WE CHAT WITH NAVY SEAL REMI ADELEKE

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:02):
From wherever you are around the world, around the world.
Welcome to the Circle of Insight, a show that explores
the many facets of human behavior and the wonders of
the human mind. And now here's your host, doctor Carlos.

Speaker 2 (00:25):
Well.

Speaker 3 (00:25):
Wennie, thank you so much for being here. This is
a fabulous story.

Speaker 4 (00:29):
As we talked just before the interview, there's a lot
of parts that I really resonated with in your story.
One of them was a single parent household and the
impact it has on children. But before we get to
that conversation, I guess I want to start off with
your story.

Speaker 3 (00:45):
Yeah, so you were born in Nigeria, is that correct?

Speaker 2 (00:48):
Yeah, I was born in Nigeria.

Speaker 5 (00:50):
My dad he was very successful and wealthy engineer as
well as a businessman. Owned car dealersh ships, he owned
engineering firm. He had businesses in London as well. He's
actually one of the first black men on the board
of the World Trade Center in New York City.

Speaker 2 (01:10):
So he was very diverse.

Speaker 5 (01:11):
He was highly intelligent and a lot of my story
is actually his story. I try to share as much
of his story as I can in the book. But
a long story short, the Nigerian government being very correct
at the time.

Speaker 2 (01:25):
They stripped buck Well. The first date in nineteen seventy,
they stripped him of some lanity bought called Maraco. He
spent eight million pounds for it. He went to court
forth and for it.

Speaker 5 (01:36):
They ended up giving him a lagoon, the federal government.
And after my father had developed this island which exists
to this day called Banana Island, they conveniently said, well,
you were never supposed to be given the lagoon.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
It belongs to us.

Speaker 5 (01:51):
And my dad had invested millions and millions, and I
mean he had invested every penny into this property because
it was developed, and now all he had to do
was turn around and.

Speaker 2 (02:00):
Sent them to sell the plots away. And so when
that happened, and then my dad died a few days later,
we went from rich to poor.

Speaker 5 (02:11):
And that's when my mom, you know, permanently relocated us
to New York City.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
And your father passed away when you were young as well.

Speaker 5 (02:19):
Yeah, I was five, I was five. I was in
nineteen eighty seven. So my dad died when I was five.
I don't have a lot of.

Speaker 2 (02:25):
Memories of him.

Speaker 5 (02:26):
I do have some memories of him, but my whole
life for the most part was I don't even understand
the concept of having a father because for me, for
the most part, from the time my memories were developed,
I didn't have a father.

Speaker 3 (02:42):
So yeah, I definitely lives through you. You can tell by
his intensity and passion and drive seems to have come
right through you.

Speaker 2 (02:49):
Oh. Absolutely.

Speaker 5 (02:49):
People ask me all the time, do you ever feel
like your father's with you? And from a spiritual standpoint, no,
But from a DNA standpoint, yes, because you know I
inherited his to teach it. Mine is the ability to
memorize things, his ability to pick up new concepts early.

Speaker 2 (03:06):
I woke very quickly. You know, I.

Speaker 5 (03:07):
Inherited all of those through his DNA. So I feel
like he's with me from that standpoint.

Speaker 4 (03:12):
Absolutely. I'm sure he's very proud. Actually, kind of funny
the similarities in our stories.

Speaker 3 (03:16):
My my mom, my family's Cuban and my mom had
was one of the wealthiest people in Cuba because they
own the milk company. Yeah, and in nineteen fifty nine
we had a bearded gentlemen to come in and the
beard took everything. They had forty nine homes and in
one year she had one.

Speaker 2 (03:35):
Wow.

Speaker 3 (03:36):
So yeah, similar stories on that end unfortunately.

Speaker 4 (03:39):
Yeah, it's a devastating effect. So tell us this, let's
follow your journey a little bit. So we're going to
head over to Bronx. Now we're flying over there at
different country. Yeah, different world. I mean America alone is
different in one state to another. What do you remember
about the Bronx.

Speaker 2 (03:57):
Wow, I mean, Bronx was my life for the most part.

Speaker 5 (04:00):
You know. I remember running around playing with my friends, like,
you know, without any cares or worries, you know, because
you know, I didn't fully understand the environment that I
was in.

Speaker 2 (04:12):
And then as I got older, you know older, I
mean by eight.

Speaker 5 (04:15):
Eight, I mean eight nine years old, that's when I
began to ventra off a little bit on my own.
And I remember, you know, getting junk beat up, fighting
a lot, fighting a lot. I grew up fighting, me
and my brother. We would we wanted we would fight
back to back, you know, against people who were you know,
against you know, multiple people. We were robbed. It was

(04:39):
just a really, really tough environment to grow up. And
I remember walking through the park that was right outside
of the co op that I grew up in, the
crackheads over the park and worried about them.

Speaker 2 (04:50):
You know, they was like zombies.

Speaker 5 (04:51):
So little kid, you worried about these these zombies, you know, uh,
you know robbing, you were asking for money and you're
trying to run away.

Speaker 2 (05:00):
Was it was? It was my normal, you know, it
was my normal. But you know, the good thing about it,
I think it really it really built up my mental toughness.

Speaker 5 (05:09):
It built up, you know, my ability to read people
really fast. Uh, my ability to kind of discern when
to keep my mouth shut when not.

Speaker 2 (05:19):
To keep my mouth shut.

Speaker 5 (05:20):
I would say I gained a lot of my uh
some great emotional intelligent, emotional intelligence lessons from growing up
in the Bronx because you can't go around running your
mouth or pointing to yourself like you're a big man
on the block.

Speaker 2 (05:32):
Is that to get your shot? You know? So yeah,
that was that was a Bronx and not having a.

Speaker 5 (05:38):
Father, you know, you know, like they were like a
lot of kids in inner cities across the country. You know,
I tried to find a father and culture and at
the time, hip hop.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Culture was really really big, and I was able to
look at men who came from where I came from,
grew up in the same environment that I did.

Speaker 5 (05:59):
Grew up in single parent homes like I did, and
kind of look at them as my father's and essentially
use what they were saying through music, through what I
saw in the streets is a blueprint for.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
My life as as how you know, as how I
can become a man. You know.

Speaker 4 (06:13):
So let me take it back for a minute, and
I want to take you back bring it forward.

Speaker 3 (06:19):
Trying to connect something here because it sounds like you
mentioned emotional intelligence.

Speaker 4 (06:22):
And it made me think for a minute that your
life living in the streets in the Bronx and some
of the skill sets that you learned there probably helped
a lot in your getting into the Navy Navy seal
being able to handle commands.

Speaker 3 (06:38):
The guy in the block is no, I would not.

Speaker 5 (06:41):
Have made it through still training if I did not
grow up in the Bronx.

Speaker 2 (06:46):
Period, because you know, one thing that I learned.

Speaker 5 (06:51):
There was so many things I learned the Bronx, but
one thing that I learned that helped me was this
concept of the lowlow right, the person who is just
the you know, it's the most bombastic, the most look
at me, the guy with the bag his clothes, and
the guy who talks those are the guys that are
usually the weakest and the most the deadliest guys uh

(07:16):
in the streets were the quietest guys were the ones
who you never really knew what to expect from them,
but you just knew, oh, I better not mess with
this person because they will keep their work. They will
do they act when it's time to act. They don't
just talk. They're not a lot of talk anyway. I
say that's to say when I got to seal training,

(07:38):
a lot of the instructors were very they were They
were that quiet you don't you know, and you would
look at them, like, what is this guy going to do?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
But they were.

Speaker 5 (07:48):
They these quiet professionals that you knew were killers and
that were deadly and they would hammer your class in
a millisecond. And being able to recognize that immediately helped
me to kind of navigate through some tough times in training.
I remember one time, in particular.

Speaker 2 (08:04):
How this story. We were at Buzz and this is after.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
Hell week, and after Hell Week there's a week called
hydro hell Week. And during that week it's a class
you swim out past the serve zone and then.

Speaker 2 (08:18):
You have to swim in and you have to kind of.

Speaker 5 (08:21):
Chart the depths of the of the of the of
the foreshore, and you gotta you gotta draw them off
and you've got to do all these mathematical equations. Essentially,
what you're doing is you're you're you're you're prepping for
a nable invasion. So you got to kind of look for,
you know, landmines and all these different things and measure
the depth of the foreshore, all these different things.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
And after you do that, you have to go into
this classroom and you have.

Speaker 5 (08:46):
For hours, literally it's it's out of like like eight hours,
you have to chart out you have to draw. Each
student has to draw a chart. It's called a hydrographic chart.
And it's very meticulous. You have to be very detailed.
You get a room and even your your words the
word hydrographic chart you have to spell act with a ruler.
That's how chart the lines have to be. And this

(09:10):
is why it takes hours. And it's a it's a large.

Speaker 2 (09:14):
Very large rap.

Speaker 5 (09:15):
Each guy gets one of my anyway, I say, has
to say.

Speaker 2 (09:19):
I'm in there doing doing, doing my thing. And at
this point, and on this particular day.

Speaker 5 (09:23):
It was probably about twelve midnight, okay, and uh, and
and and my buddy Corey Keller, he's next to me.

Speaker 2 (09:32):
He's falling asleep. A lot of guys are falling asleep.

Speaker 5 (09:36):
And I'm just like, you know what, I need to
get this done because I don't want to get hammered
in the morning. And uh, an instructor out of the blue,
around one in the morning.

Speaker 2 (09:46):
He walks into the classroom, which is unusual because the
instructors go home, you know, and they give us the assignment,
they go home and then they come back the next
morning fresh. And he walked in. He was one of
those instructors who was he was, oh wow, it is
but the most boothless buds and instructor. And he walks
into the classroom and he doesn't say anything. He just

(10:08):
walks in.

Speaker 5 (10:09):
He sees guys asleep and he just nods and then
he walks out coming from the streets. I knew what
that meant. I knew that by tomorrow morning, if your
chart is not spick and span, and if it's not done,
you're going to get hammered. Like and Jess as I expected,

(10:32):
you know, I finished my chart. I turned it in
the next morning was probably the coldest morning in barn's history.
It was probably like fifty degrees outside. The wind was blowing,
the waves were massive. I will never forget this day
and all that they made, all this lineup on the
beach with our chart and with our ninth. They expected

(10:52):
our chart and our knife. For guys who failed, they
made they sent them out to sit in a freezing
cold sert zone. And it was free and cold, and
I passed. It was so cold that I remember all
the guys, the handful of guys who gave passed. We
all wait into this laundry mat. It was this laundry
mat on the compound. We turned on all the dryers

(11:13):
in the laundry mat, close the door and we will
put our hands and face up against the dryers and
to try and get the heat and to create heat
in the rooms. And we were cold and we would dry.
So I can't we can't imagine how cold the guys
were in that water. But again, that was just a lesson.
You know that when you see someone coming and they're

(11:34):
not hooping and hollering and they're just being quiet and
they're focused in the stone cold, that's just those are
deadly people to deal with.

Speaker 2 (11:41):
So that's one of the many lessons knowing sorry for
killing them.

Speaker 4 (11:44):
No, it's a great story, and it highlights the point
where I tell my classes everything in life matters. Yeah,
how young you are, and you can tell those experiences
because I'm sure even the situational awareness of the zombies
help you. You still training when you were deployed, If
you were deployted, Oh, absolutely, yeah, because now you're were aware. Hey,
I remember these guys when I was seven.

Speaker 5 (12:06):
Another that's a whole other conversation, especially because you know,
part of my job and the teams I was I went.
I was an intelligence guy, So I went to all
the different intelligence schools.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
You know, not all of them, but a lot of them.
You know. I lived at Washington, d C. For a
few months.

Speaker 5 (12:22):
I trained at the inter agency, the NSA Interagency. I
did some work up in some training we I don't
want to give away the name of the school, but
we trained with a former FBI uh in some former
ci ON on a surveillance counter surveillance, different using different
tools to collect intelligence. And there are so many other
schools I went to, but I can't mention. Well, but

(12:44):
essentially that was my job overseas, so I wouldn't meet
with I would meet what we call them informance here
in America. Over there, we call them sources. And growing
up in the streets, I learned how to read people, you.

Speaker 2 (12:58):
Know, I had that street smart. So when I was dealing.

Speaker 5 (13:01):
With informance, I knew immediately when somebody was lying to me.
I knew what somebody was telling me the truth. I
knew when somebody was sincere. I knew what somebody may
have been a double agent.

Speaker 2 (13:11):
Just just to me all these things.

Speaker 5 (13:14):
Yes, I learned a lot going through training, but I
had so many lessons ingraining me from walking the streets
of the Bronx selling drugs, you know, looking out for
undercover cops and guys who are not undercover cops, because
I was in the streets not just I wasn't just
a victim. I was a guy out there doing a
lot of legal stuff myself. So all of that just,

(13:35):
you know, instinctively prepared me for.

Speaker 2 (13:38):
When I was overseas doing a job I did.

Speaker 4 (13:40):
That's an excellent point, and excellent point and actually brings
me now we're gonna switch gears and head over to
criminological thought here for a minute. So you were dealing drugs,
You were involved in criminal activity.

Speaker 3 (13:54):
And there are studies they're not theory studies or theories
out there called turning points. People change in their life,
something happen. Yeah, as a person who did not have
a father growing up, a lot of times we find
mentors and individuals that motivate or inspire us. What was
your turning point? What was the tool? Remy? You know
what this is? Got to cut this out.

Speaker 2 (14:14):
I've almost lost my life. Uh well, it kind of
you know, I go.

Speaker 5 (14:18):
Back a little bit, you know, just talking about how
certain things are going to you know, you mentioned earlier
and I'm kind of paraphrased what you were saying. You know,
nothing is wasted. That's that's the time that I use.
Nothing in life is wasted. When I was a kid,
my mom would discipline my.

Speaker 2 (14:32):
Brother and I. She would spank us. You know in
some states that's not illegal anymore, but she would spank us.

Speaker 5 (14:38):
And yes, I ended up doing the wrong thing, uh,
you know, getting into drugs and other stuff later in life.
But one thing that that did for me was it's
it's still this concept of consequences for actions.

Speaker 2 (14:51):
So I always knew, even when I.

Speaker 5 (14:53):
Was selling drugs, that there is a consequence for this action.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
It will come.

Speaker 5 (14:59):
I don't know when it's going to come while I
was going to come, but it's going to come. And
that's why I was always extra careful. But I say
all I have to say. One day I got involved
in the deal.

Speaker 2 (15:07):
When you read the books, so you know the story
were for drug dealer and I sold him some products.
It was supposed to.

Speaker 5 (15:14):
Last for a certain amount of time. It lasted for
a fraction in that time. And essentially, you know, I
didn't go into great detail about this guy's background, but
he was a killer.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
You know, he was a drug dealer. He was he was.
He was a guy who you disrespected him when you
lost his money.

Speaker 5 (15:27):
He was going to kill me when he came to
my house and he threatened my life indirectly, things are
not going to go through.

Speaker 2 (15:35):
Well, I know what that meant.

Speaker 5 (15:36):
That meant that he was going to kill me by
made him his money, and so you know, I made
him his money the next day.

Speaker 2 (15:42):
But for me, that was the spanking.

Speaker 5 (15:45):
That was the consequence, was him threatening my life. And
the spanking could have been worse because I could have
lost my life, my mother could have lost her life.

Speaker 2 (15:56):
But essentially that was my spanking.

Speaker 5 (15:57):
So that was my turning point. That was when I
made the decision, you know what, I'm giving up this life.
I'm not going to sell drugs anymore. I'm not going
to do the cell phone thing anymore. I'm not going
to do anything. I'm just I don't know what I'm
going to do, but I'm not going to do that.
So that was the first turning point for me. And
then you know, six months went by. This is just
this happened in December of two thousand and one and

(16:19):
June of two thousand and two.

Speaker 2 (16:22):
I was still doing nothing with my life, and I
had failed and everything.

Speaker 5 (16:28):
And I was living at home my mom and she was,
you know, harassed me every day in your child you know,
I was nineteen my birthdays in August. I was nineteen,
getting ready to turn twenty. And you know, I just
heard this voice one day tell me.

Speaker 2 (16:44):
You know, as I'm lying in bed, you know, you
need to get out of here. You need to join
the military.

Speaker 5 (16:49):
And at the time I thought it was my self conscious,
but you know, just being a person of faith now
truth believe that there was a spiritual, divine presence behind
that voice, and I argued for a long period of
time with that concept, with that idea because I hated
the military.

Speaker 2 (17:03):
I hated the government.

Speaker 5 (17:04):
I associated anybody in the uniform as a police officer.
I hated the police, and I didn't want to be
part of a system and I felt was very oppressive
and I didn't want to.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
Join the bad guys. Right.

Speaker 5 (17:16):
But the one I began to contemplate, the more I
said to myself, what else.

Speaker 2 (17:20):
Do you have?

Speaker 5 (17:20):
You're not going to college, You're not doing the record
label that you. I said, what are what are you
going to do with your life? And that's when I said,
you know, what what else.

Speaker 2 (17:30):
Am I going to do with my life? And so
I said, screw.

Speaker 5 (17:32):
It, you know, and I got out of my bed
and got out of my room and went to my
that's ended up in the recruiter's office. And that was
the next turning point, was going to the recruiter's office.
Uh Tiana Reyes, God was her soul. She ran my background,
find out I had two warrants out for my arrest,
which I didn't even know I had.

Speaker 2 (17:48):
The Warrens had a war in New Jersey, warrant in
New York.

Speaker 5 (17:51):
And she took me to both judges, advocated on my
behalf to get my record expunge, which they did, and
then she fudged my paperwork getting Essentially.

Speaker 2 (18:00):
That's how I ended up getting into the Navy.

Speaker 5 (18:02):
That was the next stage and at turning point, and yeah,
and what kept me, what kept me from falling backwards
in the Navy, what kept me from you know, falling
into bad activity and doing stuff that that you know,
just having them, was that if that navy by, you know,
to get to the Navy, I was just kind of

(18:23):
let her down.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
So that was the next stage, and the turning point
was following through. I didn't want to let her down.

Speaker 5 (18:30):
I want her to see that, you know, her decision
to take me to those judges and to expunge my
record was not in vain. And I wanted to prove
the government wrong because the government said that I could
enjoin because of my criminal activity, because of my past,
and I wanted to show that, yes, though people make mistakes,
that still doesn't mean that they don't have potential.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
There are certain people who still need the second chance.

Speaker 4 (18:52):
And so yeah, that's something you adv came forward pretty strongly, now,
don't you.

Speaker 2 (18:58):
Oh, absolutely absolutely.

Speaker 5 (18:59):
I worked for nonprofit called City Hope now here in
San Diego, California, and you know I go to prisons.
I was in Writers Island jail last week speaking to
the inmate to a graduating high school. So yeah, you know,
my whole life is this now is about you know,
serving people, sharing my story, just trying to trying to
change mindsets and teach about of many things. You know,

(19:22):
the ports of second chances. You got to be willing
to give yourself a second chance because nobody is harder
on you, on you than you, nobody's harder on me
than me, and we got to be willing to pick
ourselves up off the Florida say, I'm going to give
myself a second, third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh chance.

Speaker 3 (19:37):
To a wonderful cause, wonderful cause.

Speaker 4 (19:39):
Did you ever ask Tanya why she did that for you?

Speaker 2 (19:43):
You know what? She died.

Speaker 5 (19:45):
I didn't find this out until I finished writing and
finished the writing process for the book. But uh, she
died three years after doing what she did for me.
She died of a rare autoimmune disease called my guy
in psigitis. But I was fortunate after I finished writing
a book to meet with her family, her brother specifically,

(20:08):
and and I remember the.

Speaker 2 (20:10):
First time we met.

Speaker 5 (20:11):
We sat for three hours and just talked, and he
shared with me how she was from the Bronx.

Speaker 2 (20:16):
You know, he gave me the why she was from
the Bronx.

Speaker 5 (20:20):
She knew that a lot of kids from the Bronx
would not get another we would get the opportunity if they.

Speaker 2 (20:26):
Met with another recruiter.

Speaker 5 (20:27):
So her thing was, I want to give people a
second chance. She she would drive around the Bronx and
meet up with drug dealers who she grew up with,
people who were in the streets doing the wrong thing,
and say, listen, I see where your life is going
to come with me, and and and she would get
them in a name she get it for a brother
or brother had miss demeanors and and she got him
in the Air Force.

Speaker 2 (20:47):
You know.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
So she was like a Robin Hood. She just wanted
to give people a chance who she knew want to
get a chance out the why. So that's that was
just her heart. And you know the cool thing about
it is, you know I met her daughter for the
first time because her daughter was two when she died.
And I met her daughter for the first time last
week and I told her daughter, I said, listen.

Speaker 2 (21:09):
My resources, your resources.

Speaker 5 (21:10):
You know, her dad's not in her life, and which
blows my mind. I can't understand, and to ask someone
in the conversation, but her dad's not in her life. Willing,
but he doesn't want to be in her life. And
I said, you know what, I'll be your dad. You know,
whatever you did, I got you covered.

Speaker 2 (21:25):
So wow, that's a powerful story.

Speaker 3 (21:28):
Yeah, powerful story. Changed her life.

Speaker 4 (21:30):
And the thing is her legacy continues on because you
changing lives through her as well.

Speaker 3 (21:35):
And let me ask you this. I don't know this
is too.

Speaker 2 (21:40):
Personal in that.

Speaker 3 (21:41):
But your brother, yeah, same direction or not.

Speaker 2 (21:44):
No, my brother, he.

Speaker 5 (21:48):
My brother he had a completely different turning point that
I did at a different period of time or earlier
period of time. When my brother he when we were
when he is about eleven ten or eleven years old,
he had came home one day with his report card
and he had failed like every class. And my mom,

(22:12):
I don't know what was going on in my mom's mind,
but my mom must have had a really, really bad
day at school because she was a teacher in the
South Bronx, so she must have had a really bad day.
But when she saw that report card, she broke down
crying and she was just like at her wits end,
not angry at him, but just exhausted. And she was
just like, buy out. You're the oldest brother, like you

(22:34):
can't fail. I don't know what I'm going to do.
I don't know how I'm to pay the bill.

Speaker 2 (22:37):
I need you. She's actually, I need you to make it.
I need you to do good. And she was just
crying hysterically and now, and something.

Speaker 5 (22:45):
Clicked in my brother's mind that day, and from that
point on, he wouldn't. He wouldn't really he would have
come outside and play with me and my friends from
time to time, but he he.

Speaker 2 (22:56):
Would be in the library.

Speaker 5 (22:58):
He would spend his time Ibard just reading reading books
over and over and over, against studying and reading, and
so much so that he graduated from high school in
three years. He graduated from Cot he got a full
ride academic scholarship to Syracuse University, where he studied engineering, graduated,
got his bachelor in three years, and then got a

(23:19):
scholarship for has his masters in Syracuse to study electrical
engineering and got his master's in one year. So he
went down a completely different path, and I did because
he had a turning point in a different period.

Speaker 2 (23:32):
Of time that I did. And stuff.

Speaker 3 (23:35):
Both again tremendous stories and again another great message for
folks out there. Social economic environment didn't slap you. Yeah,
having an activity didn't stop you. Yeah, and I have
in signed you did. Yeah, great story. A lot of
a lot of people. Let me ask you this.

Speaker 4 (23:51):
I'm assuming your mom's probably similar to mine. Yeah, but
you went into the navy side. I didn't go into
the Navy seals. I don't think I could be longer
than ten minuts.

Speaker 2 (23:59):
But when you were.

Speaker 4 (24:00):
Navy seals, she probably thought, hey, what are you doing right?

Speaker 3 (24:06):
Moms get worried. They don't want us to go out
at night, they don't want to do anything. But she
get really worried about you going to the navy seat.

Speaker 5 (24:11):
Well, well, my mom got worried about me enjoining the
military period, you know, you know, because the wars were
you know, it was just two thousand and two. I
think Afghanistan kicked off, that this was already you know,
in effect at the time, Iraq was.

Speaker 2 (24:26):
Getting ready to start.

Speaker 5 (24:29):
And I think you know, she her brother, she had
a half brother who was in the Korean War and
he grena blew up by his head and he was
confined to a hospital for the rest of his life
being a hospital.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
And so me and her first immediate.

Speaker 5 (24:43):
Thought when I went to join the military was he's
rever's even going to die where he was going to
be permanently injured, crippled on the rest of his life.
And so she was just totally opposed to it.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
Richid you know. And then as I, as I got
it and as I had.

Speaker 5 (24:59):
More time, and I think that that's when, you know,
she came in terms with it, and uh. And then
when I got to the seal teams, Yeah, she was worried,
and I think her pride, her pride and how proud
she was out weighed or worried.

Speaker 3 (25:15):
An accomplishment.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
Not many people make it through the Navy Seal Congratulations
and by the way, I forgot to mention earlier, thank
you for your service too.

Speaker 2 (25:22):
Oh, thank you, thank you, thank you for your support.

Speaker 5 (25:24):
Yeah. The class I graduated with started with two seventy
and only twenty nine out of two seven graduated.

Speaker 2 (25:30):
But that's the way it is.

Speaker 5 (25:31):
Every class ten to twenty percent, you know, twenty three
hundred guys will start.

Speaker 2 (25:35):
You get lucky if you get thirty guys. So graduate.

Speaker 3 (25:38):
So man, tense stuff. We're in the tail end here.

Speaker 4 (25:42):
We got a few minutes to go, and I wanted
to catch a couple of things before we wrap up.

Speaker 3 (25:47):
One of them is your faith.

Speaker 4 (25:49):
Yeah, this seemed to be another bottom in your life
in the military at this time. Was stuck because I
was like, wait a minute, wait a minute. The guys
to see you as he hit the bottom. So what
happened there?

Speaker 2 (26:02):
You know? I a few things after It was accommodation
of things. One I became.

Speaker 5 (26:11):
Successful, and I truly believe there was success comes as
a potential. Pride immense pride has a potentially creeping And after.

Speaker 2 (26:23):
I graduated from sale training, my prior was through the roof. Man.

Speaker 5 (26:25):
I mean I was making good money for the first
time in my life, legal.

Speaker 2 (26:29):
Life, good legal money. Was like I had a girlfriend
who was gorgeous, you know she you know.

Speaker 5 (26:37):
She had her m b A. She was well graphic designer. She,
I mean, she was amazing. And then I had other
girlfriends all over the place, and I had you know,
I had a beautiful play I had it all and uh,
and I was still empty, you know. I think internally
I was still seeking for that seeking out a father,
you know, seeking you know, seeking that affirmation from a

(26:59):
father that I never and all of my my endeavors
kind of led me.

Speaker 2 (27:07):
One day, I will that's not so sure.

Speaker 5 (27:08):
I got set to co wellence of why I was
training in Alaska, and for the first time in a
long time, I was disconnected from the world, and as
I was walking through the wilderness, I had time to
reflect on my life. And that's reflected on my life.
I didn't like what I saw. I didn't like I
treated my girlfriend. I didn't like I treated my mother,
my brother, I didn't like I treated people in general.
And I begin to get disgusted with myself. And so

(27:29):
I made a conscious decision and I'm going to I'm
going to change. I'm going to fix me. I don't
like being a womanizer.

Speaker 2 (27:35):
I don't like being you know.

Speaker 5 (27:36):
Vulgar and mean and bad like this person. So when
I get back from Alaska, I'm gonna change. I'm gonna
marry this girl. Everything's gonna be different. And a week later,
my girlfriend, she doesn't know what's going on because we
don't have some comic comes you know my phone will nope,
I mean Alaska wilderness.

Speaker 2 (27:54):
Right. So a week later, my girlfriend goes to a party.
She meets a woman who's married to a ceiling.

Speaker 5 (27:58):
This woman tells her, Hey, listen, how's it going, And
she said, you know it's going okay. She said, if
it's not going well, now, it's not going to go
It's not gonna go well. Later, being married to a seal,
it was really hard. So in the first time in
two years, my girlfriend had had the strength to lead me.
And this is I mean, you got to understand, like
I had been emotionally abusing her early, abusing her, never
physically abused. I've been cheating, and I could do all
these things. She never left me, but at this one

(28:20):
point she had the strength to lead me. A week later,
I get on after she has this epiphany, you know,
I finally get in contact with her, and I tell
her what you know I am, I'm a change it
and realize my dirt bag blah blah blah. She doesn't
even tell me that she's lead me and just tell
all these things. And she said, when I get back,
when I get back, when I marry, I tell everything.
And then she's just like it's over. And when she

(28:40):
said that, I mean I felt like I was on
a twilight zone because I can't understand what was going on.

Speaker 2 (28:44):
And then, you know, when we got off the phone,
that's when I was just like, I'm really gonna fix myself.
I'm really gonna change.

Speaker 5 (28:50):
I'm gonna try and meditate because I had been into
Zen Buddhism at the time, and I was just like,
I'm gonna meditate and try all.

Speaker 2 (28:55):
These different things.

Speaker 5 (28:56):
And the more I tried, the worse I got and
led me into a really deep depressed should I start
feeling all of the kill, all of this shame, just.

Speaker 2 (29:03):
All of these things.

Speaker 5 (29:03):
And my brother had been a Christian ball period of time,
and he would tell me from time to time he
would never beat me up against that with the Bible.

Speaker 2 (29:09):
He would tell me, you know, me, when you hit
rock bottom, just remember the crowd to Jesus, and.

Speaker 5 (29:14):
I would tell me and whatever, because I would fluctuate
between atheism and agnosis and depending on the day of
the week, and I was like, even whatever, I don't
need that, Jesus get that away from me.

Speaker 2 (29:23):
And then finally, you know, when I tried everything and
nothing work, that's.

Speaker 5 (29:26):
When I was like, Jesus helped me. You know, Jesus
helped me over time. You know, I felt peace, I
felt really from the chain. I felt from you know,
you know, Cold Turkey. I gave him Saturday sex. I mean,
you know, you remember I was a guy who was
having sex from the time I was sixteen, you know,
sex or pornography from the time I was sixteen to

(29:47):
the time I was twenty six and Cold Turkey, I
felt this presence just give me the strength to stop
sleeping around. I didn't have sex until I got married
three years later, so you know that that was the
beginning of my faith walk. So many other things happened,
but I know we're looking.

Speaker 2 (29:59):
At on top, so I'll kind of keep it through.
I appreciate it.

Speaker 3 (30:02):
An amazing story. Did the the the values of the
Navy Seals at all contribute to that to the point
of at least getting you feeling I'm not a good
guy here, I'm not doing things right? Uh uh, play
a role at all.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
I think it was a combination of things. Man, I
think I think, what what the biggest Yeah, it could
have But no, I'm not going to say it did.
I would just say, it was mainly self reflection, man,
it was. It was mainly stepping outside of myself.

Speaker 5 (30:34):
And taking a look at what I had become, what
I had done, you know, taking responsibility for my failures
and my mistakes.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
I think that's what what did it for me was
was just that self reflection big time.

Speaker 4 (30:48):
That's one of the military rules, right, yeah, make responsibility
for your own actions.

Speaker 2 (30:52):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:53):
Society seems to have done straight away from that a
little bit.

Speaker 2 (30:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
Absolutely, order was that they blame everything else but themselves.

Speaker 2 (31:03):
It's creative. Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 4 (31:06):
Let me ask you this last question, well second to
last probably, but last question for now.

Speaker 3 (31:11):
What is your message to people? What are some of
the most important lessons you want to share with people
out there? And there's a lot of them.

Speaker 2 (31:18):
Maybe you can.

Speaker 3 (31:18):
Pictures one and two at this moment that you said
most important part? Is it good to know yourself as
a find a mentor what do you think?

Speaker 2 (31:26):
Uh?

Speaker 5 (31:26):
You know, the first thing that comes to mind is
something that I preach and teach a lot, and that's,
you know, this concept of failure. When you read my book,
you'll notice that it's you know, and I'll get a
lot of good feedback from one consistent feedback I'm getting
is for me, Man, I can't believe that you said
you failed in this way.

Speaker 2 (31:44):
You just did so you did that like you're just okay.
I can't believe you talked about.

Speaker 5 (31:47):
What you did to you with your mom's engagement ring,
and isn't it And you know, the book is a
book of about a man who failed over and over over,
you know. And I want people to realize, not just
in the open, in my life and message, that's try
to say, none of us are immune of failure.

Speaker 2 (32:04):
It's okay to fail.

Speaker 5 (32:06):
Yes, I am where I am today as a writer,
a producer, actor, form an ABC list goes on and on,
but I'm only here because I fail.

Speaker 2 (32:16):
But I'm but I learned to take my failures and turn.

Speaker 5 (32:21):
Them into lessons and then use those lessons to turn
them into successes. And so that's what I try to
tell people. Never let the failure define your future. Instead,
find the lessons within your failure that you can use
for your future. Because we as human beings, I truly
believe that the lessons that stick with us the most

(32:44):
are the most painful ones. And I don't mean literally,
just mean literally, I mean figuratively right. The thing, you know,
the most painful break up, the most painful failing of
a test or whatever, that those lessons stick.

Speaker 2 (32:58):
With us and if we apply them that we could
we can move on to success.

Speaker 5 (33:03):
And then the second thing, and I think we touched
on this indirectly, is this concept of nothing.

Speaker 2 (33:08):
Nothing is wasted. Nothing is wasted. You know. When I
was a kid, you know, and I try to tell people, listen,
nothing is wasted.

Speaker 5 (33:14):
When I was a kid and my mom, she would
make my brother and I picked articles out the New
York Times or write reports on them because she knew
how horrible the public education system was in the South
Bronton and the Bronxon General and she didn't want us
to be a statistic And I hated it with a passion,
but it really, you know, but it wasn't waste because
it gave me these foundational principles of a writer. Fast

(33:37):
forward to my time in the Seal Teams. As I said,
I did intelligence with the Dad Entail. A big part
of that entailed a whole lot of writing. Every meeting
I had, I had to write detailed reports. And these
reports would go up to government agencies. They would go
up to you know, generals, and they would be reading
what I was writing. Nothing is wasted. And then that
led to me writing my book. I had no co writer,

(33:58):
I had no ghostwriter. I wrote worked that book by
myself and so but it all goes back to what
my mom had me doing. So, you know, whether you're
an intern somewhere or whether you're working at Birni King
or wherever you are right in life, you know, don't
look at it as some menial job there's a waste
of time, because there are lessons within that that you

(34:21):
can use for your future or perhaps for your dream job.

Speaker 2 (34:24):
So yeah, nothing is wasted.

Speaker 4 (34:28):
It's a great, great message remy folks. You can find
them on Instagram to remy R E M I A
D L e k E. You right that here you
can see the Instagram handle, folks, and you got the
buck right here. Highly recommended a fabulous read. I'm telling
you he's only touching about a tip of the iceberg.
It's a pretty big book and a great story too
by the ghost writer.

Speaker 3 (34:47):
The challenges you had there that I understand that pain.

Speaker 4 (34:53):
A navy seals unlikely journey from the throne of Africa
or the Streets of.

Speaker 3 (34:56):
The Bronx to Defying All Odds.

Speaker 4 (34:58):
A fabulous read if you want to be inspired or motivated,
I highly recommend it. Rebbie, thank you so much again
for being here.

Speaker 2 (35:05):
Thank you've had me on It's been an honor.