June 24, 2025 • 37 mins
In this episode of Just Heal with Dr. Jay, Dr. Jay Barnett sits down with entrepreneur and thought leader Michael V. Ledo for a powerful conversation on growth, manhood, and the journey toward purpose. Together, they unpack the emotional and strategic challenges faced by men in business, sports, and everyday life. Mike reflects on the mentors who shaped him, the importance of emotional intelligence, and the mindset required to lead with clarity and confidence. The discussion explores the fear of learning, the role of mental health in leadership, and how meaningful relationships can transform the healing process. It’s a blueprint for building from the inside out. Tune in and join the conversation in the socials below.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Jesshill with Doctor J, a production of The
Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome back to Jess
Hill with Doctor J. I am excited about today's guest,
My good brother and friend, Mike Lito, phenomenal business manager,
family office. I mean, this brother is doing some amazing
thing for professional athletes. He doing a lot of things
(00:22):
and different business ventures. Man, And I'm just excited brother,
for my audience and for individuals, whether they're in business,
whether they're athletes, whether they're parents of athletes. Man to
hear the wealth of wisdom that you have from a
financial perspective, and then hopefully we get into the conversation
(00:44):
of how important is mental health for the athletes that
you work with.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
But you man, welcome man.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Before we even get into man, listen, good Brother's good
to see you man.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Likewise, Man, you know, you my guy. You know one
of the brothers I admired or most of my life.
And I'm honored to be on your set. I'm happy
for you and look forward to having real conversations that
you and I have often, yes, but more you know,
and now we're sharing the wisdom, we're sharing the authenticity
that brother the conversations that brothers like you and I
(01:16):
can have.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, man, And I think you know what I
love about our relationship, man, is there's so many different
dimensions of it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
There's times we're coming together talking about business. There's times
that we're talking about our walk with Christ. There's times
that we're talking about just life in general. And then
there's times that we're just talking about what is it
like to be a man? And I want to I
want to start there in today's culture for you, in
(01:46):
the dram of business that you're in. What is it
like man to be a man?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
For you? What does that mean for you?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Oh? Man? You know, it's like the the past couple
of years have been a unique evolution for me.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You know when I was raised by my uncles and
my father, and my biggest icon of my life was
my grandfather.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, so my grandfather was a man's man, you know,
owned his own cement company, you know, back when I
was in Indiana and he was in that mail course
choir you know all that, and so it was that
throwback and for me, he was one of those people
and the men in my life, they showed me love
through being present and through actions but not through words.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And so this whole thing of like I guess you
could say, emotion has been something in the past two
years for me that I've been trying to tap into
that typically, you know, I just ain't really tap into
so I think. But for me, man, you know, it's
being a what you always here, right, being a provider,
being a protector, being a visionary, being a leader. To me,
(03:03):
we want to create and cultivate, you know, so that
we can lead and create for our families and solve problems.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Do you think when it comes to solving problems that
most men lack the ability to solve problems?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Probably? Yeah, I would think so, because that is a
skill set learned and learned and practiced and sharpens. And
so if you really, just like anything else, if you
haven't been in close proximity of someone who does that
very well and does that very thoughtful, and you haven't
(03:45):
been around people who can regulate their emotions, you know,
because it's hard to solve problems and chaos and emotion
from my perspective at least, And so I think it's
difficult for a lot of us.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, And I think one of the reasons that it's difficult,
as you alluded to that most men are not in
proximity of problem solvers. They're often in proximity with individuals
who are creating problems, and very few times do they
associate themselves with individuals who provide solutions to the problems
(04:23):
that have been created. And I think it's very challenging
for men mentally and emotionally if all I've ever seen
was a problem creator and I didn't see a problem solver.
But I'm in a world and a society that judged
me by the ability to solve a problem. But I
(04:46):
don't have a model for that. And I think about
brothers not having a model, and thinking about young boys
not having an example.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That means that mentorship is imperative.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It is, it's everything because you know, especially for us,
is black men with physical specimens, right, we have gifts
and talents that from an athletic standpoint, You and I
both come from that athletic background. I work with athletes,
but too many times we are not developed to be
independent thinkers, to be you know, strategical thinkers, to be
(05:25):
the problem solvers that we're talking about. It's you know,
the physical aspect of who we are, But the greatest
aspect of us is what's in our minds. And we
have the capacity, but I think that we're indirectly and
directly taught that we don't have the capacity. And so
I think you got to be able to get into
situations and conversations like this that have that iron sharpened
(05:49):
and iron. And you know, one of the things I
like to say, like with my closest friends, with brothers
like you, I don't look for agreement. I look for understanding, right,
so through in the conversations, you know, I feel like
a lot of the time, the person that leaves a
conversation that's wrong has won because you have you have
learned something. And a lot of the time when you
(06:10):
talk to people, they're always trying to prove it they write.
And so I think we can have those conversations of understanding.
It's when we expand I'm trying to leave here today
learning something from doctor J. Barnett that in a different
perspective than what I probably came in with. Yeah, because
now I've expanded.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And I want to go back to what you said
about the iron sharpen and iron uh, and I want
to expand this stall for those that are watching, the
iron can only be sharpened when it touched metal. Metal
has to touch in order to sharpen, and you have
to get in the room. You have to get in
with the in the relationship. There is a corey, a
(06:50):
corresponding action to expanding. Because knowledge just doesn't come to
you right. You have to be a reciprocal of it.
And I think if we get our young men and
just men in general to be reciprocate of knowledge and
reciprocate of information, that would allow them to expand their
(07:13):
capacity to discern, their capacity to process, their their capacity
to interpret.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Because I see a lot of.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Young men that I've worked with in the years that
i've been i've been providing therapy for males, is there
is a inability to interpret correctly. Their interpretations are often
very skewed and very It's a bit wayward because most
(07:46):
of the times my interpretations are limited because I don't
have enough information to make careful observations. So I interpret
everything as if well, you don't want me to win. Well,
he's never said anything about you win. He just said
that you probably need to do it different if you
(08:08):
want to sustain your ability to win. And when I'm
as I'm talking about this man, where did you learn
Because in the work that you do with athletes, who
was that person that said, I see where you're going,
I want to help you get there, but I also
(08:30):
want to expand your thinking from what you're seeing so
you can see bigger.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Who was that person?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah? I had I had several people, but my uncle
Virgil Pearson, who just wrote his first book and just
challenge me spiritually challenge me on black history and just
(08:59):
was one that he would just mail me books out
of nowhere. You know, this first book he ever bought me.
In the first book I ever read when I was eighteen,
was maximized the moment by Bishop cheated TDJS Wow. And
my uncle had sent me that from Atlanta, And then
I caught that bug and I was rolling, and then
I was you know, probably also was my uncle Eugene Parker,
(09:22):
who was the first black sports agent. So my uncle
has seven Hall of famers, including Dion Sanders and Rod
Woodson and you know Emmi Smith and I was in
close proximity. I grew up in a man that had
a beautiful home with an elevator in it, and he
was a very meek individual who was the goat, you know,
(09:43):
from a sports agent standpoint, and the first black man
to crack that code and get in there. And it's
what let me, you know, in close proximity with him.
He had me reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad when I was,
you know, probably eighteen nineteen, and I'm going to his
office and we're talking about and back and forth, and
so I just sought him and he would challenge me
(10:05):
on so many different factors. I think one of my
greatest I remember one of my greatest quotes from him
that I hold on to dearly, because you got to
imagine at that age, I'm looking at this man and
I'm like, you are you know, You're on the front page,
You're on the cover of Black Enterprise, you know. And
it was a goal of mine because he always had
that up with him and Isaiah Thomas and some other people.
(10:28):
And I'm going to my uncle Jay and I'm asking
him a question and he said to me, he said, Mike,
I haven't had enough time to form an opinion. And
it was powerful for me because a man that I
looked at that had all the answers that I'm seeking
to tells me I haven't had enough time to form
(10:48):
an opinion. Wow, And but everybody always has an opinion.
I always has a thought, you know. And so anyway,
so just things like that again encouraged the ability to
think and to process for myself, you know. And that's
(11:10):
what I try to instill in the guys that I
work with. I don't try to control my clients. I
try to empower my clients. I try to hold them
accountable to what they said they want to do for
their communities and their families. But then I also the
conversations are just like, yo, are you sure you want
to do this? Or why you want to do this?
We're gonna always go to the why of what's going
(11:31):
on instead of the surface.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Do you feel having clear understanding of the why keeps
an individual in alignment to the what?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
That's good? Yes? Yeah, that's heavy. Yeah, because like I
heard someone want say, like go five wives D always
go five wives DP. Really yeah yeah yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Unpacked that for me?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Man, Yo, five whys deep is? You know? You know
it ain't original mind, like you said, it's always shared
iron shopper and iron. But it's like if you if
you ask me, if I ask you, why you want
to do something with your podcast, or why you want
to go into this movie, or why you're gonna go
speak at this engagement. I'm gonna ask you why, and
then when you tell me why, I'm gonna ask you
(12:21):
why again, and I'm gonna ask you why again because
we're gonna go to the to the origin or the
foundation of really are we really do? Going back from
a biblical standpoint, do we know that? We know that?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
We know? Mm?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So when you're when when when you're asking those why,
you're really digging for the foundational sort of reasoning of
why this.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yeah, one of my one of my clients, I remember
a year or two ago said Mike, I want to
be a billionaire. I'm like, why you know why? I
don't you know why? Explain to me why you know?
Share why. Let's get down to the why. What's the
drive behind you wanting to be a billion You know?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
My mentor said something to me in the early years.
He said, if you can't tell me why you need it,
I never forget it. I was like, no, man, I
need like I need like twenty thousand dollars man. Because
I was trying to do something in my younger years
of working with teenagers, and I said, man, I need
like twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Man, he said why.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
He said, if you can't tell me why you need it,
then you're not going to get it. He said, you
need to be able to be clear on why. So
when you get it in your hands, you meet the
need and you meet the intention of why you was
asking for this money, he said, because the money has
(13:48):
to have a direction. If you're asking for the why,
there has to be a reason attached to why do
you need this? Because they said, he say, you need
twenty thousand dollars so you can go, you know, you
try to go buy a car. He says, I need
to know why do you need something? That needs to
be clarity on the why. And I think for us
there's often not clarity on why we want things. I
(14:12):
say this even to people who reach out to me
about getting on the stage to speak. Why do you
need the stage? I never wanted the stage. In fact,
I ran from the stage and I often asked him,
I said, do you need the stage because you feel
that that is your opportunity to be seen? Because what
(14:34):
happens on the stage is that if you're underdeveloped in
your character.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
The stage exposes it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, so if you're not clear on why you want
to be on center stage to be a speaker or
to do whatever it is that you do, you'll always
be exposed on the very thing that you are chasing.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, you know. And it's interesting because I was in
a conversation this week with some people that were very
way more intelligent than I am, way more spiritual. I
to surround myself around people like that, and they were
breaking down the difference between the called and the chosen,
and they were breaking down that. You know, as you
(15:15):
hear you know, many are called if you are chosen,
but when you're chosen, you don't have a choice. You
don't right like when you're when you're chosen, you don't
have a choice. You gotta you you have to obey
the called, have an option. But when you're in that place,
if you're chosen, I've always beenshed. I always tell people this.
(15:37):
I don't think I'm the best business manager, best business
coach in the world, best consultant, I'm best entrepreneur, But
I think I'm the best at what I do in
the country because I'm the best at what I do
for the audience that I'm called to.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
You gotta say that again, brother.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, I'm the best for the audience that I'm called to.
I can speak to that audience and relate to that
audience than better than anyone else. Because God has through
my years of an athlete, my years as a coach,
my years of being a black entrepreneur, an investor, he
(16:17):
has prepared me for this moment to be able to relate.
And we go back to the mental health. You know,
in the perfect world, I just want to look at deals,
evaluate businesses, invest in businesses, start businesses, look at portfolio
allocations with my clients. But I find myself spending a
(16:38):
whole lot more time on the mental health in the
development of my brothers. We can't even get to that
stuff as young black men. There's a barrier. There's a
barrier of trust, in, fear and all all these things
(17:01):
because this world of what they're transitioning from an athlete
to an entrepreneur, from an athlete to an investor, they
wouldn't develop for that. So now there's fear, there is
a feeling of inadequacy. You don't understand the language. Who
do I trust to teach me this language? Yes, those
(17:24):
barriers are so deeply rooted that they will keep our
brothers stagnant instead of dynamic. Wow in that.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
World, because when you are deficient in an area, you
look to shield it with whatever you can get your
hands on. And for most of those guys, I'm shielding
it with my abilities and with my talents. So when
I'm at the table and they're talking numbers and they're
(17:56):
talking business ventures and they're talking about you know, partnerships
and collaboration of those things, I don't understand that language.
And I love what you represent for these young black
men and for these athletes.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Is that you don't know it, but I do.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
M H. And not only am I going to provide
a safe space, I'm also going to provide a pathway
for you to have an understanding of what your business
is because you're more than just an athlete. You're more
than just the exs and the ows. You are a
walking business.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But the problem, Jay, and why do you need people
like you? I need people like you is a lot
of the young brothers are afraid to learn. Really yeah, yeah,
what they're afraid that they're afraid to learn. They're afraid
to learn, especially a lot of the time if it
(18:54):
involves their girlfriend and their women or their wife being around.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Is do you think there's a fear because I see
this often with men. It's a fear of I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
One of my clients, one of my clients who is
probably one of the best entrepreneurs. I work with twelve
NFL clients and we manage about two hundred million in
assets under advisement and five companies. And my one client,
who is probably the best student and the best entrepreneur,
(19:28):
is because he's not afraid not to know m He'll
walk into any room, He'll walk into any room, billionaire,
millionaire entrepreneurs, and he's not ashamed to ask. Can you
explain that again? What's that terminology mean? What does that mean?
Because he gonna leave knowing.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I want to pause because that's a moment for pause.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Because one of the things that helped me when I
was developing as a speaker, and even when I sat
down on Bishop Jakes for six hours.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I was got my.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Notebook, Bishops to put that book down. Shit in the
moment and I said, well, part of me having this
book out because I was trying to get everything I
can get, because I realized early. It's that only an
empty vessel can be felled. We're often trying to show
up as if we're full, but with shallow m and
(20:32):
if we showed up empty, we can be filled with
something and being able to go into the room and say,
I don't know what y'all talking about, but I would
love to learn more.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
When to tell you, also, let me tell you also
when you talk about learning more. This is what I
also believed Jack. I feel like for the people I served,
my brothers, I feel it's more comfortable for them to
not know than then though.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, I guess see that it.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Has become comfortable not knowing and kind of blindly trusting
some people then knowing, because then when you know you're responsible.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
When you know better, you'll say it's nobody else.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I know. I know, I know the process, I understand it,
I understand the why. So now I am responsible for
the what for, the what for, the outcome for that accountability.
And so I think that I'm comfortable with the responsibility
of balling on that field. But now I got to
(21:39):
be responsible on how we invest this money, how we
allocate this money, what business we do. It takes a
process of learning. It's a whole new skill that has
to be sharpened.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
When you think about this skill that that that that
needs sharpening. For those men that are watching, what would
you say to them that are looking to be sharpened
but don't know where to start?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Man?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I would, I would, I would identify one what your
purpose is and what you believe your purpose is. And
I always say that your passion is for you and
your purposes for others. Yeah, it has nothing to do
with you. And when you identify what your purpose is,
(22:39):
then you need to reverse engineer how do I get there?
How do I achieve this right? And then I think
you got to create an ecosystem of people absolutely that
support you and fulfilling that purpose. And you have to
be a learner.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
You Man, that ecosystem is so important. And so many
brothers don't have the ecosystem because they're usually an outcast
of some sort. Uh, they're usually a loaners. And most
brothers have become withdrawn and not just from society, but
(23:21):
from even their their circles, especially if others in the
circles have moved on. And one of the biggest burden
that I felt early on when I started going to therapy.
When I started healing, is I carried this burden of evolving.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Well I knew you was Sonna, Well now you not
now now now you Now you're going somewhere. Because my
favorite movie, one of my favorite movies. You know, you know,
you know, we gotta have Denzel. Yeah, but the bookie Eli.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And I always tell people I gotta walk west. I'm
walking west, and I don't care if I'm walking alone.
I don't care if I'm blind, because I've been chosen
to do something and I gotta do it, whether if
you come or not. You can't take everybody to the
Promised Land. And so when you are chosen and you
feel called to a mission, I always tell people I'm
(24:21):
mission over people all day.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Gotta be all day, because if you're not, you do
what Moses did. You will put the people first because
you allow the people to get underneath your skin, cause
you to react out of anger. And that was the
reason he missed the Promise Land. He missed the Promised
(24:46):
Land because he allowed people to corrupt his behavior and
he forgot about the mission. So I love that man
mission over people.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
And so I go back to what we said earlier.
So when you know that, you know that, you know
you get to that why, and then you got to commit,
like you have committed to building and developing your craft
and becoming the best in the country of what you do.
And I love seeing you evolve. But the thing about
it is like, man, our insecurities are, you know, our
(25:27):
traumas from whatever may be of our childhood, all those
different things. It's like if I can't, man, when I
celebrate you, if I believe in the principle, I believe
in the energy, with God, with the universe, I believe that,
like I gotta be able to celebrate you and your successes,
and it feeds me. It's being abundant minded versus that
(25:50):
whole scarcity of mind, and that fundamentally is a lot
of the issue.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
With us sometimes because what happens is is and particularly
I'm seeing this now because I'm almost forty three, and
I'm seeing men in their forties struggle. Because if you
did not evolve beyond your greatest days, man, that's a
(26:16):
whole another episode. You feel as if you have nothing left,
and you begin to leave as if everything is gone.
Rather than thinking about how do I reinvent, how do
I recreate. More importantly, how do I reshape myself?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Going back to what you said about evolution, we try
to proactively get the athletes that we work with to
overcome the fear of learning about investing or learning about entrepreneurship,
learning about professionalism instead of being reactive to it. And
(26:56):
you know more than anybody. Yeah, I didn't play pro you.
You know, I'm trying to get you to to evolve
the scene that you're much more than just that before
you are reacting to it. And it's it's a man,
It is a difficult situation, Yeah, for the brothers to overcome.
(27:17):
Just it just really is.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, because if you enter into it with with without
knowing the parameters, without knowing the pitfalls, the hurdles, all
of the distractions, all of the sort of trap doors.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
You you, you, you become this victim to have this
similar story that a lot of other individuals have when
they enter into that space, because you enter into that
space not really knowing and you were not fully prepared.
Like I was reading the other day, the story that
I'm not gonna call it after these name, there were
(27:56):
a few athletes that this this lady was this quote
unquote investor, and she took everybody for like ten fifteen
to twenty million dollars. And I'm sitting here and I'm
listening to this, and I'm thinking to myself, you know,
how is it that it happened? But when you think
about when you go into this space, you're unfamiliar of
(28:17):
the territory, You're unfamiliar of the language. So anything that
sounds like hey, I can take this and I can
get you a two hundred and three hundred you know
the percent return within sixty to eightion days, And I'm thinking, like.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That ain't possible.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
But the reactiveness is that you hear that and you're like,
oh yeah, and you jump on it and you look
and twenty million dollars are gone. And so having these
brothers that are entering too this space, not having the information,
and then you're being this liaison to say, you know what,
(28:54):
I know, you don't know the space that you going
and you know the game, but do you know the
game outside of the game?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, when I don't know about you. I love Kyrie
Irving and I was I was listening to Lebron talk
about funny Enough Luca on a podcast yesterday. And when
you see Luca, you see even Kyrie, people talk about
you don't know what they gonna do, like they don't
(29:23):
you know how when we play ball, you got those
dudes that follow the exact play is textbook. You got
to hit the A gap. You're gonna hit the A gap.
You're gonna get this. But when someone can create and
you don't know how to defend them, you know how
to do that. So it's more of an intuition. It's
more of a feel of the game. It's more of
an instinctual kind of a thing. You train that you
develop that on the field, on the court, and those
(29:45):
are some of the best people in the world at
their respective sport that just have a feel for it.
You can't take that into business and investing. So now
you're making decisions based on a feeling because you've been
trained to do that over here, so you unconsciously may
think that's the same way you should do that over here,
(30:07):
But over here you want to follow processes due diligence.
Analytics come on to help you come to a decision
on what you should do, and if you bring that
over here, it's not going to produce the same.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Outcome man, trying man, listen, trying to recycle something from another.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
That part, it's two totally different things. It's different terrains.
If you've ever read the book or the War, it's
a different terrain. You can't go into this terrain with
the same approach that you do this terrain. You have
to learn a new skills to the new You gotta
turn a switch. You can't approach it the same.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Is Is that what drives your passion is being able
to show these guys how to develop a new skill
in a different terrain.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, it is, bro it is. It's my passion. It's
what I love is It's it's challenging. It's challenging. You know,
sometimes I wish I in my family office, and you know,
we govern all their finances, we oversee all the operations.
We're educating the families, we're consulting on the businesses that
(31:18):
they start from scratch. And sometimes I wish I was
dealing with more experienced entrepreneurs and more mature people.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
But again that's not my choice.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I was chosen. I was chosen for that audience. Man.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
You know, Mike, as we close, I ask every guest
a question. You know to show is titled just Heal,
And from what I'm hearing, from what you've shared, your
journey has been that of healing not only the athletes
that you work with, because there is a healing component
(31:56):
to helping these young men understand that they're more than
just an hour because you're also healing parts of their
hearts because a lot of them didn't have the capacity
to trust because of what they feared. As you talked
about scarcity. So when you think about healing and it's
totality from your own perspective, what does healing means to you?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah? Man, I think about my process in the past
two years and personally, you know, being divorced. I was
married for sixteen years, relocating across the country to move
my business to Dallas, which I absolutely loved, but it
(32:47):
was a difficult process. You know. I went through a
season where when I was transitioning, I was litigation with
some people that I was doing business with us where
I became. I learned and developed as an entrepreneur in
that process. But it was the worst time of my life,
(33:09):
but the best time because I wouldn't be who I
am going through a divorce. I had to recreate myself
across the country, and I think I had developed a
lot of callous and a lot of business was my
safe place. Business is my safe place. That's where I'm comfortable.
(33:30):
I know the language, I know it whatever, and I
can hide from things in that, you know. But the
past two years, well probably longer than that, but I'm
gonna say two years. And you know, a wonderful woman
I'm with and being in a relationship her and my
(33:53):
best friend have challenged me to tap into my emotions
and fears and parts of me that I would pretty
much when you think about the attachment styles, you know,
I would be more an avoidant, you know, kind of realm.
(34:14):
And so I think I've really embraced it. And because
I've embraced that.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Not.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I almost if I've embraced it the whole time, I've
kind of foughted probably a little bit.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Oh yeah, But.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
It's helped me be a better man. That's gonna help
me better help the clients and the people that I
serve in a different way. I can relate better, I
can empathize better. Empathy was not a thing of mine.
So I think in me healing, obviously, I hopefully will
be able to help a lot of other brothers heal.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Now, So healing for you has been.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
A journey indeed, And I know the wonderful woman that
you have And when I found out that you got
as were in a relationship, man, my heart smiled for
you because I want to see brothers be restored through relationships.
I believe that there is a healing component that is
(35:14):
attached when you're in a healthy relationship. And healthy relationship
doesn't necessarily means that it's perfect. However, it's healthy because
I am choosing to not only show up different, but
I'm also allowing different to show up for me. Because
(35:35):
when you're broken, you can continuously choose the same thing
over and over and over. And so what I'm excited about, man,
is that not only that you choose different, but you're
also allowing yourself to receive different.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And I believe that within itself, man is healing.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Man. I appreciate you, bro, Man, I appreciate the light
that you provide in my life. You know what I mean,
You know the recent conversations we had, Like I told you,
the energy to love. I just really really appreciate you
and I get inspired by seeing you do what you
do Man and helping brothers and I look forward to
(36:14):
make an impact together for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Man, absolutely, brother Listen, you have seen this episode with
my brother Mike Leto, who is a phenomenal consulting phenomenal
business manager that are helping athletes navigate the business of sports.
But you got to hear him talk about what healing
(36:37):
meant to him. I don't know what healing means to you,
but I can tell you there's always a component where
healing is often attached to a relationship. And I'm not
talking about a loving relationship, but oftentimes relationships that shows
up in the element of a friendship or partnership. So
(37:00):
I want to encourage you to continue on your journey
by being open to relationships that you may have been
closed to, maybe building a connection with someone that you
typically was like, ah, that's not my type of person.
So I encourage you to tap in with our healing
journey by subscribing to Just Heal, Doctor J. We would
love to have you in our healing community to stay
(37:22):
connected for all the things that we're doing with Just
Heal with Doctor J. And until next time, remember healing
is a journey and wholeness is the Destination. Just Here
with Doctor J, a production of The Black Effect Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and you can
follow me at King J.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Barnett on Instagram and x and follow us on YouTube
Just Heal, Doctor J.
Welcome to Jesshill with Doctor J, a production of The
Black Effect Podcast Network and iHeartRadio. Welcome back to Jess
Hill with Doctor J. I am excited about today's guest,
My good brother and friend, Mike Lito, phenomenal business manager,
family office. I mean, this brother is doing some amazing
thing for professional athletes. He doing a lot of things
(00:22):
and different business ventures. Man, And I'm just excited brother,
for my audience and for individuals, whether they're in business,
whether they're athletes, whether they're parents of athletes. Man to
hear the wealth of wisdom that you have from a
financial perspective, and then hopefully we get into the conversation
(00:44):
of how important is mental health for the athletes that
you work with.
Speaker 2 (00:49):
But you man, welcome man.
Speaker 1 (00:51):
Before we even get into man, listen, good Brother's good
to see you man.
Speaker 3 (00:54):
Likewise, Man, you know, you my guy. You know one
of the brothers I admired or most of my life.
And I'm honored to be on your set. I'm happy
for you and look forward to having real conversations that
you and I have often, yes, but more you know,
and now we're sharing the wisdom, we're sharing the authenticity
that brother the conversations that brothers like you and I
(01:16):
can have.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
Yeah, yeah, man, And I think you know what I
love about our relationship, man, is there's so many different
dimensions of it.
Speaker 2 (01:25):
You know.
Speaker 1 (01:26):
There's times we're coming together talking about business. There's times
that we're talking about our walk with Christ. There's times
that we're talking about just life in general. And then
there's times that we're just talking about what is it
like to be a man? And I want to I
want to start there in today's culture for you, in
(01:46):
the dram of business that you're in. What is it
like man to be a man?
Speaker 2 (01:52):
For you? What does that mean for you?
Speaker 3 (01:54):
Oh? Man? You know, it's like the the past couple
of years have been a unique evolution for me.
Speaker 2 (02:05):
You know.
Speaker 3 (02:07):
You know when I was raised by my uncles and
my father, and my biggest icon of my life was
my grandfather.
Speaker 2 (02:16):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:16):
You know, so my grandfather was a man's man, you know,
owned his own cement company, you know, back when I
was in Indiana and he was in that mail course
choir you know all that, and so it was that
throwback and for me, he was one of those people
and the men in my life, they showed me love
through being present and through actions but not through words.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (02:41):
And so this whole thing of like I guess you
could say, emotion has been something in the past two
years for me that I've been trying to tap into
that typically, you know, I just ain't really tap into
so I think. But for me, man, you know, it's
being a what you always here, right, being a provider,
being a protector, being a visionary, being a leader. To me,
(03:03):
we want to create and cultivate, you know, so that
we can lead and create for our families and solve problems.
Speaker 2 (03:10):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
Do you think when it comes to solving problems that
most men lack the ability to solve problems?
Speaker 3 (03:22):
Probably? Yeah, I would think so, because that is a
skill set learned and learned and practiced and sharpens. And
so if you really, just like anything else, if you
haven't been in close proximity of someone who does that
very well and does that very thoughtful, and you haven't
(03:45):
been around people who can regulate their emotions, you know,
because it's hard to solve problems and chaos and emotion
from my perspective at least, And so I think it's
difficult for a lot of us.
Speaker 1 (04:01):
Yeah, And I think one of the reasons that it's difficult,
as you alluded to that most men are not in
proximity of problem solvers. They're often in proximity with individuals
who are creating problems, and very few times do they
associate themselves with individuals who provide solutions to the problems
(04:23):
that have been created. And I think it's very challenging
for men mentally and emotionally if all I've ever seen
was a problem creator and I didn't see a problem solver.
But I'm in a world and a society that judged
me by the ability to solve a problem. But I
(04:46):
don't have a model for that. And I think about
brothers not having a model, and thinking about young boys
not having an example.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That means that mentorship is imperative.
Speaker 3 (05:00):
It is, it's everything because you know, especially for us,
is black men with physical specimens, right, we have gifts
and talents that from an athletic standpoint, You and I
both come from that athletic background. I work with athletes,
but too many times we are not developed to be
independent thinkers, to be you know, strategical thinkers, to be
(05:25):
the problem solvers that we're talking about. It's you know,
the physical aspect of who we are, But the greatest
aspect of us is what's in our minds. And we
have the capacity, but I think that we're indirectly and
directly taught that we don't have the capacity. And so
I think you got to be able to get into
situations and conversations like this that have that iron sharpened
(05:49):
and iron. And you know, one of the things I
like to say, like with my closest friends, with brothers
like you, I don't look for agreement. I look for understanding, right,
so through in the conversations, you know, I feel like
a lot of the time, the person that leaves a
conversation that's wrong has won because you have you have
learned something. And a lot of the time when you
(06:10):
talk to people, they're always trying to prove it they write.
And so I think we can have those conversations of understanding.
It's when we expand I'm trying to leave here today
learning something from doctor J. Barnett that in a different
perspective than what I probably came in with. Yeah, because
now I've expanded.
Speaker 1 (06:28):
And I want to go back to what you said
about the iron sharpen and iron uh, and I want
to expand this stall for those that are watching, the
iron can only be sharpened when it touched metal. Metal
has to touch in order to sharpen, and you have
to get in the room. You have to get in
with the in the relationship. There is a corey, a
(06:50):
corresponding action to expanding. Because knowledge just doesn't come to
you right. You have to be a reciprocal of it.
And I think if we get our young men and
just men in general to be reciprocate of knowledge and
reciprocate of information, that would allow them to expand their
(07:13):
capacity to discern, their capacity to process, their their capacity
to interpret.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Because I see a lot of.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
Young men that I've worked with in the years that
i've been i've been providing therapy for males, is there
is a inability to interpret correctly. Their interpretations are often
very skewed and very It's a bit wayward because most
(07:46):
of the times my interpretations are limited because I don't
have enough information to make careful observations. So I interpret
everything as if well, you don't want me to win. Well,
he's never said anything about you win. He just said
that you probably need to do it different if you
(08:08):
want to sustain your ability to win. And when I'm
as I'm talking about this man, where did you learn
Because in the work that you do with athletes, who
was that person that said, I see where you're going,
I want to help you get there, but I also
(08:30):
want to expand your thinking from what you're seeing so
you can see bigger.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
Who was that person?
Speaker 3 (08:38):
Yeah? I had I had several people, but my uncle
Virgil Pearson, who just wrote his first book and just
challenge me spiritually challenge me on black history and just
(08:59):
was one that he would just mail me books out
of nowhere. You know, this first book he ever bought me.
In the first book I ever read when I was eighteen,
was maximized the moment by Bishop cheated TDJS Wow. And
my uncle had sent me that from Atlanta, And then
I caught that bug and I was rolling, and then
I was you know, probably also was my uncle Eugene Parker,
(09:22):
who was the first black sports agent. So my uncle
has seven Hall of famers, including Dion Sanders and Rod
Woodson and you know Emmi Smith and I was in
close proximity. I grew up in a man that had
a beautiful home with an elevator in it, and he
was a very meek individual who was the goat, you know,
(09:43):
from a sports agent standpoint, and the first black man
to crack that code and get in there. And it's
what let me, you know, in close proximity with him.
He had me reading Rich Dad, Poor Dad when I was,
you know, probably eighteen nineteen, and I'm going to his
office and we're talking about and back and forth, and
so I just sought him and he would challenge me
(10:05):
on so many different factors. I think one of my
greatest I remember one of my greatest quotes from him
that I hold on to dearly, because you got to
imagine at that age, I'm looking at this man and
I'm like, you are you know, You're on the front page,
You're on the cover of Black Enterprise, you know. And
it was a goal of mine because he always had
that up with him and Isaiah Thomas and some other people.
(10:28):
And I'm going to my uncle Jay and I'm asking
him a question and he said to me, he said, Mike,
I haven't had enough time to form an opinion. And
it was powerful for me because a man that I
looked at that had all the answers that I'm seeking
to tells me I haven't had enough time to form
(10:48):
an opinion. Wow, And but everybody always has an opinion.
I always has a thought, you know. And so anyway,
so just things like that again encouraged the ability to
think and to process for myself, you know. And that's
(11:10):
what I try to instill in the guys that I
work with. I don't try to control my clients. I
try to empower my clients. I try to hold them
accountable to what they said they want to do for
their communities and their families. But then I also the
conversations are just like, yo, are you sure you want
to do this? Or why you want to do this?
We're gonna always go to the why of what's going
(11:31):
on instead of the surface.
Speaker 1 (11:34):
Do you feel having clear understanding of the why keeps
an individual in alignment to the what?
Speaker 3 (11:48):
That's good? Yes? Yeah, that's heavy. Yeah, because like I
heard someone want say, like go five wives D always
go five wives DP. Really yeah yeah yeah?
Speaker 2 (12:00):
Unpacked that for me?
Speaker 3 (12:00):
Man, Yo, five whys deep is? You know? You know
it ain't original mind, like you said, it's always shared
iron shopper and iron. But it's like if you if
you ask me, if I ask you, why you want
to do something with your podcast, or why you want
to go into this movie, or why you're gonna go
speak at this engagement. I'm gonna ask you why, and
then when you tell me why, I'm gonna ask you
(12:21):
why again, and I'm gonna ask you why again because
we're gonna go to the to the origin or the
foundation of really are we really do? Going back from
a biblical standpoint, do we know that? We know that?
Speaker 2 (12:34):
We know? Mm?
Speaker 1 (12:36):
So when you're when when when you're asking those why,
you're really digging for the foundational sort of reasoning of
why this.
Speaker 3 (12:47):
Yeah, one of my one of my clients, I remember
a year or two ago said Mike, I want to
be a billionaire. I'm like, why you know why? I
don't you know why? Explain to me why you know?
Share why. Let's get down to the why. What's the
drive behind you wanting to be a billion You know?
Speaker 1 (13:07):
My mentor said something to me in the early years.
He said, if you can't tell me why you need it,
I never forget it. I was like, no, man, I
need like I need like twenty thousand dollars man. Because
I was trying to do something in my younger years
of working with teenagers, and I said, man, I need
like twenty thousand dollars.
Speaker 2 (13:26):
Man, he said why.
Speaker 1 (13:27):
He said, if you can't tell me why you need it,
then you're not going to get it. He said, you
need to be able to be clear on why. So
when you get it in your hands, you meet the
need and you meet the intention of why you was
asking for this money, he said, because the money has
(13:48):
to have a direction. If you're asking for the why,
there has to be a reason attached to why do
you need this? Because they said, he say, you need
twenty thousand dollars so you can go, you know, you
try to go buy a car. He says, I need
to know why do you need something? That needs to
be clarity on the why. And I think for us
there's often not clarity on why we want things. I
(14:12):
say this even to people who reach out to me
about getting on the stage to speak. Why do you
need the stage? I never wanted the stage. In fact,
I ran from the stage and I often asked him,
I said, do you need the stage because you feel
that that is your opportunity to be seen? Because what
(14:34):
happens on the stage is that if you're underdeveloped in
your character.
Speaker 2 (14:38):
The stage exposes it.
Speaker 1 (14:41):
Yeah, so if you're not clear on why you want
to be on center stage to be a speaker or
to do whatever it is that you do, you'll always
be exposed on the very thing that you are chasing.
Speaker 3 (14:54):
Yeah, you know. And it's interesting because I was in
a conversation this week with some people that were very
way more intelligent than I am, way more spiritual. I
to surround myself around people like that, and they were
breaking down the difference between the called and the chosen,
and they were breaking down that. You know, as you
(15:15):
hear you know, many are called if you are chosen,
but when you're chosen, you don't have a choice. You
don't right like when you're when you're chosen, you don't
have a choice. You gotta you you have to obey
the called, have an option. But when you're in that place,
if you're chosen, I've always beenshed. I always tell people this.
(15:37):
I don't think I'm the best business manager, best business
coach in the world, best consultant, I'm best entrepreneur, But
I think I'm the best at what I do in
the country because I'm the best at what I do
for the audience that I'm called to.
Speaker 2 (15:54):
You gotta say that again, brother.
Speaker 3 (15:56):
Yeah, I'm the best for the audience that I'm called to.
I can speak to that audience and relate to that
audience than better than anyone else. Because God has through
my years of an athlete, my years as a coach,
my years of being a black entrepreneur, an investor, he
(16:17):
has prepared me for this moment to be able to relate.
And we go back to the mental health. You know,
in the perfect world, I just want to look at deals,
evaluate businesses, invest in businesses, start businesses, look at portfolio
allocations with my clients. But I find myself spending a
(16:38):
whole lot more time on the mental health in the
development of my brothers. We can't even get to that
stuff as young black men. There's a barrier. There's a
barrier of trust, in, fear and all all these things
(17:01):
because this world of what they're transitioning from an athlete
to an entrepreneur, from an athlete to an investor, they
wouldn't develop for that. So now there's fear, there is
a feeling of inadequacy. You don't understand the language. Who
do I trust to teach me this language? Yes, those
(17:24):
barriers are so deeply rooted that they will keep our
brothers stagnant instead of dynamic. Wow in that.
Speaker 1 (17:34):
World, because when you are deficient in an area, you
look to shield it with whatever you can get your
hands on. And for most of those guys, I'm shielding
it with my abilities and with my talents. So when
I'm at the table and they're talking numbers and they're
(17:56):
talking business ventures and they're talking about you know, partnerships
and collaboration of those things, I don't understand that language.
And I love what you represent for these young black
men and for these athletes.
Speaker 2 (18:11):
Is that you don't know it, but I do.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
M H. And not only am I going to provide
a safe space, I'm also going to provide a pathway
for you to have an understanding of what your business
is because you're more than just an athlete. You're more
than just the exs and the ows. You are a
walking business.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
But the problem, Jay, and why do you need people
like you? I need people like you is a lot
of the young brothers are afraid to learn. Really yeah, yeah,
what they're afraid that they're afraid to learn. They're afraid
to learn, especially a lot of the time if it
(18:54):
involves their girlfriend and their women or their wife being around.
Speaker 1 (18:59):
Is do you think there's a fear because I see
this often with men. It's a fear of I don't know.
Speaker 2 (19:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
One of my clients, one of my clients who is
probably one of the best entrepreneurs. I work with twelve
NFL clients and we manage about two hundred million in
assets under advisement and five companies. And my one client,
who is probably the best student and the best entrepreneur,
(19:28):
is because he's not afraid not to know m He'll
walk into any room, He'll walk into any room, billionaire,
millionaire entrepreneurs, and he's not ashamed to ask. Can you
explain that again? What's that terminology mean? What does that mean?
Because he gonna leave knowing.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I want to pause because that's a moment for pause.
Speaker 1 (19:55):
Because one of the things that helped me when I
was developing as a speaker, and even when I sat
down on Bishop Jakes for six hours.
Speaker 2 (20:06):
And I was got my.
Speaker 1 (20:08):
Notebook, Bishops to put that book down. Shit in the
moment and I said, well, part of me having this
book out because I was trying to get everything I
can get, because I realized early. It's that only an
empty vessel can be felled. We're often trying to show
up as if we're full, but with shallow m and
(20:32):
if we showed up empty, we can be filled with
something and being able to go into the room and say,
I don't know what y'all talking about, but I would
love to learn more.
Speaker 3 (20:43):
When to tell you, also, let me tell you also
when you talk about learning more. This is what I
also believed Jack. I feel like for the people I served,
my brothers, I feel it's more comfortable for them to
not know than then though.
Speaker 2 (20:59):
Yeah, I guess see that it.
Speaker 3 (21:00):
Has become comfortable not knowing and kind of blindly trusting
some people then knowing, because then when you know you're responsible.
Speaker 1 (21:13):
When you know better, you'll say it's nobody else.
Speaker 3 (21:17):
I know. I know, I know the process, I understand it,
I understand the why. So now I am responsible for
the what for, the what for, the outcome for that accountability.
And so I think that I'm comfortable with the responsibility
of balling on that field. But now I got to
(21:39):
be responsible on how we invest this money, how we
allocate this money, what business we do. It takes a
process of learning. It's a whole new skill that has
to be sharpened.
Speaker 1 (21:51):
When you think about this skill that that that that
needs sharpening. For those men that are watching, what would
you say to them that are looking to be sharpened
but don't know where to start?
Speaker 2 (22:08):
Man?
Speaker 3 (22:15):
I would, I would, I would identify one what your
purpose is and what you believe your purpose is. And
I always say that your passion is for you and
your purposes for others. Yeah, it has nothing to do
with you. And when you identify what your purpose is,
(22:39):
then you need to reverse engineer how do I get there?
How do I achieve this right? And then I think
you got to create an ecosystem of people absolutely that
support you and fulfilling that purpose. And you have to
be a learner.
Speaker 1 (22:59):
You Man, that ecosystem is so important. And so many
brothers don't have the ecosystem because they're usually an outcast
of some sort. Uh, they're usually a loaners. And most
brothers have become withdrawn and not just from society, but
(23:21):
from even their their circles, especially if others in the
circles have moved on. And one of the biggest burden
that I felt early on when I started going to therapy.
When I started healing, is I carried this burden of evolving.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Well I knew you was Sonna, Well now you not
now now now you Now you're going somewhere. Because my
favorite movie, one of my favorite movies. You know, you know,
you know, we gotta have Denzel. Yeah, but the bookie Eli.
Speaker 2 (23:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (23:59):
And I always tell people I gotta walk west. I'm
walking west, and I don't care if I'm walking alone.
I don't care if I'm blind, because I've been chosen
to do something and I gotta do it, whether if
you come or not. You can't take everybody to the
Promised Land. And so when you are chosen and you
feel called to a mission, I always tell people I'm
(24:21):
mission over people all day.
Speaker 1 (24:25):
Gotta be all day, because if you're not, you do
what Moses did. You will put the people first because
you allow the people to get underneath your skin, cause
you to react out of anger. And that was the
reason he missed the Promise Land. He missed the Promised
(24:46):
Land because he allowed people to corrupt his behavior and
he forgot about the mission. So I love that man
mission over people.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
And so I go back to what we said earlier.
So when you know that, you know that, you know
you get to that why, and then you got to commit,
like you have committed to building and developing your craft
and becoming the best in the country of what you do.
And I love seeing you evolve. But the thing about
it is like, man, our insecurities are, you know, our
(25:27):
traumas from whatever may be of our childhood, all those
different things. It's like if I can't, man, when I
celebrate you, if I believe in the principle, I believe
in the energy, with God, with the universe, I believe that,
like I gotta be able to celebrate you and your successes,
and it feeds me. It's being abundant minded versus that
(25:50):
whole scarcity of mind, and that fundamentally is a lot
of the issue.
Speaker 1 (25:56):
With us sometimes because what happens is is and particularly
I'm seeing this now because I'm almost forty three, and
I'm seeing men in their forties struggle. Because if you
did not evolve beyond your greatest days, man, that's a
(26:16):
whole another episode. You feel as if you have nothing left,
and you begin to leave as if everything is gone.
Rather than thinking about how do I reinvent, how do
I recreate. More importantly, how do I reshape myself?
Speaker 3 (26:36):
Going back to what you said about evolution, we try
to proactively get the athletes that we work with to
overcome the fear of learning about investing or learning about entrepreneurship,
learning about professionalism instead of being reactive to it. And
(26:56):
you know more than anybody. Yeah, I didn't play pro you.
You know, I'm trying to get you to to evolve
the scene that you're much more than just that before
you are reacting to it. And it's it's a man,
It is a difficult situation, Yeah, for the brothers to overcome.
(27:17):
Just it just really is.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
Yeah, because if you enter into it with with without
knowing the parameters, without knowing the pitfalls, the hurdles, all
of the distractions, all of the sort of trap doors.
Speaker 2 (27:35):
You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1 (27:35):
You you, you, you become this victim to have this
similar story that a lot of other individuals have when
they enter into that space, because you enter into that
space not really knowing and you were not fully prepared.
Like I was reading the other day, the story that
I'm not gonna call it after these name, there were
(27:56):
a few athletes that this this lady was this quote
unquote investor, and she took everybody for like ten fifteen
to twenty million dollars. And I'm sitting here and I'm
listening to this, and I'm thinking to myself, you know,
how is it that it happened? But when you think
about when you go into this space, you're unfamiliar of
(28:17):
the territory, You're unfamiliar of the language. So anything that
sounds like hey, I can take this and I can
get you a two hundred and three hundred you know
the percent return within sixty to eightion days, And I'm thinking, like.
Speaker 2 (28:29):
That ain't possible.
Speaker 1 (28:31):
But the reactiveness is that you hear that and you're like,
oh yeah, and you jump on it and you look
and twenty million dollars are gone. And so having these
brothers that are entering too this space, not having the information,
and then you're being this liaison to say, you know what,
(28:54):
I know, you don't know the space that you going
and you know the game, but do you know the
game outside of the game?
Speaker 3 (29:01):
Yeah, when I don't know about you. I love Kyrie
Irving and I was I was listening to Lebron talk
about funny Enough Luca on a podcast yesterday. And when
you see Luca, you see even Kyrie, people talk about
you don't know what they gonna do, like they don't
(29:23):
you know how when we play ball, you got those
dudes that follow the exact play is textbook. You got
to hit the A gap. You're gonna hit the A gap.
You're gonna get this. But when someone can create and
you don't know how to defend them, you know how
to do that. So it's more of an intuition. It's
more of a feel of the game. It's more of
an instinctual kind of a thing. You train that you
develop that on the field, on the court, and those
(29:45):
are some of the best people in the world at
their respective sport that just have a feel for it.
You can't take that into business and investing. So now
you're making decisions based on a feeling because you've been
trained to do that over here, so you unconsciously may
think that's the same way you should do that over here,
(30:07):
But over here you want to follow processes due diligence.
Analytics come on to help you come to a decision
on what you should do, and if you bring that
over here, it's not going to produce the same.
Speaker 1 (30:21):
Outcome man, trying man, listen, trying to recycle something from another.
Speaker 3 (30:29):
That part, it's two totally different things. It's different terrains.
If you've ever read the book or the War, it's
a different terrain. You can't go into this terrain with
the same approach that you do this terrain. You have
to learn a new skills to the new You gotta
turn a switch. You can't approach it the same.
Speaker 1 (30:50):
Is Is that what drives your passion is being able
to show these guys how to develop a new skill
in a different terrain.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah, it is, bro it is. It's my passion. It's
what I love is It's it's challenging. It's challenging. You know,
sometimes I wish I in my family office, and you know,
we govern all their finances, we oversee all the operations.
We're educating the families, we're consulting on the businesses that
(31:18):
they start from scratch. And sometimes I wish I was
dealing with more experienced entrepreneurs and more mature people.
Speaker 2 (31:25):
Wow.
Speaker 3 (31:26):
But again that's not my choice.
Speaker 2 (31:28):
I was chosen. I was chosen for that audience. Man.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
You know, Mike, as we close, I ask every guest
a question. You know to show is titled just Heal,
And from what I'm hearing, from what you've shared, your
journey has been that of healing not only the athletes
that you work with, because there is a healing component
(31:56):
to helping these young men understand that they're more than
just an hour because you're also healing parts of their
hearts because a lot of them didn't have the capacity
to trust because of what they feared. As you talked
about scarcity. So when you think about healing and it's
totality from your own perspective, what does healing means to you?
Speaker 3 (32:26):
Yeah? Man, I think about my process in the past
two years and personally, you know, being divorced. I was
married for sixteen years, relocating across the country to move
my business to Dallas, which I absolutely loved, but it
(32:47):
was a difficult process. You know. I went through a
season where when I was transitioning, I was litigation with
some people that I was doing business with us where
I became. I learned and developed as an entrepreneur in
that process. But it was the worst time of my life,
(33:09):
but the best time because I wouldn't be who I
am going through a divorce. I had to recreate myself
across the country, and I think I had developed a
lot of callous and a lot of business was my
safe place. Business is my safe place. That's where I'm comfortable.
(33:30):
I know the language, I know it whatever, and I
can hide from things in that, you know. But the
past two years, well probably longer than that, but I'm
gonna say two years. And you know, a wonderful woman
I'm with and being in a relationship her and my
(33:53):
best friend have challenged me to tap into my emotions
and fears and parts of me that I would pretty
much when you think about the attachment styles, you know,
I would be more an avoidant, you know, kind of realm.
(34:14):
And so I think I've really embraced it. And because
I've embraced that.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Not.
Speaker 3 (34:21):
I almost if I've embraced it the whole time, I've
kind of foughted probably a little bit.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
Oh yeah, But.
Speaker 3 (34:26):
It's helped me be a better man. That's gonna help
me better help the clients and the people that I
serve in a different way. I can relate better, I
can empathize better. Empathy was not a thing of mine.
So I think in me healing, obviously, I hopefully will
be able to help a lot of other brothers heal.
Speaker 2 (34:47):
Now, So healing for you has been.
Speaker 1 (34:51):
A journey indeed, And I know the wonderful woman that
you have And when I found out that you got
as were in a relationship, man, my heart smiled for
you because I want to see brothers be restored through relationships.
I believe that there is a healing component that is
(35:14):
attached when you're in a healthy relationship. And healthy relationship
doesn't necessarily means that it's perfect. However, it's healthy because
I am choosing to not only show up different, but
I'm also allowing different to show up for me. Because
(35:35):
when you're broken, you can continuously choose the same thing
over and over and over. And so what I'm excited about, man,
is that not only that you choose different, but you're
also allowing yourself to receive different.
Speaker 2 (35:49):
And I believe that within itself, man is healing.
Speaker 3 (35:52):
Man. I appreciate you, bro, Man, I appreciate the light
that you provide in my life. You know what I mean,
You know the recent conversations we had, Like I told you,
the energy to love. I just really really appreciate you
and I get inspired by seeing you do what you
do Man and helping brothers and I look forward to
(36:14):
make an impact together for sure.
Speaker 1 (36:15):
Man, absolutely, brother Listen, you have seen this episode with
my brother Mike Leto, who is a phenomenal consulting phenomenal
business manager that are helping athletes navigate the business of sports.
But you got to hear him talk about what healing
(36:37):
meant to him. I don't know what healing means to you,
but I can tell you there's always a component where
healing is often attached to a relationship. And I'm not
talking about a loving relationship, but oftentimes relationships that shows
up in the element of a friendship or partnership. So
(37:00):
I want to encourage you to continue on your journey
by being open to relationships that you may have been
closed to, maybe building a connection with someone that you
typically was like, ah, that's not my type of person.
So I encourage you to tap in with our healing
journey by subscribing to Just Heal, Doctor J. We would
love to have you in our healing community to stay
(37:22):
connected for all the things that we're doing with Just
Heal with Doctor J. And until next time, remember healing
is a journey and wholeness is the Destination. Just Here
with Doctor J, a production of The Black Effect Podcast Network.
For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or.
Speaker 2 (37:42):
Wherever you listen to your favorite shows, and you can
follow me at King J.
Speaker 1 (37:46):
Barnett on Instagram and x and follow us on YouTube
Just Heal, Doctor J.
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