November 17, 2025 • 62 mins
A lot of people think recovery ends when the meeting does. We open the door wider.
Michael joins us with a story that moves from crack addiction and quiet shame to beekeeping, ultra running across the Sahara in sandals, and building a nonprofit that feeds schoolchildren in Ethiopia. The throughline isn’t superhuman grit; it’s a simple sequence: choose abstinence, find your people, take honest responsibility, and then create a life you’re excited to wake up for.
We talk about growing up feeling “different,” hiding deficits behind humor, and using drugs to amplify joy or mute pain. A 30-day rehab and an experiential internship flipped the script, revealing that the problem wasn’t intelligence—it was fit. Learning by doing became a method for everything: counseling, ordering hives and learning bees in an afternoon, saying yes to 155 miles and adapting when his shoes failed. He finished in Tevas.
The lesson lands hard and hopeful: momentum beats doubt, and preparation is a kindness to your future self.
Service keeps the engine running. A single promise in an Ethiopian village turned into a $30,000 fundraiser, a fast-tracked 501(c)(3), and a lunch program powered by 300 chickens so kids get two eggs a day. We dig into daily practices that sustain change—three workouts, journaling, meditation—and why nicotine counts as a drug worth quitting. For families, we share boundary-setting questions that reduce enabling and increase real help. Michael’s new book, The Recovery Roadmap: A Guide to Freedom and Adventure, captures the blueprint: abstinence gets you into the room; adventure, purpose, and community make you want to stay.
If you’re ready to reimagine recovery as a path to strength, service, and awe, press play. Then share this episode with someone who needs proof that change can be bold and joyful. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what dream are you ready to start today?
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:16):
All right.
Well, thank you guys for beinghere for another episode, just
another incredible episode thatI believe of the Journey to
Freedom podcast.
And I've I have so much fundoing this one because I get to
meet so many differentinteresting men.
And in this case, uh, we startedthis one about a year and a half
ago now.
Uh, and it's Journey to Freedom,and it's been black men uh that
(00:40):
have just been able to tell ourstories.
And I don't believe, Michael,that I've had a beekeeper yet uh
on the show.
Now I know my grandpa had awhole bunch of bees, and we
would move and we he was in uhuh central California, he had a
dairy, and then we would have togo to another spot where he had
all these bees.
Uh and I remember, you know, Iwould go in there and he would
(01:02):
say, roll up the windows of thetruck, and he would put on all
the stuff and he would smoke,you know, pull out the honey.
And oh, it was it was so fun asa kid being able to do that.
Uh, but then you're talkingabout the rain, and I didn't
understand that, you know, hewas telling me, like, I felt
like I was listening to BillNyder Tienes guy tell me about
the pollen and you know, beeseating up their own honey, and
(01:23):
then we don't get any of it ifthey eat all of it.
And you know, I knew a littlebit about the, you know, you
want to have um uh my grandpaused to tell me that you want to
have bees from the area in whichyou live in because that helps
you with the allergies uh fromthat area.
Because if you get if you gethoney from, you know, uh Michael
is in Florida.
If I get honey from Florida andI go out and and I'm rolling
(01:45):
around in the grass in Colorado,it's not gonna help me because
it's a whole different allergysystem and ecosystem.
And so that was cool.
But uh, you know, Michael isalso an author, and uh, you
know, I asked him before theshow uh in our in our green
room, like, what are you mostexcited about?
You know, and he said life.
And it's such a great answer inthis day and age where people
(02:09):
are excited about getting up inthe morning, you know, and the
things that they get to do, andhaving good friends, and having
food on the table.
And uh there's so many thingsthat when you watch like our uh
our news or you watch the mediaand they they give this bleak
picture every day of how bad ourlives could be.
(02:31):
You know, we hear about I I hada guy, um, I went into the
grocery store yesterday, and uhhe was asking me, you know, I
guess he was trying to sell anewspaper.
And what was funny is I'm like,newspaper, what's a newspaper?
Because it's been so long sinceI personally have actually read
a newspaper, and he was talkingabout the local paper, and I
(02:53):
told him, he said, I said, Ihaven't watched news in 15
years, and I haven't read anewspaper in at least 20 to 25
years.
And he goes, Well, don't youwant to get it for$9.99 a month?
We have this special.
I'm like, I just said I haven'tread a newspaper in 20 years,
and I haven't, you know, watchedthe newscast in 15.
Why would I want to starttomorrow?
(03:14):
And he goes, Well, because youneed to know what's going on and
able in order for you to act.
And I'm like, Do I do I need toknow what's going on where?
You know, if you tell me what Ineed to know that's happening in
Israel, I can't control what'shappening in Israel.
I mean, you know, people aretelling me, or if you tell me
what's happening in Ukraine, oryou know, even sometimes with
you know our our president thatwe have, you know, I'm like, I
(03:37):
don't know how much of whateverhe's saying I have the ability
to control or implement in mylife.
And, you know, if there'ssomething that major comes out,
I'm sure there's enough peoplewho will tell me.
But it was just so neat to haveyou, uh Michael, actually say,
I'm just excited about life.
You know, because I do talk toother folks that are around and
they're not excited becausethey're telling me that their
(04:00):
life is over because ofsomething that our president
said, or something that you knowthey think is gonna happen, or
AI is gonna take over the world,or all these other things.
And so uh thank you for sharingthat.
Now I've asked Michael to tellhis story.
I told him it could be it couldbe uh like I do all of our
guests start bay back in theday.
You know, he's only 29 now, soyou know, 29 years ago when he
(04:22):
started life, and uh he couldtell us all about that, or you
know, wherever he wants in life.
And so I can't wait to hear hisstory.
Uh, we'll chop it up after thatand have some more great
conversation.
Uh, Michael, thank you for beingon the show.
Uh, thank you for being patientwith me.
And we have some schedulingthings that went on and we've
rescheduled a few times, andit's just so neat to have people
(04:42):
that are willing to say, hey, Iget it.
That's life.
You know, I'm not gonna beupset, I'm not gonna be angry.
We'll we'll get this doneeventually.
And so I appreciate you for whoyou are and what you do.
And please go ahead and take thefloor now, share your story, and
we'll just kind of talk afterthat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
Yeah, I um I really appreciate you having me here
today.
And my answer about um aboutlife, listen, I have a choice.
I can be happy about you know mylife and where I'm going, or I
can be unhappy about it.
Yeah, yeah, you you know, butI'm I'm gonna ignore, you know,
(05:24):
so so I have a choice aboutthat.
So anyone who's choosing to beunhappy, you know, that's their
thing.
It's not my thing.
You know, you also said I wasthe first beekeeper.
I am probably gonna be the firstof a lot of things today that
I'm gonna talk about.
(05:45):
And you know, one of the themesI think in my life and growing
up and and through my adulthoodis I have been the first in a
lot of things that I've done.
So I have done things thattypically my people, so to
(06:06):
speak, aren't that interested indoing.
So I wound up having to do italone, or the first one that
looked like me doing it.
You know, even as a child, evenyou know, me and my brothers
were the only ones in theneighborhood who swam.
So we all knew how to swim, andnobody else in the neighborhood
(06:31):
did.
Although everybody went to theYMCA, they had the summer
program, but a lot of those kidswould jump in the pool and they
would just be splashing aroundin the pool.
They didn't know how to swim.
Um, so we knew how to swim, youknow, in a very um in a larger
(06:53):
context of how they, you know,the I'm from New Haven,
Connecticut.
So I'm from a black community.
Everyone in my black community,for the most part, not everyone,
but a large portion went toBaptist church or Pentecostal
and you know, all of those kindsof churches.
(07:14):
Yeah, but we were Episcopalian.
Uh-oh.
So we were the only one in theneighborhood that was
Episcopalian, but our church wasthe largest black Episcopalian
church in the United States.
Oh, wow.
So obviously there were otherblack people in my church, but
on some level in theneighborhood, I felt alone
(07:36):
because I didn't go to theBaptist church or you know,
those kinds of churches.
My family's not from the south.
So we never went down south inthe summertime.
So, you know, there were therewas a lot of uh differences
growing up.
Um, you know, if if you know,just a little bit about my
(08:02):
story.
I come from a single uh parenthousehold.
My mother and father divorcedwhen, you know, I don't even
remember my father living in thehouse.
So it must have been.
I think I was born when mymother was 19.
So my father was gone by thetime I was by the time my mother
(08:24):
was 21, and I was two years oldbecause I had a younger brother
that was born 18 months afterme.
And I think as a kid, I feltlonely, but it wasn't something
that you could really talk.
Who okay, you're lonely.
Who are you gonna tell?
You know, um, my mother worked,she was a nurse, so she was
working all the time.
(08:45):
I we were babysat or stayed withmy grandparents who lived
upstairs from us.
But my grandmother andgrandfather were my grandfather
was born in 1898, my grandmotherwas born in 1902, so they were
from a completely another world,and um you just didn't go to
(09:07):
them with problems, you know.
It was one of those families,stop crying, I'll give you
something to cry about.
What's set in our house stays inour house.
You know, there are poorchildren in China, so what do
you got to complain about?
So, what we learned early on wasto, you know, keep it in within
ourselves and and not talk aboutit.
(09:28):
So I had a life where mycommunication skills were
limited, my fantasy life waslarge, um, and I did most things
on my own.
We were also raised to representthe black community, so we
always had to be good.
(09:48):
So on the outside I was good,but I was doing devious things
kind of in the shadows.
So what that did for me or howit manifested itself in my life
was I wound up being verydishonest.
(10:08):
Meaning, if you asked me aquestion, I would answer you,
but I would always give you theright answer versus the honest
answer.
And that's just how I livedthroughout my life.
You know, I got involved withdrugs early on in life, no other
reason other than curiosity.
Um, I was curious about whatdrugs did.
(10:31):
I used them.
I learned how to use them.
So anytime I was feelingsomething to um enhance the
feeling of excitement, I woulduse more drugs.
To dampen the feeling of shame,hurt, and anger, I would do more
drugs.
So I never learned how toprocess my feelings in a healthy
(10:55):
way.
I always used drugs to do thator food.
Um, you know, I graduated highschool.
Throughout school, I was just a,you know, a DC student.
I never really did well in anyschool.
I never really felt good aboutmyself as a bright or a smart
person.
(11:16):
Um, I was labeled as a slowlearner.
That's what they called it backthen.
My mother used to think I wasdeaf because I would daydream so
deeply that she when she wouldcall me, I wouldn't answer
because I'm thinking about, I'mfantasizing about something.
And most of the things that Ifantasized about were nature.
(11:37):
That's what I was interested in.
I wasn't interested in what theother kids in my neighborhood
were interested in.
I watched PBS, National GrantGeographics, Mutual of Omaha,
Wild Kingdom.
Those were the shows that Iwatched, and that's what I was
interested in.
And on some level, I feltalienated or different from my
(12:01):
peers because they wereinterested in other things.
And as a young boy, other thingsthat I misinterpreted, they were
interested in black things, andI was interested in white
things, and so I developed anegative kind of view of myself
(12:21):
around not being black enough.
And so there was always parts ofme that I had to hide.
I didn't want you to see mydeficits, so I would have to
cover them up.
I always kept myself at adistance from others, I used
(12:44):
humor, and I would get youbefore you got me.
And usually my get you wassomething verbal.
So how can I embarrass someone?
I was judgmental, I wascritical, but it was all these
techniques that I used toprotect myself.
(13:04):
Um, you know, long story short,I'm smoking crack.
Now I'm a grown-up smokingcrack.
I had the bright idea.
I used to work at the postoffice, and I was making, this
was in the early 80s, and I wasmaking about$28,000 a year.
That was good money back then.
So I figured out what my drugproblem was.
I made too much money.
(13:25):
So what I did was I marched downto the post office office and I
said, I quit.
Well, why are you leaving?
Well, because I got a drugproblem, and if I didn't make so
much money, I wouldn't do drugs.
So I quit the job and realized Istill had a drug problem and now
I don't have any money.
Um so that was a couple of yearsof active addiction.
Eventually I got into a rehab.
(13:47):
Um I got I got clean in therehab, I got a job, I got an
apartment, and my life startedto turn around.
I did some of the basic stuff,you know.
You know, I went to counseling,I went to a 12-step meeting, I
got a job, and I did all that.
After about two years, I got aletter from the rehab I went to,
(14:07):
and they said, Listen, we havean earth internship program.
If you're interested in it, wecan get you certified as an
addiction counselor for this forthe state of New York, and it's
a 13-month course.
Now, I've always identifiedmyself as not that smart because
I wasn't so book smart.
I wasn't great in math or any ofthat stuff.
(14:30):
But I got this internship.
I said, Well, how am I going todo an internship?
I got to move upstate New Yorkand do this internship, and
they're not going to pay me.
So, you know what?
I wrote letters to people and Iwas able to get donations to uh
pay for my gas, my food, and myrent for the first two or three
months in the internship.
(14:51):
And then eventually they offeredme some evening work on the
adolescent unit.
So the internship was two hoursof classroom in the morning, six
hours of experiential work onthe unit.
And that is the way that workedfor me in learning.
And I think the disservice I gotgrowing up in the educational
(15:14):
system was how they taught.
They taught in a way that wasn'tconducive for me to learn.
But this internship proved boy,two hours of classroom, six
hours of experiential so I canpractice what I just learned and
know how to do it, versus sit inclassroom all day and then they
(15:35):
give you homework at night.
I was so spaced out with ADHD orADD that I couldn't remember
anything I read anyway.
So the only way I got throughgrade school, junior high
school, and high school wasbasically memorizing or
remembering what somebody saidand what they did in front of
(16:00):
me, and then guessing theanswers.
And I guessed enough rightanswers to get a 60 in most
things and just barely pass.
So um the amazing thing about mylife has been if we're gonna
look at the dollar amounts, I'vemade as much money as any PhD or
(16:25):
MD or master's level clinician,and I have a high school
diploma.
But I am a bright individualthat's creative, and I don't
think things through the wayother people do, in that I'm not
(16:45):
gonna waste a whole lot of timefiguring something out, I'm
gonna just do it.
Yeah, like you know, whensomebody told me about the
beekeeping, I just ordered somebeehives, got some bees, and
talked to this guy.
Hey, so what do you think aboutyou know what do I need to do?
He just showed me what to do inyou know, an hour.
(17:06):
So now I've got these fivebeehives.
Most people, and in theinstruction around beehives, is
you got to process and learnabout bees about a year before
you even get a hive.
unknown (17:20):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (17:21):
So Amazon's limited.
That's another one of my firstthings.
Another guy, uh, you know, thisis about I I don't know, 15
years ago.
A guy said, Hey, you wanna umthis late, it was late, she
said, you want to run an ultramarathon?
And I said, Okay.
And I I was running, you know,five, 10 miles a day.
(17:42):
And and I said, Well, what's anultra marathon?
She said, Well, it's 155 miles,and we're gonna go 155 miles to
the Sahara Desert.
I said, 155 miles, how do you dothat?
She said, Oh, we do a marathon aday for for four days and 58
miles on the fifth day.
You want to join us?
I said, Yes.
So I told her yes.
(18:02):
I start training for this thing.
I said, There's no way I'm gonnabe able to finish this race.
So we get to the race day, wewind up in Egypt, we're getting
ready to run this race.
There's no way I'm gonna do 26miles tomorrow.
I ran, I got through the 26miles.
The first 18 miles, my shoeswelled up, my feet swelled up
(18:26):
so bad that I couldn't even wearmy sneakers anymore.
And I just happened to bring apair of Tevas with me.
So for 137 miles, I ran the restof the way in Tevas.
And each day that I had to dothe race, I said, I can't do
this.
But you know what?
I got up and did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (18:45):
And what's a teva before you go further?
What's it?
SPEAKER_00 (18:48):
Tevas are those old man um sandals that have the
bellcrove.
That um I'm an old man now, butI think in my mind like a young
man.
Um, so I call it old man uhsandals, yeah.
Sandals for for guys like me,you know.
Um so I ran that whole race inthe Tevas.
(19:10):
The the day that we did the thethe last day was the 58 miles.
And I I told them, I said,listen, they said, Oh, you can
rest here.
I said, if I rest, I'll fallasleep and I'll never get back
up.
I won't go.
SPEAKER_01 (19:21):
Yeah, I won't get back up.
SPEAKER_00 (19:22):
Um, so um I just kept going and I eventually um
was able to finish the race.
But uh the the organization wasthe four deserts.
They go to Egypt, they go toSouth America, they go to China.
If you do those first threeraces first, you get invited to
Antarctica.
And do you know I was the firstblack person to have ever, and
(19:48):
that race has been going on for20 years, and I was the first
black person to ever run it, andwe were in Africa, and there was
no other black people by therace that time that I did.
You know, um back in in the 90s,I was reading GQ magazine and I
was reading this article,Boulder Outdoor Survival School,
(20:09):
and they were people that werekind of living in the desert,
and the only gold was food,food, water, and shelter.
And um, I'm reading thismagazine and I'm talking, you
know, I tell my boss, oh, lookat this magazine.
These people are in the desert,you know, they're doing this,
that, and the other.
Boy, that sounds exciting.
He says, Well, why don't you doit?
(20:30):
I, you know, never thought aboutdoing it.
I said, Why not?
So I signed up for BoulderOutdoor Survival School.
It cost me a couple of thousanddollars.
People said, You're crazy,you're gonna pay money to live
in the desert, you know, and andlook for food, water, and
shelter.
I said, Yeah, because that'swhat I'm interested in.
You know, I'm not interested ingoing to Las Vegas and staying
(20:54):
at a really nice hotel.
Nice hotels come a dime a dozen,but you don't get an experience
like this unless you actually doit.
And after I did that thefollowing year, um I did a
primitive living course with theTerra Meharan Indians in the
mountains of Mexico, and thatwas a great experience.
Um, but I'm talking about all ofthis in the framework of what
(21:24):
recovery is.
Recovery from addiction isn'tjust about going to therapy,
counseling, and 12-stepmeetings, it's about recovering
your dreams and living them out.
And I think if the descriptionof recovery was larger than
(21:50):
going to treatment and 12-stepmeetings, it would be more
appealing to people.
Now, I know not everybody'sgonna want to run an
ultra-marathon, 155 miles to thedesert.
Not everybody wants to be keepbe a beekeeper, but most people
have dreams that areunfulfilled.
(22:13):
And if you have an addictionproblem, you probably have a
whole pile of dreams that areunfulfilled.
And the the only thing you haveto get right to begin to live
out those dreams is move towardsabstinence and becoming
abstinent.
So abstinence gets you in thedoor of recovery, and then you
(22:38):
get to do whatever you want whenyou're there, but you have to
figure out a way to getabstinent.
Now, I did the route of going toa 30-day treatment program.
Maybe somebody wants to dosomething different.
The 30-day treatment program, ifyou have insurance, is probably
the easier, softer way of doingit versus trying to do it in
(23:01):
your bedroom or you know, goingto counseling once a week or
something like that.
But my second job professionallywas in an intensive outpatient
program.
And half of the people in theintensive outpatient program
came there through a 30-dayprogram, and others came in off
(23:25):
the street.
And I don't know that there wasany difference around the
success rate for the ones thatcame from the 30-day program or
off the street.
The ones who engaged in therecovery process and kind of
followed the direction were theones that were successful.
These were the ones that mayhave been doubtful of what the
(23:48):
process was, but you know what?
I'm gonna trust these people,I'm gonna trust this guy for a
period of time.
For me, it was I'm willing totrust this process for a year,
and if it doesn't work for me,I'll go back and smoke crack.
I was able to put together ayear and it worked for me, and I
(24:11):
continued on.
So I have 36 years clean now,and I have no reason or want to
go back, but my recovery processhas had some basic ingredients.
The first one is abstinence, thesecond one is I have to get with
(24:33):
some like-minded people thathave a similar goal, but I also
have to start to takeresponsibility for my life and
my recovery, and I can't blameanybody else for me not being
able to do the things that Iwant to do and I need to do.
(24:55):
Listen, they say in life, youcan be anything you want in
life.
Okay, I don't want to be anastronaut, so I could never
become an astronaut because Ihave no desire to be an
astronaut.
But three years ago, I wanted tofeed live hyenas and I did that.
I went to Ethiopia and I fedlive hyenas.
(25:16):
That's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to climb Macha Picchu,I did that.
I wanted to climb Kilimanjaroand I did that.
I wanted to climb Mount Muru andI did that.
So everything that I've wantedto do, I've been able to do.
I was in Ethiopia in the hottestplace on earth, right?
And I met these people in avillage, and the guy says, ah,
(25:38):
the dust storm came and blew ourschool over.
So they don't have a schoolanymore.
I said, Oh, if I ever come backto Ethiopia, I'll bring you some
school supplies.
That was in June.
Later that year in August, I'mlooking at my pictures.
I said, I gotta go back toEthiopia.
I'm just drawn to this place.
But I said, Oh shit, I told thisguy I'm gonna bring him some
(25:59):
school supplies.
You know, I gotta get this guysome school supplies.
So I said, Well, let me come upwith a fundraiser.
I'll raise$1,800, I'll buy someschool supplies, and I'll bring
it over to Egypt.
I mean to Ethiopia.
So I did this fundraiser withina week.
I had raised$3,000.
(26:19):
Within three months, I hadraised$30,000.
So I said, without much thought,let me just fill out the
application in the IRS for a501c not-for-profit.
Filled it out, it got approved.
I got my not-for-profit.
So again, it wasn't about megetting a committee and people,
(26:40):
let's think about this thing andwe're gonna put this together,
we're gonna do this, and we'regonna create this
not-for-profit.
I just, whether I was naive, Isaid, screw it, let me just find
the application, I'll fill itout, and it got approved.
So now it's I was thereinitially in June.
By the following December, I'mback in Ethiopia with nine huge
(27:02):
suitcases that I'm bringing backto the school.
And I was able to bring enoughsupplies for three schools.
But the the the the the onething that really got me going
around this, and I'm gonna tellyou this is for everyone.
(27:23):
When that guy told me a duststorm blew over his school, and
I gotta tell you, I saw thesekids just innocent kids, they
were dirty, their clothesripped.
These are kids that theirparents, their grandparents,
their children, theirgrandchildren,
(27:44):
great-grandchildren will neverexperience in a lifetime a glass
of ice water.
I said, there is a need here,and I can't ignore this need.
My job is to respond to it.
And I started thatnot-for-profit, and I got those
(28:04):
kids school supplies.
I've been back three othertimes, and I bought computers,
other school supplies, and thislast time I got another bright
idea.
I said, How do we incentivizethese kids to come to school?
(28:25):
Let's keep it simple.
Food.
We gotta have a lunch program.
Yeah, so we gotta put a lunch,but how am I gonna do a lunch
program?
What am I gonna keep bringingthem food?
No, so I got them 300 chickens,so they lay eggs, and every kid,
and I made it, I made it veryclear to those people at the
school.
I said, these kids should begetting two eggs a day for
(28:48):
lunch.
Now, these are the kids that mayget two eggs in a year.
Now they're getting two eggs forlunch every day, five days a
week.
And I don't care that theculture doesn't offer that in
general, but I made it myrequest.
(29:09):
If I'm gonna help you, this iswhat I'm asking you to do.
Get them that stuff.
So I think we as human beings,as people, need to respond to
the needs of others.
That we're not on this planetalone.
And you know, maybe there's someself-caring reasons why I do it,
because maybe when I'm down andout, somebody will be there for
(29:33):
me and provide something.
And I'm I'm thinking, listen, ifI get down and out, I hope
somebody really lays out the redcarpet for me, gets me a nice
place to live and this, that,and the other.
Who knows what's going tohappen?
Um, but I respond when I seethere's a need versus ignoring
(29:55):
it or pretending like I don'tsee it.
And yeah, listen, I'm not handedout.
Money on the streets to everyhomeless person.
SPEAKER_02 (30:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:04):
But I'm talking about in a very general way.
You know, that's what I do.
And so recovery has afforded methe opportunity to respond to my
value system.
When I was in active addiction,I couldn't respond to my value
(30:24):
system.
But in recovery, I can.
Again, I've expanded myunderstanding of what recovery
is because travel, adventure,exercise, things like that are
important to me.
(30:45):
Also engaging and practicingspiritual principles, honesty,
integrity, perseverance,compassion, all of those things,
trust really work for me.
Earlier this year, I decided Iwasn't going to work and I was
going to take some time off todo some things.
(31:06):
So I increased my journaling,meditation.
I took a permaculture course.
I did some grounding work.
I'm walking around barefoot so Ican feel the earth.
I went to Africa and I climbedto Mount Muru.
(31:26):
Um and I wrote a book.
And I realized, well, I know mylife, and everybody's telling me
I'm an interesting person, sowhy not put it down on paper?
(31:47):
So I was able to work with acoach and I wrote a book.
I started in January, and thebook was finished in June, six
months.
I have a friend that's writing abook.
She's still been writing thebook now in three years.
Um, I used another method thatreally works for me because
sitting down with a pen and apiece of paper, writing 5,000
(32:11):
pieces of paper wasn't going towork for me.
So I recorded everything andthen had it transcribed into
words, and I put my booktogether that way.
Um and it's been prettysuccessful.
I, you know, I've just sold myfirst 500 copies, um, and the
book has been out for a month.
(32:33):
And the name of the book is uhThe Recovery Roadmap: A Guide to
Freedom and Adventure.
And for me, recovery has offeredme freedom.
Recovery is not always fromdrugs and I also had to recover
(32:54):
from my parents and what wastaught to me, right?
Because my parents andgrandparents were from a
different time.
So, I mean, when I grew up, oh,get a job at the post office or
the railroad or the city, youhad to get a job with a pension.
Well, that was true for mygrandparents and my parents
(33:18):
because of what was going onwith black people then, and they
were looking for security.
So I went and got a job at thepost office.
I did not like working at thepost office, although it paid me
well.
It wasn't a difficult job, butit was just boring.
The mail came in, the mail cameout.
(33:39):
As a child, when I was inschool, the person that I liked
the most in school, I respectedthe most, that I was most
interested in, was the guidancecounselor.
So I was naturally drawn tocounseling.
So when the internship came upfor me and was offered to me,
you know, I jumped on it becausethat's what I wanted to do.
(34:02):
Listen, when I completed theinternship, it wasn't like I
really knew how to be acounselor, um, but I had the
basic uh um understanding ofwhat counseling was.
I had the um the personality forit and the natural I was
(34:22):
naturally therapeutic.
So over time I got really goodat it.
And um I had been been workingin the field now for about 34,
35 years, and have reallycreated a great reputation for
myself.
But again, this year I reallywanted to take a break from that
(34:47):
kind of work and find out whatelse there was for me.
People say, Michael, you'recrazy.
You stopped working for um ninemonths, you didn't work.
Yeah, listen, I worked a littlebit, but I cut everything in
half and I had faith and Itrusted the process that
(35:08):
Michael, I've come this far andeverything has been okay.
Why can't I do a little bit moreand trust that things are going
to be okay?
So over the year I was able toget jobs that paid me a bulk
amount of money that was threeor four days, so I didn't have
(35:29):
to work all the time.
I could write my book, I couldexercise.
People are like, well, what areyou exercising all day?
Yeah, because I wanted to.
And I, you know, um, this bodyhas to last me a lifetime, and
I'm not gonna squander it, youknow, and put all my effort into
showing up for work and sleepingall day.
(35:52):
So I made a serious effort intoworking out.
So I work out, I don't know.
I do about three different, youknow, I do this this strength
training once a day, I do yogaonce a day, and I either cycle
(36:12):
or climb once a day.
So I do three separate workoutsa day, and I do that six to nine
times days in a row.
And I don't take days offbecause I know there'll be
naturally days that I don't wantto do it.
So I don't want to plan a dayoff.
Um, I just, when my body says,Michael, it's time to take a day
(36:34):
off, I take a day off.
And that's what I do.
I started a black men's journalgroup.
So I meet with these guys, wemeet every other week and we
have a journal book that we use.
We review the journal book, wereview our journal writings and
share with each other to kind ofdevelop a relationship that all
(36:56):
of us have agreed we haven'tbeen able to find out in the
streets or out in ourneighborhoods where people tend
to be superficial in yourrelationships with each other,
but you don't really get deep.
And especially as a group ofblack men getting deep.
(37:17):
Now, you can go to a 12-stepmeeting and people raise their
hand and share, but you can'treally give feedback on it.
You can't go back and forth onit.
And this group gives us anopportunity to do that.
So that's a really um um goodthing that I've been able to do.
Um, let me give you anotherfirst, maybe for your audience.
I climbed an active volcano.
SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
Was it hot?
SPEAKER_00 (37:42):
I gotta tell you, that place was hot.
I went to the hottest place onearth in Ethiopia.
And let me tell you something.
It was a hundred and twentydegrees at night.
It was so hot, it was justimpossible to go to sleep.
You could not go to sleep, youcouldn't take off any more
clothes than you took off, andyou're still hot.
(38:04):
You know what I mean?
It it was it was pretty tough.
Um, so um, you know, so I didwrite this book, and I was
really proud to be able todedicate, acknowledge two
mentors that I had um thatreally they gave me their
(38:28):
business in New York.
They said, Michael, you run it.
And they gave me supervisionaround it.
They were both um licensed uhsocial workers, they gave me
supervision around it, but theylet me run it, and they trusted
that I could run it.
And I ran it, I did a good job,but I didn't always feel good.
(38:51):
You know, I felt insecure likean imposter, but I've realized
now that we grow over time, andeven though you know, you know,
I don't know, I'm in recoveryfor whatever period of time, in
(39:13):
my 60s, I'm starting to feel theconfidence, the security that I
would have hoped for in my 40sand 50s.
But you know what?
I didn't have it.
It was all a front.
I don't know if it was all afront, but I wasn't, but I can
(39:34):
really feel it now.
And I don't say like I gotregrets because I didn't do it
then.
Back then I was doing somethingelse and I was enjoying life,
even though maybe if I look atit now, I was maybe I was a
phony or whatever in in certainaspects.
But now it's all matching up.
My insides match my outsides.
(39:54):
I'm not perfect, I still have alot of areas to grow in, but I
certainly have come a long wayin a short period of time.
So um you know, yeah.
So that's I don't know, that'smy story.
SPEAKER_01 (40:10):
I don't know if you have any questions or um oh
gosh, I got like I got a big oldbook of questions and she I mean
this is this is incredible.
And I thank you for for sharing,especially when you know, I used
to run a homeless services um uh50-bed facility here here in
Denver, Colorado.
(40:32):
And when we talked aboutrecovery, everybody always
wanted to talk about the stepplans and the you know what
we're gonna do in therapy andthe group meetings.
And I I am so incredibly happythat you shed some light on
recovery, isn't going to a classonce a week and then thinking
(40:52):
that you're cured.
SPEAKER_00 (40:55):
Let me tell you, the when I went to Colorado um four
years ago, part of my recoverywas climbing Mount Vale.
Okay, but also downtown Denver,I forgot that area, there's a a
gym called there's a climber gymthere.
Yes, yeah.
So I I went because I have aclimber at home, and I said, you
(41:17):
know what?
I want to experience it in thelive studio.
So I went to the live studio andexperienced my climber machine.
I'm on a um, they have a contestevery month, a competition every
month, and I'm on thecompetition this month, and it's
usually a 40 or 50,000 um footclimb.
(41:39):
And I'm 66 years old.
So I'm competing with 30, 40,and 50 year olds, and I gotta
tell you, every month, everymonth, I'm in the top five.
So I'm doing good.
And last year, I self-identifiedmyself, I labeled myself, I
(42:02):
titled myself a professionalathlete.
So the NFL didn't do it, ESPNdidn't do it, I did it.
I don't need anybody else totell me I'm not, I am a
professional athlete.
And I've never played on a teambefore, and I've never been paid
for my athleticism, but here Iam, professional athlete.
So maybe I'm your firstprofessional athlete,
(42:24):
self-proclaimed professionalathlete on your show.
SPEAKER_01 (42:27):
Well, I gotta, I gotta, you know, I gotta reach
back into the day because I'm 60now, so I I gotta go back into
my athletic days, but we gottaget you sponsored.
When I when I think of um, youknow, the the Nike just do it,
uh, that is you.
You're not like let's thinkabout it, let's talk about it,
let's let's analyze it.
(42:48):
You're like, let's do it, andyou actually do it.
I I gotta figure out who I gottasend this video to so that we
can get you, you know, someshoes.
SPEAKER_00 (42:56):
But the thing is, if if you don't just do it, there's
a tendency to talk yourself outof it.
SPEAKER_01 (43:03):
Of course, of course, and then when it hurts a
little bit, it's even worse,right?
It's like if I sit down, I'm notgetting back up, and uh, you
know, we so we gotta get thisover to somebody who can can get
you some of those that gear,because you should never do 159
miles with some sandals.
I don't care who 58 miles or130, however many you told me
(43:25):
you're doing.
And I I was just as as you weregoing through some of these
things, and I was thinking aboutsome of my life and the things
that that I you know do, youknow, because I grew up here in
Denver, so you know, I too nevertraveled to the South.
I took I took 18 black men to uhBirmingham, Selma, and
Montgomery last January, and wedid a civil rights tour, and you
(43:49):
know, I I went on the tour oneyear before.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I had noidea the South was like like
people who just traveled fromthe north to the south.
And I was like, and so I grew upswimming, and you know, I was a
lifeguard at a beach and allthat kind of stuff, and you
know, I I'm just thinking aboutall the things you do.
Then I thought about your book.
(44:11):
And you know, I have I have aum, I'm only five years younger
than you, so I'm not, you know,we're it's it's like we grew up
in the same era, but theylabeled me special education or
or special needs uh inelementary school because I
wasn't reading, I wasn't keepingup, and I wasn't I wasn't doing
anything uh that they told me Ishould be doing, and I wasn't
(44:34):
learning in a way they thought Ishould be learning, and so I was
behind, and they put me in thesetrailers and I didn't go to
mainstream classes with the withwith everybody, and that's so I
wasn't going to college, I wasgoing to go to stunt school.
I want to be a STEM man, and soI was gonna do that.
I just happened to be a prettygood athlete, and my mom begged
me.
She likes, if you just go tocollege, we got scholarship
(44:57):
offers here.
If you just go to college, Iwill buy you a Jeep when you
graduate from college.
And right, you you you can kindof imagine that for me.
Okay, I'll go to school for fouryears just so I can have a Jeep.
You know, what else am I doing,anyways?
Right?
I'll postpone some school, but Iwent to school in California so
I could be close to Hollywood.
(45:18):
Uh, ended up going through, youknow, an education system, uh,
and and I'm doing a talk nextweek at a at a place in Texas.
And part of my speech is Ididn't realize that I wasn't
this special ed student until Iwas doing my PhD.
And and I'm doing it, and I'mgoing to the disability office
(45:43):
where I've been getting myaccommodations throughout all
this thing, right?
I get accommodations to takelonger to take tests, I get, you
know, longer to write, I getwriting help, all that kind of
stuff.
And I realized this at the endof my uh when I go to the
disability office and they say,We got nothing.
We don't have anybody who canhelp you at this point.
You've reached this level whereyou're at the place of like, oh,
(46:09):
I guess I'm really not thatspecial a kid that they labeled
me.
You know, and then I look atyou, Michael, and I go, What?
You've done everything that I'vedone through a system, but on
your own.
And so, how can we get you thathonorary doctorate or whatever
it is?
I mean, yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (46:28):
And it, and you know, um, and again, I am a high
school graduate that gotcertified in addiction
counseling, and I was good atit.
All you have to do is find outsomething that you're good at.
I gotta tell you, I was, youknow, when you're telling me
about stunt man, I said, boy,that's I wonder if he ever
(46:51):
became a stunt man.
I mean, I was more interested inyou becoming a stunt man, you
know, than going to college, youknow.
Um, that sounded interesting andexciting to me.
Um, and you know, like when Iwas younger, I wanted to be an
actor, but I realized that Ican't act.
You know, um, as soon as you putme in front of a camera in that
(47:13):
way, I become stiff andunnatural.
But I can do this, I can do thisall day long, you know.
Um, you know, and how I prep forthings like this is I just do,
you know, 45 minute or 60-minuteworkout, and then I'm on fire.
(47:35):
I can talk till the cows comehome, you know, after a great
workout.
And also for me, a great workoutreally helps with depression.
You know, I think there there,yes, I have experienced
depression in my life, and Ihave tried antidepressants in
(47:58):
the past, they they worked, butI also realize that exercise
works.
So as long as I exercise, Idon't need to take a pill or an
antidepressant.
I just need to exercise.
And again, this body has to lastme a lifetime.
And um one of the things thatone of the things that I'm
(48:23):
really understanding and I wanteverybody to know when
opportunity comes, it's too lateto prepare.
So we need to engage in thepreparation now because
opportunity and tragedy is rightaround the corner, and if you're
(48:49):
not prepared for it, it willoverwhelm you.
And so my journaling, mymeditation, my exercise, my
engagement with people are allmy preparation for what's
happening next.
(49:10):
And um I just really I justreally believe that.
And I think oftentimes peopleare not prepared for life and
what life has to offer them ortake away from them.
SPEAKER_01 (49:26):
Yeah, it's like they can't, they're not ready to take
advantage of, you know, I haveum, you know, I just finished a
book called uh Be Do Have, soit's becoming the person that
God puts you on this earth tobe, you know, instead of trying
to do it and have it first.
And we spend so much time havingit.
How do we become like, are weprepared for the opportunity
when it shows us shows up andsays, okay, we're ready to run
(49:50):
an ultra marathon.
Well, if you hadn't even beenrunning five, ten any miles at
all, now you're not you're notprepared to take advantage of
that opportunity that comes outand then to be able to do it.
And so much of our time is is sostuck thinking about what we
want to do that we don'tactually ever get those
experiences.
Like you talked about those kidsin the pool, right?
(50:11):
They'd run and jump in the pool,but there was the there's
probably the opportunity was thewhy, right?
The why's gonna teach you how todo this right, all you want to
do is jump in the pool.
Well, I can remember when I wasa lifeguard at the at the water
park, I had all these littleblack children jumping in the
wave pool, and I'm in there allday saving them because they
don't know how to swim, right?
(50:32):
I'm like, what the what is goingon here?
Where why don't you go take afew slips?
Then this experience is gonna befun, and you're not having a
near-death experience every timeyou get in the water, and and
you know what it is though.
SPEAKER_00 (50:45):
I listen, I'm not a parent, but I I do have a
parent, uh-huh, and my mothermade sure we learned to swim
from kindergarten to fifthgrade.
We went to private school.
My mother filled out the formsand got us scholarships into the
(51:06):
private schools.
If I did, I gotta tell you, if Idid not go to those private
schools, I never would havegraduated high school, I would
be imprisoned, I would have noteeth, I would be acting and
looking like all of thosepeople, not all of the people
(51:26):
that I grew up, but some ofthem.
I um part of what gets me in thedoor in a lot of places is I
speak well.
Yeah, yeah, and my voice and myspeaking ability gets me through
the door.
Listen, a lot of people talk tome, and just in the work that I
(51:49):
do, they call me doctor.
They they just assume I'm adoctor.
I talk apparently like a doctor,and um, it gets me through the
door.
And if I didn't have the parentthat I had, listen, my mother
went to nursing school, shebecame a nurse, and she worked
(52:10):
all the time.
She worked 11 to 7 and sleptduring the day, and my and we
lived with my grandparents.
So my grandparents kind ofhelped raise us.
My grandmother was tough, shedidn't play around with nothing.
I'm giving an example of her.
Like if we were at our houseevery Saturday, we had to, you
(52:32):
know, clean the kitchen floor.
So my grandmother was like,there's only one way to do it.
On your hands and knees with abucket, with Ajax and a scrub
brush.
Yep, she didn't believe in mops.
No, because you can't get totell you, you can't get a clean.
(52:53):
And listen, my grandmotherdidn't believe in showers.
She said you can't you can't getclean in the shower.
Your body needs to soak, youknow.
Um, so you could only she wouldnever she wouldn't get a shower
in a house, you'd have to get abit of bathtub.
SPEAKER_01 (53:06):
Dirty water, right?
SPEAKER_00 (53:07):
Yeah, and dirt dirty water because she wasn't gonna
waste water either.
So whichever one of me and mybrothers got in the bathtub
first, got the clean water, andthe rest of them just soaked in
the dirty water.
Yeah, but there was a rigid wayto do things, and I gotta tell
you, that rigidity also saved mylife because it prevented me
(53:29):
from doing some of the thingsthat I could have would have
done in my active addiction andin my young life that I just
didn't do because she deemedthose, she deemed she knew what
was right and what was wrong.
And I there were some things Ijust couldn't bring myself to do
(53:51):
because of her teachings.
So I give a lot of um umreverence to to my grandmother
in in literally saving my life.
SPEAKER_01 (54:06):
Oh, that is so cool.
Michael, I want to I want to uhwe got about six or seven
minutes left, and I want to makesure we talk about some of the
things you want to, especiallyyour book.
I have a community that I'mstarting, it's called Becoming
the Person Universe.
And if you go to becoming theperson.com, if you're here and
watching it, uh go there.
We're gonna talk about these.
I'm gonna do a fireside chatthat I would love to have you
(54:30):
on, and we just talk aboutrecovery and we talk about your
book and the things that you'velearned from recovery.
And there's so many people thatare out there that are that are
believing that maybe if I justdo a little bit of therapy, if I
just, you know, you like yousaid, you were able to go, it's
cheaper, you know, I'm makingtoo much money to have this
addiction, and you know, andthen you realize it has nothing
(54:52):
to do with the money, it has todo with my mindset and what I'm
doing.
And so maybe we can come backand circle back and just have
people be able to ask usquestions, and you know, I'll
put you on the spot here becauseI'm gonna make you come on,
anyways, because I can't wait tohave that conversation with you.
But before we leave today, uh,how do people get a hold of you?
How do they get to your book?
How do they what else do youwant to make sure that we get uh
(55:14):
in our time?
This has been so amazing.
So thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (55:17):
Yeah, you can go on Instagram, coach Michael Herbert
on Instagram and TikTok.
I'm also on Instagram as MichaelA.
Herbert.
I'm on recovery guide onFacebook.
Um, my book is called I don'tit'll probably show up backwards
(55:38):
here, but it's got a um it's therecovery roadmap, a guide to
freedom and adventure.
And you can get that on Amazonor um or Barnes and Noble.
But I would ask if anybody getsit on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
that you'd be willing to write areview.
(55:58):
Yeah, so and and just let meknow your thoughts about it, but
let other people know becausethis is an important book for
people to read and get a deeper,broader understanding of what
(56:21):
recovery is and what life has tooffer after drugs.
And let me also include in mydrug thing: nicotine is a drug,
and if you're smoking andvaping, it's more people die of
(56:42):
nicotine-related deaths thancrack or heroin.
So don't get it, don't getfooled by, oh, I don't want, you
know, I can't give up everythingat once.
You can give up everything atonce, it gets out of your system
in about three or four days, andthen the rest is all
psychological.
And one of the things that Ialso have learned
(57:05):
psychologically, it is painfulto not do something you want to
do.
And this is where meditationcomes in.
Meditation will help you dealwith difficult things without
having to take a drag off acigarette or a vape or take a
pill over.
(57:25):
But meditation will help you totolerate the pain that's gonna
come in life on some level,anyway.
We can't hide from pain, we'regonna experience it at some
times.
And sometimes a 10-minutemeditation, some deep breathing,
and focusing on the here and nowis all you need.
unknown (57:46):
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (57:48):
Thank you for you know bringing that up.
And one of the other things I'dlove to just kind of talk about
just for a couple seconds is ifyou are a person who has
somebody in your life who isstruggling with addiction, and
you're under you can'tunderstand the why, you can't
understand what's going on.
You can't, well, I can't believehe just does that.
(58:08):
I tell him to quit and he doesjust doesn't quit.
Or we we send him to you know a10-day recovery and he doesn't
he comes out and he gets goingagain.
A book like this and havingconversations with Michael like
this will help you understandwhat it truly takes and the
mindset of somebody who is inaddiction and why it's so
difficult, right?
(58:29):
And especially for people thatare on it, have addictions,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (58:33):
Right, and and we have to allow people to
experience the consequences oftheir choices.
So if they go to rehab and theyget out and go use again, maybe
the best thing isn't to takethem in.
Yeah, you know, maybe let themdon't do for others what they
can do for themselves, and don'tthink so little of people that
(58:54):
they can't figure it out becausethere are hundreds of thousands
of people who are willing tohelp your loved one.
It doesn't have to be you, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (59:03):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (59:03):
So let them go to a 12-step meeting, let them go to
a community center that has freecounseling, this, that, and the
other.
Let them go to a homelessshelter, let them go to a food
kitchen, you know, you know, letthem experien you know, let them
experience they made thatchoice.
SPEAKER_02 (59:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (59:23):
And until they can show some consistency in change,
maybe you don't take them backin.
But here's the other thing thatI will say I cannot tell you
what to do.
Of course.
You have to do what you think isbest.
I think one of the things thatscares people the most is if I
(59:45):
don't save them, if I don't dothis or that, they're gonna die
out there, they're gonna killthemselves, or something really
bad is gonna happen.
If that were true, half of thepopulation would be dead.
Yep.
So the worst case scenarioprobably isn't going to To
happen, here's what I ask peopleto ask themselves: what's the
worst thing that'll happen ifyou don't help?
What's the best thing that wouldhappen if you don't help?
(01:00:07):
And what's the most likely thingthat'll happen if you don't
help?
I love that.
And then you can come up withthe answer for that, you know,
of what to do next.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00:16):
Perfect, perfect.
Well, thank you so much forbeing part of uh the Journey
Freedom podcast today.
If this is your first one andyou're going, wow, this is good
stuff, go ahead and hit thesubscribe, hit the
notifications.
We have so many shows with justincredible people uh that are
talking just like we are.
I'm having Michael back.
We're gonna be part of thefireside chat.
You want to check out Becomingthe Person uh universe and the
(01:00:38):
becoming the person.com.
I'm telling you right now, it'sgonna be something that's gonna
help you uh just go down thatjourney of, hey, maybe you
haven't been hitting your goals,or maybe there's things that
you've been wanting to do uhthat you just don't know how to
do it.
Like, hey, maybe you wanted torun an ultra marathon.
Hey, let's talk to somebodywho's done it and says this is
what this is what it took.
Now, I'm not saying you need todo it in sandals, and I'm not
(01:01:01):
saying you need to do it in thedesert, but at some point, you
know, it's something you want todo, you know, it's something
that absolutely you should havethe ability to be able to do.
And so, Michael, it's been apleasure, it has been so fun to
have you on.
I can't wait to go back andcheck.
I got all my notes here.
I'm thinking of all the things Igotta go do now uh in my life
because I have till I'm 66, soI'm your age, in order to get
(01:01:23):
all the stuff you've done so Ican show you up a little bit,
but it's crunch time, it'scrunch time three out three
workouts a day and all that kindof stuff I gotta go do now.
Yeah, so that's crazy.
You have any one final thoughtthat you would love to just
share with everybody before webefore we leave?
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:39):
Um, you know, there is a solution, there is hope.
Um, you know, you just have tofind it.
And um, there are people who arewilling to help you.
I'm certainly willing to helpanyone who asks, um, and do the
best that I can to maybe putsomeone in the right direction.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02:02):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02:04):
Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02:05):
Hey guys, don't forget you're God's greatest
gift.
He loves you, Lounge.
I can't wait to see you on thenext one.
You guys have an amazing,awesome, just incredible day.
Hey, remember how Michael toldus at the beginning he's in love
with life, and you can be too.
So just make sure you check outhis book.
Uh, and we'll look forward totalking to you again.
See you soon.
All right.
All right.
Well, thank you guys for beinghere for another episode, just
another incredible episode thatI believe of the Journey to
Freedom podcast.
And I've I have so much fundoing this one because I get to
meet so many differentinteresting men.
And in this case, uh, we startedthis one about a year and a half
ago now.
Uh, and it's Journey to Freedom,and it's been black men uh that
(00:40):
have just been able to tell ourstories.
And I don't believe, Michael,that I've had a beekeeper yet uh
on the show.
Now I know my grandpa had awhole bunch of bees, and we
would move and we he was in uhuh central California, he had a
dairy, and then we would have togo to another spot where he had
all these bees.
Uh and I remember, you know, Iwould go in there and he would
(01:02):
say, roll up the windows of thetruck, and he would put on all
the stuff and he would smoke,you know, pull out the honey.
And oh, it was it was so fun asa kid being able to do that.
Uh, but then you're talkingabout the rain, and I didn't
understand that, you know, hewas telling me, like, I felt
like I was listening to BillNyder Tienes guy tell me about
the pollen and you know, beeseating up their own honey, and
(01:23):
then we don't get any of it ifthey eat all of it.
And you know, I knew a littlebit about the, you know, you
want to have um uh my grandpaused to tell me that you want to
have bees from the area in whichyou live in because that helps
you with the allergies uh fromthat area.
Because if you get if you gethoney from, you know, uh Michael
is in Florida.
If I get honey from Florida andI go out and and I'm rolling
(01:45):
around in the grass in Colorado,it's not gonna help me because
it's a whole different allergysystem and ecosystem.
And so that was cool.
But uh, you know, Michael isalso an author, and uh, you
know, I asked him before theshow uh in our in our green
room, like, what are you mostexcited about?
You know, and he said life.
And it's such a great answer inthis day and age where people
(02:09):
are excited about getting up inthe morning, you know, and the
things that they get to do, andhaving good friends, and having
food on the table.
And uh there's so many thingsthat when you watch like our uh
our news or you watch the mediaand they they give this bleak
picture every day of how bad ourlives could be.
(02:31):
You know, we hear about I I hada guy, um, I went into the
grocery store yesterday, and uhhe was asking me, you know, I
guess he was trying to sell anewspaper.
And what was funny is I'm like,newspaper, what's a newspaper?
Because it's been so long sinceI personally have actually read
a newspaper, and he was talkingabout the local paper, and I
(02:53):
told him, he said, I said, Ihaven't watched news in 15
years, and I haven't read anewspaper in at least 20 to 25
years.
And he goes, Well, don't youwant to get it for$9.99 a month?
We have this special.
I'm like, I just said I haven'tread a newspaper in 20 years,
and I haven't, you know, watchedthe newscast in 15.
Why would I want to starttomorrow?
(03:14):
And he goes, Well, because youneed to know what's going on and
able in order for you to act.
And I'm like, Do I do I need toknow what's going on where?
You know, if you tell me what Ineed to know that's happening in
Israel, I can't control what'shappening in Israel.
I mean, you know, people aretelling me, or if you tell me
what's happening in Ukraine, oryou know, even sometimes with
you know our our president thatwe have, you know, I'm like, I
(03:37):
don't know how much of whateverhe's saying I have the ability
to control or implement in mylife.
And, you know, if there'ssomething that major comes out,
I'm sure there's enough peoplewho will tell me.
But it was just so neat to haveyou, uh Michael, actually say,
I'm just excited about life.
You know, because I do talk toother folks that are around and
they're not excited becausethey're telling me that their
(04:00):
life is over because ofsomething that our president
said, or something that you knowthey think is gonna happen, or
AI is gonna take over the world,or all these other things.
And so uh thank you for sharingthat.
Now I've asked Michael to tellhis story.
I told him it could be it couldbe uh like I do all of our
guests start bay back in theday.
You know, he's only 29 now, soyou know, 29 years ago when he
(04:22):
started life, and uh he couldtell us all about that, or you
know, wherever he wants in life.
And so I can't wait to hear hisstory.
Uh, we'll chop it up after thatand have some more great
conversation.
Uh, Michael, thank you for beingon the show.
Uh, thank you for being patientwith me.
And we have some schedulingthings that went on and we've
rescheduled a few times, andit's just so neat to have people
(04:42):
that are willing to say, hey, Iget it.
That's life.
You know, I'm not gonna beupset, I'm not gonna be angry.
We'll we'll get this doneeventually.
And so I appreciate you for whoyou are and what you do.
And please go ahead and take thefloor now, share your story, and
we'll just kind of talk afterthat.
SPEAKER_00 (05:00):
Yeah, I um I really appreciate you having me here
today.
And my answer about um aboutlife, listen, I have a choice.
I can be happy about you know mylife and where I'm going, or I
can be unhappy about it.
Yeah, yeah, you you know, butI'm I'm gonna ignore, you know,
(05:24):
so so I have a choice aboutthat.
So anyone who's choosing to beunhappy, you know, that's their
thing.
It's not my thing.
You know, you also said I wasthe first beekeeper.
I am probably gonna be the firstof a lot of things today that
I'm gonna talk about.
(05:45):
And you know, one of the themesI think in my life and growing
up and and through my adulthoodis I have been the first in a
lot of things that I've done.
So I have done things thattypically my people, so to
(06:06):
speak, aren't that interested indoing.
So I wound up having to do italone, or the first one that
looked like me doing it.
You know, even as a child, evenyou know, me and my brothers
were the only ones in theneighborhood who swam.
So we all knew how to swim, andnobody else in the neighborhood
(06:31):
did.
Although everybody went to theYMCA, they had the summer
program, but a lot of those kidswould jump in the pool and they
would just be splashing aroundin the pool.
They didn't know how to swim.
Um, so we knew how to swim, youknow, in a very um in a larger
(06:53):
context of how they, you know,the I'm from New Haven,
Connecticut.
So I'm from a black community.
Everyone in my black community,for the most part, not everyone,
but a large portion went toBaptist church or Pentecostal
and you know, all of those kindsof churches.
(07:14):
Yeah, but we were Episcopalian.
Uh-oh.
So we were the only one in theneighborhood that was
Episcopalian, but our church wasthe largest black Episcopalian
church in the United States.
Oh, wow.
So obviously there were otherblack people in my church, but
on some level in theneighborhood, I felt alone
(07:36):
because I didn't go to theBaptist church or you know,
those kinds of churches.
My family's not from the south.
So we never went down south inthe summertime.
So, you know, there were therewas a lot of uh differences
growing up.
Um, you know, if if you know,just a little bit about my
(08:02):
story.
I come from a single uh parenthousehold.
My mother and father divorcedwhen, you know, I don't even
remember my father living in thehouse.
So it must have been.
I think I was born when mymother was 19.
So my father was gone by thetime I was by the time my mother
(08:24):
was 21, and I was two years oldbecause I had a younger brother
that was born 18 months afterme.
And I think as a kid, I feltlonely, but it wasn't something
that you could really talk.
Who okay, you're lonely.
Who are you gonna tell?
You know, um, my mother worked,she was a nurse, so she was
working all the time.
(08:45):
I we were babysat or stayed withmy grandparents who lived
upstairs from us.
But my grandmother andgrandfather were my grandfather
was born in 1898, my grandmotherwas born in 1902, so they were
from a completely another world,and um you just didn't go to
(09:07):
them with problems, you know.
It was one of those families,stop crying, I'll give you
something to cry about.
What's set in our house stays inour house.
You know, there are poorchildren in China, so what do
you got to complain about?
So, what we learned early on wasto, you know, keep it in within
ourselves and and not talk aboutit.
(09:28):
So I had a life where mycommunication skills were
limited, my fantasy life waslarge, um, and I did most things
on my own.
We were also raised to representthe black community, so we
always had to be good.
(09:48):
So on the outside I was good,but I was doing devious things
kind of in the shadows.
So what that did for me or howit manifested itself in my life
was I wound up being verydishonest.
(10:08):
Meaning, if you asked me aquestion, I would answer you,
but I would always give you theright answer versus the honest
answer.
And that's just how I livedthroughout my life.
You know, I got involved withdrugs early on in life, no other
reason other than curiosity.
Um, I was curious about whatdrugs did.
(10:31):
I used them.
I learned how to use them.
So anytime I was feelingsomething to um enhance the
feeling of excitement, I woulduse more drugs.
To dampen the feeling of shame,hurt, and anger, I would do more
drugs.
So I never learned how toprocess my feelings in a healthy
(10:55):
way.
I always used drugs to do thator food.
Um, you know, I graduated highschool.
Throughout school, I was just a,you know, a DC student.
I never really did well in anyschool.
I never really felt good aboutmyself as a bright or a smart
person.
(11:16):
Um, I was labeled as a slowlearner.
That's what they called it backthen.
My mother used to think I wasdeaf because I would daydream so
deeply that she when she wouldcall me, I wouldn't answer
because I'm thinking about, I'mfantasizing about something.
And most of the things that Ifantasized about were nature.
(11:37):
That's what I was interested in.
I wasn't interested in what theother kids in my neighborhood
were interested in.
I watched PBS, National GrantGeographics, Mutual of Omaha,
Wild Kingdom.
Those were the shows that Iwatched, and that's what I was
interested in.
And on some level, I feltalienated or different from my
(12:01):
peers because they wereinterested in other things.
And as a young boy, other thingsthat I misinterpreted, they were
interested in black things, andI was interested in white
things, and so I developed anegative kind of view of myself
(12:21):
around not being black enough.
And so there was always parts ofme that I had to hide.
I didn't want you to see mydeficits, so I would have to
cover them up.
I always kept myself at adistance from others, I used
(12:44):
humor, and I would get youbefore you got me.
And usually my get you wassomething verbal.
So how can I embarrass someone?
I was judgmental, I wascritical, but it was all these
techniques that I used toprotect myself.
(13:04):
Um, you know, long story short,I'm smoking crack.
Now I'm a grown-up smokingcrack.
I had the bright idea.
I used to work at the postoffice, and I was making, this
was in the early 80s, and I wasmaking about$28,000 a year.
That was good money back then.
So I figured out what my drugproblem was.
I made too much money.
(13:25):
So what I did was I marched downto the post office office and I
said, I quit.
Well, why are you leaving?
Well, because I got a drugproblem, and if I didn't make so
much money, I wouldn't do drugs.
So I quit the job and realized Istill had a drug problem and now
I don't have any money.
Um so that was a couple of yearsof active addiction.
Eventually I got into a rehab.
(13:47):
Um I got I got clean in therehab, I got a job, I got an
apartment, and my life startedto turn around.
I did some of the basic stuff,you know.
You know, I went to counseling,I went to a 12-step meeting, I
got a job, and I did all that.
After about two years, I got aletter from the rehab I went to,
(14:07):
and they said, Listen, we havean earth internship program.
If you're interested in it, wecan get you certified as an
addiction counselor for this forthe state of New York, and it's
a 13-month course.
Now, I've always identifiedmyself as not that smart because
I wasn't so book smart.
I wasn't great in math or any ofthat stuff.
(14:30):
But I got this internship.
I said, Well, how am I going todo an internship?
I got to move upstate New Yorkand do this internship, and
they're not going to pay me.
So, you know what?
I wrote letters to people and Iwas able to get donations to uh
pay for my gas, my food, and myrent for the first two or three
months in the internship.
(14:51):
And then eventually they offeredme some evening work on the
adolescent unit.
So the internship was two hoursof classroom in the morning, six
hours of experiential work onthe unit.
And that is the way that workedfor me in learning.
And I think the disservice I gotgrowing up in the educational
(15:14):
system was how they taught.
They taught in a way that wasn'tconducive for me to learn.
But this internship proved boy,two hours of classroom, six
hours of experiential so I canpractice what I just learned and
know how to do it, versus sit inclassroom all day and then they
(15:35):
give you homework at night.
I was so spaced out with ADHD orADD that I couldn't remember
anything I read anyway.
So the only way I got throughgrade school, junior high
school, and high school wasbasically memorizing or
remembering what somebody saidand what they did in front of
(16:00):
me, and then guessing theanswers.
And I guessed enough rightanswers to get a 60 in most
things and just barely pass.
So um the amazing thing about mylife has been if we're gonna
look at the dollar amounts, I'vemade as much money as any PhD or
(16:25):
MD or master's level clinician,and I have a high school
diploma.
But I am a bright individualthat's creative, and I don't
think things through the wayother people do, in that I'm not
(16:45):
gonna waste a whole lot of timefiguring something out, I'm
gonna just do it.
Yeah, like you know, whensomebody told me about the
beekeeping, I just ordered somebeehives, got some bees, and
talked to this guy.
Hey, so what do you think aboutyou know what do I need to do?
He just showed me what to do inyou know, an hour.
(17:06):
So now I've got these fivebeehives.
Most people, and in theinstruction around beehives, is
you got to process and learnabout bees about a year before
you even get a hive.
unknown (17:20):
Wow.
SPEAKER_00 (17:21):
So Amazon's limited.
That's another one of my firstthings.
Another guy, uh, you know, thisis about I I don't know, 15
years ago.
A guy said, Hey, you wanna umthis late, it was late, she
said, you want to run an ultramarathon?
And I said, Okay.
And I I was running, you know,five, 10 miles a day.
(17:42):
And and I said, Well, what's anultra marathon?
She said, Well, it's 155 miles,and we're gonna go 155 miles to
the Sahara Desert.
I said, 155 miles, how do you dothat?
She said, Oh, we do a marathon aday for for four days and 58
miles on the fifth day.
You want to join us?
I said, Yes.
So I told her yes.
(18:02):
I start training for this thing.
I said, There's no way I'm gonnabe able to finish this race.
So we get to the race day, wewind up in Egypt, we're getting
ready to run this race.
There's no way I'm gonna do 26miles tomorrow.
I ran, I got through the 26miles.
The first 18 miles, my shoeswelled up, my feet swelled up
(18:26):
so bad that I couldn't even wearmy sneakers anymore.
And I just happened to bring apair of Tevas with me.
So for 137 miles, I ran the restof the way in Tevas.
And each day that I had to dothe race, I said, I can't do
this.
But you know what?
I got up and did it anyway.
SPEAKER_01 (18:45):
And what's a teva before you go further?
What's it?
SPEAKER_00 (18:48):
Tevas are those old man um sandals that have the
bellcrove.
That um I'm an old man now, butI think in my mind like a young
man.
Um, so I call it old man uhsandals, yeah.
Sandals for for guys like me,you know.
Um so I ran that whole race inthe Tevas.
(19:10):
The the day that we did the thethe last day was the 58 miles.
And I I told them, I said,listen, they said, Oh, you can
rest here.
I said, if I rest, I'll fallasleep and I'll never get back
up.
I won't go.
SPEAKER_01 (19:21):
Yeah, I won't get back up.
SPEAKER_00 (19:22):
Um, so um I just kept going and I eventually um
was able to finish the race.
But uh the the organization wasthe four deserts.
They go to Egypt, they go toSouth America, they go to China.
If you do those first threeraces first, you get invited to
Antarctica.
And do you know I was the firstblack person to have ever, and
(19:48):
that race has been going on for20 years, and I was the first
black person to ever run it, andwe were in Africa, and there was
no other black people by therace that time that I did.
You know, um back in in the 90s,I was reading GQ magazine and I
was reading this article,Boulder Outdoor Survival School,
(20:09):
and they were people that werekind of living in the desert,
and the only gold was food,food, water, and shelter.
And um, I'm reading thismagazine and I'm talking, you
know, I tell my boss, oh, lookat this magazine.
These people are in the desert,you know, they're doing this,
that, and the other.
Boy, that sounds exciting.
He says, Well, why don't you doit?
(20:30):
I, you know, never thought aboutdoing it.
I said, Why not?
So I signed up for BoulderOutdoor Survival School.
It cost me a couple of thousanddollars.
People said, You're crazy,you're gonna pay money to live
in the desert, you know, and andlook for food, water, and
shelter.
I said, Yeah, because that'swhat I'm interested in.
You know, I'm not interested ingoing to Las Vegas and staying
(20:54):
at a really nice hotel.
Nice hotels come a dime a dozen,but you don't get an experience
like this unless you actually doit.
And after I did that thefollowing year, um I did a
primitive living course with theTerra Meharan Indians in the
mountains of Mexico, and thatwas a great experience.
Um, but I'm talking about all ofthis in the framework of what
(21:24):
recovery is.
Recovery from addiction isn'tjust about going to therapy,
counseling, and 12-stepmeetings, it's about recovering
your dreams and living them out.
And I think if the descriptionof recovery was larger than
(21:50):
going to treatment and 12-stepmeetings, it would be more
appealing to people.
Now, I know not everybody'sgonna want to run an
ultra-marathon, 155 miles to thedesert.
Not everybody wants to be keepbe a beekeeper, but most people
have dreams that areunfulfilled.
(22:13):
And if you have an addictionproblem, you probably have a
whole pile of dreams that areunfulfilled.
And the the only thing you haveto get right to begin to live
out those dreams is move towardsabstinence and becoming
abstinent.
So abstinence gets you in thedoor of recovery, and then you
(22:38):
get to do whatever you want whenyou're there, but you have to
figure out a way to getabstinent.
Now, I did the route of going toa 30-day treatment program.
Maybe somebody wants to dosomething different.
The 30-day treatment program, ifyou have insurance, is probably
the easier, softer way of doingit versus trying to do it in
(23:01):
your bedroom or you know, goingto counseling once a week or
something like that.
But my second job professionallywas in an intensive outpatient
program.
And half of the people in theintensive outpatient program
came there through a 30-dayprogram, and others came in off
(23:25):
the street.
And I don't know that there wasany difference around the
success rate for the ones thatcame from the 30-day program or
off the street.
The ones who engaged in therecovery process and kind of
followed the direction were theones that were successful.
These were the ones that mayhave been doubtful of what the
(23:48):
process was, but you know what?
I'm gonna trust these people,I'm gonna trust this guy for a
period of time.
For me, it was I'm willing totrust this process for a year,
and if it doesn't work for me,I'll go back and smoke crack.
I was able to put together ayear and it worked for me, and I
(24:11):
continued on.
So I have 36 years clean now,and I have no reason or want to
go back, but my recovery processhas had some basic ingredients.
The first one is abstinence, thesecond one is I have to get with
(24:33):
some like-minded people thathave a similar goal, but I also
have to start to takeresponsibility for my life and
my recovery, and I can't blameanybody else for me not being
able to do the things that Iwant to do and I need to do.
(24:55):
Listen, they say in life, youcan be anything you want in
life.
Okay, I don't want to be anastronaut, so I could never
become an astronaut because Ihave no desire to be an
astronaut.
But three years ago, I wanted tofeed live hyenas and I did that.
I went to Ethiopia and I fedlive hyenas.
(25:16):
That's what I wanted to do.
I wanted to climb Macha Picchu,I did that.
I wanted to climb Kilimanjaroand I did that.
I wanted to climb Mount Muru andI did that.
So everything that I've wantedto do, I've been able to do.
I was in Ethiopia in the hottestplace on earth, right?
And I met these people in avillage, and the guy says, ah,
(25:38):
the dust storm came and blew ourschool over.
So they don't have a schoolanymore.
I said, Oh, if I ever come backto Ethiopia, I'll bring you some
school supplies.
That was in June.
Later that year in August, I'mlooking at my pictures.
I said, I gotta go back toEthiopia.
I'm just drawn to this place.
But I said, Oh shit, I told thisguy I'm gonna bring him some
(25:59):
school supplies.
You know, I gotta get this guysome school supplies.
So I said, Well, let me come upwith a fundraiser.
I'll raise$1,800, I'll buy someschool supplies, and I'll bring
it over to Egypt.
I mean to Ethiopia.
So I did this fundraiser withina week.
I had raised$3,000.
(26:19):
Within three months, I hadraised$30,000.
So I said, without much thought,let me just fill out the
application in the IRS for a501c not-for-profit.
Filled it out, it got approved.
I got my not-for-profit.
So again, it wasn't about megetting a committee and people,
(26:40):
let's think about this thing andwe're gonna put this together,
we're gonna do this, and we'regonna create this
not-for-profit.
I just, whether I was naive, Isaid, screw it, let me just find
the application, I'll fill itout, and it got approved.
So now it's I was thereinitially in June.
By the following December, I'mback in Ethiopia with nine huge
(27:02):
suitcases that I'm bringing backto the school.
And I was able to bring enoughsupplies for three schools.
But the the the the the onething that really got me going
around this, and I'm gonna tellyou this is for everyone.
(27:23):
When that guy told me a duststorm blew over his school, and
I gotta tell you, I saw thesekids just innocent kids, they
were dirty, their clothesripped.
These are kids that theirparents, their grandparents,
their children, theirgrandchildren,
(27:44):
great-grandchildren will neverexperience in a lifetime a glass
of ice water.
I said, there is a need here,and I can't ignore this need.
My job is to respond to it.
And I started thatnot-for-profit, and I got those
(28:04):
kids school supplies.
I've been back three othertimes, and I bought computers,
other school supplies, and thislast time I got another bright
idea.
I said, How do we incentivizethese kids to come to school?
(28:25):
Let's keep it simple.
Food.
We gotta have a lunch program.
Yeah, so we gotta put a lunch,but how am I gonna do a lunch
program?
What am I gonna keep bringingthem food?
No, so I got them 300 chickens,so they lay eggs, and every kid,
and I made it, I made it veryclear to those people at the
school.
I said, these kids should begetting two eggs a day for
(28:48):
lunch.
Now, these are the kids that mayget two eggs in a year.
Now they're getting two eggs forlunch every day, five days a
week.
And I don't care that theculture doesn't offer that in
general, but I made it myrequest.
(29:09):
If I'm gonna help you, this iswhat I'm asking you to do.
Get them that stuff.
So I think we as human beings,as people, need to respond to
the needs of others.
That we're not on this planetalone.
And you know, maybe there's someself-caring reasons why I do it,
because maybe when I'm down andout, somebody will be there for
(29:33):
me and provide something.
And I'm I'm thinking, listen, ifI get down and out, I hope
somebody really lays out the redcarpet for me, gets me a nice
place to live and this, that,and the other.
Who knows what's going tohappen?
Um, but I respond when I seethere's a need versus ignoring
(29:55):
it or pretending like I don'tsee it.
And yeah, listen, I'm not handedout.
Money on the streets to everyhomeless person.
SPEAKER_02 (30:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (30:04):
But I'm talking about in a very general way.
You know, that's what I do.
And so recovery has afforded methe opportunity to respond to my
value system.
When I was in active addiction,I couldn't respond to my value
(30:24):
system.
But in recovery, I can.
Again, I've expanded myunderstanding of what recovery
is because travel, adventure,exercise, things like that are
important to me.
(30:45):
Also engaging and practicingspiritual principles, honesty,
integrity, perseverance,compassion, all of those things,
trust really work for me.
Earlier this year, I decided Iwasn't going to work and I was
going to take some time off todo some things.
(31:06):
So I increased my journaling,meditation.
I took a permaculture course.
I did some grounding work.
I'm walking around barefoot so Ican feel the earth.
I went to Africa and I climbedto Mount Muru.
(31:26):
Um and I wrote a book.
And I realized, well, I know mylife, and everybody's telling me
I'm an interesting person, sowhy not put it down on paper?
(31:47):
So I was able to work with acoach and I wrote a book.
I started in January, and thebook was finished in June, six
months.
I have a friend that's writing abook.
She's still been writing thebook now in three years.
Um, I used another method thatreally works for me because
sitting down with a pen and apiece of paper, writing 5,000
(32:11):
pieces of paper wasn't going towork for me.
So I recorded everything andthen had it transcribed into
words, and I put my booktogether that way.
Um and it's been prettysuccessful.
I, you know, I've just sold myfirst 500 copies, um, and the
book has been out for a month.
(32:33):
And the name of the book is uhThe Recovery Roadmap: A Guide to
Freedom and Adventure.
And for me, recovery has offeredme freedom.
Recovery is not always fromdrugs and I also had to recover
(32:54):
from my parents and what wastaught to me, right?
Because my parents andgrandparents were from a
different time.
So, I mean, when I grew up, oh,get a job at the post office or
the railroad or the city, youhad to get a job with a pension.
Well, that was true for mygrandparents and my parents
(33:18):
because of what was going onwith black people then, and they
were looking for security.
So I went and got a job at thepost office.
I did not like working at thepost office, although it paid me
well.
It wasn't a difficult job, butit was just boring.
The mail came in, the mail cameout.
(33:39):
As a child, when I was inschool, the person that I liked
the most in school, I respectedthe most, that I was most
interested in, was the guidancecounselor.
So I was naturally drawn tocounseling.
So when the internship came upfor me and was offered to me,
you know, I jumped on it becausethat's what I wanted to do.
(34:02):
Listen, when I completed theinternship, it wasn't like I
really knew how to be acounselor, um, but I had the
basic uh um understanding ofwhat counseling was.
I had the um the personality forit and the natural I was
(34:22):
naturally therapeutic.
So over time I got really goodat it.
And um I had been been workingin the field now for about 34,
35 years, and have reallycreated a great reputation for
myself.
But again, this year I reallywanted to take a break from that
(34:47):
kind of work and find out whatelse there was for me.
People say, Michael, you'recrazy.
You stopped working for um ninemonths, you didn't work.
Yeah, listen, I worked a littlebit, but I cut everything in
half and I had faith and Itrusted the process that
(35:08):
Michael, I've come this far andeverything has been okay.
Why can't I do a little bit moreand trust that things are going
to be okay?
So over the year I was able toget jobs that paid me a bulk
amount of money that was threeor four days, so I didn't have
(35:29):
to work all the time.
I could write my book, I couldexercise.
People are like, well, what areyou exercising all day?
Yeah, because I wanted to.
And I, you know, um, this bodyhas to last me a lifetime, and
I'm not gonna squander it, youknow, and put all my effort into
showing up for work and sleepingall day.
(35:52):
So I made a serious effort intoworking out.
So I work out, I don't know.
I do about three different, youknow, I do this this strength
training once a day, I do yogaonce a day, and I either cycle
(36:12):
or climb once a day.
So I do three separate workoutsa day, and I do that six to nine
times days in a row.
And I don't take days offbecause I know there'll be
naturally days that I don't wantto do it.
So I don't want to plan a dayoff.
Um, I just, when my body says,Michael, it's time to take a day
(36:34):
off, I take a day off.
And that's what I do.
I started a black men's journalgroup.
So I meet with these guys, wemeet every other week and we
have a journal book that we use.
We review the journal book, wereview our journal writings and
share with each other to kind ofdevelop a relationship that all
(36:56):
of us have agreed we haven'tbeen able to find out in the
streets or out in ourneighborhoods where people tend
to be superficial in yourrelationships with each other,
but you don't really get deep.
And especially as a group ofblack men getting deep.
(37:17):
Now, you can go to a 12-stepmeeting and people raise their
hand and share, but you can'treally give feedback on it.
You can't go back and forth onit.
And this group gives us anopportunity to do that.
So that's a really um um goodthing that I've been able to do.
Um, let me give you anotherfirst, maybe for your audience.
I climbed an active volcano.
SPEAKER_01 (37:40):
Was it hot?
SPEAKER_00 (37:42):
I gotta tell you, that place was hot.
I went to the hottest place onearth in Ethiopia.
And let me tell you something.
It was a hundred and twentydegrees at night.
It was so hot, it was justimpossible to go to sleep.
You could not go to sleep, youcouldn't take off any more
clothes than you took off, andyou're still hot.
(38:04):
You know what I mean?
It it was it was pretty tough.
Um, so um, you know, so I didwrite this book, and I was
really proud to be able todedicate, acknowledge two
mentors that I had um thatreally they gave me their
(38:28):
business in New York.
They said, Michael, you run it.
And they gave me supervisionaround it.
They were both um licensed uhsocial workers, they gave me
supervision around it, but theylet me run it, and they trusted
that I could run it.
And I ran it, I did a good job,but I didn't always feel good.
(38:51):
You know, I felt insecure likean imposter, but I've realized
now that we grow over time, andeven though you know, you know,
I don't know, I'm in recoveryfor whatever period of time, in
(39:13):
my 60s, I'm starting to feel theconfidence, the security that I
would have hoped for in my 40sand 50s.
But you know what?
I didn't have it.
It was all a front.
I don't know if it was all afront, but I wasn't, but I can
(39:34):
really feel it now.
And I don't say like I gotregrets because I didn't do it
then.
Back then I was doing somethingelse and I was enjoying life,
even though maybe if I look atit now, I was maybe I was a
phony or whatever in in certainaspects.
But now it's all matching up.
My insides match my outsides.
(39:54):
I'm not perfect, I still have alot of areas to grow in, but I
certainly have come a long wayin a short period of time.
So um you know, yeah.
So that's I don't know, that'smy story.
SPEAKER_01 (40:10):
I don't know if you have any questions or um oh
gosh, I got like I got a big oldbook of questions and she I mean
this is this is incredible.
And I thank you for for sharing,especially when you know, I used
to run a homeless services um uh50-bed facility here here in
Denver, Colorado.
(40:32):
And when we talked aboutrecovery, everybody always
wanted to talk about the stepplans and the you know what
we're gonna do in therapy andthe group meetings.
And I I am so incredibly happythat you shed some light on
recovery, isn't going to a classonce a week and then thinking
(40:52):
that you're cured.
SPEAKER_00 (40:55):
Let me tell you, the when I went to Colorado um four
years ago, part of my recoverywas climbing Mount Vale.
Okay, but also downtown Denver,I forgot that area, there's a a
gym called there's a climber gymthere.
Yes, yeah.
So I I went because I have aclimber at home, and I said, you
(41:17):
know what?
I want to experience it in thelive studio.
So I went to the live studio andexperienced my climber machine.
I'm on a um, they have a contestevery month, a competition every
month, and I'm on thecompetition this month, and it's
usually a 40 or 50,000 um footclimb.
(41:39):
And I'm 66 years old.
So I'm competing with 30, 40,and 50 year olds, and I gotta
tell you, every month, everymonth, I'm in the top five.
So I'm doing good.
And last year, I self-identifiedmyself, I labeled myself, I
(42:02):
titled myself a professionalathlete.
So the NFL didn't do it, ESPNdidn't do it, I did it.
I don't need anybody else totell me I'm not, I am a
professional athlete.
And I've never played on a teambefore, and I've never been paid
for my athleticism, but here Iam, professional athlete.
So maybe I'm your firstprofessional athlete,
(42:24):
self-proclaimed professionalathlete on your show.
SPEAKER_01 (42:27):
Well, I gotta, I gotta, you know, I gotta reach
back into the day because I'm 60now, so I I gotta go back into
my athletic days, but we gottaget you sponsored.
When I when I think of um, youknow, the the Nike just do it,
uh, that is you.
You're not like let's thinkabout it, let's talk about it,
let's let's analyze it.
(42:48):
You're like, let's do it, andyou actually do it.
I I gotta figure out who I gottasend this video to so that we
can get you, you know, someshoes.
SPEAKER_00 (42:56):
But the thing is, if if you don't just do it, there's
a tendency to talk yourself outof it.
SPEAKER_01 (43:03):
Of course, of course, and then when it hurts a
little bit, it's even worse,right?
It's like if I sit down, I'm notgetting back up, and uh, you
know, we so we gotta get thisover to somebody who can can get
you some of those that gear,because you should never do 159
miles with some sandals.
I don't care who 58 miles or130, however many you told me
(43:25):
you're doing.
And I I was just as as you weregoing through some of these
things, and I was thinking aboutsome of my life and the things
that that I you know do, youknow, because I grew up here in
Denver, so you know, I too nevertraveled to the South.
I took I took 18 black men to uhBirmingham, Selma, and
Montgomery last January, and wedid a civil rights tour, and you
(43:49):
know, I I went on the tour oneyear before.
I'm like, oh my gosh, I had noidea the South was like like
people who just traveled fromthe north to the south.
And I was like, and so I grew upswimming, and you know, I was a
lifeguard at a beach and allthat kind of stuff, and you
know, I I'm just thinking aboutall the things you do.
Then I thought about your book.
(44:11):
And you know, I have I have aum, I'm only five years younger
than you, so I'm not, you know,we're it's it's like we grew up
in the same era, but theylabeled me special education or
or special needs uh inelementary school because I
wasn't reading, I wasn't keepingup, and I wasn't I wasn't doing
anything uh that they told me Ishould be doing, and I wasn't
(44:34):
learning in a way they thought Ishould be learning, and so I was
behind, and they put me in thesetrailers and I didn't go to
mainstream classes with the withwith everybody, and that's so I
wasn't going to college, I wasgoing to go to stunt school.
I want to be a STEM man, and soI was gonna do that.
I just happened to be a prettygood athlete, and my mom begged
me.
She likes, if you just go tocollege, we got scholarship
(44:57):
offers here.
If you just go to college, Iwill buy you a Jeep when you
graduate from college.
And right, you you you can kindof imagine that for me.
Okay, I'll go to school for fouryears just so I can have a Jeep.
You know, what else am I doing,anyways?
Right?
I'll postpone some school, but Iwent to school in California so
I could be close to Hollywood.
(45:18):
Uh, ended up going through, youknow, an education system, uh,
and and I'm doing a talk nextweek at a at a place in Texas.
And part of my speech is Ididn't realize that I wasn't
this special ed student until Iwas doing my PhD.
And and I'm doing it, and I'mgoing to the disability office
(45:43):
where I've been getting myaccommodations throughout all
this thing, right?
I get accommodations to takelonger to take tests, I get, you
know, longer to write, I getwriting help, all that kind of
stuff.
And I realized this at the endof my uh when I go to the
disability office and they say,We got nothing.
We don't have anybody who canhelp you at this point.
You've reached this level whereyou're at the place of like, oh,
(46:09):
I guess I'm really not thatspecial a kid that they labeled
me.
You know, and then I look atyou, Michael, and I go, What?
You've done everything that I'vedone through a system, but on
your own.
And so, how can we get you thathonorary doctorate or whatever
it is?
I mean, yeah.
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (46:28):
And it, and you know, um, and again, I am a high
school graduate that gotcertified in addiction
counseling, and I was good atit.
All you have to do is find outsomething that you're good at.
I gotta tell you, I was, youknow, when you're telling me
about stunt man, I said, boy,that's I wonder if he ever
(46:51):
became a stunt man.
I mean, I was more interested inyou becoming a stunt man, you
know, than going to college, youknow.
Um, that sounded interesting andexciting to me.
Um, and you know, like when Iwas younger, I wanted to be an
actor, but I realized that Ican't act.
You know, um, as soon as you putme in front of a camera in that
(47:13):
way, I become stiff andunnatural.
But I can do this, I can do thisall day long, you know.
Um, you know, and how I prep forthings like this is I just do,
you know, 45 minute or 60-minuteworkout, and then I'm on fire.
(47:35):
I can talk till the cows comehome, you know, after a great
workout.
And also for me, a great workoutreally helps with depression.
You know, I think there there,yes, I have experienced
depression in my life, and Ihave tried antidepressants in
(47:58):
the past, they they worked, butI also realize that exercise
works.
So as long as I exercise, Idon't need to take a pill or an
antidepressant.
I just need to exercise.
And again, this body has to lastme a lifetime.
And um one of the things thatone of the things that I'm
(48:23):
really understanding and I wanteverybody to know when
opportunity comes, it's too lateto prepare.
So we need to engage in thepreparation now because
opportunity and tragedy is rightaround the corner, and if you're
(48:49):
not prepared for it, it willoverwhelm you.
And so my journaling, mymeditation, my exercise, my
engagement with people are allmy preparation for what's
happening next.
(49:10):
And um I just really I justreally believe that.
And I think oftentimes peopleare not prepared for life and
what life has to offer them ortake away from them.
SPEAKER_01 (49:26):
Yeah, it's like they can't, they're not ready to take
advantage of, you know, I haveum, you know, I just finished a
book called uh Be Do Have, soit's becoming the person that
God puts you on this earth tobe, you know, instead of trying
to do it and have it first.
And we spend so much time havingit.
How do we become like, are weprepared for the opportunity
when it shows us shows up andsays, okay, we're ready to run
(49:50):
an ultra marathon.
Well, if you hadn't even beenrunning five, ten any miles at
all, now you're not you're notprepared to take advantage of
that opportunity that comes outand then to be able to do it.
And so much of our time is is sostuck thinking about what we
want to do that we don'tactually ever get those
experiences.
Like you talked about those kidsin the pool, right?
(50:11):
They'd run and jump in the pool,but there was the there's
probably the opportunity was thewhy, right?
The why's gonna teach you how todo this right, all you want to
do is jump in the pool.
Well, I can remember when I wasa lifeguard at the at the water
park, I had all these littleblack children jumping in the
wave pool, and I'm in there allday saving them because they
don't know how to swim, right?
(50:32):
I'm like, what the what is goingon here?
Where why don't you go take afew slips?
Then this experience is gonna befun, and you're not having a
near-death experience every timeyou get in the water, and and
you know what it is though.
SPEAKER_00 (50:45):
I listen, I'm not a parent, but I I do have a
parent, uh-huh, and my mothermade sure we learned to swim
from kindergarten to fifthgrade.
We went to private school.
My mother filled out the formsand got us scholarships into the
(51:06):
private schools.
If I did, I gotta tell you, if Idid not go to those private
schools, I never would havegraduated high school, I would
be imprisoned, I would have noteeth, I would be acting and
looking like all of thosepeople, not all of the people
(51:26):
that I grew up, but some ofthem.
I um part of what gets me in thedoor in a lot of places is I
speak well.
Yeah, yeah, and my voice and myspeaking ability gets me through
the door.
Listen, a lot of people talk tome, and just in the work that I
(51:49):
do, they call me doctor.
They they just assume I'm adoctor.
I talk apparently like a doctor,and um, it gets me through the
door.
And if I didn't have the parentthat I had, listen, my mother
went to nursing school, shebecame a nurse, and she worked
(52:10):
all the time.
She worked 11 to 7 and sleptduring the day, and my and we
lived with my grandparents.
So my grandparents kind ofhelped raise us.
My grandmother was tough, shedidn't play around with nothing.
I'm giving an example of her.
Like if we were at our houseevery Saturday, we had to, you
(52:32):
know, clean the kitchen floor.
So my grandmother was like,there's only one way to do it.
On your hands and knees with abucket, with Ajax and a scrub
brush.
Yep, she didn't believe in mops.
No, because you can't get totell you, you can't get a clean.
(52:53):
And listen, my grandmotherdidn't believe in showers.
She said you can't you can't getclean in the shower.
Your body needs to soak, youknow.
Um, so you could only she wouldnever she wouldn't get a shower
in a house, you'd have to get abit of bathtub.
SPEAKER_01 (53:06):
Dirty water, right?
SPEAKER_00 (53:07):
Yeah, and dirt dirty water because she wasn't gonna
waste water either.
So whichever one of me and mybrothers got in the bathtub
first, got the clean water, andthe rest of them just soaked in
the dirty water.
Yeah, but there was a rigid wayto do things, and I gotta tell
you, that rigidity also saved mylife because it prevented me
(53:29):
from doing some of the thingsthat I could have would have
done in my active addiction andin my young life that I just
didn't do because she deemedthose, she deemed she knew what
was right and what was wrong.
And I there were some things Ijust couldn't bring myself to do
(53:51):
because of her teachings.
So I give a lot of um umreverence to to my grandmother
in in literally saving my life.
SPEAKER_01 (54:06):
Oh, that is so cool.
Michael, I want to I want to uhwe got about six or seven
minutes left, and I want to makesure we talk about some of the
things you want to, especiallyyour book.
I have a community that I'mstarting, it's called Becoming
the Person Universe.
And if you go to becoming theperson.com, if you're here and
watching it, uh go there.
We're gonna talk about these.
I'm gonna do a fireside chatthat I would love to have you
(54:30):
on, and we just talk aboutrecovery and we talk about your
book and the things that you'velearned from recovery.
And there's so many people thatare out there that are that are
believing that maybe if I justdo a little bit of therapy, if I
just, you know, you like yousaid, you were able to go, it's
cheaper, you know, I'm makingtoo much money to have this
addiction, and you know, andthen you realize it has nothing
(54:52):
to do with the money, it has todo with my mindset and what I'm
doing.
And so maybe we can come backand circle back and just have
people be able to ask usquestions, and you know, I'll
put you on the spot here becauseI'm gonna make you come on,
anyways, because I can't wait tohave that conversation with you.
But before we leave today, uh,how do people get a hold of you?
How do they get to your book?
How do they what else do youwant to make sure that we get uh
(55:14):
in our time?
This has been so amazing.
So thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (55:17):
Yeah, you can go on Instagram, coach Michael Herbert
on Instagram and TikTok.
I'm also on Instagram as MichaelA.
Herbert.
I'm on recovery guide onFacebook.
Um, my book is called I don'tit'll probably show up backwards
(55:38):
here, but it's got a um it's therecovery roadmap, a guide to
freedom and adventure.
And you can get that on Amazonor um or Barnes and Noble.
But I would ask if anybody getsit on Amazon or Barnes and Noble
that you'd be willing to write areview.
(55:58):
Yeah, so and and just let meknow your thoughts about it, but
let other people know becausethis is an important book for
people to read and get a deeper,broader understanding of what
(56:21):
recovery is and what life has tooffer after drugs.
And let me also include in mydrug thing: nicotine is a drug,
and if you're smoking andvaping, it's more people die of
(56:42):
nicotine-related deaths thancrack or heroin.
So don't get it, don't getfooled by, oh, I don't want, you
know, I can't give up everythingat once.
You can give up everything atonce, it gets out of your system
in about three or four days, andthen the rest is all
psychological.
And one of the things that Ialso have learned
(57:05):
psychologically, it is painfulto not do something you want to
do.
And this is where meditationcomes in.
Meditation will help you dealwith difficult things without
having to take a drag off acigarette or a vape or take a
pill over.
(57:25):
But meditation will help you totolerate the pain that's gonna
come in life on some level,anyway.
We can't hide from pain, we'regonna experience it at some
times.
And sometimes a 10-minutemeditation, some deep breathing,
and focusing on the here and nowis all you need.
unknown (57:46):
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (57:48):
Thank you for you know bringing that up.
And one of the other things I'dlove to just kind of talk about
just for a couple seconds is ifyou are a person who has
somebody in your life who isstruggling with addiction, and
you're under you can'tunderstand the why, you can't
understand what's going on.
You can't, well, I can't believehe just does that.
(58:08):
I tell him to quit and he doesjust doesn't quit.
Or we we send him to you know a10-day recovery and he doesn't
he comes out and he gets goingagain.
A book like this and havingconversations with Michael like
this will help you understandwhat it truly takes and the
mindset of somebody who is inaddiction and why it's so
difficult, right?
(58:29):
And especially for people thatare on it, have addictions,
right?
SPEAKER_00 (58:33):
Right, and and we have to allow people to
experience the consequences oftheir choices.
So if they go to rehab and theyget out and go use again, maybe
the best thing isn't to takethem in.
Yeah, you know, maybe let themdon't do for others what they
can do for themselves, and don'tthink so little of people that
(58:54):
they can't figure it out becausethere are hundreds of thousands
of people who are willing tohelp your loved one.
It doesn't have to be you, yeah.
SPEAKER_02 (59:03):
Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00 (59:03):
So let them go to a 12-step meeting, let them go to
a community center that has freecounseling, this, that, and the
other.
Let them go to a homelessshelter, let them go to a food
kitchen, you know, you know, letthem experien you know, let them
experience they made thatchoice.
SPEAKER_02 (59:23):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (59:23):
And until they can show some consistency in change,
maybe you don't take them backin.
But here's the other thing thatI will say I cannot tell you
what to do.
Of course.
You have to do what you think isbest.
I think one of the things thatscares people the most is if I
(59:45):
don't save them, if I don't dothis or that, they're gonna die
out there, they're gonna killthemselves, or something really
bad is gonna happen.
If that were true, half of thepopulation would be dead.
Yep.
So the worst case scenarioprobably isn't going to To
happen, here's what I ask peopleto ask themselves: what's the
worst thing that'll happen ifyou don't help?
What's the best thing that wouldhappen if you don't help?
(01:00:07):
And what's the most likely thingthat'll happen if you don't
help?
I love that.
And then you can come up withthe answer for that, you know,
of what to do next.
SPEAKER_01 (01:00:16):
Perfect, perfect.
Well, thank you so much forbeing part of uh the Journey
Freedom podcast today.
If this is your first one andyou're going, wow, this is good
stuff, go ahead and hit thesubscribe, hit the
notifications.
We have so many shows with justincredible people uh that are
talking just like we are.
I'm having Michael back.
We're gonna be part of thefireside chat.
You want to check out Becomingthe Person uh universe and the
(01:00:38):
becoming the person.com.
I'm telling you right now, it'sgonna be something that's gonna
help you uh just go down thatjourney of, hey, maybe you
haven't been hitting your goals,or maybe there's things that
you've been wanting to do uhthat you just don't know how to
do it.
Like, hey, maybe you wanted torun an ultra marathon.
Hey, let's talk to somebodywho's done it and says this is
what this is what it took.
Now, I'm not saying you need todo it in sandals, and I'm not
(01:01:01):
saying you need to do it in thedesert, but at some point, you
know, it's something you want todo, you know, it's something
that absolutely you should havethe ability to be able to do.
And so, Michael, it's been apleasure, it has been so fun to
have you on.
I can't wait to go back andcheck.
I got all my notes here.
I'm thinking of all the things Igotta go do now uh in my life
because I have till I'm 66, soI'm your age, in order to get
(01:01:23):
all the stuff you've done so Ican show you up a little bit,
but it's crunch time, it'scrunch time three out three
workouts a day and all that kindof stuff I gotta go do now.
Yeah, so that's crazy.
You have any one final thoughtthat you would love to just
share with everybody before webefore we leave?
SPEAKER_00 (01:01:39):
Um, you know, there is a solution, there is hope.
Um, you know, you just have tofind it.
And um, there are people who arewilling to help you.
I'm certainly willing to helpanyone who asks, um, and do the
best that I can to maybe putsomeone in the right direction.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02:02):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (01:02:04):
Yeah, thank you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:02:05):
Hey guys, don't forget you're God's greatest
gift.
He loves you, Lounge.
I can't wait to see you on thenext one.
You guys have an amazing,awesome, just incredible day.
Hey, remember how Michael toldus at the beginning he's in love
with life, and you can be too.
So just make sure you check outhis book.
Uh, and we'll look forward totalking to you again.
See you soon.
All right.
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