March 5, 2025 • 52 mins
Dom L'Amour speaks with Friend of the show Jon Chester about his New Marriage and his final thoughts before getting married, and the meaning behind Working Smarter not Harder.
Discover the intricate balance of wedding planning and emotional connection! This episode emphasizes the need to prioritize moments that truly matter, pushing against the chaos often associated with organizing a wedding.
• Navigating overwhelm while planning
• Finding peace in moments of chaos
• Importance of couple-focused decision making
• The balance between aesthetics and substance
• Communicating effectively as a couple
• Embracing the 'work smart, not hard' philosophy
• Reflecting on personal experiences and lessons
• Prioritizing family support and personal joy
• Key takeaways for couples approaching marriage
Opening quote: Victor Hugo
Opening and Closing Theme song: Produced by Dom L'Amour
Transition Music from Mad Chops Vol. 1 and Mad Chops Vol. 2 by Mad Keys
and
from Piano Soul Vol.1(Loop Pack) by The Modern Producers Team
Featured song: "Janet's Song" By Dom L'Amour
Cover art by Studio Mania: Custom Art @studiomania99
Please subscribe to the podcast, and give us a good rating. 5 stars please and thank you. Follow me on @dom_lamour on Instagram. Or at
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
You can't leave everything up to well.
I like it this way, so that'sit, and I was like no, sometimes
you need to meet in the middle.
You need to get used to that.
You know it can't always be atug of war.
It needs to be.
Where do we find peace?
If we find peace here, thenthat's where we need to go, and
sometimes you can't alwayschoose that.
Sometimes you got to go thechaotic route.
This is the only way I'm goingto get had to do it.
(00:20):
There's enough of that coming.
When you have theseopportunities to just focus on
you two as a couple, Just dothat, because I have a feeling
that you're going to look backand be very excited that you
chose you guys and your pieceover what mattered to everybody
else.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Ladies and gentlemen, and anyone else who is here, my
name is Dom L'Amour and you arelistening to the Black man
Talking Emotions podcast.
On today's episode, I speakwith friend of the show, john
Chester, about his new marriageand his final thoughts before
getting married and the meaningbehind working smarter, not
harder.
Married and the meaning behindworking smarter, not harder.
Life is a succession of lessonswhich must be lived to be
(01:18):
understood.
All is a riddle and the key toa riddle is another riddle.
There are many locks and keysare lost, but sometimes many
locks and keys are lost, butsometimes and it is rare,
sometimes somewhere one of thekeys fit one of the locks and
then the world opens.
A moment comes, and it is thismoment when the right key slides
into the right lock and turns.
(01:39):
Today is your moment.
We are indeed in crunch time.
Crunch time.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That's exactly how I'd describe it.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
For your wedding.
I finally got the document forthe bachelor party from your
brother Okay, cool, because I'vebeen messaging him about about
this and he had a particularquestion about budget and I'm
like, dude, I got all this stuff, I'm ready to go.
We got it where it's.
It's mapped out where we'regonna eat.
Pretty much we got the tourthat we're gonna do.
(02:13):
We might do some zipline stuff.
We got a couple of things onthere that we'll do, but really
trying to keep it flexible sothat we can, you know, enjoy our
time.
You know you might get to apoint where you're like, oh, I'm
a little tired, let's just goback to the Airbnb and play
spades tonight.
You know, you never know what'sgoing to happen.
So I think keeping it open isreally ideal.
But, yeah, pretty much gotsomething for all throughout the
(02:35):
day and that's exciting.
We're going to be in Mexicosoon, but it's always.
It's always cool to have amoment to create something in a
space that you'll never be inagain.
You know what I'm saying You'llnever be able to have something
to listen back in on.
That was a moment where you'reonly your first time about to
(03:00):
get married.
This is the first time this isever going to happen and it's
going to be gone, and thenyou're going to be a married man
and that's how it goes.
So where are you mentally rightnow?
How are you feeling?
How does that even have youstart?
Because when I was in my fiancearea I stopped calling Adrian,
my fiance, maybe two monthsbefore the wedding.
And I was just like my wife atthat point, like where are you
(03:22):
at, with all of the stuff comingup?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
and I was just like my wife at that point, like
where are you at with all of thestuff coming up?
I am mentally in a place whereI'm excited for what's coming up
.
There's a lot of pressure tofeel like I'm on top of things
or I have a plan for things.
Everything's mapped out.
So I know that's a lot morethan I expected, to be honest.
But if we talk about where I amrelationship-wise, I'm in a
good place.
I think she's pointing out thatlike hey, like you, okay, you
good, like you seem like alittle quicker to you.
(03:47):
Know, are you good?
And I'm like, I think I'm good.
I think I'm also just in a placewhere my mind is in so many
different places that I'm notreally sitting down focusing.
I have the pleasure of doingthings one at a time, usually
throughout my life, and that'show I operate best.
But now you know, it's like I'mrequired to be a multitasker.
(04:07):
Now I'm required to have likethree to five things running at
the same time, which is not likemy expertise.
It's something I can do, but Ican't say I do it as well, as
like blocking out the noise,doing one thing at a time and
knocking it out.
So that is different for methat's an adjustment that I've
had to make internally isunderstanding that just because
all these other things are goingon does not mean you lose focus
(04:30):
of the most important things,which are like making sure you
are showing up, you are visiblypresent, you are mentally
present for the people thatmatter, for your fiance and
soon-to-be wife, for the familythat you're building.
You want to make sure thatyou're doing more than just
saying, well, if it were better,then I would do this, and it's
like well, you can't worry aboutwhen it gets better, you have
(04:52):
to worry about.
This is where we are now.
This is the plan I'm making forthis now, and we keep going
Outside of that.
You know I try to still keep ittechnical sort of.
So I'm like my soon-to-be wife,but the word wife is coming out
of my mouth way more than before.
Fiance is almost a phrase ofthe past, but it's mostly just
like my soon-to-be wife, my wifein less than 60 days.
(05:14):
But yeah, fiance is almost onthe.
It's almost being hung up onthe door.
So we're already kind of inwife-husband city, but we just
haven't planted our flag justyet.
But I feel like living togetherhas helped with that already
that I feel so familiar now thatI don't see it as like, oh,
it's going to be this hugechange and it's like, no, we're
(05:35):
going to continue to live andgrow.
The flag is officially plantedversus us just kind of doing
things together alive.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
And that's ideal.
Like I said, my mother got meand Adrian the book All the
Things I Wish I Knew Before IGot Married and we read that
study and actually workedthrough the book with each other
and it really helped us kind ofstart to work before we got
married.
Before we even got engaged, westarted to work and that's the
idea.
You know, things will change.
You will be a different personwhen you get married.
(06:03):
Yes, that is true.
But also what you had beforehas to remain, because if you
become someone new and demandher to be someone new, you might
not like what happens with thatperson.
It might not be the same personyou fell in love with.
And so finding those moments tobreathe, finding those moments
to be like okay, this isstressful, yes, but also this is
(06:24):
an incredible moment, is anincredible thing to look forward
to, those important, is reallyimportant.
Yeah, do you have any momentswhere you kind of have an out of
body experience right now, likeyou're like can't believe
what's happening around you,like I can't believe we're
talking about candles.
I can't believe we're doingthis.
Have you had those moments?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I wouldn't say out of body.
I do think it's just funnybecause, like you know, I'm the
participant at weddings.
Like I've never been a best manbefore, I've never been like
super intertwined in anybody'swedding.
I just kind of show up.
So to me it's like it's crazythat, like this is my time, like
this is my thing, this is myday, I do get caught up in that
like, oh, we're adding this, orlike, oh, should we do this or
(07:07):
that, and I'm like, man, this isa whole wedding.
That's like for me.
I had a good talk with my uncleearlier today and it went on for
a while, but we, we definitelyfocused on the like, the being
married part, the weddingceremony itself.
And he's like, oh, how manypeople are going to be there,
the way y'all talking about, Idon't think it's going to be
hundreds and hundreds.
(07:27):
I'm like, bro, this is going tobe intimate.
We're talking like less than ahundred for sure, probably
closer to like 60, maybe 70.
It's not going to be, you know,this big spectacle, which I
actually appreciate it that way.
I appreciate knowing that thepeople that matter are going to
be there and even some of thepeople that can't make it that
do matter are just, you knowit's still going to be something
that's smaller.
Not doing it in St Louisdefinitely dwindled that down
(07:49):
because, most of my family isstill up there.
They would just pull up becauseit's a random Sunday.
But now that there's all thetraveling and all that, it's
going to weed down to a lot ofthe core people, the people that
have made a huge difference,the people that have made a huge
(08:20):
difference, maybe even if theyhaven't done a crazy amount.
It's like you're showing up ina time where, like, I really
need that support and it means alot to me.
So, definitely, having thosemoments where I'm like, wow,
this is really people showing up, they're supporting me and you
know I'm just used to supporting.
I don't write it down on a listand go, oh well, they better do
this for me.
It's just nice to know like, oh, it's my moment and my fiance's
moment and people are showingup for us because they just
appreciate being in our lives.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I always tell people when I was in my wedding, like
during my wedding, the momentthat comes to my brain the most
there's a picture where you cansee I'm like looking at the
audience and looking at thepeople in front of me and be
like, wow, these people showedup to my wedding, they're here
for me and Adrian.
They actually took the time tocome from Minnesota.
They took the time to come fromLos Angeles.
(08:54):
They took the time to come fromTexas, from all over the
country, from Portland.
We had people from everywhere.
We had some folks who wastrying to come from Spain and
they just couldn't come becauseit was right after COVID and
travel was hard.
So I feel like that is thething that I always love to
remind people who are about togo into it.
That weekend, your bachelorparty everything isn't about a
(09:16):
big spectacle.
It's not.
It's about enjoying that timewith these people because this
is the only time this is goingto happen.
That is so real.
There's so many people in mywedding and I was so happy with
the turnout and I look back atthose pictures and I'm like, wow
, I haven't seen that personsince that day and that is life.
I saw my girl Kim the other dayand she was like yeah, I
haven't seen you in almost threeyears now.
(09:38):
And I'm like how is that evenpossible?
We're so close.
But once again I've becomesomeone else.
I'm a married man with a wifeand a house and a dog.
I got to make sure things aretaken care of at home.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I can't, yeah, but I mean, like you spent a lot of
time at one place and you made avery drastic move around that
time to a whole different regionof the world.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, I mean, you can't hold a player down.
You know what I'm?
Saying yeah okay, sorry, it'sokay this guy you know.
All right, all right.
I hope you know that thesemoments just happened, because I
want that face.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I just want to see.
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm certainthat that's why they're here and
no other reason at all.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That moment was all I needed.
I appreciate that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
But you were saying but yes, because you wanted to
be a Harlan Globetrotter rightbefore your wedding.
Yes, there's a lot of peopleyou didn't see.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
No, no, it'd be like that.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, that's for sure but but honestly, I think
that's ideal.
If my child wasn't in startinghigh school, I would probably be
looking at a different regionof where I wanted to settle down
ultimately.
But for now I'm like listen,things are stable enough, we've
got enough of a foundation here.
Let's just ride this out forthe next two, three years and
then move.
But that's something that I wasinterested in as well just to
(11:09):
give myself a slight degree ofseparation, just so that we can
focus on ourselves more and lessabout everybody else as we make
this change in our lives.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
You got to have those moments throughout the day, too
, when you're having the weddingday, those moments throughout
the day, too, when you're havingthe wedding day moments.
I remember very, very clearlywhen Adrian and I had our first
look and I first got to see her,it was just the two of us.
No one else was there exceptfor the photographer, and so we
got that intimate moment oftalking and catching up how was
your morning?
You okay, kind of thing.
And I really loved that because, since I got to see her before
(11:41):
the wedding, we didn't have todo all of that.
We could get business done, wecould take pictures, we can
knock stuff off the list so wecan make things happen, and it
was very, very helpful.
Then we had pictures on theroof.
So that was another time.
Right before we got introduced,I got to really just sit down
with her, talk to her, help herwith her dress, she had to use
(12:02):
the bathroom, different thingslike that.
We just had moments to bondtogether.
And then, of course, at the endof the night, when we were
sitting at the table drinkingthe whiskey with the DJ and
Adrian and I were about to headout, we got to be with each
other, because the entire day Ifelt like we were together, but
we weren't, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it was like we were doingso much and we were so focused
(12:23):
on so many things.
And I mean, there was one pointwe had walked down the aisle
and had everyone talking to usand shaking and hugging and this
and that, and then someonepulled us aside and said say hi
to the people on the Zoom.
And I'm like fuck, we'retalking to people that's in
Spain and we're talking topeople in LA now.
And then we left there and wentand did pictures and did
(12:45):
pictures and it was just onething after another and those
little small moments with Adrianand I was so crucial for that
day because it made me reallyunderstand exactly what was
going on while we were doing it,and it was because of us.
So make sure to do that.
That is something that you want, and also make sure to eat.
I can't stress those two thingsenough.
Find times to have thosemoments with her so that you can
(13:08):
sit back and remember that, butthen also make sure you're
eating and drinking waterthroughout the whole damn day,
because people are going to betrying to feed you drinks.
People are going to be tryingto feed you all kinds of stuff
and it's like, nah, I need to behydrated anyway.
But before we jump off thesubject, like I said, for me
it's really really cool to be inthe position where you can
actually reflect on somethingthat is so huge.
(13:31):
This is a really big deal.
This is something that a lot ofpeople want to do.
Some people have done multipletimes, but it's always something
that's on the list of thingsthat people have to do.
When you're looking at this now, what are some things that
you're going to look back to howyou are now and be like, damn
man, I was feeling this way andI should have just enjoyed this,
(13:52):
or I was nervous about this,and that didn't even apply to me
.
What are some things that youcan think of that you're like I
might be stressing a little toomuch about this and future.
You, listening to this episode,is going to be like yep.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Probably the perfectionism of it, the well
these people have to make it.
These people have to.
How are we going to have awedding without?
I think there's a lot of littlethings like that, that I just
want everything to go offwithout a hitch.
And it's like well, I thinkyou're a little too worried
about how it will happen,instead of like just knowing
that you're with the rightpeople in the right place at the
(14:25):
right time.
You know, I think getting caughtup too much in the details of
how the day schedule goes, orwhere you did this versus where
you did that, can kind of startto shift things for people.
Once I have an idea of howsomething's supposed to go like,
oh, we're supposed to have thiscolor.
Like I mean, if we're, if wehave this color, that's just,
that's terrible.
Like just cancel the wedding,right Ha ha.
And it's like, yeah, but likewhy is that such a big deal to
(14:47):
you?
Oh, we have to spend money onthis.
If we don't spend money on that, then what's going to happen if
we walk in and we don't have?
And it's like I think you wouldhave just walked in, buddy.
Yeah, very simple, I think itwould have been very simple.
Fine, I will probably look backand go.
You probably didn't need.
(15:07):
You know all the extras thatyou thought you did.
I've kind of been having thosemoments.
More recently, taylor's onWedding Talk, so she knows
everybody's story.
She knows all the good things,all the horror stories.
She has her own idea of what aperfect wedding looks like to
her and where she ranks up.
And I was like okay, where youneed to be concerned is did you
have the best time possible?
Yes, if it's aesthetics arecool, over the top, things sound
(15:29):
cool.
But I think when people lookback, you know when they're not
watching their wedding video amillion times, realizing that
it's the peak of their entirelife is that I made a video
about all the money I spent, Ithink, outside of that you
remember, like the memories, thething that's not on video, the
moment that nobody talked about.
You know the looks on people'sfaces when they, you know, when
certain things happen.
(15:49):
I think those are the thingsthat I've tried to get her to
prioritize more, and I think shehas, and I think it's starting
to make me prioritize thosethings as well.
You know, for me, you know,being the only child and being
up in st Louis as the hometown,I thought like it was going to
look a certain way, like, oh, Iwas going to, it's going to
happen in St Louis.
It's going to happen like thisand then I started to realize it
(16:10):
happening in St Louis didn'tmean it was going to be more
meaningful.
It meant that you just have alot of unnecessary bodies there
that would just show up becausethey can.
Now.
It doesn't mean you're going tohave this crazy better time.
It better time.
It just means that you've nowput an expectation on what it
would look like if you did it acertain way, instead of just
valuing the fact that, no matterwhere you are, certain people
(16:30):
are going to show up for youregardless.
Certain people are going tocreate those memories with you
regardless.
And I think sometimes, when youhave those expectations of what
you see, you start to think well, that doesn't apply to me.
They have this, they have that,I need those things.
And sometimes you already havewhat you need it.
You just need to get engulfedin that, take the time to really
enjoy being around the worldyou created and not trying to
(16:52):
create a whole separate world.
That doesn't really mirror you.
It mirrors what you sawsomebody else have.
It mirrors what looks fun forsomebody else.
Maybe that's not for you.
Maybe you need to do the thingsand have fun doing things that
reflect your life and what youwant and I think that's a very
particular thing that I'mstarting to adopt, as somebody
(17:13):
who's about to be a husband soonis it needs to look the way it
needs to look for you, notanyone else.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
And you always got to remind yourself the next day is
going to be just another day,dude, yeah so and that's going
to suck.
I will fully admit one of thehardest things was realizing.
Well, for me the next day I waslike relieved.
We went right on our honeymoon,went straight to High Springs,
had my feet up oh, that's great.
It was nice, but also theweight of I'm not talking about
(17:44):
the wedding anymore, it was nice, but also the weight of I'm not
talking about the weddinganymore was nice, but also it
was over.
It was like, oh, all thosepeople are gone.
All of this time spent wasgreat, but it's over.
I'm going back to the real life.
And you got to be ready forthat real life because I know so
many people.
I have a friend I remember theygot married and divorced and
(18:05):
the reason why I felt it didn'twork out was because my homie's
significant other really justwanted wedding pictures, just
wanted the aesthetics.
She wanted to be able to flexthat and that really broke my
heart because it was kind ofobvious watching just how much
they didn't really take in thesignificance of them being
(18:25):
together it's like this is aboutyou two.
This isn't about the pictures,it isn't about the poses.
It's about you two gettingmarried and, yeah, that's good
to hear that you're in thatspace where you're actually
starting to think of the future,because that's what matters now
your life with her in thefuture.
And it's literally a month anda half away.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
No, I always refer to the day after our wedding.
I was like that's the way theday your life really starts.
That's what I'm trying to beprepared for, because she comes
from a very small family.
I come from one that's larger,but I've done a good bit of
weaning folks out, cuttingpeople off and just getting more
to the core of the people thatreally matter to me, and I've
(19:09):
told her there's certain thingswe deal with that we won't have
to deal with after this isfinished and you'll have a new
set of problems, though, likethere will always be something
new in the road.
But there are certain thingsthat you can have the solace of
knowing I don't have to dealwith this after that day.
(19:30):
Like, yes, it'll be different.
We won't be all about thewedding, and our day-to-day
lives for the last year and ahalf have been about this
wedding.
Once that's over, it'll bemoved on to something else, but
there'll be a certain peace thatcomes with that, a certain
level of tranquility in knowingthat now it's about y'all.
It's not about y'all plus.
You know, rsvps, y'all plusfolks, meals, y'all plus budgets
, y'all plus.
It's just y'all.
It's about what y'all are doing,what y'all are creating and how
(19:52):
, what avenues you're going totake to get wherever it is you
want to go in this life.
That's going to be a wholedifferent thing, but that's a
breath of fresh air to me,especially with seeing how many
things have had to go into thiswedding, how many opinions, how
many people's coming out thewoodwork to be frustrated about
something that it's like oh myGod, why are you frustrated?
Why does this matter?
Didn't you have a day?
(20:12):
Wasn't your day great?
Why are we worried about thison our day and you're realizing,
it's because, while the day hasyour name at the top, it's not
100% your day.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
No.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It's a day you share with many people.
It's a day that you willaccommodate many people.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And each person is going to try to find their
moment during that day.
Yep, each person is going totry to find a moment to make an
imprint that they can look backon and be like I did this that
day for this person Yep, they'regoing to do that.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, and while that might mean something to them and
it may even mean something toyou, it'll never mean more than
you and your person.
And a lot of that will befinished around the time that
this is over, yeah, when it'stime to go to that next step,
the path would be much moreclear on where it is we're
trying to go here.
That's very important to me.
It gives me a lot of solace inknowing that.
(21:01):
It's as simple as that, that,once this is over, just start
focusing on you guys, what worksfor you guys, how you guys are
going to do things, even our youknow our honeymoon destination.
You know I'm sitting herethinking I'm like man, you know
I like more tranquil stuff.
I just want to sit and donothing.
And then I was like but youneed to figure out what works
for y'all.
You can't leave everything upto well, I like it this way, so
(21:22):
that's it.
And I was like no, sometimesyou need to meet in the middle.
You need to get used to that.
It can't always be a tug of war.
It needs to be.
Where do we find peace?
If we find peace here, thenthat's where we need to go, and
sometimes you can't alwayschoose that Sometimes you got to
(21:42):
opportunities to just focus onyou two as a couple.
Just do that, because I have afeeling that you're going to
look back and be very excitedthat you chose you guys and your
piece over what mattered toeverybody else.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Last thing on this because, like I said, I'm just
really excited, happy to hearwhere your head is, because
that's important.
I've worked with so many people.
I mean that's my job.
I work with weddings.
I'm constantly around peoplegetting married.
I was a little older but I sangat Carmen's wedding and my
(22:21):
godmother's wedding.
One of those two was the firstone.
So whenever you're around peoplegetting ready or going through
the process, it's scary howoften it's chaotic, and it
doesn't have to be.
It very much is another day andsometimes this isn't what you
do.
I'm not the right person to saythat, because I host events.
Adrian has been a stage managerand put stuff together and host
(22:45):
events.
My mother, you know I have somany people around me that this
is what we do that it wasn'tdifficult for me to put a party
together.
But something that I really madean effort to do is to make sure
that I was following the rightroutines to creating a good
relationship with Adrienne, andone of the books I read last
year was the Eight Rules of Love.
One of my favorite rules is tobe your partner's guru.
(23:08):
Where you are equal, your guruis someone who is helping you
complete the circle, no matterwhat is necessary, you're taking
care of business.
So if this person is giving youthis, what can you do to get
you both to the end of thecircle?
It's never looking down atanybody.
You both to the end of thecircle.
It's never looking down atanybody.
You're not the mentor of yourpartner, you're the guru.
(23:29):
You can't be a mentor becauseyou're not equal.
When you're looking down atsomeone as a mentor, get
yourself to a place where you'relooking at situations.
I know Adrienne's working allday.
I know that she needs food doneat a certain hour.
I know that she wants me to behere for her and enjoy times
with me, but also I know that Igot to do this, this, this, this
(23:51):
and this to make sure all thatstuff comes together.
And, like I said, you're on theright track, man, to have the
stuff in your head already,where you're trying to make sure
that you're purposefullycreating a good environment for
you and your future wife.
Couldn't ask for more.
Man Couldn't ask for more, andI'm really excited for you.
Hello, it is I, dominique.
(24:14):
I'm speaking to you after thiswedding went down.
First and foremost, it was abeautiful day of love.
Not too many things jumped thetracks.
The venue was amazing, thestaff was very friendly and,
since I was the best man, Iplayed the role of Mary Poppins.
Whatever Chester needed, I wasthere for him.
He has already told me that itwas the best day of his life and
(24:36):
I just wanted to say once againI'm so proud of my guy for
tying it out, for moving forwardin this journey.
There was a lot of stuff thatwent into this wedding and I'm
happy to not have to worry aboutit anymore, so I can only
imagine how relieved John andTaylor are.
Here's to them and cheers to along and loving marriage between
(24:57):
two dope people.
Something I wanted to run by youand kind of get your opinion on
.
I've been having thisdiscussion with folks this year
and I wanted to bring it to thepod because I believe it's
something that I I havestruggled with for years, and
(25:19):
it's the term work smart, nothard.
The reason why I've been likegravel, like kind of trying to
understand it a little betterand struggling with it, is
because I used to hear that alot in college with my
performance, with the thingsthat I want to do, and it always
felt negative when people wouldsay that because the way people
(25:42):
interpreted it in my opinionwas oh, why are you doing all
that extra stuff?
You should do this and skip allof that extra work and you're
making it harder on yourself.
But in my opinion, I alwaysfelt like when someone tried to
get me to cut corners, theproduct, the quality, whatever I
(26:02):
was working on usually came outa little bit unfinished.
And it's like I truly thinkthat definition should be like
more of a yes, work smarter, notharder, but the quality needs
to be exactly where it wasbeforehand.
Because if I'm working hard andI'm getting exactly what I want,
(26:23):
but then I start to do thisworking smarter and cut corners
and like, okay, well, I'm goingto take less time to do this, am
I still going to get thequality I want?
If not, maybe add a couplesteps till I get to that quality
, and if I have to do it the wayI did it, maybe that's the way
to do it instead of this whole.
Why you have to do all theseextra stuff and I know I'm being
very broad with it, but thereason why I just feel like
(26:46):
that's something I've beenworking on within myself for
years now, of trying to findways to continue to grow as an
artist, as someone who's workingin an industry where it's about
you and doing what you can dofor you.
So I started to kind of cutcorners in certain areas, I felt
.
But this year and last yearI've been working on me more and
(27:10):
it's helping me kind of seethat there's certain times where
it's like it's dope to be ableto accomplish something a little
simpler or easier.
But putting that extra work infor me is always a good pleasure
.
It helps the payoff at the end.
It's like I did the work.
I feel good about that.
I put my 10,000 hours in.
(27:31):
I love saying that becausethat's what you're trying to do.
You want to put that 10,000hours in what you're doing.
I believe that I've done thatbecause I worked hard at what I
do and what I believe in.
When you hear the words worksmart, not hard, how do you
interpret that?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, I think the proper answer is in half of that
statement and I think the otherhalf can go.
I understand where you say ithas this negative connotation
because it's almost presumptuous.
It's almost like somebody feelsthey're on a high horse and
it's like why are you working?
Why are you working so hard?
Just work smart.
Yes, yes.
But I think the real answerthere is to me the way I model
(28:16):
my life.
Just work efficiently.
It doesn't mean that there's notgoing to be days where you
don't work your ass off.
You are.
You're not going to getanything worth having and not
have worked hard at some pointto get it.
I think it's okay to work hard.
I think it's necessary to workhard.
I think you don't have to workhard your whole life to get
(28:37):
somewhere.
If you did, usually you'regoing to be too exhausted to
enjoy it once you get there.
I think there's a balance thatwe can just call efficiency.
You need to do the work early onto learn whatever the hell you
think you know.
If you think you knowentertainment, if you think you
know singing, well, you need toput in the work to actually know
it.
You need to do some pro bonoshows.
(28:57):
You need to be behind thescenes.
You need to be the guyorchestrating and putting things
together, because that guyknows it now.
So now he could probably worksmarter because he knows how all
of it works.
He knows these are the thingsthat we're going to need.
So this is where I need to focusmy time.
These are the things where theydon't always go so well.
So now I need to focus more ofmy time and energy to making
(29:22):
sure this doesn't fail, becausethis is just a grind.
This is going to have to bedone regardless.
This can be done by anyone.
This is where my expertise is,or this is where the expertise I
don't have is, and this needsto be at least a level nine or
higher for us to get what wewant out of it, and all I'm
saying is that's going to takeus to a place where I'm going to
(29:45):
have to become somebody betterto get to wherever it is that
I'm trying to go.
I can't do that by, you know,side-skirting, working hard.
That's just not how it works.
But I understand the mentality,because I don't want to be an
old man and the only thing thatI can hang my hat on is I tried
real hard.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And it's like did you get anywhere?
Well, no.
And it's like, okay, well, didyou change anything?
Well, no, Other people camealong and they made it more
efficient.
And it's like so what you didwas worth what?
Well, not as much as I hoped itwould.
So for me, I don't always seeit that way.
(30:27):
I think working smart is superimportant, but I think if you're
smart enough, you know thathard work comes with it.
You would never try to throwaway working hard to get
somewhere that's worth going.
It's just not how that works.
Anybody that says that issitting on a high horse.
They don't want anybody elsesitting on.
They want to feel like they'rebetter than you because they got
somewhere.
And don't get me wrong, thereare people that are going to not
(30:48):
work hard and get somewhere.
It's not expected for them tobe there for long.
You'll get there.
You'll get to the top.
You'll get wherever it is youwanted to go.
Once you got there, did you dothe work to make sure that you
have a solid foundation to staythere, or are you now going to
need everybody to make sure youstay in this position?
I think that's the difference.
I think there are people whojust work themselves into an
(31:09):
early grave and there are peoplewho work themselves into a
better position, and I honestlybecause I've never been the CEO
of anything outside of maybe acompany I'm trying to work on
right now, but it hasn'tblossomed yet.
I've worked under more peoplethan I've been the boss of
people, and I wish that I hadmore bosses that really
understood this idea of workinghard enough to learn it so that
(31:34):
by the time they finally got theopportunity where they could do
less.
They understood the landscapebetter.
They led me to a place thatmade sense for me to follow them
, and I think a lot of peopleare too addicted to working
smart because to them it's like,well, I just don't want to do
it.
I don't want to do that work, solet me find somebody else.
Well then, that might not getus the best output and I don't
want to keep running from onething to the next thing in life,
(31:57):
always feeling like, well, theyasked me to work too hard till
I gotta go.
No, I want to be in a positionwhere we can work hard together,
share the load, but see 10xresults.
Look at how much farther we got, because we all worked together
and got here and we didn'tbreak all of our backs to get
here.
You know, maybe we all aren'tgonna leave the same way we
walked in, but we all did enoughof the work to make sure that
(32:21):
we don't look back and go man,you know what I should have did?
I don't want to worry too muchabout what I should have did.
I just want to do the work andget where I want to go.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It's all stemmed from a conversation I was having
with someone about traveling andhow, when I go to, when I went
to Japan, or I go to a differentcountry, you kind of notice
people are willing to do alittle extra steps to accomplish
things or to ensure that thingsare going properly in their
little area.
And you know everything fromlike you know people cleaning
(32:51):
bathrooms in the train stationsin Japan.
While people are running in andout of the bathrooms, you still
have the women in therecleaning it still as you go and
you're like, wow, that's soefficient and it's so helpful
when it comes to sanitation.
And people getting sick is likethere's, it's possible because
they're doing everything theycan to allow that stop.
(33:11):
But you come to america and yougo to a gas station, like
literally in america it's a bigdeal at bucky's because the
bathrooms are so clean.
That's like one of theirselling points.
Their selling points is thattheir bathrooms are clean.
And it's like why is thatsomething that we just cut
(33:33):
corners on?
We're like, oh, it doesn'tmatter.
Why do we feel like when itcomes to our food selection in
America?
You know, let's put a bunch ofstuff in here that's not
regulated for any other place inthe world, but here we know
it's going to be cheaper if weput all this extra stuff.
It's like constantly seeingpeople cutting corners makes me
think about the whole.
We're being smarter and we'reusing what we have to our
(33:56):
advantage and it just seemsdirty, it seems wrong and it
makes me second guess whenpeople speak that way to me
about doing tasks and gettingstuff done.
You got to work smarter, notharder, and I'm like what?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
do you?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
mean when you say that that's where I go to that
Drisky.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
What do you mean by?
Speaker 2 (34:15):
that I immediately think that way, because it's
like are you saying that becauseyou're lazy, or are you saying
that because you're someonewho's willing to go the extra
mile and knock something out,but you found a better way to do
it?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Most people that are saying that wouldn't use that
phrase to describe the latter.
You know they would just tellyou the story.
It's almost like the word thatI was thinking of when you were
describing them versus us, andit's just pride.
Do you take pride in what youdo?
Do you take pride in offeringthe best?
And I think as a country, weused to do that and we're kind
(34:46):
of getting towards the bottomline.
What's the bottom line?
More money, more butts in seats, more of this, more of that.
Your experience is not the toppriority anymore and it's
becoming very obvious.
So when a place does prioritizeyour experience, it's like, oh,
they got to be great.
They, they have to have figuredout a money-making opportunity.
No one else has seen, becausewho would put that above all?
And it's like well, the countryused to put our pride above all
(35:08):
.
We used to.
You know, oh well, this stadiumis great because it's like this
.
And it's like well, now it'sonly great because it's new and
we spent all.
Everything has to be modernizedfor it to give it all this
attention.
It has to be brand new.
And we know, as it gets older,we kind of scrap things.
(35:30):
But that's where your historythat's where your legacy comes
from is upkeep Making sure thatthings are still, you know,
bright and shiny.
Things are still worth chasingafter, things are still worth
the attention and respect thatwe give them, but for us, we
just kind of bury things.
We're always what's the newthing that we're going to give
our attention to?
What's the new cool placeBecause I know the cool place
(35:50):
they'll have certainexpectations.
Everything's going to be superclean and orderly and
everything's going to be likethis, but that's not the
priority.
That's not what we take pridein.
We take pride in the bottomline.
Now, are we getting as muchmoney as possible?
Well, you have to download thisapp to get this experience.
Well, why don't we just make itavailable?
Well then, how would we getmore money?
It's like, do you need moremoney or do you want a better
experience?
Well, we always need more money.
(36:12):
Well, you've now told me how weended up where we ended up.
Everyone's bottom line isstarting to become how do I get
the most out of this situation?
Not how do we get farther up?
Farther, I get the most out ofthis situation, not how do we
get farther ahead together.
You know, as I look at all thisstuff in California that's
going on right now.
That's the one thing I'mthinking about.
It's like a bunch of Idecisions have changed the
(36:33):
landscape for the big we that'sout there right now.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
And you know it saddens me with each new example
we get, but it's just notsurprising anymore.
Yeah, I agree with that,because social media doesn't
help with that California thingat all.
You have so much negativitytowards it, but you want to
believe that your country isgoing to do everything they can
to keep you safe.
You want to believe they'regoing to take care of business
and in that scenario it's verypossible.
Cutting corners, cuttingbudgets, taking things away from
(37:06):
other people Not possible.
I know in certain situationsthat cutting budgets are
affecting how they're able tofight these fires and how
they're able to support thesepeople.
I know that is a fact.
I've heard that through newsand different things going on
there, that through news anddifferent things going on in
there.
So it just it.
That's why this topic, in myopinion, is so relevant right
(37:32):
now, because we live in asociety that I'm always told
it's a capitalist society.
I'm always told that this is,this is what America is and this
is how it is.
It revolves around money andthis and that.
And you saying the bottom linething totally opened my eyes
again to it, cause it's likethat is how people here think.
That's how we were raised tothink Bottom line are you
getting the paper Period Do?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
you want it fast, do you want it cheap or do you want
it good?
Speaker 2 (37:53):
How much money can I not pay you so that I make more
money?
So it just it breaks my heartbecause it makes me feel like it
reminds me of when Trump wasrunning against Hillary and in
one of the debates he wastalking about how he uses the
tax laws and he knows they'renot going to change them because
they are benefiting from theexact same things he is.
And at one point they were likebut you don't pay your taxes?
(38:16):
Like that's horrible.
And he was like that makes mesmart.
And Deja Belp made a joke aboutthat and and he was like that's
some cold shit.
And I'm like, when you hear whathe's saying, it is because,
bottom line, I'm smarter thanyou, because I'm not paying all
of this money and I'm makingmore.
Yeah, and it's like doesn'tcare about morals, doesn't care
(38:38):
about energy being put intoactually doing it correctly, it
doesn't matter, I'm literallygetting over on you.
I'm working smarter, not harder.
Yeah, that's the way that I seethat phrase and I feel I get
cringy when I hear it nowbecause I feel like it's very
much in this society.
It's so negative because it'sreally hey, find a way to take
(39:01):
advantage of people.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
No, that's exactly what it is.
I just know.
For me and the way I see things, it's never been my mentality,
but I think it's always beenlike this underlying thing here.
It's just become more prominentas the voice of the 1% is
becoming louder.
You always make yourassumptions about the 1%, but I
think deep down, when you were akid, you believed that guy with
(39:22):
everything.
If he could just change my life, he probably would, you know,
cause it wouldn't cost himanything.
He would just be you know.
You see the commercials of theguy, of the celeb, who gives his
jersey to the kid and it's likeof course you want to get, of
course you want to do nicethings.
But as their voice grows louder, you're starting that that
dream has become a nightmarebecause they're telling you over
and over I don't care whathappens to you, I don't care
(39:44):
what happens to the whole, Icare about my stuff, I care
about what happens to my things,I care about the places I
frequent, and even then I onlycare so much If I'm not
financially or physicallyinvested in it.
It doesn't bother me.
And I think this bartering ofgoods and services for bodies
and experiences is way over theline now it's like, as long as I
(40:07):
get what I want, I could careless how I got it.
I could care less what it costssomebody else, because that
cost isn't going over to me.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
You know even me and you know certain apps I like.
I like Spotify.
Spotify fired everybody.
Now all of my playlists suck.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
And I'm paying for premium because you guys wanted
to save money and let AI tellyou what kind of music I like,
instead of taking people wholike some of the things I like
and letting them curate betterexperiences that I can have.
And I'm realizing that is theworld now.
That is not just one app,that's not one company, that is
almost all companies.
As we grow and we see theincrease in AI and technology,
(40:45):
you guys are not using it tobetter.
You're using it to siphon.
You're sucking all of thepotential resources, all of the
great things.
You're taking it out and savingit for yourself.
Even if there is some greatthing, we'll never experience it
.
Eventually, everything will belike that.
Anything that's great, you'repaying a premium.
And if they find out that yougot something for free that was
(41:07):
helping you like an app thatpaid its creators, like an app
that helped a business boomalmost overnight oh, you can't
add.
We're going to find a way to getrid of that and it's like, why
would you do that?
They're helping your owneconomy?
No, no, no, they're helpingthemselves.
And it's like, no, they'rehelping the country you live in?
No, no, no, they're not helpingme.
They're not lining my pocket.
(41:29):
So that needs to go.
And it's like, but it helps somany people we don't care.
Well, what if you scaled it?
If you scaled it, I'm notinvested in it.
If you scaled it, I'm notbenefiting the way everyone else
is.
And some of those people didbenefit and they still don't
(41:50):
care because they're going to befine without things.
That's where I'm learning.
The divide in this country iskind of starting and I hope that
we I don't know what it's goingto cost, because it's going to
cost something that nobody wantsto pay, but it's going to cost
us something for everybody tokind of see what we've done.
You know I was watching theJerry Springer documentary.
It's only like two episodes butlike it just shows how far they
pushed the lines until theycouldn't, just to get good
(42:13):
ratings, just to see we beatOprah.
And it's like, yeah, somebodydied, bro, they were on your
show.
And you know, you guys havebeen kind of advertising.
Did you do anything for them?
Did you try to help?
And they're like no, that's notour jobs and it's like that's
the beginning.
That's where you start to seelike this coliseum-like society
you live in, where it's justwe're here for entertainment,
(42:33):
we're just here to see whathappens.
We're not here to invest in thepeople.
We're not here to give back.
We're not here to create abetter future for the folks that
are coming behind us, we'rehere to get ours.
I think that's going to comewith a very heavy price tag.
That's going to cost everybody,and I think what we're seeing
in LA is the first step of that,where people who you think they
got everything, it's like oh,you just sunk everything into a
house.
What if your insurance doesn'tpay you out?
(42:54):
Then what?
Oh, you're almost homeless.
You went from being here todown here and I don't like that
cost.
I don't like to see people loseit all or not be where I
believe they should be or whatthey've worked to be towards.
But unfortunately, that's goingto have to be the price tag for
some people to wake up, becausethey're always going to feel
like well, it didn't happen tome, so it's not that big of a
(43:14):
deal.
It didn't happen to my people,so I'm good, and I think it just
kind of all starts with thatsame work.
Work smart, bro.
You should have multipleproperties bro.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And I'm sorry your Palisades house is gone, but I
had a house on the East Coastand in the South and now I'm
good Insurance will figure itout and it's like, well,
everybody's not able to do that.
Well, that's too bad.
You should have been workingsmarter all those years ago.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
That's unfortunately leading to what I'm seeing now
and I'm losing faith.
But I do believe that we areall still human, we all still
have hearts, there's still somelevel of empathy, and if you
don't have it, it might bend youin half and break you until you
remember where you come fromand the fact that skin color and
financial class and your jobtitle they don't mean as much as
(43:58):
you've given it meaning to have.
We're all people, man.
We're going to have to worktogether, and if you guys don't
want to work together, you'regoing to have to pull it till it
breaks and then you'll have torebuild it together.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
A story that I tell people all the time is about you
.
It's a story that you told mewhere the Mike Brown thing
happened in St Louis and now ithappened around your
neighborhood on the north sideand you were in Atlanta and you
wanted to get involved and youstarted talking to people who
were doing things in the areafor Black Lives Matter or
(44:31):
whatever they were doing, andyou got to a point where you
realized a lot of them were justin there so that they can get
their names in the paper andthey can say, hey, look what I
did for this cause, look at howspecial I am.
Let me become famous because ofthis.
Let me be a person on CNN thatdoes talks now, because I was
(44:54):
one of the people who startedthis, and I can use this on a
resume instead of hey, this isbecause of someone's death, this
is something that literally wasa tragedy and you're trying to
profit off of it and it justreally.
It really bums me out when Ilook into all of the things that
(45:16):
we have invested in in oursociety and how the gaslighting
of the problem that's in yourface is not really happening.
The people do that all the timein politics and just say it's
politics.
I really am nervous with theway that our country is already
moving, that there isn't reallya clear path to a good way for
(45:42):
America to fix their problems.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Anywhere in the whole wide world.
Just tell me where.
Screenshot the location and wegonna take your cups.
(46:07):
Mommy, I wanna take you aroundthe world and find some nice
wine to sip.
I said it worked, worked,worked.
So much You've given up yourtime.
Well, I think it's time tobreak some commitments and get
(46:29):
on the plane and charge theglobe.
So screenshot the place and wegon' take the trip.
Anywhere in the whole wideworld.
Just tell me where.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
This is a new tune titled Janet's Song.
It's kind of new.
I wrote it a while back, but Iwrote this about my grandmother
and it's going to be on myupcoming album.
This was released.
I did this last year at aperformance here in Atlanta and
I released it on my live mixtapehere to entertain Volume 2, and
I look forward to getting thestudio cut on wax soon.
(47:09):
You can listen to my music onall streaming platforms and you
can check me out for moreinformation at DonLemorecom
where you can get anything andeverything downlamore.
The reason why I made thesegment we're about to do is
because of how I just wastalking on the last segment.
(47:31):
I feel, like some episodes, itcan be really negative and down
and really hard to listen to.
People talk this way becauseyou're like either you agree or
you disagree and it's like it'sa really heavy conversation
(47:52):
where I'm going to tell yousomething that's bringing me joy
, something that I love and why,and encourage maybe others to
use it or not, and then I'll askyou the same thing and you'll
go through the process of what Ilove.
So, starting with me, verysimply, you know what I love
right now.
(48:13):
I love tea.
Very simple.
I've been drinking tea almostevery day since Adrian's been
gone and I've been able to enjoymy time at the house Every day.
At the house, I've just beencreating some difference Some
green peach tea the other day,today I'm drinking mint tea and
(48:35):
it's been very relaxing to givemy palate something other than
sugary water or soda or, youknow, juices, stuff like that,
and it's been keeping me verymellow and I'm very appreciative
of my glasses of tea I've beenhaving the last couple of days.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Something I love right now is the fact that I've
been kind of snowed in for thelast couple of days.
It lightened up yesterday so Idid go out and get some
groceries and things like that.
But I spent more time with myfamily these last couple of days
and I will say I love watchingwhat we have kind of grown and
(49:16):
built together where that'staken us.
I love seeing the growth withinall of us and seeing like kind
of how we come together, how wecommunicate, how we piece things
together Even like my daughterhelping out with cooking or
learning different thingsbecause we're like oh, this is
so basic, you got to splash itup, you got to learn this, you
got to learn that it can't beone dimensional.
This is so basic, you got tosplash it up, you got to learn
(49:37):
this, you got to learn that itcan't be one dimensional.
It really just makes me happyto see the growth in what I've
planted seeds in, becausesometimes I get very, you know,
hard bent on.
It was supposed to go a certainway and sometimes you realize
it not going that way, open thedoor for it to go this way and
you know, I've made hot dogs forthe first time in the house and
, like you know, I sliced thehot dogs before I put them on
(49:58):
there.
A little bit I cut them and then, you know, I use like a TikTok
recipe to figure out like, oh,I'll put a little oil here, I
put a little onions here.
You know, I see Mexican hotdogs.
They look so good.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I make chili for the firsttime and it's never made chili
before.
Ever in my life.
I don't even eat chili all thetime but, I had to read.
I had the time and availabilityto create something that she
(50:20):
really appreciated.
That's something that she thatconnected to her own childhood.
Something she enjoyed with herdad was eating chili dogs
together.
So to hear her talking about,talking to other people about,
oh my God, it was so great.
I love those moments, I lovebeing able to create those
things and I hope to be able toextend that, you know, as we get
married and do more things andtravel to learn other people's
(50:42):
things and how they do thingsand extend our family out even
more to just kind of learn andgrow together and feel like
those are memories and thingsthat we've created together.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
We've made it to the end of the episode.
I appreciate your time.
It's always good to see yourface, hear your voice.
I'm going to see a lot of youin the coming weeks and in the
next month, and so I'm reallyexcited for the future that you
have coming.
We made it through all of ourtopics.
We spoke about everything wewant to talk about, of course.
Last thing I want to ask you,of course, is how do you feel?
Speaker 1 (51:18):
I feel great.
I feel warm and refreshed.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
That's good stuff.
Man Cheers to you, Appreciateyou All right man.
I want to thank you forlistening to the Black man
Talking Emotions podcast.
The opening quote credit goesto Victor Hugo.
And shout out to my guy, john.
(51:44):
Follow John at J-O-N-C-E-E-Svisuals on Instagram.
Please subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast and give us
a good rating Five stars, please, and thank you.
You can support the show byclicking the link and give us a
good rating.
Five stars, please, and thankyou.
You can support the show byclicking the link at the bottom
of the episode description.
If you liked this episode, youshould check out our previous
(52:04):
episode with Chester titled BestFriends.
Great, listen, check it out.
Follow me at DOM underscoreLAMOUR on Instagram or at
DomLamorecom.
I'm Dom Lamore.
Much love.
You can't leave everything up to well.
I like it this way, so that'sit, and I was like no, sometimes
you need to meet in the middle.
You need to get used to that.
You know it can't always be atug of war.
It needs to be.
Where do we find peace?
If we find peace here, thenthat's where we need to go, and
sometimes you can't alwayschoose that.
Sometimes you got to go thechaotic route.
This is the only way I'm goingto get had to do it.
(00:20):
There's enough of that coming.
When you have theseopportunities to just focus on
you two as a couple, Just dothat, because I have a feeling
that you're going to look backand be very excited that you
chose you guys and your pieceover what mattered to everybody
else.
Speaker 2 (00:52):
Ladies and gentlemen, and anyone else who is here, my
name is Dom L'Amour and you arelistening to the Black man
Talking Emotions podcast.
On today's episode, I speakwith friend of the show, john
Chester, about his new marriageand his final thoughts before
getting married and the meaningbehind working smarter, not
harder.
Married and the meaning behindworking smarter, not harder.
Life is a succession of lessonswhich must be lived to be
(01:18):
understood.
All is a riddle and the key toa riddle is another riddle.
There are many locks and keysare lost, but sometimes many
locks and keys are lost, butsometimes and it is rare,
sometimes somewhere one of thekeys fit one of the locks and
then the world opens.
A moment comes, and it is thismoment when the right key slides
into the right lock and turns.
(01:39):
Today is your moment.
We are indeed in crunch time.
Crunch time.
Speaker 1 (01:51):
That's exactly how I'd describe it.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
For your wedding.
I finally got the document forthe bachelor party from your
brother Okay, cool, because I'vebeen messaging him about about
this and he had a particularquestion about budget and I'm
like, dude, I got all this stuff, I'm ready to go.
We got it where it's.
It's mapped out where we'regonna eat.
Pretty much we got the tourthat we're gonna do.
(02:13):
We might do some zipline stuff.
We got a couple of things onthere that we'll do, but really
trying to keep it flexible sothat we can, you know, enjoy our
time.
You know you might get to apoint where you're like, oh, I'm
a little tired, let's just goback to the Airbnb and play
spades tonight.
You know, you never know what'sgoing to happen.
So I think keeping it open isreally ideal.
But, yeah, pretty much gotsomething for all throughout the
(02:35):
day and that's exciting.
We're going to be in Mexicosoon, but it's always.
It's always cool to have amoment to create something in a
space that you'll never be inagain.
You know what I'm saying You'llnever be able to have something
to listen back in on.
That was a moment where you'reonly your first time about to
(03:00):
get married.
This is the first time this isever going to happen and it's
going to be gone, and thenyou're going to be a married man
and that's how it goes.
So where are you mentally rightnow?
How are you feeling?
How does that even have youstart?
Because when I was in my fiancearea I stopped calling Adrian,
my fiance, maybe two monthsbefore the wedding.
And I was just like my wife atthat point, like where are you
(03:22):
at, with all of the stuff comingup?
Speaker 1 (03:24):
and I was just like my wife at that point, like
where are you at with all of thestuff coming up?
I am mentally in a place whereI'm excited for what's coming up
.
There's a lot of pressure tofeel like I'm on top of things
or I have a plan for things.
Everything's mapped out.
So I know that's a lot morethan I expected, to be honest.
But if we talk about where I amrelationship-wise, I'm in a
good place.
I think she's pointing out thatlike hey, like you, okay, you
good, like you seem like alittle quicker to you.
(03:47):
Know, are you good?
And I'm like, I think I'm good.
I think I'm also just in a placewhere my mind is in so many
different places that I'm notreally sitting down focusing.
I have the pleasure of doingthings one at a time, usually
throughout my life, and that'show I operate best.
But now you know, it's like I'mrequired to be a multitasker.
(04:07):
Now I'm required to have likethree to five things running at
the same time, which is not likemy expertise.
It's something I can do, but Ican't say I do it as well, as
like blocking out the noise,doing one thing at a time and
knocking it out.
So that is different for methat's an adjustment that I've
had to make internally isunderstanding that just because
all these other things are goingon does not mean you lose focus
(04:30):
of the most important things,which are like making sure you
are showing up, you are visiblypresent, you are mentally
present for the people thatmatter, for your fiance and
soon-to-be wife, for the familythat you're building.
You want to make sure thatyou're doing more than just
saying, well, if it were better,then I would do this, and it's
like well, you can't worry aboutwhen it gets better, you have
(04:52):
to worry about.
This is where we are now.
This is the plan I'm making forthis now, and we keep going
Outside of that.
You know I try to still keep ittechnical sort of.
So I'm like my soon-to-be wife,but the word wife is coming out
of my mouth way more than before.
Fiance is almost a phrase ofthe past, but it's mostly just
like my soon-to-be wife, my wifein less than 60 days.
(05:14):
But yeah, fiance is almost onthe.
It's almost being hung up onthe door.
So we're already kind of inwife-husband city, but we just
haven't planted our flag justyet.
But I feel like living togetherhas helped with that already
that I feel so familiar now thatI don't see it as like, oh,
it's going to be this hugechange and it's like, no, we're
(05:35):
going to continue to live andgrow.
The flag is officially plantedversus us just kind of doing
things together alive.
Speaker 2 (05:42):
And that's ideal.
Like I said, my mother got meand Adrian the book All the
Things I Wish I Knew Before IGot Married and we read that
study and actually workedthrough the book with each other
and it really helped us kind ofstart to work before we got
married.
Before we even got engaged, westarted to work and that's the
idea.
You know, things will change.
You will be a different personwhen you get married.
(06:03):
Yes, that is true.
But also what you had beforehas to remain, because if you
become someone new and demandher to be someone new, you might
not like what happens with thatperson.
It might not be the same personyou fell in love with.
And so finding those moments tobreathe, finding those moments
to be like okay, this isstressful, yes, but also this is
(06:24):
an incredible moment, is anincredible thing to look forward
to, those important, is reallyimportant.
Yeah, do you have any momentswhere you kind of have an out of
body experience right now, likeyou're like can't believe
what's happening around you,like I can't believe we're
talking about candles.
I can't believe we're doingthis.
Have you had those moments?
Speaker 1 (06:44):
I wouldn't say out of body.
I do think it's just funnybecause, like you know, I'm the
participant at weddings.
Like I've never been a best manbefore, I've never been like
super intertwined in anybody'swedding.
I just kind of show up.
So to me it's like it's crazythat, like this is my time, like
this is my thing, this is myday, I do get caught up in that
like, oh, we're adding this, orlike, oh, should we do this or
(07:07):
that, and I'm like, man, this isa whole wedding.
That's like for me.
I had a good talk with my uncleearlier today and it went on for
a while, but we, we definitelyfocused on the like, the being
married part, the weddingceremony itself.
And he's like, oh, how manypeople are going to be there,
the way y'all talking about, Idon't think it's going to be
hundreds and hundreds.
(07:27):
I'm like, bro, this is going tobe intimate.
We're talking like less than ahundred for sure, probably
closer to like 60, maybe 70.
It's not going to be, you know,this big spectacle, which I
actually appreciate it that way.
I appreciate knowing that thepeople that matter are going to
be there and even some of thepeople that can't make it that
do matter are just, you knowit's still going to be something
that's smaller.
Not doing it in St Louisdefinitely dwindled that down
(07:49):
because, most of my family isstill up there.
They would just pull up becauseit's a random Sunday.
But now that there's all thetraveling and all that, it's
going to weed down to a lot ofthe core people, the people that
have made a huge difference,the people that have made a huge
(08:20):
difference, maybe even if theyhaven't done a crazy amount.
It's like you're showing up ina time where, like, I really
need that support and it means alot to me.
So, definitely, having thosemoments where I'm like, wow,
this is really people showing up, they're supporting me and you
know I'm just used to supporting.
I don't write it down on a listand go, oh well, they better do
this for me.
It's just nice to know like, oh, it's my moment and my fiance's
moment and people are showingup for us because they just
appreciate being in our lives.
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I always tell people when I was in my wedding, like
during my wedding, the momentthat comes to my brain the most
there's a picture where you cansee I'm like looking at the
audience and looking at thepeople in front of me and be
like, wow, these people showedup to my wedding, they're here
for me and Adrian.
They actually took the time tocome from Minnesota.
They took the time to come fromLos Angeles.
(08:54):
They took the time to come fromTexas, from all over the
country, from Portland.
We had people from everywhere.
We had some folks who wastrying to come from Spain and
they just couldn't come becauseit was right after COVID and
travel was hard.
So I feel like that is thething that I always love to
remind people who are about togo into it.
That weekend, your bachelorparty everything isn't about a
(09:16):
big spectacle.
It's not.
It's about enjoying that timewith these people because this
is the only time this is goingto happen.
That is so real.
There's so many people in mywedding and I was so happy with
the turnout and I look back atthose pictures and I'm like, wow
, I haven't seen that personsince that day and that is life.
I saw my girl Kim the other dayand she was like yeah, I
haven't seen you in almost threeyears now.
(09:38):
And I'm like how is that evenpossible?
We're so close.
But once again I've becomesomeone else.
I'm a married man with a wifeand a house and a dog.
I got to make sure things aretaken care of at home.
Speaker 1 (09:49):
I can't, yeah, but I mean, like you spent a lot of
time at one place and you made avery drastic move around that
time to a whole different regionof the world.
Speaker 2 (10:09):
Well, I mean, you can't hold a player down.
You know what I'm?
Saying yeah okay, sorry, it'sokay this guy you know.
All right, all right.
I hope you know that thesemoments just happened, because I
want that face.
Speaker 1 (10:26):
I just want to see.
Yeah, I'm sure, I'm certainthat that's why they're here and
no other reason at all.
Speaker 2 (10:32):
That moment was all I needed.
I appreciate that, yeah.
Speaker 1 (10:36):
But you were saying but yes, because you wanted to
be a Harlan Globetrotter rightbefore your wedding.
Yes, there's a lot of peopleyou didn't see.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
No, no, it'd be like that.
Speaker 1 (10:49):
Yeah, that's for sure but but honestly, I think
that's ideal.
If my child wasn't in startinghigh school, I would probably be
looking at a different regionof where I wanted to settle down
ultimately.
But for now I'm like listen,things are stable enough, we've
got enough of a foundation here.
Let's just ride this out forthe next two, three years and
then move.
But that's something that I wasinterested in as well just to
(11:09):
give myself a slight degree ofseparation, just so that we can
focus on ourselves more and lessabout everybody else as we make
this change in our lives.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
You got to have those moments throughout the day, too
, when you're having the weddingday, those moments throughout
the day, too, when you're havingthe wedding day moments.
I remember very, very clearlywhen Adrian and I had our first
look and I first got to see her,it was just the two of us.
No one else was there exceptfor the photographer, and so we
got that intimate moment oftalking and catching up how was
your morning?
You okay, kind of thing.
And I really loved that because, since I got to see her before
(11:41):
the wedding, we didn't have todo all of that.
We could get business done, wecould take pictures, we can
knock stuff off the list so wecan make things happen, and it
was very, very helpful.
Then we had pictures on theroof.
So that was another time.
Right before we got introduced,I got to really just sit down
with her, talk to her, help herwith her dress, she had to use
(12:02):
the bathroom, different thingslike that.
We just had moments to bondtogether.
And then, of course, at the endof the night, when we were
sitting at the table drinkingthe whiskey with the DJ and
Adrian and I were about to headout, we got to be with each
other, because the entire day Ifelt like we were together, but
we weren't, if that makes sense.
Yeah, it was like we were doingso much and we were so focused
(12:23):
on so many things.
And I mean, there was one pointwe had walked down the aisle
and had everyone talking to usand shaking and hugging and this
and that, and then someonepulled us aside and said say hi
to the people on the Zoom.
And I'm like fuck, we'retalking to people that's in
Spain and we're talking topeople in LA now.
And then we left there and wentand did pictures and did
(12:45):
pictures and it was just onething after another and those
little small moments with Adrianand I was so crucial for that
day because it made me reallyunderstand exactly what was
going on while we were doing it,and it was because of us.
So make sure to do that.
That is something that you want, and also make sure to eat.
I can't stress those two thingsenough.
Find times to have thosemoments with her so that you can
(13:08):
sit back and remember that, butthen also make sure you're
eating and drinking waterthroughout the whole damn day,
because people are going to betrying to feed you drinks.
People are going to be tryingto feed you all kinds of stuff
and it's like, nah, I need to behydrated anyway.
But before we jump off thesubject, like I said, for me
it's really really cool to be inthe position where you can
actually reflect on somethingthat is so huge.
(13:31):
This is a really big deal.
This is something that a lot ofpeople want to do.
Some people have done multipletimes, but it's always something
that's on the list of thingsthat people have to do.
When you're looking at this now, what are some things that
you're going to look back to howyou are now and be like, damn
man, I was feeling this way andI should have just enjoyed this,
(13:52):
or I was nervous about this,and that didn't even apply to me
.
What are some things that youcan think of that you're like I
might be stressing a little toomuch about this and future.
You, listening to this episode,is going to be like yep.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
Probably the perfectionism of it, the well
these people have to make it.
These people have to.
How are we going to have awedding without?
I think there's a lot of littlethings like that, that I just
want everything to go offwithout a hitch.
And it's like well, I thinkyou're a little too worried
about how it will happen,instead of like just knowing
that you're with the rightpeople in the right place at the
(14:25):
right time.
You know, I think getting caughtup too much in the details of
how the day schedule goes, orwhere you did this versus where
you did that, can kind of startto shift things for people.
Once I have an idea of howsomething's supposed to go like,
oh, we're supposed to have thiscolor.
Like I mean, if we're, if wehave this color, that's just,
that's terrible.
Like just cancel the wedding,right Ha ha.
And it's like, yeah, but likewhy is that such a big deal to
(14:47):
you?
Oh, we have to spend money onthis.
If we don't spend money on that, then what's going to happen if
we walk in and we don't have?
And it's like I think you wouldhave just walked in, buddy.
Yeah, very simple, I think itwould have been very simple.
Fine, I will probably look backand go.
You probably didn't need.
(15:07):
You know all the extras thatyou thought you did.
I've kind of been having thosemoments.
More recently, taylor's onWedding Talk, so she knows
everybody's story.
She knows all the good things,all the horror stories.
She has her own idea of what aperfect wedding looks like to
her and where she ranks up.
And I was like okay, where youneed to be concerned is did you
have the best time possible?
Yes, if it's aesthetics arecool, over the top, things sound
(15:29):
cool.
But I think when people lookback, you know when they're not
watching their wedding video amillion times, realizing that
it's the peak of their entirelife is that I made a video
about all the money I spent, Ithink, outside of that you
remember, like the memories, thething that's not on video, the
moment that nobody talked about.
You know the looks on people'sfaces when they, you know, when
certain things happen.
(15:49):
I think those are the thingsthat I've tried to get her to
prioritize more, and I think shehas, and I think it's starting
to make me prioritize thosethings as well.
You know, for me, you know,being the only child and being
up in st Louis as the hometown,I thought like it was going to
look a certain way, like, oh, Iwas going to, it's going to
happen in St Louis.
It's going to happen like thisand then I started to realize it
(16:10):
happening in St Louis didn'tmean it was going to be more
meaningful.
It meant that you just have alot of unnecessary bodies there
that would just show up becausethey can.
Now.
It doesn't mean you're going tohave this crazy better time.
It better time.
It just means that you've nowput an expectation on what it
would look like if you did it acertain way, instead of just
valuing the fact that, no matterwhere you are, certain people
(16:30):
are going to show up for youregardless.
Certain people are going tocreate those memories with you
regardless.
And I think sometimes, when youhave those expectations of what
you see, you start to think well, that doesn't apply to me.
They have this, they have that,I need those things.
And sometimes you already havewhat you need it.
You just need to get engulfedin that, take the time to really
enjoy being around the worldyou created and not trying to
(16:52):
create a whole separate world.
That doesn't really mirror you.
It mirrors what you sawsomebody else have.
It mirrors what looks fun forsomebody else.
Maybe that's not for you.
Maybe you need to do the thingsand have fun doing things that
reflect your life and what youwant and I think that's a very
particular thing that I'mstarting to adopt, as somebody
(17:13):
who's about to be a husband soonis it needs to look the way it
needs to look for you, notanyone else.
Speaker 2 (17:20):
And you always got to remind yourself the next day is
going to be just another day,dude, yeah so and that's going
to suck.
I will fully admit one of thehardest things was realizing.
Well, for me the next day I waslike relieved.
We went right on our honeymoon,went straight to High Springs,
had my feet up oh, that's great.
It was nice, but also theweight of I'm not talking about
(17:44):
the wedding anymore, it was nice, but also the weight of I'm not
talking about the weddinganymore was nice, but also it
was over.
It was like, oh, all thosepeople are gone.
All of this time spent wasgreat, but it's over.
I'm going back to the real life.
And you got to be ready forthat real life because I know so
many people.
I have a friend I remember theygot married and divorced and
(18:05):
the reason why I felt it didn'twork out was because my homie's
significant other really justwanted wedding pictures, just
wanted the aesthetics.
She wanted to be able to flexthat and that really broke my
heart because it was kind ofobvious watching just how much
they didn't really take in thesignificance of them being
(18:25):
together it's like this is aboutyou two.
This isn't about the pictures,it isn't about the poses.
It's about you two gettingmarried and, yeah, that's good
to hear that you're in thatspace where you're actually
starting to think of the future,because that's what matters now
your life with her in thefuture.
And it's literally a month anda half away.
Speaker 1 (18:48):
No, I always refer to the day after our wedding.
I was like that's the way theday your life really starts.
That's what I'm trying to beprepared for, because she comes
from a very small family.
I come from one that's larger,but I've done a good bit of
weaning folks out, cuttingpeople off and just getting more
to the core of the people thatreally matter to me, and I've
(19:09):
told her there's certain thingswe deal with that we won't have
to deal with after this isfinished and you'll have a new
set of problems, though, likethere will always be something
new in the road.
But there are certain thingsthat you can have the solace of
knowing I don't have to dealwith this after that day.
(19:30):
Like, yes, it'll be different.
We won't be all about thewedding, and our day-to-day
lives for the last year and ahalf have been about this
wedding.
Once that's over, it'll bemoved on to something else, but
there'll be a certain peace thatcomes with that, a certain
level of tranquility in knowingthat now it's about y'all.
It's not about y'all plus.
You know, rsvps, y'all plusfolks, meals, y'all plus budgets
, y'all plus.
It's just y'all.
It's about what y'all are doing,what y'all are creating and how
(19:52):
, what avenues you're going totake to get wherever it is you
want to go in this life.
That's going to be a wholedifferent thing, but that's a
breath of fresh air to me,especially with seeing how many
things have had to go into thiswedding, how many opinions, how
many people's coming out thewoodwork to be frustrated about
something that it's like oh myGod, why are you frustrated?
Why does this matter?
Didn't you have a day?
(20:12):
Wasn't your day great?
Why are we worried about thison our day and you're realizing,
it's because, while the day hasyour name at the top, it's not
100% your day.
Speaker 2 (20:22):
No.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
It's a day you share with many people.
It's a day that you willaccommodate many people.
Speaker 2 (20:27):
And each person is going to try to find their
moment during that day.
Yep, each person is going totry to find a moment to make an
imprint that they can look backon and be like I did this that
day for this person Yep, they'regoing to do that.
Speaker 1 (20:40):
Yeah, and while that might mean something to them and
it may even mean something toyou, it'll never mean more than
you and your person.
And a lot of that will befinished around the time that
this is over, yeah, when it'stime to go to that next step,
the path would be much moreclear on where it is we're
trying to go here.
That's very important to me.
It gives me a lot of solace inknowing that.
(21:01):
It's as simple as that, that,once this is over, just start
focusing on you guys, what worksfor you guys, how you guys are
going to do things, even our youknow our honeymoon destination.
You know I'm sitting herethinking I'm like man, you know
I like more tranquil stuff.
I just want to sit and donothing.
And then I was like but youneed to figure out what works
for y'all.
You can't leave everything upto well, I like it this way, so
(21:22):
that's it.
And I was like no, sometimesyou need to meet in the middle.
You need to get used to that.
It can't always be a tug of war.
It needs to be.
Where do we find peace?
If we find peace here, thenthat's where we need to go, and
sometimes you can't alwayschoose that Sometimes you got to
(21:42):
opportunities to just focus onyou two as a couple.
Just do that, because I have afeeling that you're going to
look back and be very excitedthat you chose you guys and your
piece over what mattered toeverybody else.
Speaker 2 (21:56):
Last thing on this because, like I said, I'm just
really excited, happy to hearwhere your head is, because
that's important.
I've worked with so many people.
I mean that's my job.
I work with weddings.
I'm constantly around peoplegetting married.
I was a little older but I sangat Carmen's wedding and my
(22:21):
godmother's wedding.
One of those two was the firstone.
So whenever you're around peoplegetting ready or going through
the process, it's scary howoften it's chaotic, and it
doesn't have to be.
It very much is another day andsometimes this isn't what you
do.
I'm not the right person to saythat, because I host events.
Adrian has been a stage managerand put stuff together and host
(22:45):
events.
My mother, you know I have somany people around me that this
is what we do that it wasn'tdifficult for me to put a party
together.
But something that I really madean effort to do is to make sure
that I was following the rightroutines to creating a good
relationship with Adrienne, andone of the books I read last
year was the Eight Rules of Love.
One of my favorite rules is tobe your partner's guru.
(23:08):
Where you are equal, your guruis someone who is helping you
complete the circle, no matterwhat is necessary, you're taking
care of business.
So if this person is giving youthis, what can you do to get
you both to the end of thecircle?
It's never looking down atanybody.
You both to the end of thecircle.
It's never looking down atanybody.
You're not the mentor of yourpartner, you're the guru.
(23:29):
You can't be a mentor becauseyou're not equal.
When you're looking down atsomeone as a mentor, get
yourself to a place where you'relooking at situations.
I know Adrienne's working allday.
I know that she needs food doneat a certain hour.
I know that she wants me to behere for her and enjoy times
with me, but also I know that Igot to do this, this, this, this
(23:51):
and this to make sure all thatstuff comes together.
And, like I said, you're on theright track, man, to have the
stuff in your head already,where you're trying to make sure
that you're purposefullycreating a good environment for
you and your future wife.
Couldn't ask for more.
Man Couldn't ask for more, andI'm really excited for you.
Hello, it is I, dominique.
(24:14):
I'm speaking to you after thiswedding went down.
First and foremost, it was abeautiful day of love.
Not too many things jumped thetracks.
The venue was amazing, thestaff was very friendly and,
since I was the best man, Iplayed the role of Mary Poppins.
Whatever Chester needed, I wasthere for him.
He has already told me that itwas the best day of his life and
(24:36):
I just wanted to say once againI'm so proud of my guy for
tying it out, for moving forwardin this journey.
There was a lot of stuff thatwent into this wedding and I'm
happy to not have to worry aboutit anymore, so I can only
imagine how relieved John andTaylor are.
Here's to them and cheers to along and loving marriage between
(24:57):
two dope people.
Something I wanted to run by youand kind of get your opinion on
.
I've been having thisdiscussion with folks this year
and I wanted to bring it to thepod because I believe it's
something that I I havestruggled with for years, and
(25:19):
it's the term work smart, nothard.
The reason why I've been likegravel, like kind of trying to
understand it a little betterand struggling with it, is
because I used to hear that alot in college with my
performance, with the thingsthat I want to do, and it always
felt negative when people wouldsay that because the way people
(25:42):
interpreted it in my opinionwas oh, why are you doing all
that extra stuff?
You should do this and skip allof that extra work and you're
making it harder on yourself.
But in my opinion, I alwaysfelt like when someone tried to
get me to cut corners, theproduct, the quality, whatever I
(26:02):
was working on usually came outa little bit unfinished.
And it's like I truly thinkthat definition should be like
more of a yes, work smarter, notharder, but the quality needs
to be exactly where it wasbeforehand.
Because if I'm working hard andI'm getting exactly what I want,
(26:23):
but then I start to do thisworking smarter and cut corners
and like, okay, well, I'm goingto take less time to do this, am
I still going to get thequality I want?
If not, maybe add a couplesteps till I get to that quality
, and if I have to do it the wayI did it, maybe that's the way
to do it instead of this whole.
Why you have to do all theseextra stuff and I know I'm being
very broad with it, but thereason why I just feel like
(26:46):
that's something I've beenworking on within myself for
years now, of trying to findways to continue to grow as an
artist, as someone who's workingin an industry where it's about
you and doing what you can dofor you.
So I started to kind of cutcorners in certain areas, I felt
.
But this year and last yearI've been working on me more and
(27:10):
it's helping me kind of seethat there's certain times where
it's like it's dope to be ableto accomplish something a little
simpler or easier.
But putting that extra work infor me is always a good pleasure
.
It helps the payoff at the end.
It's like I did the work.
I feel good about that.
I put my 10,000 hours in.
(27:31):
I love saying that becausethat's what you're trying to do.
You want to put that 10,000hours in what you're doing.
I believe that I've done thatbecause I worked hard at what I
do and what I believe in.
When you hear the words worksmart, not hard, how do you
interpret that?
Speaker 1 (27:52):
Well, I think the proper answer is in half of that
statement and I think the otherhalf can go.
I understand where you say ithas this negative connotation
because it's almost presumptuous.
It's almost like somebody feelsthey're on a high horse and
it's like why are you working?
Why are you working so hard?
Just work smart.
Yes, yes.
But I think the real answerthere is to me the way I model
(28:16):
my life.
Just work efficiently.
It doesn't mean that there's notgoing to be days where you
don't work your ass off.
You are.
You're not going to getanything worth having and not
have worked hard at some pointto get it.
I think it's okay to work hard.
I think it's necessary to workhard.
I think you don't have to workhard your whole life to get
(28:37):
somewhere.
If you did, usually you'regoing to be too exhausted to
enjoy it once you get there.
I think there's a balance thatwe can just call efficiency.
You need to do the work early onto learn whatever the hell you
think you know.
If you think you knowentertainment, if you think you
know singing, well, you need toput in the work to actually know
it.
You need to do some pro bonoshows.
(28:57):
You need to be behind thescenes.
You need to be the guyorchestrating and putting things
together, because that guyknows it now.
So now he could probably worksmarter because he knows how all
of it works.
He knows these are the thingsthat we're going to need.
So this is where I need to focusmy time.
These are the things where theydon't always go so well.
So now I need to focus more ofmy time and energy to making
(29:22):
sure this doesn't fail, becausethis is just a grind.
This is going to have to bedone regardless.
This can be done by anyone.
This is where my expertise is,or this is where the expertise I
don't have is, and this needsto be at least a level nine or
higher for us to get what wewant out of it, and all I'm
saying is that's going to takeus to a place where I'm going to
(29:45):
have to become somebody betterto get to wherever it is that
I'm trying to go.
I can't do that by, you know,side-skirting, working hard.
That's just not how it works.
But I understand the mentality,because I don't want to be an
old man and the only thing thatI can hang my hat on is I tried
real hard.
Speaker 2 (30:04):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (30:04):
And it's like did you get anywhere?
Well, no.
And it's like, okay, well, didyou change anything?
Well, no, Other people camealong and they made it more
efficient.
And it's like so what you didwas worth what?
Well, not as much as I hoped itwould.
So for me, I don't always seeit that way.
(30:27):
I think working smart is superimportant, but I think if you're
smart enough, you know thathard work comes with it.
You would never try to throwaway working hard to get
somewhere that's worth going.
It's just not how that works.
Anybody that says that issitting on a high horse.
They don't want anybody elsesitting on.
They want to feel like they'rebetter than you because they got
somewhere.
And don't get me wrong, thereare people that are going to not
(30:48):
work hard and get somewhere.
It's not expected for them tobe there for long.
You'll get there.
You'll get to the top.
You'll get wherever it is youwanted to go.
Once you got there, did you dothe work to make sure that you
have a solid foundation to staythere, or are you now going to
need everybody to make sure youstay in this position?
I think that's the difference.
I think there are people whojust work themselves into an
(31:09):
early grave and there are peoplewho work themselves into a
better position, and I honestlybecause I've never been the CEO
of anything outside of maybe acompany I'm trying to work on
right now, but it hasn'tblossomed yet.
I've worked under more peoplethan I've been the boss of
people, and I wish that I hadmore bosses that really
understood this idea of workinghard enough to learn it so that
(31:34):
by the time they finally got theopportunity where they could do
less.
They understood the landscapebetter.
They led me to a place thatmade sense for me to follow them
, and I think a lot of peopleare too addicted to working
smart because to them it's like,well, I just don't want to do
it.
I don't want to do that work, solet me find somebody else.
Well then, that might not getus the best output and I don't
want to keep running from onething to the next thing in life,
(31:57):
always feeling like, well, theyasked me to work too hard till
I gotta go.
No, I want to be in a positionwhere we can work hard together,
share the load, but see 10xresults.
Look at how much farther we got, because we all worked together
and got here and we didn'tbreak all of our backs to get
here.
You know, maybe we all aren'tgonna leave the same way we
walked in, but we all did enoughof the work to make sure that
(32:21):
we don't look back and go man,you know what I should have did?
I don't want to worry too muchabout what I should have did.
I just want to do the work andget where I want to go.
Speaker 2 (32:28):
It's all stemmed from a conversation I was having
with someone about traveling andhow, when I go to, when I went
to Japan, or I go to a differentcountry, you kind of notice
people are willing to do alittle extra steps to accomplish
things or to ensure that thingsare going properly in their
little area.
And you know everything fromlike you know people cleaning
(32:51):
bathrooms in the train stationsin Japan.
While people are running in andout of the bathrooms, you still
have the women in therecleaning it still as you go and
you're like, wow, that's soefficient and it's so helpful
when it comes to sanitation.
And people getting sick is likethere's, it's possible because
they're doing everything theycan to allow that stop.
(33:11):
But you come to america and yougo to a gas station, like
literally in america it's a bigdeal at bucky's because the
bathrooms are so clean.
That's like one of theirselling points.
Their selling points is thattheir bathrooms are clean.
And it's like why is thatsomething that we just cut
(33:33):
corners on?
We're like, oh, it doesn'tmatter.
Why do we feel like when itcomes to our food selection in
America?
You know, let's put a bunch ofstuff in here that's not
regulated for any other place inthe world, but here we know
it's going to be cheaper if weput all this extra stuff.
It's like constantly seeingpeople cutting corners makes me
think about the whole.
We're being smarter and we'reusing what we have to our
(33:56):
advantage and it just seemsdirty, it seems wrong and it
makes me second guess whenpeople speak that way to me
about doing tasks and gettingstuff done.
You got to work smarter, notharder, and I'm like what?
Speaker 1 (34:10):
do you?
Speaker 2 (34:11):
mean when you say that that's where I go to that
Drisky.
Speaker 1 (34:14):
What do you mean by?
Speaker 2 (34:15):
that I immediately think that way, because it's
like are you saying that becauseyou're lazy, or are you saying
that because you're someonewho's willing to go the extra
mile and knock something out,but you found a better way to do
it?
Speaker 1 (34:26):
Most people that are saying that wouldn't use that
phrase to describe the latter.
You know they would just tellyou the story.
It's almost like the word thatI was thinking of when you were
describing them versus us, andit's just pride.
Do you take pride in what youdo?
Do you take pride in offeringthe best?
And I think as a country, weused to do that and we're kind
(34:46):
of getting towards the bottomline.
What's the bottom line?
More money, more butts in seats, more of this, more of that.
Your experience is not the toppriority anymore and it's
becoming very obvious.
So when a place does prioritizeyour experience, it's like, oh,
they got to be great.
They, they have to have figuredout a money-making opportunity.
No one else has seen, becausewho would put that above all?
And it's like well, the countryused to put our pride above all
(35:08):
.
We used to.
You know, oh well, this stadiumis great because it's like this
.
And it's like well, now it'sonly great because it's new and
we spent all.
Everything has to be modernizedfor it to give it all this
attention.
It has to be brand new.
And we know, as it gets older,we kind of scrap things.
(35:30):
But that's where your historythat's where your legacy comes
from is upkeep Making sure thatthings are still, you know,
bright and shiny.
Things are still worth chasingafter, things are still worth
the attention and respect thatwe give them, but for us, we
just kind of bury things.
We're always what's the newthing that we're going to give
our attention to?
What's the new cool placeBecause I know the cool place
(35:50):
they'll have certainexpectations.
Everything's going to be superclean and orderly and
everything's going to be likethis, but that's not the
priority.
That's not what we take pridein.
We take pride in the bottomline.
Now, are we getting as muchmoney as possible?
Well, you have to download thisapp to get this experience.
Well, why don't we just make itavailable?
Well then, how would we getmore money?
It's like, do you need moremoney or do you want a better
experience?
Well, we always need more money.
(36:12):
Well, you've now told me how weended up where we ended up.
Everyone's bottom line isstarting to become how do I get
the most out of this situation?
Not how do we get farther up?
Farther, I get the most out ofthis situation, not how do we
get farther ahead together.
You know, as I look at all thisstuff in California that's
going on right now.
That's the one thing I'mthinking about.
It's like a bunch of Idecisions have changed the
(36:33):
landscape for the big we that'sout there right now.
Speaker 2 (36:42):
And you know it saddens me with each new example
we get, but it's just notsurprising anymore.
Yeah, I agree with that,because social media doesn't
help with that California thingat all.
You have so much negativitytowards it, but you want to
believe that your country isgoing to do everything they can
to keep you safe.
You want to believe they'regoing to take care of business
and in that scenario it's verypossible.
Cutting corners, cuttingbudgets, taking things away from
(37:06):
other people Not possible.
I know in certain situationsthat cutting budgets are
affecting how they're able tofight these fires and how
they're able to support thesepeople.
I know that is a fact.
I've heard that through newsand different things going on
there, that through news anddifferent things going on in
there.
So it just it.
That's why this topic, in myopinion, is so relevant right
(37:32):
now, because we live in asociety that I'm always told
it's a capitalist society.
I'm always told that this is,this is what America is and this
is how it is.
It revolves around money andthis and that.
And you saying the bottom linething totally opened my eyes
again to it, cause it's likethat is how people here think.
That's how we were raised tothink Bottom line are you
getting the paper Period Do?
Speaker 1 (37:50):
you want it fast, do you want it cheap or do you want
it good?
Speaker 2 (37:53):
How much money can I not pay you so that I make more
money?
So it just it breaks my heartbecause it makes me feel like it
reminds me of when Trump wasrunning against Hillary and in
one of the debates he wastalking about how he uses the
tax laws and he knows they'renot going to change them because
they are benefiting from theexact same things he is.
And at one point they were likebut you don't pay your taxes?
(38:16):
Like that's horrible.
And he was like that makes mesmart.
And Deja Belp made a joke aboutthat and and he was like that's
some cold shit.
And I'm like, when you hear whathe's saying, it is because,
bottom line, I'm smarter thanyou, because I'm not paying all
of this money and I'm makingmore.
Yeah, and it's like doesn'tcare about morals, doesn't care
(38:38):
about energy being put intoactually doing it correctly, it
doesn't matter, I'm literallygetting over on you.
I'm working smarter, not harder.
Yeah, that's the way that I seethat phrase and I feel I get
cringy when I hear it nowbecause I feel like it's very
much in this society.
It's so negative because it'sreally hey, find a way to take
(39:01):
advantage of people.
Speaker 1 (39:02):
No, that's exactly what it is.
I just know.
For me and the way I see things, it's never been my mentality,
but I think it's always beenlike this underlying thing here.
It's just become more prominentas the voice of the 1% is
becoming louder.
You always make yourassumptions about the 1%, but I
think deep down, when you were akid, you believed that guy with
(39:22):
everything.
If he could just change my life, he probably would, you know,
cause it wouldn't cost himanything.
He would just be you know.
You see the commercials of theguy, of the celeb, who gives his
jersey to the kid and it's likeof course you want to get, of
course you want to do nicethings.
But as their voice grows louder, you're starting that that
dream has become a nightmarebecause they're telling you over
and over I don't care whathappens to you, I don't care
(39:44):
what happens to the whole, Icare about my stuff, I care
about what happens to my things,I care about the places I
frequent, and even then I onlycare so much If I'm not
financially or physicallyinvested in it.
It doesn't bother me.
And I think this bartering ofgoods and services for bodies
and experiences is way over theline now it's like, as long as I
(40:07):
get what I want, I could careless how I got it.
I could care less what it costssomebody else, because that
cost isn't going over to me.
Speaker 2 (40:14):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:15):
You know even me and you know certain apps I like.
I like Spotify.
Spotify fired everybody.
Now all of my playlists suck.
Speaker 2 (40:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (40:21):
And I'm paying for premium because you guys wanted
to save money and let AI tellyou what kind of music I like,
instead of taking people wholike some of the things I like
and letting them curate betterexperiences that I can have.
And I'm realizing that is theworld now.
That is not just one app,that's not one company, that is
almost all companies.
As we grow and we see theincrease in AI and technology,
(40:45):
you guys are not using it tobetter.
You're using it to siphon.
You're sucking all of thepotential resources, all of the
great things.
You're taking it out and savingit for yourself.
Even if there is some greatthing, we'll never experience it
.
Eventually, everything will belike that.
Anything that's great, you'repaying a premium.
And if they find out that yougot something for free that was
(41:07):
helping you like an app thatpaid its creators, like an app
that helped a business boomalmost overnight oh, you can't
add.
We're going to find a way to getrid of that and it's like, why
would you do that?
They're helping your owneconomy?
No, no, no, they're helpingthemselves.
And it's like, no, they'rehelping the country you live in?
No, no, no, they're not helpingme.
They're not lining my pocket.
(41:29):
So that needs to go.
And it's like, but it helps somany people we don't care.
Well, what if you scaled it?
If you scaled it, I'm notinvested in it.
If you scaled it, I'm notbenefiting the way everyone else
is.
And some of those people didbenefit and they still don't
(41:50):
care because they're going to befine without things.
That's where I'm learning.
The divide in this country iskind of starting and I hope that
we I don't know what it's goingto cost, because it's going to
cost something that nobody wantsto pay, but it's going to cost
us something for everybody tokind of see what we've done.
You know I was watching theJerry Springer documentary.
It's only like two episodes butlike it just shows how far they
pushed the lines until theycouldn't, just to get good
(42:13):
ratings, just to see we beatOprah.
And it's like, yeah, somebodydied, bro, they were on your
show.
And you know, you guys havebeen kind of advertising.
Did you do anything for them?
Did you try to help?
And they're like no, that's notour jobs and it's like that's
the beginning.
That's where you start to seelike this coliseum-like society
you live in, where it's justwe're here for entertainment,
(42:33):
we're just here to see whathappens.
We're not here to invest in thepeople.
We're not here to give back.
We're not here to create abetter future for the folks that
are coming behind us, we'rehere to get ours.
I think that's going to comewith a very heavy price tag.
That's going to cost everybody,and I think what we're seeing
in LA is the first step of that,where people who you think they
got everything, it's like oh,you just sunk everything into a
house.
What if your insurance doesn'tpay you out?
(42:54):
Then what?
Oh, you're almost homeless.
You went from being here todown here and I don't like that
cost.
I don't like to see people loseit all or not be where I
believe they should be or whatthey've worked to be towards.
But unfortunately, that's goingto have to be the price tag for
some people to wake up, becausethey're always going to feel
like well, it didn't happen tome, so it's not that big of a
(43:14):
deal.
It didn't happen to my people,so I'm good, and I think it just
kind of all starts with thatsame work.
Work smart, bro.
You should have multipleproperties bro.
Speaker 2 (43:24):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:24):
And I'm sorry your Palisades house is gone, but I
had a house on the East Coastand in the South and now I'm
good Insurance will figure itout and it's like, well,
everybody's not able to do that.
Well, that's too bad.
You should have been workingsmarter all those years ago.
Speaker 2 (43:36):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (43:37):
That's unfortunately leading to what I'm seeing now
and I'm losing faith.
But I do believe that we areall still human, we all still
have hearts, there's still somelevel of empathy, and if you
don't have it, it might bend youin half and break you until you
remember where you come fromand the fact that skin color and
financial class and your jobtitle they don't mean as much as
(43:58):
you've given it meaning to have.
We're all people, man.
We're going to have to worktogether, and if you guys don't
want to work together, you'regoing to have to pull it till it
breaks and then you'll have torebuild it together.
Speaker 2 (44:09):
A story that I tell people all the time is about you
.
It's a story that you told mewhere the Mike Brown thing
happened in St Louis and now ithappened around your
neighborhood on the north sideand you were in Atlanta and you
wanted to get involved and youstarted talking to people who
were doing things in the areafor Black Lives Matter or
(44:31):
whatever they were doing, andyou got to a point where you
realized a lot of them were justin there so that they can get
their names in the paper andthey can say, hey, look what I
did for this cause, look at howspecial I am.
Let me become famous because ofthis.
Let me be a person on CNN thatdoes talks now, because I was
(44:54):
one of the people who startedthis, and I can use this on a
resume instead of hey, this isbecause of someone's death, this
is something that literally wasa tragedy and you're trying to
profit off of it and it justreally.
It really bums me out when Ilook into all of the things that
(45:16):
we have invested in in oursociety and how the gaslighting
of the problem that's in yourface is not really happening.
The people do that all the timein politics and just say it's
politics.
I really am nervous with theway that our country is already
moving, that there isn't reallya clear path to a good way for
(45:42):
America to fix their problems.
Speaker 3 (45:45):
Anywhere in the whole wide world.
Just tell me where.
Screenshot the location and wegonna take your cups.
(46:07):
Mommy, I wanna take you aroundthe world and find some nice
wine to sip.
I said it worked, worked,worked.
So much You've given up yourtime.
Well, I think it's time tobreak some commitments and get
(46:29):
on the plane and charge theglobe.
So screenshot the place and wegon' take the trip.
Anywhere in the whole wideworld.
Just tell me where.
Speaker 2 (46:47):
This is a new tune titled Janet's Song.
It's kind of new.
I wrote it a while back, but Iwrote this about my grandmother
and it's going to be on myupcoming album.
This was released.
I did this last year at aperformance here in Atlanta and
I released it on my live mixtapehere to entertain Volume 2, and
I look forward to getting thestudio cut on wax soon.
(47:09):
You can listen to my music onall streaming platforms and you
can check me out for moreinformation at DonLemorecom
where you can get anything andeverything downlamore.
The reason why I made thesegment we're about to do is
because of how I just wastalking on the last segment.
(47:31):
I feel, like some episodes, itcan be really negative and down
and really hard to listen to.
People talk this way becauseyou're like either you agree or
you disagree and it's like it'sa really heavy conversation
(47:52):
where I'm going to tell yousomething that's bringing me joy
, something that I love and why,and encourage maybe others to
use it or not, and then I'll askyou the same thing and you'll
go through the process of what Ilove.
So, starting with me, verysimply, you know what I love
right now.
(48:13):
I love tea.
Very simple.
I've been drinking tea almostevery day since Adrian's been
gone and I've been able to enjoymy time at the house Every day.
At the house, I've just beencreating some difference Some
green peach tea the other day,today I'm drinking mint tea and
(48:35):
it's been very relaxing to givemy palate something other than
sugary water or soda or, youknow, juices, stuff like that,
and it's been keeping me verymellow and I'm very appreciative
of my glasses of tea I've beenhaving the last couple of days.
Speaker 1 (48:54):
Something I love right now is the fact that I've
been kind of snowed in for thelast couple of days.
It lightened up yesterday so Idid go out and get some
groceries and things like that.
But I spent more time with myfamily these last couple of days
and I will say I love watchingwhat we have kind of grown and
(49:16):
built together where that'staken us.
I love seeing the growth withinall of us and seeing like kind
of how we come together, how wecommunicate, how we piece things
together Even like my daughterhelping out with cooking or
learning different thingsbecause we're like oh, this is
so basic, you got to splash itup, you got to learn this, you
got to learn that it can't beone dimensional.
This is so basic, you got tosplash it up, you got to learn
(49:37):
this, you got to learn that itcan't be one dimensional.
It really just makes me happyto see the growth in what I've
planted seeds in, becausesometimes I get very, you know,
hard bent on.
It was supposed to go a certainway and sometimes you realize
it not going that way, open thedoor for it to go this way and
you know, I've made hot dogs forthe first time in the house and
, like you know, I sliced thehot dogs before I put them on
(49:58):
there.
A little bit I cut them and then, you know, I use like a TikTok
recipe to figure out like, oh,I'll put a little oil here, I
put a little onions here.
You know, I see Mexican hotdogs.
They look so good.
Blah, blah, blah.
And I make chili for the firsttime and it's never made chili
before.
Ever in my life.
I don't even eat chili all thetime but, I had to read.
I had the time and availabilityto create something that she
(50:20):
really appreciated.
That's something that she thatconnected to her own childhood.
Something she enjoyed with herdad was eating chili dogs
together.
So to hear her talking about,talking to other people about,
oh my God, it was so great.
I love those moments, I lovebeing able to create those
things and I hope to be able toextend that, you know, as we get
married and do more things andtravel to learn other people's
(50:42):
things and how they do thingsand extend our family out even
more to just kind of learn andgrow together and feel like
those are memories and thingsthat we've created together.
Speaker 2 (51:00):
We've made it to the end of the episode.
I appreciate your time.
It's always good to see yourface, hear your voice.
I'm going to see a lot of youin the coming weeks and in the
next month, and so I'm reallyexcited for the future that you
have coming.
We made it through all of ourtopics.
We spoke about everything wewant to talk about, of course.
Last thing I want to ask you,of course, is how do you feel?
Speaker 1 (51:18):
I feel great.
I feel warm and refreshed.
Speaker 2 (51:22):
That's good stuff.
Man Cheers to you, Appreciateyou All right man.
I want to thank you forlistening to the Black man
Talking Emotions podcast.
The opening quote credit goesto Victor Hugo.
And shout out to my guy, john.
(51:44):
Follow John at J-O-N-C-E-E-Svisuals on Instagram.
Please subscribe to the podcast, share the podcast and give us
a good rating Five stars, please, and thank you.
You can support the show byclicking the link and give us a
good rating.
Five stars, please, and thankyou.
You can support the show byclicking the link at the bottom
of the episode description.
If you liked this episode, youshould check out our previous
(52:04):
episode with Chester titled BestFriends.
Great, listen, check it out.
Follow me at DOM underscoreLAMOUR on Instagram or at
DomLamorecom.
I'm Dom Lamore.
Much love.
Popular Podcasts
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.