Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it's Cadine and guess what. We wrote a
Speaker 1: whole last book. Listen. If there's one thing we're known for,
Speaker 1: it's sharing, maybe even over sharing a lot of our
Speaker 1: life with the entire world. That's right, from our social
Speaker 1: media to our podcast. We keep it real with y'
Speaker 1: all so that we can all learn from what we've
Speaker 1: been through, because maybe maybe we can save you a
Speaker 1: headache or two or three or four. As in four
Speaker 1: whole boys. After twenty years together, twelve years of marriage,
Speaker 1: and four kids, we've been through it all. We've loved
Speaker 1: our way through a long distance relationship, financial instability, parenthood
Speaker 1: and near death birthing experience, and the list goes on.
Speaker 1: Child After much trial and error, we have learned one
Speaker 1: essential truth. If you're looking for a healthy relationship and
Speaker 1: a fulfilling life, you have to choose service over selfishness.
Speaker 1: So we decided to write a book about it. Our book,
Speaker 1: We Over Me, The Counterintuitive Approach to Getting Everything you
Speaker 1: Want from your relationship, discusses family, parenting, devource favorite topics,
Speaker 1: sex and intimacy, finances, and commitment with the honesty and
Speaker 1: raw truth y'all have always gotten from us dead as
Speaker 1: sex and I love talking about it. But we might
Speaker 1: not have all the answers. But what we do know
Speaker 1: is that good love takes friendship, grace, and service, and
Speaker 1: everybody deserves some good loving, Ain't that right? Baby? We
Speaker 1: over me the counterintuitive approach to getting everything you want
Speaker 1: from your relationship available now. After coaching kids for twelve
Speaker 1: plus years at Prototype, I realized coaching your own child
Speaker 1: is completely different. Really mm hmmm, Well listen, I know
Speaker 1: they say ball is life, but you're gonna have a
Speaker 1: life outside of ball if I have something to say
Speaker 1: about it. So Hey, I'm Cadine and and we're the
Speaker 1: ellis Is. You may know us from posting funny videos
Speaker 1: with our boys and reading each other publicly as a
Speaker 1: form of therapy. Wait, I'll make you need therapy most days. Wow.
Speaker 1: And one more important thing to mention, we're married. Yes, sir,
Speaker 1: we all. We created this podcast to open dialogue about
Speaker 1: some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't
Speaker 1: want to talk about through the lens of a millennium
Speaker 1: married couple. That adds is the term that we say
Speaker 1: every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually
Speaker 1: saying facts, the truth the whole truth and nothing but
Speaker 1: the truth. Were about to take Phillow talk to a
Speaker 1: whole new level. Dead ass starts right now. I'm gonna
Speaker 1: take y'all back to yesterday. Yesterday, so every other day
Speaker 1: in this house, yeah, I mean, yeah, I mean it's
Speaker 1: it's every every other day in this house. But I'm
Speaker 1: gonna go to a video that went viral of me
Speaker 1: and Jackson, So just to give some people a little
Speaker 1: bit of context around the video. The night before the video,
Speaker 1: Jackson wanted to hang out with his friends. I said, hey,
Speaker 1: you can either work out now and not have anything
Speaker 1: to do tomorrow, or you can go hang out with
Speaker 1: your friends and then coming to morning, we wake up
Speaker 1: first thing in the morning because I have things to do.
Speaker 1: He wanted to work out, so I said, you make
Speaker 1: a choice, because I don't have time tomorrow. You're gonna
Speaker 1: have to get up early before I get up, and
Speaker 1: then we can get out work out. And he said,
Speaker 1: no, no no, no, Dad, I want to hang out my friends.
Speaker 1: So I wake up early in the morning, I'll get
Speaker 1: you up and we work out. Cool. The next morning happens,
Speaker 1: he gets to do exactly what he wants to do
Speaker 1: tonight before the next morning comes. Next morning comes, I
Speaker 1: wake up earlier. I set my alarm clock. He doesn't
Speaker 1: set his alarm clock. Set my alarm clock, and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: Jack's you up. He's just like my mom. Up. He
Speaker 1: has an attitude. I already hear the attitude in his voice. Yes,
Speaker 1: very very much, you very much you, and I say, well,
Speaker 1: before I get out of here, you owe me an
Speaker 1: hour of workout, so let's go. Let's let's do this.
Speaker 1: You said you wanted to put some shots up. It's
Speaker 1: raining outside, so we're gonna do ball handling drills and
Speaker 1: work on change of direction. He's us fine, I can
Speaker 1: sense the attitude, but I go downstairs. I still have
Speaker 1: a good attitude. I'm like, listen, I'm not going to
Speaker 1: be on him. I'm going to focused on keeping my
Speaker 1: emotions in check. When we get downstairs, he's huffing and puffing.
Speaker 1: We were supposed to start at nine o'clock. He doesn't
Speaker 1: come downstairs. If you don't know me, you know that
Speaker 1: I live by this model. To be early is to
Speaker 1: be on time. To be on time is to be
Speaker 1: wait to be early. To be on time, To be
Speaker 1: on time is to be late. And to be late
Speaker 1: is to be forgotten. He was late, but still allow.
Speaker 1: Its like, we're gonna get this workout in because I
Speaker 1: know it's advantageous for him to get his workout in.
Speaker 1: Ten minutes into the workout, I'm telling him to pound
Speaker 1: the ball right now. For people who are novices at basketball,
Speaker 1: there's a different between pounding the ball and slamming the ball.
Speaker 1: Pounding the ball means you stay low, you keep the
Speaker 1: ball below your waist, your hips are down, and you
Speaker 1: pound the ball into the ground to make sure you
Speaker 1: have control over the basketball. The harder you pound the ball,
Speaker 1: the faster comes back into your hand and you have
Speaker 1: more control over it. I said, you know, Jacks, come
Speaker 1: when I was was lazy, pound the ball. He then
Speaker 1: stands up straight and starts slamming the ball from his
Speaker 1: shoulder all the way down and I said, yo, yo, stop, stop,
Speaker 1: but I deserve that, Like, like, why, what's with the attitude?
Speaker 1: He's like no. Then he proceeds to tell me that
Speaker 1: you know, he's tired, and I'm like, hey, well you
Speaker 1: are tired. I get that, but you chose to get
Speaker 1: up in the morning because last night you got to
Speaker 1: do what you wanted to do. I gave you a choice.
Speaker 1: You chose to do what you wanted to do. Now
Speaker 1: you have to put the work in that you don't
Speaker 1: want to do. He got an attitude, He finished the workout,
Speaker 1: he cried through the workout or whatever, and the whole
Speaker 1: time I remained calm. The reason why I'm telling you
Speaker 1: this story is because two years prior to that, devout
Speaker 1: wouldn't have remained calm. It would have been two options.
Speaker 1: Number One, I would have never set my mom Jacks
Speaker 1: wouldn't have woke up. I wouldn't to stay and started
Speaker 1: screaming right or I would have woke him up, went
Speaker 1: downstairs when the attitude started. I would have screamed and
Speaker 1: then left. And I decided to change my perspective because
Speaker 1: I started to realize that me controlling my emotions is
Speaker 1: a bigger teacher than any words I could ever tell Jackson.
Speaker 1: And it didn't matter how much I screamed in the
Speaker 1: years prior. He really stopped listening to everything I said
Speaker 1: when he watched my body language and heard the tone
Speaker 1: of my voice. And for a long time, that's the
Speaker 1: only way I knew how to respond, or teach or coach,
Speaker 1: because that's what I did, and I got greatness out
Speaker 1: of the young men and I coached and it wasn't
Speaker 1: until I seen the tears rolled down my son's face
Speaker 1: that I said, this is not gonna work. I'm a
Speaker 1: singing song that me and Jackson listened to every time
Speaker 1: we get ready to go to practice again because that
Speaker 1: gets him in the mood. It's the hype song. Yeah,
Speaker 1: is that whenever I take him to It's the same
Speaker 1: thing that I passed the OX. I'm like, listen, it's
Speaker 1: all you. I mean your word. Listen to what you
Speaker 1: want to listen to to get hype, because I know
Speaker 1: how it is. We're not about to work out, and
Speaker 1: I don't want to work out. Masks needs to pull
Speaker 1: out all the stops, right, So before y'all judge me,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. We do not listen to the
Speaker 1: clean version. All right. He's a levene about twelve, he's
Speaker 1: a preteen. Pretty sure he's heard all these words before.
Speaker 1: And we'd be playing it on Max and we'll be
Speaker 1: bopping our head in the porch when we ride into
Speaker 1: the gym. Are you ready to see? If you ready ready?
Speaker 1: My PTSD started kicking. Hell yeah, my PTSD start the kicking,
Speaker 1: so I gotta get shot the nigge out. My cars
Speaker 1: are now. I gotta ain't no city boy because I
Speaker 1: love my big but I don't mean and I don't
Speaker 1: love my host. Shout out. He's always gonna be man
Speaker 1: figure in this house from the floor. Imiss you. At
Speaker 1: least once a week, I'll be like, damn pop, like
Speaker 1: a random time. It to be something so completely random.
Speaker 1: Won't even be listening to his music. But I can't
Speaker 1: believe Papa is going shouts. We're raised. I yo, let's
Speaker 1: take a quick break, come back in and we'll dive
Speaker 1: into that whole conversation and then of course mom's perspective
Speaker 1: inside of things. Child, Baby, Listen, it's gonna be us
Speaker 1: times four up in this bitch. I'm like bracing myself
Speaker 1: for the roller and everything. I'm about to tell you.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest with you. I have conflicting thoughts
Speaker 1: and we'll get into it when we get back. All right,
Speaker 1: sounds good, All right, we're back. We're back. So story time, baby,
Speaker 1: it's funny. In the story time you said that the
Speaker 1: reason why you took this approach with Jackson was because
Speaker 1: this was something that you did with other young men
Speaker 1: who you were, particularly your son's, but you've got great
Speaker 1: results from them, so you felt like this was the
Speaker 1: only way. But might I add that that was what
Speaker 1: was done to you. So we think about the the
Speaker 1: aura around coaching and what it looked like for prior
Speaker 1: years and what it looks like now with just sensitivity
Speaker 1: around the way in which coaches are allowed to even
Speaker 1: speak to children, and what that looks like for you
Speaker 1: wanting to be coach dad or not wanting to be
Speaker 1: coach dad. And the conflict that I see within your
Speaker 1: eyes every day every day in this house is because
Speaker 1: we know that you have played an elite level of
Speaker 1: sport um MVP on every team I ever played on
Speaker 1: from college to high school football, basketball, it didn't matter,
Speaker 1: it didn't matter. So you kind of feeling like, you
Speaker 1: know the way, it's like, why would I not equip
Speaker 1: my son with everything that I know? Things that I
Speaker 1: didn't know that I had to figure out on my own.
Speaker 1: And this is just not even sports, but just in general.
Speaker 1: But we're talking sports today, So UM, go back to
Speaker 1: story time and tell us about why you're so conflicted.
Speaker 1: So the reason why I'm conflicted is because number one.
Speaker 1: Let me be clear, I know my son is not
Speaker 1: growing up the way I grew up, right. We grew
Speaker 1: up completely different and we both first born children. We
Speaker 1: both have little brothers, and I ended up having a
Speaker 1: little sister nine years later. But I was responsible for
Speaker 1: my little brother. He was only two and a half
Speaker 1: years younger than me, and from the time I was
Speaker 1: nine and we moved to Canarsi from Flatbush, it was
Speaker 1: my responsibility to get up in the morning, help my
Speaker 1: six year old brother make his lunch for school, help
Speaker 1: him get his breakfast together. We walked to school together.
Speaker 1: When school was over, I had to get him from class,
Speaker 1: walk home, appeared after school lunch, help him with his
Speaker 1: homework if he needed it, and be there and be
Speaker 1: responsible when my parents didn't get home until six six thirty.
Speaker 1: So that was my responsibility. Jackson doesn't have that responsibility.
Speaker 1: So for me, I feel like the level of accountability
Speaker 1: and the level of responsibility is not there because there's
Speaker 1: no sense of urgency. So I try to manufacture that
Speaker 1: sense of urgency by holding him to a schedule, the
Speaker 1: similar schedule that I had to hold when I was
Speaker 1: his age, Like things had to get done. It was
Speaker 1: very rigid things had to get done because my parents
Speaker 1: needed me to be there in their absence. That created
Speaker 1: a sense of urgency for me and my whole life
Speaker 1: that I've always been big on on time, always been
Speaker 1: big on being on time and early. On top of that,
Speaker 1: I couldn't fail right if I messed up in school,
Speaker 1: it was it was. It wasn't just a wag of
Speaker 1: the finger in the face, or you're such a disappointment.
Speaker 1: It was just like, you don't do anything right. Like
Speaker 1: so many times, I felt like in my life I
Speaker 1: never did things good enough for my parents that it
Speaker 1: built a chip on my shoulder that make me that
Speaker 1: made me an overachiever and a workaholic. Being an overachiever
Speaker 1: and a workaholic and being big on the detail was
Speaker 1: being disciplined is what made me all city football player,
Speaker 1: uh Division one football player, uh NFL athlete, and now
Speaker 1: paid actor. I feel like it was those things that
Speaker 1: those core values that have driven me to be great
Speaker 1: in those things. Was that nature versus nurture? Like was
Speaker 1: it you think it's always been in you or you
Speaker 1: think it was more learned? Because what my conflict um
Speaker 1: arises when I even look at myself right, Um, I'm like, damn.
Speaker 1: My parents worked so hard to afford me all of
Speaker 1: the opportunities they didn't have, and then some and so
Speaker 1: much is that my mom would sometimes, I think, maybe
Speaker 1: overhelp me in situations and not from a place of detriment,
Speaker 1: but she probably thought like, I'm doing my daughter at
Speaker 1: a service if I'm doing all of this extra stuff
Speaker 1: to assist her where then when time came for me
Speaker 1: to do it on my own, it was just like,
Speaker 1: I don't really have to do it right now, or
Speaker 1: my mom will help me do it then. So I
Speaker 1: wonder if I have that, um, and I had to
Speaker 1: kind of fend for myself a little bit more, if
Speaker 1: it would have made me a more driven person or
Speaker 1: made me have the work ethic that I sometimes feel
Speaker 1: like I need but just can't find it. I think
Speaker 1: it would have, because when I look at my brother
Speaker 1: and I look at my sister, they're not driven like
Speaker 1: I am. Because they had me, you know, me being
Speaker 1: the oldest. It was help your brother do so and so, well,
Speaker 1: your sister got this, help your sister. So I always
Speaker 1: had this sense of urgency to help my siblings. On
Speaker 1: top of that, I always had to prove my parents
Speaker 1: wrong because in my eyes, growing up, my parents very
Speaker 1: rarely praised me. My parents weren't the type of parents
Speaker 1: that praised you for getting good grades you are supposed to.
Speaker 1: You got a ninety, okay, so you know my parents
Speaker 1: when my siblings, for example, my brother, my brother wasn't
Speaker 1: an academic person. My brother passed a class, my parents praised,
Speaker 1: Oh my gosh, as bad as he passed. And I'll
Speaker 1: never forget my brother passed his regent with a sixty five,
Speaker 1: and my my mom grabbed him and they hugged and
Speaker 1: stuff like that. I got an eighty five in a
Speaker 1: class and my mother was just like you got poor,
Speaker 1: missing homework, and she was just on me. So that
Speaker 1: what developed in me was this chip like I was
Speaker 1: always the underdog. I was never accepted, and I used
Speaker 1: that to approach every situation as I have to be
Speaker 1: ten times better than everyone else or I won't be accepted.
Speaker 1: So what I'm trying to do is try to build
Speaker 1: that level of intensity in my kids with without like
Speaker 1: you said, providing them with that that enabled mentality easy route.
Speaker 1: But we live differently, like both my parents had to
Speaker 1: work in order for us to make money. So I
Speaker 1: had to be home. Right, it's not the same here me,
Speaker 1: Me and Papa are here. You're here, you know, Dad
Speaker 1: comes in and out, but I'm working. But they don't
Speaker 1: ever have to worry. They don't ever got to get
Speaker 1: on the city bus and have to be adults at
Speaker 1: eight and nine years old. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: These are things that I had to do, and I
Speaker 1: appreciate my parents because it created a beast in me
Speaker 1: that's allowing me to be the person I am today.
Speaker 1: You know, I'm not like other millennials who blamed my
Speaker 1: parents for everything and be like my parents fucked me
Speaker 1: up with all this generational trauma. No, my parents created
Speaker 1: an absolute beast. I am unyielding with my work ethic
Speaker 1: and my belief in myself because my parents stepped back
Speaker 1: and said, you gotta figure it out, like we gotta
Speaker 1: go to work, bro figure it out. And them allowing
Speaker 1: me to figure it out created someone who had a
Speaker 1: lot of self confidence. So in me trying to step back, right,
Speaker 1: I learned over these last couple of years that because
Speaker 1: I'm used to controling everything, because since I was a kid,
Speaker 1: I controlled everything, I was trying to control my son, right,
Speaker 1: and in me trying to build a sense of urgency
Speaker 1: and a chip on his shoulder. I wasn't stepping back
Speaker 1: at all. I was always there, So then he became
Speaker 1: used to me being there, and then he would be
Speaker 1: playing in games or something that he would be looking
Speaker 1: at who me, not be like focused on the game,
Speaker 1: like why are you looking at me? At the same
Speaker 1: time I'm screaming, So I'm like, why are you looking
Speaker 1: at me while I'm screaming? And they're saying, do you
Speaker 1: hear what I'm saying? Look at me when I'm talking
Speaker 1: to you? Like the most confusing ship ever. You know
Speaker 1: what it's like, look at your coach and this is
Speaker 1: like he looks at the coach, looks at you. Then
Speaker 1: he's just like, what who did I look at? I've
Speaker 1: literally seen the whole thing play out. If this is
Speaker 1: where the conflict comes in. I watched an interview with
Speaker 1: Jayson Tatum and he talked about how his father was
Speaker 1: never really a dad to him. His father was always
Speaker 1: a coach, and his father used to like him him
Speaker 1: up and call him outside of his name and tell
Speaker 1: him he wasn't good enough, and telling me he wasn't
Speaker 1: good at all, and he was just like he feels
Speaker 1: like he missed. I don't having a relationship with his
Speaker 1: father because his father was always a coach and never
Speaker 1: done right. And my thing is, it sounds like you're complaining,
Speaker 1: but you're now one of the top three players in
Speaker 1: the NBA and you played in the NBA Finals last
Speaker 1: year and you were with a hundred million dollars. So
Speaker 1: do you think your dad cares if you you weren't
Speaker 1: friends As father and son, he created a man that
Speaker 1: is living in his purpose and his legacy. That's my conflict.
Speaker 1: It's like, do I want to be my son's friend.
Speaker 1: I don't. I want to see my son be successful,
Speaker 1: but I don't want to ever look back on my
Speaker 1: life and be like, then me and my son don't
Speaker 1: have a relationship, right. I think most successful people in
Speaker 1: so many different genres where it's not just sports but
Speaker 1: even entertainment, like when they tell their story, they usually
Speaker 1: tell the story about, if not both one parent who
Speaker 1: was just always in their ass about something. One thing
Speaker 1: that I fear I think that I fear with my boys,
Speaker 1: um to your to your point is them being too
Speaker 1: coddled and then and then being coddled producing for young
Speaker 1: men who end up being coddled grown men and what
Speaker 1: that's going to look like. And I say that because
Speaker 1: they're in a unique situation unlike you or I had.
Speaker 1: What kind of me because growing up my parents work.
Speaker 1: My mom pretty much had a flexible schedule, but she
Speaker 1: worked during the day and my father worked at night.
Speaker 1: So I had one or the other parents typically home,
Speaker 1: and if I didn't, there were grandparents to step in.
Speaker 1: But even something as simple as when my kids, our
Speaker 1: kids come home from school and it's like, Mom, I
Speaker 1: want a bagel, Mom, I want to help juice, it's like,
Speaker 1: go get it, go and get it, because they're so
Speaker 1: accustomed to their grandparents stepping in, which they should be,
Speaker 1: because you want our kids. We want our kids to
Speaker 1: have a great relationship with their grandparents where they feel like, wow,
Speaker 1: Mimi and Papa Nan and Papa Scoop were here for
Speaker 1: us and they did all these different things. But it's
Speaker 1: unique when they live with them, and it's a constant
Speaker 1: asking of someone to do something for you, so so
Speaker 1: many times a val and I have to intervene and
Speaker 1: it's just like, no, let them do this on their own,
Speaker 1: because they're fully capable of it. And if they're not
Speaker 1: capable of it, they're going to have to learn. And
Speaker 1: it's just like building little moments of I can't even
Speaker 1: call it adversity, but it's just doing for themselves, which
Speaker 1: I think will spill over into sports, little spill into
Speaker 1: their school work and how they tend to um navigate life. Well.
Speaker 1: There's a saying that says tough times create strong men.
Speaker 1: Strong men create easy times. Easy times create weak men.
Speaker 1: Weak men create tough times. There's also another saying that
Speaker 1: it's hard to find a great man that's the son
Speaker 1: of a great man. And if you think about the parable,
Speaker 1: I just said, that's the reason. And I look at
Speaker 1: the way my life is right. And my father has
Speaker 1: been talking to us about ascensions since we were young.
Speaker 1: Our grandfather a created my father. But there was a
Speaker 1: ton of adversity during the time when they were growing up,
Speaker 1: civil rights move There are a lot of things going on.
Speaker 1: Um They first, my great my grandfather grew up during
Speaker 1: the Depression, so he had to learn through things and
Speaker 1: had to learn how to be a factory worker. And
Speaker 1: then my parents grew up during the Civil rights movement,
Speaker 1: and my parents had us grow through the eighties and
Speaker 1: nineties the crack epidemic, right, but now we have the pandemic.
Speaker 1: But when I look at my family life, we've ascended
Speaker 1: every generation to the point now where there's no hardship
Speaker 1: for these kids. Right. I asked my son, which car
Speaker 1: you want to take to go to practice. Cairo goes
Speaker 1: of the Porsche. I never had that option in my life,
Speaker 1: all right. Like, first of all, none of meither one
Speaker 1: of my parents have ever been to a practice of mine.
Speaker 1: From the time I was a child up until an adult,
Speaker 1: my parents didn't have time to go to practice. My
Speaker 1: parents were both working, and then during the weekend, my
Speaker 1: parents were not running us to practices. Go to practice,
Speaker 1: get on the bus and figure it out, or they
Speaker 1: would drop us to practice and go do what they
Speaker 1: had to do. Both my parents were big in the church.
Speaker 1: But our children, I don't only just drop them to practice.
Speaker 1: I stay and watch and I end up coaching because
Speaker 1: a lot of the parents find out, oh, he was
Speaker 1: a professional athlete, he can help in some way, shape
Speaker 1: or for him. And when it was football, it was football,
Speaker 1: and now that's basketball. They asked me to help. I
Speaker 1: just I don't want my sons, like you said, to
Speaker 1: grow up to be coddled, entitled little humans that don't
Speaker 1: understand what adversity is and not reach their potential because
Speaker 1: they've never had to face adversity throughout their life. So
Speaker 1: then I'm like, maybe I should be the adversity, right,
Speaker 1: I don't want. I don't care if my son's like me.
Speaker 1: It's gonna sound crazy, right. I want my sons to
Speaker 1: respect me and want them to love me. They don't
Speaker 1: have to like me because I'm not trying to be
Speaker 1: their friends. I have friends. You're my friend, You're my
Speaker 1: best friend. I have you, right, I have the whole
Speaker 1: podcast grew to be friends. You know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: I don't need a little adolescent, pretty adolescent person to
Speaker 1: be my friend. I need you to be great and
Speaker 1: whatever it is. And that's where the conflict comes. If
Speaker 1: I create the adversity for them, then I become the
Speaker 1: bad guy and then they won't understand it until later
Speaker 1: on in life. So a lot of times with me,
Speaker 1: from my perspective, looking at you and Jackson's relationship or
Speaker 1: just even looking at him as a person and even
Speaker 1: our other boys, Um, you can tell there's something innate
Speaker 1: in each child. Right, So Jackson and it's funny how
Speaker 1: kids tend to um take some of the best and
Speaker 1: worst qualities of both individuals, and then you see and
Speaker 1: it's just like them. There's so much like And you've
Speaker 1: said to me in many instances, like I can I
Speaker 1: can deal with Jackson because Jackson so much like you,
Speaker 1: and I've been dealing with you for twenty years, so
Speaker 1: it's almost like dealing with a little version of you.
Speaker 1: And I'm not necessarily going to say that I'm proud of.
Speaker 1: Some of the tabbits that he has are ones that
Speaker 1: I to this day continue to struggle with as an adult.
Speaker 1: But what I can do as a mom because we're
Speaker 1: also very purposeful about being the united front that we
Speaker 1: should be for the children, so it's not going to
Speaker 1: be me versus you, at least in front of them. UM.
Speaker 1: I try to make sure that I do support whatever
Speaker 1: it is that you are doing, or whatever you're trying
Speaker 1: to implement that moment or whether the lesson. Maybe I
Speaker 1: try to make sure that I back you on that.
Speaker 1: But I also like to also be mom in that
Speaker 1: I can be that comfort and that support system where
Speaker 1: I can follow up with him and just say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what Daddy meant by X y Z, you know,
Speaker 1: and sometimes as a child, you don't want to hear.
Speaker 1: You know, Daddy just wants the best for you. And
Speaker 1: you know that's why Daddy's doing this. He doesn't want
Speaker 1: to hear that. So the approach that take um maybe
Speaker 1: unbeknown to you because I don't always tell you about
Speaker 1: every conversation Jackson I have. But what I try to
Speaker 1: do is bring it back to me and say, Jackson, listen,
Speaker 1: a lot of the qualities that Daddy is referring to,
Speaker 1: Mommy deals with them too, and I'm trying to overcome that.
Speaker 1: And here's how I'm trying to do it. So I
Speaker 1: want you to help hold me accountable by if I say, yo,
Speaker 1: I'm a being the gym in I'm gonna keep myself
Speaker 1: accountable and do everything I'm said I want to do,
Speaker 1: you have to call me out when I'm not doing that.
Speaker 1: So I said, can we make a deal that will
Speaker 1: hold each other accountable? So it's a it's a style
Speaker 1: stepping that we take as parents that I think is
Speaker 1: necessary because some parents feel like they don't want to
Speaker 1: stole step with their children. When I say goals and
Speaker 1: that's it. But we take the approach where we feel
Speaker 1: like our children require and they deserve to have different
Speaker 1: approaches taken if some approach is not working. So I
Speaker 1: like that we were able to do that and kind
Speaker 1: of tag team as parents. UM I do get concerned sometimes,
Speaker 1: like you know, he has this practice, that practice, that
Speaker 1: practice he is also he has coding, he has debate team,
Speaker 1: he has so many different things because we want to
Speaker 1: make sure he's well rounded. So I just never want
Speaker 1: there to be a burnout or I never want there
Speaker 1: to be an resentment where he feels like, damn, the
Speaker 1: only way I can relate to Dad is in this
Speaker 1: sports environment because that's really what he wants me to do. Um.
Speaker 1: So it's always a constant touch base that we take
Speaker 1: with him to make sure that this is genuinely what
Speaker 1: he wants to do and he's having fun right well.
Speaker 1: I mean, the biggest thing is he doesn't play any
Speaker 1: sports that he doesn't want to play. I never give
Speaker 1: him a ball and say you're gonna play this. He
Speaker 1: comes to me and say, hey, Dad, like this year,
Speaker 1: I want to play football. I never talked to him
Speaker 1: about playing football after the running gades in Brooklyn and
Speaker 1: he said don't want to play football there, fine, because
Speaker 1: I stopped playing football at eight and I don't want
Speaker 1: to play anymo one and I end up playing in
Speaker 1: the NFL, which to me was proof enough that you
Speaker 1: don't have to play football your whole life in order
Speaker 1: to make it to the highest level. But I will
Speaker 1: say this, right, and this is um the difference between
Speaker 1: you and Jackson even having the same personality. You guys
Speaker 1: do have the same personality. And what will save you
Speaker 1: and help you with your personality or your personality trait
Speaker 1: that you have to be pushed is that you married
Speaker 1: someone who doesn't mind pushing you, and we work together.
Speaker 1: When you don't feel like getting up, I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: get up, let's go. Jackson is going to be a man.
Speaker 1: He's gonna be a young man, and he can't rely
Speaker 1: on a woman to be like, hey, you need to
Speaker 1: get up and go be a man. He has to
Speaker 1: stand up and be a man on his own so
Speaker 1: he could be there for his family in the case
Speaker 1: that his family can't, you know, can't do the things
Speaker 1: that they need to do. For example, say he has
Speaker 1: a wife who who can't go back to work. He
Speaker 1: can't just sit back and back well, I'm gonna go
Speaker 1: to work when I want to. That's not he can't
Speaker 1: do that. Your wife is having children, Like somebody has
Speaker 1: to work while your wife is bearing children and carrying children.
Speaker 1: And I feel like for young boys especially, we have
Speaker 1: to learn the balance right. And this is something I learned,
Speaker 1: And this is gonna be key, did I. This is
Speaker 1: gonna be a key that I give to a lot
Speaker 1: of young men, right. Like I said, I mentored and
Speaker 1: I coached for twelve years. I screamed, I cursed hollid um.
Speaker 1: Sometimes we got physical, pushed them, like physically push them
Speaker 1: like let's go, like you know the raw, let's go.
Speaker 1: You push them, hype like we've been there with the kids,
Speaker 1: you know, make them do push ups, make them run,
Speaker 1: make them do sprints. And all of our kids left
Speaker 1: prototype feeling inspired, a feeling empowered, but feeling challenged. I
Speaker 1: do realize now, though, that I could be that person
Speaker 1: to those because they could leave the gym and go
Speaker 1: sit in the car with their father and then vent
Speaker 1: to their father how much they didn't like coach the
Speaker 1: val or they didn't have a dad in their life.
Speaker 1: Because the majority of the kids that you mentor, yeah,
Speaker 1: we're single mom households, so they probably craved having that.
Speaker 1: It might have been a love hate relationships. They hated
Speaker 1: coach the back like they felt like, all right, this guy,
Speaker 1: I love him, but I hate him at the same time.
Speaker 1: T J is a prime example. We were just talking
Speaker 1: to t J, and t J literally like our son,
Speaker 1: and he knows that he is grown to love you
Speaker 1: so much over the years because he's like man, somebody
Speaker 1: was actually really invested in me. But that's also the
Speaker 1: dynamic when I looked at when I when I think
Speaker 1: back at those times, I honestly didn't care what those
Speaker 1: young men and young women thought of me. They weren't
Speaker 1: my clients. Their parents were my clients. Their parents are
Speaker 1: the one who paid for the service. When I spoke
Speaker 1: to these young people, I always spoke to them and
Speaker 1: their parents. Asked the young people to leave, and I
Speaker 1: spoke to the parents about what I required as a
Speaker 1: coach from them for us as a team to get
Speaker 1: their child to the highest level. And some people didn't
Speaker 1: take to it. People chose to leave something like this
Speaker 1: is too intense, right. What I'm realizing now is that
Speaker 1: the fact that I could, I could like disconnect from
Speaker 1: that I don't care if these children like me because
Speaker 1: they're not even my client. That you can't it's not
Speaker 1: the same disconnect. I can say as much as I want,
Speaker 1: I don't care how much my sons like me. But
Speaker 1: when I come in the house and I don't get
Speaker 1: love from my sons, if they don't hug me and stuff,
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, yo, what's what's up? Like it hurts,
Speaker 1: It hurts, and the conflict comes its like do I
Speaker 1: want to deal with this pain now so that I
Speaker 1: can raise great children? Like as much as people want
Speaker 1: to complain about LaVar Ball, complain about Michael Joe Jackson,
Speaker 1: they complain about those men created great human beings, not
Speaker 1: just young men. They created young men and young women
Speaker 1: through adversity, through trials, you know what I'm saying, Through
Speaker 1: a lot of constant pressure, because the pressure is at home,
Speaker 1: created greatness on the outside world. But there's one thing
Speaker 1: I learned from watching the uh King Richard's story. Richard
Speaker 1: was not gonna let anyone else pressure his daughters. He
Speaker 1: did everything on his own terms, and he always said
Speaker 1: to them, the minute you're not having fun, you're not
Speaker 1: playing anymore. If you notice I do that with Jackson.
Speaker 1: Did you have fun? You have to did you have fun?
Speaker 1: Did you have fun? Because I will see Jackson will
Speaker 1: get out of practice and his instant instinct is to
Speaker 1: come to you and tell him all the things that
Speaker 1: he did well. He'll even say if I didn't have
Speaker 1: a good practice. But it's almost like he feels like
Speaker 1: he needs to touch base with you to let you
Speaker 1: know how things transpired her and practice, to kind of
Speaker 1: get your approval right. Um, But you know how I'll
Speaker 1: tell you. I realize you're doing a good job at
Speaker 1: balancing as much as you're you're very hard on yourself
Speaker 1: more often, and I know we constantly have touch basis
Speaker 1: about that. You say, do you think I did too much?
Speaker 1: Or was I yelling too much at the game or
Speaker 1: so we do have constant touch basis about that. But
Speaker 1: what I can observe, um, and this just happened recently,
Speaker 1: to let you know that you are doing the right
Speaker 1: thing at least I think, is when Jackson, for example,
Speaker 1: you were hollering and screaming about something after a practice,
Speaker 1: he said in the car with him and Jackson. Of course,
Speaker 1: you know I was feeling kind of probably beat down
Speaker 1: in that moment, and he came inside the house. You
Speaker 1: came inside the house, you went down to workout in
Speaker 1: the gym. He was upstairs having dinner or whatever, and
Speaker 1: then he came downstairs to check on you. And most kids,
Speaker 1: most kids, after being you know, either scolded or reprimanded
Speaker 1: or just you know, appearing getting in their ass, they
Speaker 1: might just want to stay away from them, like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I'm just gonna have my dinner, take my shower, and
Speaker 1: go to bed. I may or may not say good night,
Speaker 1: like that's just it. But Jackson came out and stairs
Speaker 1: to check on you and then said to you, well,
Speaker 1: I won't tell the story, but you can tell. But
Speaker 1: that's what think about it. Man. I did crying that
Speaker 1: moment you did, because I was on the treadmor when
Speaker 1: he came downstairs, and he's just like, yo, you're good, bro,
Speaker 1: this is good. Bro. I'm like, yeah, I'm fine. Why
Speaker 1: And it's just then now you've seen he goes. You
Speaker 1: just seemed upset in the car, and I said I
Speaker 1: was a little upset, and he was like, well, I
Speaker 1: thought I had a good practice. I said, you did
Speaker 1: have a good practice. I said, some of the things
Speaker 1: that I have issues with, you have nothing to do
Speaker 1: with basketball. You know. Some of it is just communication,
Speaker 1: you know, some of your life stuff. You know, how
Speaker 1: how are you going to communicate as as a man?
Speaker 1: You know? Um? And he said to me, I said why,
Speaker 1: you know what? How did you know I was upset
Speaker 1: in the car? And he was like, well, I could
Speaker 1: tell you was upset because you know, you started screaming
Speaker 1: and I hate when you start cursing, right, And I said, well,
Speaker 1: I didn't curse that you and he said, no, you
Speaker 1: didn't curse at me, but I can tell when you
Speaker 1: start cursing that you're upset. And he said to me,
Speaker 1: I think you can control your emotions better in that situation. Mhm.
Speaker 1: And here's the thing. Though I didn't get upset, my
Speaker 1: ego wasn't bruised. I broke down and started crying because
Speaker 1: my son is exercising emotional intelligence and he felt empowered
Speaker 1: enough to tell me what he felt and what I
Speaker 1: could do better. That made me so touched, because I'm like,
Speaker 1: no one's ever gonna be able to take advantage of
Speaker 1: my son. Oh h, you have no idea what it's
Speaker 1: like to send your son out to be coached or
Speaker 1: trained or taught by other people, and you just don't
Speaker 1: want anybody else to be to take advantage of your son,
Speaker 1: you know. And Jackson is an EmPATH, so he cares
Speaker 1: a lot about other people and he always wants other
Speaker 1: people to be okay. And I never want people to
Speaker 1: take advantage of any of my kids. So the fact
Speaker 1: that he felt empowered to say to his father, like,
Speaker 1: I think you could have controlled yourself better in that
Speaker 1: situation was just like but you know how many parents
Speaker 1: would have taken that as disrespect, Like how do you
Speaker 1: say that to me? And it just is a testimony
Speaker 1: to what you're doing as a father, I'm doing as
Speaker 1: a mother, as a parent, Like that's like a for
Speaker 1: me at least, And people may not agree with that,
Speaker 1: but for me, that was like a pat yourself on
Speaker 1: the back kind of moment because he felt safe enough
Speaker 1: and he felt confident enough to come to you and say, hey, dad,
Speaker 1: let's touch base after we had a disagreement. You know
Speaker 1: how many adults can't even do that ship You know
Speaker 1: how many adults have disagreements and can't even muster up
Speaker 1: the goal to say, you know what, I'm going to
Speaker 1: confront this person and say let me touch base with
Speaker 1: him and see they're okay, especially when you were the
Speaker 1: one that was, you know, getting on him. And but
Speaker 1: that just goes to show how much of an empathy
Speaker 1: is that he wants to make sure that you were
Speaker 1: okay because he's like, man, Dad, you kind of lost
Speaker 1: it in that moment. I just wanted to make sure
Speaker 1: that you were okay, because you know, it's no hard feelings.
Speaker 1: And he literally follows you around the rest of the
Speaker 1: night like your shadow did. He followed me around the
Speaker 1: rest of the night. You want to make sure I
Speaker 1: was okay. But then he also, um he always does
Speaker 1: because I did this before. We had this conversation before,
Speaker 1: and he was just like it's okay, Like he was
Speaker 1: like it's okay, like like reminding me like that you
Speaker 1: don't have to be perfect. Yeah, But what that also
Speaker 1: means to me is like because I said to him,
Speaker 1: I say, yo, bro, I've never been a father before.
Speaker 1: You're the first son. I'm gonna make mistakes. Please give
Speaker 1: me grace during this coaching, says, because I'm going to
Speaker 1: make mistakes and I need you to hold me accountable
Speaker 1: and be like your dad, like you could have definitely
Speaker 1: handled that better, but but like you said, feel safe
Speaker 1: saying it. And and what has every coach that Jackson's
Speaker 1: had so far, even other teammates, parents, teachers always come
Speaker 1: to us and say, man, he is just a good kid.
Speaker 1: He's respectful, yes, ma'am, no sir, um, you know we'll
Speaker 1: take direction. Well, he just he checks out for his teammates. Um.
Speaker 1: Just the other day, my mom said that there's these
Speaker 1: like energy, like these sports taijastion drinks that he likes now.
Speaker 1: So I bought a case of it, but they were
Speaker 1: hard to find because it seems like a lot of
Speaker 1: people are like in this particular drink now and I
Speaker 1: couldn't find the case. And I found one case on Amazon.
Speaker 1: It was a little pricey, but I was like, all right,
Speaker 1: if he really loves it, I want to get it
Speaker 1: because it must be something about this drink. So I
Speaker 1: got a case of it, put him in the fridge
Speaker 1: for him, and said, yo, when you go to practice whatever,
Speaker 1: take when and go. So him Cairo kind of started
Speaker 1: to drink a couple of it too. So my mom
Speaker 1: says she packs his lunch for school, and she's like,
Speaker 1: I'm not snitching, because you know made me know about snitches.
Speaker 1: You don't do that here, right, So you say, well,
Speaker 1: I'm not snitching, but I just don't want to tell
Speaker 1: you a little something about what Jackson did for two
Speaker 1: mornings in a row. So I said, what was it.
Speaker 1: She said, his lunch box was packed, his backpack and everything.
Speaker 1: And then she sees right before he's rushing out the
Speaker 1: door to school that you runs into the garage and
Speaker 1: he has something in this hoodie and she's just like, well,
Speaker 1: first of all, we don't do sneaky, So if you're
Speaker 1: sneaking something while you're sneaking, so just be honest about
Speaker 1: what it is. So the first day he said, oh, no,
Speaker 1: I just got a little drink my friend wanted to try.
Speaker 1: So my mom was like, okay, that's fine. You know,
Speaker 1: you take a drink for your friend, it's okay. Just
Speaker 1: make sure that you know then allergic or anything, but
Speaker 1: just you know, taking it, that's okay. And then the
Speaker 1: next day he's taking another drink for another friend. So
Speaker 1: I'm like, Jackson would totally be the kid where if
Speaker 1: somebody like was at school and didn't have lunch or
Speaker 1: didn't like the lunch, he'd be like sharing lunch with them, right.
Speaker 1: So the next day, He's given to another drink. So
Speaker 1: she said, you know, Jack's, if you keep giving what
Speaker 1: your drinks, you're not gonna have anymore, you know. And
Speaker 1: Mom said they were hard to find and they were
Speaker 1: a little expensive and stuff, and he was just like,
Speaker 1: it's all right, I'll go without if they can try it.
Speaker 1: And I'm just like, you know, in those moments, So
Speaker 1: you and I, um, well, you were away um to
Speaker 1: do the Sherry Shepherd's show, and he and I had
Speaker 1: a lot of time to bond. So where you used
Speaker 1: to be, you know, uber dad trucking here from practice
Speaker 1: to practice and everything. I took him to get his here,
Speaker 1: braided took him and everything, so very similarly to what
Speaker 1: you did. I use those moments in the car just
Speaker 1: to talk to him too. So we were talking about
Speaker 1: you know, ball and everything. We're talking about all his
Speaker 1: activities that he's juggling. And I said to him, I'm like, yo,
Speaker 1: I said, you're doing a really great job balancing all
Speaker 1: of this. His report card just came home stellar grades
Speaker 1: is overall average is like a ninety five, you know,
Speaker 1: just doing so well. So I wanted to reiterate how
Speaker 1: product was of him, and just to let him know, like, listen,
Speaker 1: you deserve too if you ever have, you know, a
Speaker 1: moment where you need a mental health day and you're like, yo, Mama,
Speaker 1: this has been a lot because he's juggling so many things.
Speaker 1: You have to let me know. And I said, concurrently
Speaker 1: with that, I need you to let me know if
Speaker 1: there's something that to do more or less of as
Speaker 1: a mom. And I said, you know, this is my
Speaker 1: first time. You're our first son, so much like Daddy
Speaker 1: has told you, you know, we don't have all the answers.
Speaker 1: We're trying to figure things out, but we want you
Speaker 1: to always feel comfortable, whether it's me or Dad or
Speaker 1: both of us. So you can just say, hey, Mom,
Speaker 1: like you know you didn't do this or that's when
Speaker 1: we talked about accountability and all that. So I just
Speaker 1: love that I can have these conversations with my eleven
Speaker 1: year old who has the spirit of an old soul,
Speaker 1: you know, but just conducts himself so much better than
Speaker 1: even some adults that I that I know, you know,
Speaker 1: And I think a lot of that is just innate
Speaker 1: in him. I mean I don't think it's innate. I
Speaker 1: think he has to be taught that I think It's
Speaker 1: a lot of conversations we have. But I also think
Speaker 1: it's the accountability of the parents. Like even even being
Speaker 1: a coach slash dad, I get upset when coaches try
Speaker 1: to sometimes tell a dad like Dad, you need to
Speaker 1: back up. Yeah, I know, I need to back up.
Speaker 1: But this is more than basketball for me, Like, this
Speaker 1: is my son, and when I'm teaching my son, I'm
Speaker 1: teaching my son life skills at all time. So you're
Speaker 1: trying to win a game. I get that again, you're
Speaker 1: trying to win a game, but in this moment, I
Speaker 1: don't give a ship about your game or your team.
Speaker 1: My son has to leave from here and still exist
Speaker 1: as a person in society. So a lot of times
Speaker 1: when you see fathers or even moms who have to
Speaker 1: play the role of coach as well, they're not just
Speaker 1: coaching their child to be the best player on that
Speaker 1: team in that moment for that game. They're coaching their
Speaker 1: child for life. So a lot of times, and this
Speaker 1: is where I think a lot more of the outside
Speaker 1: world doesn't understand where the parent is coming from. I
Speaker 1: could give a ship if Jackson plays in the NBA
Speaker 1: or the NFL. I want to create a super productive
Speaker 1: human that will be successful in any facet of life
Speaker 1: of what he chooses to do. Sports is just a
Speaker 1: vehicle to teach those lessons. So sometimes when people think
Speaker 1: parents are being overbearing because the parent wants them to
Speaker 1: play in the NBA, I don't care. Like I don't.
Speaker 1: I also speak to other parents who are doing well
Speaker 1: who are just like I don't care if my son
Speaker 1: goes and plays college, Like we have a fund where
Speaker 1: the college is going to be paid for. But I
Speaker 1: want my son to be detail oriented. I want my
Speaker 1: daughter to have a sense of urgency. I want my
Speaker 1: child to to learn to compete and have great sportsmanship,
Speaker 1: and you learn that through sports. And a lot of
Speaker 1: times parents say trust the coach and say I'm gonna
Speaker 1: trust the coach, and just especially if they are athletes,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna trust the coach and trust that the coach
Speaker 1: is gonna do the right thing. But as a as
Speaker 1: a parent who's played sports at the highest level, it's
Speaker 1: hardest for us to watch you be a detriment and
Speaker 1: not a benefit to our child. Right when you look
Speaker 1: at some of these things here facts and stats. According
Speaker 1: to a two thousand fifteen Coach Up survey, coaches said
Speaker 1: they see parents yell at their kids referees during games,
Speaker 1: setting an example of poor sportsmanship for their young athletes.
Speaker 1: That will still what that will stay with them long
Speaker 1: after the game ends. I'm part of what I will
Speaker 1: do is call out of Like the last game he played,
Speaker 1: that other team was traveling so much. I thought they's
Speaker 1: about to catch a flight. So I said, why are
Speaker 1: you you not making the calls? You know and and
Speaker 1: and you know what the ref said. No, you gotta
Speaker 1: stay what the ref said, so so people can understand
Speaker 1: why the parents get upset. The ref said to us,
Speaker 1: and we weren't screaming. The ref was sort of kicking
Speaker 1: and three other dads in this we were jumping around,
Speaker 1: just like ref, man, you're not gonna call that. And
Speaker 1: he's like, look, we got an hour for this game.
Speaker 1: If we call every call, it's gonna be we're gonna
Speaker 1: be here longer, and we have things we want to
Speaker 1: do the playoff games later. And my thing is like, listen,
Speaker 1: I understand what you're saying, but now you're making your
Speaker 1: personal life more important than this game. You're teaching the
Speaker 1: other team that they can get away with stuff. Plus
Speaker 1: our treachs are starting to feel like they're being treated unfairly,
Speaker 1: Like how are you picking and choosing when you want
Speaker 1: to make the call against which team? Breath? Right? You
Speaker 1: know I'd be ready to fight. Let me listen. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll be a row on one to these games sometime,
Speaker 1: y'all because a boy this football. Now I'm starting to
Speaker 1: learn more about basketball and everything I am. It's just
Speaker 1: it's tough to watch sometimes because for the ref in
Speaker 1: that moment, who just thinks it's just a little leving,
Speaker 1: leving your own game. For these kids, they that sits
Speaker 1: with them. Jackson will lose a game and then come
Speaker 1: home and be like, oh my god, what I do wrong? Differently,
Speaker 1: they dissect and he wants to see film and he
Speaker 1: wants to better, and which is cool because you want
Speaker 1: him to be able to learn from whatever mistakes that
Speaker 1: he may not to say that he's, you know, the
Speaker 1: star player all the time. But at the same time too,
Speaker 1: it's like, how do you continue to build sportsmanship? Yes,
Speaker 1: but also too we know as adults how should is
Speaker 1: just not always fair? Well, this is what I've learned
Speaker 1: in those times. This is what I took for the
Speaker 1: last game, right, he got filed at least four times
Speaker 1: on shots. It was very clear that this is sixth
Speaker 1: grade basketball. Some people have different standards of excellence for
Speaker 1: sixth grade basketball, right. Some people be like, hey, it's
Speaker 1: just fun, it's red ball. Let the kids learn. Right,
Speaker 1: Jackson plays a high level of sixth grade basketball. He
Speaker 1: plays AU so he's extremely skilled. I've watched other uh
Speaker 1: reveries say, well, that kid is skilled. So if the
Speaker 1: kid he's playing isn't as skilled to even the playing field,
Speaker 1: I'm not going to call as many calls on the
Speaker 1: other kids. So the Jackson's looking at me like that
Speaker 1: that's not a file. How they follow me. I've taught
Speaker 1: him to say, listen, bro, you can only control what's
Speaker 1: in your power. Control what you can control, make the
Speaker 1: shots you take. You know what I'm saying. Try not
Speaker 1: to touch him at all on defense. If you lose
Speaker 1: a game, remember this, it's sixth grade basketball. Fact. There's
Speaker 1: so much more going on in the world. When you
Speaker 1: get to high school. If you lose a game, it's
Speaker 1: high school basketball. When you get to college, it's when
Speaker 1: you play in the NBA. It's just basketball. You're not
Speaker 1: carrying cancer. You know what I'm saying, you're not solving
Speaker 1: any long term illness, you know, disease or anything. You're
Speaker 1: playing basketball. If you keep it into perspective that it's
Speaker 1: just basketball and always have fun regardless of whether you
Speaker 1: win or lose, and always trying to win. Sometimes you're
Speaker 1: just not gonna win. I'm a Warriors fan, Okay, I'm
Speaker 1: a Warriors fan. I love the Warriors. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and fifteen, Lebron James was the best basketball player on
Speaker 1: the court during the Finals. I think he averaged thirty
Speaker 1: five in a triple double. He let in every statistical category,
Speaker 1: and his team lost. That doesn't take away the fact
Speaker 1: that he was great and it's still the greatest basketball player,
Speaker 1: but his team lost. I said, Jack's sometimes you're gonna
Speaker 1: play phenomenal lights out and you're gonna lose. You're going
Speaker 1: to have to learn how to deal with those losses period.
Speaker 1: So sometimes sometimes you like I remember when Jackson started
Speaker 1: getting better at basketball, team started to win a little bit,
Speaker 1: he was feeling himself, and I remember saying something, I
Speaker 1: hope he loses soon if he keeps winning. Most children,
Speaker 1: most people, once they tart to reach a certain level
Speaker 1: of success and they feel like I've arrived. It stops
Speaker 1: the work. So for me, it was like, I need
Speaker 1: to take a couple of losses because in the moment
Speaker 1: where it counts, that may not be at your best.
Speaker 1: And then what then what? Back to fact and youth
Speaker 1: sports coaches say most parents play too much emphasis on
Speaker 1: their child winning games. I can see that the coaches
Speaker 1: wanting them to win too though, but winning does matter
Speaker 1: because when child lose over and over again, they start
Speaker 1: to feel like, I don't want to do this anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm tired of losing. Who wants to lose all the time,
Speaker 1: no one. No one wants to lose all the time.
Speaker 1: And and winning promotes a higher level of work ethic.
Speaker 1: That's what people don't understand. When you're working towards the
Speaker 1: goal and you can see the benefits of the work,
Speaker 1: you're more entitled to work. That's why I can't subscribe
Speaker 1: to the whole like everybody gets a trophy, everybody gets
Speaker 1: a person where nobody really wins. We're just playing for fun.
Speaker 1: There are moments when yes, you would be playing for fun,
Speaker 1: but there's times when no, we're playing to win. Let's
Speaker 1: just be real about because life is a game you
Speaker 1: can't just you can't live life and be like, hey man,
Speaker 1: I'll just hate Listen. I know my mortgages do. But
Speaker 1: I'm out here. I'm just float. I'm just gonna float.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna living for fun, so I'm gonna get you
Speaker 1: the money when I get No, that's not how the
Speaker 1: world works. No, people be living like that. But listen,
Speaker 1: that's a lot of stress. Eighty percent of coaches say
Speaker 1: that the best way for a parent to help their
Speaker 1: child play better is to not give instructions during the game.
Speaker 1: Devout fails this every single game. Remember there was one
Speaker 1: game where that I think Jackson had a bit like dolls,
Speaker 1: like daddy, if I gave you twenty dollars, if you
Speaker 1: don't say nothing the whole game to my In my defense,
Speaker 1: i'm quiet when the coach has showed me that I
Speaker 1: can trust their instruction. If I notice that you're not
Speaker 1: helping and my son looks confused and he's getting his
Speaker 1: ass kicked by another team that is nowhere nearest talented
Speaker 1: as him or his team, and you don't even care
Speaker 1: because you have nothing invested in these children, I'm going
Speaker 1: to start instruction. I'm going to start instruction from the
Speaker 1: parental side. I'll be with the y'all. Okay, let's sit
Speaker 1: next to me again with all the say the best
Speaker 1: way for parents to help their child is to remain
Speaker 1: completely silent during the game. We'll see it depends Jackson.
Speaker 1: Jackson has told me a couple of times he has
Speaker 1: looked at me and been like this a couple of times.
Speaker 1: He's easy brother than me. He's easy brother me. But
Speaker 1: there's also times in the game we'll be going on,
Speaker 1: he'd be looking at me like he's confused, he's confused,
Speaker 1: and I'm just like, this is what you know. And
Speaker 1: that comes from also us as parents having discernment of
Speaker 1: who we're gonna allow to coach our children. That's also
Speaker 1: a fact if you don't feel like that that particular
Speaker 1: team or coaches of service to your child and helping
Speaker 1: them get better, do what you gotta do. Coaches say
Speaker 1: coaching their youth athlete can strain a parents relationship with
Speaker 1: their child. So this is another reason why you said
Speaker 1: you don't want to be coached on the team for
Speaker 1: this reason. Never And and I've also seen when I
Speaker 1: was watching King Richard also other parents that I've I've
Speaker 1: had some great men who have entrusted me with their
Speaker 1: children because they saw the value in my teachings, and
Speaker 1: when they brought their children to me, they left their
Speaker 1: children and went because they trusted me. So it's important
Speaker 1: to know as a parent that when you trust somebody,
Speaker 1: don't undermine their word. But constantly over talking the coach.
Speaker 1: You have to say, you know what, I chose this person.
Speaker 1: I trust the person. Let me give them and that's
Speaker 1: what that's what I've been looking for. For example, with
Speaker 1: j Cole Jay, I've known Ja since we were pret lessons,
Speaker 1: Like we grew up together in can He played basketball
Speaker 1: at a higher level and I did. When he comes
Speaker 1: to take Jackson, it's just like, you know, I'm not
Speaker 1: even going to the gym, y'all go. I don't even
Speaker 1: want to be a part of it. And the funny
Speaker 1: thing is the other dads, like you know, Jackson plays
Speaker 1: better when you're not here. He said, yeah, I know,
Speaker 1: when Jay's here to actually give him instruction other than
Speaker 1: the coach that's sitting there doing nothing. You know, for me,
Speaker 1: I don't want to coach him. I'm smart enough to
Speaker 1: know what I don't know and know that I can't
Speaker 1: get him to the highest level the same way, and
Speaker 1: King Richard he was like, I gotta take my girls
Speaker 1: to someone else to coach them. But he that never
Speaker 1: stopped him from stopping the coach. But listen, you know tennis,
Speaker 1: you don't know my daughters. And that's one thing I
Speaker 1: took away from that movie was that he never let
Speaker 1: those tennis pros, who told all the pros and their
Speaker 1: knowledge of the game take away from his knowledge of
Speaker 1: his daughters. And they kept saying like, well, they need
Speaker 1: to play in this tournament. And then she was like,
Speaker 1: He's like, they're not ready and they won't do it
Speaker 1: because there's no cookie what cut her way to teach
Speaker 1: any child, every child. It's like a classroom, having a
Speaker 1: classroom for the students. You got your children who learned
Speaker 1: three different ways. Like nothing is cookie cut and nothing
Speaker 1: is gonna work for that one person all the time.
Speaker 1: But what I will say it is it is on
Speaker 1: the parents to kind of vet that team, vet that coach,
Speaker 1: and Okay, you're gonna vet someone who's an expert in
Speaker 1: this particular field, and you should feel comfortable with whoever
Speaker 1: you have, you know, giving your kid any kind of instructions.
Speaker 1: That's what we tried to do at least as parents,
Speaker 1: so to to tie it all back to where we
Speaker 1: started and you even talking about the video that you
Speaker 1: did with Jackson. First of all, once will make it
Speaker 1: clear that as Jackson gets older, we're very particular about
Speaker 1: how we share him what we share. So Jackson was
Speaker 1: aware that that particular video would be shared, and he
Speaker 1: said to you after the fact that he realized how
Speaker 1: much of a lesson that video was to so many people.
Speaker 1: So whereas we had some people who were concerned about, oh,
Speaker 1: you know, you shouldn't be doing this on social media
Speaker 1: with your kids, right, and he'll be made fun of,
Speaker 1: he actually came home and talked about two or three
Speaker 1: kids that was just like, yo, bro, I saw the
Speaker 1: vigere your dad. Damn man. That was like, that was cool,
Speaker 1: that was touching, and then he felt like, man, I'm somebody,
Speaker 1: and that made him feel even better about it. Heally
Speaker 1: gave you the okay for that. Always I know there's
Speaker 1: nothing Once Jackson became I think eight, and he started
Speaker 1: to realize that kids in his school were watching our videos.
Speaker 1: I was like, bro, if you don't ever want to
Speaker 1: me to post the video or something, you can let
Speaker 1: me know, and I won't post it. Remember, in the
Speaker 1: last couple of years, a lot more people have been saying,
Speaker 1: you know, I missed the kids. You know why we
Speaker 1: don't see the kids as much. It's because every video
Speaker 1: we record, I'm like, hey, do you want to post this?
Speaker 1: And if they're not feeling it, they just like nah.
Speaker 1: I Like, there's like I don't really want to post that,
Speaker 1: So I'm like cool. That video, in particular, it was
Speaker 1: supposed to be a workout video because Jackson has been
Speaker 1: getting better. He's been working on his right hand and
Speaker 1: his left hand, and also j Cole wasn't going to
Speaker 1: be here this weekend, so I was like, yo, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna record these videos show Cole. So when I started
Speaker 1: recording and then he started acting up, I would just
Speaker 1: started talking to him and then me having a phone
Speaker 1: in my hand for the past six years, I'm just
Speaker 1: used to doing it. So when I'm recording, i'm recording,
Speaker 1: I'm having the conversation bat Man Man Man bad. I
Speaker 1: get done and I'm just like, my damn. That was
Speaker 1: That was an interesting video, mainly because I think it
Speaker 1: was two videos before that I had posted how proud
Speaker 1: I was of him and showing his moves and how
Speaker 1: flashy he was, and I was like, you know, there's
Speaker 1: a lot of these au dads who only show the
Speaker 1: glitz and glamor of their of their sons and their relationship.
Speaker 1: They don't show a little bit of the turmoil that
Speaker 1: goes on when the dad and the sun butt heads.
Speaker 1: So I said, you know what, if Jackson's all right,
Speaker 1: I'm a poster. So I cut it. I put my
Speaker 1: Devoce Shroe for the end of it. I said, Jack's
Speaker 1: take a look at this video. We watched the full
Speaker 1: ten minute video. I said, how do you feel about
Speaker 1: this video? And he asked me, said what do you
Speaker 1: think people are gonna get from it? And I explained
Speaker 1: to him, I said, you know, you watch all of
Speaker 1: these kids. You watch Mel Mel, you watched Brownie growing up,
Speaker 1: you watched Mike, you watched all of these kids. You
Speaker 1: watched their highlights. Have you ever seen them struggle with
Speaker 1: their dad go through a workout? Do you ever wonder
Speaker 1: if they've ever had a moment in their life when
Speaker 1: they didn't want to work out and the dad made
Speaker 1: them work out? And he was like, yeah, because sometimes
Speaker 1: I feel like, dang, if I don't want to work
Speaker 1: out every day like them. Maybe I'm not good enough.
Speaker 1: Think about when he met Seth Curry recently shout out
Speaker 1: to Seth. It was after a Hawks on Net game
Speaker 1: and we went back and we got to see Kyrie
Speaker 1: and in a couple of them, and you asked, Steff.
Speaker 1: You were like, I mean, Seth, you were like, how
Speaker 1: many shots you gotta put up? And they said five
Speaker 1: hundred makes a day? And then I've seen Jackson, then
Speaker 1: I gotta I have to want to do five And
Speaker 1: that's the key word. He says, I have to want
Speaker 1: to do five hundred makes a day in order to
Speaker 1: make it to the NBA. And I explained to him,
Speaker 1: I said, no, he didn't say he wanted to. He
Speaker 1: said he did, which means it was a lot of
Speaker 1: days where he probably didn't want to. And his dad said,
Speaker 1: you want to be great, you gotta go do these.
Speaker 1: And I said, I would put this out here to
Speaker 1: show people that even when you didn't want to, you
Speaker 1: still completed the workout. You might have cried through it,
Speaker 1: you might have been piste off, he was upset at me,
Speaker 1: but you finished, and which that showing people is that
Speaker 1: you don't always have to do something in order to
Speaker 1: do it because it needs to be done, and he said,
Speaker 1: I wonder how many kids? And then he went back
Speaker 1: to cool after that, and he got a couple of
Speaker 1: buddies that go the same middle school to him, and
Speaker 1: they were just like, yo, I'll be feeling the same way.
Speaker 1: My daddy tells me I have to do something and
Speaker 1: I don't even want to do it, and then we
Speaker 1: get into arguments. But it's like you and your dad
Speaker 1: go through that too, And they look up to Jackson,
Speaker 1: like I said. He was m VP of offensive Player
Speaker 1: of his football team best offensive played his football team
Speaker 1: this past four He won m VP of his fifth
Speaker 1: grade team last year, so in their minds, Jackson is
Speaker 1: the guy. So to hear, Jackson said he didn't feel
Speaker 1: like it and he still had to do it. They
Speaker 1: were like, okay, so when my dad makes me do it,
Speaker 1: I don't feel like I'm not gonna make it because
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it. So it's amazing. Was
Speaker 1: excited about that. It's amazing how our children can teach
Speaker 1: us things and inspire us. Like it almost makes me
Speaker 1: emotional not thinking about it because I'm like ship, there's
Speaker 1: so many times when I don't feel like doing it.
Speaker 1: I don't like everyone knows that I hate working out,
Speaker 1: but I love the results of it. In these days,
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it. Like I know when
Speaker 1: we finished recording this podcast that I was really like
Speaker 1: time trying to go to the Jim talking about it. Lord,
Speaker 1: you go asking me out of the the gym, But I
Speaker 1: think about Jackson getting up and going to the gym.
Speaker 1: Get you got the church rock going on yet, But
Speaker 1: it's just like man, like I cannot let my children
Speaker 1: down and I can't let my husband down. I can't
Speaker 1: like at this point now, I'm doing this for like life,
Speaker 1: I'm doing this for health like vanity, like we're doing
Speaker 1: trying to live long and have healthy lives with these kids.
Speaker 1: Like you know, I'm trying to be there for every game,
Speaker 1: you know, be there for every practice, like like you know,
Speaker 1: your parents couldn't be there for everything. My parents couldn't
Speaker 1: be there for everything. But we're trying to be there
Speaker 1: and be present. So, UM, I don't know if you
Speaker 1: want to enclose and share that you had to have
Speaker 1: a conversation with someone who's reached out to you. Um,
Speaker 1: this is somebody who's a you know supporter reached out
Speaker 1: about video. It was a very interesting and you know what,
Speaker 1: I want to use? How many listening letters we got
Speaker 1: to pretty much. I've been on a kick recently where
Speaker 1: when people DM me, if the Lord says to me,
Speaker 1: this is someone you need to have a conversation with,
Speaker 1: tell to call you. And it was. It was a
Speaker 1: young woman. She went to a profile. She had a
Speaker 1: couple of kids. She follows us. She's said, um, we
Speaker 1: get it, your parents, this video needs to come down now.
Speaker 1: And I said, yo, give me a call. She said really.
Speaker 1: I gave him my phone number and she called me.
Speaker 1: And this ain't the first person like I've done this
Speaker 1: a couple of times, a couple of debates that people
Speaker 1: have had on social media. And I asked, I asked
Speaker 1: her for her opinion, right, and she gave me her opinion.
Speaker 1: And the first thing she said was, well, when your
Speaker 1: son goes back to school and everyone's making fun of him,
Speaker 1: what are you going to say to him then? And
Speaker 1: I said, well, this is the first thing man, right,
Speaker 1: I'm teaching my son to move in life in a
Speaker 1: way where he's not concerned with other people. Think that's
Speaker 1: number one. If every concern is what everyone else thinks.
Speaker 1: I'm already teaching him the wrong thing. That's number one.
Speaker 1: Number two, with all due respect, right, how were your
Speaker 1: children doing academically? She's like, what you mean? I said,
Speaker 1: just want to know how are your How are your
Speaker 1: children doing academically? They're doing okay, I said, okay, so
Speaker 1: my sons are doing extremely well academically. Both of them
Speaker 1: who are getting actual grades have plus ninety five averages
Speaker 1: because we require of them way more than just the
Speaker 1: status quo. I don't exist in a life of just
Speaker 1: the status quo. I live in abundance because I want
Speaker 1: to share. You know, I do things at an exceptional
Speaker 1: level because I've always been pushed to be exceptional. Why
Speaker 1: would I listen to someone who just does stuff just
Speaker 1: to do it, without any purpose or reason? And she
Speaker 1: got quiet, and I said, I'm trying. I'm being respectful,
Speaker 1: but you're trying to give me advice that I didn't solicit.
Speaker 1: I didn't ask for your advice. You're trying to give
Speaker 1: me advice. But I want to know why would I
Speaker 1: listen to you? Why should I listen to you? What
Speaker 1: have you done in your life that has been exceptional
Speaker 1: that I should say, I'm gonna listen to her, and
Speaker 1: if you can tell me something, I'll listen. Because I
Speaker 1: want my children to be exceptional, exceptional parents, exceptional husbands,
Speaker 1: exceptional leaders, exceptional CEOs, and if they happen to be
Speaker 1: exceptional pro athletes, they can be exceptional pro athletes. But
Speaker 1: the only way that's going to happen is if I
Speaker 1: push them. And on top of that, the only way
Speaker 1: that's going to work in this world is if I
Speaker 1: teach them not to care what other people think. You're
Speaker 1: telling me to take it down, because I should be
Speaker 1: teaching my son to care about what other people think.
Speaker 1: And she said, I never thought about it that way.
Speaker 1: And I said, this, man, is why I didn't want
Speaker 1: to have a text argument to go back and forth
Speaker 1: in d M S, because I want you to understand
Speaker 1: my perspective. Right, I live in abundance, and I feel
Speaker 1: like God has only blessed my wife and not to
Speaker 1: live in abundance because we have a responsibility to share,
Speaker 1: not just financially. Financially because we do that, but we
Speaker 1: also have to share how we've been able to reach
Speaker 1: this level of success, and that means you make yourself
Speaker 1: vulnerable to people and people are gonna have their own
Speaker 1: opinions about what you do when what you say. Quite frankly, ma'am,
Speaker 1: I don't care what people think. I want people. I
Speaker 1: just want to share. And if it inspires you and
Speaker 1: say I never want to live like that, I at
Speaker 1: least inspired you to make a choice. If I inspired
Speaker 1: you to say I want to live just like that,
Speaker 1: I inspired you to make a choice. But it's not
Speaker 1: up to me to decide how you make the choice
Speaker 1: of what I shared. The same way it's not up
Speaker 1: to you to tell me what to share. You understand
Speaker 1: what I'm saying that I completely as somebody who was
Speaker 1: raised to always think about what people think or worry
Speaker 1: about what people have to say. It's been so refreshing
Speaker 1: to me to exist in the space that's completely opposite,
Speaker 1: where I can pick and choose what I want to share,
Speaker 1: and then people take it or leave it. You rock
Speaker 1: with me or you don't. It'll make me no never mind.
Speaker 1: I at least can sleep at night knowing that I'm
Speaker 1: living truthfully and who I am and existing in that space.
Speaker 1: And we teach our kids that that's all we can
Speaker 1: teach them, So trust me, I was in full support
Speaker 1: of it. And it was very interesting when you told
Speaker 1: me that you had that. You know, first of all,
Speaker 1: I was what you gave me convers she's ready to
Speaker 1: go hand like why do you give your phone? That's interesting?
Speaker 1: No other reason though that Then I was just like this,
Speaker 1: just like what No, Because I felt like she had
Speaker 1: children she could learn, and if she had something that
Speaker 1: she could tell me, I wanted want to learn to
Speaker 1: because that's what they were never opposed to learning that.
Speaker 1: I don't believe that's sure that my way or our
Speaker 1: way is the only only way. This is just the
Speaker 1: way that works for me, and I want to share it.
Speaker 1: And I try to tell people a lot of times,
Speaker 1: your parenting style is very similar to the religion you
Speaker 1: believe in. Right, you could be Islamic, you could be Christian,
Speaker 1: you can be Jewish, you could be Buddhist. If if
Speaker 1: your belief system and your religious beliefs lead you to
Speaker 1: a place of prosperity and peace and a greater person
Speaker 1: for humanity, I applore whatever you believe in to get
Speaker 1: you there. Just because you choose something different than me
Speaker 1: doesn't mean that you're my enemy. It's the same thing
Speaker 1: with parenting. Your parenting style may be different than mine.
Speaker 1: You know, my enemy, your your your sexual beliefs or
Speaker 1: how you want to live your lives may be different
Speaker 1: than mine. You I'm we're monogamous. You may be polamous.
Speaker 1: That's your choice, you know what I'm saying. You may
Speaker 1: believe in polyamory, you may be homosexual, you may be
Speaker 1: transit all of these different things if they lead you
Speaker 1: to a greater sense of humanity and it works for you,
Speaker 1: and you're not causing no harm to anyone else, that's
Speaker 1: a fact. Share do what you want to do. Can't
Speaker 1: afforce your beliefs on other people. The problem arises usually
Speaker 1: when people don't feel comfortable living in those spaces, true absolutely,
Speaker 1: and then they feel like they have a facade. Then
Speaker 1: there's regret, and then there's malice, and then there's just
Speaker 1: overall sadness. And we ain't promoting that over here. So
Speaker 1: um so, yeah, that's trying to be a good little
Speaker 1: conversation made us both a little emotional trying to hold
Speaker 1: it cople of times. I know they do. I think
Speaker 1: it's because we're just so invested in trying to make
Speaker 1: sure that we are you know, we ain't damaging these
Speaker 1: goods because sometimes I feel like they chose us for
Speaker 1: a reason, so we're just trying to do right by them.
Speaker 1: That's that's all that is, all righty'll let's take a
Speaker 1: quick break. We're gonna get into some ads and then
Speaker 1: back to some quick listener letters, so stay tuned. Okay, guys,
Speaker 1: we're back, all right, back for some listener letters. I'll
Speaker 1: dive right in since we've been talking, y'all, he is
Speaker 1: off today. All right, pay Cadine and de Val. First,
Speaker 1: I'm going to say how much I love you guys
Speaker 1: and everything that you guys do and stand for. Appreciate you.
Speaker 1: So I'm writing this for some much needed advice. So.
Speaker 1: I'm a single mother of two. My son is seven
Speaker 1: and my daughter's five. I'm twenty six. I was with
Speaker 1: my boyfriend for six years, and he was in and
Speaker 1: out of prison for those six years. This last time
Speaker 1: he went, I was pregnant with my daughter, who was
Speaker 1: only met through jail visits. We're not together due to
Speaker 1: many reasons. I went through sexual abuse as a young child,
Speaker 1: and I feel that this has left me still to
Speaker 1: this day, very angry and I'm or unsure of who
Speaker 1: I am. It has broken me in so many ways,
Speaker 1: but mostly, as I said before, angry and I don't
Speaker 1: know how to parent. Feeling the way I feel every day,
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm not a good parent. I don't
Speaker 1: know what to do I find myself. I seem to
Speaker 1: always find myself yelling and screaming at my kids, when
Speaker 1: I told myself I would never do that because that's
Speaker 1: how my mother was. I'm just so lost and so
Speaker 1: confused on how to heal and find out who I
Speaker 1: am so I can be a better mother for my children.
Speaker 1: I want nothing more than for my kids to know
Speaker 1: that I love them more than anything and want nothing
Speaker 1: but the best for them. But I feel stuck in
Speaker 1: the dark place that I can't get out of, and
Speaker 1: it all comes from my childhood. I'm lost. Please help. Oh,
Speaker 1: since that's um, that's fairly difficult. I'm sorry, I'm sorry.
Speaker 1: I hope you do speak with someone and find a
Speaker 1: way to heal from that, so that's not always um
Speaker 1: a wall you put up when it comes time to
Speaker 1: choosing the right mate and someone to be a great
Speaker 1: father to your children, because you already have two beautiful children,
Speaker 1: So hopefully you find a way to heal from those issues. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that's the root of it, UM, and what
Speaker 1: you know. But you know, I know that sometimes therapy
Speaker 1: can be intimidating, or it can be hard to start,
Speaker 1: or it could even be costly. I know we've had
Speaker 1: a relationship with better help where people were able to
Speaker 1: get access to UM, even just someone online that you
Speaker 1: can speak with. But I think you're aware that this
Speaker 1: is where the problem starts and your children shouldn't have
Speaker 1: to bear the brunt of that. UM. You know, I
Speaker 1: can't say that can necessarily relate to your particular situation. However,
Speaker 1: I know wanting what it's like as apparent as we discussed,
Speaker 1: just wanting the best for our kids, and just knowing
Speaker 1: how to deal with the frustration that arise because trust me,
Speaker 1: not even having been through a case of sexual abuse,
Speaker 1: I just know that there are days that I'm just
Speaker 1: frustrated in general, where I'm tired, and I do find
Speaker 1: myself wanting to lash out, and that misplaced anger on
Speaker 1: the children, UM can really be a way to beat
Speaker 1: your children down. So UM, I think starting with maybe
Speaker 1: some therapy, speaking to someone would probably be the best
Speaker 1: way to heal s this. So also, I just feel
Speaker 1: like more most parents lash out of their children because
Speaker 1: of fatigue. You know, like we all grew up with
Speaker 1: parents that was the generation that we grew up in. Okay,
Speaker 1: I get it, But a lot of times we've been
Speaker 1: working all day, they've been asking for the same things
Speaker 1: over and over and over again. You've been telling them
Speaker 1: something over and over and over again, and then you
Speaker 1: get upset. You're tired emotionally, you're drained. And a large
Speaker 1: part of the reason why people lose control over their
Speaker 1: emotions is because of fatigue. So I would say, in
Speaker 1: order to help yourself, try to find time. And it
Speaker 1: sounds so crazy saying this, especially single moms. Try to
Speaker 1: find some time to lean on your village if you
Speaker 1: have one, and get some rest. The more rest you
Speaker 1: can get, the better you are equipped at being the
Speaker 1: mom they need, because now you have control over your emotions.
Speaker 1: We talked about this with one of the doctors that
Speaker 1: was on here. Sleep deprivation is one of the main
Speaker 1: causes of help health issues in America for men and
Speaker 1: women of all ages, races, sex screeds religions like sleep
Speaker 1: deprivation is a big deal because the Team No Sleep
Speaker 1: movement that happened over these pasts like decades, but definitely
Speaker 1: get some sleep, and also to learn to pick your
Speaker 1: battles with kids, Like I think about things that used
Speaker 1: to just upset me, or things that I just learn
Speaker 1: from seeing either with my parents or other parents that
Speaker 1: I've grown up, Like things that should make you upset
Speaker 1: or shouldn't make you upset, make you upset. For example,
Speaker 1: your kids spills the bowl of cereal. You could lash
Speaker 1: out as scream because you've told you kid a thousand
Speaker 1: times stop playing and dance around the cereal and sit stilling.
Speaker 1: But kids are going to be kids, right, so they
Speaker 1: spilled the bowl of cereal. You could handle it too
Speaker 1: different ways. You can lash out and scream, or you
Speaker 1: can spank them, or you could do whatever, or you
Speaker 1: can just take a breath and be like, and that's
Speaker 1: how you just stop playing around when you eat a cereal.
Speaker 1: So this is what happens. Now, what clean it up?
Speaker 1: Or if it's your five year old who can't quite
Speaker 1: clean it up, clean it up the best way you can,
Speaker 1: and then you go back after finish up, Like, just
Speaker 1: don't even waste the energy on making that a point,
Speaker 1: because a lot of parenting redundant. Like it's happy to
Speaker 1: say the same thing over and over, you know, and
Speaker 1: eventually they'll catch on. You know, your kids are still young.
Speaker 1: But but it's also understanding that you do have children
Speaker 1: and they require grace because we often require our children
Speaker 1: to act as adults. Did not tell you that, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you told him that one time. He's not gonna remember
Speaker 1: he's six. We've been through that. Yeah, We've been through
Speaker 1: that with with the boys. Like I've told you this
Speaker 1: so many times. Learning how to keep controlling their emotions
Speaker 1: is the best way to parent, because your children will
Speaker 1: listen to you more if they see that you're calm
Speaker 1: the minute. And I had to learn this too when
Speaker 1: I was in football mode and Jackson was a young kid.
Speaker 1: Jackson used to get so afraid of me losing my
Speaker 1: emotions that he would use me to death. He's like
Speaker 1: a robot. You understand, yes, sir? You understand? Yes, sir.
Speaker 1: You don't listen to what I'm saying. How can you
Speaker 1: say you understand if you don't Jackson what I say?
Speaker 1: How didn't hear you? But but you just said yes, sir, Okay,
Speaker 1: my bad. I just I just it's like an autopilot.
Speaker 1: I'm saying what you think I want to hear because
Speaker 1: you're afraid that I'm gonna scream. I used to do
Speaker 1: that all the time, so I'm not. I don't even
Speaker 1: get upset when he does that anymore. Like in the past,
Speaker 1: I would be screaming. Why are you saying yes if
Speaker 1: you don't even know what I said? Now, it's like, listen, bro,
Speaker 1: I know you're used to having to say what you
Speaker 1: think I wanted to hear to get me to stop screaming.
Speaker 1: I'm not even screaming. Is listen to what I'm saying
Speaker 1: and just respond with what you really believe or how
Speaker 1: you really feel. This way we can navigate the situation together.
Speaker 1: All right, girl, Best of luck to you, and I
Speaker 1: hope that you find the healing that you need so
Speaker 1: you can be the best mom for your kids. Yes, ma'am,
Speaker 1: first of all, if I would like to extend my
Speaker 1: love for you and your beautiful family. Has explanation of
Speaker 1: when Kingston died had me tiring you all right, so
Speaker 1: boom they from New York. My boyfriend and I have
Speaker 1: been together for seven years. I moved in with him
Speaker 1: this past September and it has been challenging recently. He
Speaker 1: expressed to me that he does not feel like we
Speaker 1: are as close. When he says this, I agreed and
Speaker 1: took it upon myself to gear out how we can
Speaker 1: build that closeness. I have been trying to plan a
Speaker 1: date night and think of things that we both enjoy doing.
Speaker 1: It does not help that we have not had sex
Speaker 1: in about three weeks since he came back from vacation.
Speaker 1: I've been feeling resentful because one he told me that
Speaker 1: we were going to be engaged by this year, and too,
Speaker 1: since we're not working. Oh, we're not engaged. We're not fucking, um,
Speaker 1: no ring, no things. Since we both agreed on not
Speaker 1: feeling as close, I have not seen any effort from
Speaker 1: him to try and build our closeness. I understand that
Speaker 1: we have different definitions of closeness, but he hasn't explained
Speaker 1: what he needs from me. I made plans for this weekend,
Speaker 1: but it's an early event. I expressed to him that
Speaker 1: I would like to continue the night after our event,
Speaker 1: but he has not taken any initiative to plan something
Speaker 1: we just had a conversation about with a friend of
Speaker 1: our plans. This past week, I have been sad and
Speaker 1: emotionally detached because I feel like the effort to regain
Speaker 1: closeness is one sided. When we aren't having problems, everything
Speaker 1: is great. It's like the epitome of like, when we're
Speaker 1: not having problems, everything is great. Uh. But they sound
Speaker 1: like us, like arguing everything fine. They sound like us.
Speaker 1: We laugh, roast each other. They definitely us and are
Speaker 1: genuinely happy. Lately, I have been afraid because I feel
Speaker 1: like I am losing my best friend. That's the worst feeling, bro.
Speaker 1: And the advice would be appreciated. I accept all critiques.
Speaker 1: I have no critiques for y'all. I'm just only going
Speaker 1: to tell you all this. This feeling is normal when
Speaker 1: you with someone for an extended period of time and
Speaker 1: y'all moving together, you get into a routine and you
Speaker 1: start to lose. We just had this conversation, yo, all right, literally,
Speaker 1: and this is twenty years in almost twenty and I'm
Speaker 1: going to be extremely vulnerable and give you a man's
Speaker 1: perspective because she said her boyfriend. He may be speaking
Speaker 1: about this. I'll tell you because I just told hey this.
Speaker 1: We were watching TV and I said, Babe, i feel
Speaker 1: like I'm missing a part of my life that I'm
Speaker 1: used to. She said, what do you mean, I said,
Speaker 1: when before we were dating, I had an option to
Speaker 1: see women who found me attractive, pick which one I
Speaker 1: thought was attractive, and engaging whatever they wanted to engage in.
Speaker 1: That was my choice. That was part of my life
Speaker 1: that existed. Women are attracted to you. You're attracted to women.
Speaker 1: You engage in whatever you want to engage in. Right
Speaker 1: then you meet someone, you become anogamous. Right that person
Speaker 1: in the very beginning is attracted to you. You're attracted
Speaker 1: to them. The newness of it is like this animalistic
Speaker 1: attraction when you're always on each other and you feel
Speaker 1: like this is my this is what I love, this
Speaker 1: is my best friend. And it's not even always about
Speaker 1: the the actual act of sex. But when Kay first
Speaker 1: got with me, she always wanted to sit on my lap,
Speaker 1: She always wanted to make out, she always wanted to
Speaker 1: cuddle and canoele, and she was always touching me. And
Speaker 1: when you get married or you've been together for a
Speaker 1: long time and you're watching your girlfriend or your wife
Speaker 1: focus on everything else because she's used to you being there,
Speaker 1: you're missing that As a man, and so many men
Speaker 1: don't speak about this, but this is the truth. If
Speaker 1: I wasn't in a relationship. The women who admired me
Speaker 1: would feel open to come over and say, hey, I
Speaker 1: admire you, and you can say I admire you too,
Speaker 1: and you'll go back and forth. But now the women
Speaker 1: that you're around know that you got a girl. So
Speaker 1: those women aren't even telling you that they admire you
Speaker 1: because they like, oh, you got a girl whatever. So
Speaker 1: now your girl's not even admiring you because they're used
Speaker 1: to you being home. So now you're at home, like damn,
Speaker 1: nobody is admiring me. That feels like ship after a while.
Speaker 1: And I think Asia Curry says something about that attention
Speaker 1: and they would get in on her. But it's not
Speaker 1: about male attention. It's about feeling wanted or desired or
Speaker 1: desired by the person that you want to feel desired by.
Speaker 1: Everybody loves that hunt and capture moments like the back
Speaker 1: and forth. But more importantly, though, people want to be
Speaker 1: desired by the one that they desire. So it's like,
Speaker 1: we chose to desire each other for eternity if we're
Speaker 1: gonna be together, and somewhere during that process you lost
Speaker 1: sight of that desiring. Because we have four kids, we
Speaker 1: have a mortgage, you have job, I have job, parents
Speaker 1: live with us, people are sick. No one's doing it
Speaker 1: on purpose, but still you have to remember that you
Speaker 1: know what your partner wants to be desired. And this
Speaker 1: is just a good message also to two men too,
Speaker 1: because you have a wonder why your wife may start
Speaker 1: to being a little funk or have an attitude sometimes
Speaker 1: because you haven't showed that woman that you desire her. Now.
Speaker 1: I'm a very very affectionate physical person. Becaudan has probably
Speaker 1: never gone five minutes without feeling desired because I'm gonna
Speaker 1: grab I'm gonna grab a boob, I'm a hugger, I'm
Speaker 1: a kisser, I'm gonna tell our love her. I'm a
Speaker 1: that's but that's for me. I'm not doing that just
Speaker 1: because you know, I just or she need let me
Speaker 1: do it. I like doing that, so for her it's
Speaker 1: easy to feel that way. But in return, it's also
Speaker 1: easy for me to feel lost sometimes because I'm always
Speaker 1: all on her. That something. We had this conversation, I mean, like,
Speaker 1: when's the last time you've hugged me? Just ifout we
Speaker 1: hug all the time. I said, huh, when is the
Speaker 1: last time you've hugged me, So it's me doing the
Speaker 1: initiating of the hugging, not the fact that we have
Speaker 1: hugged several times, because it was him doing the hugging.
Speaker 1: And it's like, okay, I get it. And sometimes men
Speaker 1: don't know how to say that. So when they say
Speaker 1: stuff like I feel like I lost my best friend,
Speaker 1: it's his masculine hiding way of saying, hey baby, you
Speaker 1: don't notice me the whay you used to anymore, you
Speaker 1: know what I'm saying. Or we're not as close. You know,
Speaker 1: we're not as close as we used to be. That's
Speaker 1: his way of saying, hey baby, I'm still here. You know.
Speaker 1: It's the moving into parts. For me, it's like they
Speaker 1: got together seven years and it seems like the problem
Speaker 1: the roads when they moved in together. Now, I'm an
Speaker 1: advocate for moving in before you get married. I just
Speaker 1: think it's necessary so you can know if this this
Speaker 1: person that you want to exist within the space pretty
Speaker 1: much all the time. Right. Plus you also feel like, okay,
Speaker 1: if we're moving in together, was next because I'm not
Speaker 1: gonna be They told me she was. She was an
Speaker 1: advocate for moving in, but she also said I ain't
Speaker 1: gonna be nobody's living girlfriend, right right, living girlfriend, no
Speaker 1: baby mama, which is what she's saying. He told me
Speaker 1: we'd be engaged by this, So she's a little salty,
Speaker 1: which I get because, yeah, it's like the promise that
Speaker 1: you made to her to be engaged by a certain timeframe. Again,
Speaker 1: a lot of women function on the clock if we
Speaker 1: feel like time is being wasted, and you do me
Speaker 1: into moving in with you, and now we're not closed
Speaker 1: the more and day we all got a ring on
Speaker 1: my fingers, like what exactly are we doing here? But
Speaker 1: like Devil said, most men in the past, you said,
Speaker 1: most men have a plan. They have a plan on
Speaker 1: what they want to do, how they want to execute it.
Speaker 1: You want to particularly kind of situation when you get engaged.
Speaker 1: He's trying to plan all that stuff out right, So
Speaker 1: he may be trying to buy a little time, you know,
Speaker 1: before he does that at the plan that you said
Speaker 1: you required in order to be somebody's wife exactly. But
Speaker 1: I can understand why she can feel, maybe even from
Speaker 1: your perspective, when you feel like sometimes you're pulling and
Speaker 1: tugging at me for that and I'm just like, damn,
Speaker 1: I didn't even realize that because I have so many
Speaker 1: things in my brain and I'm jruggling, working, kids and
Speaker 1: this and that, and I feel so scattering at times
Speaker 1: where you're just like, y'll just stop listening to the
Speaker 1: noise and just focus on me. And that focus alone,
Speaker 1: I can see the difference in our relationship when that happens,
Speaker 1: particularly more recently, you know, with us. So keep having
Speaker 1: the conversation. But I will say to a lot of
Speaker 1: women if listening. Of course, this is not all men.
Speaker 1: It's not all women, but many of the men that
Speaker 1: I speak to, they'll say to me without knowing how
Speaker 1: to say it, but their biggest gripe with the women
Speaker 1: they live with, or their girlfriend or their wife is
Speaker 1: like you don't you know you know how case stills?
Speaker 1: Just like today. I mean last night I came in
Speaker 1: from being in New York. I come in, caves in
Speaker 1: the shower. First of all, me and Josh get to
Speaker 1: the house the same time, because we flew in, and
Speaker 1: I'm like, can you I was coming home. Why's the
Speaker 1: door locked? Why don't I got to go through the garage.
Speaker 1: I'm getting pisted right, So I come inside and caves
Speaker 1: in the shower open, the shower, right, I go squeeze,
Speaker 1: but then I go use the bathroom. I come back,
Speaker 1: I squeeze a boob, and she's like, why do you
Speaker 1: keep leaving? Right? Then when I come back in after
Speaker 1: getting dressed, she's putting on these tights. She put on
Speaker 1: this little crop top and as asked Tripling that what
Speaker 1: I look like you're coming home? They could probably be like,
Speaker 1: YO did a whole one eighty when she walked back
Speaker 1: out here, I looked like a hot mess. And I
Speaker 1: do realize that you were purposeful about making sure when
Speaker 1: I came in the house that you put on something,
Speaker 1: and I'd like to see you clean. She was whispering
Speaker 1: my ear when I came home, and wait till everybody
Speaker 1: go to sleep, and you know she went and got
Speaker 1: me getty this she made and got me something to drink.
Speaker 1: It's like those little things is a constant reminder of like, oh,
Speaker 1: this is the woman that wanted me when we were
Speaker 1: still dating. Like those are things she would do when
Speaker 1: we were dating, and a lot of times when you
Speaker 1: get married, it's like, man, this ne gonna know what
Speaker 1: I looked like naked. I don't go to put on
Speaker 1: the types. I still want you to put on the type,
Speaker 1: but more recently about like texting, like if I had
Speaker 1: to run an airin or whatever, I'm texting like, hey, babe,
Speaker 1: I got here here you were just like yo. It's
Speaker 1: just like, aside from the safety, it's just a matter
Speaker 1: of just knowing, like damn, she thought about me to
Speaker 1: text me in this moment. So it's just little things
Speaker 1: that we're trying to do to get back to that
Speaker 1: boyfriend girlfriend phase that we both were differently desperately missed.
Speaker 1: And I think working as crazy as we didn't having
Speaker 1: the schedule we had last year, a lot of that
Speaker 1: got lost in the shuffle, and that was a challenge
Speaker 1: for us both mentally. We're like, it doesn't make any
Speaker 1: sense that we're, you know, having all the success with
Speaker 1: our career and our kids are doing well and families
Speaker 1: good and all that, but you and I are not
Speaker 1: in unison. So and I say that to say that
Speaker 1: men are typically trying to say that, but it's challenging
Speaker 1: for us because it's not hyper masculine to say I
Speaker 1: missed my wife, I missed my girlfriend, I missed being
Speaker 1: touchy feely. That's really what they want to say, Babe,
Speaker 1: I miss when you used to touch me up and
Speaker 1: and you're annoying climbing on me. I missed that. It's
Speaker 1: not hypermatchingly. So sometimes t think about what they're saying, like, well,
Speaker 1: I know what he's saying right right between the lines
Speaker 1: the lines. All right, y'all, we want to hear more
Speaker 1: from you on the listener letter tips, so be sure
Speaker 1: to email us at dead as Advice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: That's D E A D A S S A d
Speaker 1: V I C E at gmail dot com. All right,
Speaker 1: moment of truth time. We're talking coaching, we're talking kids,
Speaker 1: we're talking parenting. UM, you know, how did our perspectives change, um,
Speaker 1: when it came to kids in sports, How we deal
Speaker 1: with our kids, all that good stuff. So you're in
Speaker 1: the episode what the truth? My moment of truth is this? UM,
Speaker 1: I was a professional athlete, and I also coached for
Speaker 1: a very very long time. The same methods you used
Speaker 1: to coach other people's children, the same methods your coaches
Speaker 1: used to coach you, is not the same method you
Speaker 1: have you can use with your children. It's just not
Speaker 1: the same. There's a different power dynamic there when you're
Speaker 1: you're coaching your own children. I like when parents coach
Speaker 1: their children. You just have to learn to use discernment
Speaker 1: when and when not to be coached, and when and
Speaker 1: when not to be Dad. Jackson and I have already
Speaker 1: made it very clear. The minute we step into this house,
Speaker 1: the coach had is off. I don't care how much
Speaker 1: I've screamed and holler and been upset. When you come
Speaker 1: in this house, I'm not We're not talking about that anymore.
Speaker 1: I'm your I'm your dad. Now let's watch the game
Speaker 1: and laugh and talk about other things. Let's let's not
Speaker 1: drag that into our personal space. Kind of like when
Speaker 1: you do with your significant other, leave the work life
Speaker 1: at work, exactly when you come home, I'm dead. I
Speaker 1: created a boundary that both my son and I respect,
Speaker 1: and I feel like it's working for us. Stay tuned,
Speaker 1: because he's only eleven. I have seven more years, you know,
Speaker 1: to to try to get this right. Not I know
Speaker 1: he spent more than half of the time he's going
Speaker 1: to spend with us here, So pray for us um
Speaker 1: as we as. This isn't ever evolving organism, this thing
Speaker 1: called life. So as things change, I am sure they
Speaker 1: will will keep you updated. No, for sure, I love
Speaker 1: that my moment of truth is much like the relationship
Speaker 1: between like a teacher and a parent, right, um, such
Speaker 1: as the coach and the parent experience. And I think
Speaker 1: the overarching topic that some parents and coaches, Missie, I
Speaker 1: had never thought about that. Imagine a teacher who has children,
Speaker 1: those same kids go through the same thing. Like my
Speaker 1: mom's a teacher, so she's always a teacher all the time,
Speaker 1: because the thing my dad as a coach, he's always
Speaker 1: a coach all the time. But yeah, but I'm just
Speaker 1: even speaking about the relationship that a parent and a
Speaker 1: teacher has, right, because there should be some sort of
Speaker 1: union and communication between a parent empowering their children when
Speaker 1: they're in the classroom and the teacher then feeling like
Speaker 1: they're empowered as a teacher to be the educator. Right,
Speaker 1: such as that with a coach and a parent, right
Speaker 1: the parent in trusts the coach to teach them things
Speaker 1: about the game. But what I think the overarching topic
Speaker 1: for me is when it just comes to sports, is
Speaker 1: that sports and coaching and um, the dynamics that exists
Speaker 1: in that is so much bigger than just sports. Yes,
Speaker 1: it's life and the lessons that you've learned, for example,
Speaker 1: because I wasn't big into sports growing up, right, But
Speaker 1: the lessons that you've learned in sports and having to
Speaker 1: have the discipline and the camaraderie with the team, and
Speaker 1: knowing how to take the direction and how to listen
Speaker 1: to a coach to be respectful, those are things that
Speaker 1: are carrying over into life. And we have to to
Speaker 1: stand that as parents. Is bigger than like that one game.
Speaker 1: It's bigger than eleven eleven year old basketball. It's bigger
Speaker 1: than sixth grade football. It is about teaching life lessons.
Speaker 1: So if the parents and the coach are in unison
Speaker 1: with what the objective is, then no game is going
Speaker 1: to be that big of a deal as long as
Speaker 1: the kid is learning a life lesson along the way
Speaker 1: or several. So that's mine. It's more like, okay, oh god, god,
Speaker 1: we did a couple of rocks today, y'all. Um, alright, y'all.
Speaker 1: So be sure to follow us on social media if
Speaker 1: you're not already. So, we have dead as the Podcast
Speaker 1: on Instagram. You can find me at Cadeen I Am.
Speaker 1: I'm also on TikTok Now I'm taking a stab at three.
Speaker 1: I'm coming up to the young people's apps uh and
Speaker 1: signed up on patreons to and I am not on
Speaker 1: TikTok because I'm not trying to be with the young people.
Speaker 1: I am devout. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts,
Speaker 1: be sure to rate when you subscribe. If you're interested
Speaker 1: in watching all of the podcast in its entirety, subscribe
Speaker 1: to our patreon. That's the fact exclusive. Behind the scenes,
Speaker 1: We're gonna call Jackson and the CP wants to chat
Speaker 1: about it all right, see how he feels about Daddy, Coach,
Speaker 1: Coach and Daddy. Dead Ass is a production of I
Speaker 1: Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by the Norapinia
Speaker 1: and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead
Speaker 1: as the Podcast and never miss a Thing.