They Said I Didn’t Belong: How Joy Taylor Survived Sports Media

On this episode of You vs You, Lex Borrero sits down with TV and radio personality Joy Taylor (Fox Sports, The Herd, former host of Undisputed) for a raw and inspiring conversation on resilience, growth, and finding your voice in the spotlight.

Joy opens up about her journey from Miami radio to national television, learning how to embrace authenticity, set boundaries, and overcome the generational patterns that shaped her life. She shares personal stories about growing up in a difficult household, building confidence on-air, and navigating love, faith, and identity in an industry that often demands perfection.

Together, Lex and Joy dive into themes of gratitude, spirituality, trauma, self-discovery, and redefining success—reminding us that true power comes from sitting in the fire rather than running from it.

If you’ve ever struggled with self-doubt, boundaries, or the pressure to always want “more,” this episode will leave you with practical wisdom and a renewed sense of self.

🎧 Tune in to hear how Joy Taylor continues to evolve, inspire, and embody what it means to face the ultimate battle: you vs you.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You know you've been in the front and center since
you started your career. What was that moment that you're like, I'm.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Ready and I always knew I wanted to be on air.
I know we all have been through different things.

Speaker 1 (00:09):
Joy Taylor, a woman realize how hard and.

Speaker 3 (00:13):
Then I'm Joy Taylor.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
If you might know me from speak on FS one
or like a girl, I'm.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
Fused everybody's talking about your joy.

Speaker 2 (00:22):
I think I have a lot of strengths, but the
things that I'm proud of or are.

Speaker 1 (00:26):
Where do you think that comes from?

Speaker 3 (00:27):
I grew up in an abusive home.

Speaker 2 (00:29):
Most if you asked me, like, we're just something that
you want to accomplish before you die, like I don't,
I don't know, I don't know. Don't mistake activity for achievement.
Whatever you need to feed your spirit.

Speaker 3 (00:39):
I love that for you. Where you lose me is.

Speaker 1 (00:43):
Joy. Welcome to Universus.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
You thank you for having me.

Speaker 1 (00:46):
I am super excited to have you here. I was
actually when they told me that you were going to
come on the show, I was like, Yes, that's gonna
be an amazing conversation. Then I got the research for
him and I saw all your podcasts and I was like, oh, okay, ouch,
this is gonna be interesting. But I said, I love
it because she's a straight shooter, just like me, right, like,

(01:07):
no holds bar all the way in. And I guess
my question to you is have you always been like
that or is something that you started to develop as
you face the real world and the industry and the business.

Speaker 3 (01:19):
I think I've always been a tough cookie, so to speak.
I was a shy kid at times.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
I was a bit of a late bloomer with boys.
I was a tomboy and an athlete. But as far
as like having a voice and a point of view,
I've always had that. And I've always been surrounded by
women who had a strong point of view, so it
felt normal to me to do that.

Speaker 3 (01:43):
But I think, you know, finding your voice is something that.

Speaker 2 (01:46):
We talk about a lot in business and in success
and in a lot of ways.

Speaker 3 (01:50):
I think we're always finding our voice.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
You know, we find paths and spaces where we feel
more comfortable and let loose a little bit more. But
you know, as you change your voice and the things
that you care about change, Like there's things that I've
talked about, you know, ten years ago, I'm like I
don't feel that way anymore, but yeah, I mean I've
always had a point of view. You know, as you
get more comfortable, as you have more reps than anything,

(02:15):
you feel more confident and it flows a bit more.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
What would you say, is was that breaking point where
you're like, Okay, I'm not only comfortable in speaking my
thoughts to those close to me, but I feel strong
enough to just I'm going to say it to the
world because that to me, I think, especially you know,
growing up in an industry and being a manager. You

(02:40):
I started as as a producer, so I started as
a talent became a manager because I was genuinely like,
afraid of losing the success. I was like, I might
say something that might mess everything up, you know, so
I'm going to take the backseat and take that. You know,
you've been in the front and center since you started
your career. What was that moment that you're like, I'm ready.

Speaker 2 (03:00):
I mean I always knew I wanted to be on air,
but you know, being on air, the first time you're
on air, in your mind, you think you're going to
sound like you've been doing it for thirty years, you know,
or how.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
You do it in your mirror and then the lights
come on and.

Speaker 2 (03:15):
You're like, But when I really felt the most comfortable
and I feel like that thing had clicked on was
when I was doing Miami Radio and was doing my
morning drive show with Zaslow's Saslow.

Speaker 3 (03:29):
And Joy Show.

Speaker 2 (03:30):
It was just a space where, you know, we really
felt like we were just friends hanging out in the studio.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
Together every day, the whole crew, the producers.

Speaker 2 (03:39):
Zazz and we had supportive managers so we really could
be ourselves.

Speaker 3 (03:45):
We really had a lot of creative freedom.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
We you know, we're young, so we were very open
about our personal lives. And that's what I always wanted
to be. That's why I started in radio, because I
loved the idea of bringing people in the room with
you in the way that a good radio show does
and building a community where you.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
Know, obviously kids these days don't listen.

Speaker 2 (04:07):
To radio, but you know, when you got in the
car and turned your favorite radio show on, you felt
like you were hanging out with your friends in the
way that you do with your favorite podcast now, only
it was like live and happening. So when we were
doing that show, that's there was a moment where I
kind of you know, just came in one day and
all of my anxiety about being on air went away.

(04:28):
All of my inhibitions about you know, what are people
going to think about me?

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Or you know, are people going to like me like that?

Speaker 2 (04:35):
All of those things that are in your brain, all
those voices just kind of went silent, and that's when
I really felt like a real talent for the first time.

Speaker 1 (04:44):
That's awesome. I think I'm still in the stage where
I don't know if I can watch my own podcast
until like, I'm still in that breaking point.

Speaker 2 (04:52):
Are you watching you your own tape is hard? Yeah,
it's not a fun experience. What was the clip I
have to ask you, what was the clip that you
watched me where you were like.

Speaker 1 (05:01):
Oh, it's like forty clips.

Speaker 3 (05:04):
One where you were like, oh, she's nuts.

Speaker 1 (05:06):
It was one of your podcasts where you were just like,
I'm trying to remember was the subject, but you were
just going it like you didn't and I was entertained.
I understand why you this is your career because I
was completely entertained. What would you consider your strengths.

Speaker 2 (05:22):
I think that I am a resilient person, and I
know we all have been through different things that we've
had to survive and get through, and we all have
different stories, but I've got a lot of a lot
of stories. So I think I'm a resilient person. I
think I am someone who likes to evolve, so I

(05:44):
really don't like saying the same. I like to challenge myself.
I like to learn new things, like to always be
educating myself, even though I have a strong point of
view on a lot of things. I think if you're
truly an intellect, then you fundamentally know that you know nothing.
The scope of things there is to know. I know
will a whole lot about very very very very little,

(06:05):
and so I'm a curious person. And I think that
that is something that is weirdly looked at as a negative.

Speaker 3 (06:13):
Thing in today's society.

Speaker 2 (06:14):
Like changing or changing your opinion or moving from one
side to the other.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
I consider that to be a strength.

Speaker 2 (06:21):
I really like to meet people where they are, so
having conversations is something that I enjoy even if it's
something even if I leave.

Speaker 3 (06:29):
The conversation like I don't really like that person, but I.

Speaker 2 (06:32):
Had the conversation with them, like I learned something about
them or learned something about what they stand for. So yeah,
I think I think I have a lot of strengths,
but the things that I'm proud of or are those things?

Speaker 1 (06:45):
What about your weaknesses?

Speaker 3 (06:47):
I have a lot of weaknesses. We don't have enough
time for this today, but we'll go into a few
of them. I think I'm a very.

Speaker 2 (06:54):
I wouldn't say I'm an emotionally emotional person.

Speaker 3 (06:58):
That's not necessarily a weakness.

Speaker 2 (07:00):
But if I am very triggered by something, I get
really triggered by it and until I heal it, like it's.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Gonna affect me a lot.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
I don't know if that's a weakness necessarily or something
that everybody deals with, but to me it's I feel
like it's a weakness. I can procrastinate and definitely can
be a procrastinator.

Speaker 3 (07:19):
I'm still trying.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
To be comfortable hurting people in conversations that are necessary.

Speaker 3 (07:27):
I actually just talked about this with my therapist today.

Speaker 2 (07:29):
She's like, so, are you being passive because you don't
want to have the conversation? Like you don't like how
that sounds, But yes, you.

Speaker 3 (07:39):
Know, I'll protect myself before.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
I have a hard conversation with someone, like I'll take
the brunt of that, and that's something that I've been
told I need to work on, and I do need
to work on because it has not served me in
a lot of spaces in life, personally, professionally, and I
still definitely think I need to have better boundaries, boundaries
or something that I recognized was a huge issue for

(08:03):
me throughout my life in a lot of different spaces.

Speaker 3 (08:07):
And I've put a lot of work in being better.

Speaker 2 (08:10):
With boundaries and I have gotten a lot better, but
I still have a lot of work to do in
the in the boundary department.

Speaker 1 (08:15):
Why do you think that that was an area where
it was just hard for you to put the boundaries
Because I feel like that and maybe not having the
hard conversations are kind of part of the same, right, Yeah. Yeah, Well,
anythink that comes from.

Speaker 3 (08:26):
They're definitely cousins.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
I mean, I grew up in an abusive home, and
abuse is tied directly to.

Speaker 3 (08:34):
Boundaries. I mean, if you are doing something to someone that.

Speaker 2 (08:37):
They do not want you to do, they have to
either have that boundary impeded on through force or because
you are you are not enforcing the boundaries to keep
the abuse from happening. So so that's just a fundamental
thing that you know you learn as a child that Okay,
like I can't, I cannot enforce my boundaries because clearly

(08:58):
this is something is happening that I do not want
to happen. So that I think was just my environment.
And then you know, as I've gotten older, the other
part of it probably developed, which is like avoiding conversations.
Avoidance is one hundred percent my family's generational curse.

Speaker 3 (09:16):
Like you don't even have to ask. We are working
through it.

Speaker 2 (09:20):
I'm doing my best, but we will ignore a conversation
until everything blows up and then we have to deal
with it anyway. So I think those two things go
hand in hand.

Speaker 1 (09:32):
Do you correlate that maybe the way you're dealing with
hard times has a story around it or is a
narrative that you tell yourself, but that narrative changes based
on the circumstance that you're facing.

Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, I mean, I think you become a compartmentalizer. In
order to be successful. We all have to compartmentalize. And
when you are talent, and you know this from managing
talent and being around talent and being talent, you have
to perform through whatever it is that's going on. In

(10:05):
your life within reason obviously, but you know, if you
have a shit day, sorry, it could be cursed. You
don't have the option of just you know, being quiet
that day, or you know, going into the office and
doing your work and not necessarily interacting with your coworkers
as much as you want to.

Speaker 3 (10:26):
It's a business.

Speaker 2 (10:27):
Where you have a bad day, you still have to
go on stage and perform in front of thousands of
people and give it your same energy.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
And I think in order to do.

Speaker 2 (10:36):
That, there is this like slide over of stress and
emotion or experiences or trauma or whatever it is that
you have to learn how to do. And if you
do it really well, no one will ever know, but
it's going to manifest in some other way. Sometimes it
can manifest obviously in very toxic ways, but there has
to be an outlet of some sort for it. And

(10:59):
for me, I think one of the ways that I
sort of let the air out of that is by
I've been being passive rather than directly addressing things that
need to be addressed.

Speaker 1 (11:12):
I can relate to that obviously. I think when you
work in our business, you start creating patterns right because
of those things, right, you start blocking these things. I
want to have the hard conversations also too, because you're
so beating on the other side, like you're having to
deal with so much and still be smiling and still
be showing up to work. So it's like when you

(11:32):
are not in the work environment or whenever it's not
something that is being forced upon you and you have
to face it, you're like, ah, no, bro, I'm gonna say,
with that headache for another day. Right. But what I
started to learn as I started to do my own
work was how am I looking at hard times? And
I realized that most of us have been taught that

(11:53):
hard times suck. Run right, Like we tell our friends,
don't worry this too, You'll pass. And a lot of
the end of the tunnels coming up and we rub
our friend or our you know, our daughter or our
kids are And I'm starting to understand that instead of
teaching running away is sitting in the fire is where

(12:14):
the lesson is. Learning how to dance in the midst
of the fire is the difference. But in order to
understand that, we have to separate pain from suffering, and
to me that always seemed like one thing, pain and suffering.
Go ahnd ahead, if I'm having pain, I'm suffering, and
I started to understand that pain is needed for growth.

(12:39):
Suffering is a mental state. So that was the first
thing that started to really show me, Okay, how do
I separate my mind from the actual situation that's happening,
And why is my mind perceiving information as something bad?
Or how do I judge good or bad in my

(13:01):
own life? And I was sitting in New Year's and
I was drinking a glass of water and I so
put it in and then I go to give some
water to my daughter and my daughter was and I
was like, oh, no, she did it. This is this
is like Fiji Waterma, this is rich people water. You
can't what are you doing? And it just hit me

(13:23):
like it was like, wow, she hates the water that
I love. But the water actually never changed. What changed
was the filter, the filter that that water was going through.
And I was like, well, we all have fears, we
all have life lessons that have created and then we

(13:45):
all have trauma and we intake all this information that
we're getting with that filter. And so when we think
that we're gonna go be hard on somebody, or we're
scared of being hard on somebody, We're scared that their
reaction is going to affect us more than them. We're

(14:06):
quicker to judge somebody because it's a lot easier to
take what our fears are and give them into somebody
else than looking in the mirror. And as I started
to work through these things in my own life, I
started to realize how many times something hard came and
my first reaction was like, I'm out, Like this is

(14:29):
negative comfortable, I'm out. And I started to say, well,
what if I start being comfortable with just sitting there?
So I put into practice, like, regardless if it's a
person or a situation, I'm going to sit enough in
that fire to understand why it's even happening. And that
revelation to me came because I realized, I actually don't

(14:51):
control anything. I don't even know. But make it a
next second. So if that means that I don't control anything,
the amount of things that have to go perfectly for
you and I to have a conversation or you and
I to meet, which means whatever it's triggering me about,

(15:13):
whatever the situation or the or the person it's happening
for me, not to me.

Speaker 3 (15:21):
There's you said a lot in.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
There a lot of things that have been said to
me that I'm supposed to absorb in the past. It's
funny that you're saying them to me now. But the
sitting in the pain, or sitting or like riding in
the in the in the pain and not skipping it
or running away from it. You made me think of
a girlfriend of mine who has two children. I don't

(15:45):
I don't have any children, so I'm not going to
speak to childbirth, although I've heard it's quite painful, and
she was adamant that she did not want to take
any drugs during childbirth, which to me sounds insane because
it's it's like the most beautiful thing that you could
ever experience. And she had both of her children naturally,
and when we talk about it, she always.

Speaker 3 (16:07):
Says that she's really grateful she did that.

Speaker 2 (16:08):
Now she's very high pain tolerant, so obviously any women
who have children just understand.

Speaker 3 (16:13):
I'm only speaking about her. But she said something that's
always stuck.

Speaker 2 (16:16):
With me, and it made me think about that when
you said sitting in the pain, that she's grateful she
did that way because she felt everything in the moment,
and the next day she felt fine because she went
through all the pain in the moment.

Speaker 3 (16:30):
Nothing was numbs.

Speaker 2 (16:32):
It was excruciating, but she felt it. And then the
next day her body wasn't reacting to the medicine wearing
off and then feeling the pain of all of it.
And I always think about that when this conversation comes up,
because although I don't know if that would be my
experience when I have something really hard happen, I do

(16:54):
try to consciously sit in the feeling of it and
not numb my way through. You know, it's easy to
have a glass of wine. It's easy to you know,
take something to fall asleep and just like tomorrow, I'll
feel a little better.

Speaker 3 (17:08):
Or let's just push this off.

Speaker 2 (17:09):
Until the next week, or let's just you know, get
out of town and just take our mind off of it,
Like take your mind off of it, right. It's something
that we all try to do for our friends or
our family or people that we care about when they're
going through something.

Speaker 3 (17:22):
That's our way of helping, and it is the right
thing to do.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
I don't know if our friends would be like appreciative
of it as being like yo, just sit in at
the end.

Speaker 3 (17:29):
Know it sucks, but you got to deal with it.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
Like that's not the advice that you're going to give
as a compassionate person. But I do think there is
a real value to what you said of not running
away from pain and sitting in the experience, going through
the emotions, thinking about why it's happening, thinking about the
role that you played in why it's happening. If you
didn't play any role in why it's happening. Did you

(17:52):
invite this person into your life even though you were
warned about them, or did they give you signs that
they shouldn't be there, Or is this happening totally out
of your control?

Speaker 3 (18:00):
Is this something that.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Is happening in nature, nothing that you could do anything about,
but it is happening to you and you have to
deal with it.

Speaker 3 (18:07):
All those things are things to consider.

Speaker 2 (18:09):
And I've found when I do that, while I might
still deal with some trauma from the situation, I know
exactly how I feel about what happens, and no one
can tell me what my truth is about it. Yeah,
no one can come to me and say, you didn't
take the time to think about this, you didn't process

(18:30):
this properly, you didn't do.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
The work with your therapist.

Speaker 2 (18:33):
You know, we watched you you were out partying, or
you were drinking, or you were you know, smoking every night,
like you were doing something to avoid the consequences or
the reality of the situation.

Speaker 1 (18:45):
What I've learned as I put that into practice in
my life was just try not to think about anything,
just feel the emotion, because I realized that because of
our trauma, we enter a zone of being tough on
ourselves and we said, well I should have done this
or no, no, no, no, there has to be a lesson
right now at this precise moment, and I have to

(19:06):
have it. Clearly is if I don't have the lesson,
and it's like then you feel like you got the
lesson and you psych yourself out with this idea of
the lesson to the place where you are now confused
if you're right or wrong, and you then believe a
truth and then that truth is like so put in

(19:26):
your heart that and I'm talking about myself, right, it's
you know this is no, no, it's definitely this, like
this is what God was trying to show me, and
this is and then it's like I blocked myself to
anything that anybody else could say or even to what
my feelings just want to feel, because I've decided that
it needs to have a box in order for me

(19:49):
to digest, and I am in the process and in
the work of saying it's actually just okay to grief,
it's actually just okay to cry, And I don't have
to find a solution in everything, because that means that

(20:10):
I'm doing what life has shown me is I don't
control anything, So therefore it's not actually my job to
do the hardest thing for me to do, and the
hardest thing for all of us to do, is to
be still. Because we've been taught action equals results, Action

(20:33):
equals success, action equals happiness, Action equals and it's like
what I've processed in my life and my own traumas,
I would say ninety nine point nine percent of those
traumas become things that affect my whole life when I
try to action them, when I try to feel like
I have to do something, I have to do this.

(20:55):
And I think some of my biggest pain points, even
in my road to success, have come from trying to
take the bull by the horns, like in Wall Street,

(21:16):
in sitting still over the past, even my currents hardships
and waiting. I said, okay, So if it's the universe
or God or whatever spirituality you believe in, if it's
their job to figure it out, how do I stand still?

(21:36):
How do I learn from someone who's been angxsy to move,
learned to listen? And how do I then have the
courage to act upon what I just heard? And my
spiritual leader is damage. Mael Ish has this way to

(21:57):
describe this as the ocean and the wave. I speak
about this consistently because I thought it was like the
best way to describe especially art business. She's like, Lex,
You've been programmed to be a wave. A wave has power,
a wave has direction, a wave has perseverance. A wave

(22:18):
can destroy a whole city. He said, But you know
what's the problem with the wave? And know it's it's
going to break, and it's also looking left and right
and saying, damn, am I going to be big enough
to be served? Am I too small? Oh? Man, there's
a kid? Should I go down? Oh? Will I break

(22:40):
in the ocean or will I break in the sand
and be awesome? Or will I just tsunami into this?
And he said, but here's the thing. Waves are necessary
but only when you understand you're the ocean, and the
work is learning how to feel. I just think feel

(23:04):
you're the ocean. It resonated with me, and it continues
to resonate with me because I realized how many things
in my own life on a daily basis, we're being
driven by emptiness. We're being driven by like I need
to no, I need to close this, I need to
work it till twelve o'clock a night because I gotta
get this, and it's like, actually, I don't. I Actually

(23:30):
that's coming. That stress is coming from that fear that
if I don't, then the result is not what I'm expecting.
So I'm trying to control the outcome, which I don't control.
That's hard to face when you've been programmed our whole
lives to do this well.

Speaker 2 (23:45):
Also, if you come from a desperate place, or you
have anxiety about money or anxiety about success, then those
things will.

Speaker 3 (23:58):
Drive you as well.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
You just made me think of a quote from John Wooden,
the famous UCLA coach that I use often, which is
don't mistake activity for achievement. And I love that quote
because it's what you're speaking.

Speaker 3 (24:14):
Of when we work.

Speaker 2 (24:17):
If you work in a you know, a high stress,
high stakes environment, whatever it may be, or you just
have really lofty goals for yourself. Sometimes you can feel
like you always have to be doing this.

Speaker 3 (24:29):
I feel this all the.

Speaker 2 (24:31):
Time, where if I take a nap, or if I
hate take a day off, or I'm just like I'm exhausted,
I'm just going to sleep. I know I have all
these things I'm supposed to be working on, but I don't.
I'm just going to sleep. And there is this little
voice like you're not doing enough, Like you're not working
hard enough.

Speaker 3 (24:48):
You need to be doing this.

Speaker 2 (24:49):
You be paying attention to this, and you be giving
this your energy. You said you were going to take
care of this, and it's it's like, am I procrastinating
or am I just being present and honoring what my
body is telling me it needs and what my mental
health is.

Speaker 3 (25:03):
Clearly telling me that I need?

Speaker 2 (25:05):
And yeah, I mean that's a balanced thing, right, Like
how are you kind to yourself?

Speaker 1 (25:12):
For me, what's been helping the most is trying to
really define the difference between a story and reality, because
your mind will believe whatever you tell it to and
we just we've been told a lot of stories, right,
like sitting with so many successful people around my career
and realizing some are really talented, some so so, but

(25:39):
they have hard work. And I started to think about
this concept of what if we actually don't earn anything,
What if it's just a gift because we don't actually
control anything. And there's a lot of extremely more talented people,
more smarter people than me, that actually never get to

(26:02):
live the life I've gotten a chance to live, or
the life the clients have gotten a chance. There, you know,
so many of the people we know and including ourselves
into it. And so I was like, if I take
everything as a gift and I look at my hard work,
my dedication as just being good shepherds of that gift,
but then I take the pressure off the fact that

(26:23):
it's something I have to earn.

Speaker 2 (26:25):
Yeah, earn is such a it's a loaded It's a
loaded word for sure, and it is definitely in some
ways attached to ego. You know, when people insinuate that
you didn't earn something, or you feel like saying you
have something because you earned it.

Speaker 3 (26:47):
Of course, there are infinitely.

Speaker 2 (26:49):
More talented people who we will never know their name,
people who have voices of angels, who were born in
places that do not have recording devices, Like there are
a million different ways that a human's existence can come
and go on this planet, and we will never be
able to experience their gifts. So I would say I

(27:10):
agree with the word earn, even though I use it
very often, I don't like using the word fair for
that reason, Like what is fair? I say, fairs for
Ferris Wheels and fried Oreos, Like, there is no such
thing as fair.

Speaker 3 (27:25):
What is fair?

Speaker 2 (27:26):
It's fair that we're here and there are people who
are suffering who don't know if they're going to make
it through the night tonight.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
That's that's not fair.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yes, we did things with the gifts that we have,
but we were also given those gifts by whatever you
believe or wherever you think those come from. Where I
would say, like, I like how you said it, like
being a shepherd of the gifts, because I don't like
to chalk it all up to fate, you know, because

(27:55):
we know very very talented people who had the opportunity
to shepherd their gifts that squandered it or did not
handle it properly, or did cultivate it and then blew
it all up because they didn't take the time to
be kind to themselves, to try and you know, find
the balance, to try and tell themselves different.

Speaker 3 (28:15):
Stories, all these things you're talking about.

Speaker 2 (28:17):
So I like how you put it, because ern is
a it's it's a it's a word like it's it's
a big thing to throw on the table.

Speaker 1 (28:25):
And there's there's an idea too that obviously it has
been thought to us by society, which is just that
the accomplishments means wholeness and success. And it's like, the
idea that we're missing something is why we're so unhappy,
because this external idea that even even and I heard

(28:50):
you talk about this, and we'll talk about religion and spirituality,
but even the idea that God is something external to
me means that it's something you're always searching, which means
you're not whole, you're not the ocean. And that is
the struggle of the human condition, is that even when

(29:13):
we say earn, is that there's this idea that there's
something to even earn. You know, there's an idea that
there's something more to have. And I was at a
friend's house, this beautiful home. I was sitting there, I
was like, Wow, this thing is a castle. And then

(29:34):
my friend said, it's a castle if you look left
and right, but if you lived here your whole life,
it's just a home. And I said, wow, that's an
interesting idea. He said, yeah, like, yeah, it's a big
house because you have something else to compare it to.
He said, the things we all have castles, since you're

(29:57):
comparing it to somebody else, so you don't feel like
yours is big enough.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
Well, comparison is the thief of joy.

Speaker 1 (30:06):
And reaching for something that we need is the thief
of are human of you? Right?

Speaker 2 (30:12):
Well, I mean that's why I think gratitude is so important.
I talked about the idea of being humble on my
podcast a few weeks ago, and I think people conflate
humility with gratitude, and I don't think they're the same thing.

Speaker 3 (30:26):
I don't think you should give humility to everyone.

Speaker 2 (30:28):
I don't really think you should be humble to any
other person. We're all the same. But gratitude, I think
is something that is very important because it's so much
more than being you know, saying thank you or saying
you know, I have a nice house, like I'm happy
that I have this house, or I'm happy that I

(30:49):
have this car. I see this meme all the time
you prayed for the things you have now you used
to pray for the things that you have now, And
every time it pops up, it's a good reminder for
me because, especially when you are an aspirational person, you
constantly feel like you're saying you don't have enough. There's
something more to accomplish, There's something and more.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
That you need.

Speaker 2 (31:12):
And I think a lot of successful people struggle with
that because you do reach a point where you're like,
I have this is what I wanted, this is what
I worked for, But there's more, right, There's something more.
And I don't know if you ever get rid of
that anxiety of wanting more.

Speaker 3 (31:29):
But is it like do you want more? Do you
want different?

Speaker 2 (31:32):
Is it a new goal, is it a different goal?
Is it a new challenge? Or do you want more?
And I've tried to be very conscious at different points
in my career and in my life to be present
in the current accomplishment that I have, or the current
blessing that I have, the current gift that I have,

(31:55):
so that I appreciate it, because yeah, you can.

Speaker 3 (31:58):
Say, like you know, you don't know if there's tomorrow.
You don't know if there's a rest of tonight.

Speaker 2 (32:01):
Of course, we all live in our mortality, but you
have to enjoy the things as well, and not just
the things, not just the material things, like enjoy your
family's health, Enjoy the presence of your friends when they're
all together in one place, Enjoy you know, seeing something
for the first time. Like really, to me, that is

(32:22):
what gratitude is. And I feel grateful that I practice
gratitude very naturally. Obviously, you know, we all have times
where we forget, you know, all the blessings that we have,
and we're reminded in very.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
You know, aggressive way by the universe.

Speaker 2 (32:40):
But you know, being grateful releases a lot of that
anxiety for me, because man, we have a lot with
a lot, not just that we have roofs over our
heads or cars, or that we have food in our refrigerator,
and like families are healthy and all those things like
those are all increble blessings that a lot of people

(33:01):
don't have.

Speaker 3 (33:02):
But even just experiences.

Speaker 2 (33:05):
To me, like memories and experiences are the most valuable
thing that I have.

Speaker 3 (33:10):
Like when you think of what your.

Speaker 2 (33:12):
Riches are, having experiences and being able to remember them
because I had a grandfather that had Alzheimer's, So you know,
the experience of forgetting your life is terrifying to me.
But just overall being grateful for things has really helped
with that anxiety as an aspirational person.

Speaker 1 (33:32):
Yeah, you know, I always say that part of the
tool I've used to manifest and to like feel things
is just not think them, feel them. And I think
we all think and say, yeah, I mean, you don't
never know where you're going to die. I enjoy you
know you're and then it's you know, even talking about

(33:52):
your grandfather's like, you don't actually understand the feeling of
forgetting things. You don't actually underst stand the feeling of
maybe having to say goodbye. But if you really sit
in that feeling for a second, like if you can
take your mind and that feeling and imagine that it
was going to be all over tomorrow, will you wait?

Speaker 3 (34:14):
Stark though, But don't like to do that.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
Well, but that's the thing. We don't like to do
it because we're actually afraid, afraid to feel the fact
that the ultimate truth is that the ultimate truth is
one day you won't be here, right, and so you
we don't want to ask ourselves, what else, what would
you change today if you know the end of the

(34:38):
week would be it? What are the things that you
would face that that you have lingered on and just
been lingering because you're like no, no, like not yet
like And I say that even to myself, right, and
I'll I'll give you this experience I had this weekend.
This is the first time I'm actually sharing this, but

(34:58):
I did ayahuasca this weekend. This weekend.

Speaker 3 (35:01):
Oh you're fresh, Oh.

Speaker 1 (35:03):
Yeah, yeah, I'm squeaky clean. Okay, But here's the thing, right,
I've done it before and it's been clarity, and it's
been interesting, and it's been wholesome and joyful. This weekend
was not that okay. This weekend was the complete opposite.
I'm like Mary popp Is walking to the grass. I

(35:24):
think I'm going to have the best experience. I think
my shoes off, I'm like, let me get ground that
I put it in and I put my hands down
on the grass and it was like automatically being grateful,
but it was so grateful of saying goodbye. It was
like thank you for everything you've giving me. And then

(35:46):
I felt as warm in my body and I saw
a thought come in of death, like you're sick with this,
you have this amount of days, and automatically a picture
of my daughter and it made me sit through the

(36:06):
pain of saying goodbye for three hours and it was
like everything from the screaming hysterically, crying hysterically, be strong,
be strong, and I remember being like I needed to stop.

(36:27):
I've had kidney stones five times, which they say is
worse than birth, the worst pain. I've never felt a
level of pain, emotional pain as I did for those
three hours. And when I came out of it, like
the sitting down of accepting sooner or later, this is

(36:52):
going to happen, right, you just don't really know when.
But it proved the theory of the difference between saying
something and feeling it, and for me it was a
lesson that I'll be honest, I'm sitting with it and
not trying to digest it. But automatically, what it made

(37:14):
me understand is there's so many things in my life
that I do thinking that if I don't, my bank
account won't be okay, my life won't be the same,
or people will think differently of me. And I lived
through what it would feel like to not have time

(37:38):
to care about any of that. And so for me
being a super emotional experience now is as I sit
with it, is, what are the areas of my life
where I've been telling myself stories that are not actually
the truth? And what are the truths that I've been

(38:01):
telling myself that I'm not actually believing because the idea
that it's a gift. So if it's a gift and
the changes that I need to make, then I might
not to trust that that same gift will continue or
that that experience is not what it is. And how
many times have I said no, you know, I'm always

(38:23):
going to have to deal with the anxiety of wanting more.
Is that a story I'm just telling my mind because
my mind doesn't know if it's true or not. I'll
believe it. Your mind will register that shit and be like, oh,
here you go. This is what it is hearing you
speak about different things, especially about you know, the trauma
and kind of the career struggles and all this. When

(38:49):
do you feel is enough? Well?

Speaker 2 (38:52):
I mean, in a lot of ways, I do feel
like I have enough, Like I've accomplished a lot of
the goals that I set out for myself personally professionally,
and I've had a lot of really amazing experiences because

(39:12):
of my personal and professional goals being reached. But it's
not so much about wanting more. It's about identifying what's
next and what will fulfill me in the next chapters.

(39:32):
And it can be scary in your life and career
to like really sit with what that looks like and
feels like. And I love that practice. Actually, when you
were saying it, I was like, what do I do
out of fear? And being honest with yourself about that
is kind of tough because when you're telling yourself stories,

(39:55):
especially in the beginning of your not even like your
career and just you your journey and life as a
young person and you're surviving or you're making ends meet,
or you're making things work, you do have to tell
yourself stories. I mean that's part of surviving. This is
not going to defeat me, this is not going to
define me. I can survive this. I can make this work.

(40:15):
Like you're telling yourself a story in order to get
through it, and that is how humans survive anything. So
on learning those habits and then being at peace with
where you are and what the next chapters are.

Speaker 3 (40:29):
Is a process.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
So I don't feel the same level of anxiety about
success that I felt before, and I think that that
is kind of what success is, right, Like.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
Okay, I've achieved these things. I wrote this down. I
wanted to do it. I did it.

Speaker 4 (40:49):
You know.

Speaker 3 (40:50):
I wanted these problems. I pray for these problems. I
have these problems.

Speaker 4 (40:52):
Now you know I did it.

Speaker 2 (41:06):
It's like really being present in the experience, like you're
talking about grief and death and that reality.

Speaker 3 (41:12):
I had a conversation.

Speaker 2 (41:15):
Last year about death and if I was afraid of death,
and the honest answer.

Speaker 3 (41:21):
Is I'm not. I don't want to die.

Speaker 2 (41:25):
But if they were, if someone was, if you asked me, like,
we're just something that you want to accomplish before you die,
like I don't, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (41:35):
I think I've accomplished, Like I mean, I want to
accomplish more things.

Speaker 3 (41:38):
I want to see some other places.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
I want to have more time with my family, I
want to have more time with my friends. I want
to have more experiences in life. But there's not like
a box to check for me. And I feel really
proud of that. I feel like I've really lived a
lot of life. I've made big mistakes, I've made great choices.
I've had fun, I've had terrible times, I've been traumatized,

(42:01):
I've had absolute bliss. And I feel really grateful at
the age of thirty eight that I can say that
it's not that's not more.

Speaker 3 (42:11):
Does that sound morbid? I feel like that's not.

Speaker 1 (42:13):
No. You know, I think part of growth is settling
into these things right. Part of part of understanding yourself
and being honest with yourself is also being positive about
yourself and being able to say, okay, you know. There's
things I always say, there's muscles that even trauma develops,
you know, like if you have ever injured, and you

(42:37):
know you're in the sports industry, if you ever injured
your left side, your right starts making up for it right,
and it'll just create strength in that muscle that your
left side does. So in rehab what they try to
do is level it back off so you don't end
up having a miss. There's things that are trauma have
allowed us to grow. The perseverance that people who deal

(42:58):
with hard times as kids have in moving comes from
the trauma right, comes from that harship. But I had
le Craze he uh on the show before and craz
was saying, and like, I tried to teach my kids
some hard times because I'm like, you know, I got
this house and I'm hustling, and he's like that, I'm okay,
Actually I don't I don't want, I don't need any
of these things. I don't want a big house and

(43:19):
I don't want He was like, what do you mean?
But it's because he's like, my son has grown up
in like the best quality of life.

Speaker 3 (43:27):
Which is what you wanted to do. You wanted to
create this environment for them.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
But but I think it is that that that you know,
it's it's also accepting that, yeah, you do, you do
have that muscle and and and that muscle has is
beauty in it. Uh, but that muscle also sometimes needs
to go back to little joy and little legs and say, hey,
you're okay, you actually made it. You know, you're you're
and And that's another practice that I didn't understand, like

(43:55):
how many reactions I had and where they were coming from.
So I started to think, Okay, when was the first
I feel that emotion? And I started to discover these
places in my youth and I was, and it was
like now having to have the conversations with the little
one and say, nay Man, I don't know.

Speaker 3 (44:09):
I don't know.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
Maybe that's the next You're part of the journey, going
to little joy.

Speaker 3 (44:16):
But you know, sometimes it is it's interesting to think about.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
And that's funny that you mentioned that, like his kid
doesn't feel that way because we work really hard to
provide for our families and make sure that the people
in our lives are taken care of in the way
that we believe they need to be taken care of
because it's what we needed or what we thought we
needed because we didn't have it.

Speaker 1 (44:41):
It's always says to me, likes, no one needs saving
and you're no one saving, and I was, But how
does that mean? I see people? So no, no, no, no,
you think that they need to save? Now, that doesn't
mean gift, that doesn't mean it's just like this idea
of savior complex that we do get sometimes. And it's
like the perfect example. He gave his kid all the

(45:03):
things he thought he wanted, and his kid was none
of it. He doesn't want to grow up to have
a big home, He doesn't want to grow up to
have all these things. He is interested in figuring out
why he feels certain things, and.

Speaker 3 (45:15):
That's what an amazing childhood dad.

Speaker 1 (45:17):
Yeah, yeah, you know. And I was telling him the
story of my daughter because that was my idea about parenthood.
I was like, I'm going to teach her all the
stuff nobody taught me, right, so I'm going to let
her struggle. But as I started to see her, and
she was like one day in her ballpen and she

(45:38):
started to get super frustrated. She wanted to leave, she
didn't know how to. She was like one year and
a couple of months and mom came in running, no,
let me take her.

Speaker 3 (45:47):
Just just wait to see what she does.

Speaker 1 (45:50):
And it was like a moment where she like was
super frustrated, crying, and then she paused and then I
feel like her mindset, here's how you get out. She
like got up, walked to the corner and just threw
herself and got out. And in that moment, I was like,
Oh my gosh, she's so incredible. When I started my work,

(46:12):
I was like, oh my god, the brain has an
incredible ability to solve We just don't really know how
to give it the problem because we're in this she
calmed herself at one year old, and her brain said,
ha ha, I got the answer. That's why I thought,

(46:35):
and I realized how powerful And I heard you talk
about this, So how powerful your mind is. Let's talk
about love. You know, in our business, I think one
of the things that we sacrifice the most is that
area of our lives, or it's a personal area of
our lives. At least I know I have like historically

(46:57):
non healthy relationships with all the drama and destructions and everything.
Do you want a family? Is that? Is that somewhere
in the desire in the dreams of joy?

Speaker 2 (47:08):
Well, I have a big family, I think you mean,
do I want children and a husband? I?

Speaker 3 (47:17):
Well, I've been married, I would get married again.

Speaker 2 (47:22):
I would definitely approach marriage at this point in my
life very differently.

Speaker 3 (47:30):
And I don't. I don't want children.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
I've never wanted children, just never had a biological urge,
like of physical urge to have children. I have thirteen
nieces and nephews and another one on the way, so
I will have fourteen, two of which are grand niece
and a grand nephew.

Speaker 3 (47:46):
So I'm a generational auntie.

Speaker 2 (47:49):
So I feel like I have children anyway, I know,
I know, you know, I tell everyone that I birth them,
so they are my kids.

Speaker 3 (47:58):
But I do I have a huge family.

Speaker 2 (48:00):
I have six brothers and sisters of fourteen nieces and nephews,
so wes to have my mother with me and so
I feel like I have that family love in my life.
And yeah, I mean I would love to be with
a partner, a long term partner and have that kind

(48:20):
of a relationship. Hope that that happens. I think love
in I don't want to I want to talk about
it about LA because it's like so easy, because I
don't actually I don't know that I believe all of
the stereotypes about the business and LA. I think it
comes back to being aspirational. And I think a lot

(48:40):
of people apply aspirations to dating and to love as well,
where they'll get into a situation and then immediately start saying.

Speaker 3 (48:50):
Is it enough? What's missing? Do I need more? Do
I need different? Do I need better?

Speaker 2 (48:57):
And I think long term successful relationships require a lot
of compromise, require a real commitment, and for in today's society,
whether we like it or not, we are being programmed
to believe we have endless options and we have the

(49:18):
same amount of options that we have always had. We
just teach our brains that, Okay, I don't like this
movie tonight, I have ten thousand other titles to choose from,
but you're probably going to end up watching your favorite
movie again for the thirtieth time. Why we are constantly

(49:39):
in a space of next and move and if the
buffers takes you long, and what's the next thing? And
slide right and slide up and slide down and like
and move and comment. And I think that that has
really affected how we as a society or people who
are dating, like look at it, and we have to
constantly fight that.

Speaker 1 (49:59):
Yeah, I think, you know, I could say from a
guy's perspective, I definitely fell into that story. You know,
I felt into the story of like there was always
something better, and then I always had this thing where
it was like, come in the first I don't know,
six months in the relationship, I'm the man, best guy

(50:19):
in the world, My god, the parents loved me. You know.
Oh he's successful, he's educated, you know what I mean,
he's like everyone likes him. The moment it started feeling like,
oh this is commitment. Oh well, foot that, you know,
and it was like, and it wasn't until until the

(50:46):
mother of my daughter got pregnant, and you know, we
had to spend a long time in the relationship we
had just met that I was like, no, this is
not happening, this is not this and it was and
I talk about it and super openly. I asked for permission,

(51:08):
but I've talked about it super open in the podcast historically,
because it was probably the hardest time of my emotional
life was those two years between finding out I was
going to be a father and then understanding what it's
all meant. And in that process everything that I think

(51:32):
you can do as a guide to run to judge
that I did. I was a fault in a lot
of things. But then something tricked, which was like, okay,
what if the lesson of my life isn't that person?

(51:55):
And that small change allowed me to understand that it's
like we come into the relationship as we come into work,
as we come into religion, as we come into spirituality,
which is like it's external. So the same way that
I can love my card today tomorrow is a piece
of shit compared with my guys ferrari next to me,

(52:17):
Like the same way that we go and we're like, okay,
we go to church and we feel the Holy Spirit
or whatever, and then you leave church and it's like no, no, no,
it's actually today I believe on something else because I
read a new book and that book made me feel
better than church on Sundays. So now I believe in
And it's like there's always this idea that the thing
is external, and the moment that I started to do

(52:38):
my work as well, it's all actually in me and
the other person's prime job as your partner, as your
real friend, as your real lover is to be a mirror,
and that mirror is not meant to do anything other
than make you look at yourself a man. Don we

(52:59):
hate that we are so kind to everyone else. We're
really kind of people, but we hate to have those
real conversations. We hate to face ourselves. Were quick to judge,
and that started to transform what is nowhere near perfection,
but to transform the way I started to relate in

(53:21):
a relationship. And I think that that's the core issue
even within our business, right, is that we feel like
it's something else we got, you know, we feel our
partner is another addition to our value proposition. You know
to our net worth assets. Here is my investment portfolio

(53:41):
includes a woman. She's great, she has a job, she
does this, she's a great mother, she cooks good and
she gives me a massage. I got my life figured
out right, But like everything else, the moment the job
gets shaky, all this stuff, then we all get shaky
with that in mind, right, do you feel that you're

(54:02):
at a place in your life where you're transitioning into
a new stage, a new era in your mind, new
era of spirituality? How do you feel about spirituality? Hawes?
That transition feels as kind of you faced everything and
face it every day because listen, I want to give
your flowers doing what you do every day in that

(54:23):
industry and surviving, you know what I mean? Like that's
the real But how are you dealing with this new
this new stage, this new transition, and then how do
you view spirituality?

Speaker 2 (54:38):
So I do feel like it's a new transition. I've
felt like that for a while. I'm even going back
to last year that I'm sort of answering a new.

Speaker 3 (54:51):
I don't know if this is a new chapter, but
I feel the shedding.

Speaker 2 (54:56):
If you will, I mean, I guess you're of the snake,
So it's appropriate and for whatever reason, men and I
do think that universally.

Speaker 3 (55:06):
It's happening as well.

Speaker 2 (55:07):
I mean, you look good things that are happening politically,
if you look at a lot of things that people
are going through, a lot of things that we went
through here in la like, it just feels like there's
something happening.

Speaker 3 (55:17):
There's a universal unrest.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
And I feel that personally as well. And I don't
necessarily think it's a bad thing. I think we all
have to change and like face ourselves, hold the mirror
and grow spiritually. It's interesting you ask that because I
grew up in a very religious home, and I grew
up Baptists and go to church, you know, three to
five times a week, and then youth group, and then

(55:43):
if we travel, we went to church and you know
the whole bit, read the Bible every year, cover to
cover the whole thing. And I think it was because
I was just all I knew.

Speaker 3 (55:55):
And there was so much guilt attached to the experience.

Speaker 2 (56:00):
It's while simultaneously having a really terrible representation of what
like a true hypocrite in that space. Looks like I
really broke away from that structure of church, of being
a part of a church community, and you know, I

(56:20):
would dabble here and there throughout my adult life. But
I feel a very real disconnect to my spiritual side,
which is something that I've been working on and talking
to my therapists about lately, because I've been trying to
tap into it, and for whatever reason, it's just it's
not speaking back.

Speaker 3 (56:37):
I don't like that. It doesn't really feel like.

Speaker 2 (56:40):
I'm whole right now because of that, because I do
consider myself to be a very spiritual person.

Speaker 3 (56:45):
I'm a person of faith.

Speaker 2 (56:47):
I pray like I try to be present in that space,
but it's not speaking back right now. I have really
strong feelings about organized religion that are not particularly popular.
But you know, I think everyone should go on their
own spiritual journey, and I think that your spiritual journey

(57:08):
doesn't have anything to do with anyone else. And I
don't think that beliefs should be forced on other people.
I don't believe think beliefs should have any place in
the political space. I don't think that because you are
associated with a certain religion that that is a reflection
of your character, positive or negative. And I think because
I've had such an elaborate upbringing in church.

Speaker 3 (57:33):
I see it for.

Speaker 2 (57:36):
What it is, in its beauty and in its treachery,
which makes it very hard for me to attach to.
I know people who are the perfect representation of what
Christianity is supposed to be.

Speaker 3 (57:50):
Just live their lives that way.

Speaker 2 (57:52):
They are kind, they are generous, they are understanding, they
are truly angelic peace people. And then I know the
worst people and they it's very conflicting for me. I'm like,
how are y'all in the same set.

Speaker 3 (58:09):
It's not making sense.

Speaker 2 (58:11):
But what I don't like about the organizations of all
of it, and I'm not just picking Christianity is like,
whatever you need to feel grounded, whatever you need to feel.

Speaker 3 (58:24):
Spiritual, whatever you need to feed your.

Speaker 2 (58:27):
Spirit, I love that for you. Where you lose me
is the preaching. And that's been my experience, and I
know it sounds judgy, but it's just that's been my experience.
And so I'm trying to find my own space where
I can tap back into my spiritual side without those restrictions.

(58:51):
And I mentioned the guilt part because I don't know
what your you know, spiritual journey has been.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
But if you were raised in any kind of traditional.

Speaker 1 (59:00):
Oh, my mother's a pastor, my dad's a Buddhist, and
my family is Jewish.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
Okay, so you know.

Speaker 1 (59:07):
So we can have a whole other conversation because I
don't disagree with you and none of it. I have
my own unpopular views on it. I agree. Like, for example,
you know, when my daughter was born, everyone in my
family had an opinion about baptizing, and I said nothing,

(59:30):
doing none of it. But what do you mean this is?
I said, listen, I believe that the power of God
is already in her, and I believe that she chose,
at this precise moment her soul chose to live the
life experience she's living at a time when her father
does not believe in that. And I'm not going to

(59:51):
do it. And I had all kind of messages.

Speaker 3 (59:55):
You can think what it was like.

Speaker 1 (59:58):
But it wasn't about tradition. It wasn't about not or
judging anybody in my family for whatever they believe, or
judging anybody right. It's just the understanding that the idea
of this something that's outside of me, something I have
to search, goes back to what we've been talking about

(01:00:19):
the whole time. There's an emptiness to that. And then
while I believe community is important to growth, while I
believe devotion is a good way to join. Like that's
why teams work so well, right, Like you're devoted towards
the goal of winning a championship, and there's something beautiful

(01:00:40):
about unity and teamwork. My experience at church is you serve.
But again, if you're not whole, you're masking the pain.

(01:01:06):
You're masking the emptiness by serving, just like we mask
it by working really hard, and we mask it by
other things. And so the four walls of church and
the evolution of it being something that is so holy
and so precious.

Speaker 2 (01:01:27):
To me.

Speaker 1 (01:01:29):
It could be if you're coming in a place of
hold this, if if it's a place of worship where
you are understanding. But if I was just taught two
and I'll go back to this, there's a very like
two ways of looking at God. From my family, Christianity
and Judaism. My family who's Christians, we're both. We're all

(01:01:54):
Colombian and we're all taught fear God. And so for
so long we've been taught to fear God, that we
have this teaching in our hearts where oh my God,
am I doing the thing right? God's gonna punish me?
And we approach life like the wave. The Jewish side
of my family, they know their God's people, so they

(01:02:20):
respect them, they don't fear him, and it changes the
way they approach everything about life. They have other anxieties
and other things, but when it comes to owning something,
when it comes to looking at things, when they look
at like, they don't feel this shame. They don't feel
They're like, Oh, I'm in the game. Oh I'm doing

(01:02:40):
this traditions because they're healthy for me, because God put
this tradition so that I can spend time with my
family at Shabbah, not because I'm afraid that I'm gonna
get punished if i don't do it. So even that
to me. And then you look at my dad who's
a Buddhist, and he's like, all of it is irrelevant, right,
He's like, all of it is irrelevant. You are the

(01:03:03):
center of light. You are centered. All the gods, all
the heavens, all the hells, all the gods, all the angels,
and all the demons are within you. The thinner you
are in life, the lighter you said. That's what he says,
and I'm just like, oh man, like word, but it
really gave me to my point. I had such a

(01:03:24):
bad experience. And I was sharing this with La Craze
because I was telling him. When I started, I was
a producer, and I was like so excited to be
like I got an opportunity to work with secular artists.
I broke my career through working with you know, general
market artists. And then I was like, oh, I'm going
to go and change Christian music. So I started a
Christian label called Crossover Entertainment exactly for the word, and

(01:03:45):
then I went and I hid the truth was like
a rapper in this group called Cross Movement, which at
the time was like you know, he was the jay
Z of Christian music, and he said to me, oh man,
you work with secular artists. Can't work with you. And
I told the crate It's one of those moments in
your childhood where I can tell you exactly where I
was in my room, exactly what I thought and how

(01:04:08):
I cried after because it was like somebody just and
from that moment, I was like, there's something wrong with this.
This is not that the understanding that there's this better
than when we all are the same. Flesh doesn't feel
right to me. So I have a lot of opinions
on this.

Speaker 2 (01:04:25):
Yeah, and then that's really that's the core of it
for me, because and again our gifts. You've traveled the world.
I've traveled the world. We've met people from different places
who are kind, who are gentle, who are living full lives,
who take care of their families, who are respectful, who

(01:04:47):
are not what we were taught growing up. The separation
that those cause. And like I talk about this all
the time. It's like, Okay, anything that's all humans is
going to get corrupted. I get that, So then it
should be very normal that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:04):
I have a problem with it.

Speaker 2 (01:05:06):
Like if we look at the purity of each of
those things that you mentioned, they're all so unique like
we are. If there is that God, like all powerful God,
we should be afraid of that. If you are God's people,
you should feel great about That sounds like a great
thing to be. I want to be God's person, like
that sounds that sounds awesome. If a God is inside me,

(01:05:28):
that works for me too. Like all these things are
really beautiful ideas. As soon as you start putting people
in charge of other people, that go sideways.

Speaker 1 (01:05:38):
Yeah, it's I love a fear concept. Rice, Like we
all we all are dealing with our inner childs, and
we all have inner childs no matter how you were
born and raised, everybody got the inner child kicking and
screaming ninety percent of the time. Well with that, you know,
before we end, we always have this exercise we do
and I ask all my guests, as I've shared with

(01:05:59):
you throughout the power, I believe in the power of words.
I believe that our mind just believes what we say.
And because I know how hard it is for us
to be kind, and I also know how powerful those
stories are to our mind when we persevere and work
and all this, I ask every guest to say a

(01:06:19):
word or a phrase that you think Joy needs to
hear today. I could change her perspective and how your
body and your mind and your soul perceives the rest
of this week, the rest of this month.

Speaker 3 (01:06:34):
You know, this was a good day for me to
come in because I just got done with therapy. So
I feel like I've had like an extended session with
you today.

Speaker 2 (01:06:42):
So I'm trying to think, you know, was what was
my takeaway from that that I need to continue to
tell myself. You know, it's okay to prioritize what you need.
It's very easy you mentioned this earlier, to put your

(01:07:06):
fear on someone else, to say you're doing this for them,
But you're really doing it for you, and you're telling
yourself the story. So it's okay to prioritize yourself. It's
okay to make the decision and stand on it. It's
okay to tell yourself the hard truth, sit in the

(01:07:26):
experience of how that feels, and then act on it.
I think one of the things that I've been doing
lately is practicing that generational curse of avoidance and trying
to tell myself that it's I'm really doing this because
I don't want to hurt their feelings. I'm really doing
this because I don't want to make this situation uncomfortable.
I'm really doing this because you know, they're just not

(01:07:48):
they're not ready.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
To hear this yet. They're going to be upset.

Speaker 2 (01:07:51):
But it's really because I just don't want to do it,
and I don't want to feel what I know I'm
going to feel if I do these things that I
need to do, And so that's what I would say
It's okay to prioritize yourself. We don't want to do
things sometimes, and that's okay too. But I find especially

(01:08:12):
when things get busy, especially when there's a lot on
your plate, especially when you have people asking a lot
from you, when you're having to exert a lot of energy,
that just taking a moment and saying, what is it
that I actually need? What do I really need to do?
Not do I need to go to the gym or not?
Do I need to finish this project? Like, what is
the thing I'm avoiding that's going to make me feel better?

(01:08:34):
The hard part needs to be done, and then on
the other side, I'll feel the release of that.

Speaker 1 (01:08:38):
So I should do something right.

Speaker 3 (01:08:40):
Okay, I'm afraid you like.

Speaker 1 (01:08:43):
Like I am so used to doing that you're doing,
so just pause for a second and just say that
to yourself and feel it. It is okay to think
about joy.

Speaker 3 (01:08:58):
It's okay to think about joy. I'll work on that
this week.

Speaker 1 (01:09:04):
That's the beauty this week.

Speaker 3 (01:09:06):
I will feel that this week.

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
You see it like it's funny, because it's really This
exercise is so interesting because you go because you go into.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
That lot my this is that is my thing.

Speaker 2 (01:09:19):
It's you keep saying that and it's absolutely right, Like
there's a there's a reason that we're talking about this
today because you're reinforcing a lot of good things for me.
Because I will talk about what I think about something,
what I thought about this, what I think happened, what
I think, think, think, think, think, and I very rarely
use what I feel. And maybe that's a small practice
I should introduce. I'm going to do the love fear

(01:09:41):
of practice. Thing that feels interesting, I'm going to do that,
and I'm going to start feeling a situation rather than
thinking about.

Speaker 3 (01:09:49):
It all the time.

Speaker 1 (01:09:50):
I'll give you another one that I think is really
good as a tool, is story or reality.

Speaker 3 (01:09:58):
Yeah, well we'll take baby steps.

Speaker 1 (01:10:00):
Sit on now, Joy. It's been amazing having you on.
Thank you so much. We're gonna do this again as honestly,
it's I've loved the conversation and I love the energy.

Speaker 3 (01:10:10):
So thank you put me on with this.

Speaker 1 (01:10:12):
Also, Yes, You're rocked. You Versus You as a production
of Neon sixteen and Entertained Studios in partnership with the
Iheartmichael Tuda podcast Network. For more podcasts, listen to the iHeartRadio, app,
Apple podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.