What I Wish I Knew at 14 featuring Mr. Martin Simms

In this intimate episode, Dr. Branch sits down with Mr. Martin Simms for a vulnerable conversation about pain, purpose, and perseverance. At just 14, Martin witnessed a traumatic event that shaped his life in unexpected ways. He opens up about navigating grief, depression, and the challenge of growing up while carrying emotional weight no child should bear. Through therapy and a willingness to try things he had never done before, Martin developed deeper emotional intelligence and learned to trust himself. His journey explores the impact of sports, the power of dreaming beyond one's environment, and his connection to Dr. Bruce Perry’s Neurosequential Model of Therapeutics. Martin also reflects on grief, loss, and how basketball has become a tool for healing, not just for himself, but also for the youth he now coaches and mentors. This episode invites you into the “basement,” where real stories are told and fundamental transformation begins. Martin’s story reminds us that sometimes our pain is preparing us for our purpose.

🎯 3 Challenges (Lifework)
 Reflect on a moment from your childhood that has shaped your perspective on the world. What did it teach you, and what are you still learning from it today?

Try something you’ve never done before—especially if it might help you grow emotionally, mentally, or spiritually.

Do something for an old version of yourself.
Pick an age when you felt lost, unheard, or unseen. Maybe it was 14. Maybe younger. Do one small act this week that honors that version of you.

Write them a letter, revisit a place they felt safe, or give someone else the kindness you needed back then.

This episode is brought to you by our amazing sponsor:J Branch & Associates: Schedule your free 15 minute consultation by going to www.drjbranch.com; call or text [phone] 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
Three Parallel, three Parallel, three Parallel, three Parallel Pod.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
Welcome back to the Three par Levels podcast, which a
host d Doctor Jason Branch, where we rediscover who we were,
we embrace who we are, and we make room for
who we're trying to become. On today's show, y'all are
ready No when I bring in family, were gonna have
a good time. So me and this guest were gonna
we have a good time anyway. We just inviting y'all in,
and we're inviting y'all in at a time that's perfect

(00:32):
for whoever's listening at this time. Please know, there are
no coincidences. There are only ripples and bread crumbs, meaning
every day, all day. The bread crumbs are already they
are hitting the plain sight. The ripple is from me
throwing a pebble in the pond, meaning doing anything new,
different and uncomfortable.

Speaker 3 (00:50):
I'm going to get something back.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
This guest has been pouring out from the beginning and
he hasn't stopped yet.

Speaker 3 (00:58):
The switch that he's made is hold on. I can't
give everybody everything and not give me nothing. Time out.

Speaker 2 (01:05):
And that switch brought a perspective, and that perspective created
a different version of this brother. So we met at
doing a podcast, another podcast with morel house relate to
man his mental health. It's just me and him and
the hosts and we hop on the call.

Speaker 3 (01:24):
And we speak in the same language.

Speaker 2 (01:26):
Were going back and forth and it's just we just
having a conversation. Although we met, just met, we feel
like family. I feel like this brother is cooking a
steak on a grill and I got the drinks ready
for him when he gets done.

Speaker 3 (01:36):
Like it was just love from the beginning.

Speaker 2 (01:39):
And before I could even ask him to serve as
a guest on the show, he asked me.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
Yo, you got wrong.

Speaker 2 (01:44):
It was done in that moment. That's what this show is.
This brother is bad. I'm talking about Michael Jackson, Michael
Jordan's Magic Johnson.

Speaker 3 (01:55):
Any mj you know that's great. This is him.

Speaker 2 (01:57):
This brother is an ally, an advocate for mental health
and wellness. He's a black male who has been the therapy,
who talks about therapy, who talks about his emotions and feelings.
I need y'all to know, ladies, these brothers exist. I'm sorry,
we exist in these streets. Okay, So everybody ain't somebody.
Everybody's this person right, the best version of ourselves. This

(02:19):
brother is a neuro sequential sports specialist who specializes in
helping himself while helping other people in different mediums that
all connects to health and wellness. Ladies and gentlemen, I'd
love to introduce you to mister brother, Martin Simms.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
Welcome to the show, Baby.

Speaker 1 (02:38):
Thanks for having me. Thank Davi, and I appreciate your
introduction to.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
Hey, I got you, I got you.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
So let's dive in neuro sequential sports specialist. Let's start here, gotcha.

Speaker 1 (02:51):
Yeah, So, back in twenty twenty, I started a This
would have been maybe six seven months after my therapy started,
maybe around that. So my therapy started with couples therapy
with my wife my therapist, preparing for a baby. And

(03:18):
so I got into the neuro sequential model by doctor
Bruce Perry, who wrote a book with Oprah Caled What
Happened to You, And at that time he had wrote
the book, he had another book by the name of
The Boy that was Raised as a Dog. And The
Boy that was Raised as a Dog goes over like
eight or nine different scenarios, the kids dealing with childhood

(03:39):
trauma and with their outcomes. Were based on various environmental scenarios,
who their caretakers were, how their caretakers dealt with them,
and whatnot. And so the new sequential model started off
in therapeutic spaces, it moved into foster homes, it moved
into schools, and then it moved into sports. And it

(03:59):
moving into sports kind of coincided with the timing in
which I got introduced to the neuro sequenttional model in
the first place. So right around the time my son
was born, I went ahead and started another AAU program
in the middle of the lockdowns. In the middle of that,
I just had a baby and I just had my
ACL surgery. So like I had an ACL surgery on

(04:21):
a Friday, we started a on it Monday, and I'm
on crutches. I got people helping me get into the
gym and all that stuff. But this was gonna be
my first time learning all of that stuff that I
learned throughout therapy, me studying the neual sequential model, and
then I got a chance to apply it after. You know,

(04:41):
I was in Houston, so the lockdowns wasn't as deep
as it was in California, right, so we were able
to do some teams some things that if I was
in California, we would not have been able to do,
but in Texas we were able to do it. And
I started implementing neuro sequential concepts to my team and

(05:02):
they responded great. Understand they was already going through the
pandemic in the lockdowns, they weren't having school at the time,
and then there was the George Floyd scenario in which
there was a lot of protests going on and a
lot of things that they were now resonating with at
the time, and so giving them certain tools to be

(05:23):
able to regulate their nervous system, to be able to
understand how to breathe, how to ground, how to you know,
use affirmations. There was a lot of things that we
implemented during that season that eventually the following year, the
Junior NBA nominated their program for Program of the Year

(05:44):
and that was my first program. So it was like,
and you know, coming off of acl surgery with a
baby that ain't even threw two months old, trying to
run a basketball season. You know, my wife was looking
at me like what do you Yeah, I know, but
I had that prompt and you know, I listened to
it and I followed it, and a year later that

(06:05):
put me into a national recognition for my first program
that I ran by myself, not by myself, I had
a team, but that was my program. And so coincidentally enough,
that was the same month that doctor Pierro wrote the
book with Oprah, they released What Happened to You Book
with Oprah, and I ended up they called wind of

(06:27):
the nomination and I ended up getting in the certification
program that they had gone And that was awesome because
I already had implemented a lot of the information that
I knew. I did learn a lot more on the
certification process, but I already had implemented things with teams,
knew how it was would resonate with certain athletes and whatnot,

(06:49):
and it really really resonated with one of my most
disregulated athletes. And probably and as far as trophies is concerned,
we didn't win as many trophies, we didn't playing as
many tournaments that season, but I had a moment in
one of our last tournaments where I called the time
out to call my team and to run a play,

(07:13):
and my most disregulated, my most disregulated athlete historically, came
to the huddle, got everybody huddled up and they did
some breathwork exercise before I started talking. They don't have
a trophy big enough for that moment for me in
terms of something that was something that I needed personally

(07:35):
through therapy, I learned it and was able to apply
it to my own life and then be able to
share that with a team that I had been coaching
for years. We just the pandemic gave it an opportunity
for me to do it without the jurisdiction of another organization,
and I could do it how I felt like what
they needed and it was what I needed. They just
got it earlier than I needed. I got it when

(07:56):
I was thirty three. They got it at sixteen, seventeen
years old, and so uh and to see me not
prompt that uh breath work scenario, that was it for me.
So I've been so since that moment on who will
gather this information or who would resonate with and then

(08:19):
they turn it into a practice, And so that moment
was that was everything for me. Like they don't I
have trophies. I got metals, you know, I got a
lot of I call my metals win chimes because I
like not win, like wins, winsday.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
When I love it.

Speaker 1 (08:34):
It's a lot of them. And I was always competitive
like that when I played, and I know I impart
that into the teams that I play with, but it's
it's not winning at all costs. And so that's what
I need the industry to use sports industry to understand.
It's like, we're not trying to damage these kids with wins.
And I see a lot of that, and that's what

(08:55):
I'm trying to disrupt, Like you could still win without
damaging the kids in the process.

Speaker 2 (09:02):
Oh wait man, oh brothers mardin. There's so many avenues
we can go right now, Like there's so many streets.
There's so many different directions and all of them are good.
All of them are good. Number One, thank you for sharing,
you your authenticity, your transparency off the rip. You know
to say, I went to therapy and you know, went

(09:22):
to therapy to prepare for a baby, Like I need
you to hear what you're saying. I went to therapy
with my wife. We went a couple of therapies to
prepare for a baby. Come on, I need you all
to hear this. You're talking about things that we as
a community, as a culture more often than not, don't
talk about don't do. So you did it, and I
want to start there, but there's so many other ways

(09:42):
I want to go. And I'm just going to share
a couple of things and then you can decide which direction.
So that's the first, you know, just the conversation about
therapy and to be confident and comfortable in sharing your
truth and not worried about what anybody thinks, says whatever.
That took you to become a different version of yourself
to get there. That's Oneumber two. Emotional intelligence you're displaying,

(10:03):
you're teaching, you're showing, you're learning. You were a student first,
then you became a teacher to these students in this arena,
and obviously fact it's an evidence what you do. What
you did had an impact way bigger than any trophy.
That's number two. Number three, I'm shut up one day,
but not two day. Number three for you and again,

(10:26):
have this passion to serve on crutches acl newborn. Regardless
of what was going for you going on for you
at the time, you still were on the mission to serve.
So those three lanes we can go wherever, whenever. But
that's what I want to dive into.

Speaker 1 (10:43):
Okay, my drive to serve is it's duality. It's both
for me and for them. So when I was for
ten years old, I was playing basketball, was trying to
become AI. I guess like I love Ay. I wanted

(11:07):
to be an Alan Irison style player. Now, I was
always myself because that's what AI was about, Like you
still had to be yourself. But you know, I wanted
to play and I was in the ninth grade. I
had never made a team before, not a basketball team.
I played soccer prior. And so that summer I built

(11:27):
the basketball goal outside my mom's house and we's practicing,
playing all the time. My house became a spot and
we had a headlight, like not a hadlight, but a
street light right in front of my mom's household. The
sun going down then stop us from playing. It just
made it a different games of night game now, right.

(11:49):
So you know I had neighbors and they probably was
like man, they playing all night, right, And so that
was that summer. I made the team in the ninth grade,
but we still kept playing with the kids in the neighborhood.
So right around Christmas actually December twenty third, my neighbor
who they was elderly couple, not they want super elderly.

(12:11):
At the time, they had a son named thirty. His
name is Craig. He's thirty three at the time. He
comes outside and he's like, and yaw, young boys can't
play no basketball. I'm like, man, bring your old self
out here there. What's up talking noise? Like, let's get it.
And we played. He came out, he want to go
get his brother. His brother came out. It was three.
It was me and three of my friends. It was

(12:31):
two of them. So I jumped on their team play
against my poppems because I'm competitive, want to I want
to smoke with whoever won't smoke with me. Let's get it.
And so I played on they team. I played with
the old guys, and so of course thirty three not old,
but I'm fourteen years old at the time. And we
played the first game. My friends beat us the first

(12:51):
game and it wasn't even. It wasn't close. It wasn't
like they blew us completely out. We got some points,
we got some stuff in, but it wasn't like that.
Then the next game, it was a hard for our
game we played. It might have been to the end,
you know, when you gotta douce it up and like
win by two type games like that. Probably went back
and forth to win by two, maybe three or four
time before we actually won that game. So at the

(13:13):
end of that game, we playing like everybody's tired. It's cold.
It's probably forty degrees cold enough to see your breath,
you know what I mean, that type of type of temperature.
We you know, it's one one. You know what's supposed
to happen at this one one. I don't care what
the temperatures like. If we played the first two games
and the score tied or in the games the time
we gotta do a tie breaker. Yeah, right before the

(13:35):
time breaker, Craig had a heart attack and then he
passed in my house.

Speaker 3 (13:41):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
And so I I didn't take that will And I
had just met Craig that day, So he really came
to my house on like the last thirty forty five
minutes of his life.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (13:55):
And I never was able to process that when I
was in scho I never was able to process that
as a fourteen year old, and there was no I
didn't know the avenue they were to help me at
the time. There was no mental health talk other than
if you you know, you go to the crazy house.

(14:16):
There was no traumatic experience, no trauma informed schools, and
so ultimately academic problems became behavior problem. Behaving problem became
I'm going to multiple different schools. I ended up going
to afford it for high school and I never graduated
from NYO. But I felt like I could have been
a valigictoria that all of them had. I had the

(14:38):
support or whatever that was different for what I needed.
And I also so the time I got to that therapist,
that was nineteen years later, So I had to process
a lot of things that I had to come over myself.
And if I didn't have the drive that I had,

(15:00):
just not be a statistic and I could go into
that statement right there at a different time, but I
didn't want to be what the environment was pointing me to. Yeah,
and so you know, just that determination took me down
a lot of different paths that you know might have

(15:21):
been dead ends, but they wasn't. You know, I wasn't
gonna be dated in the end, right like they just wasn't.
They wasn't necessarily for me, But I didn't know what
they were. I was a dropout, but you know, I
wanted to play balls. So eventually I did get a scholarship.
I got I gotta get my I had to get
my GV. I played in college, and that was like
my second chance, and I didn't. I took that a

(15:43):
lot more serious than I took being in high school,
because I felt like I was just mad in high
school because nobody there was no understanding. There was just
not a lot of support for that, and so I
was just managing, just trying to trying to go along
and get along, but I would it never really been
my personality. So I had to keep moving around because

(16:07):
you know, it turned like a behavior problem or somebody
look at you like you're an academic problem and a
behavior problem. They treat you as such. And I ain't
never been one to like just take disrespect or like
when people talk down on you, or even the little
slick slide comments like I know what you're saying, I
know what you're doing. So you know, sometime they just

(16:28):
turn you into like being insubordinate. You get these labels,
and you get these these scenarios in which they try
to label you, say where you're gonna go and stuff
like that, and I just denow started and even though
I didn't graduate high school, that wasn't gonna be the
end of my story and it's not. And then now
it's like it's much a part of why I do

(16:50):
what I do. So when we go back to like
I'm doing stuff for myself therapeutically me, coaching kids is
always therapy for me. I always carry catch them at fourteen,
and it's always something that whatever I could get him
is like I'm giving it to myself, Like I walk
around with my fourteen year old self all day, like
me and him be tight, And yeah, I'm who he needed.

(17:12):
That's who I became, like who he needed at the time,
and coincidentally enough he who I need right now.

Speaker 3 (17:20):
Woo Martin, Martin, go on now, listen you a guest.

Speaker 2 (17:26):
You you can't come in here turning tables over, kicking
your feet up, taking your shoes off of your couch, like,
come on to the listeners. I told y'all what was
gonna happen. I told y'all was gonna happen. And Martin's
dropping some gem some breadcrumbs. I hope you're paying attention
because he's talking about things that's advanced when it comes
to perspective, in my humble opinion, because the conversation that

(17:49):
we're having and what he's sharing, a lot of people
have never said because they've never seen what he saw,
what he's experienced, and what he's talking about, and because
of the work that he did on himself, he has
a different perspective and lived experience that you could learn
from based off of what's being shared. So these two
highlight these mirrors I want to dive into. Because now

(18:10):
we're finish, go in the basement. And for those who
know that, listen to the show. There's three levels, three
layers of our house.

Speaker 3 (18:17):
And everybody got a house. Okay, you're born in one?
How she win? Now?

Speaker 2 (18:21):
Is the reason the house that you live in now,
the reason that this is the house you live in
now because the house you grew up in. So might
do something with that. Okay, whatever it is, it's because
of the house you grew up in. So in the
literal home is one thing. The figurative home, three levels,
three levels, three layers, the attic, the living room, the basement,
attic where you spend your most time, that's in your mind.

(18:42):
Living room is where you are presently and then the basement.
We don't really go down there. It's dark or scary.
It's trauma, it's drama, it's things that happen between you
and your mama. Put in the basement.

Speaker 3 (18:50):
Lock it up. Martin has already opened the door for
us to be in the basement. So that's where we
are right now. Let's talk about it.

Speaker 2 (18:56):
You mentioned you are who you needed at fourteen, and
now who you are now that fourteen year old you
need him?

Speaker 3 (19:04):
Tell us about it? What is this?

Speaker 1 (19:07):
Yeah? I knew a lot at fourteen that I feel
like society wasn't ready for because I saw that and
I had the process there myself and try as much
as I could. But I knew things that were knowing

(19:28):
that I ain't even knew, I knew. And so when
I would face pushback from whether it was administrators, teachers,
or whatnot, like I had a knowing that now I know,
I had a knowing, But when there was pushback, I

(19:48):
felt like maybe they right, Maybe that's me tripping, like
and so like going back to fourteen year old me
is me knowing that I knew then and trusting my
intuition then over you know, institutions that never had my
best interests at hard in the first place. Like I
always say, they got a school the prison pipeline, But

(20:10):
what are the other pipelines that you can guarantee? Nobody
argues with a school to prison pipeline when you say
it's like guarantee, like we know that's true. It's not
a theory. It's a school to prison pipeline. I say, okay,
so what are the other pipelines? What are the other
things that are designed for me to go to if
I'm gonna get to to do something in life? Like
we giving life sentences to kids at eighteen years old,

(20:31):
what are we giving? What are the other pipelines that
we like? Okay, this is the path that you own,
and you're gonna be good in this space. Ain't no
other ain't no pipeline to be no teacher. It ain't
a pipeline to be a therapist. You had to carve
that path out, you know what I mean, to be
in that space. This is something you had to just
decide and go in that direction. But it ain't no
already set tracks for that in a way for us,

(20:54):
I'm saying like not saying it ain't. It ain't out there,
but for us, like the school, the prison pipeline a
built for others, it's built for us, like what else
is built for us? And so like when I say
that I knew it fourteen, that that system wasn't for me.
And so now that I know that, I know it
as an adult, but I knew it at fourteen, I

(21:16):
can articulate it at fourteen. And so I need to
understand my knowing of what I knew at fourteen before
I actually knew it and can articulate it. So now
I show up were like, I've been knowing this for
longer than you think. This is beyond my certification, This
is beyond my education. This is an inner knowing that

(21:39):
literally trumps what you think validates it.

Speaker 3 (21:42):
Who are you speaking? I hope y'all catching on.

Speaker 2 (21:46):
We in the basement. Okay, this is deep stuff. And
if it's not connecting, you're not. You haven't been able
to go deep enough. If you are connecting, and this hits,
just lets you know you're on the best track. I
don't think there's a right wrong. I think it's best.
What's best is what's best for you. And what Martin
is talking about is specifically he curated this perspective that

(22:06):
works best for him, and I hope y'all picking up
the breadcrumbs related to what he needed, what he didn't,
what he knew but didn't trust because he didn't have evidence.
Now fast forward, we got facts, baby, we got facts,
and it's hard to dispute facts.

Speaker 3 (22:26):
You ain't gotta like them, but you can't. You can't
change them. They're facts.

Speaker 2 (22:30):
So now I want to switch the mirror to the
other side related to you've been given this fourteen year
old all the juice. Now, this fourteen year old is
pouring into you.

Speaker 3 (22:42):
What does that look like?

Speaker 1 (22:46):
It looked like regulation, it looked like compassion, It looked
like it looked like something looking up to me, right,
someone looking up to me and like, I trust you

(23:08):
with what I got going on, Like I trust you
with what I know. And so that's what I feel
like resonates when I deal with the kids that I
deal with, when I deal with the parents that I
did with who're dealing with kids that are going through
some of the things. When I talk to coaches and like,
you know, I just see the kid who when they

(23:29):
asked me, when they asked me when I took my
ged Tess and scored off the chart song they like
why you ain't graduate high school? And that kid, Well,
I was probably like eighteen nineteen at that time when
I answered the question. I always say, it's a long story,
and I leave it at this. But I didn't have
the words. I didn't have the language. I couldn't articulate it.

(23:51):
I didn't have an understanding at their time to go
anything beyond it's a long story. And so now that
I can speak it, I speak for what I couldn't
speak for at the time. And so, yeah, my fourteen
year old self trust me in that, and I don't
take that trust lightly. And I don't feel like at
fourteen I trusted all that much because not a lot

(24:14):
of people could even hold space for that. So I
didn't share anything. So what I'm talking about right now
probably went fifteen years old, fifteen years without ever saying
it to anybody. I talked to my mentor two hours ago,
who was with me pretty much through my until I
left Mississippi to go to Atlanta. He was my mentor,
and he just told me when I told him this

(24:35):
story that he knew nothing about it. I didn't tell anybody,
so and I even unpecked that I ain't tell nobody
because I felt guilty about it. And so why do
I feel guilty because everybody could if I told somebody
about it, and I told him I was guilty about Oh,
that's not your fault, and I understand it. That's a
logical thought, but the emotional thoughts and the emotional feelings

(24:59):
behind it was like, like, listen, I know it ain't
my fault, but I did tell him to come out there,
right and I did. He did come out there on
my prompt and he never went back in the house.
So his two year old son never saw him again.
And when I saw his two year old son, yes,
I felt guilty about that, right like, and it ain't

(25:20):
because I did something, But that don't mean that I
didn't feel the feeling of I'm somewhat responsible for this
outcome because I was in it and I couldn't take
myself out of it. It was my house, my goal,
my goals. So there was some questions that popped up
in my mind way before I got to therapy, Like

(25:41):
one was, why would he come to my house to die?
You know what I mean? Like I never met him before,
and when I said with that for nineteen years, like
why would he come to my house to die? Like
why would somebody like I never met in my life
spend his last thirty forty five minutes with me? That
was a haunting question. Now it's not a haunting question.

(26:03):
It's a calling question. I understand what that. Why would
he come to my house? And that now I get it,
Like I was supposed to unpack it. I was supposed
to unpack it for myself a spiritual ethereal way that
he or his spirit or or a larger thing out there,
whatever the the coincidences, Like you said, there are no coincidences.

(26:23):
So if there are no coincidences, there must be some
purpose behind this, and I gotta figure that out. And
he must have known some kind of inner knowing that
he had to have known that I'm gonna walk this
earth for thirty three years and at the end, I'm
gonna give it to somebody who won't find something to
do with it.

Speaker 2 (26:39):
Oh, oh my god, Martin ah Man, I have warned you, Okay,
I'm I'm finna kick you off the show.

Speaker 3 (26:48):
I warrant you.

Speaker 2 (26:52):
I'm finn to pack you up. Martin Man, Thank you,
thank you man. Uh this means the world to me.
I'm getting emotional my self processing it with you, because
this is what masculinity looks like that we never had
an opportunity to be exposed to until we became that
person ourselves.

Speaker 3 (27:10):
And I hear you, I feel you, I'm with you.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
And the pain, the guilt, the shame, the judgment, like
to carry the weight of the loss of someone at
fourteen and you know, mentally, you know what we think
is very different at fourteen than at thirty four. And
to carry that for as long as you did and
it didn't break you.

Speaker 1 (27:32):
It made you.

Speaker 2 (27:33):
Into the man that you are now, which I byue, love, cherish,
and respect because you may not have been this version
of you.

Speaker 3 (27:41):
Without that, not at all. And what I go ahead,
go ahead?

Speaker 1 (27:46):
Nah. I just felt like that was that was what
a colin started. I just didn't know. It was just
used to be like why would he come to my house?

Speaker 3 (27:55):
Right?

Speaker 1 (27:55):
And so like now once I was able to alchemize,
question never changed. It's like it just was always an
unanswered question and now it's not. Is I get it?
And I mean I've been able to process this in
some beautiful ways, like yeah, uh, I mean people get

(28:16):
a chance to play while they go ouady and angel like.

Speaker 2 (28:20):
So that's it where the shows Martin. Yeah, so you're
just dropping gems.

Speaker 3 (28:29):
Man. It's real.

Speaker 2 (28:30):
It's so honest, and it's so real, and it required
you becoming a different version of you to have this
knowledge that many people currently don't have and haven't been
able to develop related to somebody that's still here, you know, like, Man,
you're on a whole nother level. And I'm thankful to
share you because I mean again, barbecue and drank, so

(28:51):
we are, we're already there, but just bringing everybody else in, man,
and you're bringing you to the table, which gives people
permission to do the same thing. And again, what I
love about this it's you know, for many of us,
we have very black and white views.

Speaker 3 (29:06):
Black and white thing is very polarized.

Speaker 2 (29:08):
And what I hear from you, that fourteen year old
version of you, which is understandable polarized. It's only one
way now on this side of you, because I keep
hearing it. Not only is there a different way, there's
multiple ways to look at this, to think about it
as a process to create a new narrative or idea
or identity.

Speaker 3 (29:27):
How how the hell did.

Speaker 2 (29:29):
You become this version of you to have that, Martin,
this is your norm. I need you to know that
this is your norm. This is not the norm, and
I need you to know that. So how how did
you get here?

Speaker 1 (29:40):
Oh? I got here because when when she got pregnant
and I knew I was gonna have a baby boy,
then that that came back up, and so I watched
the kid grow up without his father, and I feel
responsible Ford. So that means I know there's a reality

(30:05):
that anything can happen, and my son could do the
same thing and go through the same scenario. And so
I needed to build myself up beyond being you know,
like I feel like I probably experienced my parents' traumas
that they didn't resolve, and I didn't want to do that.

(30:29):
I wanted to resolve my own. I did recognize when
I turned thirty three, I had triggers around my thirty
third birthday that I never experienced around my birthday. I
experienced them around the date that it happened, the anniversary triggered,
but my birthday turning thirty three was like rough in
my thirty third year. Okay, you know, they bring up
all kinds stuff Jesus and Jesus year right like he

(30:52):
died at thirty three, Okay, cool, I wasn't resonating with it.
But then Nipsey got killed. He was thirty three. I
was thirty three, the same age I'm doing the same
day Nipsy got killed. I'm running the basketball camp and
running the same type of missing that I felt Nipple
was on. And then it was a couple other deaths
that year, and then the day before I turned thirty four,

(31:14):
Kobe passed. All this knew like early death scenario. I
had to constantly deal with that through the thirty third year,
but I was in therapy two, and so when Cobe passed,
I ran a junior NBA skills challenging. We did a
Kobe tribute, and we let the kids process, they grief
on paper, explain what they want, like how they was

(31:36):
going to keep the legacy alive. So by the time,
even while I was still thirty three and just turned
thirty four, I had already been able to start coming
up with solutions and things that could allow for a
scenario like that for us to be able to process.
And now again, like I said, like I became what
I needed and then I knew what was needed because

(31:57):
I had to deal with it for so long. When
I finally started getting solutions and finally started getting things
that I can use, things that I can do, practices
I can put into place, then when new something new
came up, I knew what to tell people because I'm like, look, yo,
this is what helped me, and this is what I
can share with you, and you're gonna have to do

(32:18):
what you do with it yourself because I can't do
it for you. Now, I was a personal training so
like I tell all my clients, like I can't run
a left for you, I can't lift the wait for you.
I can't lose a pound for you. I can guide you,
but you gotta do every single thing that needs to
be done in order for you to get the outcomes
that you want. And that's the same thing in the

(32:38):
mental health space. Like I could walk you through it,
I can show you what to do, but my rep
that I used to show you gonna make me strong,
it ain't gonna make you strong. So even me demonstrating
what I'm demonstrating you, that's for me. When you take
what I give you, you gotta use it. So it could

(32:58):
be for you. I can do that for you. And
so that that means therapists don't cure people's situations. They
are guys, and so like, you just got to become
the hero in your own story. And you know, I'm
the hero. I've been my villain. I've been the villain
I've been I was the villain that thought I was

(33:20):
the hero. I'm the one that you know what I'm saying.
The reason I feel like I'm doing this villain is
stuff is because I'm hurt, you know what I mean.
And that's why I'm trying to I'm really trying not
to blow up. So everything I'm doing and everything I'm
trying to do is to keep from crashing out, is
what they say. And uh, I felt like I was

(33:43):
able to do that, and I had. Yeah, I'm probably
crass out a couple times too.

Speaker 2 (33:51):
Balanced, but not enough to like trick myself off the streets.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
Yeah, And so I still kept a level head and
as much as I could, I think, and I struggled
in a lot of places. I did for a long time,
But at the same time, I never gave up. I
never I'm here for a reason. There's some purpose to

(34:22):
the things that have happened. And you know, God gave
me a lot of gifts. I mean, I know I
got a lot of gifts I got. I can articulate myself.
I processed what it is, and I'm a learner. I'm
like a really strategic learner. So the more that I'm
giving to process, the more it's gonna come out on
the back end after I alchemize it, so to speak.

Speaker 3 (34:44):
Love it, love it, love it, love it.

Speaker 2 (34:45):
So I got another question, and then we're gonna get
out the basement because we've been here most of the show,
which is fine. I love it, please because our basement
is finished. Okay, weaking down. We're down here playing pool
right now. So I'm curious, man, because I keep hearing
it because I'm aware of it, but a lot of us,
specifically as black.

Speaker 3 (35:06):
Men, are not aware.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
And that awareness that I'm noticing from you is your
emotional intelligence. So not only have you grown from fourteen
to thirty four, your emotional intelligence has grown as well.
And now you're in a place where you manage it
so well you can give it to others and it
doesn't take long.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Like you said with the kid, you have a gift.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
You have an ability and you have a way to
pour into people where it don't take them long to
get to you know, where it may have taken us
long to get to a place. So how did you
develop this and how do you maintain it? Because again,
the crash out life is real, but more often than not,

(35:50):
you don't because you know how to manage.

Speaker 3 (35:52):
So how did you do that?

Speaker 2 (35:54):
And how could you help other black men who've never
even heard this concept before?

Speaker 1 (36:00):
Emotional intelligence for me, this is my definition and this
you can go read it nowhere. I think emotional intelligence
is the awareness of the emotions, so being able to
game something right. So if I like, look, I'm angry
because x y Z, that's emotional intelligence. Emotional regulation is
a practice. So I could say I'm angry and this

(36:21):
is why I'm angry. But I can still crash out
even knowing that I can name my anger.

Speaker 3 (36:27):
Oh man, time out? All right. So I think I'm
gonna start doing pink slips and just right.

Speaker 2 (36:34):
Right, yeah, just gonna write them because again, this is
your norm, but this is not the norm.

Speaker 3 (36:40):
Man.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
I need you to know that, because you just talked
to somebody something that's going to change your life forever.

Speaker 3 (36:45):
I'm telling you.

Speaker 2 (36:45):
I'm telling you what I know, not what I heard,
and you know exactly what I mean by that because
you've done it. And just just real quick, because I
want to hone in on this moment because what you're
talking about with my emotional intelligence, keep you safe, and
that safety for us, specifically for black men, is you know,

(37:07):
the stereotype related to anger, and we're trying to overcome
that and the barrier. So it's a lot of layers
related to anger. And the core of a lot of
anger is what you talked about. That hurt, the pain,
the fear, and all these other things. But that's beneath
the surface. That's beneath the surface. If I can't get there,

(37:28):
all I can get to is anger because I wasn't aware.
And what you're talking about keeps us alive, keeps us safe,
keeps us out of jail, keep our hands off of
somebody neck.

Speaker 3 (37:39):
It keeps us in.

Speaker 2 (37:40):
It manages us when we're dealing with other people in
their stuff. And you're talking about it, man, and you're
normalizing it. And that's why I want to take a
moment to process it and highlight it because we don't.
We don't and another layer of this as a father myself,
teaching your kid this now, just like I'm teaching my

(38:04):
boys now, I'm still learning. I'm still learning, but I'm
teaching them something that my father.

Speaker 3 (38:11):
Didn't have the capacity to teach me. He was capable.

Speaker 2 (38:16):
All of our dads were capable, but they may not
have had the capacity. That's mental and that's what you're
talking about. So all the work that you've done is
now a legacy.

Speaker 3 (38:27):
That's your point.

Speaker 2 (38:28):
This is changing generational curses, and that's why I wanted
to talk about it. Man, you have blessed me. Listen
to the listeners. I don't know about y'all, but I've
been blessed. I've been blessed. Make sure you mentioned your
cash before we get out of here. So I want
to swisch gears. I want to get out the basement
because we can spend we can be all day, and

(38:48):
I appreciate you being willing to go down here with me.
I do want to go back. I want to go
to the kitchen or upstairs. Now we're in the backyard.
You know, we have my little barbecue, So we're gonna
lock up the basement go to the backyard.

Speaker 3 (38:59):
I'm curure.

Speaker 2 (39:00):
I got a few rapid fire questions. I'm curious to learn,
especially from where you were to where you are now,
what would you say you've learned about people? And what
would you say you learned about yourself?

Speaker 1 (39:14):
I learned about people is you know, everybody walking their
own path and in their own in their own space
wherever you meet them. And you know, there's some people
that met me in the past that don't have this
version of me, you know what I mean. So they
they met me before I was able to process these things,
before I was able to learn the definition, before I

(39:36):
was able to become emotionally intelligent. And you know, they probably,
you know, just an angry child. I used to hear that,
I don't know why you're so angry. And then what
I learned about myself is I just got to keep
growing and and the challenges. Yeah, I say alchemy for

(39:57):
a reason, Like there's a there's a there's a way
to turn lead to go, there's a way to turn
adversity to you know, advantages. And that's the type of
time I'm on, Like I feel like whatever happened, if
as long as I got breath, I can turn it
into goal. No matter what it is. And I do

(40:18):
understand that there's not an instantaneous process all the time.
Some time it is, but I'll process it, and I
give myself time to process. That's what I know about myself. Like,
people need an answer for me today, OUSID I'll tell
you tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (40:32):
Come on, come on, boundaries? Come on?

Speaker 1 (40:35):
Yeah? Like and that's seriously like boundaries right like, And
it's like, okay, I need time and space to get
the right answer before that. You need an answer today,
like you just need an answer today. But I know
it's not this. It's false pressure is your anxiety is
not mine. And so let me so before you make

(40:58):
me anxious, let me just say I did tomorrow and
I give you a better decision versus me just hurting up,
give you an answer that I haven't processed myself. And
then tomorrow I gotta change my mind and I don't
put my foot in my mouth or then permitted to
something that I ain't really I don't really want to do,
and so I'd rather just I tell you tomorrow, and
then that prevents me from just telling you know what?

Speaker 2 (41:20):
Front, come on, come on, you dropping gems again? This
is life changing.

Speaker 3 (41:25):
The information y'all dive in.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
This is next level and if you do not have
a place to write it, the Gator Skills Journal is
available for you right now on Amazon picking up.

Speaker 3 (41:34):
So next question, dive it in. I'm curious to know who.

Speaker 2 (41:40):
I'm sorry, what's a word, phrase, memory, or moment that
has stuck with you personally or professionally.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
I'm glad that because I told you I was gonna
tell you about this.

Speaker 3 (41:49):
Oh, let's get it.

Speaker 1 (41:50):
I tell her I told about statistics.

Speaker 3 (41:52):
Right.

Speaker 1 (41:53):
So, my last day of high school, uh, because I
ain't graduate, I just stopped going. Right my last high school,
I had a teacher who told me that I needed
her class to graduate and she won't gonna do nothing
to help me graduate. So, you know, she's like, you're

(42:13):
just gonna have to come back next year. And I
told her I'm not coming back next year. And she
was like, oh, so you're just gonna become a statistic
And I mean, look, I don't know how your situation
is gonna be, but in my heart or hearts, she
had me fucked up and I never was gonna become
a statistic. And I'm glad she said that because I

(42:35):
don't think it's been a word, phrase or whatever that
has stuck with me long enough to just, you know,
just somebody that's just antagonizing me and don't know what's
going on in no the situation, don't know nothing about me,
but gonna project that type of energy on me, and like,
and I mean it like got me fucked up. And

(42:55):
I ain't gonna never be a statistic. So when I
came into the ASIST study and what the ACES became
as far as average childhood experiences and when you get
to that magic number four and everything starts skyrocketing, I'm like, shit,
you know, the thing that happened to me wasn't on
the list. That's the worst thing that happened. It wasn't
even on the list. So I had I had my
ACES number plus the worst thing that I've seen. And

(43:18):
so I'm gonna be a statistic. I'm not. I'm not.
And so for anybody to think that it had that
type of energy, like they could just project how this
is gonna go because I don't agree with them, or
my path ain't the one that they think I was
supposed to go down. And yeah, that that that statement.
Ain't nobody seeing nothing positive to me that turned me

(43:40):
up like that one did like And that's twenty one
years ago. And I showed stistic, I got something. I
got card that we can show stats right now. And
I ain't never I never mind you. That was a
Spanish place. I lived in Mexico for three years. My
son Bi Linguo, who are you talking to?

Speaker 3 (43:56):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (43:58):
And then lady kawalk Pet made that letter walk pay
me today and I won't know who she is from
cannap Paint. So I'm talking about the energy. I ain't
talking about her. I blessed her a long time ago,
but the energy not not even so wow wow I
say that the heaven in here or whoever and wachever
one of them.

Speaker 3 (44:15):
I mean, I'm here for it.

Speaker 2 (44:19):
I'm here for it, all of it, all of it,
and I'm going to speak life, ripple and breadcrumb. She's
going to hear this, She's gonna hear it. I'm gonna
speak it. We'll never know, but I'll speak it. You
know why not you said this energy. I'm gonna speak
this energy. She's gonna hear it, she gonna know, she's
gonna know. For shure Man, I appreciate you sharing that

(44:40):
a couple of questions and we're gonna get out of here.
I'm curious because you share it so much, so so
so many jams, so many Jews. I'm curious to know
what's an interesting fact about you that most people wouldn't
know or they wouldn't believe.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
People that don't know me outside of like people that
know me know me, like I wear basketball shorts. It
no matter what I got on, Like I got a
pair of back. The people that know me know that. Like, yeah,
if you if you ask somebody I already know me,
they know, but y'all wear everything. Like That's gonna be
the name of one of my books, basketball Shorts.

Speaker 3 (45:17):
Up to see though, Oh I cannot wait.

Speaker 2 (45:20):
I cannot I want the first copy autographed, definitely, definitely.

Speaker 1 (45:25):
But it's it's it's really that that book is gonna
be going into regression. And if you've ever seen like
The Sixth Sense, where on the movie, uh, you know,
he passed or whatever, but everything he wore throughout the
time was something that he wore on the day that
he actually passed. And so that's like the premise of it,

(45:47):
because the basketball shorts really just represent the time before everything,
like wasn't normal to me, you know what I mean,
And so like it's some type of way and I
get some fire basketball shorts. Don't get me wrong, but
you know, for some reason, it's very very confident to me.
And I'd be forty on my next birthday. And I

(46:10):
ain't gonna grow out of it.

Speaker 3 (46:11):
I am.

Speaker 1 (46:12):
It's just something that I'm just gonna and people, the
people that know he knows and the people that don't,
they don't find out on this right.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
I love it.

Speaker 2 (46:22):
I love it, man, I love it. And what's wild
about this We've never met in person, Like, We've never
been in the same room, never touched the other the skin,
never breathed the same air. But this connection is like, man,
we've been family for years and this basketball short story
connects to me because I feel the same way about
Jordan's shoes. So I got, you know, several pair, but

(46:44):
I wear them to pay homage to who I was
at seventeen, because for me, the highest level of success
in my family was.

Speaker 3 (46:52):
Graduating high school. That was that was it.

Speaker 2 (46:55):
And I didn't really care about school. I didn't care
about high school anything like that. What I cared about
was a pair of shoes I couldn't afford Join eleven,
specifically black and white pat leather.

Speaker 3 (47:05):
You already know, right, we.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
Had the same go ahead was the space dams.

Speaker 3 (47:11):
Come on, I told you family, MoMA's.

Speaker 1 (47:14):
The space jam And when I was in the dot
I wrote a bad check.

Speaker 3 (47:17):
To get him come on, Like.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Matter of fact, I had, I had to pay that.
I probably ended up paying like two fifty four a
pair of shoes that was one twenty because I ended
up I just couldn't let the day go by without
having them as an adult, and I needed and I
needed that to happen because I had Yeah, man, I
had a I had a crazy Jordan collection. And I
felt like one of the reasons why I was able

(47:44):
to kind of release that was once I realized it
was just because I couldn't.

Speaker 2 (47:48):
Give the yep, these are fasts, just because I couldn't yeah,
and walked in there was.

Speaker 3 (47:57):
You knew, you knew, you knew whenever they dropped, already knew.

Speaker 2 (48:02):
Come on, and here's the thing for me again, all
I feel like we went to the same high school too,
so the same for me, Like you already know who
finish come to school with them because they come in
late you already know, you already know when they drop.
So for me, knowing I was at school early like
everybody else, you knew, I didn't have them, and I
knew the people who was going to show up with them.

Speaker 3 (48:25):
And it was a moment, man. And that's culture.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
That's culture where those particular pair for me has always
been the one. There's others, but that's always been the
one because that was the height of my awareness of achievement, Like.

Speaker 3 (48:40):
That was the goal.

Speaker 2 (48:41):
I didn't care about college, damn showing on a PhD, diplome,
none of that.

Speaker 3 (48:47):
I just wanted to shoes.

Speaker 2 (48:49):
So several years later, when I finally got my PhD,
not finally, when I got my PhD, I bought them
and I had to buy them from you know, because
I had to get the original so you know, you
already know. So I had to pay like a couple
of car notes to get it, but I had it
at the time. I have it, and I rocked the
shoes with my academic regalia, which broke broke the internet.

(49:15):
Broke the Internet. I broke the damn Internet right, and
nobody understood it, but those who understood it, and most
of the people that understood. It was in a section
in Auburn Arena with signs. Everybody had j's on. My
entire family the blackest thing at Auburn at the time.
That was the loudest when I crossed the stage, no oneted.

(49:35):
I didn't care about nobody in the arena but my family,
and they were the blackest folks there, and everybody.

Speaker 3 (49:42):
Had ja's on to commemorate who I was.

Speaker 2 (49:45):
Believing that I could never accomplish what I did, so
I didn't think I was smart enough, and to prove
that to myself, I went and got a PhD. And
rocked Jay's with it. So again, Martin, we family, bro.

Speaker 3 (49:58):
Family. So I gotta get you out of here because
you got you got shit to do. I always got
ship to do.

Speaker 2 (50:05):
So next question two more, well, one question, and then
I want to offer a keepsake. So if you were
to describe, you can use one word or you can
go deep your choice. But if you were to describe
the Martin from who you were to who you are
and who you're becoming, how would you describe those three individuals?

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Okay? So who I was was hurt and confused, who
I am ah Okay, So all three of these are dope, right,
I'm with the disclaimer that so right now, like I

(50:48):
got a lot more clarity and a lot more understanding
of where I'm going and what it is that I'm
trying to do, and then who I'm becoming is just
gonna be more of what I'm doing now is just
gonna be duplicated more in terms of like the people
that I get involved with or people that I interact with,

(51:09):
the people that's not coincidences that cross paths with me,
that you know, looking for what I got, or trying
to find themselves, so to speak, Like they're gonna resonate
and they're gonna find what they're looking for. And so
that's how I can describe the future version of me,
and the future version of me is really like laying

(51:30):
the foundation for there to be more pathways. So when
I asked that a question about what are the other pipelines,
it's a rhetorical question to me because I'm building the
other pipelines into the other spaces.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
Intentions go on, Man, I'm sick of you. I'm glad
you finna get off this damn shows.

Speaker 2 (51:49):
Yeah, sick of you, I love it, I love it,
thank you so much for blessing us. So the last
thing is now a keep say you, you've offered so
much on this episode, and now you know if you
could offer some life work, because on this show we
don't do homework. Homework, you take a home, you do it,
never remember it again. We do life work. Life work
is if I take this nugget, this gym, this jewel,

(52:10):
this bread crumb, it can create a pivot in my
life that can change my life forever. So if you
have some life work to offer to the audience, to
the listeners, what would it be.

Speaker 1 (52:19):
So I'm a bar This is not gonna just be mine.
This is from doctor Boost, period person that came up
with the neual sequential model. You got the sequence of
engagement and it's regulate, relate reason and that's the three RS,
but it's four it is regulate, relate reason, reflect and
so that goes through the sequences of the brain. And
you started the brainstem. You need to regulate that, you

(52:42):
need to relate to who you're talking to. Then you
can reason with them and then you can reflect. But
as long as you're dealing with somebody that in their
brain stem, you not gonna be able to reason with
them and it's gonna make frustrating for both of y'alls.
So if you can regulate and takete practice, you gotta
understand and what regulation is basically getting yourself back to
a baseline where you can have a conversation. And if

(53:05):
you can't regulate to yourself, called time out.

Speaker 2 (53:10):
Man, Ah, I'm sick of you because right now I
see you with a Jordan warm up on the floor
with the whistle calling the time out. We're done, let's chill, chill,
and you saved the life.

Speaker 3 (53:26):
You saved life.

Speaker 1 (53:27):
And in sports we got time outs, and like in life,
we don't take time outs right Like it's one of
those things that like no timeouts really don't last for
sixty seconds. That's a full time out a lot of
time we call a half or what they call it
a twenty second time out or a thirty second time out.
And either way, my thing is, like time out flows,

(53:49):
you need to have something that you can do with
thirty to sixty seconds. They can get you back to
a certain baseline that you can re engage. But you know,
it's the reason they called time out. The momentum is
going against you, and like emotional momentum is happening in games,
and we understand that in sports, and the emotions ain't
just the players on the court, it's also the people

(54:11):
that's in the environment around you, and you need to
stop that momentum. And that's what timeouts do. So when
I say regulator, reason reflect The timeout is to regulate.
The time out is to regulate.

Speaker 2 (54:24):
Phenomenal, phenomenal, phenomenal. Man, you have blessed me. You have
blessed me.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
I don't even want you to lead, but I know
I need to get you out of here. I know that.

Speaker 2 (54:32):
So if since we on the you know, we on
the yard at the barbecue, if people want to connect
with you, I people want to build with you. People
want to see what you're doing where you a you know, product,
services you offer. How can they connect with you and
how can they get a piece of what you offer.

Speaker 1 (54:47):
I'm on everything, YouTube, Instagram, TikTok is the same, Moniker,
it's the Dopest coach and yeah thtd ope st coach,
your a ch the dopest coaches, YouTube, all of I
ain't got a lot of content on YouTube, and I
don't really have a lot of content on TikTok, and

(55:07):
if you want to follow me on there and you can,
you can contact me on all the socials that they
and if you want to follow my personal I G.
It's called sip on it S I P O N
I T, done and done.

Speaker 2 (55:22):
Y'all got access now, Okay, So anybody that I have
access to, especially those on the show, I offer an
opportunity for you to have access.

Speaker 3 (55:29):
He just gave you full access.

Speaker 2 (55:30):
That's not the norm, and that's for now because it's
gonna come a time where you won't have access.

Speaker 3 (55:36):
I'm gonna have access, but y'all might not.

Speaker 2 (55:38):
But anyway that so as we close out, Man, I
love giving flowers to my guest, and Man, I appreciate
you so much for being you.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
I value you. I cherish you. We knew from that
moment of.

Speaker 2 (55:52):
That podcast that led to this podcast that's gonna lead
to whatever that we're supposed to do together because we're building,
we're helping each other, we helping other people. So we're
going to continue to do that. And I love you
for you for exactly who you are. This is emotional
intelligence of real time for those listening. And we are

(56:12):
two black men and we're confident within ourselves where we
can just be us and hopefully this episode gives you
all permission to do the same. And Martin, I want
to offer you a couple things because it's on my head,
it is on my heart. You can do whatever you
want to do with it, and you don't have to
answer at this time if you're not ready. But two
things first, I want to add another narrative to the

(56:37):
scenario of the fourteen year old boy, because you have
plenty of them that keeps you alive. Another one I
want to add processing it in real time. As you said,
you know this thirty three year old man may have known.
And for me, what I picked up was he left

(56:58):
doing what he loved and giving and serving, and he didn't.

Speaker 3 (57:03):
Pass in his own home with his partner and his child.
He went to a place that was safe, that took
care of him. That was your home, man, that was
your home. He's on your couch when you.

Speaker 2 (57:17):
Just bust him, bust him on the court. But I'm
still going to bring you into my home because it's
a bigger game that we play.

Speaker 3 (57:25):
You know, he's on my team.

Speaker 1 (57:27):
I don't want to cut you out, but he was
on my team and I alluded to the Guardian Angel situation,
but he was like, I don't know if he ever
shot a shot.

Speaker 3 (57:39):
Oh I needed that. I needed that.

Speaker 1 (57:47):
He got rebound with me and his brother. He got rebound,
he said, stream. And so what I look at it
is like, Okay, now longly did I get to who
with my guardian Angel? He uh, he's a very selfless guy,
like very very selfless like and I always said even
then and now, like I just people on the basketball court.

(58:07):
I can tell if I'm gona be able to business
with you, we're gonna be friends or that. I can
just tell you, well, gonna be a proper with you
or not? And he I mean, I could just still
see him getting rebounds and passing me the ball, passing
his brother the ball, coming sit and screen, so opportunity
after opportunity after opportunity, like he's using all his story.

(58:28):
He was the last bit of his life to give
me another opportunity. So yeah, like come on, I got
I've had to process a lot of this, So I
appreciate that, and I definitely do feel that way, right,
I mean, and in all honesty, like he knew all
of those things, like all of that knowledge, all of

(58:50):
their wisdom, like that inner spiritual knowing, the intuition knowing
he knew, and that was that was that was a
blessing to me. And I mean there's no sequence. I
don't I haven't really had a conversation with his son. Yeah,
but his son right now is doing a residency at
the University of Cincinnati in the Okay, I think something

(59:20):
else coming out of there. And this year is twenty
five years since it happened, so December will be the
twenty fifth anniversary of the scenario. And yes, I think,
I think this story is still writing itself, you know
what I mean. So there's just like this something about
that day, that night that just as a catalyst for

(59:40):
some big things. And I'm just glad God wrote me
into the story. Uh, and we'll see where it goes.

Speaker 3 (59:47):
I love it. I love it.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
I'm gonna keep dropping gyms because you keep dropping gems.
And thank you for bringing that to my attention. And
I missed the piece of that story and I'm glad
you clarified it again.

Speaker 3 (59:56):
This is back boundaries.

Speaker 2 (59:57):
Hold on, let me make sure we speaking the same
languag So I value that and I appreciate the call
in like, hey, let me make sure you know so
two more challenges. It's just came up in real time.
You still kept up with the kid you've been watching.
And I would challenge you because I hear your future
self whispering to you currently reach out and connect. That

(01:00:20):
introduction could be this episode. You don't have to say anything.
You can put it in this lap and from there
you can decide what to do. That's one number two,
and this is for you. You can answer on the air,
or you can take it with you. I would challenge
you to attract or find or get or gather something

(01:00:42):
tangible to give to your fourteen year old self, whatever
that is.

Speaker 3 (01:00:48):
Whatever that is.

Speaker 2 (01:00:51):
So I say that because for me, I didn't notice myself,
but when we meet in person, you don't know exactly
what I'm talking about.

Speaker 3 (01:01:00):
So I've been known to be.

Speaker 2 (01:01:01):
A great hugger. Never knew it was a thing, but
I hug right. So I'm dap you up, hugg one
arm whatever. I did that for years and then pandemic happened.
I didn't hug anybody besides my wife and kids for
a few years.

Speaker 3 (01:01:14):
When we came. When we was back outside, I'm two
armed bear hugging. I don't care who you are. You
can be an infant. I'm squeezed, you can be eighty five.
I'm squeezing right. And I started.

Speaker 2 (01:01:25):
I got a new therapist doing some different work, another
story for another day. And this therapist was doing AMDR
with me and we were going on a journey together
and she went down in my basement with me and
she asked me, like, what's coming up for you?

Speaker 3 (01:01:38):
Just this guided journey?

Speaker 2 (01:01:40):
And I'm like, I don't know. But you know, I
wasn't playing on coming down here today, like I was
chilling in the living room while you got me in
a basement. And she was like, it's something that you
need to know, and I'm like, okay. And she walked
me through it and she said what do you see?
And I said, I keep seeing.

Speaker 3 (01:01:53):
The number twelve. She said what does it relate to?

Speaker 2 (01:01:56):
Like, I don't know, And I'm down the basement, eyes closed, meditating,
sessing with her, and she said, what else do you see?

Speaker 3 (01:02:02):
And I said it's this little boy. She said, what
is he doing?

Speaker 2 (01:02:06):
He's sitting in the corner, kind of balled up, got
a little jogging soul, little jumpsuit on, but he's not
looking up, his hand arms are folded and he's just
sitting in his corner and he She.

Speaker 3 (01:02:15):
Said, what does that mean?

Speaker 2 (01:02:16):
And it hit me that number twelve represented the age
of this little boy that was my twelve year old self,
coward wing needing something. And she asks, what does he need?
And I broke down and I walked over to him,
and she said, give him whatever he needs, and I
said he needed to hug. And I hugged him by

(01:02:39):
hugging my current self, and man, it took me to
a place of healing I never thought I could experience.

Speaker 3 (01:02:45):
And explained why I hugged the way I hug is
because that's what I needed.

Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
But I'm giving it to everybody else until now, Martin,
I'm hugging for me.

Speaker 3 (01:02:57):
You get get the benefit. Ah, your fourteen year old self, Martin.

Speaker 2 (01:03:03):
He needs something tangible, give it to him, give it
to him. Anything else you want to share before we
get out of here now.

Speaker 1 (01:03:10):
But we're gonna go in today. You and I, Uh no,
I'm just blessed to be here. I appreciate you for
having me. Uh of course this is some therapeutic stuff
I got from you. Uh yeah, So this is this is.
This has been wonderful because you know I do. I've

(01:03:33):
done podcasts, I've talked about this, I've talked about various things,
but it ain't it ain't the same. This is this
is different. I can you know it's not a lot
of us. Yeah, this space so a lot of times
I have I shared it, but it doesn't it won't
really come off as how it can come off here

(01:03:57):
because we in the backyard. We we had to the
barbecue and you know all that you don't know me
like this, but you know they resonating me so much
like he really does. And yeah, man, I can't wait.
You know you stay, you stay with that frequent.

Speaker 2 (01:04:12):
So that you already know, you already know. So this
is the facts, This is the evidence. This is confirmation
of what we already knew before we even got here.

Speaker 3 (01:04:21):
We already knew. And that's energy, that's vibe. That's that's
to simplify it.

Speaker 2 (01:04:28):
When you're doing a lot of work on yourself, it's
easy to connect and attract with other people that's doing
the same.

Speaker 3 (01:04:35):
When you're doing a lot of garbage, eating.

Speaker 2 (01:04:36):
It, drinking and everything, talking it, you're gonna get a
lot of garbage when you're giving and offering a lot
of love and serving, because that's how we met. By serving,
it's automatic. So I can't wait to the real barbecue.
I'm gonna give you two big, big ass to arm
hug from a silver Back gorilla, bugging you up, tap

(01:04:58):
you up, because this is love and this, this is
what love looks like in real time. So I appreciate
you being here, sending all my love to you, your family,
the team, all the teams, all the things that you're doing.
Y'all better catch this guy. Now I'm telling y'all, y'all
better catch He mentioned Oprah. Okay, he didn't go into details,
but he mentioned her. This has been another episode of

(01:05:20):
the Three Plels Podcast with your host, d Doctor Jason Branch,
where we rediscovered who we were, We embrace who we
are with two arms hugging it out, and we make
room for who we're trying to become.

Speaker 3 (01:05:32):
Him and when I am him, when I am her.
There's nothing you can tell me because I already know.
Have a good day. Peace,