recently that I wish they
would always be, like, don't use that tone with me,
or like just because it happened at work, don't bring
it here. But there's a great way to say this
to somebody, which is I'm really sorry about what your
stress at work did to you, but you're going to
have to apologize for how your work stress is impacting me.
And I was chief offender in that regard of taking
(15:39):
my stress out of my family. Why because I didn't know.
I didn't have the tools yet. I just knew how
to push myself five four three two one five four
three two one.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Up next the hilarious Larry Wilmore and how he didn't
let failure in the story, he let it help him
rewrite it.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Now back to my legacy, Laria.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
You've certainly had many ups and downs in your career,
for sure. Often the most important lessons that we learn
come from our challenging times. Can you share what has
been your most challenging experience and what has been emerged
from that experience.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
Yeah, I've had many of them, many times people think
your career is just this line that goes like that,
but it really isn't. Some of my biggest ones was
I was fired from the Bernie mac Show after I
won every word you could possibly win, and I was
in a fight with the network the whole time, and
it was just one of my lowest points, and you know,
(16:45):
I was you know, my personal life wasn't going to
well at the time too. You know, we're trying to
my wife and I were trying to figure out what
was going on, and I just felt so isolated and
just really really down. But I just relied on just
doing the basics. You know. We spent a lot of
time at that point. You know, Laren doesn't know about
(17:05):
a lot of these things, but we just worked on
our marriage for a long time, and doing the work
of that just really helped, you know, we just it
gets you out of the thinking about bad things, you know,
and remembering why I liked the business and going forward.
Getting fired from the Burner Max Show actually opened the
door to me working on the office, to me being
on the Daily show, to me expanding the things that
(17:28):
I wanted to do all along. But you know, I
didn't I was going down that road, and it was
very instrumental for me to be to feel so low emotionally,
but to know that I had love around me. You know,
I had support, guys you have. It was amazing the
outpouring of love of support just from show biz, from luminaries,
people like James L. Brooks. I remember Stephen Boschko reached
(17:50):
out to me people I didn't even know, saying it's okay, Larry,
We're with you, hanging in there.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
You're great.
Speaker 8 (17:55):
You know, the work you're doing is great, let alone
from friends. But the most important thing was family. And
even when my wife and I split, when we were
talking to the kids, we both understood how lucky we
were to have a family that had love first, you know.
And you know, even though you could be going through
difficult times making difficult decisions, if you start there, you
(18:17):
can make you'll be okay in the end. You know,
that's always been my lifeboat. His family. Family's always the lifeboat,
you know, And all the other stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Is around that now, Larry, I know that it's hard
to select just one project that you would be most
proud of outside of your beautiful children, But is there
one that you felt particularly was significant because of how
many obstacles or setbacks that you had to overcome to
make it happen.
Speaker 8 (18:45):
Yeah. I probably go back to the Bernie Mac Show,
you know, to quote from Dickens. It was the best
of times, it was the worst of times, you know.
So it took me. I'll tell this story real quick.
It took I was in an office where I had
like an overall deal a Disney that had expired, but
I was still going to the office, just waving at
the guard, getting on the last and just kind of
hiding out. Guys, I'm not exaggerating. For four and a
(19:09):
half weeks, I never turned in anything or something. I
wrote the same three pages every day. I could not
get past page three. This is four and a half weeks.
You know I'm gonna get found out. You know they're
gonna realize I'm a fraud. I'm scared. Every day now,
I'm hiding in my office all the time. I just
couldn't get it. Some days I didn't write anything, banging
my head against the wall. And then one day I
(19:31):
was I looked up and I was on page four,
and I was like, oh, and something had clicked, and
it just poured out of me the entire show in
thirty six hours. I couldn't stop writing. It was and
it was during the counting of the votes down in
Florida with you remember Bush in that election. I was
watching that as I'm as I'm typing, and that script
(19:53):
ended up winning an Emmy, you know, a year and
a half later and almost intact from that moment, and
I just had Claire in that moment, you know, I
just it took so hard to get it, but it
just took trust. I was so proud of myself for
doing that and just sticking in there, because I there
could have been many moments. I mean when you're feeling
really low, especially as a creative person, and you feel
(20:14):
all alone, you know, and everyone's going to judge something
you're doing is terrible. I mean, you're going through all
the worst things that every writer has. You feel that
way anyway, It doesn't matter what the project is, you
you know, finally everybody's going to find out that the
piece of craft that I already know that I am,
you know. But when I when I broke through, I
was so proud of the fact that I stuck in there,
(20:34):
and it became like a template for other writers and
that sort of thing, you know, and so I was
very proud of that moment.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
You have played so many iconic roles you obviously, among
the most iconic is the very sarcastic, hilarious Slack seeing
your black Horse Senior Black correspondent of course from the
Daily Show. Can you bring us some of your favorite
memories from those from those.
Speaker 8 (20:59):
Show man so many you know, just working with all
those talented people. I was just so lucky to be there.
I mean, I started right after John Oliver it started
writing rob Rego and also Momby. We all kind of
started at the same time.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
You know.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
My audition was was funny because it wasn't quite an audition,
but I met with John and we had talked about
doing something because that's when I was looking to start
kind of performing again. I was in that transition point
and we thought it would be something fun. We weren't
quite sure. They thought, well, maybe you're like a black Republican.
I was like, no, I don't want to just be
(21:33):
anti South them. And then someone said Senior Black Cords
Final and that just sounded really funny. And so what
they says, we'll write two things and we'll just do
them you know, we'll take we'll tape one and we'll
do the other one in the show. And so we
wrote them. And when you're trying to find it, you're
not sure what you are or what that type of thing,
you tend to overwrite it. And I remember during rehearsal.
Rehearsal went horrible. I mean as a comedian, especially as
(21:55):
a performer. It was just too overwritten and nobody's laughing,
and it's that point where the crew isn't kind of
looking at you because you know, it's like it's like
how you don't name certain farm animals because they might
be food one day, so you don't want to get
too close to them, you like, so making sure they're
not gonna get too close to me. You know this guy,
he may not stick around, and you can just feel
(22:15):
that you're not connecting.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
And so I was kind of down.
Speaker 8 (22:18):
And then I found out, you know, before air, that
they were going to cut one of the pieces we're playing.
I'm like, well, I'm not going to be on this show.
And then uh, they decided to do one piece. And
right before air, John goes through this rewrite and he
says he brought me and he said, hey, man, let's
just go through this, and he said, let's just put it,
just talk it through. And I really just put it
in my voice and I'm working off of John and
(22:39):
we're doing it like that, and we really got it tight.
And right before we went on, I was sitting there
and he said, hey man, I was little numbers. She said,
just look in the camera and just f and give
it to America. That's what he took me. And I
was like, okay. And so the first joke, huge laugh
and as now my comedian in seems to take it over,
like okay, this is like I got you guys know,
(23:00):
and it's like dam bam bam. And now the crew
is likes a brother now, you know, the crew is
like where did this guy can? Where he When did
he sneak in the door?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know?
Speaker 8 (23:10):
And I'll never forget that, and I'll never forget John's
generosity knowing that I needed a little boost at that
time and just saying, hey man, don't worry about this.
Just you know what you're doing, you know. And it
was so nice too.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
We're sharing the most inspiring lessons from the voices you love.
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Speaker 3 (23:32):
This right now, now back to my legacy.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Now, I'm going to turn to your husband, because you've
said in the past that toxic relationships used to be
your drug of choice. I want to know what helped
you finally break that pattern.
Speaker 9 (24:01):
I think what really helped me was really realizing that
the toxic relationship wasn't with the other person, it was
with myself. Like I think that part of the reason
why I was so drawn to people who I felt
like I could save or make better, or who could
ad it worth or value to me if they were
(24:21):
able to be loyal and significant, significantly present in my
life was because I felt so devalued myself.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
I was so insecure myself.
Speaker 9 (24:31):
I was so frustrated with who I was that that
person became a distraction and a trophy that would make
me feel better if ever they would just get it together.
And so I made the pursuit of them my focus
instead of really trying to figure out who I was.
And there was really one thought that really changed my life,
(24:53):
but it was after I we got into a really
bad argument and the police recalled. So maybe more than
argument and I had to go to CPS to just
tell them, like, hey, the kids are okay, you guys
can continue to check in on me, because the police
had been involved. And I was walking out of that
CPS office and I just said, I can do better
(25:14):
than this. I can do better than this. And it
wasn't like I thought, I'm gonna be a New York
Times bestselling author and I'm gonna host an event with
forty thousand people. I meant, I can avoid going to
CPS offices, I can avoid getting so angry that the
police are called on me. I can do better than this.
And I just did what was a little bit better
(25:36):
than that, and then I would get on that level
and I would think I could probably do a little
bit better than this. I moved back home with my
parents and I had the kids, and I thought, well,
if I could just get my own place, and better
and better and better just became my pursuit. Not better
for the pursuit of moments like this, but just better,
(25:58):
because I just felt like, anything is better than this,
you know, anything is better than this. And if to
not pursue better is to move backwards. And I was
moving backwards quickly, and I think that that's what we
have to understand in these toxic relationships, whether it's with
ourselves or.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
With other people.
Speaker 9 (26:16):
Cause you gonna have a toxic relationship with yourself that
makes you just get degree after d d, degree after
degree because you think that's gonna make you feel better.
A toxic relationship that makes you achieve and pour yourself
out every Anyone who's dealing with some type of trauma
that is unresolved may have a toxic relationship somewhere, but better.
It's just I think I can experience better health than
(26:37):
where I currently am, and I'm really grateful for who
I am now on the inside. Like I I've had
all of these different things happen to me. I have
not changed my bio on Instagram. My bio is the
same bio that I ever had, cause like I, you know,
the books are nice, the things are nice, but like
if that ever becomes my bio for me, it just
(26:58):
feels like I I miss something because I'm so proud
of the girl who like finally figured out who Jesus is,
who loves her husband, whose children are her teacher, Like
I'm so proud of who she is that that's what
I want you to know about me more than all
of these things I achieved, because that's what I fought for,
and that's what I thought was never possible.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
The other things are they're just cherries on top.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Well, let's talk about something that you wrote on Instagram,
because in your getting better and getting better and getting better,
at one point you thought that you didn't you did
not ever want to get remarried. Oh yeah, but then
someone changed your mind. Oh yeah, and this is what
you wrote on Instagram. The vulnerability required to become one
(27:42):
after you fought to become whole is not often discussed.
I had to surrender my identity as a powerful single
mother to discover my power as a married woman.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Yeah, nasty work. You know. Here's the thing, here's the thing.
Speaker 9 (28:00):
You know. I got to a space where I was healthy,
I'd bought a home for me and my children, and
I thought, this is the dream. Like I thought that
getting married and having the white picket fence was the dream.
I saw that white picket fence just keep falling off
over and over again, and I said, you know what, fine,
I love me and my mindself.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I'll travel the world.
Speaker 9 (28:20):
I'm still young. Everything will be fine. Then, I met
this man, and in meeting him, I just I love
the way the world looked through his eyes. It was
a compliment to the way the world looked through my eyes.
But it also had so much more vibrancy and color,
(28:41):
and there was so much more care and depth for
people and opportunities. And I thought to myself, I think
that he would make me better. You know, as we
talk about this better better, But I will say that
I underestimated the transformation necessary for me to let go
of the pride of being like, oh my gosh, I
(29:02):
made it. I'm this single mother who bought this house,
and I can make good decisions, and I can take
care of my family. I can bring home the bacon
and fried in a pan. And now I have someone
who's like, hey, I could grab the pan, or hey,
I could bring home the bacon. And I think I
did have a sense of pride and identity connected to that.
I never wanted to need a man again. I never
(29:23):
wanted to feel like my life would fall apart if
something happened.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
And I think in the.
Speaker 9 (29:28):
Resistance of oneness that I could have lost out on
the opportunity to experience the beauty of oneness.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
And so that took a lot of work.
Speaker 9 (29:38):
He's got some battle scars, God bless him. But my
life woman evolved when exists if it wasn't for him,
because his ability to create space for me to dream
and to believe in those dreams and to say they're
not crazy, they're possible, gave me the courage to actually
pursue them. So he's definitely been a north star for
(30:02):
me for many years now.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I love that you speak to women who are in
the middle of it. I let this term not post breakthrough,
not post glow up. What do you want people to
know about the messy middle of the journey.
Speaker 9 (30:19):
I think that people should know that it's all the
messy middle, you know what I mean. That's that it's
all the messy middle, That there is no there, there
there is no Once I do this, then that once
you get there, you realize that there's another mountain, that
it keeps going, that there's something else that you have
(30:40):
to overcome. So instead of trying to get post anything,
I think the question is how do I find the
better in now? And I think that that has been
one of the things that has really been instrumental for
me is recognizing that there's beauty in the messy middle.
And if I keep moving the goal post, then I'll
(31:01):
never find peace. But if I dare to believe that
there's peace somewhere here, then all I have to do
is start searching for where it exists. Now I just
have gone through enough to I mean, especially if you
think about my life like as a team mother. I thought,
when I get married, then I'll be okay. And then
I got married and I'm like, well, if he would
do this, then I'll be okay. And if we do that,
then I'll be okay. And then I left it and
(31:22):
I'm like, if I could get the house, then I'll
be okay. Then I got the house and I met
this incredible man, and it's like okay. Once I moved
to La then like it just kept moving, and so
it dawned on me this is all a part of
the journey. It's all the messy middle. But I do
believe that our lives can be scripted and cursive. And
I say it can be because a lot of times
(31:43):
we miss out on how things can be woven together,
We miss out on how all things can work together
because we segment our lives. We try to leave some
things behind. I'm gonna pretend like that never happened. I'm
gonna become another person, not realizing that the beauty of
our story is the full weight of our story. And
so if we can collect all of our pieces and
look at the President and say, Okay, this is the
(32:05):
wisdom I have, the experiences I have, how do I
apply it to this moment? I have found that that
is the shovel that we used to find the beauty
in the messy middle.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Thank you for joining us for the best of my legacy.
New episodes drop every Tuesday. Don't forget to subscribe so
you never miss a moment.
We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
on the house, and I was rising to the moment
like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, and
the simplest things like getting out of bed, opening up bills,
asking for help. I couldn't make myself do any of it.
(00:24):
And the very next morning, when the alarm rang, That's
what I remembered, and I tried it, and it changed
my life, and it led to this belief that your
one decision away from a different life.
Speaker 2 (00:38):
That was Mel Robbins sharing what it looks like to
hit rock bottom and the extraordinary power of taking one
small step forward. In this special episode of My Legacy,
we're diving into the raw, unfiltered truth about what it
means to fail forward. Hosts Martin Luther King the Third,
Andrea Waters, King, Mark Kielberger, and Craig Urger bring together
(01:01):
the most powerful stories from past guests, moments where failure
didn't break them, it built them. Comedian and Emmy Winner
writer Larry Wilmore on getting fired teaching him what breaks
you can remake you, and Sarah Jakes Roberts on how
healing isn't a dramatic Hollywood moment, it's small, intentional steps.
But first, Mel Robbins on how to take that first
(01:24):
step when your life is spiraling out of control.
Speaker 3 (01:27):
Meil, your career is rooted in reinvention and in resilience.
You've also shared that you hit rock bottom and that
was your catalyst for change. Can you tell us about that?
Speaker 1 (01:39):
You know, Sawyer was very gracious and uh talking about
the good things. There were a lot of bad things,
and we have had a lot of I would call
it like invisible distance in our relationship. You know how
when you have somebody that you love very deeply and
you just wish that you could be closer, You wish
(02:00):
you could have more fun, you wish it just sort
of was more of a well oiled machine and nuts like.
And I screwed up a lot of stuff. I mean,
I had ADHD in dyslexia and was not diagnosed till
I was forty seven. And when that happens to you,
what you develop is anxiety. And so I had a
(02:21):
chronic struggle with anxiety as a young mom. When Sawyer
was born, I had severe postpartum depression. I could barely
even hold her for the first three months of her
life because of the medication and the severity of what
I was dealing with, and it impacted our relationship. And
(02:45):
when I was forty one years old, I was sitting
here listening to Sawyer talking about the radio show, and
I'm so thrilled that she has a wonderful memory of it,
because that was during a moment in time where my
life was falling apart. And when that happens to you
as a you do everything that you can to try
to shield the reality of what's happening from your children,
(03:05):
because that's not their burden to carry. And what was
happening for us is my husband had gone into the
restaurant business and it was really good until it wasn't.
And at the age of forty one with three kids
under the age of ten, so you know, I'm gonna
have to do the math you were under ten years old.
We were eight hundred thousand dollars in debt and leans
(03:26):
on the house, and I was rising to the moment
like a dysfunctional human being. I was drinking myself into
the ground. I was blaming everything on my husband, right
because he tried to do this and the simplest things
like getting out of bed, opening up bills, asking for help.
(03:49):
I couldn't make myself do any of it, and I
was the worst parent. I mean there were times where
she would come downstairs and this, I know you do
remember she would find Chris and I a sleep in
the living room chair because we had passed out from bourbon,
because we were trying to just suppress all the fear
(04:10):
because it was just so overwhelming. I mean, when you
can barely put gas in the tank and food on
the table, I mean, that's acute level of stress. And
then you add on to it the sense that you're
failing your kids and you're about to lose everything. And
so for me, it was paralysis. And what happened is,
(04:31):
you know, I have learned from people who are first
murdered that researched this. There's a saying in addiction treatment
and psychiatry that people only get sober when being drunk
is harder than facing the things that you're scared to face.
And what I've also learned about myself and human beings
(04:53):
in general, is people only change when they're ready to change.
And if somebody your life is not changing or they're
exhibiting challenging behavior, it's typically because they can't right now.
There's some skill that's missing. There's hope that's missing, and
for me, that was a big one. What was missing
(05:14):
for me is this hope that anything that I did
would actually matter. Because when your problems feel that big, like,
what happens is despair sets in and it's very hard
to motivate yourself when you feel like it's not going
to matter anyway. And that's how I felt. Because what
happened for me is that alarm would go off and
I'd feel the wave of anxiety because I'm eight hundred
(05:36):
grand in debt. I'm basically like feel like my life
is about to implode. And so what do I do.
I rot in bed, I stare at the ceiling, I
think about all my problems. I then hit the snooze button, which,
by the way, is making procrastination the first decision of
your day. I mean, I mean, how are you going
to win in life if your first decision is I
think I'll just avoid getting out of bed. And what
(06:00):
happened is I would literally hit the snooze button four
or five times in the morning, and then these guys
would miss a bus. You probably don't remember this, but
then I would thank God, and then I would come
racing out of the bedroom like a lunatic because they
would be waking me up. Bus would be gone. Chris
was a very smart man. He didn't want to be
there when I woke up. I mean, Martin right, and
(06:21):
so smart, and so you know, he didn't want to
be there when I got up, and so they would
be waking me up. And so now I'm yelling at
them because I am disconnected from here because I don't
understand what anxiety actually is and what it isn't and
(06:43):
I couldn't reconnect with myself and that's also part of
the neurology and the physiology of it, but you can
reconnect to yourself. And so they would then miss a bus.
Then that's just sent my whole day just down a
complete wrong way. And so what happened is I just
(07:03):
got this idea that maybe if I moved fast enough
when the alarm rang, that I could move fast enough
and beat the anxiety. That maybe if the alarm rang
and I launched myself out of bed like a rocket ship,
like literally like NASA five four three two one, that
(07:24):
if I launched myself, maybe I wouldn't be in that
bed when the anxiety and the depression and the overwhelm hit.
And it worked, and what it taught me, and this
has been the thing that has really defined a lot
of my career, is that you can build a skill
in life where you learn to not let your emotions
(07:48):
and fears about things dictate what you do. That you
are not defined by how you feel. You are not
defined by your emotion in the moment. I mean, if
you really think about it, you can't be courageous without fear.
You can't display confidence without self doubt.
Speaker 4 (08:03):
One of the things that I say to our daughter
all the time is that courage is not the absence
of fear.
Speaker 2 (08:10):
It's when you do it anyway.
Speaker 4 (08:11):
Yes, so it's not not feeling when we were talking
about our grandparents, so we're talking about taking a test,
you know, like it's not Lelanda not feeling it. That
that's not courage. It's when we feel it and we
do it anyway. I'm curious, what was the what was
that impetus to make you even say to come up
(08:32):
with the.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Okay, yeah, okay, this is so So it's like Okay.
So I was sitting in my living room and the
kids have gone to bed, and Chris again, smart man,
know where to be found.
Speaker 5 (08:45):
And uh, have.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
You ever had a moment where you're giving yourself a
pep talk? I mean, that is a low moment. It's
one thing if you're giving me advice, but if you're
having to talk to yourself.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Right.
Speaker 1 (08:57):
So I'm sitting there, I'm like, all right, that's it, mel.
Speaker 5 (09:01):
Tomorrow morning, it's a new you. Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
You're calling your parents and you're telling them what's happened.
Speaker 5 (09:05):
Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
You're gonna start exercising.
Speaker 5 (09:07):
Tomorrow morning.
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You gotta look for a job. Oh well, I keep
ticking off the list and then I get to and
by God, tomorrow morning, when that alarm rings, woman, you're
not gonna lay there in bed like a human pot roast,
marinating in fear. You are going to get up and
get those kids on that bus. And at that exact moment,
(09:29):
a rocket ship shot across the television screen at the
end of a commercial, and it gave me this hair
brain idea. That's it. It must be a sign from God.
Tomorrow morning, when the alarm rings, I'm just gonna launch
myself out of bed like a rocket ship. Now I
had had four Bourbon Manhattan that night, probably you know
(09:51):
what also opened me up to it. But I actually
do believe it was divine intervention. There is no other
explanation because the eye idea is absurd. And the very
next morning, when the alarm rang, that's what I remembered,
and I tried it, and it changed my life, and
it led to this belief that your one decision away
(10:14):
from a different life, that you still have to do
the work and five four three two one is going
to help you push through.
Speaker 3 (10:21):
The work came out. We all know five four three
two one, right, the world, Yeah, the detective read the book.
We all love it. I actually want to turn it
to you, so it okay. So when those moments happened
that the world now knows that story. Was there a
moment that you saw your mom in that transformation and
(10:42):
you said I want that strength in my life.
Speaker 6 (10:47):
A single moment. Probably not, I feel like I don't
remember necessarily a single moment that was like I want
I want that strength. I want to be as smart,
as brilliant, as confident as her and just so loved.
(11:08):
But I think it was honestly the little things that
added up. I think it was the I think it
was truly like all the small interactions, and I think
overhearing her on meetings and just like all of you
have said, like she's just brilliant and as are you. Oh,
(11:31):
thank you.
Speaker 3 (11:33):
And did you notice that transformation, that moment that she
described from the anxiety, the stress, the to that change.
But candidly like and partially I even love the fact
that there wasn't a moment, because I even not only
changed my question because I think we so often envision
change being dramatic, the heroine arising, the melodramatic music in
(11:58):
the Hollywood moment, and instead maybe it was to your
point of series of small things and that's where the
puff found changes because it adds up.
Speaker 6 (12:05):
Yeah, I think. I mean, I've always looked up to
her more than anyone in the world, and I think
it was hard because she was always gone in high
school and so I didn't really know what she was doing.
I've seen one or two times of her speaking, and
during those times, I was like, Wow, that's my mother
(12:27):
up there and seeing in her element, which was incredible.
Speaker 1 (12:31):
Let me, you can address two things here because I
don't think changing your life is glamorous, and I don't
think anybody notices when you do it right. I think
it's a grueling process. And Chris and I protected our
kids as best we could because I remember the morning
they found us when we had passed out in the chairs,
and I'm like, I can't expose them to this. I
(12:54):
have a responsibility to at least pull it together for.
Speaker 5 (12:57):
Them, and.
Speaker 1 (13:01):
Sawyer is painting the story with a beautiful brush. And
it also created a lot of heartbreak for us, because
ultimately my husband left the restaurant business and was a
full time stay at home dad, and I was off
on the road saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes to
everything I could because I was the breadwinner. And we
(13:25):
went through so many things in our marriage because I
resented the fact that I was in that position, and
I was mad that I was on the road all
the time, and I was scared about our finances. And
I also feel like our marriage is ours, it's not
their business. And so I'm happy to hear that we
insulated them from a lot of it, But the truth
(13:46):
is me not being there created a lot of distance,
and this is a huge issue inside of relationships between
parents and children, the tension between admiring somebody, and also
the mismatch of what I'm providing versus what she needs.
And I did not provide what she needed. I had
certain examples that I gave about hard work, but I
(14:10):
wasn't there, and when I was there, I wasn't present
like a lot of parents that are working, or if
you're a single parent and you're stressed out all the time,
the your kids are the only people that are going
to remember that you worked. No one else is going to.
And I very much regret the amount of time that
(14:30):
I stayed on the road because there came a point
in time where I was making enough money and we
were being super responsible and shoving a lot of it
back into savings, and so we were back in a
safe territory financially that I could have started to have
better boundaries with work, and I didn't, And it did
(14:52):
create a real distance between us because I wasn't there,
and I didn't do a good job because I was
constantly onage, constantly stressed. And there's this thing I've learned
recently that I wish we had all known, because I
would always blame my bad behavior or my bad mood
on work, and that's not an excuse. And one of
(15:16):
the things that I've learned recently that I wish they
would always be, like, don't use that tone with me,
or like just because it happened at work, don't bring
it here. But there's a great way to say this
to somebody, which is I'm really sorry about what your
stress at work did to you, but you're going to
have to apologize for how your work stress is impacting me.
And I was chief offender in that regard of taking
(15:39):
my stress out of my family. Why because I didn't know.
I didn't have the tools yet. I just knew how
to push myself five four three two one five four
three two one.
Speaker 2 (15:49):
Up next the hilarious Larry Wilmore and how he didn't
let failure in the story, he let it help him
rewrite it.
Speaker 4 (16:02):
Now back to my legacy, Laria.
Speaker 7 (16:05):
You've certainly had many ups and downs in your career,
for sure. Often the most important lessons that we learn
come from our challenging times. Can you share what has
been your most challenging experience and what has been emerged
from that experience.
Speaker 8 (16:24):
Yeah, I've had many of them, many times people think
your career is just this line that goes like that,
but it really isn't. Some of my biggest ones was
I was fired from the Bernie mac Show after I
won every word you could possibly win, and I was
in a fight with the network the whole time, and
it was just one of my lowest points, and you know,
(16:45):
I was you know, my personal life wasn't going to
well at the time too. You know, we're trying to
my wife and I were trying to figure out what
was going on, and I just felt so isolated and
just really really down. But I just relied on just
doing the basics. You know. We spent a lot of
time at that point. You know, Laren doesn't know about
(17:05):
a lot of these things, but we just worked on
our marriage for a long time, and doing the work
of that just really helped, you know, we just it
gets you out of the thinking about bad things, you know,
and remembering why I liked the business and going forward.
Getting fired from the Burner Max Show actually opened the
door to me working on the office, to me being
on the Daily show, to me expanding the things that
(17:28):
I wanted to do all along. But you know, I
didn't I was going down that road, and it was
very instrumental for me to be to feel so low emotionally,
but to know that I had love around me. You know,
I had support, guys you have. It was amazing the
outpouring of love of support just from show biz, from luminaries,
people like James L. Brooks. I remember Stephen Boschko reached
(17:50):
out to me people I didn't even know, saying it's okay, Larry,
We're with you, hanging in there.
Speaker 5 (17:54):
You're great.
Speaker 8 (17:55):
You know, the work you're doing is great, let alone
from friends. But the most important thing was family. And
even when my wife and I split, when we were
talking to the kids, we both understood how lucky we
were to have a family that had love first, you know.
And you know, even though you could be going through
difficult times making difficult decisions, if you start there, you
(18:17):
can make you'll be okay in the end. You know,
that's always been my lifeboat. His family. Family's always the lifeboat,
you know, And all the other stuff.
Speaker 4 (18:26):
Is around that now, Larry, I know that it's hard
to select just one project that you would be most
proud of outside of your beautiful children, But is there
one that you felt particularly was significant because of how
many obstacles or setbacks that you had to overcome to
make it happen.
Speaker 8 (18:45):
Yeah. I probably go back to the Bernie Mac Show,
you know, to quote from Dickens. It was the best
of times, it was the worst of times, you know.
So it took me. I'll tell this story real quick.
It took I was in an office where I had
like an overall deal a Disney that had expired, but
I was still going to the office, just waving at
the guard, getting on the last and just kind of
hiding out. Guys, I'm not exaggerating. For four and a
(19:09):
half weeks, I never turned in anything or something. I
wrote the same three pages every day. I could not
get past page three. This is four and a half weeks.
You know I'm gonna get found out. You know they're
gonna realize I'm a fraud. I'm scared. Every day now,
I'm hiding in my office all the time. I just
couldn't get it. Some days I didn't write anything, banging
my head against the wall. And then one day I
(19:31):
was I looked up and I was on page four,
and I was like, oh, and something had clicked, and
it just poured out of me the entire show in
thirty six hours. I couldn't stop writing. It was and
it was during the counting of the votes down in
Florida with you remember Bush in that election. I was
watching that as I'm as I'm typing, and that script
(19:53):
ended up winning an Emmy, you know, a year and
a half later and almost intact from that moment, and
I just had Claire in that moment, you know, I
just it took so hard to get it, but it
just took trust. I was so proud of myself for
doing that and just sticking in there, because I there
could have been many moments. I mean when you're feeling
really low, especially as a creative person, and you feel
(20:14):
all alone, you know, and everyone's going to judge something
you're doing is terrible. I mean, you're going through all
the worst things that every writer has. You feel that
way anyway, It doesn't matter what the project is, you
you know, finally everybody's going to find out that the
piece of craft that I already know that I am,
you know. But when I when I broke through, I
was so proud of the fact that I stuck in there,
(20:34):
and it became like a template for other writers and
that sort of thing, you know, and so I was
very proud of that moment.
Speaker 3 (20:41):
You have played so many iconic roles you obviously, among
the most iconic is the very sarcastic, hilarious Slack seeing
your black Horse Senior Black correspondent of course from the
Daily Show. Can you bring us some of your favorite
memories from those from those.
Speaker 8 (20:59):
Show man so many you know, just working with all
those talented people. I was just so lucky to be there.
I mean, I started right after John Oliver it started
writing rob Rego and also Momby. We all kind of
started at the same time.
Speaker 5 (21:13):
You know.
Speaker 8 (21:13):
My audition was was funny because it wasn't quite an audition,
but I met with John and we had talked about
doing something because that's when I was looking to start
kind of performing again. I was in that transition point
and we thought it would be something fun. We weren't
quite sure. They thought, well, maybe you're like a black Republican.
I was like, no, I don't want to just be
(21:33):
anti South them. And then someone said Senior Black Cords
Final and that just sounded really funny. And so what
they says, we'll write two things and we'll just do
them you know, we'll take we'll tape one and we'll
do the other one in the show. And so we
wrote them. And when you're trying to find it, you're
not sure what you are or what that type of thing,
you tend to overwrite it. And I remember during rehearsal.
Rehearsal went horrible. I mean as a comedian, especially as
(21:55):
a performer. It was just too overwritten and nobody's laughing,
and it's that point where the crew isn't kind of
looking at you because you know, it's like it's like
how you don't name certain farm animals because they might
be food one day, so you don't want to get
too close to them, you like, so making sure they're
not gonna get too close to me. You know this guy,
he may not stick around, and you can just feel
(22:15):
that you're not connecting.
Speaker 5 (22:16):
And so I was kind of down.
Speaker 8 (22:18):
And then I found out, you know, before air, that
they were going to cut one of the pieces we're playing.
I'm like, well, I'm not going to be on this show.
And then uh, they decided to do one piece. And
right before air, John goes through this rewrite and he
says he brought me and he said, hey, man, let's
just go through this, and he said, let's just put it,
just talk it through. And I really just put it
in my voice and I'm working off of John and
(22:39):
we're doing it like that, and we really got it tight.
And right before we went on, I was sitting there
and he said, hey man, I was little numbers. She said,
just look in the camera and just f and give
it to America. That's what he took me. And I
was like, okay. And so the first joke, huge laugh
and as now my comedian in seems to take it over,
like okay, this is like I got you guys know,
(23:00):
and it's like dam bam bam. And now the crew
is likes a brother now, you know, the crew is
like where did this guy can? Where he When did
he sneak in the door?
Speaker 2 (23:09):
You know?
Speaker 8 (23:10):
And I'll never forget that, and I'll never forget John's
generosity knowing that I needed a little boost at that
time and just saying, hey man, don't worry about this.
Just you know what you're doing, you know. And it
was so nice too.
Speaker 2 (23:22):
We're sharing the most inspiring lessons from the voices you love.
Subscribe now. It's the best way to support the show,
and please share with someone in your life who could
really use.
Speaker 3 (23:32):
This right now, now back to my legacy.
Speaker 4 (23:42):
Now, I'm going to turn to your husband, because you've
said in the past that toxic relationships used to be
your drug of choice. I want to know what helped
you finally break that pattern.
Speaker 9 (24:01):
I think what really helped me was really realizing that
the toxic relationship wasn't with the other person, it was
with myself. Like I think that part of the reason
why I was so drawn to people who I felt
like I could save or make better, or who could
ad it worth or value to me if they were
(24:21):
able to be loyal and significant, significantly present in my
life was because I felt so devalued myself.
Speaker 5 (24:29):
I was so insecure myself.
Speaker 9 (24:31):
I was so frustrated with who I was that that
person became a distraction and a trophy that would make
me feel better if ever they would just get it together.
And so I made the pursuit of them my focus
instead of really trying to figure out who I was.
And there was really one thought that really changed my life,
(24:53):
but it was after I we got into a really
bad argument and the police recalled. So maybe more than
argument and I had to go to CPS to just
tell them, like, hey, the kids are okay, you guys
can continue to check in on me, because the police
had been involved. And I was walking out of that
CPS office and I just said, I can do better
(25:14):
than this. I can do better than this. And it
wasn't like I thought, I'm gonna be a New York
Times bestselling author and I'm gonna host an event with
forty thousand people. I meant, I can avoid going to
CPS offices, I can avoid getting so angry that the
police are called on me. I can do better than this.
And I just did what was a little bit better
(25:36):
than that, and then I would get on that level
and I would think I could probably do a little
bit better than this. I moved back home with my
parents and I had the kids, and I thought, well,
if I could just get my own place, and better
and better and better just became my pursuit. Not better
for the pursuit of moments like this, but just better,
(25:58):
because I just felt like, anything is better than this,
you know, anything is better than this. And if to
not pursue better is to move backwards. And I was
moving backwards quickly, and I think that that's what we
have to understand in these toxic relationships, whether it's with
ourselves or.
Speaker 5 (26:16):
With other people.
Speaker 9 (26:16):
Cause you gonna have a toxic relationship with yourself that
makes you just get degree after d d, degree after
degree because you think that's gonna make you feel better.
A toxic relationship that makes you achieve and pour yourself
out every Anyone who's dealing with some type of trauma
that is unresolved may have a toxic relationship somewhere, but better.
It's just I think I can experience better health than
(26:37):
where I currently am, and I'm really grateful for who
I am now on the inside. Like I I've had
all of these different things happen to me. I have
not changed my bio on Instagram. My bio is the
same bio that I ever had, cause like I, you know,
the books are nice, the things are nice, but like
if that ever becomes my bio for me, it just
(26:58):
feels like I I miss something because I'm so proud
of the girl who like finally figured out who Jesus is,
who loves her husband, whose children are her teacher, Like
I'm so proud of who she is that that's what
I want you to know about me more than all
of these things I achieved, because that's what I fought for,
and that's what I thought was never possible.
Speaker 5 (27:15):
The other things are they're just cherries on top.
Speaker 4 (27:17):
Well, let's talk about something that you wrote on Instagram,
because in your getting better and getting better and getting better,
at one point you thought that you didn't you did
not ever want to get remarried. Oh yeah, but then
someone changed your mind. Oh yeah, and this is what
you wrote on Instagram. The vulnerability required to become one
(27:42):
after you fought to become whole is not often discussed.
I had to surrender my identity as a powerful single
mother to discover my power as a married woman.
Speaker 5 (27:54):
Yeah, nasty work. You know. Here's the thing, here's the thing.
Speaker 9 (28:00):
You know. I got to a space where I was healthy,
I'd bought a home for me and my children, and
I thought, this is the dream. Like I thought that
getting married and having the white picket fence was the dream.
I saw that white picket fence just keep falling off
over and over again, and I said, you know what, fine,
I love me and my mindself.
Speaker 5 (28:19):
I'll travel the world.
Speaker 9 (28:20):
I'm still young. Everything will be fine. Then, I met
this man, and in meeting him, I just I love
the way the world looked through his eyes. It was
a compliment to the way the world looked through my eyes.
But it also had so much more vibrancy and color,
(28:41):
and there was so much more care and depth for
people and opportunities. And I thought to myself, I think
that he would make me better. You know, as we
talk about this better better, But I will say that
I underestimated the transformation necessary for me to let go
of the pride of being like, oh my gosh, I
(29:02):
made it. I'm this single mother who bought this house,
and I can make good decisions, and I can take
care of my family. I can bring home the bacon
and fried in a pan. And now I have someone
who's like, hey, I could grab the pan, or hey,
I could bring home the bacon. And I think I
did have a sense of pride and identity connected to that.
I never wanted to need a man again. I never
(29:23):
wanted to feel like my life would fall apart if
something happened.
Speaker 5 (29:27):
And I think in the.
Speaker 9 (29:28):
Resistance of oneness that I could have lost out on
the opportunity to experience the beauty of oneness.
Speaker 5 (29:36):
And so that took a lot of work.
Speaker 9 (29:38):
He's got some battle scars, God bless him. But my
life woman evolved when exists if it wasn't for him,
because his ability to create space for me to dream
and to believe in those dreams and to say they're
not crazy, they're possible, gave me the courage to actually
pursue them. So he's definitely been a north star for
(30:02):
me for many years now.
Speaker 3 (30:05):
I love that you speak to women who are in
the middle of it. I let this term not post breakthrough,
not post glow up. What do you want people to
know about the messy middle of the journey.
Speaker 9 (30:19):
I think that people should know that it's all the
messy middle, you know what I mean. That's that it's
all the messy middle, That there is no there, there
there is no Once I do this, then that once
you get there, you realize that there's another mountain, that
it keeps going, that there's something else that you have
(30:40):
to overcome. So instead of trying to get post anything,
I think the question is how do I find the
better in now? And I think that that has been
one of the things that has really been instrumental for
me is recognizing that there's beauty in the messy middle.
And if I keep moving the goal post, then I'll
(31:01):
never find peace. But if I dare to believe that
there's peace somewhere here, then all I have to do
is start searching for where it exists. Now I just
have gone through enough to I mean, especially if you
think about my life like as a team mother. I thought,
when I get married, then I'll be okay. And then
I got married and I'm like, well, if he would
do this, then I'll be okay. And if we do that,
then I'll be okay. And then I left it and
(31:22):
I'm like, if I could get the house, then I'll
be okay. Then I got the house and I met
this incredible man, and it's like okay. Once I moved
to La then like it just kept moving, and so
it dawned on me this is all a part of
the journey. It's all the messy middle. But I do
believe that our lives can be scripted and cursive. And
I say it can be because a lot of times
(31:43):
we miss out on how things can be woven together,
We miss out on how all things can work together
because we segment our lives. We try to leave some
things behind. I'm gonna pretend like that never happened. I'm
gonna become another person, not realizing that the beauty of
our story is the full weight of our story. And
so if we can collect all of our pieces and
look at the President and say, Okay, this is the
(32:05):
wisdom I have, the experiences I have, how do I
apply it to this moment? I have found that that
is the shovel that we used to find the beauty
in the messy middle.
Speaker 2 (32:15):
Thank you for joining us for the best of my legacy.
New episodes drop every Tuesday. Don't forget to subscribe so
you never miss a moment.
Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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