Speaker 1: Before we dive into this week's episode, be sure to
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Speaker 1: So we appreciate you, guys more than you'll ever know
Speaker 1: all the times you've supported us from the beginning of
Speaker 1: the show to this point. So thank you, and let's
Speaker 1: drop in deep to this week's show. Welcome back, everyone
Speaker 1: to another episode of Comeback Stories. Darren Waller here with
Speaker 1: my man Donnie Starkins is always let it happy. Here bro,
Speaker 1: always talk to you, be with you. Excited to have
Speaker 1: the guests that we have on today. He's NFL veteran,
Speaker 1: but to put him in a box would be a disservice.
Speaker 1: He is a two time New York bestselling author of
Speaker 1: Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black man and uncomfortable conversations with
Speaker 1: a black boy. He is a Fox Sports one TV analyst,
Speaker 1: Sports Emmy winner, Primetime Emmy winner, among many other things.
Speaker 1: So please annual also to the show emmanual. How you
Speaker 1: doing in What's up? People? H D. Water is a
Speaker 1: long time coming, man, We're supposed to then linked up
Speaker 1: a while, bat Donnie. Good to see you, man heard.
Speaker 1: Great things have red, great things have looked up, great things.
Speaker 1: So it's good to wrap with y'all. Yes, sir, it's
Speaker 1: a blessing to have you here. We love to die
Speaker 1: right into the story. We want to know what it
Speaker 1: was like life was like for you growing up, dude,
Speaker 1: growing up the youngest of four night Jerian parents. So
Speaker 1: I'm in a household in Dallas, Texas, and I'm the
Speaker 1: youngest of four and Nigerian parents is a little bit different, right,
Speaker 1: like you can't date until you get married, tight, right
Speaker 1: like Nigerian household is. You must be a doctor, You
Speaker 1: must be a lawyer, You must be an engineer, like
Speaker 1: you got to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer.
Speaker 1: But I wanted to play football. My pops is five nine,
Speaker 1: my mom's is five eight. Football to them was that
Speaker 1: black and white circular object that you kick on the ground.
Speaker 1: My brother ends up being six three to forty. He
Speaker 1: goes to a usc football camp. He runs a four
Speaker 1: to six forty back in the heyday when Pete Carroll
Speaker 1: was there. Pete Carroll instantly offers him on the spot.
Speaker 1: Next thing, you know, the Acho name became something in Texas.
Speaker 1: My brother decides to commit to the University of Texas.
Speaker 1: I then decide to commit to University of Texas. And
Speaker 1: this was back when we were in our bag national
Speaker 1: championship with Vince Young coming off the heels of that.
Speaker 1: So I go to a private school growing up, this
Speaker 1: all boys school where we had national merit scholars and
Speaker 1: I end up being the jock, if you will. But
Speaker 1: growing up for me was complex because several different cultures
Speaker 1: d wall and identities I had to fit in. You
Speaker 1: were born to Nigerian parents, but went to private school,
Speaker 1: then went to church in the hood, and so it
Speaker 1: was simultaneously trying to live in these different spheres, in
Speaker 1: these different spaces, but it made me who I am.
Speaker 1: I can relate to having different environments. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like you have to fit into? I was always struggling
Speaker 1: with not being black enough when I was growing up,
Speaker 1: because I went to school, hung out with predominantly white
Speaker 1: people for the most part, and when I got into
Speaker 1: sports teams, you know, just being around people were as
Speaker 1: more of my skin color. They kind of, you know,
Speaker 1: made fun of me, crack jokes on me in It
Speaker 1: was tough for me, and I always felt like I
Speaker 1: had to wear masks in different environments. Do you feel
Speaker 1: like you had to put those masks on? And if
Speaker 1: you did, what kind of impacting I had on you? Man?
Speaker 1: A thousand percent, especially in college because my football team
Speaker 1: in high school was predominantly white. Again, true story on
Speaker 1: the school I went to, called Saint Mark's, Dallas, Texas.
Speaker 1: For context, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Clark Hunt,
Speaker 1: he graduated from that school. His children graduated from that school.
Speaker 1: Just to give y'all context of the caliber of financial
Speaker 1: individual that attends that school. Mark Cuban, the owner of
Speaker 1: the Dallas Mavericks, I believe his kids go there. Tony Romo,
Speaker 1: former quarterback of the Cowboys, I believe his kids go there.
Speaker 1: So just to give y'all context. Now, mind you, my
Speaker 1: parents were trying to get me and my brother scholarships
Speaker 1: to attended school because my parents migrated from Nigeria. So
Speaker 1: I'm at school in Dallas, super nerdy private school. Then
Speaker 1: I go to Texas and at Texas it's all kind
Speaker 1: of inner city, country, urban, all types of folks. But
Speaker 1: I'm this private school kid. They really don't know nothing
Speaker 1: about nothing, So I had to figure out who I
Speaker 1: was on the fly. At the University of Texas, I'm
Speaker 1: figuring out my own identity. So it was very awkward.
Speaker 1: It was very uncomfortable, if you will, But I loved
Speaker 1: it because it made me a much more well rounded
Speaker 1: human being. Yeah. Man, I mean all those experiences, I
Speaker 1: feel like are what allow you to radiate the energy
Speaker 1: that you radiate in culture today and looking at what
Speaker 1: you do now. I was doing a little research on you.
Speaker 1: In it said that your family was big into missionary
Speaker 1: work growing up. What kind of impact you felill feel
Speaker 1: like that had on you and what lessons do you
Speaker 1: think you carried from that today? Man, the greatest thing
Speaker 1: that's ever been done for my life is going back
Speaker 1: to Nigeria every summer. So growing up, every summer we
Speaker 1: would go back to the rural village of Nigeria and
Speaker 1: for context. If you think you've seen poverty in America,
Speaker 1: the villages of Nigeria are American poverty on steroids. They
Speaker 1: are poverty of poverty. You wake up when the sun
Speaker 1: wakes you up, and you go to sleep on it's
Speaker 1: dark outside. There ain't no natural electricity in the villages.
Speaker 1: You shower in the stream, the same stream that you
Speaker 1: collect your water and carry back on a bucket on
Speaker 1: your head, the same stream that you wash your motorcycles
Speaker 1: and your vehicles in. Like, that's the same stream that
Speaker 1: these villagers are showering in getting water to cook from.
Speaker 1: So every summer we would go to these rural villages
Speaker 1: of Nigeria for context for all the listeners and viewers.
Speaker 1: In Nigeria, seventy five percent of people live off less
Speaker 1: than one dollar a day, less than one dollar a day.
Speaker 1: So finally, after nine years of fundraising, we build a
Speaker 1: hospital in Nigeria, Like in the middle of nowhere village,
Speaker 1: we built a hospital and a two million dollar raise,
Speaker 1: and we would go with forty doctors and nurses and
Speaker 1: we would perform cataract surgery so blind people or people
Speaker 1: who had limited site would regain their site. We were
Speaker 1: removed and extract different on aligned limbs. People would get
Speaker 1: a spider bite that might erode their arm, and we
Speaker 1: would give them antibiotics. Keep in mind, in Nigeria, there's
Speaker 1: not cvs, there's not Walgreens, there's not right Aid, there
Speaker 1: are not pharmacies, there are not places where you can
Speaker 1: do an annual checkup and wall or we were the
Speaker 1: annual checkup. So going back to medical mission trips in Nigeria,
Speaker 1: that literally kept me humble in the midst of trying
Speaker 1: to live out the American dream. What do you feel
Speaker 1: like for you if you go back into childhood days, Darren,
Speaker 1: I always like to ask this question. Can you tell
Speaker 1: us an early memory of pain that you had? Who
Speaker 1: an early memory of pain? I can tell you an
Speaker 1: early memory of fear. I give you an early memory
Speaker 1: of fear. I was six years old. I was sitting
Speaker 1: in the back of a I was five years old
Speaker 1: because I was sitting in the back of a nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five beat up Mercedes Bends while we were driving
Speaker 1: through the country side of Nigerian village. Now in a
Speaker 1: Nigerian village, the officers are corrupted, and not just in
Speaker 1: the village, in the city. A checkpoint an officer might
Speaker 1: pull you over and they will ask for your papers.
Speaker 1: Your papers, give me a driver's license, you're insurance something. Really,
Speaker 1: they don't care about the papers. They want you to
Speaker 1: run them some money. You feel me, it's just one
Speaker 1: of them stops where hand me a couple couple of
Speaker 1: dollars and will let you go. Well, my dad wasn't
Speaker 1: going to be extorted, so they stop us in the car.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting in the back seat. My mom's to my right,
Speaker 1: my brothers to my left. My brother's seven years old.
Speaker 1: I'm five years old, this little baby. They stop us.
Speaker 1: They pull my dad out of the car. My dad's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not giving you all any money. They put a
Speaker 1: gun to his head. He will shoot you now and
Speaker 1: just throw you off this cliff. I'm sitting in the
Speaker 1: back of the car, like mommy, mommy, they're really about
Speaker 1: to kill my dad. My dad's just sitting there standing
Speaker 1: there like I'm not giving you all any money. They're
Speaker 1: threatening to shoot them. We'll just shoot you right here,
Speaker 1: right now in this thick Nigerian accident, they say. And
Speaker 1: I vividly remember, like, yo, is this what life is like?
Speaker 1: Like I was I was shooting done to my core.
Speaker 1: That was probably the earliest memory of fear. Now, thankfully,
Speaker 1: I think they finally just let us go. Whatever the
Speaker 1: case may be my earliest memory of pain, man, Honestly,
Speaker 1: I probably wouldn't say I experienced pain like that until college.
Speaker 1: I think my earliest memory of pain came in college,
Speaker 1: and it came in athletic defeat. I would say that
Speaker 1: would be the earliest memory of pain. Can we go back,
Speaker 1: and I want to learn more about your dad, because
Speaker 1: I know you've learned a lot of lessons from your
Speaker 1: dad and heard the story where he came over and
Speaker 1: was working a taco bell job for three dollars an hour,
Speaker 1: went on to get his doctorate in PhD. Can you
Speaker 1: tell us a little bit more about him and some
Speaker 1: of the lessons you've learned from him. Man, my dad
Speaker 1: is the oldest son of I believe maybe eight or
Speaker 1: nine siblings, and in Nigerian culture, in African culture, the
Speaker 1: oldest son is a provider in some degree and in
Speaker 1: different aspects of American culture. And so my dad leaves
Speaker 1: Nigeria in his early twenties to come to America and
Speaker 1: be a missionary to be a pastor. While in America,
Speaker 1: working literally at Taco Bell and our job. He gets
Speaker 1: his degree, then he gets his PhD in psychology, and
Speaker 1: then he opens up his own private practice. And my
Speaker 1: favorite thing for me about my father is I recall
Speaker 1: he only missed one football game in my high school
Speaker 1: and college career and there and the reason I know
Speaker 1: he only missed one football game, it's because he only
Speaker 1: missed one football game. And so I recall him just
Speaker 1: being present and sacrificing for his family, and I try
Speaker 1: to live that out in my life, sacrificing for society.
Speaker 1: I mean, my dad had no reason to go back
Speaker 1: to Nigeria, had no reason to start this medical mission
Speaker 1: trip team that would perform over two point two million
Speaker 1: dollars in free medical care. So, Donnie, I've garnered so
Speaker 1: many things from my dad and so many similarities, and
Speaker 1: it's probably why we butt head a lot, because we're
Speaker 1: so much alike. But that's really taught me the lessons
Speaker 1: I know to help me navigate the crazy culture we
Speaker 1: live in today. Yeah, you're all about teaching your life
Speaker 1: lessons and you're full of one liners and quotes. I've
Speaker 1: been following you for a while and you got a
Speaker 1: lot of them, one of them I wanted to talk about. Well, Darren,
Speaker 1: kind of work this into your intro about this man
Speaker 1: cannot be put in a box because I've heard you
Speaker 1: say that your biggest fear is to be put in
Speaker 1: the box. How has we always talk about how fear
Speaker 1: can either freeze us or fuel us, And it sounds
Speaker 1: like that fear of being put in a box has
Speaker 1: absolutely fueled you into like massive action, more than most
Speaker 1: would take. So can you just talk a little bit
Speaker 1: more about that. I mean, I think the greatest, probably
Speaker 1: my greatest fear in life would be not maximizing my potential. Like,
Speaker 1: we're all here for a limited amount of time, Darren,
Speaker 1: I know as an athlete, you would clearly have maximized
Speaker 1: and continue to maximize your potential. Dinning as I looked
Speaker 1: and looked into your story prior to this conversation, seeing
Speaker 1: what you have done and impacting people in your life. Dude,
Speaker 1: we are here for a limited amount of time, and
Speaker 1: I think we all have a unique skill set. We
Speaker 1: all are uniquely gifted to be great at something. So
Speaker 1: the second I found my unique gift being a communicator,
Speaker 1: oh it was put on the gas because if I
Speaker 1: try to be like Darren, then I am never going
Speaker 1: to be the best version of me. So when I
Speaker 1: was in the National Football League and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I ain't gonna be all pro, not gonna be a
Speaker 1: Hall of Famer, I'm not going to be a pro bowler.
Speaker 1: It's time to pivot. And once I pivoted and gotten
Speaker 1: a television that's when I realized, oh, I'm uniquely gifted
Speaker 1: at this. And so the fear of not being the
Speaker 1: world changer that I know I'm capable of being, that's
Speaker 1: what drives me to continue to do, to continue to create,
Speaker 1: to continue to ideate. I'm always trying to figure out
Speaker 1: what's the next best and next greatest thing. I love
Speaker 1: that maximizing your fullest potential. And I feel like there's
Speaker 1: a lot of guys like me and yourself that I
Speaker 1: spent time in the NFL, and they may reach a
Speaker 1: point where their career ends and they feel like that's
Speaker 1: the only potential they may have or were some of
Speaker 1: the mental battles, the mental hurdles that you can speak to,
Speaker 1: because I know a lot of guys face those when
Speaker 1: they transition out. Man, first off, let's talk about the league.
Speaker 1: I was cut five times by the age of twenty five.
Speaker 1: So let's not get it twisted like I didn't have
Speaker 1: this glamorous NFL story the Philadelphia and the same team, right,
Speaker 1: same team, bro same team. They just ain't get tired
Speaker 1: of it. There was you know we'll cut him today,
Speaker 1: that we'll cut him again tomorrow. No, I mean the
Speaker 1: Philadelphia Eagles cut me five times by the age of
Speaker 1: twenty five. I was traded at the age of twenty two,
Speaker 1: and obviously I was drafted at the age of twenty one,
Speaker 1: so my NFL career was crazy. I get drafted for
Speaker 1: the Cleveland Browns. I tear my MCL in preseason Game
Speaker 1: two against the Green Bay Packers. I'm playing a stretch
Speaker 1: outside its own run. I try to play off a
Speaker 1: cup block. The dude gets into my knee. I tear
Speaker 1: my MCL. Finally, I've rehabbed. At the end of the season,
Speaker 1: the athletic trainer, he comes up to me acho. General
Speaker 1: manager wants to see you. I don't know nothing about nothing.
Speaker 1: I'm a second year player at the time. I got
Speaker 1: that handshake and that pad on the bat. Kind of
Speaker 1: nice knowing you. Next thing you know, I'm in the
Speaker 1: coach's office coach tells me, you know, hey, Emanuel, want
Speaker 1: to trade you to the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm trying not
Speaker 1: to laugh because I'm like, yo, I get to get
Speaker 1: out of Cleveland. That's a trade. So I end up
Speaker 1: going to Philly. I'm in Philly, man. I get cut
Speaker 1: five months later. Then they resigned me. I get cut
Speaker 1: in the middle of that season. Then they resigned me.
Speaker 1: I get cut at the end of the next season.
Speaker 1: Then I break my thumb. They cut me. Then then
Speaker 1: they signed me back on my birthday. Then I get
Speaker 1: cut again three weeks later. So Darren, before I even
Speaker 1: got out of the league. Being in the league was
Speaker 1: as chaotic as could possibly be. But what I always remembered,
Speaker 1: and I went to the rookie symposium. I don't remember
Speaker 1: if if you went to the rookie symposium, bro, but
Speaker 1: if you do, you can attest to this. They said.
Speaker 1: NFL players, their salary, it does this. It starts super
Speaker 1: high and it goes down over the course of their life.
Speaker 1: A doctor their salary it does this. It starts slow
Speaker 1: and it goes up over the course of their life.
Speaker 1: And at about thirty five years of age is where
Speaker 1: they intersect. The doctor surpasses the NFL athlete. I vividly
Speaker 1: remember hearing that at twenty one years old at the
Speaker 1: Rookie Symposium, and I said, Nah, that won't be me.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna jump out of the
Speaker 1: NFL when I start to see my career decline, and
Speaker 1: I'm gonna jump into another industry. And so that was
Speaker 1: what I did. But here's the true story. When I
Speaker 1: was in Austin, Texas in twenty sixteen, after four years
Speaker 1: in the NFL, I emailed every single news director in
Speaker 1: Austin and I said, Hey, I would love to come
Speaker 1: on television after a Texas Longhorn game. Just add my
Speaker 1: expertise one news station, Fox seven Austin. They responded, And
Speaker 1: that is how I got into television. So nobody handed
Speaker 1: me nothing. Nobody was like, oh, we'll just throw you
Speaker 1: a job. I just cold emailed everybody and one person
Speaker 1: bit I got into Fox seven Austin. I got into
Speaker 1: longer network of subsidiary and Waller. While I was trying
Speaker 1: to figure out my life, I was like, look, closed
Speaker 1: mouths don't get fed. And so I said, let me
Speaker 1: open up my mouth and started shooting out some emails.
Speaker 1: And it all worked out. I want to ask you,
Speaker 1: as you were getting your reps in early on in
Speaker 1: your media career, can you tell us what it was
Speaker 1: like and when the seed was planted in your mind
Speaker 1: to create the Uncomfortable Conversations platform, because I think it's brilliant.
Speaker 1: You know, me and Donnie we love having meaningful conversations
Speaker 1: and conversations like these to where you know, we talk
Speaker 1: about things that have happened to you, talk about times
Speaker 1: where you may have failed, Like when did that idea
Speaker 1: begin to take place in your mind and how did
Speaker 1: you and the people that support you up make that
Speaker 1: come about. It's a great question, man. May twenty twenty
Speaker 1: was one of the most chaotic months in the history
Speaker 1: of my life on this earth. May twenty twenty would
Speaker 1: be when George Floyd was murdered. I was living in Austin, Texas.
Speaker 1: I was only a sports analyst at the time at
Speaker 1: the time for ESPN currently obviously for Fox Sports. After
Speaker 1: the murder of George Floyd, everybody was trying to figure
Speaker 1: out what to do. Right Do I go march? Do
Speaker 1: I pay an assign to our protest? Do I post
Speaker 1: a black square on Instagram? What do you do. I'm
Speaker 1: sitting in Austin, and I was like, what in the
Speaker 1: world can I do? Okay, so many of my loving
Speaker 1: friends that aren't of color are well intended but to
Speaker 1: poorly executed. So at a minimum, the first step to
Speaker 1: progress in life is education of all sorts. The first
Speaker 1: step to progress of anything is education. So I said,
Speaker 1: let me have a educated conversation true story. I was
Speaker 1: going to name it Questions White People Have, because my
Speaker 1: white friends had questions. Terrible title. So as I'm sitting
Speaker 1: there in Austin, just doing trying to figure out, Okay,
Speaker 1: what am I gonna do? I called a dear white
Speaker 1: friend of mine and she's and I said, you know what. No,
Speaker 1: she said, you know what, Emmanuel, it's not just white
Speaker 1: people that have questions. Why don't you name it Uncomfortable conversations?
Speaker 1: I said, I asked missing something's missing something. I don't
Speaker 1: like that title. True story. Dan. I finished a bike ride.
Speaker 1: I went back into my house and Austin, I was
Speaker 1: staying in a true story townhouse. I walked by the bathroom.
Speaker 1: I walked back by it. I look into the mirror.
Speaker 1: You're a black man. Uncomfortable conversations with a black man.
Speaker 1: Now Here was a dilemma. I don't know nothing about
Speaker 1: shooting nothing. I don't know nothing about recording nothing. I've
Speaker 1: always had producers. I've always had executive producers, camera and everything.
Speaker 1: So I texted my designer and I said she also
Speaker 1: designed weddings. I said, Joe, you got a videographer. She said,
Speaker 1: I got a wedding videographer. I said, great, give me
Speaker 1: his number. I texted my other friend, best friend, an
Speaker 1: Olympic gold medalist at the twenty sixteen Olympics. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: can you find me a studio to shoot something in?
Speaker 1: She said, okayy, why just do it. I got a
Speaker 1: wedding videographer. I got a studio in Austin, all of
Speaker 1: which I pay for. Mind you, I don't know what's
Speaker 1: about to happen, but I say, yo, I'm just gonna
Speaker 1: sit down and I'm gonna get some thoughts off my chest.
Speaker 1: Now here's what people don't realize. The first episode, Darren
Speaker 1: was supposed to be me and a dear white friend
Speaker 1: of mine. SIMI a little how you and Donnie are
Speaker 1: having a beautiful conversation right now. But an hour before
Speaker 1: the conversation, my white friend was like, Hey, I can't
Speaker 1: do this. They don't want to see me, they want
Speaker 1: to see you. This isn't right. She had a change
Speaker 1: of heart at the last minute. So now I'm thinking
Speaker 1: to myself, bro we practiced you and I. You asked
Speaker 1: the questions. I answered, Donnie, it's uncomfortable conversations with a
Speaker 1: black man, not uncomfortable monologue with a black man. So
Speaker 1: why in the world I sitting in a chair by
Speaker 1: myself for the first episode because at the last second,
Speaker 1: my dear friend bailed on me. So Darren, true story.
Speaker 1: It was me in a room with a wedding videographer
Speaker 1: and his wife, my best friend, an Olympic gold medalist, myself,
Speaker 1: the owner of the studio, and the friend that bailed
Speaker 1: on me ended up sitting in. It was a all
Speaker 1: white room in Austin, Texas that I paid for a
Speaker 1: videographer that I hired. I had no idea that this
Speaker 1: nine minute and seventeen second monologue would change my life.
Speaker 1: And I spoke from the heart, and somehow the world
Speaker 1: listened and it ushered me into a space that I
Speaker 1: didn't know why I would be in. And since then
Speaker 1: I just continue to move as my heart speaks. It's
Speaker 1: powerful man to lean into that. You know, that's a
Speaker 1: very easy situation to let fear allow you to play
Speaker 1: small and to lean in and to watch what's happened.
Speaker 1: I can't believe it's just been a few years and
Speaker 1: where your career has gone since then. I've heard you
Speaker 1: talk about and I love this around goal setting, and
Speaker 1: I wanted to bring it up because you might have
Speaker 1: to even backtrack into your college combine junior year senior
Speaker 1: year story to set that up. But I just think
Speaker 1: it's really important for our listeners and whoever might be
Speaker 1: listening to understand the concept that you have around goal
Speaker 1: setting and maybe not setting goals. Darren, you believe in
Speaker 1: setting goals. Actually I don't, and I feel like I
Speaker 1: was honestly uncomfortable in the fact that I didn't, especially
Speaker 1: in the industry that you know, you spend time in
Speaker 1: and I am still currently in. I feel like if
Speaker 1: I don't have goals and say I'm gonna get this
Speaker 1: many catches, this many yards, then I'm like, I don't
Speaker 1: have a vision, but I don't set goals, and I've
Speaker 1: always felt like an alien for not doing it. You
Speaker 1: are not an alien, and if you are, I am
Speaker 1: occupying the same planet that you occupied. I think goals
Speaker 1: are dumb. I wrote about it in my book A Logical.
Speaker 1: I think that goals are dumb. I think the surest
Speaker 1: way to fail in life is to set a goal. Okay,
Speaker 1: I tell us sounds ridiculous. We'll think about it. Anything
Speaker 1: that we have failed that in life. Relationally, man I
Speaker 1: wanted to be married by twenty five. Familiarly, man I
Speaker 1: wanted to have at least two kids by thirty. Occupationally,
Speaker 1: man I was trying to make two hundred thousand dollars
Speaker 1: by the time I hit twenty eight. Spiritually, I wanted
Speaker 1: to attend church mask synagogue every week. Anything we feel
Speaker 1: like we failed in life, there was tethered to a goal.
Speaker 1: The only way to fail in life, in all honesty,
Speaker 1: is to set a goal. Without goals, there is no failure.
Speaker 1: Here is what I submitted. Donnie have talked about this before.
Speaker 1: If you set a goal, at best, you'll achieve it.
Speaker 1: But what if you could have achieved more. If you
Speaker 1: set a goal and you fail, well, now you've ruined
Speaker 1: your self esteem and you ruined your self efficacy. How
Speaker 1: you think you could have achieved a task? Your confidence
Speaker 1: in your ability. Two thousand and eleven, I wanted to
Speaker 1: declare for the NFL draft. I had just finished my
Speaker 1: junior year in Texas. We went to the national championship
Speaker 1: in two ten. Two thousand eleven, I had started like
Speaker 1: we was balling. I was like, yo, I'm done with
Speaker 1: this college stuff. I'm good. My brother was going to
Speaker 1: the league. I wanted to go to the league. So
Speaker 1: I set a goal. I set a goal my senior year.
Speaker 1: So so so you know what, I forget it. I'll come
Speaker 1: back my senior year because I want to be drafted
Speaker 1: in the first three rounds. Right. I went to Texas,
Speaker 1: played in the ship like I wanted to be drafted
Speaker 1: in the first three rounds. Problem at the NFL combine,
Speaker 1: I'm running the forty yard dash. Do you wall you
Speaker 1: know what it is. I'm trying to make a couple
Speaker 1: extra million dollars. I'm running the forty yard dashes. I'm
Speaker 1: running out here, boom boom boom. I thought my heels
Speaker 1: were clicking, but my quad was being torn off the bone,
Speaker 1: so I kept running. Boom boom boom. I grasped my
Speaker 1: quad and I fall to the ground thirty meters in
Speaker 1: I get carried off the sideline. I got drafted in
Speaker 1: a sixth round. Devastated, But why was that death stated?
Speaker 1: Only two hundred sixty year sol players get drafted out
Speaker 1: of roughleally one point seven or so million high school
Speaker 1: football players, and I'm devastated that I got drafted in
Speaker 1: a sixth round. So Donnie, why in the world was
Speaker 1: I devastated? Because I set a goal? So, rather than
Speaker 1: celebrating this accomplishment more likely to be struck by lightning
Speaker 1: than you are to play in the National Football League
Speaker 1: when you think about the statistics, rather than celebrating this accomplishment,
Speaker 1: I'm warning the failure of a goal. So goals, in
Speaker 1: my mind are dumb. They are limiting. I believe that
Speaker 1: goals do more damage than good. Now. I did get
Speaker 1: my master's degree in sports psychology. I committed my final
Speaker 1: thesis paper two goal setting. So I understand the needs
Speaker 1: of goal setting. I understand the feedback and goal state setting.
Speaker 1: I understand you have to achieve flow. That is an
Speaker 1: operative desire in people's life. But when you really kick
Speaker 1: back and think about it, what's goal setting ever done
Speaker 1: for you? Because I could submit that goal setting does
Speaker 1: a lot more damage than it does, and so what
Speaker 1: is it? It's objective without limitations? Is that more of what?
Speaker 1: And when you said that, it made me think of
Speaker 1: as as a yoga teacher, I teach meditation, we would
Speaker 1: call it maybe your intention. So maybe it would an
Speaker 1: objective be similar to your intention, like the intention that
Speaker 1: you're setting and then redirecting your energy towards the intention,
Speaker 1: and then the intention or the objective pulls you forward.
Speaker 1: A great question. James Clear rights in his book Atomic Habits,
Speaker 1: focus more on systems and outcomes. So I say, instead
Speaker 1: of setting a goal, set an objective and no limitations
Speaker 1: at semantics, goal objective, same thing, no, no, no. Small
Speaker 1: difference in wording will have a huge impact in your life.
Speaker 1: A goal it is an end towards which energy is aimed.
Speaker 1: An objective is defined as energy aimed in a direction.
Speaker 1: Why in a world would I start something in my
Speaker 1: life with the end in mind? Why why would I
Speaker 1: start something giving myself a limitation? And when Jay Clear
Speaker 1: references focused on on systems not on outcomes, he's saying, yo,
Speaker 1: focus on the process, don't focus on the end. If
Speaker 1: you focus on the process, then you will look back
Speaker 1: and see how much further you've gotten Walder. When I
Speaker 1: got out the league, everybody was like, yo, you want
Speaker 1: to be like straight Hand. You try to be the
Speaker 1: next stray Hand. I was like, no, because if I
Speaker 1: try to be the nextray Hand, then I might just
Speaker 1: be the next stray Hand. But I could be the
Speaker 1: next Meet, you know, and straight Hand's already taken. He's
Speaker 1: doing a wonderful job being Michael Straighthand so why would
Speaker 1: I want to try to be the next straight Hand
Speaker 1: when I could be the next Acho? You feel me?
Speaker 1: And so if you set a goal, you might just
Speaker 1: achieve it, and that's the problem. So true. I mean,
Speaker 1: Darren and I have talked a lot about this with
Speaker 1: just objectives or goals and talking even in performance when
Speaker 1: we're talking statistics, like you don't have control over those statistics.
Speaker 1: You don't know how many balls are going to be
Speaker 1: thrown your way. So to set a goal on something
Speaker 1: you don't have control over your right and then it
Speaker 1: doesn't allow you to be in the process. So if
Speaker 1: you're so attached to the goal and you get the goal,
Speaker 1: it's like now what, Or you don't get the goal
Speaker 1: and then you're a failure. So I love how you're
Speaker 1: explaining it, and man, I'm vibing with everything you're saying
Speaker 1: right now. It's just to me, Donnie, it's just not
Speaker 1: worth it. Now. Here's what's crazy. Most people will listen
Speaker 1: to that and be like, I don't even want to
Speaker 1: hear this is this is crazy? Yeah, why not just
Speaker 1: set smaller goals and then hit them? And set other
Speaker 1: smaller goals and then hit them. I try to think
Speaker 1: of it like an archer. If you're an archer, the
Speaker 1: only way that an archer succeeds is if they hit
Speaker 1: the goals, eye or any one of the small targets.
Speaker 1: But if you want to make mass impact, rather than
Speaker 1: being an archer, you I would rather drop something that
Speaker 1: makes or mass impact. Like and when I think about objectives,
Speaker 1: I don't want to be an archer. I don't want
Speaker 1: The only way I can win is if I have
Speaker 1: you know, nine five catches and eleven hundred yards. So
Speaker 1: if you don't do that, your your your your season
Speaker 1: with a failure Like make that makes sense? Think about it.
Speaker 1: In football, everybody has a goal of winning the super Bowl.
Speaker 1: So if you don't win a super Bowl, then everything
Speaker 1: else you did that season was for not like that,
Speaker 1: that that's bad mad. That's just bad mad. And that's
Speaker 1: what we do in life. Man. That is uh, that's
Speaker 1: that's that's huge, you know because I M going into
Speaker 1: twenty nineteen, twenty twenty seasons for me, I didn't set
Speaker 1: any of bols. I didn't have that mindset going in.
Speaker 1: Those are my first years really being a starter. And
Speaker 1: I was like, you know, if I take advantage of
Speaker 1: running one route to the best of my ability and
Speaker 1: turn that into a practice, turn that into a week
Speaker 1: of practice, turning that into a game on Sunday, and
Speaker 1: then let those things stack, that's where the results started
Speaker 1: to come. And you know, these past couple of seasons
Speaker 1: where I haven't been as healthy, you know, I've been
Speaker 1: battling in my mind of like, man, I didn't reach
Speaker 1: those markers. I didn't reach those results, the things that
Speaker 1: people love me for. So in a way like I
Speaker 1: feel like I failed or I'm not living up to
Speaker 1: my truest potential. And it's like, I don't know, man,
Speaker 1: It's it's tough to battle. But I want to ask you.
Speaker 1: You know, because you take and the energy that you embody,
Speaker 1: I'm sure it may make certain people uncomfortable because you're
Speaker 1: willing to have uncomfortable conversations. How do you go about
Speaker 1: not people pleasing and trying to fit in or fit
Speaker 1: an image of what people want from you? Man, I
Speaker 1: think about this quote. You can either please all people
Speaker 1: some of the time or some people all at the time.
Speaker 1: You ain't gonna please everybody, you know what I mean?
Speaker 1: And I think the only way to avoid criticism is
Speaker 1: to say nothing, is to do nothing, and it is
Speaker 1: to be nothing. And so if you want to avoid criticism,
Speaker 1: and you quite literally have to cease to exist. And
Speaker 1: criticism is the cost of praise. So I don't really
Speaker 1: worry so much about people pleasing. Like I put out
Speaker 1: a message based on a revelation. I don't put out
Speaker 1: a message for response. So when something's revealed to me,
Speaker 1: then I put out that message. Now it gets me
Speaker 1: in trouble sometimes other times people they respect it. But
Speaker 1: you know, I put out messages based on a revelation.
Speaker 1: And so at the point in which it was revealed
Speaker 1: to me to start uncomfortable conversations with a black man,
Speaker 1: I put that out. If a sports take or sports
Speaker 1: ideology is revealed to me, I put that out. So
Speaker 1: I bro I speak from revelation. I don't speak for response,
Speaker 1: but in society, so many people just want to speak
Speaker 1: for some retweets, and I think it's a dangerous, dangerous place.
Speaker 1: Tell us about the words that were spoken to you
Speaker 1: of you have the thing. Man. My life has been
Speaker 1: crazy last three years. So three years ago, really two
Speaker 1: and a half. I got a call. It's a no
Speaker 1: caller ID number. I don't recommend picking up no caller
Speaker 1: ID numbers, but I get this call picked up. I
Speaker 1: am Manuel Oprah Winfrey speaking Oprah like Oprah Oprah, She's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: are you free later today? I'm like, am I free?
Speaker 1: Are you free? You to billionaire? So I hop on
Speaker 1: this call with Oprah and she asked me one question,
Speaker 1: she says, Emmanuel, what is your intention? D Walter, is
Speaker 1: the question I ask anybody before I red an interview
Speaker 1: with them, if I am the host, I say, Hey,
Speaker 1: what's your intention? And she Oprah says, Emmanuel, what is
Speaker 1: your intention? I say, Oprah, my intention is to change
Speaker 1: the world, and I truly believe I can. I'm currently
Speaker 1: working on writing a book. She says books. I love books.
Speaker 1: So we partnered together to write Uncomfortable Conversations with the
Speaker 1: black man with the black boy like there and said
Speaker 1: the introduction number one New York Times best seller and
Speaker 1: a number three New York Times bestseller. Cut two a
Speaker 1: month later, I'm doing a conversation with Oprah. The Oprah
Speaker 1: Conversation meets Uncomfortable Conversations for Apple TV. I'm sitting in
Speaker 1: a room in the middle of the pandemic by myself.
Speaker 1: I have ten iPads in front of me and one
Speaker 1: call it hundred screen inch monitor ahead of me. Oprah's
Speaker 1: on a hundred screen TV and the ten iPads are
Speaker 1: populated by random faces from people across the country. The
Speaker 1: face would populate and they would ask me a question.
Speaker 1: I'm not prepared for it. They would ask me a question.
Speaker 1: Oprah would take the question that they asked. She would
Speaker 1: ask it to me. I would answer. Next face would populate.
Speaker 1: They would say the question. Oprah would repeat the question.
Speaker 1: I would answer. Next face would populate. They would cite
Speaker 1: you the question, Oprah repeat the question I would answer.
Speaker 1: At the end of that two and a half hour conversation,
Speaker 1: Oprah was going to turn it into a TV show
Speaker 1: true story. Finally, it's all over. I'm exhausted. Donnie is
Speaker 1: my first time communicating with Oprah in front of people. Waller,
Speaker 1: it's my first time communicating would Oprah in front of
Speaker 1: pep Well again, for those of you are at home,
Speaker 1: this is Oprah a speaking icon. I'm sitting in my
Speaker 1: dressing room after this, I am gas. Mind you, Oprah
Speaker 1: was not in the same room as me. It was
Speaker 1: during the pandemic. Oprah's right hand woman who was present.
Speaker 1: She walks up to me, Hey, Manuel, great job, but
Speaker 1: I'm I think Oprah's trying to call you. Pat patting
Speaker 1: for my phone. I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking. I
Speaker 1: call her back. At this point in time, I have
Speaker 1: Oprah's number. I call her back. All she says is this,
Speaker 1: you have the thing. To my friend, you have the thing,
Speaker 1: and coming from someone who had the thing and has
Speaker 1: the thing, you my friend, you have the thing. I say, well,
Speaker 1: what in the world is the thing? She was like,
Speaker 1: you have the specific gift to speak hard truth to
Speaker 1: people and they still want to listen to you. This
Speaker 1: goes back full circle. Dare into the conversation we started having.
Speaker 1: Dying into the conversation we started everybody has a unique gift.
Speaker 1: Oprah was telling me, like, Yo, your gift is in communication,
Speaker 1: you have the thing, And from that day forward I
Speaker 1: was now empowered to navigate life, realizing I have been
Speaker 1: anointed by one of the greatest orators of our world,
Speaker 1: and that Donnie truly allowed me to move in confidence,
Speaker 1: realizing like, oh, if Oprah says I got the thing,
Speaker 1: I don't really care what this Twitter troll got to say,
Speaker 1: because like she already told me, I got the thing.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean. I have a question in
Speaker 1: response to that. I know there's people that are listening
Speaker 1: that they find themselves in tough situations in their lives,
Speaker 1: are just lost as far as what their purpose is,
Speaker 1: what they bring to the table, and they may not
Speaker 1: have somebody validating them in the way that you have.
Speaker 1: What would you say to them as far as trying
Speaker 1: to find confidence and maybe in the midst of their uncertainty.
Speaker 1: I love this question. I got asked this question two
Speaker 1: years ago. I haven't been asked since. So the part
Speaker 1: of a story I left out before Oprah called me,
Speaker 1: I got one more no call riding a call five
Speaker 1: days after the first episode of No Uncomfortable Conversations with
Speaker 1: the Black Man, I got a call from a no
Speaker 1: Call ID number before Oprah. I picked that one out.
Speaker 1: I show McConaughey speaking. I want to have a conversation
Speaker 1: like McConaughey, like Matthew McKay. My voice gets high when
Speaker 1: I was talked to famous people. McCay. So he says,
Speaker 1: I want to have a conversation. He says, um, I
Speaker 1: want to do one of your episodes. I was like,
Speaker 1: let's do it in about three to four days. Wallard.
Speaker 1: My first episode, I told you it was with a
Speaker 1: wedding videographer. It was with a studio I rented in Austin,
Speaker 1: and it was my friends who was an Olympic gold medalist.
Speaker 1: I don't know what I'm doing, but y'all didn't know that.
Speaker 1: Y'all thought this was a high quality product. It wasn't.
Speaker 1: It was just a bunch of dudes in Austin and
Speaker 1: do that's in Austin chilling. And So when McConaughey calls,
Speaker 1: I'm scrambling. I'm like, Yo, this is an Academy Award winner.
Speaker 1: What in the world am I going to do. McConaughey says,
Speaker 1: let's do it tomorrow. Okay, well don't tomorrow. I start scrambling.
Speaker 1: I call the owner of the studio. I say, hello,
Speaker 1: McConaughey just called me. He wants to record. Can I
Speaker 1: get in your studio? She says, acho, I have a promise,
Speaker 1: And what's the problem. The studio is painted all blue.
Speaker 1: It takes twenty four hours to paint and twenty four
Speaker 1: hours to dry. Anybody that's ever seen my episode, it's
Speaker 1: in an all white room. I can't do a freaking
Speaker 1: episode in an all blue studio. How would that look
Speaker 1: on camera? She said? I have an idea. She drives
Speaker 1: around town, she buys a big white sheet of paper
Speaker 1: and she puts it in the studio. I don't tell
Speaker 1: McConaughey this. It was like, I ain't gonna let him cancel.
Speaker 1: He shows up, He's in this all blue room with
Speaker 1: a white sheet of paper, and we cheat the camera
Speaker 1: so it looks like we were in an all white room.
Speaker 1: Why in the world did I tell that story? To
Speaker 1: answer the question that Darren asked about? Okay, all right,
Speaker 1: what about people that are trying to figure out you
Speaker 1: know what they're they're they're calling? Is in life? Your
Speaker 1: calling will call you, just pick up. Your calling will
Speaker 1: call you. You just got to pick it up. See
Speaker 1: my calling literally called me in the form of Matthew McConaughey,
Speaker 1: in the form of Oprah Winfrey. But your calling will
Speaker 1: figuratively call you, meaning, what are you inherently gifted at?
Speaker 1: Are you an inherently gifted listener, an inherently gifted lover,
Speaker 1: an inherently gifted leader? What are you inherently skilled at?
Speaker 1: Are you inherently empathetic? Are you inherently sympathetic? Are you
Speaker 1: inherently type A? Your calling will call you. All you
Speaker 1: have to do is pick up. The issue in life
Speaker 1: is not that people aren't called. The issue is that
Speaker 1: people don't pick up the call. If I don't ever
Speaker 1: pick up that no CALLORAD call from Matthew McConaughey, you
Speaker 1: and I aren't having this conversation. If I don't pick
Speaker 1: up that no COLORAD call from Oprah, we're not talking
Speaker 1: right now. Or if McConaughey calls me and I'm too
Speaker 1: scared to sit in the room with an Academy Award winner,
Speaker 1: I'm not sitting here talking to these listeners and to
Speaker 1: these viewers. Your calling will call you. You just gotta
Speaker 1: pick it up. And so I say that, and I
Speaker 1: also say your calling is your calling. It ain't a
Speaker 1: conference call. Bro. When I was gonna do uncomfortable conversation,
Speaker 1: they got a text from a friend of mine and
Speaker 1: they said, hey, don't do that uncomfortable conversations thing. It's
Speaker 1: not our job to educate white people. White people didn't
Speaker 1: help us assimilate into their culture. Why should we help
Speaker 1: them assimilate into ours. I was like, y'all feel you,
Speaker 1: I feel you to each of their own. But I
Speaker 1: was like, this was a calling put on my heart,
Speaker 1: so I have to act with it. Your calling is
Speaker 1: you're calling. It's not a conference call. So the wall,
Speaker 1: I don't think it's that people lack the skill. I
Speaker 1: think it's the people lack the will. Because everybody has
Speaker 1: a gift, they just gotta use it. We gotta we
Speaker 1: gotta honor your voice and honor your time. There's a
Speaker 1: lot of juice here. There's more to get into. Maybe
Speaker 1: on another episode. We know you gotta you gotta run
Speaker 1: and you gotta protect that voice right now. But thank
Speaker 1: you man, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for Darren.
Speaker 1: I love to have meaningful conversations, and it doesn't get
Speaker 1: more meaningful than that meaningful this, So thank you for
Speaker 1: your time. Appreciate y'all Waller pleasure to finally wrap it you, Donnie,
Speaker 1: y'all keep doing it man, y'all keep leading in society. Yes,
Speaker 1: sir Man, appreciate you picking up the call. Brother. It's
Speaker 1: been honored to talk to you.