February 8, 2024 • 32 mins
Unlock the synergy of creativity and entrepreneurship with Roberto Blake, the creative powerhouse and YouTube wizard, in our latest conversation from POD Fest in Orlando. Roberto shares a treasure trove of wisdom on thriving in business with a lean approach to content production, punctuated by tales of his travels and the influence of Atlanta on his career trajectory. His candid revelations about overcoming pandemic-induced struggles, prioritizing mental health, and the unwavering support of family paint a vivid picture of a man who embodies resilience and the art of balancing life's many facets for ultimate success.
This episode goes beyond the surface, as we explore the life-altering power of mentorship and the importance of leaving a lasting legacy. I open up about the transformative role a support system plays in fostering resilience amidst life's challenges, like bullying, and the critical need for a sanctuary that nurtures confidence, particularly for youth. Roberto and I delve into the immigrant narrative, honoring the sacrifices of our forebears, and the imperative of integrity in our creations. We dissect the necessity of teaching life skills that empower and enable personal and professional flourishing, setting the stage for a journey of impactful growth.
We wrap up with an introspective look into the essence of self-awareness and the mastery of time management when making the leap to self-employment. I share reflections on the authenticity required to navigate one's true path and the strategic wisdom gleaned from Sun Tzu's "The Art of War" in understanding one's strengths and limitations. With the introduction of the TIME acronym as a success compass, this episode equips you with the tools to elevate your life strategy, ensuring you command your time, invest wisely, and harness experience for a competitive edge in whatever you pursue. Join us on this enlightening journey as we traverse identity, empathy, and perception, aiming for a fulfilled life with minimal regrets.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:16):
Hello and welcome back to the Lil Mel One Filter
podcast.
I'm your host, charlie Shaw,and I'm delighted to have you
join us again for anothercaptivating episode.
Today we have a special guestand an inspiring topic lined up
to motivate and uplift you.
Your ongoing engagement andcommitment to our show means the
world to us.
We truly appreciate the timeyou spend with us each week and
(00:39):
we're thrilled to have you hereonce again.
Without further ado, let's diveinto this week's show and
embark on a journey ofinspiration and discovery
together.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey, good morning.
This is Charlie Shaw, host ofLil Mel podcast show.
I'm reporting from the POT Festin Orlando, florida.
They're holding a conferencethis weekend and I have the
privilege of interviewing MrRoberto Blake.
Mr Roberto Blake is awell-known creative entrepreneur
, youtube certified educator,keynote speaker and content
(01:13):
creator.
He's been in the game for overa decade now.
He has 600,000 followers onYouTube and over 700 and all his
other platforms.
Let's give a warm welcome to MrBlake.
Thank you for having me,charlie, all right, hey, no,
thank you for taking myinterview.
I sat in on your classyesterday, man, and I was
(01:33):
listening to you and you weremixing business with pleasure
and all I can hear wasprofessionalism and your voice,
and I was looking at everybodythat was sitting in on your show
.
I just can't believe how youhad everybody's attention.
Everybody was really listeningto you, taking in the content,
writing, writing, taking notes,visualizing, basically
(01:58):
visualizing themselves being youone day.
So tell us you have.
You do educational products.
You hold some almost dailyshows.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I did.
I've been doing YouTube dailyfor maybe almost three years.
On YouTube, that ramped down.
I found a way to becomeefficient and up to where I
didn't need to do daily.
I could get the same resultswith only doing 150 uploads a
year.
Then I was also doing otherthings.
I was traveling basically everymonth for a while doing a
speaking engagement.
(02:32):
So that ramped things down alittle bit.
So I was doing that routethrough 2019.
When the pandemic happenedactually slowed down a lot of my
content.
I focused more on a combinationof trying to find some balance
between business and mentalhealth during the pandemic Went
a little stir crazy actually,right?
I think, all of us did.
(02:52):
I ended up with deep pandemicdepression, but I worked through
it, overcame it and I bouncedback, but I was also able to
maintain my business doing it,because what I did was I ramped
down content creation.
I focused on my customers andmy coaching clients and the
students in the Austin CraterAcademy pro group that I run.
My focusing on that, focusingon doing some back end work for
(03:17):
brands and sponsors, I wasactually able to have the best
years of my business during thepandemic.
The caveat to that was I alsohad the worst years of my mental
health since becoming anentrepreneur.
Right, I hadn't had such badmental health since my days as
an employee.
During that time, let me ask you, you were operating on New York
, right?
No, I lived in New York.
I worked in New York for a time.
(03:38):
I was born in Brooklyn, but myfamily was military.
I told you, my father was aMarine.
Yeah, that's what we wereMaster of Marine, sergeant E9.
Right, so we moved all over thecountry.
So I've moved all over thecountry and now I've traveled to
almost all 50 states in mylifetime, which has been
tremendous.
There's still a couple I haveto hit up Hawaii, alaska,
obviously Right, but I've metpeople from all walks of life,
(03:58):
every culture you can imagine inthis country.
It's been great, but I operateout of Atlanta, georgia.
I spent a lot of time inGeorgia as a kid.
We did two different dutystations when I was a kid in
Georgia and I was constantlycoming back to Georgia for
business and events.
The airport at HartfieldJackson is the biggest in the
country.
It is the best in the countryas far as I'm concerned, and
(04:22):
it's a one stop internationalhub too.
So I jokingly tell people Imoved to Atlanta, georgia for
the airport, but it's kind oftrue for as much travel, as I
was doing before the pandemic,but no, it's been great.
You have city when you need it.
I live in the suburbs, I liveright outside the perimeter, so
I have downtown Metro Atlantafor business.
I have a wee workout of therethat I go to.
So I'm in the Ponce area.
(04:44):
Ponce area yeah, it's great.
Great artistic community, greatfood, great culture, great
aesthetics for photography andvideo.
There you go.
So me and my brother areshooting a lot of footage out
there now because we're doingsome kind of more walking and
talking videos, not just up inmy studio anymore.
There you go.
Then I have my home officestudio in Atlanta.
I bought a house two years agoCongratulations on that, thank
you.
(05:05):
Yeah, you know, bought that with.
What I did from concentrationChanged my whole family's life.
I retired my mother.
She's elderly, she's diabetic,she has some issues.
I was able to do her surgeryfor her cataracts.
She was going blind and becauseof what I built, I was able to
save my mother's vision.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
There it is man, and that's a beautiful thing when
you can help a family.
Yeah, so it's like that you'remaking this a family affair.
You're bringing in your brotherwith with the video and you
also have my sister also worksfor me.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
She works on the coaching side of the business.
She does admin work and coachfor the business.
She was one of my first hiresand one of my best hires.
One of the best decisions I'veever made in my life was hiring
my sister.
Now I feel that my brother'smaturing.
We have a 10 year agedifference.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah Well you know, I'm like asking people age, but
so so I'm turning 40 this year.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I'm turning 40 this year Congratulations.
But I have a metabolic age.
My fitness is so good.
I have a metabolic age of 35 inmy fitness house.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
My man, we're going to repound that out right now.
There you go, you know I'mdoing good.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Like you know, I'm only five eight, but I'm like
five eight, I'm still infantastic shape.
Yeah, I'm 16% body fat.
I'm going to get under 15because you know I'm taking off
the pandemic pounds, you know,and I'm actually at the highest
muscle mass and protein I'veever been in my life.
So I'm like I'm going to be inmy in my.
I was a track and cross countryrunner when I was in high
school.
I was a champion, actuallytrack and cross country I was.
(06:26):
I did a 515 mile almost brokeapartment miles, my one of my
cigarettes 1818, 5k run 1026, 2mile.
Yes, I still have my statsmemorized and everything.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they could check your receipts.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
is what you say, I was a monster back in my prime
in my track and cross countryday, so maintaining fitness has
always been important to me.
My father was a Marine.
I used the military PT standardwhen I was a teenager for my
workout of what I had all therain would have to do, so I set
myself that standard and what Ilearned from my parents.
My mother was a nurse andEventually an administrator back
(06:59):
when she had her career, asidefrom the years she spent as a
stay at home Mom.
Right, yeah, that was soimportant for my early
development that I had her as mymentor, my Caretaker and my
first real teacher, and it gaveme a tremendous advantage of
life.
I would say that the greatestprivilege I have and we didn't
have a lot of money my father,my mother, was a stay-at-home
mom for the majority of mychildhood.
(07:21):
She only, when my parents gotdivorced, moved into more of her
career in nursingadministration and then that was
a single parent income.
Before that we're still kind ofa single income family because
of my father being in theMarines.
He had to work his way up Rightwhen we were, when I was young,
he didn't have that prestigiousmilitary career yet he was
earning his stripes.
He was an immigrant who came tothis country from Panama my
(07:42):
family's from Panama.
I'm a first-generation AmericanI'm a man.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, I'm gonna tell you one thing I went through the
military, went through federallaw enforcement, and it is hard
for an individual to obtainthose rings, yeah.
So pass all to your father forinstilling those values of hard
work and absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, the values that my mother and father
gave me.
And you know my dad, my dad wasa perfect mother.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
There's no lot both right the.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
They were perfect, they'd have a perfect marriage,
but I still feel that theyperfectly parented me.
This was.
I got the best and worst and Ilearned to take the best and to
work on Myself to shed the worstof the things that I inherited
from.
So the rigid discipline fromhaving I mean, you know my
mother was a nurse is stilldisciplined.
(08:30):
That's Administrative, but it'salso empathy, it's
thoughtfulness, it's detail,it's meticulousness, because you
play for real stakes.
You play, you know, for keeps,for keeps, and the same thing
with my father.
So, being an immigrant family,having professional parents,
having such a Focus on learningand education beyond what you
(08:51):
learn in the classroom, andhaving my mother's presence, you
know, especially with my fatherdeploying so much and also him
doing so much side work to makeextra money for us, because he
also did mechanic work on allyou know.
You know, having that meant theworld to me and it made all the
difference in who I became andit shaped my personality, my
temperament and my values and Iwill always be grateful for that
(09:12):
.
I think the most, the greatestprivilege you can have is To
have both of your parents inyour life for as long as you can
.
That's not always the case.
You lose them sometimes orthings don't work out, marriage
is fall apart.
But for me and my siblings Ithink that we got the best hand
that we could have possibly beendealt with my eyes Right and it
(09:33):
doesn't mean that it was aperfect hand.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Oh, and you know what ?
I'm glad that you're speakingon a lot of the topics that you
brought up Same focus, takingcare of your health, taking care
of yourself both mentally andphysically, monitoring your
health, taking care of yourfamily.
My listeners want to hear thatand I didn't ask you for that.
You share that.
I appreciate you doing itbecause that, for me, those
(09:56):
values Resonate.
I come from the same kind ofmakeup.
However, you know oh, I didn't.
You know, I was born here inthe States, but our backgrounds
are so similar.
Yeah, you know, our backgroundis similar to your father's, and
what he instilled in you iswhat I instilled in my family as
well.
I have two daughters and then Ihave a whole series of nephews
(10:16):
where I think sometimes they gettired of me.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
You know providing advice and all that, but you
know I love them, so I'm alwaysgoing to do that, whether they
want to hear it or not, I meanwell, they're blessed, they have
a great mentor in you and ifyou're instilling those values
and continuing that in theaudience and I think it's
important I think that a lot ofpeople, the way that they're the
most underprivileged is theydon't have mentorship, they
don't have leadership, theydon't have a legacy of knowing
(10:41):
how proud they can be of wherethey come from.
They're only told the worstversion of their history, not
the best version of it, and Ithink that if you trip away that
from people, you undermine thefoundation of their confidence.
My parents made sure that I hada strong foundation for
confidence and even though I wasbullied, I was ruthlessly after
we got off of military bases.
(11:02):
We're in the public schoolsystem after leaving military
bases dealing with a lot of kids, especially kids from
underprivileged backgrounds.
They beat themselves up bybullying a smart kid and it's
especially hard if you're anethnic immigrant person called
but smart kids in general wouldalso in the background, get
bullied.
But when it feels like okay,why are the people who look like
(11:24):
me putting me down?
That's an extra level of hurt.
And then it's like why is itthat I get more support from
people like outside of my ingroup than I do from my in group
?
Now with me, some people have iteven worse than that.
Some people's own familyundermines them.
So I didn't have to deal withthat.
So with my family I had atleast had that strong foundation
(11:47):
of support and with my dad itwas always hard to tell when I
was being supported because ofhis own background, growing up
much harder, much moreprivileged in a poor country and
everything he went through asan immigrant in this country,
coming here as a teenager.
But when I was able to grow up,going to my little public
background, look back in my owncareer, as he always told me.
(12:08):
Like you may not always like it, but you'll understand.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
You'll understand later.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
And you know, when I started to reach ages where I
was reflecting on, like, wait,I'm older than my father was.
At this stage, love, this stage,love, let me re-litigate how I
feel about things he said or didor how things were, and then I
go okay, now I'm older than hewas in those situations, I
understand that, I have moreempathy, I have more respect, I
have more gratitude and it'slike, and it doesn't, you know,
(12:32):
it's not always a forgivingcongethion, but I could put it
in its proper place and see,okay, he was doing the best he
could and knew how to do withwhat he had where he was, and I
could appreciate that more andthat helps you with your mental
health, that helps you withhealing and that helps you also
decide how you're going to movein the world, how you're going
to teach your mentor and howyou're going to lead people.
(12:52):
And I'm going to bring back tothis whole thing with the
bullying in high school, becauseI think it's important for some
of your listeners, especiallyif they have kids, right, is
that it's so important to makesure your kids feel good about
who they are and they feel safein their own home and feel safe
with you to be themselves whenthey're not getting the support
they need from everyone else.
They need to know that theirfamily has their back.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
They have to have a safe, safe place, exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And safe people, and safe people.
And they have to know that,come hell or high water, you
have their back.
Yeah.
I like that Always, for example, my mom was my safe space.
I knew I could always go to mymother and that she would
believe in me or she would havemy back.
And that she also knew that sheraised a son that would honor
her and would never make a foolof her, that if she goes to war
(13:36):
for me, I won't make her looklike a fool.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
That's it and you know young people need to
understand that.
Older people need to understandthat, because not only, not
only with young people, wesupport older people as well.
And when you go to backsomebody, whether it's against
whatever the case may befinancial, whatever you want to
know that they gave their alland they're not lying to you.
(14:01):
Exactly, you're here to supportthem.
Don't play with me with tryingto get over.
You know, get over on me.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I'm here helping Well , that's what I bring to the
business side.
Like, even with contentcreation, it was the integrity
Right and that's what a lot ofpeople value in me and why I
have you know.
A following is that I don'thave the.
I'm not a viral content creator.
No, you're not my basis is in,and my basis has always been in,
education, helping peopledevelop skills, learning how,
then, to put themselves forwardin the world, what I call
(14:29):
building a personal brand, right.
So I give you right here,foundational skills and you
could apply these, whetheryou're doing a job, which I did,
freelancing, which I did, orbuilding a business, which I did
.
So the thing is you can gothrough the trifecta of
basically apprentice, which isbasically being an employee,
right, and this is, I think, theview careers.
By the way, when you're a 95employee, I do that as your
(14:51):
apprenticeship.
That's your opportunity to learn, whether you like it or not,
and you should be looking topeople above you in your
industry and in your career,profession, and you should make
yourself their apprentice,whether they like it or not.
You should learn all theirsecrets, learn their origin,
learn their history, learn theirvalues, take the best, leave
the worst behind.
You should be their apprentice,whether they like it or not,
and then, if you gain enoughskill, you have the option to go
(15:14):
your own way and go into themarket.
That means being a freelancer,maybe being a consultant, maybe
being a developer, being anindependent contractor of some
time, being a tradesperson.
So that's your journeymanexperience Going out into the
world, finding your own way,building your bones and building
a reputation that belongs to noone else.
And then you can move into yourmastery, and that's with
(15:34):
entrepreneurship, and that'swhere you're now a leader and
you're building other people upin your employing, training,
teaching and passing on andbuilding a legacy.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, let me segue into that, because you brought
up a very good point.
I did a little background onyou.
You were an entrepreneur beforeyou were a teenager.
You started, your grandmotherput a computer in the home and
you went at it.
Yes, Listen, you want to hearsomething?
I was in the computers when Iwas in high school and that was
back in the 80s, and you wantedno reason why I got away from it
(16:06):
.
It's because other kids werelooking at me like a little nerd
and it was cooler to be coolthan to learn.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I took my lumps, I got beat up at the bus stop, I
got bullied and girls who evenliked me turned sideways because
they didn't want to lose thesocial status by being my friend
or being my girlfriend andeverything.
Oh, but like yeah, no, I'llmake out with you under the
bleachers, but I'm not going toclaim you.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
So yeah Well, I'm proud of you for being brave.
I took my lumps.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
I took my lumps, so I'm like no, I'm not going to
compromise.
See, that's the other thing.
My parents could trust me notto be peer pressure.
I went through my whole highschool career even to this day,
I've never smoked a cigarette,right, I've never smoked a joint
.
And the thing is, you know, wehave a different culture, you
know, as Caribbean Latinos, onthe drinking thing, right.
So like I wasn't going to goout and go crazy or get drunk as
(16:53):
a teenager or even as an adult.
Yeah, they made alcohol, notsome wonderful taboo that made
it seductive.
No-transcript.
I would roll my eyes at, likeyou know, the other kids who,
like, thought that drinking wasspecial.
I was like it's not special andyou're not cool.
So like my parents could trustme because they were honest with
me.
They had rackle candor, theyhad standards for me.
(17:14):
They expected great things fromme.
Yes, it's a lot of pressure,but I knew who I was and I
wasn't going to change who I wasor value.
We weren't compromising.
Yeah, no, I wasn't going to becompromising and yes, there's a
price to be paid for that tosome degree in terms of being
accepted and likable.
But what it is is I narrowedmyself to the circle of people
who would accept me as I was andtake me as I was, but also
(17:35):
would also make me better peoplewho would make me better, and
that was crucial.
It's better to be liked forexactly who you are by a handful
of people than for people tofall in love.
The mass is to fall in lovewith a facade, falling in love
with a fake version of you thatyou have contempt for.
That's serious.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You know, that's basically what.
That's basically.
What I'm producing a show isthat I want people to instill
those values in them, the valuesthat they already have, but
they just just need to bring itto the surface.
The confidence that they havein themselves.
They need to bring it to thesurface, the ideals that they
have.
They may bring it to thesurface.
Don't compromise for anybody.
The world will play tricks onyou.
(18:18):
If you allow it to play trickson you.
The world will tell you, oh,you're not good enough for that,
when you know you are.
This is brand new to me.
What I'm doing right here isbrand new.
And you took the time out.
It took a lot for me to go upthere and grab you.
All that will get yourattention, you know, through
that crowd and ask you to dothis.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Well, yeah, well, I definitely appreciate that and
you know.
I mean, if I have a regret inlife, it's the times I didn't
have the courage to go after thethings I want, the times I
didn't have the courage to speakup for myself or to stand up
for myself, fueling for them.
Between that, those might be.
I still carry to some degreethose regrets and think, well,
what if?
And so I would tell you that,yeah, I'm all about limiting and
(18:59):
mitigating risk, but I lovewhat the Jeff Bezos says, that a
life well lived, in a life welllived, you won't prioritize,
just mitigating risk, you'llmitigate or minimize the amount
of regrets you have.
Now, again, mine are probably apocket full of people care
around a backpack.
We don't know what anotherperson holds.
That's why it's important tohave empathy.
(19:21):
That's why, with my mom.
The one of the strongest valuesshe gave me was empathy,
compassion, understanding,intellectual curiosity.
What I didn't understand when Iwas younger, though, is I had
to temper that with discernment,judgment and accountability for
holding other peopleaccountable, and because,
otherwise, your empathy isweaponized and you become a
(19:43):
doormat right, and people feelthey have a license to abuse you
.
And then, when they werebounders across one too many
times and you decide enough isenough, oh, they don't like it
then, but the problem is withyou.
At that point, if you're me,you've bottled up all these
emotions, you've bottled up allthis resentment, this anger, and
the thing is, then it's thestraw that breaks the camel's
back, and then you have anoverreaction to the disrespect
(20:06):
or to the abuse, and it'sdisproportionate.
And so now you're out ofbalance, because now you think
you're balancing karmic justice,because you have genuine,
righteous anger, but actuallyyou're taking it too far, and
now you're creating anotherimbalance yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, sometimes, let me say it, sometimes it can be
perceived as an angry black man.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
right, I'm gonna guess that far there is that
aspect, but I think it can befor anybody.
I mean a primary example.
Well, just in our case, forexample with, like my mother or
my sisters, for example, theangry woman in general in
general the angry woman.
And the thing is there's adisproportionate consequence to
being perceived as an angrywoman.
There's a disproportionateconsequence to being perceived
(20:49):
as an angry black man.
But there's also adisproportionate consequence of
seeming angry and entitled.
If you're somebody else, forexample, if you're not like an
ethnic minority, for example,you could be genuinely wronged
and agreed, but then peoplemight just see you as the angry
white man.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And the thing is.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
But here's the thing what if you just were genuinely
agreed?
See, that's why I've been veryobsessed lately with this
concept of I want to know thetruth.
I don't want to accept theperception as reality.
Right, Because what I want toknow is the truth.
Because you, reality and truthmay not be the same thing.
Reality as presented can beskewed by perception, but I need
(21:30):
to know the story.
I need to look underneath theunderneath because of like, why
did that happen?
Why will be the truth?
It might be other thingsboiling, and the thing is, how
do you know who's in the rightor wrong If you don't know why
something is happening?
What happens might be reality.
Why it happened will be thetruth.
There you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And I appreciate you bringing in all of that, Because
you know it's not always aboutabout race, or who this person
is or who that person is.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
No, it's about the truth.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's about the truth and but when I brought up and
I'm collecting that thing I wastalking more along the lines of
what somebody has perception ofthat particular person that we
were we're discussing initially.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, no, I totally get that.
I was thinking about somethingthe other day even perception of
me.
I'm a marketer, I'm a brander.
I understand the concept ofperception.
You know.
I had a conversation with youyesterday.
I said you know, marketing is apolite way of saying propaganda
for money instead of propagandafor goods.
Yeah, I remember that and I saidthat a marketer is essentially
(22:32):
a behavioral psychologist thatactually makes money without
academia, right?
So I think that that's true,and as marketers, as content
creators, as influencers, wedeal in perception and we have a
reputation, reputation basedbusiness.
That's part of why we talkabout personal branding, right?
The thing is, I try to makesure that the perception of me
can be as closely aligned to thetruth of who I am as possible,
(22:54):
and I think that that's also oneof the fortunate luxury items
of being self employed to adegree.
You don't always have thatluxury when you're an employee.
When you're an employee, you'reunder the mandate of somebody
else's rules.
You can find yourself being ayes man or yes woman very
quickly, because that could be amatter of survival for you.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
You know I, like I said, I just retired from the
federal government working inlaw enforcement and I had to
follow certain protocols.
And I noticed, as soon as Isaid I want to get into this
business, into this world, I wasa little apprehensive because
now I'm exposing myself, I haveto tell the people who I am, I
(23:32):
have to let them know what flawsthat I have before they figure
it out, because you know, thelast thing you want to do is be,
you know size swipe by somebodywith that and you know the
conversations that we've beenhaving just in the last what 24
hours it helped me.
It helped me identify, ithelped me Realize it's okay, not
(23:53):
the palm, it's okay to haveimperfections because, yes, as
long as you acknowledge them,you can.
You can get better at what?
At those flaws.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I Consider self-awareness of your
weaknesses the ultimate strength.
That in the art of war, sun Tzusaid something to the
equivalent of you know no dayenemy.
No, they sell.
No, that's up, and you know ifyou don't really know.
Some people lack a stunninglaugh self-awareness, but they
also lack awareness of the world.
There's a stunning amount, evenin the business, even the
current content, creativity, inall of it.
(24:23):
There's stunning amount ofnaivete even I had it going in
and people do not realize howpowerful they can be right.
They also don't understand howmany things work for them or how
many things work against them,right, but also as powerful as
they can be.
They also don't understandtheir vulnerabilities, their
risk or where they're exposed,or their weaknesses, and they
(24:45):
don't and they don't see theirflaws and they don't do enough
to correct or comma correctthose things or to limit the
damage that those things can doand all goes back to risk
management.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yes, and you should.
You should be constantly doingrisk management on yourself.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Well, that's one of the things I constantly actually
teach the creators I coach, Iteach them about there.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
We do a SWAT analysis your rape with this, with your
back analysis.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So this is opportunity whenever.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I do a coaching call with people.
We go through this one analysisand I compliment them on their
strengths, I ask them to help mesort their weaknesses and I get
them to admit their weaknessesand acknowledge them to me.
They do this usually even inthe intake form when they coach
with me.
The minute someone signs up tocoach with me, they get a form
that they feel and they tell meman, roberto, before I even
coach with you, I got value justfilling out this form.
(25:32):
I would not have asked myselfthese questions.
I gained a deeper understandingof myself from my brand just by
thinking harder about this, sothat I can come up with an
answer, so that I don't feellike I'm wasting your time,
right, and so then we get intoit.
And then we have an agenda andwhere I go is like I'm gonna
show you opportunities youdidn't know you have, based on
your strengths and based on myawareness of an experience of
(25:52):
the market and that you may nothave, I'm gonna say, hey, these
are these threats that you don'teven know, lurk in the shadows
for you, based on your niche,based on the industry, based on
the current State of things.
And are I here?
Are the things we can do toBenefiting for you to extract
more value from your strengths.
Here's how we're gonna show upyour weaknesses.
We're gonna, in some cases wherewe deal with weaknesses, we're
gonna have to be delegate someof these to the other people.
(26:13):
Can we automate some of thesethings to give us more time to
play to our strengths?
What can we eliminate?
Some of the risk, harm andthings that we're exposed to.
So we delegate, automate,eliminate.
Now I also add another things,this that called duplicate.
So, in duplicate, how can Iduplicate my previous successes?
How can I duplicate the thingsthat I've done very well and
(26:35):
that comes to building systems,protocols and templates?
Right so we have a.
Okay, we're gonna build asystem so that I can duplicate
the results of the things thatproduce the best outcome for me.
We're going to speed upeverything I do by having
templates that allow me tomodify Shortcuts.
Templates, plugins, all thesethings are gonna, like you know,
we're gonna optimize right andso that becomes incredibly
(26:58):
Powerful for a lot of peoplebecause now they have this
abundance of time.
Time freedom is the biggest gapbetween successful people.
We don't all have the same 24hours a day.
We kind of do, but what I meanby this is we all have 24 hours
in a day.
We all don't have the luxury ofallocating them efficient to it
, whether we want to or not.
So how can we create more timefreedom?
(27:18):
You have to look at what can Ido, and this is where systems,
protocols and templates going toplace.
How can I optimize my lifeRight so that I now have, of
that 24 hours, the best methodfor allocating my time portfolio
?
People sit there and they thinkthat they have a lack of
resources holding them back.
I promise you the biggest thingholding the back is a lack of
(27:40):
time free.
It's not themselves, it's timefree.
Okay, and time freedom is startsthe beginning of this other
equation that I teach creators,and it's an acronym called time,
time freedom, investmentcapital, manpower, experience,
expertise and education.
So the thing is, if you lacktime and freedom, you can't
compete with someone who does.
(28:01):
If you lack investment capital,you don't have the capacity to
buy back your time or to buyother people's time and manpower
, their specialization, theirexpertise.
And then if you lack experience, even if you had an abundance
of time, you wouldn't use iteffectively or efficiently
anyway.
Even if you had an abundance ofresources, you wouldn't use it
effectively or efficientlyAnyway.
Even if you had manpower andpeople willing to support you,
(28:21):
you wouldn't know how to putthem in their best role to serve
you in the first place.
So that's why you have todevelop your expertise and gain
education.
Funny thing is, you canshortcut expertise and education
by having a mentor, and also byeducating yourself with mentors
from afar, through books,coming to conferences and events
and asking direct questionsthat are specialized to you,
(28:42):
because go to events and getmultiple people oh, this is like
fire holes here.
Exactly, multiple people totell you only about your own
situation Right.
When people go.
Why do I do free content?
Oh, free content is the best.
Free content I can geteverything I need.
I don't need coaching, I don'tneed co-sus, I don't need
cohorts, I don't needconferences, I got free internet
content.
That's public school, my friend.
(29:04):
If education that was free wasthe best, it's going to be.
Why is it that free education,even in our public school system
, doesn't produce the bestoutcome in results?
You know who wins People whoare already smart win in free
education.
Now, people who know let me geta tutor on top of the free
education, the kids who are atutor.
That's like hiring a coach.
Those kids win the kids inathletics that get a coach, get
(29:27):
a mentor, they win.
Yeah, okay, the kids in privateschool have more specialized
attention.
That's the same as going into acohort or a group or a
mastermind they win.
Kids who join clubs, kids whojoin secret societies of
like-minded people theydisproportionately get the best
outcome.
Even in corporate America, thepeople who belong to an
organization beyond the company,the people who are part of a
(29:50):
smaller overall network, a smallconsolidated network of
like-minded people, they alwayshave a disproportionate
advantage of people who onlydeal in what is publicly
available.
So, public versus private,private always has the leverage,
so you always put yourself in aposition to be behind the
paywall, whatever it takes,because that is where leverage
exists, and it exists inspecialized information that's
(30:13):
only useful to you, right?
It also has a network effect,because it's not just about the
nepotism of the network youshould leverage that Right but
it's about the fact that thesepeople in themselves are a
resource, because they will alsomotivate you just by their
sheer proximity.
They're investing, even whenthey're not.
Proximity is power, even whenthey're not.
(30:34):
You can see now them in a momentthat other people in the public
aren't seeing, and you can sitthere and you go.
You can be motivated andinspired by that or you can
glean something from that.
It's because now you see thework that people don't when
they're watching.
You see also when the maskslips and now you understand how
people like that might move andyou understand when it can work
(30:55):
for you and against you,because proximity is power.
So when you move out of thepublic that's publicly available
, you start to get into thesesmaller, smaller communities.
You now have a proximity now todifferentiate yourself from the
masses, because the massesaren't winning.
So get into smaller groups andsmaller pools of people.
Even in, even in public school,the kids who win study groups,
(31:18):
study groups, study groups aremastermind Right.
Even if you don't pay forsomeone else's mastermind, what
people should be doing isfinding like-minded people like
them that are hungry, ambitious,motivated, reliable, of good
character, but still hungry, yes, and are ruthlessly focused
with their time.
Ruthless with your time is oneof the best things you can do,
right.
Be ruthless with your time,generous with your excess and be
(31:41):
thoughtful and consistent inyour character.
Those would be three very easyrules for success.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Lil Mel
on Filter Podcast.
We hope you found today'sdiscussion inspiring and
thought-provoking.
Your ongoing support andengagement are incredibly
valuable to us and we appreciatethe time you spent with us.
Remember to stay connected withus on social media and share
your thoughts and feedback.
(32:08):
Your input helps us continue toimprove and deliver content
that resonates with you.
As we conclude today's episode,we want to extend our sincere
thanks to our special guests forsharing their insight with us
and, of course, a big thank youto all of you for being part of
our podcast community.
Until next time, take care andstay inspired.
(32:29):
This is Charlie Shaw signingoff, wishing you all the
fantastic day ahead.
We look forward to having youjoin us again for our next
episode of Lil Mel on Filter.
Goodbye for now.
Hello and welcome back to the Lil Mel One Filter
podcast.
I'm your host, charlie Shaw,and I'm delighted to have you
join us again for anothercaptivating episode.
Today we have a special guestand an inspiring topic lined up
to motivate and uplift you.
Your ongoing engagement andcommitment to our show means the
world to us.
We truly appreciate the timeyou spend with us each week and
(00:39):
we're thrilled to have you hereonce again.
Without further ado, let's diveinto this week's show and
embark on a journey ofinspiration and discovery
together.
Speaker 2 (00:50):
Hey, good morning.
This is Charlie Shaw, host ofLil Mel podcast show.
I'm reporting from the POT Festin Orlando, florida.
They're holding a conferencethis weekend and I have the
privilege of interviewing MrRoberto Blake.
Mr Roberto Blake is awell-known creative entrepreneur
, youtube certified educator,keynote speaker and content
(01:13):
creator.
He's been in the game for overa decade now.
He has 600,000 followers onYouTube and over 700 and all his
other platforms.
Let's give a warm welcome to MrBlake.
Thank you for having me,charlie, all right, hey, no,
thank you for taking myinterview.
I sat in on your classyesterday, man, and I was
(01:33):
listening to you and you weremixing business with pleasure
and all I can hear wasprofessionalism and your voice,
and I was looking at everybodythat was sitting in on your show
.
I just can't believe how youhad everybody's attention.
Everybody was really listeningto you, taking in the content,
writing, writing, taking notes,visualizing, basically
(01:58):
visualizing themselves being youone day.
So tell us you have.
You do educational products.
You hold some almost dailyshows.
Speaker 3 (02:11):
I did.
I've been doing YouTube dailyfor maybe almost three years.
On YouTube, that ramped down.
I found a way to becomeefficient and up to where I
didn't need to do daily.
I could get the same resultswith only doing 150 uploads a
year.
Then I was also doing otherthings.
I was traveling basically everymonth for a while doing a
speaking engagement.
(02:32):
So that ramped things down alittle bit.
So I was doing that routethrough 2019.
When the pandemic happenedactually slowed down a lot of my
content.
I focused more on a combinationof trying to find some balance
between business and mentalhealth during the pandemic Went
a little stir crazy actually,right?
I think, all of us did.
(02:52):
I ended up with deep pandemicdepression, but I worked through
it, overcame it and I bouncedback, but I was also able to
maintain my business doing it,because what I did was I ramped
down content creation.
I focused on my customers andmy coaching clients and the
students in the Austin CraterAcademy pro group that I run.
My focusing on that, focusingon doing some back end work for
(03:17):
brands and sponsors, I wasactually able to have the best
years of my business during thepandemic.
The caveat to that was I alsohad the worst years of my mental
health since becoming anentrepreneur.
Right, I hadn't had such badmental health since my days as
an employee.
During that time, let me ask you, you were operating on New York
, right?
No, I lived in New York.
I worked in New York for a time.
(03:38):
I was born in Brooklyn, but myfamily was military.
I told you, my father was aMarine.
Yeah, that's what we wereMaster of Marine, sergeant E9.
Right, so we moved all over thecountry.
So I've moved all over thecountry and now I've traveled to
almost all 50 states in mylifetime, which has been
tremendous.
There's still a couple I haveto hit up Hawaii, alaska,
obviously Right, but I've metpeople from all walks of life,
(03:58):
every culture you can imagine inthis country.
It's been great, but I operateout of Atlanta, georgia.
I spent a lot of time inGeorgia as a kid.
We did two different dutystations when I was a kid in
Georgia and I was constantlycoming back to Georgia for
business and events.
The airport at HartfieldJackson is the biggest in the
country.
It is the best in the countryas far as I'm concerned, and
(04:22):
it's a one stop internationalhub too.
So I jokingly tell people Imoved to Atlanta, georgia for
the airport, but it's kind oftrue for as much travel, as I
was doing before the pandemic,but no, it's been great.
You have city when you need it.
I live in the suburbs, I liveright outside the perimeter, so
I have downtown Metro Atlantafor business.
I have a wee workout of therethat I go to.
So I'm in the Ponce area.
(04:44):
Ponce area yeah, it's great.
Great artistic community, greatfood, great culture, great
aesthetics for photography andvideo.
There you go.
So me and my brother areshooting a lot of footage out
there now because we're doingsome kind of more walking and
talking videos, not just up inmy studio anymore.
There you go.
Then I have my home officestudio in Atlanta.
I bought a house two years agoCongratulations on that, thank
you.
(05:05):
Yeah, you know, bought that with.
What I did from concentrationChanged my whole family's life.
I retired my mother.
She's elderly, she's diabetic,she has some issues.
I was able to do her surgeryfor her cataracts.
She was going blind and becauseof what I built, I was able to
save my mother's vision.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
There it is man, and that's a beautiful thing when
you can help a family.
Yeah, so it's like that you'remaking this a family affair.
You're bringing in your brotherwith with the video and you
also have my sister also worksfor me.
Speaker 3 (05:31):
She works on the coaching side of the business.
She does admin work and coachfor the business.
She was one of my first hiresand one of my best hires.
One of the best decisions I'veever made in my life was hiring
my sister.
Now I feel that my brother'smaturing.
We have a 10 year agedifference.
Speaker 2 (05:46):
Yeah Well you know, I'm like asking people age, but
so so I'm turning 40 this year.
Speaker 3 (05:51):
I'm turning 40 this year Congratulations.
But I have a metabolic age.
My fitness is so good.
I have a metabolic age of 35 inmy fitness house.
Speaker 2 (05:57):
My man, we're going to repound that out right now.
There you go, you know I'mdoing good.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
Like you know, I'm only five eight, but I'm like
five eight, I'm still infantastic shape.
Yeah, I'm 16% body fat.
I'm going to get under 15because you know I'm taking off
the pandemic pounds, you know,and I'm actually at the highest
muscle mass and protein I'veever been in my life.
So I'm like I'm going to be inmy in my.
I was a track and cross countryrunner when I was in high
school.
I was a champion, actuallytrack and cross country I was.
(06:26):
I did a 515 mile almost brokeapartment miles, my one of my
cigarettes 1818, 5k run 1026, 2mile.
Yes, I still have my statsmemorized and everything.
Speaker 2 (06:36):
So they could check your receipts.
Speaker 3 (06:37):
is what you say, I was a monster back in my prime
in my track and cross countryday, so maintaining fitness has
always been important to me.
My father was a Marine.
I used the military PT standardwhen I was a teenager for my
workout of what I had all therain would have to do, so I set
myself that standard and what Ilearned from my parents.
My mother was a nurse andEventually an administrator back
(06:59):
when she had her career, asidefrom the years she spent as a
stay at home Mom.
Right, yeah, that was soimportant for my early
development that I had her as mymentor, my Caretaker and my
first real teacher, and it gaveme a tremendous advantage of
life.
I would say that the greatestprivilege I have and we didn't
have a lot of money my father,my mother, was a stay-at-home
mom for the majority of mychildhood.
(07:21):
She only, when my parents gotdivorced, moved into more of her
career in nursingadministration and then that was
a single parent income.
Before that we're still kind ofa single income family because
of my father being in theMarines.
He had to work his way up Rightwhen we were, when I was young,
he didn't have that prestigiousmilitary career yet he was
earning his stripes.
He was an immigrant who came tothis country from Panama my
(07:42):
family's from Panama.
I'm a first-generation AmericanI'm a man.
Speaker 2 (07:45):
Well, I'm gonna tell you one thing I went through the
military, went through federallaw enforcement, and it is hard
for an individual to obtainthose rings, yeah.
So pass all to your father forinstilling those values of hard
work and absolutely.
Speaker 3 (08:01):
Yeah, yeah, the values that my mother and father
gave me.
And you know my dad, my dad wasa perfect mother.
Speaker 1 (08:08):
There's no lot both right the.
Speaker 3 (08:10):
They were perfect, they'd have a perfect marriage,
but I still feel that theyperfectly parented me.
This was.
I got the best and worst and Ilearned to take the best and to
work on Myself to shed the worstof the things that I inherited
from.
So the rigid discipline fromhaving I mean, you know my
mother was a nurse is stilldisciplined.
(08:30):
That's Administrative, but it'salso empathy, it's
thoughtfulness, it's detail,it's meticulousness, because you
play for real stakes.
You play, you know, for keeps,for keeps, and the same thing
with my father.
So, being an immigrant family,having professional parents,
having such a Focus on learningand education beyond what you
(08:51):
learn in the classroom, andhaving my mother's presence, you
know, especially with my fatherdeploying so much and also him
doing so much side work to makeextra money for us, because he
also did mechanic work on allyou know.
You know, having that meant theworld to me and it made all the
difference in who I became andit shaped my personality, my
temperament and my values and Iwill always be grateful for that
(09:12):
.
I think the most, the greatestprivilege you can have is To
have both of your parents inyour life for as long as you can
.
That's not always the case.
You lose them sometimes orthings don't work out, marriage
is fall apart.
But for me and my siblings Ithink that we got the best hand
that we could have possibly beendealt with my eyes Right and it
(09:33):
doesn't mean that it was aperfect hand.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
Oh, and you know what ?
I'm glad that you're speakingon a lot of the topics that you
brought up Same focus, takingcare of your health, taking care
of yourself both mentally andphysically, monitoring your
health, taking care of yourfamily.
My listeners want to hear thatand I didn't ask you for that.
You share that.
I appreciate you doing itbecause that, for me, those
(09:56):
values Resonate.
I come from the same kind ofmakeup.
However, you know oh, I didn't.
You know, I was born here inthe States, but our backgrounds
are so similar.
Yeah, you know, our backgroundis similar to your father's, and
what he instilled in you iswhat I instilled in my family as
well.
I have two daughters and then Ihave a whole series of nephews
(10:16):
where I think sometimes they gettired of me.
Speaker 3 (10:18):
You know providing advice and all that, but you
know I love them, so I'm alwaysgoing to do that, whether they
want to hear it or not, I meanwell, they're blessed, they have
a great mentor in you and ifyou're instilling those values
and continuing that in theaudience and I think it's
important I think that a lot ofpeople, the way that they're the
most underprivileged is theydon't have mentorship, they
don't have leadership, theydon't have a legacy of knowing
(10:41):
how proud they can be of wherethey come from.
They're only told the worstversion of their history, not
the best version of it, and Ithink that if you trip away that
from people, you undermine thefoundation of their confidence.
My parents made sure that I hada strong foundation for
confidence and even though I wasbullied, I was ruthlessly after
we got off of military bases.
(11:02):
We're in the public schoolsystem after leaving military
bases dealing with a lot of kids, especially kids from
underprivileged backgrounds.
They beat themselves up bybullying a smart kid and it's
especially hard if you're anethnic immigrant person called
but smart kids in general wouldalso in the background, get
bullied.
But when it feels like okay,why are the people who look like
(11:24):
me putting me down?
That's an extra level of hurt.
And then it's like why is itthat I get more support from
people like outside of my ingroup than I do from my in group
?
Now with me, some people have iteven worse than that.
Some people's own familyundermines them.
So I didn't have to deal withthat.
So with my family I had atleast had that strong foundation
(11:47):
of support and with my dad itwas always hard to tell when I
was being supported because ofhis own background, growing up
much harder, much moreprivileged in a poor country and
everything he went through asan immigrant in this country,
coming here as a teenager.
But when I was able to grow up,going to my little public
background, look back in my owncareer, as he always told me.
(12:08):
Like you may not always like it, but you'll understand.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
You'll understand later.
Speaker 3 (12:12):
And you know, when I started to reach ages where I
was reflecting on, like, wait,I'm older than my father was.
At this stage, love, this stage,love, let me re-litigate how I
feel about things he said or didor how things were, and then I
go okay, now I'm older than hewas in those situations, I
understand that, I have moreempathy, I have more respect, I
have more gratitude and it'slike, and it doesn't, you know,
(12:32):
it's not always a forgivingcongethion, but I could put it
in its proper place and see,okay, he was doing the best he
could and knew how to do withwhat he had where he was, and I
could appreciate that more andthat helps you with your mental
health, that helps you withhealing and that helps you also
decide how you're going to movein the world, how you're going
to teach your mentor and howyou're going to lead people.
(12:52):
And I'm going to bring back tothis whole thing with the
bullying in high school, becauseI think it's important for some
of your listeners, especiallyif they have kids, right, is
that it's so important to makesure your kids feel good about
who they are and they feel safein their own home and feel safe
with you to be themselves whenthey're not getting the support
they need from everyone else.
They need to know that theirfamily has their back.
Speaker 2 (13:11):
They have to have a safe, safe place, exactly.
Speaker 3 (13:13):
And safe people, and safe people.
And they have to know that,come hell or high water, you
have their back.
Yeah.
I like that Always, for example, my mom was my safe space.
I knew I could always go to mymother and that she would
believe in me or she would havemy back.
And that she also knew that sheraised a son that would honor
her and would never make a foolof her, that if she goes to war
(13:36):
for me, I won't make her looklike a fool.
Speaker 2 (13:38):
That's it and you know young people need to
understand that.
Older people need to understandthat, because not only, not
only with young people, wesupport older people as well.
And when you go to backsomebody, whether it's against
whatever the case may befinancial, whatever you want to
know that they gave their alland they're not lying to you.
(14:01):
Exactly, you're here to supportthem.
Don't play with me with tryingto get over.
You know, get over on me.
Speaker 3 (14:07):
I'm here helping Well , that's what I bring to the
business side.
Like, even with contentcreation, it was the integrity
Right and that's what a lot ofpeople value in me and why I
have you know.
A following is that I don'thave the.
I'm not a viral content creator.
No, you're not my basis is in,and my basis has always been in,
education, helping peopledevelop skills, learning how,
then, to put themselves forwardin the world, what I call
(14:29):
building a personal brand, right.
So I give you right here,foundational skills and you
could apply these, whetheryou're doing a job, which I did,
freelancing, which I did, orbuilding a business, which I did
.
So the thing is you can gothrough the trifecta of
basically apprentice, which isbasically being an employee,
right, and this is, I think, theview careers.
By the way, when you're a 95employee, I do that as your
(14:51):
apprenticeship.
That's your opportunity to learn, whether you like it or not,
and you should be looking topeople above you in your
industry and in your career,profession, and you should make
yourself their apprentice,whether they like it or not.
You should learn all theirsecrets, learn their origin,
learn their history, learn theirvalues, take the best, leave
the worst behind.
You should be their apprentice,whether they like it or not,
and then, if you gain enoughskill, you have the option to go
(15:14):
your own way and go into themarket.
That means being a freelancer,maybe being a consultant, maybe
being a developer, being anindependent contractor of some
time, being a tradesperson.
So that's your journeymanexperience Going out into the
world, finding your own way,building your bones and building
a reputation that belongs to noone else.
And then you can move into yourmastery, and that's with
(15:34):
entrepreneurship, and that'swhere you're now a leader and
you're building other people upin your employing, training,
teaching and passing on andbuilding a legacy.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
Well, let me segue into that, because you brought
up a very good point.
I did a little background onyou.
You were an entrepreneur beforeyou were a teenager.
You started, your grandmotherput a computer in the home and
you went at it.
Yes, Listen, you want to hearsomething?
I was in the computers when Iwas in high school and that was
back in the 80s, and you wantedno reason why I got away from it
(16:06):
.
It's because other kids werelooking at me like a little nerd
and it was cooler to be coolthan to learn.
Speaker 3 (16:11):
I took my lumps, I got beat up at the bus stop, I
got bullied and girls who evenliked me turned sideways because
they didn't want to lose thesocial status by being my friend
or being my girlfriend andeverything.
Oh, but like yeah, no, I'llmake out with you under the
bleachers, but I'm not going toclaim you.
Speaker 2 (16:28):
So yeah Well, I'm proud of you for being brave.
I took my lumps.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
I took my lumps, so I'm like no, I'm not going to
compromise.
See, that's the other thing.
My parents could trust me notto be peer pressure.
I went through my whole highschool career even to this day,
I've never smoked a cigarette,right, I've never smoked a joint
.
And the thing is, you know, wehave a different culture, you
know, as Caribbean Latinos, onthe drinking thing, right.
So like I wasn't going to goout and go crazy or get drunk as
(16:53):
a teenager or even as an adult.
Yeah, they made alcohol, notsome wonderful taboo that made
it seductive.
No-transcript.
I would roll my eyes at, likeyou know, the other kids who,
like, thought that drinking wasspecial.
I was like it's not special andyou're not cool.
So like my parents could trustme because they were honest with
me.
They had rackle candor, theyhad standards for me.
(17:14):
They expected great things fromme.
Yes, it's a lot of pressure,but I knew who I was and I
wasn't going to change who I wasor value.
We weren't compromising.
Yeah, no, I wasn't going to becompromising and yes, there's a
price to be paid for that tosome degree in terms of being
accepted and likable.
But what it is is I narrowedmyself to the circle of people
who would accept me as I was andtake me as I was, but also
(17:35):
would also make me better peoplewho would make me better, and
that was crucial.
It's better to be liked forexactly who you are by a handful
of people than for people tofall in love.
The mass is to fall in lovewith a facade, falling in love
with a fake version of you thatyou have contempt for.
That's serious.
Speaker 2 (17:56):
You know, that's basically what.
That's basically.
What I'm producing a show isthat I want people to instill
those values in them, the valuesthat they already have, but
they just just need to bring itto the surface.
The confidence that they havein themselves.
They need to bring it to thesurface, the ideals that they
have.
They may bring it to thesurface.
Don't compromise for anybody.
The world will play tricks onyou.
(18:18):
If you allow it to play trickson you.
The world will tell you, oh,you're not good enough for that,
when you know you are.
This is brand new to me.
What I'm doing right here isbrand new.
And you took the time out.
It took a lot for me to go upthere and grab you.
All that will get yourattention, you know, through
that crowd and ask you to dothis.
Speaker 3 (18:37):
Well, yeah, well, I definitely appreciate that and
you know.
I mean, if I have a regret inlife, it's the times I didn't
have the courage to go after thethings I want, the times I
didn't have the courage to speakup for myself or to stand up
for myself, fueling for them.
Between that, those might be.
I still carry to some degreethose regrets and think, well,
what if?
And so I would tell you that,yeah, I'm all about limiting and
(18:59):
mitigating risk, but I lovewhat the Jeff Bezos says, that a
life well lived, in a life welllived, you won't prioritize,
just mitigating risk, you'llmitigate or minimize the amount
of regrets you have.
Now, again, mine are probably apocket full of people care
around a backpack.
We don't know what anotherperson holds.
That's why it's important tohave empathy.
(19:21):
That's why, with my mom.
The one of the strongest valuesshe gave me was empathy,
compassion, understanding,intellectual curiosity.
What I didn't understand when Iwas younger, though, is I had
to temper that with discernment,judgment and accountability for
holding other peopleaccountable, and because,
otherwise, your empathy isweaponized and you become a
(19:43):
doormat right, and people feelthey have a license to abuse you
.
And then, when they werebounders across one too many
times and you decide enough isenough, oh, they don't like it
then, but the problem is withyou.
At that point, if you're me,you've bottled up all these
emotions, you've bottled up allthis resentment, this anger, and
the thing is, then it's thestraw that breaks the camel's
back, and then you have anoverreaction to the disrespect
(20:06):
or to the abuse, and it'sdisproportionate.
And so now you're out ofbalance, because now you think
you're balancing karmic justice,because you have genuine,
righteous anger, but actuallyyou're taking it too far, and
now you're creating anotherimbalance yourself.
Speaker 2 (20:21):
Well, sometimes, let me say it, sometimes it can be
perceived as an angry black man.
Speaker 3 (20:28):
right, I'm gonna guess that far there is that
aspect, but I think it can befor anybody.
I mean a primary example.
Well, just in our case, forexample with, like my mother or
my sisters, for example, theangry woman in general in
general the angry woman.
And the thing is there's adisproportionate consequence to
being perceived as an angrywoman.
There's a disproportionateconsequence to being perceived
(20:49):
as an angry black man.
But there's also adisproportionate consequence of
seeming angry and entitled.
If you're somebody else, forexample, if you're not like an
ethnic minority, for example,you could be genuinely wronged
and agreed, but then peoplemight just see you as the angry
white man.
Speaker 2 (21:05):
And the thing is.
Speaker 3 (21:07):
But here's the thing what if you just were genuinely
agreed?
See, that's why I've been veryobsessed lately with this
concept of I want to know thetruth.
I don't want to accept theperception as reality.
Right, Because what I want toknow is the truth.
Because you, reality and truthmay not be the same thing.
Reality as presented can beskewed by perception, but I need
(21:30):
to know the story.
I need to look underneath theunderneath because of like, why
did that happen?
Why will be the truth?
It might be other thingsboiling, and the thing is, how
do you know who's in the rightor wrong If you don't know why
something is happening?
What happens might be reality.
Why it happened will be thetruth.
There you go, there you go.
Speaker 2 (21:48):
And I appreciate you bringing in all of that, Because
you know it's not always aboutabout race, or who this person
is or who that person is.
Speaker 3 (21:56):
No, it's about the truth.
Speaker 2 (21:57):
It's about the truth and but when I brought up and
I'm collecting that thing I wastalking more along the lines of
what somebody has perception ofthat particular person that we
were we're discussing initially.
Speaker 3 (22:09):
Yeah, no, I totally get that.
I was thinking about somethingthe other day even perception of
me.
I'm a marketer, I'm a brander.
I understand the concept ofperception.
You know.
I had a conversation with youyesterday.
I said you know, marketing is apolite way of saying propaganda
for money instead of propagandafor goods.
Yeah, I remember that and I saidthat a marketer is essentially
(22:32):
a behavioral psychologist thatactually makes money without
academia, right?
So I think that that's true,and as marketers, as content
creators, as influencers, wedeal in perception and we have a
reputation, reputation basedbusiness.
That's part of why we talkabout personal branding, right?
The thing is, I try to makesure that the perception of me
can be as closely aligned to thetruth of who I am as possible,
(22:54):
and I think that that's also oneof the fortunate luxury items
of being self employed to adegree.
You don't always have thatluxury when you're an employee.
When you're an employee, you'reunder the mandate of somebody
else's rules.
You can find yourself being ayes man or yes woman very
quickly, because that could be amatter of survival for you.
Yes.
Speaker 2 (23:12):
You know I, like I said, I just retired from the
federal government working inlaw enforcement and I had to
follow certain protocols.
And I noticed, as soon as Isaid I want to get into this
business, into this world, I wasa little apprehensive because
now I'm exposing myself, I haveto tell the people who I am, I
(23:32):
have to let them know what flawsthat I have before they figure
it out, because you know, thelast thing you want to do is be,
you know size swipe by somebodywith that and you know the
conversations that we've beenhaving just in the last what 24
hours it helped me.
It helped me identify, ithelped me Realize it's okay, not
(23:53):
the palm, it's okay to haveimperfections because, yes, as
long as you acknowledge them,you can.
You can get better at what?
At those flaws.
Speaker 3 (24:02):
I Consider self-awareness of your
weaknesses the ultimate strength.
That in the art of war, sun Tzusaid something to the
equivalent of you know no dayenemy.
No, they sell.
No, that's up, and you know ifyou don't really know.
Some people lack a stunninglaugh self-awareness, but they
also lack awareness of the world.
There's a stunning amount, evenin the business, even the
current content, creativity, inall of it.
(24:23):
There's stunning amount ofnaivete even I had it going in
and people do not realize howpowerful they can be right.
They also don't understand howmany things work for them or how
many things work against them,right, but also as powerful as
they can be.
They also don't understandtheir vulnerabilities, their
risk or where they're exposed,or their weaknesses, and they
(24:45):
don't and they don't see theirflaws and they don't do enough
to correct or comma correctthose things or to limit the
damage that those things can doand all goes back to risk
management.
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Yes, and you should.
You should be constantly doingrisk management on yourself.
Speaker 3 (25:00):
Well, that's one of the things I constantly actually
teach the creators I coach, Iteach them about there.
Speaker 2 (25:04):
We do a SWAT analysis your rape with this, with your
back analysis.
Speaker 1 (25:09):
So this is opportunity whenever.
Speaker 3 (25:10):
I do a coaching call with people.
We go through this one analysisand I compliment them on their
strengths, I ask them to help mesort their weaknesses and I get
them to admit their weaknessesand acknowledge them to me.
They do this usually even inthe intake form when they coach
with me.
The minute someone signs up tocoach with me, they get a form
that they feel and they tell meman, roberto, before I even
coach with you, I got value justfilling out this form.
(25:32):
I would not have asked myselfthese questions.
I gained a deeper understandingof myself from my brand just by
thinking harder about this, sothat I can come up with an
answer, so that I don't feellike I'm wasting your time,
right, and so then we get intoit.
And then we have an agenda andwhere I go is like I'm gonna
show you opportunities youdidn't know you have, based on
your strengths and based on myawareness of an experience of
(25:52):
the market and that you may nothave, I'm gonna say, hey, these
are these threats that you don'teven know, lurk in the shadows
for you, based on your niche,based on the industry, based on
the current State of things.
And are I here?
Are the things we can do toBenefiting for you to extract
more value from your strengths.
Here's how we're gonna show upyour weaknesses.
We're gonna, in some cases wherewe deal with weaknesses, we're
gonna have to be delegate someof these to the other people.
(26:13):
Can we automate some of thesethings to give us more time to
play to our strengths?
What can we eliminate?
Some of the risk, harm andthings that we're exposed to.
So we delegate, automate,eliminate.
Now I also add another things,this that called duplicate.
So, in duplicate, how can Iduplicate my previous successes?
How can I duplicate the thingsthat I've done very well and
(26:35):
that comes to building systems,protocols and templates?
Right so we have a.
Okay, we're gonna build asystem so that I can duplicate
the results of the things thatproduce the best outcome for me.
We're going to speed upeverything I do by having
templates that allow me tomodify Shortcuts.
Templates, plugins, all thesethings are gonna, like you know,
we're gonna optimize right andso that becomes incredibly
(26:58):
Powerful for a lot of peoplebecause now they have this
abundance of time.
Time freedom is the biggest gapbetween successful people.
We don't all have the same 24hours a day.
We kind of do, but what I meanby this is we all have 24 hours
in a day.
We all don't have the luxury ofallocating them efficient to it
, whether we want to or not.
So how can we create more timefreedom?
(27:18):
You have to look at what can Ido, and this is where systems,
protocols and templates going toplace.
How can I optimize my lifeRight so that I now have, of
that 24 hours, the best methodfor allocating my time portfolio
?
People sit there and they thinkthat they have a lack of
resources holding them back.
I promise you the biggest thingholding the back is a lack of
(27:40):
time free.
It's not themselves, it's timefree.
Okay, and time freedom is startsthe beginning of this other
equation that I teach creators,and it's an acronym called time,
time freedom, investmentcapital, manpower, experience,
expertise and education.
So the thing is, if you lacktime and freedom, you can't
compete with someone who does.
(28:01):
If you lack investment capital,you don't have the capacity to
buy back your time or to buyother people's time and manpower
, their specialization, theirexpertise.
And then if you lack experience, even if you had an abundance
of time, you wouldn't use iteffectively or efficiently
anyway.
Even if you had an abundance ofresources, you wouldn't use it
effectively or efficientlyAnyway.
Even if you had manpower andpeople willing to support you,
(28:21):
you wouldn't know how to putthem in their best role to serve
you in the first place.
So that's why you have todevelop your expertise and gain
education.
Funny thing is, you canshortcut expertise and education
by having a mentor, and also byeducating yourself with mentors
from afar, through books,coming to conferences and events
and asking direct questionsthat are specialized to you,
(28:42):
because go to events and getmultiple people oh, this is like
fire holes here.
Exactly, multiple people totell you only about your own
situation Right.
When people go.
Why do I do free content?
Oh, free content is the best.
Free content I can geteverything I need.
I don't need coaching, I don'tneed co-sus, I don't need
cohorts, I don't needconferences, I got free internet
content.
That's public school, my friend.
(29:04):
If education that was free wasthe best, it's going to be.
Why is it that free education,even in our public school system
, doesn't produce the bestoutcome in results?
You know who wins People whoare already smart win in free
education.
Now, people who know let me geta tutor on top of the free
education, the kids who are atutor.
That's like hiring a coach.
Those kids win the kids inathletics that get a coach, get
(29:27):
a mentor, they win.
Yeah, okay, the kids in privateschool have more specialized
attention.
That's the same as going into acohort or a group or a
mastermind they win.
Kids who join clubs, kids whojoin secret societies of
like-minded people theydisproportionately get the best
outcome.
Even in corporate America, thepeople who belong to an
organization beyond the company,the people who are part of a
(29:50):
smaller overall network, a smallconsolidated network of
like-minded people, they alwayshave a disproportionate
advantage of people who onlydeal in what is publicly
available.
So, public versus private,private always has the leverage,
so you always put yourself in aposition to be behind the
paywall, whatever it takes,because that is where leverage
exists, and it exists inspecialized information that's
(30:13):
only useful to you, right?
It also has a network effect,because it's not just about the
nepotism of the network youshould leverage that Right but
it's about the fact that thesepeople in themselves are a
resource, because they will alsomotivate you just by their
sheer proximity.
They're investing, even whenthey're not.
Proximity is power, even whenthey're not.
(30:34):
You can see now them in a momentthat other people in the public
aren't seeing, and you can sitthere and you go.
You can be motivated andinspired by that or you can
glean something from that.
It's because now you see thework that people don't when
they're watching.
You see also when the maskslips and now you understand how
people like that might move andyou understand when it can work
(30:55):
for you and against you,because proximity is power.
So when you move out of thepublic that's publicly available
, you start to get into thesesmaller, smaller communities.
You now have a proximity now todifferentiate yourself from the
masses, because the massesaren't winning.
So get into smaller groups andsmaller pools of people.
Even in, even in public school,the kids who win study groups,
(31:18):
study groups, study groups aremastermind Right.
Even if you don't pay forsomeone else's mastermind, what
people should be doing isfinding like-minded people like
them that are hungry, ambitious,motivated, reliable, of good
character, but still hungry, yes, and are ruthlessly focused
with their time.
Ruthless with your time is oneof the best things you can do,
right.
Be ruthless with your time,generous with your excess and be
(31:41):
thoughtful and consistent inyour character.
Those would be three very easyrules for success.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
Thank you for joining us for this episode of Lil Mel
on Filter Podcast.
We hope you found today'sdiscussion inspiring and
thought-provoking.
Your ongoing support andengagement are incredibly
valuable to us and we appreciatethe time you spent with us.
Remember to stay connected withus on social media and share
your thoughts and feedback.
(32:08):
Your input helps us continue toimprove and deliver content
that resonates with you.
As we conclude today's episode,we want to extend our sincere
thanks to our special guests forsharing their insight with us
and, of course, a big thank youto all of you for being part of
our podcast community.
Until next time, take care andstay inspired.
(32:29):
This is Charlie Shaw signingoff, wishing you all the
fantastic day ahead.
We look forward to having youjoin us again for our next
episode of Lil Mel on Filter.
Goodbye for now.
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