Ep. 311 - Robin Nathaniel

Robin Nathaniel is an author, award winning social media strategist, Telly Award Gold winner and a TEDx speaker.
Robin shares his journey from music to meaningful impact, emphasizing that our words can change lives and lead to positive ripple effects in our communities.
Connect with Robin on Instagram, LinkedIn @robbinmarx. Visit his RobinNathaniel.com and check out his substack @LandTheTalk.com.
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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
You are listening to the On Purpose Podcast, your guide
to living a more purposeful life. What's up, everybody? Welcome
to this week's edition the On Purpose Podcast, where you
know it's our privilege to be here with you. It's
our privilege to show up with you each and every
week to have the space in your life, and we
don't take that lightly. We are always striving to bring

(00:21):
you the most powerful stories topics that will get you thinking,
get your moving, maybe get you reflected on some stuff
that needs to be done or should be done or said.
And this week we're excited to bring on a storyteller, strategist,
and visionary leader, Robin Nathaniel. He has a real popular
ted X talk out there on YouTube. Will put the

(00:41):
link in with the show, and he's an advocate for
meaningful connection that lives by the model connect, create and contribute.
From his roots in music, social media and leadership development,
Robin has dedicated himself to inspiring positive transformation. So get
ready for a conversation I hope challenges the way you

(01:03):
think about connection and contribution in today's world. And before
we get to that, please do me a favorite, get over, like, subscribe,
share on whatever podcast apps you're listening on YouTube, comment
on our social media something as simple as giving us
a thumbs up or I really liked this episode, or
this was a great point. One of your takeaways from

(01:24):
the episode does so much for us to find more
people and to reach our goal. Right our goal is
to be the most purposeful, the most impactful podcast in
the world, and we can't do that without you. So
get over do that and then get ready to think
a little differently today with our conversation with Robin Nathaniel.

(01:46):
Honor the Brave was founded by retired law enforcement officer
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(02:08):
You receive an amount equivalent to ten percent of your
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your service. Visit honor the Brave dot com. We've got
your six. Robin, my newest friend. Welcome to the On

(02:29):
Purpose podcast. How are you today?

Speaker 2 (02:31):
I'm doing well, Jared, Thank you so much for having me.
I'm pumped about today's talk. Oh.

Speaker 1 (02:36):
I when I saw you come across, man, I don't
even remember how I got connected up with you, but
I saw you and I went right to your ted
talk and I was like, Oh, if I could sit
down and talk with him, and this is gonna be
a good time because you speak with such passion and
clarity and purpose and a strength. So I want to
first off, thank you for finding your voice, for sharing

(02:59):
your voice, for believing in your voice and knowing that
you can make somebody's day better by sharing your story.

Speaker 3 (03:08):
Yeah, You're very welcome.

Speaker 2 (03:09):
And for me, that's kind of like always been my
dreaming goal was to share a message. Even when I
was very small, I started writing rhymes and became a
rapper at nine years old. So at nine years old,
I was already interested in like speaking and saying things.
And as my career kind of developed and music kind

(03:31):
of faded to the back, and I was introduced to
public speaking, it just made sense for me to get
on stages and share my story.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Oh and I can't. It just gave me chills listening
to this story and understanding. One of the things you
talk about is the power of your words, specific the
power your last words. And I want to get into
that because I think, just like you said, if we
focused on what we said right now is maybe the
last thing we say, what will we do differently?

Speaker 3 (04:00):
Yep?

Speaker 2 (04:01):
I think so many times, Jared, we go through life
and we're just going through the motions.

Speaker 3 (04:05):
And I'm guilty of this.

Speaker 2 (04:06):
I always tell people all the time, no matter if
I'm on a stage on the podcast, that I'm doing
the work every day.

Speaker 3 (04:12):
I'm wildly flawed.

Speaker 2 (04:14):
I'm super imperfect, and I know that and I embrace that.

Speaker 3 (04:18):
Right.

Speaker 2 (04:19):
But I would say is for many of us in society,
we just operate, you know, just kind of almost like
when you go through a car wash and you got
to throw that joint and neutral and you just kind.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
Of let it take you.

Speaker 2 (04:31):
Many of us are going through life like that, where
the outside is getting cleaned, but we're not steering it,
we're not directing it. And I think when it comes
to ending conversations. It seems like a very simple thing,
but your words and your impact on a person could
have a variety of effects. If you know that and
you can take control of that, there's no telling what

(04:55):
kind of impact you can have in the world. There
might be a person at Walmart who works out at
the you know, at the cashier register, who had a serious,
you know, loss in their family or has an ill
family member at home, and you go through the line
and you give them attitude and you're like, you know, like, God,
well look at you you work at Walmart, Like, oh, right,

(05:17):
as opposed to, hey, thank you so much. I hope
you have a blessed day. Like subtle differences like that
could have a huge effect on people because you don't
know where people are in their journey.

Speaker 1 (05:30):
And that what I love about that, Robin has a
huge effect on you even better, right, because now you
feel good because you're like, man, I just put a
smile on somebody's face. Now I feel like smiling a
little bit, you know what I mean. And then it
gets contagious and maybe what I love to talk about
is that ripple effect. Right, Maybe you do something nice
for them and then they're nice to the next person
whose day was even worse.

Speaker 2 (05:51):
Yep, yeah, I'll share a quick story with you if
that's okay, Jared, Yeah, I love it. So back early
in my career, I was you've developed and specialists right
started off at the bottom as like a counselor, moved
all the way up to second in command at one
of the largest nonprofits in the country. So during my
time as a teen counselor, we used to take these

(06:12):
retreats with the kids. Well, we would take them on
the bus. They meet kids from other parts of the
area in the Northeast and have these just like positive experiences.

Speaker 3 (06:21):
One of the young ladies, it was a.

Speaker 2 (06:24):
Senior year, and she said something while giving her like
testimonial to the younger group that stayed with me to
this day. She says, you know what, guys, it's a
lot easier to be nice to people than it is
to be mean to people. It takes so much effort
to like be mean to someone. And when I came

(06:45):
to this program, I was always mean to people, and
I realized that just being nice and being kind not
only is it easier, but it also makes you feel better.
And that's something that I try to teach my kids.
It's something that I try to practice even and I
think the challenge yard with that is like, even when
you're in a space where conflict is coming, conflict doesn't

(07:08):
have to be negative. Conflict can be healthy as long
as you come from a position of gratitude, peace and kindness.

Speaker 1 (07:16):
And realizing it's temporary.

Speaker 2 (07:19):
That part, you know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (07:21):
Like we we get so ramped up, like, oh man,
Robin really made me mad. I can't wait to tell
them how I feel about this, and like we get
all these energies and stuff, and like at some point
it's gonna.

Speaker 4 (07:31):
Pass, It's gonna be okay, yes, okay, it's still good person, right,
all right, before we get into the heavy stuff, Robin,
I like to think of this as a warm up,
you know what I mean, Like like work, I gotta
warm you up a little bit.

Speaker 1 (07:44):
You ready for your warm up?

Speaker 3 (07:45):
Oh yeah, we're doing a layup line. What are you doing?

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Here?

Speaker 1 (07:47):
We go, man, let's go. We're gonna start with getting
nice and loose. He all right, you get to describe you,
get one word to describe you. What's your word?

Speaker 2 (07:56):
M Grateful? I love that I'm grateful. I'm a grateful dude. Man.

Speaker 3 (08:01):
That's again, that's something that h and again.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
Like I said, I'm a work in progress, right, you
ask me that question in two thousand and five.

Speaker 3 (08:11):
A very different answer, right. But I think where I
am at this stage in my life.

Speaker 2 (08:17):
I'm in my forties, I have two kids, I have
an amazing career, I have a growing business. I have
so many blessings, and with all of the challenges that
I face, you know, in life, like in those same arenas, Like,
one thing that keeps me grounded is just being grateful
and understanding that there's somebody out there in another country
that doesn't even have food or water. There's all kinds

(08:39):
of conflicts happen in this country in other countries where
people are their towns and cities are being bombed. Like like,
I have to operate from a position of gratitude in
order for me to really function at my highest level.

Speaker 1 (08:53):
Yeah, I love it. Favorite quote.

Speaker 3 (08:57):
Hmm.

Speaker 2 (08:58):
This one's for my wife. I keep dropping it because
it's simple, but it hit me. I think she made
it up off the top of it. Don't choose us freestyle.
She was freestyling this one, Jared. I don't think it's
something she wrote. But since she told me that, I
want to say it's about a year and a half ago.
I had a big decision to make. Somebody made an
offer to do something that was going to be a

(09:19):
great opportunity but would require an immense amount of bandwidth
that honestly, had I committed to this opportunity, it would
have shifted our entire family and things would have just
been wild.

Speaker 3 (09:34):
It would have been great for me as.

Speaker 2 (09:35):
A professional and for my career and stuff. But it
was something that I had to turn down, and it
was because of this quote. She says, do what you are.
That is from my wife Joan quote. She's a realtor
if you guys want to look her up, the focused agent.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
She is on fire right now.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
But do what you are is the quote that I
would share with folks, and really it is what it is.
It's just like, don't don't go out here in this
world pretending to be something that you're not putting your
time and and and effort into things that you know
don't align with who you are as a person, what
your values are and what you believe in. And sometimes

(10:16):
that requires a pay cut. Sometimes that requires you know,
a status change and do what you are has been
the quote that that has carried me in the last
couple of years.

Speaker 1 (10:28):
That's a powerful one. I love that it came from
your wife. All right, if your life has a theme song,
what is your song?

Speaker 2 (10:39):
I have many, but the one that just came into
my head as soon as you said that was The
Rock Boys by h jay Z. It's it's really like
a celebratory kind of a jam where it's like.

Speaker 3 (10:55):
The rock Boys in the building at night. Oh, what
a feeling I'm feeling life.

Speaker 2 (11:00):
Like wo Like that just gave it to my head
because you know, we listen to a lot of music
around here.

Speaker 3 (11:06):
We're big time Disney fans.

Speaker 2 (11:08):
Obviously, I have a six year old, fifteen year old,
I have a hip hop background. But that song right
there is definitely one like celebration gratitude.

Speaker 3 (11:18):
You know, it's really fun.

Speaker 1 (11:20):
I love it, all right. Favorite book or current book
you're reading? Either one's good here, that's a good one.

Speaker 2 (11:30):
I'm currently reading a couple of books, but the one
that I'll share would have to be This is Marketing
by Seth Godin. It's been around for a while, but
it's one of the marketing books that I dug into
early in my career, and it's one that I kind
of refer to. It's a really easy read, really simple.

(11:53):
I love the way he kind of frames things. And honestly,
my book Social Media Sinc. A lot of it was
inspired by the formatting of Seth's book.

Speaker 3 (12:03):
It's very simple.

Speaker 2 (12:04):
He also breaks it down into like short sections and
short paragraphs, and my book is very much the same
way headline with you know, a couple of paragraphs and
then we go to the next topic with a headline.
And I was definitely inspired by that book.

Speaker 1 (12:17):
Love it. You get to have dinner with one person, Robin,
they could have passed or still be with us. Who
would you have dinner with them? What would you want
to ask them?

Speaker 2 (12:26):
Who?

Speaker 3 (12:27):
People?

Speaker 2 (12:27):
I used to ask this question to people in job
interviews when I would interview people, and I've been asked
the question. I've been asked this question before and it's
kind of always the same answer. So for me, I
would want to just sit down and have dinner with
my mom. I lost my mom when I was seventeen

(12:48):
years old in high school, so you know, last year
I was the same age as she was when she
passed away. So I've since lived a year longer than
my mother ever lived. So for me, I'd love to
connect with her. I'll unpack it a little bit, if
that's okay, Jaz, please, I'd like to sit with her

(13:12):
when she was in her thirties, a little maybe ten
years before.

Speaker 3 (13:17):
She passed away.

Speaker 2 (13:18):
I'd like to connect with that version of her because
I was so little that I never had any kind
of mature interactions with her. It was always like, I
love you, nanny, right. It wasn't like anything deep. So
I'd love to get into her head because to give
a little background, and this is not something that I
share in the talk or really anywhere, my mother came

(13:40):
to this country with a fourth grade education from Trinidad
and Tobago. So she was an immigrant, pregnant with me
and her stomach, come into this country and ended up
building a great life for herself, becoming a small business owner,
a successful business owner, become a homeowner in New York City,
which now and then is not easy, especially for someone

(14:03):
who is just starting from the bottom. So my entrepreneurial
spirit I believe comes from her, and I would want
to just chop it up with her about some of
that like, how did she overcome some.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Of her challenges?

Speaker 1 (14:16):
Uh?

Speaker 2 (14:17):
And and and take that with me. So my mom
is who I'd like to have dinner with.

Speaker 1 (14:21):
I love that you're feeling warmed up, Robin oh Man,
war to go, get loose, ready to go? Hey, can
we start with your mom? Because I was one of
the powerful parts of the text talk I watched was
your relationship with your mom and kind of how you

(14:43):
took what was and creative what is now? That makes sense? Yeah,
go ahead, Jared, Yeah, no, if you don't mind sharing
that with us, I'd love to start there.

Speaker 3 (14:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (14:57):
I think what was is that I was a child,
you know, when I went through that entire experience, And
folks can see the talk to really hear the whole story.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
But I'll give you.

Speaker 2 (15:08):
A skinny, the skinny and a quick and dirty rundown.
I'll start by saying, these are some of the most
embarrassing parts of my life that I shared on the stage, right.
These are things that I had never never spoken about publicly.

Speaker 3 (15:24):
These are things that.

Speaker 2 (15:26):
I didn't share with people because I felt like it
would bring a negative light to my mother. And I
love her, you know, and she was a great mom,
but parts of the story didn't, you know, didn't paint
her in a favorable light.

Speaker 3 (15:40):
I'll say that, but I love her and miss her.

Speaker 2 (15:43):
But back then I was a child, not fully aware
of what trauma was or what my experience was. I
just thought we had a good life, and it was
it was normal for stuff like that to happen, normal
for your parents to split up, and for you to
have your clothes packed up in a garbage bag and
go live with your dad.

Speaker 3 (16:03):
Thought it was normal to.

Speaker 2 (16:05):
Live with a man who had never raised a child
before and live a bachelor's life essentially from first grade
right on up to sixth grade, moving from apartment to apartment,
women to women, you know, school to school. I thought
that was just life. I couldn't even analyze it.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Now where I.

Speaker 2 (16:25):
Am having two children of my own, having a stable marriage,
not going with God blessed, let's keep that going right
and honestly, in all seriousness, and an amazing partner. My
wife is, Like, I think about how lucky I am
to have her, because I've been in relationships.

Speaker 3 (16:46):
That weren't healthy.

Speaker 2 (16:48):
So the fact that I have found someone who compliments me,
supports me, and makes me better is a blessing. So
I think my mom my story with my mom then
was a position of lack of awareness of my environment
and now where I am using my experience as a

(17:10):
vehicle and a tool to impact others.

Speaker 3 (17:14):
And that was the click for me.

Speaker 2 (17:16):
That's why I call it the muddle my boots, right,
all of this mud that I that I leave at
the door when I come into your house, Jared, I'm
not bringing the mud into your house. I'm going to
take my boots off. However, what I realized in this
process of writing this Ted talk was that I need
to walk in the house with the muddle my boots

(17:37):
so people can see and they might have muddle on
their boots as well, and they can understand that they
don't have to hide it, and we can actually bring
it to the table so we can clean our boots
off together. And I think that's the biggest then and
now moment with that experience with my mom is that, yes,
it was traumatic that I was put out of the house. Yes,
it was traumatic that she passed away before I had

(17:59):
a chance to make things right with her.

Speaker 3 (18:01):
Right.

Speaker 2 (18:02):
Yes, I went through probably about fifteen to twenty years
of just not understanding trauma and just living life broken
to putting it all down on paper to begin a
healing process, because like it's a recurring through line. It's
like I am just working through the mud still till
this day, I'm still dealing with.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Losing my mom.

Speaker 2 (18:24):
But now I have come to the realization that opening
my mouth and painting that picture for people, it helps
folks who are walking that walk, people who are in
that season of their life. The comments on the YouTube
video of the talk brings me to tears sometimes, Jared,

(18:45):
when people are like Robin, you know, I haven't spoken
to my mom, but seeing your talk made me want
to call her. Thanks. And I'm like, that's what it is,
you know, that's kind of the whole, you know, circle
of progress in terms of the talk, then and now
and my mom.

Speaker 1 (19:06):
And I want to ask you, like, how important did
it become that, as you said, you allowed people to
see the mud on your boots.

Speaker 3 (19:17):
You said, how difficult?

Speaker 1 (19:18):
How important was it important?

Speaker 2 (19:22):
When I when I was preparing for my talk, I
was going into it with an opportunist perspective. I was like,
all right, about to get some clients, you know, I'm
like lick at my chops, like yeah, like, what can
I write about? And I went to the organizer, God
bless his soul. His name is Darryl Stinton, an amazing speaker,

(19:42):
two time ted X speaker, millions of views on both
of his videos, a coach, he's just a great guy.
And I went to him and I pitched my first idea.
All right, Darryl, I want to do this talk about
how YouTube can teach you anything. At the time, I
would working with a company called Vidiq, is one of

(20:03):
the top YouTube software companies, and I was one of
their founding creative coaches. So this was right in my
wheelhouse and it was aligned with my business as well.
And he was like, that's a great topic, but let's
start from the beginning. Tell me about yourself, tell me
about your life. And I was like, well, you know,
you know, I moved down to Georgia in twenty twenty twenty.

(20:26):
He was like, eh, like, tell me about little Robin.

Speaker 3 (20:29):
Like start.

Speaker 2 (20:30):
So I started telling him this story and I finished
the story. I'm emotional now because I'm talking about the mud,
right Jarrett and I don't talk about it. He's like,
that's the talk, and at that point I was resistant. Still,
I was like like, nobody's gonna like hire me because

(20:54):
you know my you know, because I lost my mom
and my brother went to prison when he was sixteen
years years old and died, you know, a couple of
years ago. No one's gonna no one's gonna actually hire
me for my services. And he was like, nah, it's
not about that. He's like, work with that. And as

(21:15):
I began the process, Jared, is when I realized the
importance of my talk. Because now talking about something living,
something that's important and that makes sense and it has
some value. But writing down and documenting stuff is huge.
And I tell my son all the time. He's a
basketball player and he wants to like be a professional

(21:37):
basketball player.

Speaker 3 (21:38):
Like it's his dream.

Speaker 2 (21:39):
And I tell him all the time, I say, Bronson,
document your journey, Like how many shots did you put
up today? Like write it down so you can look back. Oh,
I know, I've been doing the work for me. And
that particular experience of like writing out an outline of
how I wanted to present my talk, going into detail
and letting it all out revised, of refining it and

(22:01):
editing it, that's when I realized how important it was.
I went through it like man, this could really impact
some folks. And then I had a shift of how
can I use this to come up versus how can
I use this to serve? And that in fact has
carried over to my work. And the byproduct of it
is opportunities just keep coming because I'm rooted in service,

(22:23):
not an opportunity.

Speaker 1 (22:26):
Powerful, right, powerful, And we shift our focus like that.
And what I love is by showing that side of you,
it makes people want to work with the now side
of you because we know where you've been.

Speaker 2 (22:45):
Yeah, And we live in a world where everyone's sharing
their highlight films. Like my world is social media. All
I see is people's highlight films. People are like, oh,
I got it, three sixty dunk, you know, a buzzer
beater shot right, like you know, go touchdown?

Speaker 3 (23:02):
You know.

Speaker 2 (23:02):
No one's like turnover, right, No one's like death in
the family.

Speaker 3 (23:08):
There are people who do that.

Speaker 2 (23:10):
And those are the people for me, Like I want
the I want people to be.

Speaker 3 (23:15):
Human and I and.

Speaker 2 (23:18):
Hey, listen, we it's okay to celebrate wins. I'm not
here saying that we shouldn't celebrate wins. I do that
as well, but there has to be a balance whereas
we also kind of are comfortable with sharing our shortcomings
as well.

Speaker 1 (23:33):
Well, that's what unites us that, that's what brings us together,
that's what makes us human.

Speaker 3 (23:40):
I agree. I agree.

Speaker 1 (23:41):
It's why the undergo underdog is always rooted for.

Speaker 2 (23:47):
Mm hmmm, mm hmmm. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (23:49):
I love that.

Speaker 1 (23:50):
I love that, right, Like I I go back to
every time, like when it comes to minds in New
England Patriots when they were undefeated and the Super Bowl,
They're going to say, Giants. Who I think, We're like
barely one game over five hundred before the playoffs, and
I bet like ninety percent of the world was rooting
for the Giants because we, most of us, are the Giants.
We're struggling to get through. We're like you would say

(24:11):
modern our boots. We're still in progress. We're not perfect.

Speaker 3 (24:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (24:16):
Yeah, I'm a big Giants fan, so that is so
so basketball. I'm a free agent before NFL football, I'm
a huge Giants fan. And at the time of they
beat the Patriots twice in that era. One of the
Super Bowls, I was in Berlin, Germany, promoting events for

(24:36):
my music career, and they threw a party for me
to watch this Super Bowl, Jared. So it was like
super late over there. It's like two or three in
the morning. The game is happening, and this is the
one I believe when the one of the players caught
a ball on its head.

Speaker 3 (24:52):
Like yeah, it was like a big deal.

Speaker 2 (24:55):
So I run out of this bar top speed screaming
like yeah, I'm like I had been drinking or whatever.
A bus is coming. A bus is That's how I
know I'm being protected. A bus was coming. As I
was running out into the street. I looked to the
left and I see the bus. I can see it
right now coming towards me. I had to decide if

(25:18):
I was going to stop and go back or keep pushing.
My momentum was so I was. I had so much momentum.
If I would have stopped, I would have likely got killed.
I just kind of pushed through. That bus probably missed
me by like three feet. So I'll never forget that
Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (25:38):
Yeah, never be the squirrel, right, the squirrel to get
hits is the one that hesitates in the middle of
the road.

Speaker 2 (25:43):
Yup, you just gotta make a decision.

Speaker 1 (25:45):
You gotta commit, That's right. I wanted. I think there's
a perfect time to segue, like what you were talking
about is that human connection, right? And that your ted
talk because you were vulnerable because you opened up about
all the imperfections your life and class. Sometimes when we
open upbout the things were not really proud that we did,
but that we learned from to get to where we are.
It's how we create that connection, especially in a world

(26:07):
where everybody is filtered and perfect and successful. So one
of the things I saw from me that I really
liked is your model connect, create and contribute.

Speaker 2 (26:19):
Yep.

Speaker 1 (26:19):
So talk to me about that philosophy and how did
that take shape and how do we apply that yep.

Speaker 2 (26:26):
So in twenty twenty one, my brother was ill. You know,
he had a heart condition, but something happened where he
had like an infection in his heart essentially, and he
was bedridden. Like I said earlier, my brother served twenty
years in prison. He went to prison at sixteen years old,

(26:49):
so he lived his adult life in prison and then
was finally released and is sent to Trinidad and Tobago
because he wasn't an American citizen. So he was living
his new life down there for a few years and
then he fell ill. So that summer we were on
the phone constantly. I'm just trying to get him through it.
I'm thinking he's gonna bounce back. Nope, you know, he's

(27:09):
gonna be okay.

Speaker 3 (27:11):
And then.

Speaker 2 (27:13):
He gets home from the hospital. And once he gets
home from the hospital, my father has a stroke. Simultaneously,
Like as he's getting out of the hospital, my father,
who at the time was in his late seventies early eighties,
has a stroke. So it's like I shift my energy
from like, Okay, I'm there for Kevin. He's home from
the hospital. Let me take care of dad now. So

(27:34):
I kind of shift my attention to my dad because
you know, I'm just trying to be there for everyone.

Speaker 3 (27:39):
Kevin is kind of rolling.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
And then he calls me a few times. I missed
one of his calls. He leaves me a voicemail. I
didn't check it till a couple of days later. Come
to find out during that time when I was waiting
to check his voicemail, he passed away. So my brother
passed away. I never got to like talk to him again.

(28:02):
I'd go back to check the voicemail, and its brutal.
I talk about it in the talk, but it's like
he's essentially telling me like, yo, I'm going back to
the hospital and I'm dying, Like hit me up.

Speaker 3 (28:13):
So that happens.

Speaker 2 (28:15):
And at the time my dad starts to heal, we
have to manage his affairs. I had to like pay
for his funeral, essentially raise the money for his funeral.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
It was a lot, and.

Speaker 2 (28:28):
I after I finished, I got into a space where
my business, which at the time was built on coaching
musicians on social media. That was my market, was really
coaching musicians or how to operate on social media. I
just decided just overnight, I was like, I don't know
if I want to do this anymore. And I went
through this exercise that I called the joy Audit, which

(28:52):
is essentially a time audit. Right, So I went through
my calendar. How much time do I sleep? I'm sleeping
about six to seven hours a day. When do I
get up? How long does it take me to get
ready much? How long is my commute? Like, how long
am I at work? How much time do I spend
with my family? So I did this whole thing, and
I realized that there was a big chunk of my
time on this business that wasn't bringing me joy. So

(29:14):
I essentially closed the faucets on this business. Jared overnight
ended all relationships. I had finished up any existing contracts
and just changed up my business totally by taking a break.
But I realized in that in the Joy audit that
I was like, things were not aligned in terms of

(29:36):
the topics, ideas or values of each of my time blocks,
and so I needed to simplify it. I was making
a sandwich one morning in one of my time slots,
and I was like, what is this, Like what am
I doing? And it hit me like a It just
hit me like a ton of bricks that I was creating.

(30:00):
I was making a sandwich. It was simple. I was
making a sandwich, but I was still creating. I was like,
so this is like a create block. What is it
When I connect with my wife when we have coffee
in the morning, We're connecting, connect create. What am I
doing when I get to work? What am I doing
when I'm working with a client. I'm contributing. I'm contributing
to what the emission is. So from that Joy Audit

(30:21):
and these three pillars, I started instead of grouping things
like going to the bathroom like I was maniacal about this.
It was like going to the bathroom, coming back from
the bathroom, washing hands, like I was doing like five
minute blocks, ten minute blocks. Finally, I just broke it
down into these three pillars. And if I'm not doing
one of these three three things, I don't need to

(30:43):
be doing it. If I can't make it like this
is a connect pillar. Me and you are connecting, and
some of them have overlapped where we're also creating because
we're making content. So I'm connecting and creating and you
could even say contributing in a way as well. Right,
So if it doesn't hit these three, if it doesn't
fit into one of these three pillars or buckets, then

(31:04):
I don't need to be doing it.

Speaker 3 (31:06):
So my brother's passing really led to this.

Speaker 2 (31:09):
It's like me operating in a way where the time,
which is that non renewable resource that is scarce and
we can't get back. Right when my kids are twenty
one twenty two years old, they're gonna be like my
dad was at every game because I was connecting with them,
you know what I mean. And that's where the pill

(31:29):
that's where the system came up. That's how I came
up with the system. And for people to implement it.
That's all I would do is conduct a joy audit
using those pillars and just test it out and see
how it feels. You can redefine the pillars for your life.
You might have a totally different you know, you might
be in a totally different walk of life than me,

(31:50):
and maybe it's something else. But try to identify what
are those three important pillars of your life and see
if you can group your time slots into those so
you don't waste a minute.

Speaker 1 (32:02):
That man, you hit me on that one. As you
were saying that, I reflected back. We made some big
life changes in twenty eighteen, walked away from a career,
started creating some new stuff, and I said yes to everything.
So I was in this mindset of like, just say
yes to as much as possible. Something's gonna pan out,
You're gonna keep going. And then my wife, it's funny

(32:23):
your quote is from your wife, because my wife and
I had to sit down and she's like, why are
you saying yes to all this stuff? Like so we
had to do the same thing. Look at what we were,
what we had committed to, and how much fun did
it bring us? How much joy did it bring us?
How much time are we spending doing this instead of
what we really wanted to be doing, and started pairing
things down and we can't. We came up with any

(32:46):
yeses have to lead to fun, learning and independence. Right.
If I can't say yes to any program, any partnership,
any collaboration, if you take away my freedom, if I
have to be locked into a place and we can't
move like we like to move, if it's not fun,

(33:07):
we're not doing it. And I think sometimes we and
I love connect, create, contribute. It's simple. I don't get
lost in the details of like, well, I don't know
what kind of fits. No, it either is or it isn't.
It's I love that, right, it's either fun.

Speaker 3 (33:25):
Yeah, And I think yours. Yeah.

Speaker 2 (33:28):
I was gonna say, I think that yours again. It's
like very defined pillars and it's relatable to me because
it's very similar to the way I operate when getting
opportunities and stuff.

Speaker 3 (33:40):
So I love that you shared that with me.

Speaker 1 (33:42):
So so help me understand this, because here's here's where
I see people struggle. Right, is you're successful, you're in music,
you're successful, you're doing the thing, your transitions successfully to
social media, you're successful, but you don't ever stop allowing
yourself to reinvent and to pivot to what else you
want to do. So share it with me how you

(34:05):
work to that, because so many people get stuck, like,
I'm good at this, so I'm just gonna do this
even though I know, I know when I go to
bed at night, Robin, I have dreams of something else.
But because I'm succepted, right, so many times we focus on, well,
I'm not I lost here, so I'm gonna make this
big pivot. But sometimes we don't pivot when we're winning,
even though we know there's more on the table for us.

Speaker 5 (34:29):
Would you throwing now, I'm trying to set you up.

Speaker 1 (34:43):
Yeah, So tell me that, because that's what I want
to hear.

Speaker 2 (34:47):
Let me start with an example before I go it
to my story. So I have a dear, a dear friend.
His name is Joel Leon. He is a ted speaker,
a award winning author. He's the creative director over at
New York Times. He's an activist, a poet with a storyteller,

(35:08):
just an amazing man, like an amazing man. And we
started out together as rappers. We used to get or
we used to have a residency in New York City
at a place called Pianos.

Speaker 3 (35:21):
The event was called the Melting.

Speaker 2 (35:24):
Pot and there we had this kind of motley crew
of musicians who would come together every month. Me and
Joel were one of them. Another one is Arthur Lewis.
Arthur Lewis is.

Speaker 3 (35:35):
A Tony Award winning Broadway guy.

Speaker 2 (35:38):
He does stuff, grew up with Lyndon Manuel Miranda and
does is in his freestyle you know, team or whatever.
Like this is like a group of people who years
ago were just going to come up together and all
have transitioned to do different things. And I share Joelle
because his transition was so wild, because he is a

(36:01):
great rapper and a great musician, but he has gone
beyond anything he probably could have imagined for hisself through
his written word, through him being a writer, and through
him being a speaker.

Speaker 3 (36:16):
So to think about myself.

Speaker 2 (36:20):
As a musician, there's this stigma of quitting right, and
it's probably the same for other feels too, especially when
it's something that's like creative based, and you have this
dream of being like famous and successful with being a musician.

Speaker 3 (36:36):
So I wanted to be a musician.

Speaker 2 (36:38):
Since I was nine years old, when my classmates were
applying for colleges. I was sending my demo tape to
record labels. I wasn't even applying to colleges. I was like, nah,
I don't need that.

Speaker 3 (36:48):
I'm gonna be a rapper.

Speaker 2 (36:50):
When they went to go to the University of North
Carolina and Duke in NC state because I went to
high school in North Carolina, I took my pel grant
money and jumped on a bus moved to Staten Island,
New York to try to join a Wu Tang clan
like that was my at seventeen. Yeah, when I was seventeen,
I moved to Staten Island because my friend Darren, his

(37:11):
brother Blue, lived with one of the Wu Tang members,
Capa Donna, and I went to go move in with them,
like that's where I was. So this journey of being
a musician started very young. So when my son was
born and I got older, I was like, I guess
I gotta just keep doing this. I guess I gotta
keep doing this until finally I started to get some

(37:31):
success as a nonprofit leader. I was like, well, this
pays money, and there's like, you know, there's value here
for me to like grow to be a director, an
executive director, whatever the title is, right, this could be
my way of sharing my message. So I kind of

(37:51):
transitioned from like being a rapper into like just being
a working man. But I still had the creative itch.
So I said, oh, okay, let me try to produce
some beats. I'm gonna be a producer. Taught myself how
to produce, ended up getting some of my records placed
with some successful artists. Now I'm selling beats and I'm

(38:12):
a producer. Then then people were like, hey, how did
you grow your your audience on social media to over
one hundred thousand subscribers and follow us?

Speaker 3 (38:22):
How'd you do that?

Speaker 2 (38:23):
I kept telling people, and I was like, wait a minute,
maybe this is something that I should do. So then
I transitioned there and so the you know, the reinvention
kind of continued, and I just flowed with it because
I got over that whole stigma of all you quit
used to be a rapper, now you're a producer.

Speaker 3 (38:42):
Oh used to be a rapper? Now what you're selling
beats to people?

Speaker 2 (38:45):
That was like a whole thing in a hip hop community.
But no one would ever tell me, oh, you used
to be a rapper, but now you're an acclaimed author
and a ted speaker. Ooh boo. No, it's gonna say
that they're gonna be like what you used to rap
and now you do that? Why did you? Yeah? So,
And again I'm not saying that to like make myself
look anyway. I'm trying to just paint a picture for people.

(39:08):
Where you are now might not be the ceiling. There
might be so much more. I would have never imagined
that I would do public speaking if you were to
ask me in two thousand and two when I was
releasing music. Never, But that wasn't the plan for me.
I just allowed, you know, my skill sets and my
passions to kind of lead me up this road. And

(39:32):
for that reason, I've comfortably transitioned and reinvented myself based
on what the people need and what value I can
provide and how I can serve people. And that has
kind of been my trick, to just manage freely in
different spaces.

Speaker 1 (39:49):
Well, I love hearing that because I didn't pick up
ego right, and I think that's usually a lot of
the biggest hurdle people have to vercome as their own
egos of oh my god, what are people going to
think about me if I make this change.

Speaker 3 (40:03):
Yeah, I had to listen, Jared.

Speaker 2 (40:06):
I had one at one point with my coaching for musicians.
I had like a pretty substantial email list, pretty substantial,
and I transitioned and then all of a sudden, our
open rates on that email list just kind of tank.
It was like, we don't want that, like this, that's

(40:28):
not what we came here for. And I just had
to make the decision that, you know what, I'm going
to prune the heck out of this list. I'm gonna
I'm gonna just you know, take people off the list
unless they're opening the email. So I had to like
shrink down my audience for me to start over again.

Speaker 3 (40:46):
And it takes it takes courage to do that.

Speaker 2 (40:49):
I was scared. I was like, man, like, I worked
so hard to build this audience and now I'm gonna
just start over. But if you think about the reason
you're doing things and like what the purpose is behind it,
you know, like I have my pillars for my you know,
my connect create contribute, but I also like I have

(41:10):
my purpose. It's really like setting a good example for
my kids, Like I want my kids to see that
their dad is passionate about something, and that if they change,
if he changes into another field or doing a different thing,
he still has passion. And the and the and the
ninja trick is if you can somehow get paid for
doing that thing you love, but do it anyway. I

(41:31):
would be doing social media even if I wasn't getting
paid for it, you know what I mean. I would
still being tinkering around with this like a scientist, even
if I wasn't like getting paid for it. And that's
what I want my kids to see. So I really
am rooted in setting an example for my children that
you can find something that you love and you can

(41:53):
pour yourself into it, and if you're lucky, you might
even get paid for it if you're really rooted in
gratitude and service.

Speaker 1 (42:00):
And rob and I would just tell you one of
the things from my experience. My kids are older than yours,
they're all adults now. I would eventually say, one of
the things your kids are gonna remember about you is
the courage you demonstrated and being willing to make changes,
because that's what I hear from our children. It's like

(42:22):
man like when we meet other parents and they ask
what our parents do, and we tell them what you
and mom are doing and the changes you made and
all the different things you've done in life. Lets them
know they can do that, and that they don't have
to commit to what their path is right out of
high school and stick on this career because it's got

(42:42):
all the stuff that they thought they needed, but doesn't
fulfill their heart and doesn't allow them to contribute to
society the way they were meant to be.

Speaker 3 (42:54):
That is some.

Speaker 2 (42:55):
That is some like optimal dad swag right there, Jared,
because most dads and most parents are not operating in
that space, especially for me coming up. My parents again,
they're West Indian immigrants, and it was very much like
make sure you, like get a good job, like you

(43:15):
want to be a lawyer, you want to be a scientist, Like,
make sure you get a good job.

Speaker 3 (43:19):
And as I lean more into my.

Speaker 2 (43:23):
Music journey and my dad realized that I was like
not gonna be going to college right away. I went
to college as an adult learner. I didn't go to
college right after high school. I went in my thirties
working working a job and going part time. But my dad,
like he was heartbroken, Jared. He was like, look at him.
Look at them, look at them they went to school,

(43:44):
like why can't you just like no one's like you're
never gonna make it as a rapper.

Speaker 3 (43:48):
And in no shade against my dad.

Speaker 2 (43:50):
I love my dad. He did a great job and
I'm grateful for him. He's in his mid eighties, still kicking.
He's an awesome dude. But he was fearful, especially coming
from an immigrant background. So I think you sharing that
is something that dads need to really embrace, is like,
it's okay for your kids to pivot and shift and

(44:11):
reinvent and not follow traditional paths as long as it
brings them joy and it benefits them and others.

Speaker 3 (44:18):
I think that's the way to go.

Speaker 1 (44:21):
And I've never, very seldom if I ever heard somebody
get to the end of your life and say, man,
I wish I'd worked more. I wish I would have
put more hours than on the job, Like what is
it those deathbed regrets? Or usually I wish I'd spent
more time with my family. I wish I would have
pursued this dream or that dream. And one of the

(44:42):
things that I like to share with my kids and
any young people that I get to coach or mentor
is do it now. There's no timeline on your dreams because,
like you said, you don't know if you hadn't followed
the rap dream, even though the odds are you would
never be the multi million, right, Like, just the number

(45:05):
of rappers and odds of breaking through to that top
one percent are very much against you. But maybe that
was the path. Maybe the wrapping path was to open
up the storytelling path to the coaching path. But we
won't know what paths are supposed to be on if
we're trying to dictate our own path, right, Sometimes you
just got to take your hands off the wheel, be
like I'm gonna show up, I'm gonna work, I'm gonna dream,

(45:28):
and I'm gonna see where things take me.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Yep.

Speaker 2 (45:31):
And it takes a certain level of discipline to make
those leaps, but also it takes a high level of
like logic to make the right decision because like you
said earlier, you can't say yes to everything. You got
to have some kind of you know, system or you
know kind of ideas on what works and what's not

(45:55):
working for your end goal. But I think for young people,
you know, it's like, man, you got a blank canvas, man,
you know what I mean, like, really try some things out.
My daughter is a great example of this. She's six,
and when I tell you, she does it all. She's
like a cheerleader, she plays soccer, she does music. She's

(46:17):
in music. They're teaching them all the instruments. So she's
trying guitar, she's trying drums, she's trying keys, and she's
trying vocals. You know, she's doing swimming, she's like doing tumbling,
ballet like and it's hard for us. But like I
tell my wife all the time, I'm like, let's just

(46:38):
pour into all of these interests until she finds what
she loves. My thing is, I never wanted to like
force something on my kids, like you're gonna be good
at math, with sending you to like with sending you
to Kuman. Right, they can go to Kuman, but they
can also go to music. They can also go to
do sports. So I like the idea of young people

(46:59):
understand that they have a blank canvas in his life
and they can paint whatever picture they want with whatever
colors they desire to use.

Speaker 1 (47:06):
And that's a very mature parenting perspective. You're talking about
the Robin and that you realize your ego as a
parent isn't derived from what your kids do, right, And
I think that's a tough time, tough thing to separate
from sometimes, right, because we have ego. We all have ego,

(47:27):
and I want my kids to be as good as
they can be. But what does that look like, right
if I'm in comparison all Just like you said, your
dad's like, well you didn't go to this college or
that college. Well, that wasn't for me. And I think
sometimes and I was guilty of this for sure. As
a parent, your kid's disappointments become your discipline. You're afraid
of what it looks like, so you want to protect

(47:49):
them and put them on the path. And I know,
if you go to college and get a degree, even
though you're unhappy and you're studying something that makes no
sense to you and you're not passionate about, it'll get
you a certain kind of job, which provides a certain
kind of life style, which provides a certain amount of security.
So it's a parent, it's easy to steer that because
that's safety and you know your kids are gonna be
taken care of. The mature of you is like, hey,

(48:13):
you're gonna be taken care of, because that's how it works.
If you show up in the world and you do good,
good things happen to you. But pursue your passions, find
a way, as you said, Robin, to merge your passions
and money, a way to make a living, because they
always overlap if we're open to see it.

Speaker 2 (48:32):
Yeah, that's that's the ninja trick. You talk about disappointment
back in eighth grade, for my son, I'm sorry, said,
I think it was seventh grade. Seventh grade, he tried
out for the basketball team. He didn't make the team.
When I tell you, like we were pouring into him,
putting him into trainings, all of the things, but then

(48:54):
when he went to go try out he didn't get picked.
He came to the car crying and just like totally distraught,
and like you said, like I was like literally feeling
his pain, like I could feel it on my body.
Even thinking about it now, it like makes me, it
makes me tear up, because you know, we want them

(49:14):
to be successful, but more importantly, we want them to
be happy and be joyful, and I could see how
sad he was. So what we did was after that
was try to like lift him up, like, hey, it's
just a part of your your journey. Michael Jordan got
cut from the team too. That's what everyone says, right, Like,
Mike got cut, so it's okay. Another one SGA who's
in the finals right now, Shake gyldis Alexander.

Speaker 3 (49:37):
He was also cut.

Speaker 2 (49:38):
I think he got cut from the senior from the
from the varsity team in like tenth grade or something
like that. He had a similar story. So he came
back the eighth grade year a little better, a little taller,
a little faster, and he made the team. But I
think that's a part of it, like understanding that you're
gonna fall and that's okay, Like that victory and and wins,

(50:01):
like you don't even fully understand them unless you had
some losses.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
And that's something that I try to teach my kids.

Speaker 1 (50:08):
Yeah, that reminds me. One of the videos I love
sharing his Kobe Bryant talking about his dad. I don't
know if you've seen that short YouTube clip he was
he was talking about his eighth grade year when he
was on this high level traveling team for the summer
and he scored zero points.

Speaker 2 (50:24):
Did you see that one?

Speaker 1 (50:25):
Yeaheah, and his dad just pulled him sides like somem,
I love you whether you scored zero or forty thousand points,
and that just gave him the freedom to realize like
his relationship with his dad wasn't based on how well
he did it something, but just on being who he
was and that that love was unconditional. I think a
lot of times if we kind of like it ties
all the way back to what you talked about earlier,
your last words. If we know that the person we're

(50:48):
interacting with is going to love us and be there
for us, whether we fail or we succeed, whether you
take a risk or we stay in our lane. If
we know that these were relationships and the people actually
you don't care about us, how much more would we
lean into who we could really become.

Speaker 2 (51:07):
Yep, Yeah, I don't want to leave anything unsaid, man,
That's one thing, like I want to do my best
to make sure that you know. I'm telling my kids
I love them, I'm telling my wife and again I'm flawed.

Speaker 3 (51:21):
I have rough days.

Speaker 2 (51:22):
Me and my wife had a little bit of a
spat yesterday about something else, and she was the bigger
person that came to me and just put her arms
around me, and as soon as she did that, like
all of the silliness that I was holding on to,
I let it go. And I think that it's important, man,
when you walk out that door, when you get off
that call, that you leave people in the space that

(51:43):
you want to leave them in, and hopefully it's an
intentionally positive space. Man.

Speaker 1 (51:51):
I love that, and I love accepting that we don't
have to be perfect to be good, right, I don't
do that. We don't have to be perfect to do
the right thing.

Speaker 2 (52:05):
Yeah, perfection is a trap man. It's tough, like it
can hold you back from a lot.

Speaker 3 (52:12):
And I think that it's better to just.

Speaker 2 (52:16):
Do the right thing, even if it's not perfect, to
make sure that it gets done. And you know, like
you can feel it in your body when you need
to make the right decision. You know, when we get
to those different junctions of life and we have to
make a decision on which way we're going to go,
nine times out of ten, something is telling you what

(52:37):
you need to do, even if that's the uncomfortable path.

Speaker 3 (52:41):
Something is telling you what to do.

Speaker 2 (52:43):
But one thing that's helped me is being okay with
pausing because sometimes when we feel that tension, we need
to just kind of pump our brakes. There's a piece
of my book where I talk about a quote I
heard from Pastor Andy Stanley, and it's pay attention to
the tension where it's like when you feel that like

(53:04):
visceral reaction to something, like, take a minute and pause.
It could be a bad thing, it could be a
good thing, but whatever you do, take a minute to
pause to kind of assess what's happening before you make
that decision, because you know, especially with young men. My son,
he's fifteen years old, and it's crazy out here on
the internet, man, But the internet is a wild place,

(53:24):
and I just want to make sure he makes good decisions.
And pausing, I think is a good way, a good
mechanism for people to avoid any pitfalls.

Speaker 1 (53:35):
Rob. As we get ready to wrap up, what's one
lesson about resilience that you would like to share with
our community?

Speaker 2 (53:48):
Man, this is good. So my experience could have broken
me into and shattered me into pieces. Sometimes I look
at that people that I grew up with and friends.
Some of my friends aren't here anymore, you know what
I mean. And some of my friends are in prison.

(54:10):
Like there's some wild stories. But one thing that I
would say from my experience and what I'll share with
your audience in terms of resilience, is that knowing that
my purpose is greater than my current circumstances keeps me
going and helps me and helped me to develop the

(54:32):
level of resilience that I needed to be where I
am in life, and I have a lot of room
to grow. Like I'm not the richest person in the world.
I don't have all of the things, but one thing
that I am grateful for in terms of my wealth
is that I'm healthy, I have a beautiful family, and
most importantly, I'm trying to set a good example for

(54:54):
others and those kids. So, regardless of what your current
circumstances are telling you or are forcing you to deal
with your future and your purpose, your purpose should be
the guiding light on what you do.

Speaker 1 (55:10):
I love it. Where can our audience connect with you,
Robin and follow along your journey and be part of
the positive community you're building as well?

Speaker 2 (55:19):
Yep, I'm all over social media at Robin Marx. That's
R O B B I N M A r X.
But the easiest way to get in contact with me
is to sign up for my newsletter and what I'm
doing for your audience. If it's okay, I'd like to give.

Speaker 3 (55:33):
Them a gift.

Speaker 2 (55:35):
I always try to bear gifts, yep. So if you
visit land the Talk dot com spelled that way Land
the Talk dot Com, I'll give you two free ebooks
for social media as well as a preview to my
book Social Media Sinc.

Speaker 3 (55:53):
And it'll also put you on my mailing list.

Speaker 2 (55:55):
I respond to all of my messages, so if you
once you sign up for the list, you can reply
to that email like hey Robin, it's me Jimmy, and
you'll hear from me. So if you have any questions
or want to connect with me, that's the best and
easiest way to do that.

Speaker 1 (56:09):
Robin. I can't thank you enough for the work you're doing,
the man you are, and for finding your voice and
the power and sharing that story. I'm so greatful our
past cross and appreciative of you taking the time to
share what you're doing with us today.

Speaker 3 (56:26):
It's been an absolute honor.

Speaker 2 (56:27):
Jared. I appreciate your brother.

Speaker 1 (56:30):
And remember team. Life is far too short to live
any other way than on purpose. We'll see you all
again next week.