December 22, 2025 • 73 mins
In this deeply personal and unfiltered conversation, Bishop TD Jakes sits down with Tyrese Gibson for one of the most vulnerable episodes yet of The Next Chapter. Known worldwide for his roles in Fast & Furious, his Grammy-nominated music career, and his impact as a bestselling author and entrepreneur, Tyrese opens up about trauma, grief, faith, mental health, relationships, and rebuilding after loss.
Tyrese reflects on growing up without a blueprint, navigating Hollywood without mentors like Denzel Washington or Will Smith as parents, and carrying the weight of being the first in his family to reach this level of success. He shares powerful insights on surviving abuse, forgiving parents, processing divorce, raising daughters, and learning how to love in healthy ways after dysfunction.
Bishop TD Jakes guides the conversation through faith, purpose, marriage, and emotional healing, drawing parallels to leaders and cultural figures like Oprah Winfrey, Steve Harvey, Tyler Perry, Barack Obama, LeBron James, Kobe Bryant, Jay-Z, Kanye West, Michael Jordan, Prince, Teddy Pendergrass, Marvin Gaye, and more — exploring how success, visibility, and pressure affect the human spirit.
From conversations about survivor’s remorse and masculinity to mental health, relationships, and legacy, this episode speaks directly to anyone rebuilding their life, redefining success, or starting their next chapter.
This is more than an interview — it’s a masterclass in growth, accountability, and faith.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
If I had my mother and my father at the
same house, I probably wouldn't be here. So I said,
I forgive you because just maybe God removed you out
of the house because I would have been a crackhead.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah. By now you should know, I'm TD Jason. I
want to welcome you the next chapter, and I am very,
very excited about the guests that I'm going to present
to you today. A powerful man in his own rights
because he's a popular actor in Hollywood, not just one,
but two of the highest grossing film franchises of all times.
(00:40):
He's an iconic singer, a platinum selling songwriter, and an
award winning R and B veteran. He's also an accomplished producer,
a successful entrepreneur, a New York Times best selling author,
and above all, a devoted father. He remains a true
global superstar. Please help me welcome Ireese. We're glad to
(01:13):
have you here. Man, I want to welcome you.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The only uncomfortable part of the day so far as
hearing you, Bishop Jakes read off my Wikipedia page, I
am not worthy.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh you asked so much more to do. Oh God,
I want to fill in some of the blanks in
between the Mountaintops. We covered the mountaintops and the introduction,
but I want to talk about some of the other
things that you have learned along the way, about life,
about family, about self, and the complexities of all of it.
(01:50):
Chapter one, Recreating Yourself. I want to welcome you first
of all, to be a part of this great next
After podcasts, you've had many next chapters. You've had to
turn the page many times to recreate yourself and expose
different parts of yourself in order to have the longevity
(02:11):
and the career that you had, from author to R
and B singer to actor to action actor to all
the many, many things that we've seen you do. And
it's not easy to be able to be a chameleon
that can fit into various situations like that. What do
you attribute that to.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
If you've never met a person with blind faith? I'm
right here, all right, no point of reference. See, I'm
not the son.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Of Barry Gordy.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, Anita Baker is not my mother, right, Gladys Knight.
I was not raised in a house with executives and
musicians and people.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I wasn't raised by Will Smith.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I wasn't raised by Sidney Poitier, Denzel is not my father.
I wish he was right, because you're being raised in
a house where it's not just the talent, it's the dialogue,
it's the business, it's the understanding, it's all of the
things that you would hope to say. Well, if you're
going to take this journey, you don't have to worry
(03:24):
about being blind sided about what's around the corner before
you get there, because Mommy and Daddy already had a
conversation with you about the traps, the things to avoid,
giving you the heads up, you know, and so blind faith.
I cannot believe that's my resume. I cannot believe that
(03:47):
I'm the first in my family to ever see or
achieve or accomplish the things that God has had in
mind for me, and the pressure that comes with being
the only The pressure is scary.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
The pressure is scary, The pressure is real. Let me
before I ask you, I want to follow down that trail,
So hold that thought. We recently hooked up in Charleston,
South Carolina at a wedding. We've been knowing each other
for years and years, and we got together at the
wedding at a pretty tough time in your life. You
just lost your father, and we were able to minister
(04:26):
to you and encourage you. And I wondered in my
mind the guy who was sitting on the back of
the bus drinking a coke or pepsi or whatever it
was and got discovered and entered into a career that
was absolutely amazing. Never fully goes away. Money doesn't take
that away. Grammys doesn't take that away. You have to
(04:49):
live with who you were and who you are at
the same time and learn how to make a homogeneous
connection between the past and the present and the future.
How do you do that? I don't know. I is
(05:10):
it hard.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I've never heard it broken down in such a scientific way,
like you just went boom boom, boom boom, and you.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Can't get rid of My point is you can't get
rid of You can't totally dismiss your upbringing and your training.
And there's a part of you that you learn how
to survive in the world, in the streets, in the city,
and there's a part of you that had to learn
how to survive in California and Los Angeles in the
(05:40):
Hollywood scene. And there's a part of you that had
to learn how to do business. And all of them
come home with you at night, Yes, all of them. Yes,
you didn't leave the guy on the bus, He's still there.
And so a lot of people don't realize that, you
get it. A lot of people don't realize it. So
when you find yourself in a situation, it's which God
(06:01):
does to talking. Who's gonna drive the car? Is it
gonna be the guy from Philly? Is it gonna be
the guy from from Hollywood? Is it gonna be the writer?
How do you manage that? Well?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think of myself as a black octopus. My arms
is in thirty different places and they're all working at
the same time at the same time, and so I'm
the head and I'm the heart, and then my arms
is this everywhere, and we're doing things and trying to
(06:37):
achieve things that are all happening in real time. And
each project, and it's each situation is in various different levels,
and you don't want to lose sight of any of them. Right,
And then what a blessing it's been that the singer
has helped audition and set up the success of the
(07:00):
right and then the actor, and the singer has given
birth to the entrepreneur. Yes, and then the Koch kid
is in the back of the bus. Yeah, and he's
riding the waves.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I started this.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, and I'm on the bus and we got a
lot of seats and whatever version of tyres y'all ended
up seeing we're all headed that way and the bus
is being driven by God.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
My problem is all my all of my tdjakess want
to talk at the same time. And so it just
depends on who asked me and what tone of voice
you asked me in which one you're gonna get? What environment? Yeah,
and what environment I'm in, And I have to manage
those those people. The Apostle Paul said, when I would
do good, evil is present with me that which I
(07:45):
would not do. I do, old wretched man that I am,
who should deliver me from the body of this death,
this sin, this this human experience and all of those
people live with you. So you're in a mansion now,
and you and you eat something that you ate when
you were back on neck bones, Yes, right, neck bones
in a mass yes, okay, Chitlin's on China. The unique
(08:11):
experience we have as a people of having climbed up
and been colored. We've been negroes, we've been black we've
been darkies, we've been everything, to the point that there's
sometimes an identity crisis, not just through us corporately, but
individually in finding yourself. And I wondered, did anybody else
(08:32):
ever feel that way?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yes, yeah, you know, you're I've had so many moments
in my life where I know that I had to
dig deep within me because the things that I have
(08:58):
in mind for me, you realize that other people don't have.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Them in mind for you.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And so when someone makes it clear no, no, no,
we don't have that in mind for you, and I
have it in mind for myself, it won't go away
because this person or this room or this situation denied
you of what you feel like belongs to you. And
so the appetite, the determination, it's the self talk, the
(09:30):
self motivation, the speaking over yourself, the pouring over yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
The you know.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And the thing is, I want to say this.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I've been really struggling with how to put words to this,
because there's a chosen few that will hear a piece
of this and decide it goes over their head.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Selfish starts with the word self, and they've made selfish
and being selfish and negative but most of us are giving,
doing showing up for people mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, psychologically,
and we're over extending ourselves and giving of ourselves and
(10:20):
we're depleted and we're tired, and we're sick, and we're
wiped out and we got nothing.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Left for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And they don't care to notice.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
They don't care.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
You don't I'm here to get what I'm here to get,
and even if I wipe you completely out. And so
I have allowed myself to be more selfish and focus
on me and say I'm not returning that text to
that call because I don't have the time or the
(10:55):
bandwidth to be on the receiving end of what you're about.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
The dumb on.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So, and then especially when you know what the phone
call is going to be about. Right, So, now you
got to say, I'm not going to give you emotional
access to me because you're going to change the energy
of my day. So I'm going to make the selfish
decision to say, if I want my day to be better,
(11:22):
it's not going to include you.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Right, you will not want to miss as he shares
his personal experience with grief and losing parents. You know,
when you talked about somebody like Denzel was not your father.
You didn't grow up in an environment where you had
a model to fit where you ended up a blueprint. Yeah,
(11:46):
no blueprint, anything like that. I think every man and
probably every woman yearns to have in their parents some
sort of shape, measurement pattern, blueprint of what they're going
to and what they're going to be. We look from
that from our father. My father got sick when I
was ten. He died when I was sixteen. I realized
(12:11):
when I was thirty that as I wept for him,
I was weeping for me. I recognized that I wasn't
just weeping at the loss of him. I was weeping
at the questions I didn't have answered, at the things
that I didn't have resolved. Did you really love me?
(12:32):
What did you really think of me? Did you never
got to see me? When when you lost your father,
it's part of the pain coming from inside your own house.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
This is what's interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
When my father passed away, rest in peace to that brother,
to that man. I went to Saint Louis to see
him stage four pancreatic cancer. Life was riddled with alcoholism
and crack cocaine and just never quite got his hands
(13:14):
around figuring it out. And and and I said to him,
I just want you to know I forgive you. And
I wanted him to know why. I said, I forgive
you for not being there to protect me, for not
(13:36):
giving me the heads up of what's around the corner.
I don't know that he would have been anybody that
would have changed my life in business or right changed.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
I don't know that my father was ever a Berry
Gordy that could sit me down and say, son, don't
sign that deal. And here's why. But I said to him,
I forgive you. And then I realized that if my
mother rests in peace, messed my life up with the
twenty seven years of alcohol, the verbal, emotional, psychological, and
(14:08):
physical abuse, and all of the abuse that was in
my house, and it's still affected me to this day.
If I had my mother and my father at the
same house, I probably wouldn't be here. So I said,
I forgive you because just maybe God removed you out
of the house because I would have been a crackhead.
(14:32):
I would have been verbally and physically abusive to my
mother the way you were. There was other men that
came to my house that ended up doing it to
my mother ultimately. And so I was introduced to love,
and I was raised to believe that this is what
love is. Love is not kind, love is not gentle,
Love is verbally abusive, love is physically abusive. Love is
(14:56):
all of these things that I was raised in. And
so I would alway always find myself gravitating towards women
that I would be fighting and arguing, being dysfunctional with
right and anybody else that any other version of love
that I was in the present of felt soft, It
felt it felt boring. You ain't arguing, Yeah, well, she
(15:20):
must don't love you if you ain't willing to fight
and argue. And so that's and so I have to
I had to say to him, thank you for removing
yourself from my life, because if the crack cocaine and
the alcoholism and everything that you were doing, that would
have all been an impression that you would have made
(15:43):
on my life that as a grown man, I would
have still been deeply hurt by and affected by, because
I would have been raised by another.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Level of trauma.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Right, So, so as an example, you know, people love
to look at you. Bishop Jakes and say, look at
him in the megachurch, look at him, what he's driving,
what he's living in, look at him with his wife,
and look at him with his daughter who's now out
there on stage changing lives and Sarah Jakes, who I'm
(16:20):
so proud of and I know you are. But they
always look at the fruits and the outcome. And even
if you make them aware of the strife and the
struggles and the stuff that the family had to navigate
through when you mentioned you know, I remember I was
(16:42):
preaching and only had seventeen people in front of me,
they have no concept of really wrapping their heads around that.
Because the version of Jake's Bishop Jakes that they're looking
at is on the grounds of forty books and mega
church and where you are now.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, And they trap you in how they met you.
They don't recognize you wrote forty two books. They don't
recognize that you sold five hundred million dollars worth of movies.
They want to put you in a place where they
can assault you with their implications of you and.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
You are how I met you.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, you are how I met you, and you are
who I met you, And that's what I meant earlier,
when I was talking about, you know, you have to
live with that guy who grew up in that Ballador home.
He's still in there, okay. And money didn't take him away,
and movies didn't take him away, and books didn't take
him away. He's still there. It bottled up somewhere inside.
(17:47):
And then this unresolved issue which I can relate to.
My father wasn't an alcoholic, but I can relate to an
unresolved issue with your father's complicated. Let me ask you this,
at what point or did you have a moment that
you recognized that you were an orphan?
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Yeah, that hit me a month ago, and how did
that feel? The idea of being an orphan.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Was something that we've seen on television documentaries specifically throughout Africa, right,
you know, like, oh, this is village of kids that
are orphans because their mother and father died of hiva,
or you know a bunch of bad guys came in
and killed a bunch of people, and now here's these
(18:47):
foundations raising kids as orphans. And so when they delivered
my father's ashes to my house and I was able
to put my father's ashes next to my mother's ashes,
I said my mother and father haven't lived under the
(19:08):
same roof since they divorced. Wow, and now they're here.
My mother and my father never even made it to
my house that I've been living in Atlanta for nine years,
so this is their first time living under the same
roof with their son.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
And then I thought, well, at least they're here. Yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Then I'm a bit of a junkie for the sense
of humor of God. So I'm thinking to myself, my
mother and father are finally under the same roof with
they baby boy. Right, and my mother died on Valentine's
Day after giving birth to an R and B singer.
(20:03):
If you if you're not booked do any concerts throughout
the year as a singer, You're likely going to get
booked on Valentine's Day. And so there's a sense of
humor in that. And then I always have my mother
and father's ashes. I don't always announce it to everybody,
but every meeting and conversation that I have, I always
(20:26):
have my mother and father's ashes in the room with
me because I want them to know how proud I
am of them for doing the best they could.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And nobody's around. Do you ever talk to them.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yes, yes, I do.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
It's form of therapy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I always say, Mama, I don't know what's about to happen,
but they pulling up right now, and and and just
cover me. I know you was always a praying mama,
and I know you're still with me, Mom, So just
pray for me. I might not have the words in
this meeting, but I want it to be something. And
then the biggest thing is I don't have it all
(21:18):
figured out. That I don't and that scares me.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Chapter three. You may not even know what to name it,
but you may be feeling it. It's called survivors remorse.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
What God is doing right now. I've always had this
big appetite for success, never driven by money, driven by impact,
and what God is doing right now with visions and
ideas and dreams and the things that keep me up
(21:57):
at night. I've had this in my mind. And God,
when you pray, I always say, pray specific prayers so
that God can specifically bless you and cover you for
the things that you're.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Vulnerable about, vulnerable about.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And so I'm in a place right now where I
am sure that God is about to take me into
these levels and this level of stratosphere in my career,
and I don't feel prepared for what God is about
to do, even though I know He's about to do it.
(22:40):
So now I'm on this mission where I'm saying I
am very specific about I got to surround myself with
people to cover me spiritually with the wisdom and the
knowledge and the blueprint and pour into me to say, Okay,
let's not talk about the winds and what happened. Talk
(23:00):
about the moments where you almost wanted to give up.
Talk about the moments that where you had to push
through the trauma and the stress and the press or
the social media attacks or the accusations, or talk about
how you got through that. What prayer did you pray
to get through that? Because and I say this in
(23:26):
my own way respectfully, I feel like where I love
you Bishop as you have always been transparent about the
moments that you wanted to quit and give up and
the struggles, because it's almost like survival's remorse, where it's
(23:47):
like everybody looks at me as being so successful, and
all I want to do is make y'all aware of
how hard and how challenging it has been and how
challenging it. It's and you feel this overwhelming sense of
wanting to really break it all down, and breaking it
(24:08):
all down ultimately gives folks permission to say, Okay, I
could achieve it. People are focused on the net worth
and the plane and the shiny building and how big
the church is.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
But I go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Maybe that's property,
maybe it's nobody both. I welcome it. Yeah, he welcomes it.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
So it's it's you know, there's there's people that think
of survivors, or more so when they think of that,
and it's usually like, you know, my friend died and
we were in the same car and I survived, and
so there's survivals. But the other version of survivals was
morse is I'm more successful than everybody in my family.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, I knew you whin I knew you when you
ain't all of that. I knew you when you win
da da da. You know, there's a scripture in the
Bible that says I will give you treasures in the darkness.
And at first I thought we made it in life
in spite of adversity. Now I think we made it
(25:30):
because of adversity. If there had not been tension, there
would be no muscles. Okay, if there had not been obstacles,
if there had not been something to prove, if you
hadn't felt invisible, you wouldn't have screamed out, I'm over here,
see me, hear me, feel me? That those sorts of
(25:53):
things become of paramount importance. And also I wanted to
say to you because you said something. I think it's
on Facebook or on social media somewhere where you talked
about my wife and I talking about marriage and how
it helped you child.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yes, I see that was like almost thirty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think God gives us surrogate
fathers and mothers to replace what we didn't have. Yes,
Chapter number four, finding the right partner. Oh yeah, you
want to get this. What was that like thirty five
years ago? To get some counsel as if I were
(26:37):
talking to you, even though I were talking to a screen.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
You were talking to me. Yeah, I seen it on YouTube,
but you were talking to me. Yeah, And that is
that is why we love you and we are so
moved by you and your transparency, the way you unpacked
that conversation and dialogue and went into specifics about the working,
(27:07):
functioning dynamics of your marriage. And then whenever your wife spoke,
I mean to see you sit back. You know, it
was just really like wow, you know, to just feel
(27:27):
like this alpha, strong, dominant kind of man of God
sits back and he holds his wife at such a
high level of regard.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So when she speaks, you like.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
You disappear and you want nobody to be focused on
you while the queen is speaking.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Oh it was.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
She is the leather and lace, and don't let the
lace fool you. Don't let the lace fool you. Recently,
when I went through that health malady and I had
a heart attack, my wife never left me for three
days or nights. She never left my side. Every time
(28:14):
I woke up, she was staring at me. She has
a tenacity. She had just gotten over a knee surgery.
We were dealing with all of those things at the
same time. What was really amazing she paid her knee
no mind. She hadn't walked on a cane or a
(28:34):
walk or anything since when I collapsed on that stage,
she ran over to where I was. She is leather
and lace. So when I sit back, one of the greatest,
one of the greatest choices we get to make in
life is who we are going to partner with, my God,
and that choice needs to be taken real seriously because
(28:55):
you're going to be in the fox hole with that person. Yes,
and you need to know that when hell breaks loose,
they're going to be there. They're going to be back
to back and shoulder to shoulder with you, and you're
going to be comfortable with that closeness, you know. Yeah,
because all of us bring baggage. All of us had
(29:17):
a bus moment. All of us came out of some
sort of pit or hole or trouble. Even wealthy, successful people.
We have a tendency to think that if people went
to Ivy League schools and if they went to private schools,
they had no trauma. That's not true. No trauma knocks
on every door. Yes, And when you get your trauma
and my trauma mixed together, they either find a way
(29:40):
to fit together and it becomes a key in the lock,
or they clash together and we spend the next ten
years fighting each other like we're in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
How did you know?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
That's a good question.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Because and my question is coming from this place. I've
been married in divorce twice. My divorce sadly has played
out for the world to see, child support, baby mama
drama on full display. I'm almost like the poster child
at this point, and I've been proud to be able
(30:17):
to speak up and speak out about you know, family law,
court systems, and if you were born a man, you
walk in the court room, they've already had a preset
menu as to what the outcome of this situation is
going to be. It does not matter what you say
or do, or how fascy your lawyer is. But how
many relationships were you in that allowed for you to say, okay,
(30:42):
well that was not it, and then that one was
not it? And then when you got to the presence
of your wife, how did you know she was the one?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Well, first of all, I was a Christian, I had
the Holy Spirit, I had the inkling. That doesn't mean
I floated around the room and had halos over my head.
I was man okay, okay. I used to tell my wife,
there's a man up under this road. Okay. But the
reality is there is a knowing that it's spiritual and
(31:15):
this is what you know. It's not she fined though
she is. It's not her voice, so she's got the
voice of velvet. It is that we will always be friends,
that I will always be for you, that you will
(31:36):
always before me. I might screw up, you might mess up,
we might go through hell, we might be on an
a dialysist machine. But if you're on a dialysis machine,
I will have your back. That feeling of connection, especially
when you grew up without it, Yes, it becomes extremely
(31:57):
important to know that you're not connected to my job,
my career, and my name, my money, my fortune, my education,
my intellect or whatever it is that you really hire
into me. And the problem is when you've never had
that a lot of times you will repel it because
you're not used to it. Wow, you will repel it
(32:19):
and give it up for somebody who fights, like you said,
and give it up for somebody who gives conflict. Because
we tend to be creatures of habit and recreate situations
that we grew up in. Because we're at home in hell.
If you were born in hell, when you go to hell,
you're at home. Okay, So the first thing that has
(32:43):
to be broken, and you have to break this is
the hell you were birthed in. And when you break
out of that, and you finally decide that I deserve
to be loved, and I deserve to be treated well,
and I deserve to have good things in my life.
And you stop self sabotaging anybody who cares about you
(33:06):
because you have this inner conflict going on that they
had nothing to do with, but they inherited when they
got you. When you get real with you and you
find somebody who will sit there and listen at you
and talk to you and talk you down and get
you together and know, I'm not talking to the star,
I'm not talking to the actor. I'm talking to the
(33:28):
guy on the back of the bus, because he's still
in there. Whoever marries you marries all nine versions of you. Yeah,
because you can't act all the time. Pretty soon you
have to take off the masket when with no lines,
you have to be who you are, who you really are,
(33:50):
and finding somebody who can embrace all sides of you,
and then learning the language to be able to explain
yourself to the person who is confused by your behavior.
When you learn the language to say, I know this
is crazy about me, and I may not always be
(34:11):
this way, and I may outgrow it, but when you
do such and such a thing, it scares me. It
triggers me, It triggers me. Yeah. That that that's what
therapy gives you is language. Yes, it doesn't always give
you cures, but it does give you language. Me.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Let me verbalize what I'm feeling.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, because until you verbalize it, you can't get it out. Yeah. Okay,
that's so you've got me counseling with No.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
No, no, this is this is I came here just
for this.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's really oh my god. You know.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
One of the things I want you to know that
I'm like literally inspired by and I can speak for
me and everybody when it comes to you and your
first lady, the level of regard that y'all have for
you each other, the level of nurturing, and like, while
(35:05):
you're preaching, your wife is at full attention.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, as if.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
She didn't just arrive with this man that's up here preaching,
and she ain't going home with this man preaching. She's
on the front row, on high alert. Like I never
it doesn't feel like neither one of you guys have
allowed yourself to get too familiar. No, no, And there's
such an honor and decency and respect and covering around that,
(35:35):
and and so what you just shared about when you
had that moment on stage and she had just had
her own knee surgery. Every time you open your eyes,
she was away. I'm not even surprised. She threw that
caine and ran out to meet me. She ran, And
I give her the credit because.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You know, generally when you get married, one of you
is gifted, the other is crazy one. I'm the crazy one,
but there's got to be somebody's stable who's consistent. But
you know, most creative people are a little bit weird, okay.
And so that creativity that makes you walk into an
empty room and see it with brick on the wall
(36:16):
and stone on that wall and this painted over here,
that creativity, that imagination works for and against you. Yeah,
it gives you an idealism that it's hard for people
to reckon with. Because my wife can't see it till
it's there. I can walk into a dump and see
(36:36):
a palace. I'm going to put the pool over there.
I'm gonna put this over here. I'm gonna do you know,
I got it in my head. What was Yeah, I
addressed mysel Yeah, I can see I know how I
wanted to go so opposite's attract but the very thing
that attracts you later repels you because their steadiness starts
(36:57):
to feel like boring, and you excitement starts to feel
like wow. And if you make it over that hurdle,
if you make it over the hump, I figured out
that we're losing each other in the turns of life.
If you make it over at menopause and men life crisis,
and make it over surgeries, and make it over grief
(37:19):
and make it over accidents, that grief you went through,
that's got side effects. Oh you know, it's like.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
The only person that's it, Yeah, the only person experiencing
that is the person that's intimately with you every single day.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Every day, and all the versions of you and how
it expresses itself in anger and fear and tears and
can you afford to break down and still be respected
in the morning. Those are the kinds of things we
gotta do. But I gotta get I gotta get through
this because.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I wanted to say one last thing, if you don't
mind say it, if you want, I just want to
say thank you. I want to say thank you. I
want you to know how often I actually pray for you.
Thank you, and I'm saying thank you because you have
(38:13):
literally changed this place. You have decided, and God has
been so present over your life.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
You have been a vessel the messages.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That got your cell phone tower, and the Jesus is
so strong. I'm sure that at this point, when you
get out on stage and you speak, you probably have
a couple of bulletnotes on the topic and everything that
happens in between them bulletnotes. You're channeling in real time
on stage, and everybody in the audience leaves a very
(38:56):
different person than they showed up as because you have
allowed God to speak through you and and display the
fullness of you, the good, the transparency, the challenges, the ups,
the downs, even your daughter having a child at a
young age.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I mean, what do we do? And you you have, you.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Have reinvented yourself over and over and over in front
of us, and I want you to know.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
That I pose this question all the time.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Okay, all right, I'm ready, I'm ready. Chapter number five.
Material possessions. Are they all going corcked up to be?
Let's see what Tyre says to say.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
When I'm speaking front of folks. I say, by a
show of hands. Can anybody in here that's behind the
cameras in this interview, can anybody in here right now
if you know what was the next worth of doctor
Martin Luther King when he was assassinated? Can anybody tell
me what was in his bank? Don't google it, don't
chat GPT, anybody know, no hands?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
What was the square footage.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Of doctor Martin Luther King's house when he was assassinated
the day he died?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
What was the rim size on his car?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Anybody know the brand of car he was driving or
how many cars he had? Okay, So in my mind,
we are not here to inspire people.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
From materialistic possessions.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Or net worth what we drive in the square footage
of our house. We are here to empty ourselves of
everything that we can to give people permission to be great,
to pull them up, to pour into them, to activate
something inside of them that could give them purpose, To
(40:56):
pour into a prison inmate and say, I'm gonna get
out of here one day, and I'm gonna decide to
be great when i get out of here. Because Bishop
td Jake showed up with the prison ministry and poured
into me what God has.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Done through you through it all, I just have to
say thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I often have a saying. The real message that I
bring to you is that God can do so much
with so little. Honestly, that's the that's the story, that
He can do so much with so little, that everybody
(41:46):
is eligible because hip he can use me, He could
use anybody. Okay, I honestly trust me this truth before God,
if he could, you know how our grandmothers and great
grandmothers could could make corn bread without eggs and then
(42:07):
take powdered milk and make pancakes and stuff like that.
That's what he did. He took nothing, He took mud
and made a man. And he's still shaping and he's
still forming, and he's still blowing and he's still breathing.
And the reason that I am a Christian is not
because I have perfected being christ Like. It is that
(42:31):
my only hope of being formed into something usable was
the nostrils of the God that breathed the breath of
life into me. So please know that, please know that
I am not this exceptional person. I had the same pain, trauma,
life crisis, confusion that you do, same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
But you're able to verbalize it, I can verbalize it
and not give a verbalizing yes, but understanding if we're
talking about a teleprompter, Yeah, go read those same words
on that teleprompter, and I promise it won't have the same.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Have the same Bishop TD Jake's for to read it.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Because I am in touch with myself, Praise God. I
am definitely in touch with all oil and most people.
Most people lie to themselves and they present the version
of themselves they wish they were, and they're not in
touch with all of themselves. So you can't do it
three sixty if you're determined to be a one to eighty.
(43:38):
Chapter number six gets real personal when he starts to
talk about a public divorce. Can you imagine Dion and
Tyrese's daughter, your daughter living with you? I understand Dion
tweeted something in response to fathers raising daughters that impacted you.
(43:59):
Have you you ever talk to Dion about raising kids
after a divorce and being a single father.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yes, we've had conversations. You know, there's a lot of
single fathers, a lot of single mothers, and so it's
what's always interesting for me is.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
I know what.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I want to talk to my daughter about. I struggle
with when M.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
So when when you know that certain things are being
said about you, when you know that you're being put
in a certain light, when you know what's being written
in court documents that will end up being posted on CMZ,
you have to live with that. And now social media
(45:05):
and people in their comments. My goal is, Okay, this
is what's being said. But I just got to figure
out when I'm going to have the conversation with my
daughter because I got to mentally, emotionally, physically, and psychologically
protect you. And so We've been having a lot of
(45:28):
fun with the stuff that looks a certain way. And
then once I do my part as a father and
I set her down, I had these conversations.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Then she looks at things to a totally different lens.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
There's nothing like loving a daughter that changes how you
handle a woman. Wow, there's nothing like it. There's nothing
like it that your girlfriend is somebody's daughter, that your
wife is somebody's daughter. You don't really get it until
you have a daughter and allow that daughter to speak
(46:07):
into your life. No, I don't want to put you
on the spot. I'm very protective of people. You know
anything about me at all, I'm extremely protective of people.
But I understand you had a conversation with Holly Berry
about divorce and about child support as much as you
are comfortable with talking about that. Yeah, can you share
(46:28):
something with you?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah, well, I what I said to her. It was
on my Instagram. I posted it, okay, and so it
is public knowledge what I posted. But it was actually
on the topic most recently. It was about her saying
(46:49):
that her current better have has been asking her to
marry her because they've been together for a while now
and she has been struggling with the idea of ever
you know, allowing herself to marry again. So and I said, well,
I could relate to that. You know, I've been in
(47:11):
a relationship now with my lady Zelli for five years
and she's always hinting at marriage. And some people will say, oh,
you're a band aid. You're just filling in the blanks,
and you know, you know, at a certain point he's
going to dispose of you and then go find the
woman that he actually wants to marry. But people don't
understand is that your opinion is formulating from things that
(47:34):
you have never experienced. You don't know what it's like
to wake up, get married, have a prenuptial agreement in place,
have the prenupt to get cracked where you end up
paying all of her.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Legal fees and my legal fees.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
And now I'm paying all this money to attorneys trying
to protect what I have. And then you realize that
somebody marries you, and then they said I don't want
to be here anymore, and then they trying to take
every thing that belongs to you with them, and it
is really a painful process. And so well, hey, if
(48:10):
we could be happy and we could be together and
we could not get married, because if you ever decide
that you don't want to be married anymore, now you're
going to be another person trying to take everything that
I've worked my butt off for for the last thirty years.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
And what does that look like? And how long is
this going to.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Last before the judge decides this is my final judgment.
So everything about my last divorce took four and a
half years. I lost all of my appeals in the
lower courts, then I lost all of my appeals in
the Supreme courts, and so I had like three weeks
(48:53):
to cough up almost one point two million dollars that
I did not have to give, and then who do
I turn to when I'm financially depleted. I was doing
all right financially until this divorce turned into four and
a half years.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I got this calculator in my head, this adding up
all the trauma we have talked about, and it's smoking.
It's smoking the batteries of Bernie. From the experience you
went through with your mother, to the death of your father,
(49:35):
to the crisis of three relationships, to trying to figure
out how to raise your daughter, two daughters, two daughters
while you're trying to heal you yourself. How do you
cope with feeling and everybody having an opinion about all
the stuff you're doing, your crying on the internet and
everybody's making fun and every How do you cope with
(50:00):
being misunderstood?
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I've gotten comfortable with being misunderstood, and I've been the
beneficiary of being misunderstood, because when people don't understand you,
they want to stay away from you.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Okay, oh he weird? He is he dad?
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
I would rather be at dinner for three hours for
Bishop td Jakes because at this point, I value my time,
I value my mental health, I value the people that
I allow in my space. And so I have this
very simple saying, if I do a lunch or a
(50:52):
dinner with you and I leave the same person that
I showed up as, give me my three hours back.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
My goal in life at this point is to become
very intentional about who I allow in my personal space,
who I allow myself to exchange with.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
And this is not money.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
This is not about, like you know, everything about who
I spend time with has to be connected to a mission.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
How we gonna get to the money now?
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Because most of the most life changing moments and exchanges
that I've had over my forty six years has nothing
to do with having conversations about how to get to
the money. You know, I don't know what I don't know,
and I am afraid at this point of what I
don't know. I need somebody to love me and to
(51:53):
a better me. Give me the heads up of what's
around the corner. Talk to me in great detail, the
choices and the mistakes, the shortcomings, the things that you
are blind sided by. The charm, the charisma, the undiscovered
magicians that know how to create all the smoke and
get you to think and believe that they are what
(52:15):
they appear to be, and then when the smoke clears,
this is what their intentions were. Love me in a
way that's connected to protecting me, because I'm tired of crying.
I'm tired of coming close to losing it all. I'm
tired of living and being on edge. I'm tired. I'm
(52:40):
afraid of what I don't know. And who's gonna love
me enough? Who's going to make me a choice and say,
let me love you to protect you from all the
things that you don't know.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Chapter number seven deals with life after divorce. It deals
with current relationships. So if you didn't have a point
of reference at home in the arms of a mother
or sitting on the lafe of a father, and you
didn't have a point of reference in the three relationships,
not saying it's their fault, but it didn't work out,
(53:18):
what's different about this one that gives you the hope
of finding the love that little boy? I'm not talking
about the grown man, the actor who's fast, driving, fast
and furious that has anybody ever loved your little boy?
(53:39):
And do you think you found that person?
Speaker 1 (53:48):
What's interesting? Here's the best way I could answer that.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Because you're speaking for a lot of men. There are
a lot of men who feel the way you do.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
Wow, I.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Don't know how much I could connect to the current
relationship that I'm in and this capacity. I'm actually surprised
and shocked that my relationship had lasted this long because
(54:24):
it started with flirting, that it went into trauma bonding,
and then it became just maybe God made you an
assignment over my life and I'm an assignment over yours.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
I showed up broken, she showed up broken. We showed
up with.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Baggage, lots of baggage, but we made the decision that
we're gonna love each other enough to stand here and
help each other unpack. I'm not gonna judge you with
the baggage that you showed up with, don't judge me
with mine. We might argue and disagree about some of
the stuff that's pre existing traumas that we've brought into
(55:06):
the relationship, right, and so what do we do about
where we are and what we have? And guess what
if we ultimately have made each other better? Were we
supposed to be in each other's life for just this
period because we were here to prepare ourselves for who else.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Is supposed to be here? Or did we go through.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
All of this live unraveling your parenting issues, my parenting issues,
relationships that have put triggers and boundaries and trauma. Nobody
ever talks to me that way, no one ever makes
me feel So now I'm now moving and operating within
the comforts and discomforts of your past experiences.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I call it mirroring your nurse. I call it marrying
your nurse, the person that you went to to get well.
You don't recognize that there's scaffolding and not the building, okay,
and you walk off tearing up the building and living
in the scaffolding, and it's hard to determine which one
(56:22):
is which. A lot of prayer, a lot of discernment.
I took every I took my wife to every old
woman I could find, including my grandmother. Let the smoke,
because nobody knows a woman like a woman. Yeah, nobody
knows a woman like a woman. And there are women
(56:43):
who have the same kind of trauma stories that you have,
and have been through the abuse that you have. And
when those traumas clash, the house burns down, sometimes with
the kids in it, So you can't afford to marry.
Read the scaffolding after you built the house. Wow. Yeah, Yeah.
(57:05):
Some people are in your life for a season. Some
people are in your life for a reason, and some
people are in your life for a lifetime. I don't
know what category she fits in, but you gotta figure
that out, and you gotta figure that out some because
you're getting older, yes, sir, and you're running out of time.
(57:26):
And I say that with a face full of gray hair,
that if you don't figure it out quick, it ain't
gonna matter in a minute.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
You just said something. Some people are in your life
for a reason. Others are there for a season, and
it's important to recognize when people's seasons are over. There's
an expiration date on loyalty. Some of us want to
hold on and hold on and hold on, and you
(57:58):
know that this will relatelationship is that capacity. It's hit
a wall and nothing about this season that you're in
right now makes sense to proceed with this person. But
you want to hold on because you're familiar with it.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
And so I've wrestled with all of those things.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
But it all goes back to this, and I'll put
a button on this irregardless of what we all may
think or believe. We've created a checklist what she looked like,
(58:42):
the boom Boom and the Kyle Kyle, and you know
what she dressed like, what she look like, what her
networth is. You know, women, they call them a checklist.
Men have checklists too, And I've went into this relationship
and I said, this woman does not check off a
lot of boxes for me. And yet for the women
(59:06):
that I did say have the majority of those checklists
where they are now.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Right, I could not have been more wrong.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
And so maybe God in the equation of this woman,
has said, you thought you had it all figured out,
but I'm gonna send you something that doesn't look, doesn't walk,
doesn't talk, doesn't have any of these things according to
this checklist that I've created. Next thing, you know where
at five years and I'm with this woman right now
(59:39):
in a relationship that lasted longer than my last marriage.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
Wow, Chapter number eight. Do you think it's just a
movie or a show, but it's really a business show business.
Tell me about the role you wish you to took,
be you did TV, film, whatever, and you look back
at it and say I should have took that.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Well, I don't really know if there's a role I
should have took.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
That I struggle with over the role that I'm determined
to still do. Okay, the life story of Teddy Pendergrass. Okay,
that's the movie that keeps me up at night. I
was the Paul bar at his funeral. I was with
him for at least six years prior to him passing away,
(01:00:36):
and he said, you're the only person that could play
me in a movie, because even though you sing and
you act, you never wanted to be me. And He's like,
I would never want anybody to play a role of
me as Teddy Pendergras who groomed and nurtured and tried
(01:00:57):
to sound like me, look like me, perform like me.
You were you the whole time, and that's why I
want you to play me in the movie. So Lee
Daniels is attached to direct it because him and Teddy
are both from Philadelphia, and so you know, it's in
a gray area right now. There's some stuff that's going
(01:01:17):
on creatively that's kind of put the project on hold.
But I hope and I pray that I'm able to
keep my word that I gave him that I'm going
to tell his story.
Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
What kind of man was Teddy Pendergrass?
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
He was a good man.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
I grew up. My brother used to have these eight
tracks with Teddy Pendergrass on him, and he would turn
them up all the way to ten yes and play them.
And he was the man. Yes, famous incidentally for wearing
white Susan you got on a white jacket.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
And he performed with his cowboy Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
When I met him, he was in a wheelchair during
gospel plays. You watched his deteriors. There's nothing like deterioration
to show your inner ingredients in a word or two
without divulging anything private or personal. What kind of man
(01:02:15):
was he?
Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Charm charming, charismatic.
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
You know, I've been around my share of people that
are in a wheelchair or living with some type of
terminal illness, and you be surprised at how often they
go out of their way to make sure that nobody
feel sorry for them. Right, And Teddy was that guy.
(01:02:48):
Don't feel sorry for me?
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
What's going on? Are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
You know, whatever you're going through. I mean, you ain't
going through this right, you know, So he'll be the
one to give you some perspective while he's laying in
the bed quadripolice to paralyze from the neck down right,
And then you leave there and you go, well, yeah,
you know, he gave me some perspectives that I did
not have. But yeah, he didn't want anybody to feel
sorry for him in his condition and his situation.
Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
He'll have conversations with you about it, but he never.
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Wanted you to leave feeling sorry for him, because he
found strength and the choice that God kept him alive
as long as he kept him alive, because he could
have died in that accident.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
There is a certain fraternity that seems to exist amongst
talented actors, singers, what have you. Either it's a very
good fraternity or they're beefing at each other. You've seem
to have had a great fraternity. And what about the rock?
Tell me about the right sixty pounds? He lost sixty pounds?
(01:03:51):
I'm sorry, I'm on TV. I almost didn't recognize him.
Tell me about that number one? How hard is it?
And uh is he gonna gain it back? I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I don't know anything about his weight loss. I seen
it online like everybody else. I'm not in touch with him.
To call him and have a conversation with him about
but it's my understanding that he lost all the weight
for a movie role playing a wrestler or some sort.
And yeah, I'm sure if he'd lost all that weight
(01:04:26):
for the role, then he'll probably be putting it back on.
Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Pres You probably don't remember this, but that's one of
the first things you told me in California when we
were going out to eat. How you eat sometimes and
gain weight and do what you gotta do and then
go in the gym and work it out. So sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's back in your baby boy. Yeah. Yeah, we ain't
(01:04:50):
even going there. We're gonna stay out here where the
air is fresh. What was Will Smith's advice to you?
Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
Will have said, you can often tell how far your
life and career will go based on the five people
you spend the most time with. Wow, So if you
have a problem with your life, you should have a
problem with the five people that you have surrounded your
(01:05:21):
life with. If you're out of shape, you likely reflect
the group of people that allowed for you to look
that bad. What you're doing, what you're not doing, the
direction you're going in, what direction you're not going on
going in is all a reflection of the five people
that you spend the most time with.
Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
That's a profound statement. Oh yeah, so it was right
down and remembering because sometimes it is easier to see
your brother than it is to see yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
And sometimes seeing him helps you to see yourself. I
only got one more card and I'll be done chapter
number nine. I couldn't let Tyree's go without asking him,
how's your mental health? How is your mental health today?
Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Fragile?
Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Okay, I that's a terribly honest answer. It's fragile. It's
fragile because I'm still processing my divorce. I don't like
(01:06:44):
where I am financially because of a four and a
half year legal with all it's it's bad. And at
the same time, my life could only I I feel like,
(01:07:08):
how could I say this? I I really wanna encourage
somebody with what I'm about to say, So, uh.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
Think of me as a rock.
Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Kay.
Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
And then there's this, h what do you call those
things that poof you.
Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Know, the the the the slicker, Yeah, sling shot?
Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
So in most cases, the sling shot is a stick
and two things that go at the top, and then
there's a rubber band on each side, and then the rock.
So I feel like my life right now. Literally, I'm stressed,
I'm on edge anxiety, I'm unsure, I'm praying, I'm certain,
(01:07:51):
I'm I'm inspired, I'm motivated.
Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
I got all.
Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
I got this cocktail of all of these different things
that I am feeling, And I'm the rock that's inside
of this sling shot, and the rubber band is Jesus
stretching me all the way back. And then when he
(01:08:18):
lets go, I'm gonna get thrusted into a level that
I've been praying for. My heart has been desired, so
being stretched to the level of depletion mentally, emotionally, financially, psychologically,
(01:08:39):
I'm in that exact place right now.
Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Ten years from now. What does success look right for you?
Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Impact?
Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Impact?
Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
I'm not motivated by nothing else.
Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
But impact, impact, defining.
Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Before I take my last breath, I have this overwhelming
sense of getting all these visions and ideas out because
they belong to me, yes their mind, these are my assignments,
and I'm supposed to empty myself of all of these
(01:09:19):
things and all of these experiences that I want to
create for the world. And that's what keeps me up
at night. And so I wanna open a movie studio
here in Atlanta, I think one and only studio that's
actually open to the public. On the charitable front, I
(01:09:41):
got so many more things that I wanna do to
impact the world. From giving and nothing temporary, something that's
gonna be in place. I wanna put trades uh in
place for prison inmates when they get out. Teach them
a trade that sort of the concept of them winging
(01:10:03):
it once they get out, because there's so many of
us that are capable of doing it, but we just
don't have any trades. Like teach me something that's connected
to how I can survive. So as the market continues
to go up and down, I'm something that's self sufficient
and independent of a bitcoin.
Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Our re Injury program has seen over forty thousand formerly
incarcerated people go through our programs, most of which who
came out with jobs, had the records expunge, did family reunification,
anger management, everything was necessary to keep them from going back.
The rate of recidivism is amazing, one of the best
(01:10:47):
in the country because we took the time to walk
them through a two year process to help them to acclimate.
One of them, I was talking to one of them myself. Yeah, yeah,
you're talking to the right God. Yeah. I was talking
to one of them, and he says, show me how
to use a phone, because when he went in, we
(01:11:08):
had payphones. When he came out, we had ourplephones. You know,
there's so many simple things. When he went in, he
was married. When he came out, he was divorced and
she was remarried. When he went in, the world was
totally different. You know, we were busting and training. When
(01:11:29):
he came out, we were flying. And now our cards
are being driven with our people in him. The world
is changing so fast, so fast. In the midst of
the change, I want to say this year and pray
you find everything that God has for you that gives
(01:11:52):
you peace, It gives you joy, that gives you wholeness,
that gives you mental health, that gives you peace, that
makes you dance in the rain to kind of happy.
That not a scene in a movie, just a happy
(01:12:15):
man dancing in the rain. Thank you for this time together. Yeah,
I really mean it. I really mean that for you.
I really want you to have that. Thank you sir.
(01:12:36):
That was amazing, That was amazing, That was powerful, Thank
you sir. That was powerful and it was real. It
was real, My honor sir, give me another year. Thank you.
(01:12:58):
I hope you got something out.
Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
Of oh yeah, beyond my life changed.
Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
You spoke for so many men. Hey everybody, I want
to take this time to thank you for watching the
Next Chapter podcast. If 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
(01:13:25):
miss future episodes. Remember, life isn't about how you begin,
it's about how you finished strong. So start your next
chapter with us right here every week
If I had my mother and my father at the
same house, I probably wouldn't be here. So I said,
I forgive you because just maybe God removed you out
of the house because I would have been a crackhead.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yeah. By now you should know, I'm TD Jason. I
want to welcome you the next chapter, and I am very,
very excited about the guests that I'm going to present
to you today. A powerful man in his own rights
because he's a popular actor in Hollywood, not just one,
but two of the highest grossing film franchises of all times.
(00:40):
He's an iconic singer, a platinum selling songwriter, and an
award winning R and B veteran. He's also an accomplished producer,
a successful entrepreneur, a New York Times best selling author,
and above all, a devoted father. He remains a true
global superstar. Please help me welcome Ireese. We're glad to
(01:13):
have you here. Man, I want to welcome you.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
The only uncomfortable part of the day so far as
hearing you, Bishop Jakes read off my Wikipedia page, I
am not worthy.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Oh you asked so much more to do. Oh God,
I want to fill in some of the blanks in
between the Mountaintops. We covered the mountaintops and the introduction,
but I want to talk about some of the other
things that you have learned along the way, about life,
about family, about self, and the complexities of all of it.
(01:50):
Chapter one, Recreating Yourself. I want to welcome you first
of all, to be a part of this great next
After podcasts, you've had many next chapters. You've had to
turn the page many times to recreate yourself and expose
different parts of yourself in order to have the longevity
(02:11):
and the career that you had, from author to R
and B singer to actor to action actor to all
the many, many things that we've seen you do. And
it's not easy to be able to be a chameleon
that can fit into various situations like that. What do
you attribute that to.
Speaker 1 (02:38):
If you've never met a person with blind faith? I'm
right here, all right, no point of reference. See, I'm
not the son.
Speaker 3 (02:47):
Of Barry Gordy.
Speaker 1 (02:49):
Yeah, Anita Baker is not my mother, right, Gladys Knight.
I was not raised in a house with executives and
musicians and people.
Speaker 3 (02:59):
I wasn't raised by Will Smith.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
I wasn't raised by Sidney Poitier, Denzel is not my father.
I wish he was right, because you're being raised in
a house where it's not just the talent, it's the dialogue,
it's the business, it's the understanding, it's all of the
things that you would hope to say. Well, if you're
going to take this journey, you don't have to worry
(03:24):
about being blind sided about what's around the corner before
you get there, because Mommy and Daddy already had a
conversation with you about the traps, the things to avoid,
giving you the heads up, you know, and so blind faith.
I cannot believe that's my resume. I cannot believe that
(03:47):
I'm the first in my family to ever see or
achieve or accomplish the things that God has had in
mind for me, and the pressure that comes with being
the only The pressure is scary.
Speaker 2 (04:03):
The pressure is scary, The pressure is real. Let me
before I ask you, I want to follow down that trail,
So hold that thought. We recently hooked up in Charleston,
South Carolina at a wedding. We've been knowing each other
for years and years, and we got together at the
wedding at a pretty tough time in your life. You
just lost your father, and we were able to minister
(04:26):
to you and encourage you. And I wondered in my
mind the guy who was sitting on the back of
the bus drinking a coke or pepsi or whatever it
was and got discovered and entered into a career that
was absolutely amazing. Never fully goes away. Money doesn't take
that away. Grammys doesn't take that away. You have to
(04:49):
live with who you were and who you are at
the same time and learn how to make a homogeneous
connection between the past and the present and the future.
How do you do that? I don't know. I is
(05:10):
it hard.
Speaker 1 (05:11):
I've never heard it broken down in such a scientific way,
like you just went boom boom, boom boom, and you.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Can't get rid of My point is you can't get
rid of You can't totally dismiss your upbringing and your training.
And there's a part of you that you learn how
to survive in the world, in the streets, in the city,
and there's a part of you that had to learn
how to survive in California and Los Angeles in the
(05:40):
Hollywood scene. And there's a part of you that had
to learn how to do business. And all of them
come home with you at night, Yes, all of them. Yes,
you didn't leave the guy on the bus, He's still there.
And so a lot of people don't realize that, you
get it. A lot of people don't realize it. So
when you find yourself in a situation, it's which God
(06:01):
does to talking. Who's gonna drive the car? Is it
gonna be the guy from Philly? Is it gonna be
the guy from from Hollywood? Is it gonna be the writer?
How do you manage that? Well?
Speaker 1 (06:16):
I think of myself as a black octopus. My arms
is in thirty different places and they're all working at
the same time at the same time, and so I'm
the head and I'm the heart, and then my arms
is this everywhere, and we're doing things and trying to
(06:37):
achieve things that are all happening in real time. And
each project, and it's each situation is in various different levels,
and you don't want to lose sight of any of them. Right,
And then what a blessing it's been that the singer
has helped audition and set up the success of the
(07:00):
right and then the actor, and the singer has given
birth to the entrepreneur. Yes, and then the Koch kid
is in the back of the bus. Yeah, and he's
riding the waves.
Speaker 2 (07:12):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (07:12):
I started this.
Speaker 1 (07:13):
Yeah, and I'm on the bus and we got a
lot of seats and whatever version of tyres y'all ended
up seeing we're all headed that way and the bus
is being driven by God.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
My problem is all my all of my tdjakess want
to talk at the same time. And so it just
depends on who asked me and what tone of voice
you asked me in which one you're gonna get? What environment? Yeah,
and what environment I'm in, And I have to manage
those those people. The Apostle Paul said, when I would
do good, evil is present with me that which I
(07:45):
would not do. I do, old wretched man that I am,
who should deliver me from the body of this death,
this sin, this this human experience and all of those
people live with you. So you're in a mansion now,
and you and you eat something that you ate when
you were back on neck bones, Yes, right, neck bones
in a mass yes, okay, Chitlin's on China. The unique
(08:11):
experience we have as a people of having climbed up
and been colored. We've been negroes, we've been black we've
been darkies, we've been everything, to the point that there's
sometimes an identity crisis, not just through us corporately, but
individually in finding yourself. And I wondered, did anybody else
(08:32):
ever feel that way?
Speaker 1 (08:37):
Yes, yeah, you know, you're I've had so many moments
in my life where I know that I had to
dig deep within me because the things that I have
(08:58):
in mind for me, you realize that other people don't have.
Speaker 3 (09:02):
Them in mind for you.
Speaker 1 (09:05):
And so when someone makes it clear no, no, no,
we don't have that in mind for you, and I
have it in mind for myself, it won't go away
because this person or this room or this situation denied
you of what you feel like belongs to you. And
so the appetite, the determination, it's the self talk, the
(09:30):
self motivation, the speaking over yourself, the pouring over yourself.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
The you know.
Speaker 3 (09:38):
And the thing is, I want to say this.
Speaker 1 (09:44):
I've been really struggling with how to put words to this,
because there's a chosen few that will hear a piece
of this and decide it goes over their head.
Speaker 2 (09:56):
You know.
Speaker 1 (09:57):
Selfish starts with the word self, and they've made selfish
and being selfish and negative but most of us are giving,
doing showing up for people mentally, emotionally, physically, financially, psychologically,
and we're over extending ourselves and giving of ourselves and
(10:20):
we're depleted and we're tired, and we're sick, and we're
wiped out and we got nothing.
Speaker 3 (10:26):
Left for ourselves.
Speaker 2 (10:27):
I appreciate it.
Speaker 3 (10:28):
And they don't care to notice.
Speaker 2 (10:30):
They don't care.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
You don't I'm here to get what I'm here to get,
and even if I wipe you completely out. And so
I have allowed myself to be more selfish and focus
on me and say I'm not returning that text to
that call because I don't have the time or the
(10:55):
bandwidth to be on the receiving end of what you're about.
Speaker 3 (10:57):
The dumb on.
Speaker 2 (10:59):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (11:00):
So, and then especially when you know what the phone
call is going to be about. Right, So, now you
got to say, I'm not going to give you emotional
access to me because you're going to change the energy
of my day. So I'm going to make the selfish
decision to say, if I want my day to be better,
(11:22):
it's not going to include you.
Speaker 2 (11:24):
Right, you will not want to miss as he shares
his personal experience with grief and losing parents. You know,
when you talked about somebody like Denzel was not your father.
You didn't grow up in an environment where you had
a model to fit where you ended up a blueprint. Yeah,
(11:46):
no blueprint, anything like that. I think every man and
probably every woman yearns to have in their parents some
sort of shape, measurement pattern, blueprint of what they're going
to and what they're going to be. We look from
that from our father. My father got sick when I
was ten. He died when I was sixteen. I realized
(12:11):
when I was thirty that as I wept for him,
I was weeping for me. I recognized that I wasn't
just weeping at the loss of him. I was weeping
at the questions I didn't have answered, at the things
that I didn't have resolved. Did you really love me?
(12:32):
What did you really think of me? Did you never
got to see me? When when you lost your father,
it's part of the pain coming from inside your own house.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
This is what's interesting.
Speaker 1 (12:53):
When my father passed away, rest in peace to that brother,
to that man. I went to Saint Louis to see
him stage four pancreatic cancer. Life was riddled with alcoholism
and crack cocaine and just never quite got his hands
(13:14):
around figuring it out. And and and I said to him,
I just want you to know I forgive you. And
I wanted him to know why. I said, I forgive
you for not being there to protect me, for not
(13:36):
giving me the heads up of what's around the corner.
I don't know that he would have been anybody that
would have changed my life in business or right changed.
Speaker 2 (13:45):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:45):
I don't know that my father was ever a Berry
Gordy that could sit me down and say, son, don't
sign that deal. And here's why. But I said to him,
I forgive you. And then I realized that if my
mother rests in peace, messed my life up with the
twenty seven years of alcohol, the verbal, emotional, psychological, and
(14:08):
physical abuse, and all of the abuse that was in
my house, and it's still affected me to this day.
If I had my mother and my father at the
same house, I probably wouldn't be here. So I said,
I forgive you because just maybe God removed you out
of the house because I would have been a crackhead.
(14:32):
I would have been verbally and physically abusive to my
mother the way you were. There was other men that
came to my house that ended up doing it to
my mother ultimately. And so I was introduced to love,
and I was raised to believe that this is what
love is. Love is not kind, love is not gentle,
Love is verbally abusive, love is physically abusive. Love is
(14:56):
all of these things that I was raised in. And
so I would alway always find myself gravitating towards women
that I would be fighting and arguing, being dysfunctional with
right and anybody else that any other version of love
that I was in the present of felt soft, It
felt it felt boring. You ain't arguing, Yeah, well, she
(15:20):
must don't love you if you ain't willing to fight
and argue. And so that's and so I have to
I had to say to him, thank you for removing
yourself from my life, because if the crack cocaine and
the alcoholism and everything that you were doing, that would
have all been an impression that you would have made
(15:43):
on my life that as a grown man, I would
have still been deeply hurt by and affected by, because
I would have been raised by another.
Speaker 3 (15:53):
Level of trauma.
Speaker 1 (15:54):
Right, So, so as an example, you know, people love
to look at you. Bishop Jakes and say, look at
him in the megachurch, look at him, what he's driving,
what he's living in, look at him with his wife,
and look at him with his daughter who's now out
there on stage changing lives and Sarah Jakes, who I'm
(16:20):
so proud of and I know you are. But they
always look at the fruits and the outcome. And even
if you make them aware of the strife and the
struggles and the stuff that the family had to navigate
through when you mentioned you know, I remember I was
(16:42):
preaching and only had seventeen people in front of me,
they have no concept of really wrapping their heads around that.
Because the version of Jake's Bishop Jakes that they're looking
at is on the grounds of forty books and mega
church and where you are now.
Speaker 2 (17:04):
Yeah, And they trap you in how they met you.
They don't recognize you wrote forty two books. They don't
recognize that you sold five hundred million dollars worth of movies.
They want to put you in a place where they
can assault you with their implications of you and.
Speaker 3 (17:25):
You are how I met you.
Speaker 2 (17:27):
Yeah, you are how I met you, and you are
who I met you, And that's what I meant earlier,
when I was talking about, you know, you have to
live with that guy who grew up in that Ballador home.
He's still in there, okay. And money didn't take him away,
and movies didn't take him away, and books didn't take
him away. He's still there. It bottled up somewhere inside.
(17:47):
And then this unresolved issue which I can relate to.
My father wasn't an alcoholic, but I can relate to an
unresolved issue with your father's complicated. Let me ask you this,
at what point or did you have a moment that
you recognized that you were an orphan?
Speaker 4 (18:10):
Yeah, that hit me a month ago, and how did
that feel? The idea of being an orphan.
Speaker 1 (18:25):
Was something that we've seen on television documentaries specifically throughout Africa, right,
you know, like, oh, this is village of kids that
are orphans because their mother and father died of hiva,
or you know a bunch of bad guys came in
and killed a bunch of people, and now here's these
(18:47):
foundations raising kids as orphans. And so when they delivered
my father's ashes to my house and I was able
to put my father's ashes next to my mother's ashes,
I said my mother and father haven't lived under the
(19:08):
same roof since they divorced. Wow, and now they're here.
My mother and my father never even made it to
my house that I've been living in Atlanta for nine years,
so this is their first time living under the same
roof with their son.
Speaker 3 (19:29):
And then I thought, well, at least they're here. Yeah, And.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Then I'm a bit of a junkie for the sense
of humor of God. So I'm thinking to myself, my
mother and father are finally under the same roof with
they baby boy. Right, and my mother died on Valentine's
Day after giving birth to an R and B singer.
(20:03):
If you if you're not booked do any concerts throughout
the year as a singer, You're likely going to get
booked on Valentine's Day. And so there's a sense of
humor in that. And then I always have my mother
and father's ashes. I don't always announce it to everybody,
but every meeting and conversation that I have, I always
(20:26):
have my mother and father's ashes in the room with
me because I want them to know how proud I
am of them for doing the best they could.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
And nobody's around. Do you ever talk to them.
Speaker 3 (20:45):
Yes, yes, I do.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
It's form of therapy. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:50):
I always say, Mama, I don't know what's about to happen,
but they pulling up right now, and and and just
cover me. I know you was always a praying mama,
and I know you're still with me, Mom, So just
pray for me. I might not have the words in
this meeting, but I want it to be something. And
then the biggest thing is I don't have it all
(21:18):
figured out. That I don't and that scares me.
Speaker 2 (21:25):
Chapter three. You may not even know what to name it,
but you may be feeling it. It's called survivors remorse.
Speaker 1 (21:35):
What God is doing right now. I've always had this
big appetite for success, never driven by money, driven by impact,
and what God is doing right now with visions and
ideas and dreams and the things that keep me up
(21:57):
at night. I've had this in my mind. And God,
when you pray, I always say, pray specific prayers so
that God can specifically bless you and cover you for
the things that you're.
Speaker 3 (22:13):
Vulnerable about, vulnerable about.
Speaker 1 (22:17):
And so I'm in a place right now where I
am sure that God is about to take me into
these levels and this level of stratosphere in my career,
and I don't feel prepared for what God is about
to do, even though I know He's about to do it.
(22:40):
So now I'm on this mission where I'm saying I
am very specific about I got to surround myself with
people to cover me spiritually with the wisdom and the
knowledge and the blueprint and pour into me to say, Okay,
let's not talk about the winds and what happened. Talk
(23:00):
about the moments where you almost wanted to give up.
Talk about the moments that where you had to push
through the trauma and the stress and the press or
the social media attacks or the accusations, or talk about
how you got through that. What prayer did you pray
to get through that? Because and I say this in
(23:26):
my own way respectfully, I feel like where I love
you Bishop as you have always been transparent about the
moments that you wanted to quit and give up and
the struggles, because it's almost like survival's remorse, where it's
(23:47):
like everybody looks at me as being so successful, and
all I want to do is make y'all aware of
how hard and how challenging it has been and how
challenging it. It's and you feel this overwhelming sense of
wanting to really break it all down, and breaking it
(24:08):
all down ultimately gives folks permission to say, Okay, I
could achieve it. People are focused on the net worth
and the plane and the shiny building and how big
the church is.
Speaker 2 (24:24):
But I go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Maybe that's property,
maybe it's nobody both. I welcome it. Yeah, he welcomes it.
Speaker 3 (24:46):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (24:47):
So it's it's you know, there's there's people that think
of survivors, or more so when they think of that,
and it's usually like, you know, my friend died and
we were in the same car and I survived, and
so there's survivals. But the other version of survivals was
morse is I'm more successful than everybody in my family.
Speaker 2 (25:08):
Yeah, I knew you whin I knew you when you
ain't all of that. I knew you when you win
da da da. You know, there's a scripture in the
Bible that says I will give you treasures in the darkness.
And at first I thought we made it in life
in spite of adversity. Now I think we made it
(25:30):
because of adversity. If there had not been tension, there
would be no muscles. Okay, if there had not been obstacles,
if there had not been something to prove, if you
hadn't felt invisible, you wouldn't have screamed out, I'm over here,
see me, hear me, feel me? That those sorts of
(25:53):
things become of paramount importance. And also I wanted to
say to you because you said something. I think it's
on Facebook or on social media somewhere where you talked
about my wife and I talking about marriage and how
it helped you child.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
Yes, I see that was like almost thirty five years ago.
Speaker 2 (26:14):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think God gives us surrogate
fathers and mothers to replace what we didn't have. Yes,
Chapter number four, finding the right partner. Oh yeah, you
want to get this. What was that like thirty five
years ago? To get some counsel as if I were
(26:37):
talking to you, even though I were talking to a screen.
Speaker 1 (26:41):
You were talking to me. Yeah, I seen it on YouTube,
but you were talking to me. Yeah, And that is
that is why we love you and we are so
moved by you and your transparency, the way you unpacked
that conversation and dialogue and went into specifics about the working,
(27:07):
functioning dynamics of your marriage. And then whenever your wife spoke,
I mean to see you sit back. You know, it
was just really like wow, you know, to just feel
(27:27):
like this alpha, strong, dominant kind of man of God
sits back and he holds his wife at such a
high level of regard.
Speaker 3 (27:40):
So when she speaks, you like.
Speaker 1 (27:43):
You disappear and you want nobody to be focused on
you while the queen is speaking.
Speaker 3 (27:49):
Oh it was.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
She is the leather and lace, and don't let the
lace fool you. Don't let the lace fool you. Recently,
when I went through that health malady and I had
a heart attack, my wife never left me for three
days or nights. She never left my side. Every time
(28:14):
I woke up, she was staring at me. She has
a tenacity. She had just gotten over a knee surgery.
We were dealing with all of those things at the
same time. What was really amazing she paid her knee
no mind. She hadn't walked on a cane or a
(28:34):
walk or anything since when I collapsed on that stage,
she ran over to where I was. She is leather
and lace. So when I sit back, one of the greatest,
one of the greatest choices we get to make in
life is who we are going to partner with, my God,
and that choice needs to be taken real seriously because
(28:55):
you're going to be in the fox hole with that person. Yes,
and you need to know that when hell breaks loose,
they're going to be there. They're going to be back
to back and shoulder to shoulder with you, and you're
going to be comfortable with that closeness, you know. Yeah,
because all of us bring baggage. All of us had
(29:17):
a bus moment. All of us came out of some
sort of pit or hole or trouble. Even wealthy, successful people.
We have a tendency to think that if people went
to Ivy League schools and if they went to private schools,
they had no trauma. That's not true. No trauma knocks
on every door. Yes, And when you get your trauma
and my trauma mixed together, they either find a way
(29:40):
to fit together and it becomes a key in the lock,
or they clash together and we spend the next ten
years fighting each other like we're in the Vietnam War.
Speaker 3 (29:51):
How did you know?
Speaker 2 (29:54):
That's a good question.
Speaker 1 (29:57):
Because and my question is coming from this place. I've
been married in divorce twice. My divorce sadly has played
out for the world to see, child support, baby mama
drama on full display. I'm almost like the poster child
at this point, and I've been proud to be able
(30:17):
to speak up and speak out about you know, family law,
court systems, and if you were born a man, you
walk in the court room, they've already had a preset
menu as to what the outcome of this situation is
going to be. It does not matter what you say
or do, or how fascy your lawyer is. But how
many relationships were you in that allowed for you to say, okay,
(30:42):
well that was not it, and then that one was
not it? And then when you got to the presence
of your wife, how did you know she was the one?
Speaker 2 (30:50):
Well, first of all, I was a Christian, I had
the Holy Spirit, I had the inkling. That doesn't mean
I floated around the room and had halos over my head.
I was man okay, okay. I used to tell my wife,
there's a man up under this road. Okay. But the
reality is there is a knowing that it's spiritual and
(31:15):
this is what you know. It's not she fined though
she is. It's not her voice, so she's got the
voice of velvet. It is that we will always be friends,
that I will always be for you, that you will
(31:36):
always before me. I might screw up, you might mess up,
we might go through hell, we might be on an
a dialysist machine. But if you're on a dialysis machine,
I will have your back. That feeling of connection, especially
when you grew up without it, Yes, it becomes extremely
(31:57):
important to know that you're not connected to my job,
my career, and my name, my money, my fortune, my education,
my intellect or whatever it is that you really hire
into me. And the problem is when you've never had
that a lot of times you will repel it because
you're not used to it. Wow, you will repel it
(32:19):
and give it up for somebody who fights, like you said,
and give it up for somebody who gives conflict. Because
we tend to be creatures of habit and recreate situations
that we grew up in. Because we're at home in hell.
If you were born in hell, when you go to hell,
you're at home. Okay, So the first thing that has
(32:43):
to be broken, and you have to break this is
the hell you were birthed in. And when you break
out of that, and you finally decide that I deserve
to be loved, and I deserve to be treated well,
and I deserve to have good things in my life.
And you stop self sabotaging anybody who cares about you
(33:06):
because you have this inner conflict going on that they
had nothing to do with, but they inherited when they
got you. When you get real with you and you
find somebody who will sit there and listen at you
and talk to you and talk you down and get
you together and know, I'm not talking to the star,
I'm not talking to the actor. I'm talking to the
(33:28):
guy on the back of the bus, because he's still
in there. Whoever marries you marries all nine versions of you. Yeah,
because you can't act all the time. Pretty soon you
have to take off the masket when with no lines,
you have to be who you are, who you really are,
(33:50):
and finding somebody who can embrace all sides of you,
and then learning the language to be able to explain
yourself to the person who is confused by your behavior.
When you learn the language to say, I know this
is crazy about me, and I may not always be
(34:11):
this way, and I may outgrow it, but when you
do such and such a thing, it scares me. It
triggers me, It triggers me. Yeah. That that that's what
therapy gives you is language. Yes, it doesn't always give
you cures, but it does give you language. Me.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
Let me verbalize what I'm feeling.
Speaker 2 (34:28):
Yeah, because until you verbalize it, you can't get it out. Yeah. Okay,
that's so you've got me counseling with No.
Speaker 3 (34:35):
No, no, this is this is I came here just
for this.
Speaker 2 (34:38):
It's really oh my god. You know.
Speaker 1 (34:41):
One of the things I want you to know that
I'm like literally inspired by and I can speak for
me and everybody when it comes to you and your
first lady, the level of regard that y'all have for
you each other, the level of nurturing, and like, while
(35:05):
you're preaching, your wife is at full attention.
Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (35:09):
Yeah, as if.
Speaker 1 (35:10):
She didn't just arrive with this man that's up here preaching,
and she ain't going home with this man preaching. She's
on the front row, on high alert. Like I never
it doesn't feel like neither one of you guys have
allowed yourself to get too familiar. No, no, And there's
such an honor and decency and respect and covering around that,
(35:35):
and and so what you just shared about when you
had that moment on stage and she had just had
her own knee surgery. Every time you open your eyes,
she was away. I'm not even surprised. She threw that
caine and ran out to meet me. She ran, And
I give her the credit because.
Speaker 2 (35:54):
You know, generally when you get married, one of you
is gifted, the other is crazy one. I'm the crazy one,
but there's got to be somebody's stable who's consistent. But
you know, most creative people are a little bit weird, okay.
And so that creativity that makes you walk into an
empty room and see it with brick on the wall
(36:16):
and stone on that wall and this painted over here,
that creativity, that imagination works for and against you. Yeah,
it gives you an idealism that it's hard for people
to reckon with. Because my wife can't see it till
it's there. I can walk into a dump and see
(36:36):
a palace. I'm going to put the pool over there.
I'm gonna put this over here. I'm gonna do you know,
I got it in my head. What was Yeah, I
addressed mysel Yeah, I can see I know how I
wanted to go so opposite's attract but the very thing
that attracts you later repels you because their steadiness starts
(36:57):
to feel like boring, and you excitement starts to feel
like wow. And if you make it over that hurdle,
if you make it over the hump, I figured out
that we're losing each other in the turns of life.
If you make it over at menopause and men life crisis,
and make it over surgeries, and make it over grief
(37:19):
and make it over accidents, that grief you went through,
that's got side effects. Oh you know, it's like.
Speaker 1 (37:28):
The only person that's it, Yeah, the only person experiencing
that is the person that's intimately with you every single day.
Speaker 2 (37:34):
Every day, and all the versions of you and how
it expresses itself in anger and fear and tears and
can you afford to break down and still be respected
in the morning. Those are the kinds of things we
gotta do. But I gotta get I gotta get through
this because.
Speaker 1 (37:52):
I wanted to say one last thing, if you don't
mind say it, if you want, I just want to
say thank you. I want to say thank you. I
want you to know how often I actually pray for you.
Thank you, and I'm saying thank you because you have
(38:13):
literally changed this place. You have decided, and God has
been so present over your life.
Speaker 3 (38:27):
You have been a vessel the messages.
Speaker 1 (38:32):
That got your cell phone tower, and the Jesus is
so strong. I'm sure that at this point, when you
get out on stage and you speak, you probably have
a couple of bulletnotes on the topic and everything that
happens in between them bulletnotes. You're channeling in real time
on stage, and everybody in the audience leaves a very
(38:56):
different person than they showed up as because you have
allowed God to speak through you and and display the
fullness of you, the good, the transparency, the challenges, the ups,
the downs, even your daughter having a child at a
young age.
Speaker 3 (39:13):
I mean, what do we do? And you you have, you.
Speaker 1 (39:21):
Have reinvented yourself over and over and over in front
of us, and I want you to know.
Speaker 3 (39:31):
That I pose this question all the time.
Speaker 2 (39:34):
Okay, all right, I'm ready, I'm ready. Chapter number five.
Material possessions. Are they all going corcked up to be?
Let's see what Tyre says to say.
Speaker 1 (39:46):
When I'm speaking front of folks. I say, by a
show of hands. Can anybody in here that's behind the
cameras in this interview, can anybody in here right now
if you know what was the next worth of doctor
Martin Luther King when he was assassinated? Can anybody tell
me what was in his bank? Don't google it, don't
chat GPT, anybody know, no hands?
Speaker 3 (40:08):
What was the square footage.
Speaker 1 (40:11):
Of doctor Martin Luther King's house when he was assassinated
the day he died?
Speaker 3 (40:16):
What was the rim size on his car?
Speaker 1 (40:18):
Anybody know the brand of car he was driving or
how many cars he had? Okay, So in my mind,
we are not here to inspire people.
Speaker 3 (40:31):
From materialistic possessions.
Speaker 1 (40:33):
Or net worth what we drive in the square footage
of our house. We are here to empty ourselves of
everything that we can to give people permission to be great,
to pull them up, to pour into them, to activate
something inside of them that could give them purpose, To
(40:56):
pour into a prison inmate and say, I'm gonna get
out of here one day, and I'm gonna decide to
be great when i get out of here. Because Bishop
td Jake showed up with the prison ministry and poured
into me what God has.
Speaker 3 (41:13):
Done through you through it all, I just have to
say thank you.
Speaker 2 (41:21):
I often have a saying. The real message that I
bring to you is that God can do so much
with so little. Honestly, that's the that's the story, that
He can do so much with so little, that everybody
(41:46):
is eligible because hip he can use me, He could
use anybody. Okay, I honestly trust me this truth before God,
if he could, you know how our grandmothers and great
grandmothers could could make corn bread without eggs and then
(42:07):
take powdered milk and make pancakes and stuff like that.
That's what he did. He took nothing, He took mud
and made a man. And he's still shaping and he's
still forming, and he's still blowing and he's still breathing.
And the reason that I am a Christian is not
because I have perfected being christ Like. It is that
(42:31):
my only hope of being formed into something usable was
the nostrils of the God that breathed the breath of
life into me. So please know that, please know that
I am not this exceptional person. I had the same pain, trauma,
life crisis, confusion that you do, same exact thing.
Speaker 1 (42:55):
But you're able to verbalize it, I can verbalize it
and not give a verbalizing yes, but understanding if we're
talking about a teleprompter, Yeah, go read those same words
on that teleprompter, and I promise it won't have the same.
Speaker 3 (43:13):
Have the same Bishop TD Jake's for to read it.
Speaker 2 (43:15):
Because I am in touch with myself, Praise God. I
am definitely in touch with all oil and most people.
Most people lie to themselves and they present the version
of themselves they wish they were, and they're not in
touch with all of themselves. So you can't do it
three sixty if you're determined to be a one to eighty.
(43:38):
Chapter number six gets real personal when he starts to
talk about a public divorce. Can you imagine Dion and
Tyrese's daughter, your daughter living with you? I understand Dion
tweeted something in response to fathers raising daughters that impacted you.
(43:59):
Have you you ever talk to Dion about raising kids
after a divorce and being a single father.
Speaker 1 (44:08):
Yes, we've had conversations. You know, there's a lot of
single fathers, a lot of single mothers, and so it's
what's always interesting for me is.
Speaker 2 (44:29):
I know what.
Speaker 1 (44:31):
I want to talk to my daughter about. I struggle
with when M.
Speaker 2 (44:38):
Right.
Speaker 1 (44:39):
So when when you know that certain things are being
said about you, when you know that you're being put
in a certain light, when you know what's being written
in court documents that will end up being posted on CMZ,
you have to live with that. And now social media
(45:05):
and people in their comments. My goal is, Okay, this
is what's being said. But I just got to figure
out when I'm going to have the conversation with my
daughter because I got to mentally, emotionally, physically, and psychologically
protect you. And so We've been having a lot of
(45:28):
fun with the stuff that looks a certain way. And
then once I do my part as a father and
I set her down, I had these conversations.
Speaker 3 (45:40):
Then she looks at things to a totally different lens.
Speaker 2 (45:43):
There's nothing like loving a daughter that changes how you
handle a woman. Wow, there's nothing like it. There's nothing
like it that your girlfriend is somebody's daughter, that your
wife is somebody's daughter. You don't really get it until
you have a daughter and allow that daughter to speak
(46:07):
into your life. No, I don't want to put you
on the spot. I'm very protective of people. You know
anything about me at all, I'm extremely protective of people.
But I understand you had a conversation with Holly Berry
about divorce and about child support as much as you
are comfortable with talking about that. Yeah, can you share
(46:28):
something with you?
Speaker 1 (46:29):
Yeah, well, I what I said to her. It was
on my Instagram. I posted it, okay, and so it
is public knowledge what I posted. But it was actually
on the topic most recently. It was about her saying
(46:49):
that her current better have has been asking her to
marry her because they've been together for a while now
and she has been struggling with the idea of ever
you know, allowing herself to marry again. So and I said, well,
I could relate to that. You know, I've been in
(47:11):
a relationship now with my lady Zelli for five years
and she's always hinting at marriage. And some people will say, oh,
you're a band aid. You're just filling in the blanks,
and you know, you know, at a certain point he's
going to dispose of you and then go find the
woman that he actually wants to marry. But people don't
understand is that your opinion is formulating from things that
(47:34):
you have never experienced. You don't know what it's like
to wake up, get married, have a prenuptial agreement in place,
have the prenupt to get cracked where you end up
paying all of her.
Speaker 3 (47:46):
Legal fees and my legal fees.
Speaker 1 (47:48):
And now I'm paying all this money to attorneys trying
to protect what I have. And then you realize that
somebody marries you, and then they said I don't want
to be here anymore, and then they trying to take
every thing that belongs to you with them, and it
is really a painful process. And so well, hey, if
(48:10):
we could be happy and we could be together and
we could not get married, because if you ever decide
that you don't want to be married anymore, now you're
going to be another person trying to take everything that
I've worked my butt off for for the last thirty years.
Speaker 3 (48:28):
And what does that look like? And how long is
this going to.
Speaker 1 (48:31):
Last before the judge decides this is my final judgment.
So everything about my last divorce took four and a
half years. I lost all of my appeals in the
lower courts, then I lost all of my appeals in
the Supreme courts, and so I had like three weeks
(48:53):
to cough up almost one point two million dollars that
I did not have to give, and then who do
I turn to when I'm financially depleted. I was doing
all right financially until this divorce turned into four and
a half years.
Speaker 2 (49:13):
I got this calculator in my head, this adding up
all the trauma we have talked about, and it's smoking.
It's smoking the batteries of Bernie. From the experience you
went through with your mother, to the death of your father,
(49:35):
to the crisis of three relationships, to trying to figure
out how to raise your daughter, two daughters, two daughters
while you're trying to heal you yourself. How do you
cope with feeling and everybody having an opinion about all
the stuff you're doing, your crying on the internet and
everybody's making fun and every How do you cope with
(50:00):
being misunderstood?
Speaker 1 (50:09):
I've gotten comfortable with being misunderstood, and I've been the
beneficiary of being misunderstood, because when people don't understand you,
they want to stay away from you.
Speaker 2 (50:23):
Okay, oh he weird? He is he dad?
Speaker 3 (50:27):
Oh thank you.
Speaker 1 (50:31):
I would rather be at dinner for three hours for
Bishop td Jakes because at this point, I value my time,
I value my mental health, I value the people that
I allow in my space. And so I have this
very simple saying, if I do a lunch or a
(50:52):
dinner with you and I leave the same person that
I showed up as, give me my three hours back.
Speaker 2 (51:01):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (51:04):
My goal in life at this point is to become
very intentional about who I allow in my personal space,
who I allow myself to exchange with.
Speaker 3 (51:18):
And this is not money.
Speaker 1 (51:19):
This is not about, like you know, everything about who
I spend time with has to be connected to a mission.
Speaker 3 (51:27):
How we gonna get to the money now?
Speaker 1 (51:30):
Because most of the most life changing moments and exchanges
that I've had over my forty six years has nothing
to do with having conversations about how to get to
the money. You know, I don't know what I don't know,
and I am afraid at this point of what I
don't know. I need somebody to love me and to
(51:53):
a better me. Give me the heads up of what's
around the corner. Talk to me in great detail, the
choices and the mistakes, the shortcomings, the things that you
are blind sided by. The charm, the charisma, the undiscovered
magicians that know how to create all the smoke and
get you to think and believe that they are what
(52:15):
they appear to be, and then when the smoke clears,
this is what their intentions were. Love me in a
way that's connected to protecting me, because I'm tired of crying.
I'm tired of coming close to losing it all. I'm
tired of living and being on edge. I'm tired. I'm
(52:40):
afraid of what I don't know. And who's gonna love
me enough? Who's going to make me a choice and say,
let me love you to protect you from all the
things that you don't know.
Speaker 2 (52:55):
Chapter number seven deals with life after divorce. It deals
with current relationships. So if you didn't have a point
of reference at home in the arms of a mother
or sitting on the lafe of a father, and you
didn't have a point of reference in the three relationships,
not saying it's their fault, but it didn't work out,
(53:18):
what's different about this one that gives you the hope
of finding the love that little boy? I'm not talking
about the grown man, the actor who's fast, driving, fast
and furious that has anybody ever loved your little boy?
(53:39):
And do you think you found that person?
Speaker 1 (53:48):
What's interesting? Here's the best way I could answer that.
Speaker 2 (53:52):
Because you're speaking for a lot of men. There are
a lot of men who feel the way you do.
Speaker 3 (53:56):
Wow, I.
Speaker 1 (54:01):
Don't know how much I could connect to the current
relationship that I'm in and this capacity. I'm actually surprised
and shocked that my relationship had lasted this long because
(54:24):
it started with flirting, that it went into trauma bonding,
and then it became just maybe God made you an
assignment over my life and I'm an assignment over yours.
Speaker 3 (54:38):
I showed up broken, she showed up broken. We showed
up with.
Speaker 1 (54:43):
Baggage, lots of baggage, but we made the decision that
we're gonna love each other enough to stand here and
help each other unpack. I'm not gonna judge you with
the baggage that you showed up with, don't judge me
with mine. We might argue and disagree about some of
the stuff that's pre existing traumas that we've brought into
(55:06):
the relationship, right, and so what do we do about
where we are and what we have? And guess what
if we ultimately have made each other better? Were we
supposed to be in each other's life for just this
period because we were here to prepare ourselves for who else.
Speaker 3 (55:29):
Is supposed to be here? Or did we go through.
Speaker 1 (55:35):
All of this live unraveling your parenting issues, my parenting issues,
relationships that have put triggers and boundaries and trauma. Nobody
ever talks to me that way, no one ever makes
me feel So now I'm now moving and operating within
the comforts and discomforts of your past experiences.
Speaker 2 (55:58):
I call it mirroring your nurse. I call it marrying
your nurse, the person that you went to to get well.
You don't recognize that there's scaffolding and not the building, okay,
and you walk off tearing up the building and living
in the scaffolding, and it's hard to determine which one
(56:22):
is which. A lot of prayer, a lot of discernment.
I took every I took my wife to every old
woman I could find, including my grandmother. Let the smoke,
because nobody knows a woman like a woman. Yeah, nobody
knows a woman like a woman. And there are women
(56:43):
who have the same kind of trauma stories that you have,
and have been through the abuse that you have. And
when those traumas clash, the house burns down, sometimes with
the kids in it, So you can't afford to marry.
Read the scaffolding after you built the house. Wow. Yeah, Yeah.
(57:05):
Some people are in your life for a season. Some
people are in your life for a reason, and some
people are in your life for a lifetime. I don't
know what category she fits in, but you gotta figure
that out, and you gotta figure that out some because
you're getting older, yes, sir, and you're running out of time.
(57:26):
And I say that with a face full of gray hair,
that if you don't figure it out quick, it ain't
gonna matter in a minute.
Speaker 1 (57:37):
You just said something. Some people are in your life
for a reason. Others are there for a season, and
it's important to recognize when people's seasons are over. There's
an expiration date on loyalty. Some of us want to
hold on and hold on and hold on, and you
(57:58):
know that this will relatelationship is that capacity. It's hit
a wall and nothing about this season that you're in
right now makes sense to proceed with this person. But
you want to hold on because you're familiar with it.
Speaker 3 (58:13):
And so I've wrestled with all of those things.
Speaker 1 (58:16):
But it all goes back to this, and I'll put
a button on this irregardless of what we all may
think or believe. We've created a checklist what she looked like,
(58:42):
the boom Boom and the Kyle Kyle, and you know
what she dressed like, what she look like, what her
networth is. You know, women, they call them a checklist.
Men have checklists too, And I've went into this relationship
and I said, this woman does not check off a
lot of boxes for me. And yet for the women
(59:06):
that I did say have the majority of those checklists
where they are now.
Speaker 3 (59:12):
Right, I could not have been more wrong.
Speaker 2 (59:14):
Right.
Speaker 1 (59:15):
And so maybe God in the equation of this woman,
has said, you thought you had it all figured out,
but I'm gonna send you something that doesn't look, doesn't walk,
doesn't talk, doesn't have any of these things according to
this checklist that I've created. Next thing, you know where
at five years and I'm with this woman right now
(59:39):
in a relationship that lasted longer than my last marriage.
Speaker 2 (59:43):
Wow, Chapter number eight. Do you think it's just a
movie or a show, but it's really a business show business.
Tell me about the role you wish you to took,
be you did TV, film, whatever, and you look back
at it and say I should have took that.
Speaker 3 (01:00:04):
Well, I don't really know if there's a role I
should have took.
Speaker 1 (01:00:11):
That I struggle with over the role that I'm determined
to still do. Okay, the life story of Teddy Pendergrass. Okay,
that's the movie that keeps me up at night. I
was the Paul bar at his funeral. I was with
him for at least six years prior to him passing away,
(01:00:36):
and he said, you're the only person that could play
me in a movie, because even though you sing and
you act, you never wanted to be me. And He's like,
I would never want anybody to play a role of
me as Teddy Pendergras who groomed and nurtured and tried
(01:00:57):
to sound like me, look like me, perform like me.
You were you the whole time, and that's why I
want you to play me in the movie. So Lee
Daniels is attached to direct it because him and Teddy
are both from Philadelphia, and so you know, it's in
a gray area right now. There's some stuff that's going
(01:01:17):
on creatively that's kind of put the project on hold.
But I hope and I pray that I'm able to
keep my word that I gave him that I'm going
to tell his story.
Speaker 2 (01:01:30):
What kind of man was Teddy Pendergrass?
Speaker 3 (01:01:33):
He was a good man.
Speaker 2 (01:01:34):
I grew up. My brother used to have these eight
tracks with Teddy Pendergrass on him, and he would turn
them up all the way to ten yes and play them.
And he was the man. Yes, famous incidentally for wearing
white Susan you got on a white jacket.
Speaker 3 (01:01:48):
And he performed with his cowboy Yeah.
Speaker 2 (01:01:52):
When I met him, he was in a wheelchair during
gospel plays. You watched his deteriors. There's nothing like deterioration
to show your inner ingredients in a word or two
without divulging anything private or personal. What kind of man
(01:02:15):
was he?
Speaker 3 (01:02:17):
Charm charming, charismatic.
Speaker 1 (01:02:25):
You know, I've been around my share of people that
are in a wheelchair or living with some type of
terminal illness, and you be surprised at how often they
go out of their way to make sure that nobody
feel sorry for them. Right, And Teddy was that guy.
(01:02:48):
Don't feel sorry for me?
Speaker 2 (01:02:49):
What's going on? Are you doing? Yeah?
Speaker 1 (01:02:51):
You know, whatever you're going through. I mean, you ain't
going through this right, you know, So he'll be the
one to give you some perspective while he's laying in
the bed quadripolice to paralyze from the neck down right,
And then you leave there and you go, well, yeah,
you know, he gave me some perspectives that I did
not have. But yeah, he didn't want anybody to feel
sorry for him in his condition and his situation.
Speaker 3 (01:03:13):
He'll have conversations with you about it, but he never.
Speaker 1 (01:03:17):
Wanted you to leave feeling sorry for him, because he
found strength and the choice that God kept him alive
as long as he kept him alive, because he could
have died in that accident.
Speaker 2 (01:03:31):
There is a certain fraternity that seems to exist amongst
talented actors, singers, what have you. Either it's a very
good fraternity or they're beefing at each other. You've seem
to have had a great fraternity. And what about the rock?
Tell me about the right sixty pounds? He lost sixty pounds?
(01:03:51):
I'm sorry, I'm on TV. I almost didn't recognize him.
Tell me about that number one? How hard is it?
And uh is he gonna gain it back? I don't.
Speaker 1 (01:04:04):
I don't know anything about his weight loss. I seen
it online like everybody else. I'm not in touch with him.
To call him and have a conversation with him about
but it's my understanding that he lost all the weight
for a movie role playing a wrestler or some sort.
And yeah, I'm sure if he'd lost all that weight
(01:04:26):
for the role, then he'll probably be putting it back on.
Speaker 2 (01:04:29):
Pres You probably don't remember this, but that's one of
the first things you told me in California when we
were going out to eat. How you eat sometimes and
gain weight and do what you gotta do and then
go in the gym and work it out. So sweet. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
that's back in your baby boy. Yeah. Yeah, we ain't
(01:04:50):
even going there. We're gonna stay out here where the
air is fresh. What was Will Smith's advice to you?
Speaker 1 (01:04:59):
Will have said, you can often tell how far your
life and career will go based on the five people
you spend the most time with. Wow, So if you
have a problem with your life, you should have a
problem with the five people that you have surrounded your
(01:05:21):
life with. If you're out of shape, you likely reflect
the group of people that allowed for you to look
that bad. What you're doing, what you're not doing, the
direction you're going in, what direction you're not going on
going in is all a reflection of the five people
that you spend the most time with.
Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
That's a profound statement. Oh yeah, so it was right
down and remembering because sometimes it is easier to see
your brother than it is to see yourself.
Speaker 3 (01:05:54):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (01:05:55):
And sometimes seeing him helps you to see yourself. I
only got one more card and I'll be done chapter
number nine. I couldn't let Tyree's go without asking him,
how's your mental health? How is your mental health today?
Speaker 3 (01:06:17):
Fragile?
Speaker 1 (01:06:18):
Okay, I that's a terribly honest answer. It's fragile. It's
fragile because I'm still processing my divorce. I don't like
(01:06:44):
where I am financially because of a four and a
half year legal with all it's it's bad. And at
the same time, my life could only I I feel like,
(01:07:08):
how could I say this? I I really wanna encourage
somebody with what I'm about to say, So, uh.
Speaker 3 (01:07:16):
Think of me as a rock.
Speaker 2 (01:07:18):
Kay.
Speaker 1 (01:07:20):
And then there's this, h what do you call those
things that poof you.
Speaker 3 (01:07:24):
Know, the the the the slicker, Yeah, sling shot?
Speaker 2 (01:07:27):
Right.
Speaker 1 (01:07:27):
So in most cases, the sling shot is a stick
and two things that go at the top, and then
there's a rubber band on each side, and then the rock.
So I feel like my life right now. Literally, I'm stressed,
I'm on edge anxiety, I'm unsure, I'm praying, I'm certain,
(01:07:51):
I'm I'm inspired, I'm motivated.
Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
I got all.
Speaker 1 (01:07:54):
I got this cocktail of all of these different things
that I am feeling, And I'm the rock that's inside
of this sling shot, and the rubber band is Jesus
stretching me all the way back. And then when he
(01:08:18):
lets go, I'm gonna get thrusted into a level that
I've been praying for. My heart has been desired, so
being stretched to the level of depletion mentally, emotionally, financially, psychologically,
(01:08:39):
I'm in that exact place right now.
Speaker 2 (01:08:42):
Ten years from now. What does success look right for you?
Speaker 3 (01:08:47):
Impact?
Speaker 2 (01:08:48):
Impact?
Speaker 3 (01:08:49):
I'm not motivated by nothing else.
Speaker 2 (01:08:51):
But impact, impact, defining.
Speaker 1 (01:08:56):
Before I take my last breath, I have this overwhelming
sense of getting all these visions and ideas out because
they belong to me, yes their mind, these are my assignments,
and I'm supposed to empty myself of all of these
(01:09:19):
things and all of these experiences that I want to
create for the world. And that's what keeps me up
at night. And so I wanna open a movie studio
here in Atlanta, I think one and only studio that's
actually open to the public. On the charitable front, I
(01:09:41):
got so many more things that I wanna do to
impact the world. From giving and nothing temporary, something that's
gonna be in place. I wanna put trades uh in
place for prison inmates when they get out. Teach them
a trade that sort of the concept of them winging
(01:10:03):
it once they get out, because there's so many of
us that are capable of doing it, but we just
don't have any trades. Like teach me something that's connected
to how I can survive. So as the market continues
to go up and down, I'm something that's self sufficient
and independent of a bitcoin.
Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Our re Injury program has seen over forty thousand formerly
incarcerated people go through our programs, most of which who
came out with jobs, had the records expunge, did family reunification,
anger management, everything was necessary to keep them from going back.
The rate of recidivism is amazing, one of the best
(01:10:47):
in the country because we took the time to walk
them through a two year process to help them to acclimate.
One of them, I was talking to one of them myself. Yeah, yeah,
you're talking to the right God. Yeah. I was talking
to one of them, and he says, show me how
to use a phone, because when he went in, we
(01:11:08):
had payphones. When he came out, we had ourplephones. You know,
there's so many simple things. When he went in, he
was married. When he came out, he was divorced and
she was remarried. When he went in, the world was
totally different. You know, we were busting and training. When
(01:11:29):
he came out, we were flying. And now our cards
are being driven with our people in him. The world
is changing so fast, so fast. In the midst of
the change, I want to say this year and pray
you find everything that God has for you that gives
(01:11:52):
you peace, It gives you joy, that gives you wholeness,
that gives you mental health, that gives you peace, that
makes you dance in the rain to kind of happy.
That not a scene in a movie, just a happy
(01:12:15):
man dancing in the rain. Thank you for this time together. Yeah,
I really mean it. I really mean that for you.
I really want you to have that. Thank you sir.
(01:12:36):
That was amazing, That was amazing, That was powerful, Thank
you sir. That was powerful and it was real. It
was real, My honor sir, give me another year. Thank you.
(01:12:58):
I hope you got something out.
Speaker 3 (01:12:59):
Of oh yeah, beyond my life changed.
Speaker 2 (01:13:03):
You spoke for so many men. Hey everybody, I want
to take this time to thank you for watching the
Next Chapter podcast. If 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
(01:13:25):
miss future episodes. Remember, life isn't about how you begin,
it's about how you finished strong. So start your next
chapter with us right here every week
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