Speaker 1: Ba fam, we have another how to throw back for you,
Speaker 1: of course we do. We're looking back at some of
Speaker 1: our favorite episodes from days past for memorable guests, too
Speaker 1: unforgettable moments. There's still so much to learn from the
Speaker 1: b A Vault. Take a listen, willya.
Speaker 2: Hey, hey, hey, we're back. We're black, We're brown.
Speaker 1: Ambition ambition, ambition, ambition, ambition.
Speaker 2: Hey mannger, how are you good?
Speaker 3: Morning in there? How are you good?
Speaker 1: We have some extra black in black and black. I'm
Speaker 1: brown ambition today, I mean.
Speaker 3: Quaudruple, the chocolate today, Quaudruple, the Yes. I'm so excited
Speaker 3: to have these guests on, y'all. Yeah, but these are
Speaker 3: old friends of yours. I feel like, but this is
Speaker 3: my first time meaning then, but it's yeah.
Speaker 2: I know.
Speaker 1: Well, honestly, if you are listening, I can almost guarantee
Speaker 1: that you know.
Speaker 2: Duvault and condide Elis. They'ven millennial married couple.
Speaker 1: First of all, they're both I feel like it's not
Speaker 1: fair for the gene pool that both they are beautiful
Speaker 1: and both married somebody ugly, so that way we can
Speaker 1: spread the well.
Speaker 2: But no, they were like, no, we're gonna.
Speaker 4: Keep it on the.
Speaker 2: Kids are absolutely beautiful.
Speaker 1: They have a podcast themselves called dead Ass with K
Speaker 1: and D that have been on several times, and they
Speaker 1: have a new book called We Over Me, The Counterintuitive
Speaker 1: Approach to Getting Everything you Want from your Relationship, and
Speaker 1: as of last week, they are New York Times best
Speaker 1: selling authors.
Speaker 2: Welcome to the club. It's cute over here.
Speaker 4: Thank you.
Speaker 5: We can finally join you in some aspects.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 1: No, I just I'm just like really proud of you.
Speaker 1: I'm just so excited for you to be on here
Speaker 1: with us.
Speaker 5: Yes, thank you, so andy.
Speaker 2: Well, you know you don't know them any question.
Speaker 3: In person, but of course I know y'all like, of
Speaker 3: course I listened to dead Ass and wait, remind me,
Speaker 3: y'all got your start with a YouTube channel, right.
Speaker 5: Actually we started with Instagram Instagram stology.
Speaker 3: So for the people who haven't had the pleasure of
Speaker 3: meeting the LSS yet, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 3: how you got your start and how you came to
Speaker 3: the point where you were like, let's put this into
Speaker 3: a book. Our marriage, our relationship. These skills are so magic.
Speaker 3: Everyone needs to know these.
Speaker 4: Well. The funny thing is we if you read the book,
Speaker 4: you realize that We're not even talking about how magical
Speaker 4: skills are.
Speaker 5: We talked about how messed up we were.
Speaker 4: We were. We kind of figured things out that work
Speaker 4: for us. But it actually started on social media. As
Speaker 4: many people know, Kadeen is a host of TV hosts
Speaker 4: and I'm an actor and since the first day we
Speaker 4: met in college and we talked about what our dreams were.
Speaker 4: Our dreams were to be in front of the camera.
Speaker 4: Fast forward about ten years. I had retired from the
Speaker 4: NFL and I was doing on auditions. I had booked
Speaker 4: a bunch of national commercials and Kadeen was doing some
Speaker 4: hosting and I was on Power, which is my third
Speaker 4: time on prime time television.
Speaker 5: And I was with my son, Jackson at the time.
Speaker 4: Who was I think four, and he said, I come
Speaker 4: on TV and we're all excited. My family's watching, and
Speaker 4: he goes, Daddy, you always have on that outfit when
Speaker 4: you were on TV. And I had on an orange
Speaker 4: jumpsuit because that was my third time in the criminal
Speaker 4: on television, and it hurt because I was like, I
Speaker 4: was like, man, like here I am perpetuating the same
Speaker 4: stereotypes that I'm trying to eliminate with all of the
Speaker 4: work I do. I had a non for profit organization
Speaker 4: in Brooklyn who are helping young men get into college.
Speaker 4: So the very next day I had an audition for
Speaker 4: Blue Bloods and I'm going the audition and there are
Speaker 4: two lines. There's a line for a turn in a
Speaker 4: doctor and there's a line for inmate one and two.
Speaker 4: Of course, I'm in there to audition for inmate one
Speaker 4: and two. And I look on the line and there's
Speaker 4: nothing but black and brown man. So then I asked
Speaker 4: a question. I'm like, this is a co starring role.
Speaker 4: I said, maybe if I just asked to let me
Speaker 4: go into the other line. So why can audition as
Speaker 4: an attorney or a doctor? And the lady was just like, no,
Speaker 4: you know, we have specific audition times for specific people.
Speaker 4: On that line, we're all white and Asian men. And
Speaker 4: I walked out and Kading was like, man, that was
Speaker 4: a fast audition. And I was just like, I didn't
Speaker 4: do it. I'm not I can't do this anymore. And
Speaker 4: she was like duvow. She just walked out of the audition.
Speaker 4: I said, I can't continue to perpetuate the same stereotype.
Speaker 4: So she was like, well, what's your plan? I said,
Speaker 4: Instagram has just instituted fifteen second videos. I'm going to
Speaker 4: write little fifteen second like scenes for you and I
Speaker 4: and we're going to map it out and have our
Speaker 4: own little social sitcom called the Elysis.
Speaker 6: And I was like, Okay, why do you want to
Speaker 6: do that?
Speaker 4: Just think about it. If we can show people that
Speaker 4: the black family exists, because at the time, it was
Speaker 4: just me her and Jackson, and we can show them
Speaker 4: what our love looked like, and it's just a regular
Speaker 4: black family from Brooklyn, just grinding to make it through gentrification.
Speaker 4: And we had so many things that we could argue
Speaker 4: and debate about because we were coming from a man's
Speaker 4: standpoint and a woman's standpoint, and we were using relationships
Speaker 4: as our basis. And she was like, all right, if
Speaker 4: you see it, I'm with it. Started to do these
Speaker 4: little skits. Then Instagram turned into sixty second videos and
Speaker 4: I was like, wow, I got sixty second instead of fact,
Speaker 4: let's go. It started to blow up, and as it
Speaker 4: started to blow up, the comment section started to be
Speaker 4: you know, men and women starting to debate, like I
Speaker 4: understand the vous perspective, I understand these perspective, and then
Speaker 4: that transitioned into the podcast, and then the podcast transitioned
Speaker 4: into the YouTube series that Elisis where we did fifteen
Speaker 4: minute videos, which was a sitcom of our family.
Speaker 5: And then the next natural step was a book where
Speaker 5: we can actually write down all our thoughts and.
Speaker 4: Tell our story, which we called the Brooklyn Love Story
Speaker 4: and its totality without being shortened by you know, Twitter
Speaker 4: limits or small Instagram limits. So it just transitioned into
Speaker 4: a book and we wanted to tell our story and
Speaker 4: our narrative, our way.
Speaker 2: Did you see this? So the one I there was one.
Speaker 1: That was like you guys went viral for it was
Speaker 1: like this really cute picture, like or maybe a series
Speaker 1: of pictures. I remember, Yeah, so that picture went viral.
Speaker 1: But then the I didn't realize now the vall that
Speaker 1: it was you. But it was this hilarious skit, Mandy.
Speaker 1: I don't know if you ever saw it that, Like
Speaker 1: Kadeen was like not there and the vall had to
Speaker 1: like take the kids like grocery shopping or something, and
Speaker 1: he was like, how your mother gets you out of
Speaker 1: the house, your pants, your paint again. It was huh
Speaker 1: freaking I mean the way I watched that like a
Speaker 1: hundred times to watch like this. Dad struggle with like
Speaker 1: taking the kids outside the house taked like he would
Speaker 1: always be like, it would take you so long to
Speaker 1: get the kids ready, and when he had to do
Speaker 1: it himself, he could not believe that somehow she managed
Speaker 1: to do all of this, and.
Speaker 2: He was like, I'm tired. I'm not to go back.
Speaker 2: If they hadn't even gone food shoping the world were
Speaker 2: you supposed to be going? But that was the.
Speaker 1: Skit that like put me on to be like, wow, like,
Speaker 1: you know, I love that that it was real and
Speaker 1: you know that this is what it looks like that sometimes,
Speaker 1: you know, moms make these miracles happen. They make them
Speaker 1: seem so effortless that like Dad's like, it can't be
Speaker 1: that hard until it's time for you to do right.
Speaker 6: Yeah, he definitely understood after that, I get it.
Speaker 3: How many kids do you all have today?
Speaker 6: So we have four total now our youngest year and
Speaker 6: about fifteen months now, and Jackson, the oldest is eleven
Speaker 6: to be twelve. And then we have six.
Speaker 3: Wow, yeah, yeah, I think of it. I have one
Speaker 3: and a half. Yes, I have a three year old
Speaker 3: and I have a I have another one on the
Speaker 3: way in a couple of months, thank you so much. Yeah,
Speaker 3: And honestly, I'm like, oh, sorry, what'd you say?
Speaker 6: I said, we won't be adding anyone to anything over here.
Speaker 3: I mean, I'm one of four, so I'm like, you know,
Speaker 3: part of me is like, I mean, I was number three,
Speaker 3: so I'm not trying to go all the way to four.
Speaker 3: I'm like, maybe the third we got you, but no,
Speaker 3: I'm my My husband and I are relationship. It's and
Speaker 3: plus the pandemic and you guys have you know, lived
Speaker 3: through that as a couple as well. I mean, how
Speaker 3: do y'all see the dynamic of your marriage sort of
Speaker 3: changing from one to two to three to four kids? Now?
Speaker 6: I feel like after what after after three?
Speaker 4: I was after two, after two? Whatever.
Speaker 6: Yeah, it's just like add another one, add another one,
Speaker 6: another one.
Speaker 2: They'll figure it out.
Speaker 6: We kind of like in the same direction after a while,
Speaker 6: and your hope for the best.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 6: The nice thing we have, the age difference that we
Speaker 6: have is that Jackson's now almost twelve. He's literally conducting himself.
Speaker 4: Like a grown man.
Speaker 6: It's insane to see how responsible and how mature he is.
Speaker 6: And we're both the oldest of three and we can
Speaker 6: see a lot of those similar qualities in him where
Speaker 6: we're like, oh, he's definitely a leader, he's a nurturer.
Speaker 6: So it's nice sometimes to kind of be like, hey,
Speaker 6: look out for your brother. So since we travel a
Speaker 6: lot for work, you know a lot of times we
Speaker 6: have parent guilt leaving because we're like, oh my god,
Speaker 6: we I feel again. And you know, Jackson literally like
Speaker 6: holds it down. It's so funny. We was having a
Speaker 6: conversation with Zaval and I I'm like, you know, text
Speaker 6: the driver and let him know that we don't need
Speaker 6: him anymore. He has to come later to pick up
Speaker 6: someone else. And Jackson's like literally over here like texting
Speaker 6: between us the driver. I got you to worry about it.
Speaker 4: We couldn't text because it didn't have an Apple phone,
Speaker 4: so we were like that we need somebody to get contact,
Speaker 4: and we hit our eleven year old send him the number,
Speaker 4: and then he sends us the screenshot that he sent
Speaker 4: the driver a your black My dad said, don't worry
Speaker 4: about coming. But it's funny how he's so on it.
Speaker 3: And I mean he's got like a head like an
Speaker 3: ear piece on lord grown up. While he's changing a
Speaker 3: diaper background.
Speaker 6: Like making grilled cheese. It's so funny, but it's really
Speaker 6: dope to watch.
Speaker 3: When you had that idea to start Instagram videos like financially,
Speaker 3: I mean, what was the conversation, like, you know, I'm
Speaker 3: going to stop taking on these roles, which I know
Speaker 3: we're not the best, and obviously we're super you know
Speaker 3: you're a pigeonholed, which is awful, but as a couple,
Speaker 3: how did y'all handle that? Financially? We have so many
Speaker 3: listeners who are constantly asking us right to like, how
Speaker 3: do y'all manage your finances and like how do you
Speaker 3: you know, get on the same page. And it's one
Speaker 3: thing to manage it when you're both got like nine
Speaker 3: to five jobs. It's another thing when one of y'all
Speaker 3: is like, I'm going to leap off this cliff. You don't,
Speaker 3: let's go.
Speaker 2: Oh for sure.
Speaker 6: One thing that I knew that we could not be
Speaker 6: was no starving artists family. That's the fact that she
Speaker 6: wanted to be an actor. That's amazing. I'm go go
Speaker 6: about it, but how are you going to make this
Speaker 6: happen financially? Because at that point, what year was it?
Speaker 6: We moved the NFL, you retired, and then we moved
Speaker 6: back to New York and Brooklyn, and that's when we
Speaker 6: kind of had to start over again. So our story's
Speaker 6: a little interesting because it went from being broken college
Speaker 6: to the valut getting money in the NFL, to us
Speaker 6: losing everything in the recession back in two thousand and eight,
Speaker 6: and then having to rebuild again.
Speaker 4: And the biggest thing is I've always had plans, and
Speaker 4: I've always included Kadeen in my plans. On our very
Speaker 4: first date, Kadeen said to me, what do you want
Speaker 4: to do with your life? We were eighteen years old,
Speaker 4: sitting in my dorm room, my very first date, and
Speaker 4: Martin was on television and I said I want to
Speaker 4: do that and she was like, what's that? And I said,
Speaker 4: I'm going to act. And this is the moment, realistically,
Speaker 4: when I knew I had a partner or someone different.
Speaker 4: She didn't laugh, she didn't get how are you going
Speaker 4: to da da da? She said, Okay, how are we
Speaker 4: going to get there? And it was the how are
Speaker 4: we going to get there? To me?
Speaker 5: That was kind of interest even like wow. First of all,
Speaker 5: she didn't laugh.
Speaker 4: Second of all, she included herself in my dream, which
Speaker 4: made me in that moment, feel like she believes in
Speaker 4: my dream as well, which made me feel good. So
Speaker 4: then I told her, I said, well, if I make
Speaker 4: it to the NFL and I make a practice squad,
Speaker 4: I can make a hundred This is at eighteen. Now,
Speaker 4: I said, I can make one hundred thousand dollars in
Speaker 4: four months. We can put a down payment in the
Speaker 4: Brownstone in Brooklyn, we can run out the upstairs two floors,
Speaker 4: we can live in the basement part, and we could
Speaker 4: We don't have to be starving artists because the rent
Speaker 4: will cover the mortgage.
Speaker 6: And she was like, wow, eighteen at eighteen, and I
Speaker 6: was like, what.
Speaker 3: You had a good one. I was not talking about
Speaker 3: down payments at eighteen.
Speaker 4: But the funny thing is that's the way my brain
Speaker 4: always worked. So as I got to the NFL, of
Speaker 4: course I bought property, I did all the right things.
Speaker 4: The recession hits and I get cut in the same
Speaker 4: three months. Like the recession hit that summer of two
Speaker 4: thousand and eight, I get cut in September two thousand
Speaker 4: and eight. So then for the next four months we
Speaker 4: were trying to figure out which this income then come
Speaker 4: in because I had bought multiple properties, and now I
Speaker 4: have no income coming in.
Speaker 6: Her full part about that, too, is just like we
Speaker 6: did all of the right things, Like he's so dealing
Speaker 6: to like his business acumen and his financial acumen was
Speaker 6: so far beyond anything I had experienced, so I knew
Speaker 6: he was doing the right things. I was like, he's
Speaker 6: not throwing bands in the strip club. I mean, you know,
Speaker 6: he's out. We were doing all the right things with
Speaker 6: his money, and then here we are back to one.
Speaker 4: So when I decided to retire, I told kay, I said, listen,
Speaker 4: give me some time. I will get us back to
Speaker 4: where we were when I was playing board. And this
Speaker 4: is where the partnership comes in. And we worried about
Speaker 4: this in the book, I said to Kadeen, I'm cut.
Speaker 4: We don't have insurance. All I need is for someone
Speaker 4: to have insurance. You're pregnant, so to make sure that
Speaker 4: we can cover the baby. Stuff like that. Kadeen took
Speaker 4: off her engagement ring and put it in her jewelry box,
Speaker 4: got on that B forty four bus and went to
Speaker 4: the mall and said, I need a job. And her
Speaker 4: biggest focus was getting a full time job so that
Speaker 4: we can get insurance. So my answer to that question was,
Speaker 4: anytime there was a financial issue you I never hit it.
Speaker 4: We talked about how we were going to get ourselves
Speaker 4: out of that financial situation together. She was never to know,
Speaker 4: too stuck up to pull up our bootstraps and say
Speaker 4: I'm gonna go work. I worked as a substitute teacher.
Speaker 4: I worked as a color commentary on MG varsity. I
Speaker 4: did personal training. There was no job that was beneath
Speaker 4: me in order to provide for my family, and my
Speaker 4: wife felt the same way. So during those times, we
Speaker 4: just worked harder. We did multiple jobs, multiple tasks, until
Speaker 4: we got to the point where we could say, you
Speaker 4: know what, I want autonomy over my time. Now I'm
Speaker 4: going to quit this aspect and just focus on this.
Speaker 4: And Instagram was able to provide that for us when
Speaker 4: the brand partnership deals started to come up.
Speaker 1: So what are the conversations like now about money? Now
Speaker 1: that like you're off the struggle bus, you know, and
Speaker 1: you're like, so I'm curious, like where are you? So
Speaker 1: it's like, you know, in the beginning, like so many
Speaker 1: new entrepreneurs, there's this struggle and then there's a space
Speaker 1: where it's like I'm kind of okay, and then there's
Speaker 1: a space where it's like, no, I'm solidly okay.
Speaker 2: And then hopefully.
Speaker 1: There's a space where it's like I'm beyond okay, doing
Speaker 1: really well.
Speaker 2: So where are you in that space? And then how
Speaker 2: have the conversation shifted?
Speaker 4: Well, right now, we're beyond okay. We're doing extremely role.
Speaker 4: I'd like to say. We live in abundance. And the
Speaker 4: first thing we do is we have a fiduciary responsibility
Speaker 4: to pay forward. You know, I feel like no one
Speaker 4: should live in abundance without being a gift to other people,
Speaker 4: because this is a gift to well. So that's the
Speaker 4: first thing. The second thing is all about about wealth building. Now,
Speaker 4: how can we prepare our children to be in this
Speaker 4: space regardless of what happens to them in life. It
Speaker 4: doesn't matter if I mean, of course we want through
Speaker 4: the graduate in high school and go to college or
Speaker 4: learn the trade or do something. But I want to
Speaker 4: be able to have my children live freely on this planet.
Speaker 5: And that's what the goal is.
Speaker 4: Now. What things can be put in place to make
Speaker 4: sure our children okay?
Speaker 6: And it's funny Tiffany and Mandy, because it did out
Speaker 6: for a long time has to school me on the
Speaker 6: financial world and how things work. I was not good
Speaker 6: with money, and not to say that I was a
Speaker 6: frivolist spend or, but for example, Deval gave me or
Speaker 6: put me on his credit card a little bit after.
Speaker 4: What was it the NFL this two thousand and six,
Speaker 4: I was, I was a working the NFL, and I
Speaker 4: was trying to help with.
Speaker 6: Build a credit, right because at this point my parents
Speaker 6: hadn't really explained anything to me about credit or anything.
Speaker 6: So he added me onto his credit card. So I'm thinking, oh,
Speaker 6: I got like money for sad and I could just
Speaker 6: pay it back at my leisure. And I didn't realize
Speaker 6: that at the time I, you know, put the card.
Speaker 6: I think it was like fifteen thousands, was like the
Speaker 6: with the max and I was just making like small
Speaker 6: payments like oh twenty five thousand a month, you know,
Speaker 6: not knowing.
Speaker 3: Anything about adults.
Speaker 7: Right.
Speaker 6: So there's that things that we were in being broken
Speaker 6: and going back to Brooklyn having to rebuild. Even in
Speaker 6: the space that we're in now, I still sometimes move
Speaker 6: with caution, like I don't want to buy this, or
Speaker 6: what's the budget for that? And that was like my, my, my,
Speaker 6: look at the person that just seems to be like
Speaker 6: I don't know if you guys have seen this, like
Speaker 6: a video going around a viral where someone has their
Speaker 6: Apple parent They're like charging everything everywhere, And I just
Speaker 6: can't get used to that now because I'm still living
Speaker 6: in this sense of fear sometimes like what if it
Speaker 6: all gets snatched away?
Speaker 4: You know.
Speaker 6: But Devell has helped kind of ease that anxiety in
Speaker 6: meet and then you know, like, Okay, now we have
Speaker 6: certain things allotted, like the children will be okay, we
Speaker 6: will be okay, like these people and things that we
Speaker 6: have in place will make it so that we're okay,
Speaker 6: Like you don't have to live like that. But also
Speaker 6: to us feel like it's a more stressful environment like
Speaker 6: that whole more money, more problem situation, because now we
Speaker 6: are technically employing a large group of people to work
Speaker 6: for us, to help us create the content that we have.
Speaker 6: So now I'm thinking about how many people's livelihoods we're
Speaker 6: responsible for, and that's a different kind of pressure when
Speaker 6: you think about it, it's like it's not just about us.
Speaker 6: It's trying to make sure that our people around us
Speaker 6: are also staying aflow so that's an added layer of stress.
Speaker 6: Like back in November, Devell had this breakdown unlike anything
Speaker 6: I've seen before. I know he doesn't mind sharing.
Speaker 4: It because he's spoken about it.
Speaker 6: But he was filming his I think it was sixties
Speaker 6: and insists or Ta tema and I'm pretty much passed
Speaker 6: out on set and when I spoke to him and
Speaker 6: I'm like, hey, you know, I'm a Jamaica at a
Speaker 6: wedding and I'm like, you know, what's going on? And
Speaker 6: He's just like, oh, I'm you know, dehydrated, I'm really
Speaker 6: stressed out and whatnot. And I said to him without like,
Speaker 6: if you don't feel well this weekend, maybe you can't
Speaker 6: make it to work on Monday, Like they're going to
Speaker 6: have to understand your health comes first. And he literally
Speaker 6: was like no, Like I have to go to work
Speaker 6: because I have to make this money, because I have
Speaker 6: people I have to pay. And that was the main
Speaker 6: reason why he couldn't even take the time to get
Speaker 6: one hundred percent back to himself health wise, because he
Speaker 6: had the stress of thinking about how many people we
Speaker 6: had that were depending on us. That's another level of
Speaker 6: stress that you deal with in the financial space.
Speaker 4: No yeah, I mean tivitany And you you understand this.
Speaker 4: When you become your own company, you you sort of
Speaker 4: become an economy for so many people. And when you
Speaker 4: become that economy, it only works as you work. And
Speaker 4: when you've when you've been trusted people, you put it
Speaker 4: on them like, hey, I need you to help me,
Speaker 4: help me make this happen. But also they've n trusted you,
Speaker 4: so it's like now they put their livelihoods and their
Speaker 4: dreams and stuff in your pretty much in your lap
Speaker 4: and say, hey, as long as you work, I'm here
Speaker 4: to help facilitate that. But during that time, I didn't
Speaker 4: realize how much financially, how much pressure that would be
Speaker 4: on us financially. And we're at that point now, like
Speaker 4: I said, when we live in abundance and we always
Speaker 4: want to pay forward and help people, but it is
Speaker 4: like a huge responsibility to make sure that we always
Speaker 4: bring in enough to make sure that we can put
Speaker 4: it back out there into me.
Speaker 2: Can I give you some advice and feedback?
Speaker 4: Of course you can, because you already know.
Speaker 2: How well I was saying. I was there. Look, Confinia
Speaker 2: was like growl, let me get my notebook. This is
Speaker 2: for so this is.
Speaker 1: That's a stage in entrepreneurship that you know, many of
Speaker 1: us reach, especially if we are the face of our brand.
Speaker 1: Like Mandy has her own business. She teaches career and negotiating,
Speaker 1: especially the women. And so in the beginning, yes, you
Speaker 1: are the face. First, it's just you, you know, because
Speaker 1: you're like, I ain't got money to pay nobody, So
Speaker 1: you do all the things. And then if your fortunate
Speaker 1: business grows, you bring on help and then they're working
Speaker 1: side by side. And then you get to a point
Speaker 1: where it's like you literally for many people. You have
Speaker 1: to work in order to provide for not just your family,
Speaker 1: but your business family. And that's where it gets tricky
Speaker 1: because same I had, like my blood pressure was through
Speaker 1: the roof. I mean it was to the point where
Speaker 1: was like you been have a heart attack, tiphany because.
Speaker 2: You can't be No. One sixty one seventy over one hundred.
Speaker 2: I mean it was.
Speaker 1: I stopped taking my blood pressure like I didn't have
Speaker 1: I wasn't on medication, but the doctor was like, if
Speaker 1: you come back with this blood pressure like this again,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna put you on medication. I gained like thirty
Speaker 1: pounds the level I was so stressed. I didn't know
Speaker 1: what it felt like not to be stressed. You know.
Speaker 1: I used to tell myself I'm a morning person because
Speaker 1: I woke up every morning at four or five am.
Speaker 1: Until I realized I'm not necessarily a morning person. It
Speaker 1: was anxiety. I could not sleep, even in my dreams.
Speaker 1: I was working in my dream I remember, literally in
Speaker 1: my dreams on a computer.
Speaker 2: Can you imagine?
Speaker 1: But you know so, and it doesn't It shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to take tragedy. But I knew, like a year or
Speaker 1: so before my husband passed away, I knew that something
Speaker 1: had to shift because I was declining and I was
Speaker 1: trying to make these small little shifts and small little shifts,
Speaker 1: and it.
Speaker 2: Wasn't really enough.
Speaker 1: And it wasn't until Jarrell passed away that I realized
Speaker 1: I have to make a huge, sweeping change because you
Speaker 1: gotta choose, Tiffany, You're either going to grieve over your
Speaker 1: health or grieve over your husband, because I just didn't
Speaker 1: have the capacity to do both. And so I said,
Speaker 1: I need to get my health together. And one of
Speaker 1: the ways is I had to revamp the way I
Speaker 1: did business that it doesn't like now. The way the
Speaker 1: business runs largely it doesn't have to fully depend on
Speaker 1: me hitting the track, because at one point it was
Speaker 1: like yo if because I could not work for six
Speaker 1: months after he passed away, and I saw like a
Speaker 1: whole new side of people who I thought were down
Speaker 1: for whatever when I could no longer dance, you know,
Speaker 1: dance to dance to make sure everybody ate, And so
Speaker 1: slowly but surely I started to shift my business.
Speaker 2: I had to reduce some staff.
Speaker 1: You know, it wasn't pleasant, but I had to and
Speaker 1: to shift the way, like I pivoted from the money
Speaker 1: has to come from Tiffany.
Speaker 2: Being there to what are other ways?
Speaker 1: So I'm in the budget. THEESE is in the business
Speaker 1: of community and content. That's what I told my team,
Speaker 1: So how do we monetize the community? How do we
Speaker 1: monetize the content where it doesn't depend on me going
Speaker 1: out to speak?
Speaker 2: So even now we.
Speaker 1: Are in the middle of like this huge shift and
Speaker 1: pivot because right now it used to be one hundred
Speaker 1: percent Tiffany. Now it's about seventy sixty seventy percent Tiffany.
Speaker 1: By the end of the year, my am is fifty
Speaker 1: percent by next year thirty percent. But it had to
Speaker 1: be intentional or you will work yourself to the ground.
Speaker 1: So the key in all things when it comes to
Speaker 1: business in particular, I've been talking to a lot of
Speaker 1: people this week, is that I call it, you want
Speaker 1: to start to pre pivot, meaning you should be able
Speaker 1: to end your business, look into the future and say
Speaker 1: this is where this is headed, sick, overwhelmed overwork that
Speaker 1: so before we get there three years from now, what
Speaker 1: do I need to do now? Because you will have
Speaker 1: to pivot because your body is going to force you.
Speaker 1: But if I can pre pivot, do it willingly. I
Speaker 1: can take my time and I can do so. And
Speaker 1: although it's hard and not everyone's going to be happy
Speaker 1: about it, but I can do so.
Speaker 2: So in three years, when the.
Speaker 1: Event happens or whatever, then I've already done the work
Speaker 1: or or the foundation or whatever it is that I'm
Speaker 1: needing to do. And so that's just for all business owners.
Speaker 1: For YouTube Mandy, is that ideally, what you hope is
Speaker 1: that you bake this in to your business model, that
Speaker 1: you don't go so far.
Speaker 2: That it's just like you you you you you, And
Speaker 2: if you haven't.
Speaker 1: You know, you start you have to ask yourself like, well,
Speaker 1: how do I want what am I in the business of,
Speaker 1: How do I want my business to make money outside
Speaker 1: of me? What do I need to start doing to
Speaker 1: start to integrate that into the business now, because I
Speaker 1: promise you, like a reckoning is coming if you don't,
Speaker 1: because if you pass that on set, the body keeps
Speaker 1: the score. It's like, I don't care what you're talking
Speaker 1: about that you find I say, you're not lay down,
Speaker 1: you know, and so like I don't want that for
Speaker 1: anyone listening, And so yeah, I just it's certainly we
Speaker 1: could talk offline about like some ideas, like you know,
Speaker 1: cause I literally just meeting with my friend love yesterday,
Speaker 1: my friend Bosmos, like can't we talk? Everyone is just
Speaker 1: like can we talk? Because I'm the queen of the
Speaker 1: pre pivot, Like, let me get ahead of this thing
Speaker 1: before it takes me out. Wait, the conversation is getting
Speaker 1: so juicy, but we got to take a break pay mills,
Speaker 1: you know. So we will be right back with Kadeen
Speaker 1: and Duval stay put and we're back in black.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean as a couple, like I listen, I
Speaker 3: mean we were at my husband and I were at
Speaker 3: a friend's friend a couple of friends. How yesterday and
Speaker 3: they were making pizzas, and like, it's really hard to
Speaker 3: not compare yourself to other couples, right, I don't know.
Speaker 3: For me, anyway, I try not to. I've gotten there
Speaker 3: about not comparing my son to other kids. But I'm
Speaker 3: just like, Wow, they've been making these pizzas and I
Speaker 3: haven't heard either of them like snap or like, you know,
Speaker 3: like there's enough space in the kitchen for them, Like
Speaker 3: what's wrong with us? But can y'all talk about like
Speaker 3: I mean, and I'm sure in the book you know
Speaker 3: you talk about this too, how there are imperfect not imperfections,
Speaker 3: but just the reality of being you know, too strong,
Speaker 3: independent minded people in a relationship. Have there been moments
Speaker 3: where like one of y'all have wanted to go one
Speaker 3: way and the other the other direction and you were
Speaker 3: just like doing this tug of war and how you
Speaker 3: maybe navigated that?
Speaker 6: And I think either of us are so strong in
Speaker 6: our thoughts that we're not willing to bend. It's really
Speaker 6: like there's no power struggle here, nor is there uh
Speaker 6: like forcing of one to be the leader and be
Speaker 6: right in that moment. I feel like whoever is better
Speaker 6: equipped in a certain moment to do whatever the task is,
Speaker 6: we do it, and if we feel strongly about something,
Speaker 6: we voice that and then we find a way to
Speaker 6: work around it because usually for the most part, I
Speaker 6: feel like we usually land on the space for devias,
Speaker 6: Like kadein, I really don't care about this particular thing.
Speaker 6: If you hear that much about it, go ahead and
Speaker 6: make a decision. And I'm un rock with you. I
Speaker 6: think we both respect each other not to know that
Speaker 6: we're never going to lead each other too far straight
Speaker 6: and if we see it happen and we know how
Speaker 6: to read each other back in. But have you really
Speaker 6: struggled with anything much?
Speaker 4: No, I think I think part of this kind of
Speaker 4: goes back to what Tiffany was saying. But I love
Speaker 4: the pre pivot. So I'm good at foreseeing when things
Speaker 4: I'm like something something ain't like. That's why last year
Speaker 4: to me was an anomaly. But when it comes to
Speaker 4: us making decisions, there's no wrong decision. So if Kadeen
Speaker 4: is strong minded about something, and say, for example, it
Speaker 4: goes in the direction that I don't foresee it being
Speaker 4: being positive successful, I'm like, babe, how about we try
Speaker 4: this a week? We make move this way? Like I don't.
Speaker 4: It's no blame game. It doesn't matter who made the decision.
Speaker 4: This is the decision we're going because one of us
Speaker 4: is strong minded about it, and it works out perfectly,
Speaker 4: bawdly celebrated. If it don't, let's pivot before it gets
Speaker 4: too bad and move on. And I think that type
Speaker 4: of idea, that there's no wrong decision or no bad decision,
Speaker 4: allows us to not argue about what we're going to do,
Speaker 4: because most of those arguments tend to be, well, you
Speaker 4: made the mistake, you made the decision if we would
Speaker 4: have did it my way, and in my mind, there
Speaker 4: is no my way.
Speaker 5: You know, we've been doing this together since eighteen, and.
Speaker 4: When I say together, I mean right now maybe de
Speaker 4: vou season because I'm on television and I'm the.
Speaker 5: One who came up with Instagram and all this other stuff.
Speaker 4: But there was a point when it was Kadeen season
Speaker 4: and I had to just be the person to just
Speaker 4: rock with her. I was an All American in college
Speaker 4: and she needed help with her white balance filming for
Speaker 4: her while she was working for New twelve. I got
Speaker 4: the camera on my shoulder, I got the pro out,
Speaker 4: and I'm I'm trying to do this because I have
Speaker 4: to play my part in her dream as well. So
Speaker 4: since we've been used to for twenty years, always playing
Speaker 4: our role in the other person's ideas of success, it's like,
Speaker 4: all right, well, what do you want to do? How
Speaker 4: are we going to do it together?
Speaker 6: And that's essentially how we came up with the title
Speaker 6: of the book. I'm just about to say dating over me,
Speaker 6: camera on his shoulder.
Speaker 7: Okay, you are aging us, my good man, biges.
Speaker 6: Okay, so we over me.
Speaker 1: If anyone's listening, whether they're a single, partner and married
Speaker 1: or whatever, what do you hope like, what's like one
Speaker 1: of some key lessons that you hope people take away,
Speaker 1: you know, for their own lives, whether they're partners or not.
Speaker 6: Well, the first thing is with we over me, we
Speaker 6: hope that folks know that this is not like a
Speaker 6: relationship how to book. I know it kind of gets
Speaker 6: put under those categories, but we really didn't want it
Speaker 6: to be a book that people went to thinking like
Speaker 6: we're going to give them some outline of what made
Speaker 6: the perfect marriage or the best relationship. Because we don't
Speaker 6: profess to have all the answers. What we're hoping to
Speaker 6: do in the book is to just share a little
Speaker 6: bit about our love story, our journey, because a lot
Speaker 6: of times people will see us and then be like,
Speaker 6: oh my god, kadin what was your prayer, Devo? What
Speaker 6: was your prayer? How did I get this? Devo? How
Speaker 6: do I get Kadeen? And it's like, Kadina de value.
Speaker 6: See today is twenty years in the making. We needn't
Speaker 6: just wake up like this.
Speaker 3: You're not reminding myself that. I'm like, mm hm, they
Speaker 3: said twenty years.
Speaker 4: It's been less than how long how long you been
Speaker 4: with your husband.
Speaker 3: About town twenty twelve? Like eleven years together and married five.
Speaker 5: So I'll make you some insight real quick to the book.
Speaker 4: Okay, our first.
Speaker 5: Five years of marriage was terrible, like stole back.
Speaker 3: After and you didn't have to deal with the pandemic.
Speaker 4: There was no pandemic and this was NFL, so it
Speaker 4: was like everything was bliss free, free college education, everything.
Speaker 4: And we had been together eight years before them. So
Speaker 4: we're telling you is that for the first thirteen years
Speaker 4: of our friendship slash courtship slash marriage, we were at
Speaker 4: each other not knowing how to do this thing. And
Speaker 4: we like to tell people that because people will get
Speaker 4: into a relationship and after six months like, ah, I
Speaker 4: shouldn't be this hard. We supposed to be blissed, and
Speaker 4: it's like thirteen years it took for us to be like,
Speaker 4: wait a minute, I got to change my mindset if
Speaker 4: I want to be successful moving forward. And for Kadinni,
Speaker 4: we want people to understand that it's about choices, right.
Speaker 4: The first thing we say in the book is that
Speaker 4: you don't have to stay where you're not wanted or
Speaker 4: where you don't.
Speaker 5: Want to be, and it's okay to move forward.
Speaker 4: The biggest thing is we work because I make a
Speaker 4: choice to be here and she makes a choice to
Speaker 4: be here. The obligation to be there because of a
Speaker 4: title or because of children will put you in a
Speaker 4: trap where you feel like your back's against the wall.
Speaker 4: Creates more issues than anything else. The first step that
Speaker 4: I want to say to anybody is choose yourself. Make
Speaker 4: that choice to be like you I want to be
Speaker 4: in this situation, whether it's monogamous, polygamists, like, there's so
Speaker 4: many different lifestyles, choose whicheveryone works for you for us,
Speaker 4: monogamy works for somebody else, it may not work and
Speaker 4: It's okay to choose what you like, and once you
Speaker 4: make that choice, be ready to be a service to
Speaker 4: whoever you're in a relationship with.
Speaker 5: And that's really what we want people to understand.
Speaker 4: Make a choice to choose yourself, and if you want
Speaker 4: to be in a relationship, be of service to that person.
Speaker 4: Don't go to that relationship thinking this person better check
Speaker 4: all these boxes that I've created for this super imaginary person.
Speaker 4: And the first box they don't check, I'm out of here.
Speaker 4: How can you be a.
Speaker 5: Service to someone else in a relationship? That's what we
Speaker 5: really want, right.
Speaker 6: That's why the subtitle is the counter intuitive approach to
Speaker 6: getting everything you want out of your relationship, because, like
Speaker 6: Deva said, typically you think about getting into a relationship
Speaker 6: and things, think about what you can gain from a person, right,
Speaker 6: this person has to have all these things in order
Speaker 6: for us to be relationship. Where our approach, which we've
Speaker 6: learned over the years that makes more sense and leaves
Speaker 6: us feeling like things are reciprocated, is where we really
Speaker 6: tap into how we can be of service. So in
Speaker 6: the mornings, for example, I've learned to you know, wake up,
Speaker 6: you know, think about my day, look over deval and
Speaker 6: be like, Hey, you know, what can I do today
Speaker 6: to make your day that much brighter? How can I
Speaker 6: alleviate something off of your plate so that your stress
Speaker 6: level is a little bit reduced today? And just by
Speaker 6: doing that alone, I've realized that, Wow, like free something
Speaker 6: up for him in turn, let him know that I
Speaker 6: care a b makes to stay that much lighter, and
Speaker 6: then c He's probably more inclined to say, damn, Kay
Speaker 6: really thought about me this morning. What can I do
Speaker 6: to reciprocate that?
Speaker 4: Well? Can you tell him how we got there? Because
Speaker 4: it wasn't like an epishany loving.
Speaker 3: This is like Michelle Obama when she came out talking
Speaker 3: about ten years. I forget if it was the first
Speaker 3: ten years or there was a ten year period of
Speaker 3: her in Barock's marriage. It's so important and I wonder
Speaker 3: if this is like something to note to because I
Speaker 3: mean black life. You know hashtag black love. There's now
Speaker 3: a series called black Love, And have you guys been
Speaker 3: on that? You should be on that?
Speaker 2: See we're on that.
Speaker 4: We want season two?
Speaker 3: Oh amazing. Okay, I'm like the because y'all are like
Speaker 3: the Randall and Beth in real life from just like
Speaker 3: real life Randal and Beth, but even they had their challenges.
Speaker 3: And I feel like it's important because yes, we need
Speaker 3: more imagery of black love and like beautiful reciprocated relationships
Speaker 3: and full and complete relationships. We just don't to your
Speaker 3: point about you know, Hollywood and entertainment, we don't really
Speaker 3: see that so often. At the same time, I don't
Speaker 3: know if we do ourselves a disservice if we don't
Speaker 3: also show the struggle and show the work you know
Speaker 3: that goes into that. So it's really great that you
Speaker 3: guys are sharing that. I'll stop now because I'm I'm
Speaker 3: being poured into so you can continue.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm gone, How did you get? What was that?
Speaker 2: Five years in and then there was a switch, like
Speaker 2: what happened?
Speaker 4: So there was a moment five years and this is
Speaker 4: twenty and sixteen. Twenty sixteen, Kadeina and I had already
Speaker 4: decided that we would you know, this year was going
Speaker 4: to be a year We're going to have another child
Speaker 4: because we almost lost Kadeen having Jackson. She had a
Speaker 4: cervical tear get a cervical teer. Having Jackson, she was
Speaker 4: bleeding out. She had have emergency surgery. I had made
Speaker 4: a promise to God. I said, you know, if you
Speaker 4: get my wife through this, I would not have another
Speaker 4: child and I would cherish this woman and this child
Speaker 4: for the rest of my life. That was my promise
Speaker 4: to God. And I was just like, I just want
Speaker 4: my wife to be okay. And Kadeen made it through
Speaker 4: and I was like, I don't want any more kids.
Speaker 4: Five years later, Kadeen and I both decided like, you
Speaker 4: know what, if you feel comfortable, let's try to have
Speaker 4: another child. So in that moment that was That was
Speaker 4: twenty fifteen. Actually we were trying to get pregnant and
Speaker 4: Kadeen wasn't getting pregnant, so we had both made it
Speaker 4: were like, hey, listen, we're getting older. We should be
Speaker 4: in the best shape of our life. You almost die
Speaker 4: having the first child. You have to be in better shape.
Speaker 4: We got to work out together, we got to eat better,
Speaker 4: we got to get more sleep. Like we had we
Speaker 4: had pretty much said to each other these promises that
Speaker 4: we were going to do to make sure this pregnancy
Speaker 4: was was going to be better. And coming off of
Speaker 4: Christmas time, there was another financial issue. The American Express
Speaker 4: Bill was going up. Me and Kadeen had an argument
Speaker 4: about the American Express build walking to the gym the
Speaker 4: next day. This is the right after the American Express argument,
Speaker 4: and she was like, she's going to go work out.
Speaker 5: I go to workout, I'm training clients, I'm doing everything.
Speaker 4: At this point, Kadeen wasn't working full time because I
Speaker 4: had took on all that load so that she can relax.
Speaker 4: I'm getting ready to leave the gym. She still hadn't
Speaker 4: worked out. I snapped. Now we've talked about snapping. I snapped.
Speaker 4: You know what the problem is, You procrastinate too much
Speaker 4: every time I'm trying to get something done, and so
Speaker 4: it's like I gotta wait for you and wait for
Speaker 4: you and wait for you. I'm tired of waiting for you.
Speaker 4: You run up the American Express bill, You're not working anymore.
Speaker 4: It's like it was just everything was just unloading, unloading, unloading.
Speaker 4: So now if you know my wife, my wife is
Speaker 4: a very passionate Jamaican invincention woman from Brooklyn, and she's
Speaker 4: coming back at me. We're going back and forth, and
Speaker 4: this is how bad and talk to you. We screaming
Speaker 4: at each other in the gym, in my office, screaming
Speaker 4: and cursing, screaming and curse, and I said, hell, you
Speaker 4: know what, I think we need to get a divorce.
Speaker 4: And she's like, are you serious? Imod like, yes, because
Speaker 4: you're fing lazy right, this is I scream.
Speaker 5: In my wife.
Speaker 4: She goes, I'm not fing lazy, deval, I'm efing pregnant.
Speaker 3: And I go, damn, you had a Trump card in
Speaker 3: your back pocket, trash.
Speaker 4: Why don't you? I said, why don't you believe with that?
Speaker 6: Like?
Speaker 3: Why does it more satisfying that way?
Speaker 6: Clearly because we were trying for this baby, Like what
Speaker 6: are we going to do to make it that much
Speaker 6: more special? And then I just couldn't hold it. In
Speaker 6: that moment, I was.
Speaker 4: Like And in that moment, when I had egg on
Speaker 4: my face, I realized that, you know, I claim to
Speaker 4: be a provider and a protector because I made enough
Speaker 4: money to make sure my wife could be at home.
Speaker 4: If anybody got my wife face, I'm willing to do whatever.
Speaker 4: That's what I thought my version of providing and protecting.
Speaker 4: In that moment, I realized I wasn't providing and protecting anything.
Speaker 4: I wasn't there emotionally, I wasn't there spiritually. How did
Speaker 4: I not realize that my wife was going through a
Speaker 4: physiological change that she couldn't work out because she was
Speaker 4: having more in sickness. And I said to myself, how
Speaker 4: am I going to be there to advocate for my
Speaker 4: wife in the opportunity that something happens to her again
Speaker 4: during her pregnancy.
Speaker 5: If I'm not paying attention.
Speaker 4: So I said to her in that moment, I said, Kadeen,
Speaker 4: from this point on, why you're pregnant, Whatever you say,
Speaker 4: I got you. The answer is going to be yes,
Speaker 4: I'm going to be of service to make sure we
Speaker 4: get through this. Because it hit me like a ton
Speaker 4: of bricks. I have to be aware of what my
Speaker 4: wife is going through in her entire body. I almost
Speaker 4: lost her once and here I am only focused on
Speaker 4: what I think I need to do as a man,
Speaker 4: that I'm not paying attention to the person that's most
Speaker 4: important to me. And then through that pregnancy, our relationship
Speaker 4: change because I was so focused.
Speaker 8: On being of service, being of service, being of service
Speaker 8: that Kadean started to reciprocate in a way that had
Speaker 8: never happened in our relations and shit, and then the
Speaker 8: light bulb paid me boom, why didn't I do this
Speaker 8: one she's not pregnant.
Speaker 4: It was, you know, let me do this, let me
Speaker 4: do this. But then there was another shift, and this
Speaker 4: is important. Kadeenad got so used to me being in
Speaker 4: service because she had got pregnant and then got pregnant again,
Speaker 4: that it was always about Kadeen, about kadem about Kadema,
Speaker 4: and ifou always saying to Kadeen, I'm fine, I got it,
Speaker 4: and I wasn't okay. And during the pandemic December twenty twenty,
Speaker 4: we're getting ready to go into twenty twenty one.
Speaker 5: I looked at Kadeena and I said, you know, it's
Speaker 5: been four years since we've had Cairo, and when you
Speaker 5: wake up in the morning, what's your first thing you
Speaker 5: think about. We have three kids now. She said, well,
Speaker 5: I gotta make sure the kids get ready. I gotta
Speaker 5: make sure I work out, I gotta make sure I
Speaker 5: do this. I gotta make sure there's a TV.
Speaker 4: Dad. I said, do you realize that you mentioned everybody
Speaker 4: except me? And for the first time I was honest
Speaker 4: with her about how that made me feel. I didn't
Speaker 4: just sit back on it and get resentful. I didn't
Speaker 4: do what men typically do, which is I'll eat it
Speaker 4: I'll deal with you on my own. I'm not going
Speaker 4: to say nothing. She better figure it out. I didn't
Speaker 4: do that. I told her exactly how it made me feel,
Speaker 4: and I told her what I wanted and what I needed,
Speaker 4: and I watched her though, wow, I'm so sorry, Like,
Speaker 4: I didn't realize that I always put you on the
Speaker 4: back burner because you always say you're okay. And I
Speaker 4: realized when I told her, like, how could I expect
Speaker 4: her to know that if I always say I'm fine,
Speaker 4: I'm good when I'm not. And in that moment, our
Speaker 4: relationship changed again. It went from me servicing her to
Speaker 4: us always serving each other. And I got to be honest.
Speaker 4: There was a meme that I saw yesterday and it
Speaker 4: was a woman who said, when's the last time? It
Speaker 4: was like a bunch of this, when's the last time
Speaker 4: you said to your man, I'm proud of you, baby,
Speaker 4: I love you baby, thank you baby? Are you hungry? Baby?
Speaker 4: And I looked at all these things and I say,
Speaker 4: you know, my says those things to me a lot,
Speaker 4: but it wasn't happening until I told her I it
Speaker 4: made me feel And then she realized what I need
Speaker 4: because I told her what I need. And I think
Speaker 4: that's when our relationship changed.
Speaker 6: Yeah, for sure, because I just expected him to understand.
Speaker 6: You know, I'm like, I'm an adult, you're an adult.
Speaker 6: We have two point five three kids at this time.
Speaker 6: You know, we're another one to play. So I'm just
Speaker 6: just like, yo, we're all we're in the mud, like
Speaker 6: you know, do you and I? And I just expected
Speaker 6: the vow to just be okay because he always said
Speaker 6: he was okay. And now I'm literally looking this man
Speaker 6: in his eyes, like, especially after his episode in November,
Speaker 6: I'm like, again, you're saying you're okay, and you're not okay.
Speaker 6: So we practiced that a lot more now, and I
Speaker 6: can see how this has been a big shift in
Speaker 6: our dynamic and our relationship, even as recently as like
Speaker 6: the past three four months, you know, because I had
Speaker 6: Dakod to our last son the year before that. So
Speaker 6: back into the thick of being pregnant.
Speaker 3: And especially when you have a partner who is quite
Speaker 3: independent and how their own thing going on, you sometimes
Speaker 3: can feel like, wait, we're parallel, Like we're in you
Speaker 3: said the mud, we're in the mud together, but like
Speaker 3: this is your mud lane and this is my mud
Speaker 3: lane and it's like did you survive today? Yeap, did
Speaker 3: you survive? Yeah, good night, and like the team huddle,
Speaker 3: like that connection the bridge and the mud. That's what
Speaker 3: we're working on, I think, because I mean not that
Speaker 3: it's bad, but it's just like what we need right now,
Speaker 3: I feel like, is just to do what we can
Speaker 3: to just own what we have going on. And I think, yeah,
Speaker 3: I'm hoping that we could have a similar moment like
Speaker 3: that because to it matters, you know, it matters to
Speaker 3: have that time and to look into another person's eyes
Speaker 3: even if they are strong, and we are the strongest
Speaker 3: of the strong, right and remind them that them.
Speaker 4: You are pregnant. Right, Kadean was pregnant. Kadeen was pregnant
Speaker 4: last year. Kadean didn't want to be nowhere near me
Speaker 4: or anybody in this house. Like what women have to understand?
Speaker 4: What women have to understand that like your body goes
Speaker 4: through physiological changes and you're not going to feel like yourself.
Speaker 4: And I wish there were more more educational resources for
Speaker 4: both men and women how to deal with pregnancy. Right
Speaker 4: because and this is Kadeena and I who just wrote
Speaker 4: a book New York Times bestsellers. They must communicate great.
Speaker 4: While she was pregnant, I used to be like, yo,
Speaker 4: I have not You haven't hugged me or kissed me
Speaker 4: in three days. Do you realize you've been in that
Speaker 4: bedroom by yourself. And She's just like, I know, I
Speaker 4: just I just don't feel like being around people. But
Speaker 4: I miss you, and I'm just like I did it, babe,
Speaker 4: And I understand where you're coming from, and I'm just
Speaker 4: letting you know how it's making me feel.
Speaker 5: But that was twenty years in the making getting to
Speaker 5: that point.
Speaker 4: When she had those moments before, of course I felt bad,
Speaker 4: but I didn't know what to say. I didn't know
Speaker 4: how to articulate it. So give yourself grace and give
Speaker 4: your husband grace and not knowing and understanding it's only
Speaker 4: been ten years. And I know to people it's south crazy.
Speaker 4: It's only been ten years. It should each other by
Speaker 4: ten years. No, like we take time to constantly, you know,
Speaker 4: readjust yourself to see what your partner is going through.
Speaker 4: It takes time. And there's never a point in a
Speaker 4: marriage because I can tell you right now, as great
Speaker 4: as we think our marriage is now, five years from now,
Speaker 4: when it gets even better, We're going to talk about
Speaker 4: this time and say, can you believe that's how we
Speaker 4: communicate it then, like it's just that it's an ongoing
Speaker 4: conversation of trying to be better for each other. So
Speaker 4: give yourself grace and understand this. Whenever we do a
Speaker 4: live shows, I talk about pregnancy for women and postpartum
Speaker 4: pregnancy because this is the truth. The most disciplined human
Speaker 4: beings in the world, and all of the armed forces,
Speaker 4: the Navy, Seals, the Army rangers, the Marine Corps, you
Speaker 4: know what, they train the hardest to deal with sleep deprivation.
Speaker 4: Can you imagine that the most disciplined people in the
Speaker 4: world have to train to deal with sleep deprivation? But
Speaker 4: we expect mothers and expecting mothers to know how to
Speaker 4: deal with this in real time with no train and
Speaker 4: balance being a new mom and a wife or a
Speaker 4: girlfriend and a career and a house. It's damn there impossible.
Speaker 4: So you have to give yourself grace. And I think
Speaker 4: more men should be educated on giving women grace because
Speaker 4: I was the same imbecule that told my wife six months,
Speaker 4: six weeks after having our first child, you acting like
Speaker 4: you the first first woman to have baby, breastfeed the
Speaker 4: three babies.
Speaker 2: You're still a lot of time.
Speaker 4: This is this is why we tell.
Speaker 3: You you're still just a real man inside. Okay, got it,
Speaker 3: got just a regular regular man.
Speaker 5: I'm a regular degular man who doesn't know and understand.
Speaker 4: Like that's why I like telling the stories because it
Speaker 4: took me four pregnancies to be like, you know, I
Speaker 4: wish I was a better part.
Speaker 3: And it's probably because mothers do the same thing as
Speaker 3: like we're super people. We don't want to admit that
Speaker 3: we're hurting. We don't tell that story. It's become really
Speaker 3: hard for it. It's hard when and it's also hard
Speaker 3: to see your partner who you know, we met when
Speaker 3: I was twenty five. He was in his mid twenties
Speaker 3: two change. And I'm not physically the person I was
Speaker 3: even a year ago. I can't keep up when we're walking,
Speaker 3: I'm like, you know, and I, you know, running around
Speaker 3: after a toddler and all that. But it's it's I
Speaker 3: can see him being like, Okay, she's different now and
Speaker 3: almost a little bit like fearful or anxious, like is
Speaker 3: this going to be forever? You know this? And and
Speaker 3: I feel like yeah, but that really resonates with me,
Speaker 3: and I hope he gets there too.
Speaker 1: And I used to practice was what we call radical transparency,
Speaker 1: that if it comes up, it comes out yep, yo, no,
Speaker 1: because I just I was I was a terrible communicator
Speaker 1: and like he just was always like he was really
Speaker 1: good at saying how he felt, but he was also
Speaker 1: some of the hoods. So sometimes I'm like, not with
Speaker 1: that tone, sir girl, this is this is not three B.
Speaker 2: In the projects, like what you know. I'm like, oh
Speaker 2: my god.
Speaker 6: That radical transparency.
Speaker 4: Yes.
Speaker 1: So it was like, if it comes up, it comes out, yes,
Speaker 1: just rest.
Speaker 2: But I learned.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm so much better at it now that
Speaker 1: if something is wrong, because I was the queen of
Speaker 1: holding it and then three months later because that times
Speaker 1: like from three months ago, why did you say something?
Speaker 2: And then you build it.
Speaker 1: It's like you're dragging it around, is gathering dust and
Speaker 1: dirt and debris, and then you throw it in their
Speaker 1: face and you're like you should have known. It's like,
Speaker 1: how could I have known that? You know, how could
Speaker 1: I have known that? And so now with everyone therapy
Speaker 1: has helped tremendously. I practiced radical transparency, which is if
Speaker 1: it comes up. You know, I would say ninety percent
Speaker 1: of the time it comes out, because if that's the
Speaker 1: lightest time you'll ever have, Like, hey.
Speaker 2: Babe, you know when you said that thing that actually
Speaker 2: hurt my feelings?
Speaker 1: Yep, you know, like or you know, I don't like
Speaker 1: when you say that when my friends are around, you know,
Speaker 1: and learning to like receive it without the initial because
Speaker 1: I'm very defensive. I have four sisters, so you know,
Speaker 1: we could scrap. I'm like, first of all, girl, you know,
Speaker 1: So I learned to be like receive it because what
Speaker 1: I'm really feeling is not it's not really anger, it's
Speaker 1: shame because I know I'm wrong. Instead of fighting toward that,
Speaker 1: it's like, okay, I could see that, okay, and I.
Speaker 3: Get I get the I call it the post socialization debrief.
Speaker 3: I'm the chatty one in the relationship, so I i
Speaker 3: he can he get the way with a lot because
Speaker 3: he doesn't say that much, so I can get myself
Speaker 3: in trouble. And then after we hang out with other people,
Speaker 3: I'll get in the car and you get in the
Speaker 3: car and you have that moment and I'm just like,
Speaker 3: what did I say that?
Speaker 2: You know, feelings.
Speaker 3: Tell me, and he's like, good, I was so defensive, yes,
Speaker 3: but now I've just gotten better saying I really didn't
Speaker 3: mean to and it's just I'm like, damn it, why
Speaker 3: can't Why do I do this?
Speaker 6: You know?
Speaker 3: But you know I don't want to be that way,
Speaker 3: but it's yeah, but it's it's definitely helps to get
Speaker 3: over things. And I will say that's growth for us too,
Speaker 3: that he's even communicating that kind of stuff.
Speaker 1: And creating a safe space that people can tell you
Speaker 1: about yourself, you know, and even maybe in the moment,
Speaker 1: like me and Gero after a walk came up with
Speaker 1: like signals if I was doing too much, you know,
Speaker 1: he would just be like like, oh my business, thank you.
Speaker 2: It's like and wrapping it up.
Speaker 1: So so you know that way because sometimes you know,
Speaker 1: you don't realize and I'm like, oh okay, you know,
Speaker 1: And so like creating these kind of like tools. We
Speaker 1: had like a safe word when we were if we
Speaker 1: were going to be in an argument when it went
Speaker 1: from helpful to hurtful, because you know, you've be like
Speaker 1: ooh child, let me care upt. And so our safe
Speaker 1: word was pineapples. So it'd be like and another thing
Speaker 1: he'd be like pineapples. I'm like, I'm sorry what the
Speaker 1: rule of pineapples is? Like all speaking ceases. You go
Speaker 1: to your corner, I go to mind, you go to
Speaker 1: the man cave, I go see it wherever. And it's
Speaker 1: like you said, what now pine natles.
Speaker 4: Which.
Speaker 1: Like yes, yes, but it gave me a moment to
Speaker 1: relax and Lucans, you were about to say something really
Speaker 1: hurtful Tiffany to your teammate, y'all got the same jersey on.
Speaker 2: If he lose, I lose.
Speaker 1: And so pineapples was like a saving grace to the
Speaker 1: point where we got so good at it we were
Speaker 1: internally pineapples.
Speaker 2: Ourselves because I'd be like in my head, I'd.
Speaker 1: Be like Tiffany, pineapples to myself, pineapples, girl, you about
Speaker 1: to take it too far. And so but these are
Speaker 1: the things like like over time, you know that, like
Speaker 1: you just practice and you work on if you're wanting
Speaker 1: to go from like an okay marriage so good, yes,
Speaker 1: so great and exceptional you know every year, I mean
Speaker 1: to your point, like the first five years for us
Speaker 1: was like oof dating. It was a hot mess, and
Speaker 1: then we got better and better, and once we got
Speaker 1: really good at communicating. It was like we had like
Speaker 1: such an awesome and even still he was still here,
Speaker 1: we were still growing. I was still like, oh this,
Speaker 1: I could do this even better because.
Speaker 2: I work so much.
Speaker 1: He is really the type to be like when I
Speaker 1: come home, I would love for my wife to be
Speaker 1: home and be like Daddy's home, you know, just a
Speaker 1: pause for a moment, cause I'd be like, okay, food's difference.
Speaker 2: I didn't realize how much it me.
Speaker 1: Him for me to pause, yeah and just come and
Speaker 1: greet him and how is your day? Twenty thirty minutes
Speaker 1: and I can get back to whatever. So like, learning
Speaker 1: those little nuances made all this. It's like there was
Speaker 1: nothing he wouldn't do because I made those you know,
Speaker 1: those those spaces for him and so and the thing, it.
Speaker 4: Sounds clichative, but it's true, right, Like one thing we
Speaker 4: talk about in the book is you have to stop
Speaker 4: comparing yourself to other people's relationships, because the minute you
Speaker 4: try to tell and make your relationship to other people's expectations,
Speaker 4: you're gonna fail. Like you can't be the greatest version
Speaker 4: of somebody else. They're already being the greatest version of themselves.
Speaker 4: And what works for you may not work for other people,
Speaker 4: So seeking validation from other people about what you should
Speaker 4: do and your relationship is also a recipe for failure.
Speaker 4: For example, Kadeen and I have been on social media
Speaker 4: and also on television talking about our life. Right of course,
Speaker 4: people have commentary I would never put up with that,
Speaker 4: I would never do this, I would never do that.
Speaker 4: Most people get defensive and be like, I'm just sharing,
Speaker 4: how could you have these opinions about my marriage. I
Speaker 4: don't get offended about opinions about our marriage because people
Speaker 4: are entitled to have their opinions about what we do.
Speaker 4: But if it works for us, I'm not concerned about
Speaker 4: Taylor making my marriage to other people's opinions. For example,
Speaker 4: Tiffany just said she wants us Her husband wanted her
Speaker 4: to be like, hey, daddy's home. You know how many
Speaker 4: women would have been like, I ain't never calling a
Speaker 4: man daddy. No no, no, no, no no no, you don't have
Speaker 4: to that's not your husband. I want to call on
Speaker 4: my husband daddy. That's what it is. It's the same
Speaker 4: thing for me. I talk about traveling. Kate wants to travel.
Speaker 4: We talked about our sex life. She loves to travel.
Speaker 4: We have better sex with we travel. You know how
Speaker 4: many guys like I ain't buying no plane ticket just
Speaker 4: to have sex with a woman who wants to be
Speaker 4: with her, don't you don't? Exactly, you don't have to.
Speaker 4: I'm not asking you to do that for your girl.
Speaker 6: I'm telling you what works for us.
Speaker 4: For us, it's like, we do what works for us.
Speaker 4: We're unapologetic about it. I have got some backglass because
Speaker 4: I said, listen, when I come home at night, I
Speaker 4: want my wife to some poom poom shorts and a
Speaker 4: crop top, and I want my food made so that
Speaker 4: I can be the best parader I can be. Of course,
Speaker 4: women will be like this, ain't the fifties. D da
Speaker 4: da da. I'm not telling you that you have to
Speaker 4: do that for your man. What I'm saying is this
Speaker 4: is what we work for us. She enjoys dressing up.
Speaker 4: I enjoy looking at it. I enjoyed on her. All
Speaker 4: the stuff y'all saying y'all would never do is not
Speaker 4: going to change the fact that we do this for
Speaker 4: each other. So when we talk about that in the book,
Speaker 4: it's like, stop the whole couple's goals. People ask me
Speaker 4: all the time, who is your favorite couple goal of millennials,
Speaker 4: I don't have one. I want to be the best
Speaker 4: version of the Violentkadeen. I could be like I don't
Speaker 4: look at anybody in this generation or even before and
Speaker 4: say I aspire because I don't want to fall short.
Speaker 4: Like there are certain things, for example, Barack may do
Speaker 4: for Michelle, and I know this for example, I know
Speaker 4: this for a fact. When we first got married, I
Speaker 4: used to look at couples and be like that he
Speaker 4: do that for his wife, and she gets excited about it.
Speaker 4: So I'm gonna do it for my life. And I
Speaker 4: would do it and can even just be looking at me.
Speaker 4: I'm like, you know what your problem is. You weren't grateful,
Speaker 4: and they was excited, and she was just like, I
Speaker 4: didn't ask you to do none of this, and I
Speaker 4: was just like, what you mean to ask? I was
Speaker 4: being thoughtful when I did it. And then I realized, like,
Speaker 4: why am I Why am I going outward to find
Speaker 4: out what my wife wants? And why am I getting
Speaker 4: offended because my wife doesn't want what another woman wants?
Speaker 4: Why do I just ask my wife what she wants
Speaker 4: and do my best to provide it. The more I
Speaker 4: started to look inward and right here and be like, baby,
Speaker 4: what you need, what you need, what you want. The
Speaker 4: easier it became, as opposed to guessing by looking at
Speaker 4: other people. So I just want people when they read
Speaker 4: the book and when they think about relationships, stop thinking
Speaker 4: about everybody else. Focus here, Just focus here on what
Speaker 4: you got and do your best to be that version
Speaker 4: for that person, because that's the person you chose. Well.
Speaker 1: On that note, we really want to thank Kadeen and
Speaker 1: daval Ellis for coming on the show.
Speaker 2: If you do not have it.
Speaker 1: Already, we over me the counter intuitive approach to getting
Speaker 1: everything you want from your relationship. It is a New
Speaker 1: York Times bestseller, which is rare, rare.
Speaker 2: Don't especially black.
Speaker 1: People on to cover look at this black I wouldn't say,
Speaker 1: I would say more peanut butter.
Speaker 6: Con that means they have to get traveled soon.
Speaker 1: Listen, So where can they if they want to purchase
Speaker 1: this book? Where can they purchase it? And then where
Speaker 1: can they find y'all to continue the conversation?
Speaker 4: For sure?
Speaker 6: Well, the best place to get the book, we realized
Speaker 6: so far has been bookshop dot org because is a
Speaker 6: great way to support a local bookstore independent stores in
Speaker 6: your areas, so bookshop dot Org, Amazon, of course, Barns
Speaker 6: and Nobles. Wherever you get your books, you can find me.
Speaker 6: I'm Kadeen. I am on Instagram and I just started
Speaker 6: tak talking my big age y'all with me trying to
Speaker 6: figure it out, and then our podcast page dead. Ask
Speaker 6: the podcast on Instagram.
Speaker 4: Listen, I am devout and I'm used to doing this
Speaker 4: for the podcast. If you're listening on Apple Music.
Speaker 6: Channel too. Now you can subscribe to Patreon for more
Speaker 6: long content from us.
Speaker 3: So okay, sharing.
Speaker 4: A dope conversation.
Speaker 6: Conversation all day, always good time.
Speaker 4: And if we miss you, yo, mate, you used to
Speaker 4: be on the show all the time.
Speaker 3: Not that bunch of lady again.
Speaker 5: You know you've always been one of our highest rated
Speaker 5: at the shows.
Speaker 4: Every every time you're on, people be like I got
Speaker 4: because you always drop so many gems and like people,
Speaker 4: especially black and brown people, need to understand how important
Speaker 4: financial security is.
Speaker 5: And how they can gain access to it.
Speaker 4: Like people just think I got to be an athlete
Speaker 4: and entertainer to make money and build wealth. No, you
Speaker 4: don't know, you don't typically has dropped so many gems
Speaker 4: on us that we've applied to our life and been like, oh, ship,
Speaker 4: you see that work. And I'm telling you, Tiffany, what
Speaker 4: you do is amazing. We appreciate you. Mandy, it's good
Speaker 4: to get to know you. I'm pretty sure we can
Speaker 4: build our relationship and congratulations to you. I can tell
Speaker 4: you that you're an amazing woman and you want to
Speaker 4: be an even more amazing woman for your family and
Speaker 4: especially your husband, so keep working at it and hopefully
Speaker 4: he's doing the same on his end.
Speaker 3: Listen, these hormones will make me start crying, so let
Speaker 3: me say I can feel the I can feel the prickles.
Speaker 3: Thank ya so much.
Speaker 2: We hope that you love the show. Be a listeners.
Speaker 1: You know we'd be having that best people on here,
Speaker 1: so go ahead and support we over me. You know
Speaker 1: if I condemed to all on social listen to the
Speaker 1: podcast that ass and we're going to see you next week. Yes, Kim, Hey, hey,
Speaker 1: ba fan, we're on YouTube. Thank you so much for watching.
Speaker 1: Please like this video and subscribe to the channel.
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Speaker 3: thank y'all so much again for all the support.