Jason Wilson on Masculinity, Healing & Wounds Men Don’t Talk About | NXT Chapter With T.D. Jakes - NXT Chapter with T.D. Jakes

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
You do get to pressed sometime, or you do like confidence,
or you do have fears. And I tell brothers all
the time. You must remember Lois Lane fell in love
with Clark Kent and not Superman.

Speaker 2 (00:09):
You're right, welcome to the next chapter. I'm excited to
have you here today. I'm excited about my guests. You
may have heard of him or seen him, recognize his face.
Jason Wilson is an amazing individual. He's been honored in
so many places. He's a motivational speaker, he's an author,
he's a trailblazer. He's almost everything you want name, He's
done some of it. He's a CEO over several organizations

(00:33):
that are bringing life to men in the inner city,
changing the way they interact with their sons and their wives.
And I think all the men are going to listen
in and women you can eavesdrop too. There's going to
be some things we talk about today that may help
you in your situation dealing with your fathers, your sons,
or your husband's I've got your book at home, okay.

(00:58):
I follow you on Instagram. I know that you have
been used in a lot of unique places and unique areas,
and so We've got a lot to talk about today,
so I hope you're gonna give us some real good time. Yes,
how you doing today?

Speaker 1 (01:14):
I'm doing well, feeling fulfilled, and just a lot the
process about life and then you know, pouring into men
and what men need and to make sure I'm real
sensitive to that need and that because I've gone a

(01:35):
little further than I don't leave the brothers behind and
always keep my Oh I'm going forward, always remember to
look back and grab brothers to help them to get
where I am.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
Chapter number one, Navigating Fame. You've been doing these training
sessions for quite a while. What made you start recording them?

Speaker 1 (01:57):
It all started the first viral video came the student Bruce.
His father is a good friend of mine, So the
only reason I recorded it was for them to have
just the memory of his son passing his initiation test,
and I just said, let me share this on YouTube.
This was really powerful because he broke down crying because
he couldn't break the board that was in front of

(02:19):
him with his non dominant hand, and I coached him
through his emotions. He started crying. I dropped to one
knee and identified that we cry as men. Coaching through
his fear of failure, and he ended up breaking the
board and I titled it breaking through Emotional Barriers, and
it went viral and ever since then what was normal
indicave of Adullum God was like, I need for others

(02:42):
to see what's going on there so they can have
it in their own lives.

Speaker 2 (02:47):
We are you surprised that it went.

Speaker 1 (02:49):
Viral, very because it was a normal thing, you know, I,
you know, I started crying. We have a similar I
guess pain and love with our mothers both had dementia.
And so the first time my students saw me cry
was when my wife came into the gym when we
were training and let me know she just had a stroke.
For me, I was the instructor where I was strong

(03:12):
and focused, so they never saw that side of me.
But in that moment, I not only liberated myself, but
I liberated my students and their fathers. And so after that,
the grades started improving their behavior at home because they
were finally able to be human and release the stressful
moments that get released from our bodies when we cry,

(03:32):
and now they had an opportunity to truly express what
was going on inside and as a result, Bishop. We
had several evaluations. In one that I love is that
over seventy eight percent of our students improved their grade
point average in yet one card market without tutoring. And
that was a direct result of just young boys being

(03:55):
able to express what they've been told as young I
mean is to not do, which is don't cry.

Speaker 2 (04:02):
Right, So we all grew up here in that. I'm
amazed because you had the opportunity. I'm sitting beside a celebrity.

Speaker 1 (04:11):
I walked through your hallway. I'm like, wow, I got
one picture. I'm looking at all this. I mean just
I mean, I mean, some of your messages have really
helped me along the journey as I shared with you,
and so I'm humbled any time I hear.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I tried to keep a little space open on the walls,
so let them know I'm not dead yet. You can't
something else good it happens in my life. Speaking of
something good happening in your life, President Obama presented you
with an award. What was that like and what did
you learn from?

Speaker 1 (04:45):
Volunteer Service Award. It was a group of men who
were active in their communities. We were in Washington, d c.
And it was for I forgot how many hours we
had of serving the community. So it was a great
honor to receive that award. What was interesting that as
we were walking into the White House, that was a
day they had the active guvernment, so we didn't get

(05:06):
a chance to meet President Obama because of security reason detail,
so we had to convene reconvene in another place. But
still it was just an amazing time to to be
acknowledged not only by uh his administration, but also the
brothers in the part of the movement that we were
part of.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
So all of a sudden, coming from a background that
didn't look like you'd end up in the White House
and you find yourself your taps are going viral, You're
becoming a household name. The President gives you this award.
How do you see yourself differently now than you did
in the past.

Speaker 1 (05:42):
That's a good question. I you know, Wow, that's a
really good question. I think I still see myself as
a shepherd boy. I'm referring to David, and I say
that because I believe that he wants me to see

(06:05):
myself as one of his kings, and so I'm still
working on that transition because I still love serving intending
God sheep his flock. But I have to understand that.
You know, David still was able to do that as
he transitioned him And so although I still see myself
that way, which is why I stopped for every man

(06:25):
who stops me, I never moved past you know, any
man that's open enough and willing enough to say, man,
your work really helped me. But I also see I
need to make a transition into another place so that
I can help more men. And so I see it
as a plus. And I won't say a negative, but
just I need to evolve again. Real that's been a

(06:47):
challenge for me. You know, it takes I appreciate your message.
One time I didn't know I was me because the
truth of the matter is you can see everybody in
the room except for yourself, and so some of the
most gifted people in whatever area they may be gifted in,
are often the last ones.

Speaker 2 (07:06):
To know it. I find people who applaud themselves too
soon generally don't last long because they don't have the
humility of having that blind spot. That blind spot is
both for pro and the con because on one hand,
it creates humility, but on the other hand. It causes
you not to prepare the way you need to prepare

(07:28):
for how the rest of the world sees you. So
you have presented yourself to the face of the world,
and in fact they show this is us. Took some
of your material ands aired it. I heard it was
without your permission. Is that true?

Speaker 1 (07:43):
Yes, when we worked on an agreement, you know, yeah,
they acknowledged it publicly after the fact and again, and God,
it told me then I be transparent. I didn't want
the cave to really expand. And when that had aired,
and I went in my garage and I saw it,
I couldn't believe my eyes. And I went into the

(08:05):
garage and I sat in a chair and I started crying.
And he told me very clear most how he was like,
if you don't show it, someone else will. I gave
it to you, not for you, And in Detroit, I
gave it to you for all of my people across
the world. And so that was an eye opening for
me that what he is giving me is not mine.

(08:27):
I'm just a vessel to make it happen. And so
that was a double edged sword moment. But I learned
to just surrender and move through insecurities, self doubt, and
fears for his glory.

Speaker 2 (08:43):
So how did you negotiate the contract after they'd already
aired the material? Was that difficult? Were you compensated?

Speaker 1 (08:50):
Yeah, our nonprofit was. It wasn't. If we would have
had the video copyright, it'd been a different story. And
so but it was something, you know, for to help
the work that we do with the young men. But no,
it wasn't like what people would think it was, but
it was something and they publicly apologized for what it happened,

(09:16):
you know. But it hurt a lot, you know, to
see something that God had trusted you with a father
son initiation ceremony for it to be shown and you
had no idea, so that that really hurt and hurt
more importantly bishop it hurt my students and that's what
bothered me the most to see them like, whoa wait

(09:37):
a minute, this is something that we did and yeah,
and what was amazing to see the response on social media,
Like immediately when it aired, people flooded the Facebook page
of the show and said, no, this isn't right. This
is the Cave of Adulam in Detroit. And so it

(09:59):
got me all fairly quick and it was a good
lesson learned on our side.

Speaker 2 (10:04):
So we got the opportunity to work with Larnce Fisher.

Speaker 1 (10:07):
Yes, sir, you know when I I've always loved the
movie The Matrix. That's one of my top three movies
in history. And so he had saw the viral video
and uh, someone at another agency, I think it was
Paradigm at the time, had said, you need to see this.
You know, we're working on a documentary or a docuseries.

(10:29):
So when Lawrence saw it, he was immediately captivated because
he has a passion with restoring rite of passage, not
only in the black community, but in all communities so
that we'll stop having so many grown men still stuck
in their basements. And I never forget our first call
and he was when I heard it was, wow, this
is morphieus.

Speaker 3 (10:50):
He you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
And so I'm listening and so he's, you know, eloquently speaking.
He's like a gentleman like if you know, very definition
of that. So when he finished speaking the introduction, I said,
you know what I said, Man, I'm gonna let you
know I'm your biggest fans. So we just both it
broke the ice and I just said man, I wrote
a curriculum off of so many scenes in the Matrix

(11:13):
to help my boys navigate through their emotions. And he
was like a father on the screen, like training me
because I always longed for that for so many years
growing up. And so for Lawrence to finally meet this
guy that helped me create a lot, he didn't he
had no idea, but the role he played is Morpheus.

(11:34):
I became that guy in so many of my boys' lives,
and I often say everyone wants a kneel, but few
dare to be Morpheust.

Speaker 2 (11:42):
Did you feel the kind of stars strike or had
there been other people that?

Speaker 1 (11:46):
You know? What's interesting, Bishop is when you meet people
like within the first five minutes, you're like, oh, man,
this is such and such, But when you start talking
to him, you realize, like, wow, human being. And so
Lawrence was considered like a brother. Ironically, his name is Larry,
and so I didn't know that at the time that

(12:07):
was my brother who had got murdered young.

Speaker 2 (12:09):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (12:10):
Yeah, and so Lawrence I looked at him after our
initial meeting. I never looked at him like an actor
or any of that. I'll always call him to celebrate
him when he gets a role or a new movie
come out. But he was just my brother and we
had a similar you know, his mother, you know, mental
health as well as same as mine. So we had

(12:30):
a common bond right there. And for him, the way
he take care of his mother is just it's amazing
to see.

Speaker 2 (12:37):
So a lot of people don't realize that people that
they say on television are real people. They think we
are caricatures of the role we play or the messages
we speak, or the way we sing, or they don't
know that does reather who was a friend of mine.
She liked to cook, and she cooked picked feet and

(12:58):
stuff like that. She never her celebrity status go to
her head to the point that she lost sight of
her roots and who she was. Do you have trouble
sometimes balancing who you are inside versus how you are
perceived outside.

Speaker 1 (13:12):
Never, I look at my bank account. Sometimes none of
that really mean anything, you know, And I guess the
main thing bishop is people who approach me don't come
to me like they're starstruck. It's like, thank you for
what you're doing, thank you for the sacrifice. So it's

(13:33):
very easy to stay grounded when you have a strong
man with his family come over to you in tears
saying thank you. So there's no pride there because I
know what happened with you didn't come through me. So
and I've been broken in so many ways. It's like
it's not me. And so now if I was a

(13:54):
hip hop producer, which I used to be in at
Platinum Records and all of that, that's different. But I'm
just a a servant and I know who sent me here.
And when I see men and they hugging me and
the families, I just, I just I thank God for
just choosing to use me. And so don't I don't
have that issue with that. I guess that type of

(14:16):
balance making sure I stay humble. But life in it
of itself, like you're saying, people will see us on
TV or you know, on social media and think it's easy,
but man, we get hit a lot, you know, especially
if you're attacking the enemy. So I know it keeps
me humble, you know, And so I'm thankful for the adversity.

(14:37):
Like David said, before I was afflicted, I went as straight.
But now I keep your word. So that affliction keeps
me humble, and it keeps me grounded, and so I
don't have an issue with that because I'm humble and
I'm by his grace. I know it's his grace every
day that I make it.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
Chapter number two, Hard Life. You have had a very
interesting life and an extremely rough childhood. Tell me a
little bit about some of those rugged places as a
boy growing up that helped shape you into the man
that you are today.

Speaker 1 (15:19):
When one I would go back to before I was
even born, when my grandfather was lynched in nineteen leave
thirty five and fourth Piers, Florida. He was beaten by
the police there and then lynched just for wanting to
be treated as a human being. After that had happened,
my mother and her family were ostracized by the ostracized

(15:40):
by the black community because everyone was in fear that
they would come to them and they wanted to make
sure that there'll never be another Estes write who was
my grandfather. So they racially terrorized my family, and that
trauma passed down through my generation and I saw it.
So that was my first time seeing, you know, such

(16:01):
deep sadness and sorrow and depression. And like I said,
my brother was murdered when I was three years old,
at a formative year during my formative years, something stopped.
So my mother loved me and was very affectionate. But
when he got taken away, my neighbor said that she
was like in a deep depression and not for the

(16:23):
community rallying around her, my mother probably wouldn't have made it.
And so that lack of affirmation and attention that I
needed from my mother during my formative years affected me
and made me into a loaner, and that prohibited me
from truly like expressing how I feel as a man
even today. But growing up, you know, my brothers being

(16:47):
slapped with the flat size of butchernized by their fathers.
I saw the effects of that through their fears, their depression,
and I said, you know what, I don't want to
I don't want this to be my story, Like, yeah,
we're going to experience trauma, but it doesn't have to
be my experience in life. And so I fought really

(17:09):
hard to do the introspective work needed to heal. And
I'm still going through the journey. And then growing up
and my father, who I wouldn't say he's a rolling stone,
but I had a brother that had no idea I had.
They kept us apart for a reason I heard that.
My mother didn't want to bring him in, you know,

(17:32):
because she was concerned how it would affect the family.
But he and I finally met, and unfortunately his life
was taken when he was twenty seven. He was in
drugs millionaire and so that was another brother I lost.
So I thought my life would be one of losses.

Speaker 2 (17:52):
So your grandfather was murdered, your brother was murdered, Your
father was murdered.

Speaker 1 (18:01):
My father's son, your father. So yeah, Keith, Yes, So
I had another brother, so they would say he's my
half brother. He was murdered.

Speaker 2 (18:08):
He was murdered. Yes, How when you look at that situation,
you talk about the way your mother changed and how
you felt about it, created a mother of wound, for
lack of a better word, in your heart and in
your life. Did you go through therapy? Are you going
through therapy? How is that working for I.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Think I'm always going through therapy, honestly, you know, But yeah,
I you know, honestly, you know. I started therapy in
two thousand and fifteen when I realized I had a
lot of unresolved anger and I was in jeopardy of
losing my marriage, and so we did a deep dive
and it changed a lot for the good. But my

(18:53):
mother wound. I didn't realize I had until recently because
I didn't understand why had such difficulty being affected to
my wife beyond you know, being intimate. And my psychotherapist
helped me trace back all the years when if I
got injured, I had to go get to band aid

(19:13):
myself and do these other things because my mother, her
brain was wired to love me. Because my mother, anyone
who knows my mother and my relationship, she loved me.
But she was guarded, justifiably so because she had just
she had lost a son, and so she's like, I'm
gonna love you, but I'm scared to really trust you
with my not trust you, but trust I would even

(19:36):
say God at the time with her heart, like because
I don't want to be hurt again. And so because
of that, I really didn't get her affection and love
like I longly desired until she developed dementia, until she
was able to finally forget what happened to her and
her family because she now live in a moment and bishop. Honestly,

(20:00):
it's hard for me to remember anything outside of the
last seven years of me caring for her with dementia,
because that's something I longed for as a boy and
even as a man, to really finally, I mean, I'm
forty two years old. I would sit with my mother
and lay my head on her shoulder because of the

(20:21):
weight that I carry and what I do. No words
were spoken, but just for her to hug me was
something I really desired. And I learned from the truth
that as long as we hold on to it and
we don't cast it to God, it's not impossible, but

(20:41):
it makes it that much more different to live in
a moment.

Speaker 2 (20:45):
You've got quite a bit unpacked there, because a lot
of men have anger toward their mother's to unresolved issues
that they will not express to their mother, but they
and the rage on the wife, and so mother wounds

(21:05):
turn into domestic violence or rage in the house. Do
you think that the catalysts of your rage and the
trouble in your marriage was a way of venting some
of the things you couldn't express as a boy about
your mother.

Speaker 1 (21:18):
Absolutely, And also I don't leave my father out as well.
You know, grew up in the same city, but wasn't
really actively in my life, and very harsh because the
way he was raised. You know, they were paring it.
Discipline was the way, but discipline only kept us from
getting in trouble in front of you. But we just
figured out another way to continue to do what we
wanted to do. But most definitely Bishop, I remember being

(21:42):
in the kitchen and my wife was just conveying that
she want to spend more time with me and I
cause I expressed, man, I wish I had more time
to spend with my son, and she simply said, you know,
I wish you had that same desire to spend with me.
I heard from my wounds that this is something else
I'm not doing.

Speaker 4 (22:00):
Right.

Speaker 1 (22:00):
Here we go again, and I started yelling, and I
hit the refrigerator and put a dent in the refrigerator.
And that's the first time and the last time I
saw my wife's spirit decrease in front of me. And
I vowed from that day forward that my wife would
never feel like that in my presence around a man
that she should be able to be transparent with and

(22:24):
feel safe with. And in that moment, I realized that WHOA,
I have a lot of unresolved anger, as you were
just saying. And that's when I left it all on
the field, I said, I will never make her ever
feel that way ever again. But more importantly, I didn't
never want to express that anger on anyone like that,
And so I did the work to resolve it. And

(22:45):
thankfully my father will and my mother are healed. Are
they're still like moments for moments, yeah, I mean they exist,
you know, like man, Dad, I like finances. I wish
you would have taught me more. But then I don't
judge him because he didn't know. He was just taught
to work, not invest. And so when I teach young boys,

(23:08):
you know, you got to learn how to forgive your
parents as well. Everyone has a cause and effect. And
once I realized that, and that's how I'm able to
work with boys with such patients. There's a reason for
the way this young man acts.

Speaker 2 (23:22):
You know. Forgiveness is important. It does a lot to
subtle and resolve some of the conflict we have inside,
But it doesn't fill the hole in the void from
the things she didn't get. It just stops you from
bleeding out of us. It's good, so you forgave him,
but it still does not leave fix the deficit that

(23:42):
you have in your life. Wishing you had had somebody
in front of you to kind of guide you and
instruct you a little bit more. Do you find as
you get older that boy wound, that childhood wound, that
issue that you had to process prematurely. Nobody three years
old should have to process that kind of stuff. Three
to ten years old, you had a lot of people

(24:03):
to die, a lot of trauma to come into your life.
Now you're at an age where it's almost impossible to
get that void field because now they see you as
a man. But you go home and lay down with
that boy, how do you process? How do you work

(24:24):
on him? When I see you working on these other
boys in some way? Are you working on that boy
in you with them?

Speaker 1 (24:34):
Excellent? Man, that's excellent. I mean you hit it right
on the head. Often say inside of every grown man
as a broken boy. And so I yeah, they helped
me heal. You know, they think I teach them, but
I'm learning more from them as well. The boy you
see crying from a lack of confidence, I go back
and heal little Jason. In that moment, I tell him

(24:55):
exactly what I wish that I had heard, And so
in that moment he only hells. But I find more
healing as well.

Speaker 2 (25:03):
Chapter number three, Releasing the Lion. So you've done everything
from produced hip hop to martial arts to some of everything.
I mean, you're theologically astute, articulate, well versed, do a

(25:23):
lot of research on original languages, and it comes through
when you speak, and you seem to be quite knowledgeable
about some of everything, earthquakes and everything else. I mean,
you got everything that stuff in there in a short
period of time, in a short period of time. How
much of that is education and how much of it

(25:47):
is desperation to fill that hole?

Speaker 1 (25:57):
That's really good bisure, I would say more so desperation
and then revelation, like, you know, something divinely that came
the guy gave me to create to solve a problem.
So yeah, I studied, but yet so much was divinely given.

(26:18):
And then you can't forget the experience piece as well.
You know, you can find someone who studies, you know, books,
but if they haven't applied any of what they learned
to real life and tested it, you know, does it
really work? You know? I test everything that I study,
my experiences. I want to make sure that these principles
line up across generations and so most definitely it came

(26:42):
from a desperation to give misguided in my community black
boys what I longed to have as a young boy myself,
and that was a man that they could trust, have
an allegiance to, someone who would challenge them but won't
condemn them. And so that process is took me about
eighteen years to develop the cave overdeal them to what

(27:02):
it is today. But most definitely came from I wouldn't
say desperation is good, because we were in dire need definitely,
like in the early two thousands. But I would say
a deep desire to help these boys navigate through the
pressures of this world without succumbing to their emotions.

Speaker 2 (27:20):
I had got. I had got to interview me at
one time, and right in the middle of the interview
he said, you seem not to know that you're TDS Jakes. Okay,
I got that same feeling sitting here with you. You
seem like you don't really know the magnitude of who

(27:42):
you have become. On one hand, that reads us humility,
But I wonder, on the other hand if some of
that for me it worked out to be detrimental in
a way because not seeing who I will made me
not protect who I was, okay, because I was so

(28:06):
engrossed with the pain of my past that I didn't
guard the power of my presence. Okay. So it's hard
for me to sit here and see that so definitive
and not express it to you and not take this
opportunity to say it might be good to kind of

(28:30):
do a little research into who you are now and
not just reflect on who you were then, but also
understanding how you must guard who you are now, because otherwise,
in other words, as we don't, you end up getting

(28:50):
abused all over again because you're preoccupied with taking care
of that boy and to the detriment of taking care
of the brand that you're building, the person you're becoming,
the way the world sees you. And I know you
see all of you, but we only see the finished
product of you. And if you're not careful, you're the

(29:12):
same thing that happened with this is us that starts
happening in every area of your life. Because you don't
know that it's gold. You think it's just pain, And
I wonder sometimes, have you ever had anybody tell you
that what you have been given is gold?

Speaker 1 (29:33):
First, I thank you for sharing that that's a real
that's a struggle I have of truly embracing the lion.
Like it feels like I'm in a cage, but it's
what The door is open and God is like, I
need that lion to come out. And there's so many

(29:55):
other like stories I could share that shape that lion.
Uh well make him stay in the cage longer than
he should. But you're absolutely right, like not only knowing
who I am, but whose I am, like really like
he could tell me some days God to say, you're

(30:15):
not acting like my son. It reminds me of the
scene from Coming into America when the Father came like
you're living like this, what are you doing? And so
I appreciate you sharing that because that's my next evolution
is like embracing who He created me to be in
in its fullness and not fearing being powerful. Do you

(30:41):
know what I mean, Biship? Like I never I want
to use power to free people, but a lion, you
can't free people if you're in your own cave. And
so I know I feel the power, I feel his anointing.
And it's similar to like with David when he ran

(31:03):
into his cave even though we know he was running
from Saul, but remember he would be he was he
was going to be the second king ever and the
first one failed horribly. So just the pressure behind that
alone and then to know like I'm in trusted with
something and you have I have to have that lion
fully released.

Speaker 2 (31:24):
Yeah, because the odd thing about it is on stage
dealing with other people's pain. You're very powerful, very strong,
very absolute, very definite, very sure of yourself, very confident.
You don't shrink back from the mic, No a hold
back from the individual. Your your bowl. And to use
that term alpha mail. You have that kind of aggressive nature,

(31:46):
but when it comes to talking about yourself, you shrink.

Speaker 1 (31:52):
Can I I'll be honest with you. My desire is
the opposite of what I do. You know, remember Paul
said he wavered between two opinions whether I go home
with the Lord to stay here with the people, and
he chose to stay with the people of God. That's
my wavering like whenever I have to do something for him,

(32:17):
Lion free runs. Anyone speaks against him or hurting someone,
the bullying or a widow and need or a homeless
person lying comes out free. Strong. Myself is like I'm
serving you, and when you're ready, I'm coming home. And

(32:37):
that's just the honest to y'all truth. It's when I
wake up and I pray to seek after his heart,
and I imagine him looking at this world today. I
don't see a joyous God. I see a grieving one
because of the state of this world. And my heart

(33:01):
is connected to that. And I see the pain the
heart you're looking in the kids eyes they're crying, and
me and accomplishes their eyes. And if finally free into
crying and hugging and holding so much pain, I can't.
I never denounce my call, but it's heavy. And you
know exactly what I'm talking.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
About, Yes, I know exactly. Yeah, it is very important.
It becomes very important to us to lead the purpose
driven life and to help other people respond to their pain,
in part because in some ways saving them is saving us.
We relate to them, we understand them. But on the

(33:42):
other hand, I later learned that some of that living
for others' needs is a hidden form of low self esteem.
It's like everybody's worth saving, but you and and I
kind of want you to think about that. I had

(34:04):
plans say this is not my card.

Speaker 1 (34:07):
I need it you know, I do it so much
for others. Yeah, that aren't planned in podcasts. So I
appreciate you you sharing this.

Speaker 2 (34:15):
Yeah, it seems like everybody is more important than you.
And so the planning and the attention and the focus
and the depth that that that you give away you
also need and maybe didn't get as a child and

(34:37):
somehow have trouble receiving as a man. And I'm wondering
how much your life would change if you would give
to you what you give to us. M Yeah, I
receive that.

Speaker 1 (34:56):
I mean, you know right now, I h you know
your message when you said you're not tired and you
have an empty cup, say you're empty. And for so
long because I'm a soldier, you know, I'm not concerned

(35:19):
about anything but what he wants me to do. But
he told me recently, especially through a mentor, I need
you to give that same attention to yourself and so
and I know it, and I'm after you know this,

(35:41):
I'm stopping till the end of the Year's the focus
on me, And so I thank you for sharing this
because it's confirmation and and not to get back here,
you know where it's like one of my therapists told
me you have nothing to prove, and he wasn't saying

(36:03):
any way, like I'm all that, but like, can you
just know what you said? Look at what you've done.
Why are you still doing it this way? And God
is moving you here? And that's why I'm taking a
hard stop. Yeah, because the whole name of the podcast

(36:26):
is next chapter, and we keep having next chapters. And
when we embark on our next chapter, sometimes our previous
chapter makes it difficult for us to turn the page
and fully embrace the next chapter, because the next chapter
is new, and the next chapter is uncertain, and the
next chapter can be frightening, and the next chapter doesn't

(36:48):
necessarily fit the narrative of the previous chapter. And for
all of those reasons, we find it more comfortable to
stay within our comfort zone. But God is not interested
in us being comfortable. He's interested in us being challenged.
And if we stay where we're comfortable, we do it
to the detriment of growing into who we could be.

(37:10):
And we still have a chance to be if we
can embrace the idea that, in fact, I'm worth it.
Not just you have no problem with God, He's worth it.
You have no problem with the young boys and the

(37:31):
boy on his father's back.

Speaker 2 (37:32):
You see it good. But I expected to talk to
that guy. When I sat down and start talking to you,
I was throwing it back a little bit because I
don't see that guy when it comes to you. You're
hanging out with Lawrence Fishburn, You're doing all these amazing things.
You're doing this documentary, You've been to the White House,

(37:55):
you received all those wards. So you talk about it
like you're talking about French fries. Yes. Yes, the only
thing that you talk about was zeal And. Passion always
had something to do with your wife, or your kids,
or somebody you helped. And I'm wondering about you. I'm
wondering if there's anybody in your life who ever asks

(38:17):
you how are you?

Speaker 1 (38:22):
That's rare. Yeah, my wife, of course, and you know
my brother Ron with check. But it's it's very rare.
And I have a few men around. But I asked
that question more than I hear it. And you know,
but also I own that too, as I ways share

(38:45):
with men. You know, if you look like Superman, they
don't think you can do superhero stuff twenty four seven.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
The only problem with being looking like Superman or I
find this as being a big man six two. Nobody
nobody picks up a guy a six foot two. Okay,
you don't get the passion that four foot eight would get.
You don't get the concern your body imates, your body language,

(39:13):
the way that you carry yourself does it almost counteracts
what you really need.

Speaker 1 (39:20):
That's true. I often say, who towd the toe truck?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Yeah? Exactly, Yes, who tows the toe truck? That's a
great way to describe it. And I think you have
to be intentional about finding people in your life who
are self assured enough to tow you. The therapy gives

(39:43):
us part of it. It gives us language for our pain.
It helps us to sort through the rubbish of our
memories and put them in order and index and foul
and categories and so forth and so on. But if
we stop with naming it, and we don't move on

(40:05):
into turning the page to living the light that all
of that affords us to live because all of those were,
all of those painful, horrific things that we just talked
about were down payments on a better future. Yes, so
you paid the price. I'm going to go old school

(40:26):
and say you paid for the layaway but you never
came to pick up the content.

Speaker 1 (40:31):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (40:33):
So for you, turning the page, in my view, means
embracing your now and your next and planning out dreaming
about what that should be, and considering yourself worthy not
just because you love to do it for other people,
and not just because you care about other people, which

(40:54):
is wonderful, not just because you love God, which is wonderful.
But I also think you have to love you. Yeah,
chapter number four, Growing older.

Speaker 1 (41:07):
You know, I recently had an MRI of my lower back.
I've too her needd this T ten and eleven, but
I always feared getting an MRI my lord back. From
all the martial arts training, the falls and the throes,
I knew something was wrong, and that's why I appreciate
you sharing this because I recently came to conclusion that,

(41:30):
you know, my moment on the mats is done almost
because my body can't take it. And so that's a
form of self love or self maintenance as well as
saying time is up here doesn't mean my time is
up here. But like you were saying, this chapter is over,
and that's very difficult for many men, especially like when

(41:54):
you've lived. If the chapter was maybe eighty pages in
the book as a hunt your pages that you know, if
eighty pages was one chapter, you feel and now you've
got to close all of this to transition. That was
difficult for me to hear from my doctor, but at
the same time loving myself enough to say I was

(42:20):
faithful and I trust you that where I'm going will
be better, you know, And that's where I'm at now.
It's I say, self love is hard for me to
just say. But self maintenance we kind of gather because
we used to maintaining. But self love is really important

(42:40):
because we are fearfully and wonderfully made and in his eyes,
we're extremely valuable. And you're right, we can allow the trauma,
the experiences to define our worth when those are just
experiences and they were meant to shape you, not become
your story per se like this, like people will say
that cable with elements your life story, and I was like,

(43:02):
I'm not dead yet. Can you say that I could
do something in three years that you were saying, Wow,
that's his life story.

Speaker 2 (43:10):
So yeah, even with by the way, we have a
whole lot in common. I had a laminactivey between L
four and L five, so I went through the side
because I had all the pains of that. I went
through the surgery, the slow recovery. I had to preach
in a chair, I couldn't stand up, and I wasn't

(43:32):
sure that I would ever be the same again. I
had some problems with my vocal cords, lost my whole
upper range, and wasn't sure I would be able to
talk again. And anytime something threatens the things that we
think that we're good at, if we're not careful, we
decide we're no good because we only think we're good

(43:56):
as long as we are doing, rather than being yes, sir, Okay,
my wife will I'll be away from home or on
the road to traveling somewhere, and she said, I means
she maybe I can't wait for you to get home.
And I rush home, thinking it's gonna be one thing,
and you know, as you just read the book, you know,
over the corner, and it's got on my nerves. I thought,

(44:20):
she just wants me to be here. And one day
I asked myself, what's wrong with that? Yes, sir, performance
is not greater than presence. Yes, so if you if
you're back, never will do what it used to do.
That doesn't make you any less a man. And I

(44:40):
think in the part in the process of aging, we
have to redefine what living is and find the beauty
of the season that you're in, rather than glorifying the
springs and hating autumn, because the leaves all fall for everybody,

(45:01):
evolved for everybody, but there's nobody helping us to bridge
that got between then and now. And there's something in
the now that is just as spectacular as everything in
the past was, if you will take time to see it.
One time, while I was meditating, it came to me

(45:26):
that your definition of happy is too small. That stayed
with me for months. Your definition of happy is too small.
So if you define yourself as happy through martial arts
and serving people and speaking and doing things like that,
and that's it, you close up the possibilities of all

(45:49):
the other things that might be in the next chapter
waiting on you, and you don't fully maximize the chapter
that you're in because you're still grieving over the chapter
that you passed. And for me, I sense a certain

(46:10):
grief that once again, whether it's because of the death
of your brother or whether it's because of the back
going out once again, you're not getting what you need
as a person, and nobody else can give you that. Yes,

(46:35):
you have to give yourself that. That was a great
lesson for me. One you have to give yourself that,
and two you have to be willing to discover other
forms of greatness and pleasure that fit the season you're in. Yes,
the leaves have all fallen off the tree, there are
no nests and there are any birds in the fall,

(46:58):
and the weather has changed and you need a sweater.
But wow, that's kind of nice too. That's kind of
nice too. So as we age, we have to get
to the point that we embrace the gray. It's why

(47:19):
I wear my gray. I see you were yours too.
I earned this gray, and I'm not gonna paint it.
I'm gonna wear this gray because every strand of it
says something about something I went through to get there.
But I have to brush it. I have to love it,
I have to like it. I have to take care
of it. And that's just symbolic of how you have

(47:42):
to take care of who you are now rather than grieve.
I can't do martial arts anymore. I'm living. To serve
other people is a subtle way of saying my only
purpose is then yeah, and not me.

Speaker 1 (48:03):
That's really good. As you're speaking, I'm thinking of so much.
Even when I got the diagnosis and I called my assistant, Chris,
who leaves the cave now, I cried and I told him,
I said, you got it, you know, and I needed
this to get out your way. You know, It's like

(48:26):
with Moses and Joshua. Moses was still living. They say
he was a man full of vigor, then boom, could
you imagine if he was still living in half of Israel?
Probably would have stayed on the other side with Moses.
And so the secession plan you're speaking of, like what's next,
that needs to be established, and I believe that's just

(48:47):
where I'm at now, like what's next? And I poured
so much into Chris. He has it, and I'm like son,
I told him, I say, mistakes are great teachers. That's
how I built this entire building through mistakes, right. And
then to your point about just focusing on me, it
brought back the memory of me losing my best friend

(49:07):
Daryl to a heart attack. That was my weightlifting partner.
When I wanted to get big, I went to the gym.
I said well, this is what I want to look like.
I'm working out with dude fifteen years, no argument, sweeping
up dust on a job with us, passes out, dropped in.
I lost the love for working out because I saw, like, man,

(49:29):
I'm in. I used to be like two fifties strong
rep three fifteen on the bench. This is all vain.
My f my friend could lift the two hundred pound
dumbbells and pressed. I mean, like, what is it for?
But God, it's like no, no, no, that was a tragedy.
But you don't live your life there, Jason, right, And
so I'm working my way back there as well, you know,

(49:52):
And you're right when you start, when you start collecting
these losses like badges of honor, right, that's when it
becomes a problem.

Speaker 2 (50:01):
And the other thing, too, is when we grew up
with absentee father and daddy issues, we didn't have older
age modeled for us correctly. So sometimes we get older
but we don't really know how to do it. And

(50:22):
we yearned to be who we were because we knew
how to do that. And there were several things that
we did well that we were very proud of, and
those things are being taken away from us with age,
and nobody has modeled for us. You don't know how
to fother you, and they're still in abandonment there that

(50:43):
you fill up with serving other people. And what I
am saying to you is there's a whole, big, beautiful
world on the other side of growing older. Yes, I

(51:03):
mean it's a magnificent world that you'll miss having an
inner tempered pantrum about not being as young as you were.
You will miss being proud of your brain because you're
not able to lift your body weight anymore. You'll miss

(51:25):
being amazing moments that anybody would just go crazy about.
You trivialize them. So you are much more articulate about
what went wrong than you are about what went right.
But says to me, you don't drink from the waters

(51:47):
of what went right like you drink from the waters
or what went wrong. And I think you have to
be intentional about that. Yes, I had to be intentional
about it. I'll be transparent. I had to be intentional
about finding the joy of being sixty eight versus twenty eight.

(52:09):
I had to be intentional about how I talked to
myself about me when nobody's around. Okay, myself talked. Yes,
I found out that I was feeding myself poison and
wondering why I couldn't breathe. And anytime you talk to
yourself in a way that almost belittles where you are

(52:30):
because you long for where you've been, and you're grieving, grieving, grieving.
Your life is full of grief. Your best friend died,
your brother died. You had all these losses in your life.
Your mother was absent, your father was gone. You've had
a lot. You've got a master's degree in losing stuff,

(52:52):
and so you have given yourself to everybody else because
you've not had a moment in your life that you
talk much about where you were on the receiving end
and you were important, and you were you were the
star of the moment, and you you you were celebrated.
And when you do have those moments, you don't receive them. Well,

(53:16):
you skip over them all, you know. Uh, it was
just Lawrence Fisher and it was just I was just
hit the right eyes, you know, Yeah, almost running away
from from the joy of reflection on what you have accomplished. Yeah,

(53:38):
does it resonate with you?

Speaker 1 (53:40):
Does it resonate you? To talk to my wife? Boy,
I got it here. Yes, it resonates. That's why right
the way I do because I know it and you're
right about the pain. But the other side is the joy.
And I was just with my therapist and he says,
you know what thinkless hobby do you have? And I

(54:03):
started naming it. Used to be martial ros, used to
be this Marshals turned into the cave of Adellum music
turned into Christian hip hop ministry. The guitar. I wanted
to be able to play in the praise and worship,
and I said, wait a minute, everything that I do
turns into a mission. And that's that's a problem. Why

(54:24):
am I doing that? Like I can perform for God
almost Because you're right that Father won a lot of
us look at God the same way. You know he's
not He's not nowhere near like earthly Father's period. And
so no, yeah, yes it resonates. I mean when my
wife watched this, she gonna say.

Speaker 2 (54:46):
Thank you.

Speaker 1 (54:46):
I'm serious, because you know we're here from my wives
and I'm very open with her. She you know, I
have no fear of telling her even when I'm nervous
or anything. We have that type of relationship. But I know,
deep inside God is like, there's so much more if
you just take another step. And that's why I tell

(55:07):
men who beat themselves up about not being this perfect man.
I'm like, brother, there is no master level in man
that as you said, I got to learn how to
be an older man and hopefully one day grandfather and
accepting it and embracing just to change. And so I
really appreciate you for sharing this because when I say,

(55:29):
this is something he's been telling me this entire year,
like I love you, You're good enough, got you right,
and to celebrate like another one of my books passed
over one hundred thousand sales, and you know in the
book industry, average books are like four hundred copies. I made.

(55:51):
I had the plaques made and took it to the
frame shop for them to frame up so I can
put it on my wall to say, this is something
I was able to accomplished, right, And so I am
although I'm in that direction walking. I appreciate you because
now it's inspire me to run.

Speaker 4 (56:11):
Right, And so I thank you for that. Yeah, because
if you bring the fullness of your brain from the
times I've heard you speak into the presence of who
you are now, it's going to be absolutely amazing. And
you bring the fullness of your brain to us. You

(56:34):
just don't bring it to you. You just don't bring
it to you, and you don't seem to feel like
you deserve it. And so you keep finding other people
to give the love too, and you travel across the

(56:55):
country to give yourself to them, but sit at home
and won't get yourself to you. And and I understand
the symptoms because I've been through it. Yes, okay, I've
been through it. I've been through taking care of my mother.
We have a whole lot of common. You know, my
mother had Alzheimer's. I brush home and feed her and

(57:15):
sit up and feed her. And I'm very proud that
I got to do that, Yes, because I got to
show her that if the shoe were on the other foot,
I would do for her what she did for me.
And to come around full circle and have the privilege
of proving to her that I would do every little
dirty thing that she did. Watched me, babe me, sit

(57:38):
me up, clean me up. You know that that I'm
not too good to do any of that because she
gave me that, and I got to give it back
to her. Yes, that that that cre that finished the circle,
that that that did something for me, that that I
was proud of, and that wasn't but it also my
greatest lessons were taught people who were dying. I was

(58:01):
raised by dying father. My father had kidney failure, and
I could ride a I could run a kidney machine
and couldn't ride a bicycle, so I know about taking
care of people. I took care of him till he died.
My mother died, and my arms lived in my house.
So much filled my house that after she died, I
moved because I could still see her all over the house.

(58:28):
I did everything I could, so I understand what you've seen,
because Alzheimer's takes him away in pieces. You lose him
in layers, like peeling back an onion, till they can't
remember anything except their childhood or fragments of moments. And

(58:50):
it is the slowest agonizing death imaginable, and you can't
stop it. When they start sundowning in the evening and
they get agitated, yeah yeah, yeah, yeah, sundowning and uh

(59:11):
and they start getting agitated, and how you you.

Speaker 2 (59:14):
Have to say, did you see that bird over there?
And you draw their mind completely away from it. They
start looking at the bird, and you have to be
you have to do all of that. But when you
get them in the bed and you go back to
your bed, you say, that's all this left of my mama.

(59:35):
So you had repetition of losing and being strong enough
to persevere and be there for everybody else, but you
never got.

Speaker 1 (59:47):
To spoil you.

Speaker 2 (59:49):
And so in the second half of your life, I'm
suggesting one that getting to spoil you will help you,
and nobody can do it for you, but you yes,
and it will tear up your marriage. Expecting to get
from your wife what you should have got from your mother,
what you should have got from your father, what you
should have got from your friend, what you should have
got from everybody. That's too much to put on one person.

Speaker 1 (01:00:13):
They can't do it. It's unfair.

Speaker 2 (01:00:16):
So you have to do the hard work of finding
out what would make me happy and doing it, and
then doing it. You're making the time to do it,
scheduling it, even when it means saying no to somebody
who needs you, invalidates the fact that that you matter. Yes,
does that make sense?

Speaker 1 (01:00:36):
Make a lot of sense.

Speaker 2 (01:00:38):
So I think when you start thinking about next chapter,
I would love to look at the canvas of your
life and show you how much you're missing, like I
whispered in your ear down, how much you're missing of
your life, how much you're not dignifying with the importance

(01:00:59):
and the relevance that you should have, because you don't
see the beauty of the stage you're at. Now. You
went viral. You you got major networks picking up your material,
doing your stuff, people seeking out your help on every level,

(01:01:19):
want to do documentaries and all of that. And I
don't think you let that soak in because you never
had it before. Now you get to let that soak in.

Speaker 1 (01:01:34):
I had nothing to say. I'm receiving it. It's yeah,
it seemed like you and Nicole was my wife, got
on the phone, I and my children, you know, I
you know, I'm I'm excited, you know, like man if

(01:01:56):
I when I get to that point in the process
not losing myself, in the process of helping others, and
they could see, Wow, Okay, thank you for helping me
break free from emotional incarceration. But I also want so
many joy too.

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
Chapter number five forgiving our fathers.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
You know the create, don't you? Yes, Yes, I was
on the show, and he asked me, you know, what
do you have? What is your signe? You know that
you will see that you're evolving. And I tell my
wife this too. When I can freely dance with you,
that's when I know I've really embraced the fullness of

(01:02:43):
everything that every you know, the good, the bad, and
accepting it so much that I'm liberated in a way
where it doesn't even matter if I miss a step
or whatever. I'm in this moment and embracing every aspect
of it.

Speaker 2 (01:02:59):
I was listening that to music one day in the
shower and I found myself dancing in the shower and
I don't think I've ever done that before. And I thought,
this is what happy feels like. This is what service
feels like. This is what a mission feels like. Not

(01:03:20):
this is what a message feels like. This is what
waiting to be happy with just you.

Speaker 1 (01:03:27):
Yes, I get that feeling bishop in the mornings, getting
a vegan muffin and some tear or some coffee and
you have that window where it's just serene and it's
like no one's calling me, no nothing to do, and

(01:03:48):
I can just chill here for a moment. I'm thankful
I get to experience that every day. But to your point,
there's so many more moments of that if I just
embrace the blessings in the.

Speaker 2 (01:04:02):
Moment, right to have the courage to dream again.

Speaker 1 (01:04:07):
Uh.

Speaker 2 (01:04:08):
Sometimes when you lost a lot of things, you don't
birth anything else because you figured you might lose it.
And uh, it's the same thing your mother went through. Yes,
we relive our parents trauma. M So you neglect your

(01:04:29):
baby because you don't want to throw your heart at
it because it might death.

Speaker 1 (01:04:37):
Even my dad to some extent his heartache and pain.
It took for him to be bed ridden with Parkinson's
disease for me to hear that he loved me. But
I heard it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:48):
You know what was that like when you heard?

Speaker 4 (01:04:50):
Man?

Speaker 1 (01:04:51):
I so he was called to be a pastor and
he was. He ran from its cause he told God,
you got the wrong guy and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
Done work.

Speaker 1 (01:05:02):
And so I had, in that moment the Holy Spirit
say tell your father, thank you for being the dad
I needed. I'm like, what are you talking about? You
know I needed a different dad. But what he was saying, no,
he was what you needed to get you to where
you are. So I told him that and pray. We

(01:05:22):
prayed together and as I was walking out, I heard
heavy breathing. I turned around. He was crying. That's the
first time I ever seen my father was no joke,
like serious man, like no one ever tested my dad.
He was weeping and walk over to him. My wife
is tears. I say, what's going on? Dad? He was like,

(01:05:46):
I love you, son. So to hear that at thirty
seven years old, it frees so much, and like you're saying,
you know, I had to ask he publicly apologized to him,
because you know we'll be so hard on our father's

(01:06:06):
And I said, Dad, you know you did the best
you could for me. And in those moments, you know,
like you say, if you keep looking at the bad,
you missed the good that a person done. And I
went on a retreat one day to work on his
father womb and I remember the words, the times he
was and yeah, he wasn't there a lot. But when

(01:06:26):
he did apologize, he didn't know how to say how
we do today? It was through a game with ten
dollars a son. He loved me, but he verbalized it
when I was thirty seven, and just to understand it.
When I finally knew his cause and effect. I was
able to forgive more and more, and so I know,

(01:06:48):
as men, once we can move past the past. Right,
Like I said, time travel will stay there. I mean,
trauma will stay there. We keep it there. It only
can come to the present if we allow it. The
time travel right, right. And that's the hardest thing because
like you're saying, if I see something else that's good coming,

(01:07:09):
I was hurt by this, so I'm not really gonna
be rejoiced for in this moment. That holy emotion in
that moment could have sparked some other ideas to even
make it become a reality. So I thank you for
following the Holy Spirit for speaking because everything you said
confirmed what he's been telling me, and you had no idea, no,

(01:07:31):
So I thank you for that, you know. And so
often I was on brother cam Newton show recently and
I flew down there only for him, not promoting my
book or anything. I just hoispirit, I need you to
go talk to him, and you're right, it's like I
willingly give, but what about even to myself? And so

(01:07:51):
I thank you again because I'm finally in a different seat,
and I appreciate you from breaking the cript right and
pouring into me, you know, as we pour into so
many others.

Speaker 2 (01:08:06):
Yeah, I understand that I do that for a living,
and I understand the side effects of being a paramedic, yes,
you know. And you're always waiting for the next alarm
to go off. And you love what you do and
you get fulfillment and enjoy out of it. But the

(01:08:26):
years go by and all of a sudden you realize
that you needed service too. And that's why I think
people who are listening at this podcast right now, there
are some that are listening at this this shocked because
they don't have anybody to talk to like this. Who

(01:08:49):
can you can talk about deep things, whether you know,
we talk aman talk all the time about superficient things.
She's cute, she's fine that my team just want to
super Bowl. You know, we talk about stuff that really
don't matter. But when it comes to issues of the heart,

(01:09:09):
I found out what lays on your heart ends up
in your heart. So it took a massive heart attack
for me to realize that all of that that manifest
in my heart started out on my heart. So getting
people to the place where they can get off their

(01:09:31):
chest the weight that accompanies the responsibility that you have
y may prevent them from bursting a blood vessel or
or producing some sort of malfunction that that that breaks.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
Them down a little bit, you know, uh, or anything right?

Speaker 2 (01:09:55):
Rage? Yeah, yeah, you know, pickure, poison, alcoholism, drug port.
You're going to find some way to medicate the whole
because the forgiveness is there, but the hole is still there.
You know, there's a hole in the man's heart where
there is no father, and we try to fill it

(01:10:18):
with a whole lot of things. And if we forgive him,
we forgave him, but that doesn't give us what we
would have gotten had we had them. And we spent
our lives giving to other people what we secretly wanted,
but that still doesn't fill the hole in us.

Speaker 1 (01:10:35):
You know, what's good what you're saying, that whole even
though I know from the scriptures that his desires for
none of us to be fatherless, and he says, I'm
a father to the fathers. And I recall taking home
a student one day and he was upset because his
father wasn't in his life. And I looked at him

(01:10:57):
and I said, do you think I would be in
this car with you? Afternoon? Sunny day. I could be
with my fiance if I have my father in my home.
He looked at me, he says, no. I said, what
was meant for evil, God will use for good. And
so that whole I believe you know that it's meant

(01:11:22):
to keep us well. For me, I'm broken towards those
who don't have their fathers and those who are in need.
But to your point of what you're sharing, is you
still you want to be that servant. But in denying
yourself you don't have to neglect yourself. You're right, and
that's the principle in what you're teaching exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
Yes, chapter number six, fear of being seen? Do you
think that's the reason that a lot of young men
have decided not to get married or not to get
married soon. What do you think is the root cause?
Is the intimidation of women going to school more or
making more money? Or is it is it more about

(01:12:06):
just enjoying their own lives and being themselves. What do
you think that is from the.

Speaker 1 (01:12:11):
Men that I talked to about this very subject, it's
their fear of being seen for who they really are. See,
when you know you married every day, Oh you do
get depressed sometime. Oh you do lack confidence, so you
do have fears. And I tell brothers all the time.
You must remember Lois Lane fell in love with Clark Kent,

(01:12:32):
not superman, right right. And so when brothers recognize that,
like me and Nicole, I had no money, she made
more than me. We got it together together. I didn't
allow what I didn't have to stop me from getting
who I had in front of me. And so I
tell brothers like, you know, what's a classic mister Wilson,
need to get my ducks in a row right right now?

Speaker 2 (01:12:54):
Jokes?

Speaker 1 (01:12:54):
When you have you ever seen ducks in a row?

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
You know?

Speaker 1 (01:12:56):
And started laughing. I'm like, yes, you want to be prepared, Yes,
you want have your financial order if you can. She's
called a helper for a reason, and real maybe that's
what it took for me because now I truly value
who my wife is in my life, that I can
be transparent. And what makes it even more powerful, Bishop

(01:13:18):
is when she see you move through the fear. When
you can say, yeah, babe, i'm a little nervous here,
or i'm scared this might not go well, but you
still walk through it. That's a testimony I've seen you
walk through that. But if she never sees it, then
you get mad like they are, like they don't care.

(01:13:39):
You look like you're not affected by anything. And so
I believe that's the main reason that men hesitate with marriage.
And then you got the fear of divorce that's really
big as well taking your money. But if you got
the right woman and you know it, there's still this
hesitancy because well, she still loves you when she knows

(01:14:01):
who I really am.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
That's good. Yeah, that's good. I think we had that
about a lot of relationships. Yes, sir, would you love
me if you really knew who I was? And I
think that's the deepest kind of loneliness. Loneliness has nothing
to do with how many people are around you. Loneliness
is all about the depth to which you allow somebody

(01:14:23):
to see inside of you, into me, see intimacy, into me.

Speaker 3 (01:14:30):
See okay, yeah, yeah, because because there's there's something disarming
and vulnerable about somebody saying into you, especially when you're
a leader or teacher, uh profound and and and it's
no fun when the rabbit got the gun, you know,

(01:14:54):
and all of a sudden you have to be transparent
and say, you know, h.

Speaker 2 (01:15:01):
This story helped me so much. I went to my
doctor I had the flu, and he was writing out
the prescription for me to get something, some medication for
the flu, and while he was doing it, I noticed
his nose was running, and I thought, you have a profession,
but that doesn't stop you from being vulnerable to the

(01:15:23):
same infections that I have. You know how to treat me,
but you also still can have the same problems that
I do. And I think our country, our world has
problems with the fact that we are.

Speaker 1 (01:15:39):
But men, you have a doctor who's struggling with his weight. Yeah,
and he's trying to tell you not to do it.
And that's why I love being transparent with men could
see that because it frees them from this facade that
so many where like we're all work in progress.

Speaker 2 (01:15:59):
Right, I may be a.

Speaker 1 (01:16:00):
Little further than you, and a little further I mean
behind the next man in front of me. But when
men could really see, like, wow, just to hear what
you struggle with. Right, I'm human. Right, I'm a human being,
and I fought to embrace that. And I won't go

(01:16:21):
back into that box where I have to pretend everything's okay.
When it's not right, it's not healthy. It's not no
repression of emotion. It's very dangerous. I believe it increases
your chances of cancer by thirty percent emotional suppression, you know.
So it's like, now I'm okay, I'm gonna express myself

(01:16:43):
in a controlled man. Of course, I don't want to
be dogmatic with my wife becoming a good verbal process,
even with parenting. I told her a father recently, You're
already strong. Your presence is disciplined. The reason it's still
not falling in line because they missed the love.

Speaker 2 (01:17:00):
I think we need our wives and we need them
to see that they give to us. But I also
think we need male friends. Oh absolutely, yeah, that sometimes
we're too heavy to drop all that.

Speaker 1 (01:17:17):
Well, my wife told me because she wanted that access.
But then she was one day she was like, okay, look,
I don't need to know everything. And I call it
the huddle principle. Just like in football, when Tom Brady
in the Super Bowl against I think it was Super
Bowl fifty against the Atlanta Falcons at halftime, no team
ever come back from a deficit that great. Could you

(01:17:40):
imagine if he came to the huddle and like, look,
I got some rings, y'all got some rings. We're not
going to win, you know, let's just play this out
and get out of here. That would have changed the
entire vibe of that team. Friend of mine, Trey Flowers,
who played on that team, said that was the opposite.
He came to the huddle doubt. You didn't feel it,

(01:18:01):
you didn't know it. Same thing when we come home,
read the room. Where's my wife at? Right now? What
can you take right now?

Speaker 2 (01:18:08):
Right?

Speaker 1 (01:18:08):
And so I've learned to be considerate with that because
here it is sharing a problem, and you'll create another one.
So that's what your friends is for. Like my brother
Ron who's here, is like I can call him when
it's heavy, he can call me, Like, I don't ever
want it just about me. Always leave room open for
my brother because he needs an ear as well.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
See to me, we just had a meal and you
brought a dish, and I brought a dish, and we
shared a meal together. Because if you're always the one
cooking and you don't get to eat, that's good. That

(01:18:49):
gets to be mundane. Yes, So I get to eat
from the plate of your wisdom. You get to eat
from the plate of my wisdom, and we both walk
away wiser than we were before we shut down. The
reason I'm doing this podcast is to expose people. There
are some things that preaching doesn't give you, even the listener,

(01:19:11):
because we are so wrapped up in telling about Ezekiel
and Jeremiah and all of Daniel and all these people
that we sometimes we had behind them, and it's a
camouflage not to talk about you, and you can't get
down to practical things like budgeting and financing and that
your value is more than who makes the most money.

(01:19:33):
That I didn't get married to be in a contest
with my wife. Yes, I wanted to compliment my wife.
I wanted her to compliment me, not to contest me.
I have enough of that at work. Yes, I don't
want to come home and run a foot race in
a brown paper bag with you over money, as if
that is the only values. If a woman who stays

(01:19:57):
at home and raises the kids is valuable, then a
man can make less money than a woman and take
care of the car and go to the mechanic and
cut the grass and do things and add value to
her life too. But it's about what we value and
we live in a capitalist a capitalist society where our

(01:20:18):
values often placed so strongly on how much we make.

Speaker 1 (01:20:23):
Yes, sir, yeah, yeah, I tell me in all the time,
when Nicole made more to me, I deposit her check
with no issue, right, nope, I thank you. You know
she still needed what money couldn't buy than we provided.
And we have to understand that our role, and.

Speaker 2 (01:20:39):
I think one of the things that women can help
us with is is to help us see what we
bring to them that they wouldn't have if we were
not there. That's good because if we end up telling
the person at the funeral, you know, I miss Charlie
checking the doors at night before we went to bed.

(01:21:00):
You know, I miss how he took out the trash.
I miss how he handled problems. We need to hear
that living because sometimes it is not obvious to us,
especially as we age, what do we bring to the table,
because we are trained to perform, not to be present.

Speaker 1 (01:21:20):
And that's why a lot of men, speaking to men
in the mid sixties and older grandfathers in the cave,
that transition is hard because of your entire existence is
based on performance.

Speaker 2 (01:21:32):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:21:32):
When you can't perform, the more you feel like absolutely
I need it. Yeah, absolutely, Yeah, that's major. And I'm
just thinkful that I started that journey sooner.

Speaker 2 (01:21:42):
Chapter number seven, Pain It's universal, came up in Detroit
and around gangs and violence and all of that, and
you know exactly how to talk to black men, no
matter whether they're at the CEO suite or no matter

(01:22:03):
whether they're on a basketball court, you can handle them.
If you were in a room for the white men,
could you do the same thing.

Speaker 1 (01:22:10):
Absolutely, I've done the same. Okay, yeah, And that's was
at an event in Souperalls, so with no brothers out there,
and as I was speaking, I never forgot it. Uh
the most I was like looking to this audience. Almost
every white brother then was leaning forward. I think the
issues that I dealt with was just black issues and

(01:22:33):
all that. There's something that are uniquely us. What we're
struggling with as men is universal, almost right, you know?
And so you know I have oh yeah, no, I've
counseled many of different backgrounds, and uh, it's the same.
It's not, it's not it's the same. It's the same pain,

(01:22:54):
it's the same insecurities, the same, the same misleading mantras.
No paying no gain. I heard that he heard you know,
and it's about you know seeing past that culture is important.

Speaker 2 (01:23:09):
Culture is important, important.

Speaker 1 (01:23:10):
To understand culture and background, but the principles of why
we're affected are the same.

Speaker 2 (01:23:16):
I think there's often a lot of pressure applied to
non black men to not show feelings because it's a
cultural predisposition.

Speaker 1 (01:23:28):
I remember I had opportunity to work with a multicultural
group for the Cave of Adullum at my son's school,
and I never forget this. One kid, he said that
we have emotional check in where you can express your emotions.
At the beginning of training. He says, well, this is
new for me, mister Wilson, because I'm told I shouldn't
have any problems because where we stay in the type

(01:23:50):
of cars we haven't the investments I have. And mom
is happy because he's a white kid. It's like it
should be a okay. So I call it an expectation
place that they can't fail. So a friend of mine
who was a banker I trained in iqiujutsu. What he

(01:24:11):
told me? He says, Jason, this is why you'll see
a banker get fired, highly qualified to get another job,
but goes home and kills himself or even kills himself
in his family because that they feel that they can't fail,
can't express it. And where do you go? Now? How
did you fail? The condemnation is shame. You had everything

(01:24:33):
set up for you, Johnny, how did you blow this?
And so when you give these men, I've done it,
when they have opportunity to talk, break down. I had
a gentleman from it wasn't Poland, it was a popular
wrestling country. It escaped me. Now I'm in the gym
bishop and he comes over to me, eyes bloodshot, red,

(01:24:55):
big guy, and I'm like, what is this about. He
grasps both of my arms. He says, I just watched
you and your Rogan episode. Yes, and he did like this,
and he says thank you. And the emotions was coming out,
different background, same pain.

Speaker 2 (01:25:16):
I learned it by watching veterans. When you're in the
fox hole together, we're wearing the same uniform, the color
fades away. Okay. There is an affinity that develops in crisis.
Whether you're in a rehab center or a youth detention center,

(01:25:39):
there is an affinity. But even in a corporate space,
if we ever get past what other people think, we
would find that there's more to unite us than there
is to divide us. Yes, yeah, and that even though
we express things different culturally, that they have the same core,

(01:26:01):
same pain, same problem, same understanding. I say that for
all of my listeners that may not share a gang situation,
but they may not even have an absent father. They
may have a distracted father. Okay, he was there, but
he wasn't there. Yeah, yeah, absolutely, Yeah. They may have

(01:26:22):
had a mother who ran the four h club and
the girls got cookies but didn't really bring that home
to them in the way that they needed it. What
I'm saying is pain is not prejudice, and that is universal,
and so the opportunity to minister across the board is

(01:26:43):
very very important, no matter what your background is, where
you came from. It is my hope that you can
get the strength to turn the page to go into
your next chapter, because next can be so frightening a
close with this, Our numerical system is quite interesting whether

(01:27:07):
you got ten dollars or a million dollars. A million
dollars is just a collection of dimes, because ten is
as high as you can go, and once you get
to ten, you have to go back to one again
on the next level to hit eleven, and then you

(01:27:28):
get to twenty, you got to go back to one again.
So we keep having to enter into worlds where we
are recycling ourselves and we are and the atmosphere is
foreign and the rules that aren't clear, and we don't
know whether we're going to be accepted or not. And
by the time we get used to it and we
climb up the ladder and we get really good at that,

(01:27:49):
then life throws us in another room where we enter
into the room of uncertainty again. And I think when
you say give us this day, are daily bread, it
is because we can continually find ourselves recycling newness and beginning,
and newness is frightening and it's uncomfortable and it's it's
it's scary, and yet it's exhilarating. And if you if

(01:28:13):
you get used to it, if you learn how to
be comfortable with being uncomfortable, it's almost addictive to have
that feeling, because your innovation and your creativity is at
its peak when you are uncertain. When you're uncertain, that's
when we really get creative. When when you're uncertain, that's

(01:28:35):
when we really stay up reading late at night when
you're uncertain, that's when you put the most thought into
what am I going to wear? When you're uncertain, that's
when you really start thinking of creative ways to reach
your goal. Some people respond to that by staying at
nine because it's safe when they when they could be

(01:28:59):
through one if they were willing to be a child again.
And when Jesus talks about you can't enter into the
Kingdom save you become a child, I think that's a
spin off of the same idea that adventurous child again
and midlife is a chance to be a child again

(01:29:21):
at the next stage of life, So you control whether
the abuse continues or stops, because now as you grow older,
you're new at this and you can create the reality
that's necessary that gives you the grace and the permission

(01:29:44):
to not always be good at this, to stumble and
fall and get up and walk again, to be tutored,
to be mentored. And the same person who mentors you
about body weight may not be the same person who
mentors you about finances, may not be the same person
that mentors you about business. So to be open enough

(01:30:05):
to be nurtured in the areas of your deficiency required
that you are willing to be one again.

Speaker 1 (01:30:12):
That's good, Yeah, that's good.

Speaker 2 (01:30:15):
Chapter number eight parenting. Did you see a difference in
cross gender parenting? How did you raise your son differently
from how you were raised? And were you different with
your son than you were with your daughter?

Speaker 1 (01:30:32):
Yeah? Absolutely, Even to this day, I still see the
ramifications of having a heavy hand as a father. And
I'm not talking about physical abuse. I'm saying the mentality
is tough love and disciplinarian, you know, sometimes being almost
like tyrannic around the house if the room wasn't clean.

(01:30:53):
I looked at everything as disrespect instead of a reflection
of what could have been going on inside of my daughter.
And remember one day I was writing my first book,
Cry Like a Man, and I recalled a moment in
time when my father was absent and I broke down
crying at my desk and I ran to catch my

(01:31:14):
daughter because she was going to school. I dropped to
my knees in front of her and I said, I'm
so sorry for being the type of dat I was,
but that's going to change. And she tried to make
me feel better, saying, Dad, you're just trying to be protective.
I said, no, that's not how God would parents you.
And I had to not only in that moment reconcile,

(01:31:35):
but it's been a journey because a lot of what
she went through. My son has a way better father
than I was to her, and so I learned through
that experience. Especially you know, when you're taught, especially don't
spare the rod and all these other writings. You know,
after a child is eight years old, if you haven't

(01:31:57):
reared them up per se, you lost this. You got
to start, you know, at this point at eight you
need to be able to communicate with them like human beings. Right,
you shouldn't have to result to discipline and other things
like that. Yes, this forms of discipline is needed throughout
the journey. But with my son, I'm more patient. I

(01:32:18):
apologize more whenever I'm wrong. I say, son, I'm sorry
for that, Dad misread that, or I was wrong. I
didn't do that with my daughter. You know, I still
had the anger from not having my father around and
the insecurities, and I brought all that into my marriage
instead of I didn't know how to get a result.

(01:32:39):
Therapy wasn't a thing back then, you know, so, but
that's That's one of my major regrets is not parenting
her with more love. I chose this. I was disciplined dad,
and I regreet that. But with my son, I'm patient. Yes,
he has the discipline piece as well, but I always

(01:33:01):
understand that he has a cause and effect. If he's silent,
I give him his space, And several times if he's
in his room alone, I asked him, can I come in?
You know? Is it okay? You say, yeah, cool, I
just lay on the floor and maybe do some work
because I know he's doing his own thing. And as
you were saying, it's more important to be present than perfect, right,

(01:33:21):
And so that's what I learned from parenting and fathers.
We you know, we need to convey the heart, not
the anger as much like why are you angry? It
hurt me because I trusted you that you would do this.
It hurts because you keep not doing this. Why But
that takes for us to do some more work so
that we can undo what's preventing us from being patient.

Speaker 2 (01:33:43):
Yeah. Why are the strong suits of your ministry is
that you show man how to do the work to
behole and how to relate to their children. Yes, and
part of it is being able to apologize. And I
learned that in my own life and raise my own children,
and changed the trajectory of how I verbalize instead of

(01:34:06):
using sign language like you know our fathers did. They
used sign language. Come on, let's get some ice. You
know you would never get up sorry if I get
an ice cream called, but you would never get I'm
sorry out of it. Chapter number nine, Wife's Miscarriages. I

(01:34:29):
have a daughter that is unable to have children, and
I thought that was sad, and I prayed for her.
But it took my wife to make me understand what
that does to a woman to not be able to

(01:34:50):
have a child. You you've had a wife who's had
five miscarriages. How well did you handle it? And what
would you do differently? Well?

Speaker 1 (01:35:04):
I didn't handle it. I was programmed to be strong,
show no emotions. You know, you tell yourself, well, it's
really not a baby because the baby is born. You know,
things like that. And I remember our last daughter Olivia,
when she miscarried her and the doctor came in and

(01:35:26):
told her after the ultrasound, Olivia's heart wasn't beating, and
the culture squeezed my hand and just screamed because I
was the fifth child, and I'm just stoically there, just
holding her hand like this, but I was hurting. Yeah,
but culture, even if it's your own child crying, you're weak.

(01:35:51):
But we accept an athlete when he wins a championship
trophy and he's weeping over the trophy. And a man
can't cry over child or man his bride, a woman
he's been desiring to marry us walking down the aisle,
and if he gets emotion, like my best man told me, Gabriel,
I'm putting you out here. He said, you cry and

(01:36:13):
hit you in your back, you know. So that's what
he told me. So I didn't cry. So but yeah,
I wasn't there. And then I maybe I forgot how
many years later, but many years later, one of our
pastors bought us a plant, and I subconsciously made that plan.
Olivia and my wife had moved it one day, and

(01:36:35):
so I'm coming home cleaning up and I'm like, you know,
where's this plant? I was frantic, I'm the man. She
throw the plane away, run all over the house. I
called her, said, have you seen the plant? She was like,
what plant? I said, the plant that we got from
past to eight. She was like, well, yes, in the
back I was gonna move. H'm like, please, don't touch

(01:36:56):
the planet, grabbed a plant, repotted the plant. As I'm
repotting it the plan, I started crying. I'm like, okay,
what's going on here? And in that moment, God said
you never grieved her loss, and so here it is.
Thinking that being a man in that moment was just
to stay historically strong was the opposite of what that

(01:37:19):
moment needed. I told her a father who his child
was recently born and his son has been in nick
you for two months, and he asked me after hearing
me talk, he said, she telling me I should let
her see how I feel. I'm like, yeah, brother, she
may think she's alone. I said, yeah, share your heart

(01:37:42):
with her. I start watering. He says, That's what I'm
gonna do when I go home. Because Nicole, in hindsight,
she said she needed me. She needed to know. It
would have been good to know that I was hurting.
I don't think I was hurting. I couldn't hurt as
much as she was, but she didn't feel it. Yeah,
and I was. I was absent in that moment. But

(01:38:05):
now you know, if my heart is hurting. I let
him know.

Speaker 2 (01:38:10):
I think it's it's it's therapeutic for the man to
release his grief and his pain. But I also think
it strengthens your marriage when you share grief. Vole said,
rejoice with him that do rejoice with those week One
of the most astounding things to me in Scripture is

(01:38:34):
when Jesus comes in to marry and Martha and Lazarus
is dead and he knows he's going to raise him
from the dead. Yes, sir, And yet he sits and
weeps with us so much. They say he must have
loved them. Yeah, yes, Yeah, that's kinnania. That's that's that's fellowship.
To to to mourn with those that mourn strengthens your union.

(01:39:01):
I remember my mother passed away, and her baby brother,
who she was crazy about, cried the most, and it
made me love him the most because our fraternity was
our common love for my mother. Something about him feeling

(01:39:22):
what I felt drew us closer, and we were closer
till he died. And I think a lot of men
missed great moments, not because we're evil or wicked, but
because we don't understand the magnitude of that woman carrying
a person in her body, yes, sir, a person whose

(01:39:45):
chromosomes won't ever fully come out of her body. And
yet the expectation of the baby is met with the
disappointment of the grave.

Speaker 1 (01:39:57):
And you know, I believe the Coal would never say this,
but the hospital had offered to pay for the funeral
because Olivia was I think five and a half months,
you know, before when ro Nicole was pregnant, and I'm like, well,
we don't need a funeral. You know, she wasn't born,
and the Coal was because she said, well, I felt

(01:40:18):
the same way, and I told her recently, I'm like, nah,
if I was the man that moment needed, and I'm
crying with you and I'm embracing this sadness, this grief,
I don't see us turning that away. And so I
can't change that now. But we definitely make sure we're

(01:40:41):
open with each other when we're grieving and hurting, and
it was sensitive to each other, and like you said,
it does draw you closer. I remember when and I'm
not to your point. I'm not bragging on the trauma
or bringing it up. But my friend in the high
school got shot in the head. He lived, thankfully, and
one of the martial art teachers in our city who

(01:41:03):
always wanted to train under for a while Kleindy Ae
was there and I was just grieving openly because this
was my close friend in high school. Because he saw
that love. He says, you can work with me, and
I won't even charge you, because he saw, like you're saying,

(01:41:23):
the grief, the love and something he hadn't seen, especially
in the early nineties where we're trying to be hard
and tough, you know, for me to break that gave
that guard and for him to see it. And so yeah,
the power of grieving together openly, I do agree with you.
It draws us closer, it does.

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
It does. It's something special and communal and intimate about it,
even though we expressed pain differently and we deal with
death differently, and we can't always weigh the depth of
a person's love by their reaction to their lost. Some
people want to be alone. Some people want everybody around them, said,

(01:42:06):
I tell my friends, you might be schizophrenic, well a
man as you want them around the next minute, you
want everybody get out, just get out of the house,
you know, because because grief is such a roller coaster
ryde but understanding that even though we from times to
time express things differently, that we have that moment of
coming together and say, you know, we lost the child.

(01:42:32):
We lost a child, and I realized I didn't carry
the child like you did, but she was in my
heart and in my mind, and it kind of bonds
you together in a very special way. So thank you
for shouting Chapter number ten celebrity quotes. Fifty cents we quoted.

(01:42:59):
I didn't hear, but fifty cent was quoted as saying,
depression is a luxury. Where I came from, we were
not allowed to be depression. You have to do what
you have to do. What do you think of that?

Speaker 1 (01:43:13):
I understand it. It was how I was raised. And
I don't know the context of that quote, but just
judging from what I hear is, you know, man up
and keep pushing through. Stay strong. You know what was
the mantra, what doesn't kill you can only make you strong?

Speaker 2 (01:43:32):
Yeah, yeah, you know.

Speaker 1 (01:43:33):
And so I understand that. But I wonder how old
fifty was was when he said that versus now, because
we know ungrieved losses affects us negatively as we get older,
and it's going to it's going to come out and
depression is not a weakness, it's just, you know, it's

(01:43:54):
a part of life. It happens at times.

Speaker 2 (01:43:56):
It can be biological as well as.

Speaker 1 (01:43:58):
Yeah, yeah for sure. But in cases when it's circumstantial, yeah,
you know, I guess that's how he was saying. I
got to keep going. I don't care I lose my job,
the girl, whatever, I got to keep going. I understand that.
But for you not to take an opportunity to grieve
those losses or those opportunities, it's going to come out.

Speaker 2 (01:44:18):
One of the hard things about being famous is every
word you say it's drying. Yeah, everything is evaluated and shaken.
That a regular person can say something and it's not scrutinized,
but if you say it all of a sudden, they

(01:44:40):
pick it apart and just dissect it and there it up.

Speaker 1 (01:44:43):
I remember one time I met fifty when he was
a g unit. I had a radio show in Detroit
and my program director was nervous. I was gonna give
him a Christian hip hop CD because I've been praying
for him, and my program director is like, yo, you know,
be careful you go, And when nothing happened at the
radio station, like come on. You know, I walked over

(01:45:04):
to him and said, I made this for you, actually
a picture of him praying he had had taken you know,
he said, he looked around like this what I'm talking about?
Thank you?

Speaker 2 (01:45:14):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (01:45:15):
You never know, Yeah, you never know. And so yeah,
in that court, I just on the outside looking in
of who he is and you're tough and you got
to make it. He just saying, you know, feel it,
but don't succumb to it. You know. But sometimes, especially
has been a god, he is coming to that weakness

(01:45:36):
as we were talking about, allows the power of Christ
to be perfected through us. Absolutely, yeah, absolutely so.

Speaker 2 (01:45:43):
Tianna Taylor made a statement, just because I'm strong doesn't
mean that I don't need to be confident that she said,
you know, I'm a strong black woman and that's applauded
all the time. But she she kind of said, that
doesn't mean that I don't need to have support, to
have love, to have comfort. How how do you are

(01:46:07):
we misreading the strength of our women.

Speaker 1 (01:46:14):
Man, I don't think we're misreading it. I believe some
of us misuse it. We're getting to the place now
where I'm concerned because women are becoming stoics, right, And
I believe once we lose a woman's endearing love and empathy,

(01:46:34):
we're in some deep trouble. And so it's similar with
us man. It's like, yeah, there's moments we got to
be strong, but it doesn't mean that we're not hurting.
It doesn't mean that we're not sad or have concern.
And so when you a lot of women are just
fighting to be recognized or again not being taken advantage

(01:46:58):
of and of A man is not doesn't have an
emotional repertoire. He doesn't even know how to express things,
even just for the things that she does and bring
to their marriage at home. Yeah, and so a lot
of that comes from not feeling valued. I believe it
is for.

Speaker 2 (01:47:16):
Me the same fear that I have for a I
have a love hate relationship with it me too, because
whatever it becomes, we help created it. And I think
our women have had to be strong, and we helped
create that strength by our absence, or by our abuse,

(01:47:38):
or by the pain they went through early in life
put them in a position that they find it difficult
to be vulnerable, to feel safe enough to be vulnerable,
you know, I think we have to own that we
created whatever AI becomes, and we sometimes created whatever that
woman becames. Even if it wasn't you, it might have
been the man before you, or the father before you.

(01:48:00):
You might be reaping something that you didn't sew, living
in a house that you didn't build, but you still
got to content with it and understand that we contributed
to that isolation that seems to be so pervasive in
our communities and in our relationships today.

Speaker 1 (01:48:16):
You know that that makes me think of how many
single mothers I help in the Cave of Adullum, And
I remember one mother said we helped her be mom
And what she meant by that was she had to
become part of dad because he wasn't around the haircuts
and the football and tackling and then disciplinarian, and she

(01:48:39):
missed the nurturing piece, and so she had to lose
that because as a boy becomes a teenager, you know,
he needs to make sure he has that order. And
so she was saying, thank you for allowing me to
be mommy.

Speaker 2 (01:48:53):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:48:54):
Yeah, we had like our sister's desire to be in
our place like that. And it's not necessarily always a case.
In some cases you see that, but from the mothers
I work with. It's both of us, and we have

(01:49:15):
to definitely do a better job at communicating the hurt.
You know, we're both wounded, We're both hurting, and until
we both acknowledge that and express that in healthy way,
we keep hurting each other.

Speaker 4 (01:49:29):
It's right.

Speaker 2 (01:49:30):
Absolutely, Lebron made an interesting statement about being alone. He said,
I don't want to be alone. He went on to
explain that he was an only child. If I have
to crawl, if I have to scratch, whatever I have
to do to make my marriage work, I don't want
to be alone. Do you think that only people who
are raised the only child have a more desperate need

(01:49:54):
for connection in their relationships or is that you need
to Lebron himself.

Speaker 1 (01:50:00):
I believe so because I was even though I had brothers,
because they died and I have one living brother, Saint Clair,
who was in Texas, but when he went to college,
I was alone. So I felt like, you know, the
only child. And absolutely that was one of the main
things with me making sure I didn't get divorced. I

(01:50:22):
didn't want to live take the path my father took
because for the first time I have a family. You know,
I never it was just me and my mom, and
so I get what he's saying. They're like, you know,
and it's even deeper than being lonely. It's just living
life without the person right beside you to help you
build everything together. And so I definitely understand what he

(01:50:47):
means by that, you know, like the I'm gonna do
whatever I can to fight for this marriage. And hence
why I tell men, you know, if you're in argument
with your wife and don't always go to we can
get divorced, then like eliminate that. And I had to
fight that as well. And so yeah, I definitely value
my marriage and I can't see living life without the cold.

(01:51:12):
I told her because she will say, you know, if
if I leave before you, you know, it's okay, you can.
I said, no, after you, there'll be no more. I'm
I'm okay, I'm fixty five, I'm straight giving me a
ranch for some animals and about to do this all over.
But yeah, no, I yeah, to be able to go
home and have a woman that it can just loves

(01:51:33):
you and just want to be next to you, like
I see you and missus Jakes. You know that's I
saw it up close on your show you had and
it's authentic and you know not to have to worry
about it. She out stepping out and all that old foolishness.
But yeah, you gotta worry about that. Yeah, yeah, you

(01:51:57):
know I I I understand what he means.

Speaker 2 (01:51:59):
You been listening to Jason Wilson, you should you owe
it to yourself to get his new book, The Man,
The Moment Demands.

Speaker 1 (01:52:13):
Man.

Speaker 2 (01:52:14):
When I when I read that title, I was jealous. Yeah,
that title is slamming.

Speaker 1 (01:52:21):
Thank you, the Man the Moment, Thank you the Man
you know, means a lot coming from you, right.

Speaker 2 (01:52:27):
Oh, listen, it made you buy the book, whether we
who you were or not. The Man the Moment demand,
especially in the moment we're in right now. I thought
it was a really really smart title. Thank you, Thank you.
I have enjoyed this conversation.

Speaker 1 (01:52:47):
I appreciate you. Thank you, Thank you, appreciate it, thank you,
thank you for listening.

Speaker 2 (01:52:53):
I hope you enjoyed us, and I hope you got
something out of it that sticks with you and stays
with you and riches your life. I certainly did. We
had a great time. I hope this will be your
next chapter. Hey, everybody, I want to take this time
to thank you for watching the Next Chapter Podcast. If

(01:53:16):
this conversation inspired you, helped you reflect on an idea,
or spark something new inside of you, make sure to like, comment,
and subscribe so you don't miss future episodes. Remember, life
isn't about how you begin, It's about how you finished.

(01:53:37):
Strong to start your next chapter with us right here
every week

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Jason Wilson on Masculinity, Healing & Wounds Men Don’t Talk About | NXT Chapter With T.D. Jakes

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Jason Wilson on Masculinity, Healing & Wounds Men Don’t Talk About | NXT Chapter With T.D. Jakes