Speaker 1: Hey, y'all, it'sdin and guess what. We wrote a whole
Speaker 1: ass book. That's right, y'all. Our book, We over Me,
Speaker 1: The Counterintuitive Approach to getting Everything you want from your relationship,
Speaker 1: discusses family, parenting, Devour's favorite topic, sex and intimacy, finances
Speaker 1: and commitment with the honesty and raw truth y'all have
Speaker 1: always gotten from us. We over Me, the counterintuitive approach
Speaker 1: to getting everything you want from your relationship is available now.
Speaker 1: Everywhere looks it's old. Every time I say I got it,
Speaker 1: I'm gon't be having it. Dead ass, Well, that's news
Speaker 1: to me because you are literally the epitome of check
Speaker 1: on your strong friends that as Hey, I'm Cadine and
Speaker 1: Devour and we're the ellis Is. You may know us
Speaker 1: from posting funny videos with our boys and reading each
Speaker 1: other publicly as a form of therapy. Wait, I make
Speaker 1: you need therapy most days. Wow. And one more important
Speaker 1: thing to mention, we're married. We are. We created this
Speaker 1: podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics,
Speaker 1: things most folks don't want to talk about through the
Speaker 1: lens of a millennium married couple. Dead ass is the
Speaker 1: term that we say every day. So when we say
Speaker 1: dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth,
Speaker 1: and nothing but the truth. Were about to take pillow
Speaker 1: talk to a whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.
Speaker 1: This past year two was an extremely long, arduous, but
Speaker 1: successful year for the Other's family. Indeed, I personally filmed.
Speaker 1: I did a film in Ottawa, A did three seasons
Speaker 1: of television. We went on a podcast tour, We finished
Speaker 1: writing the book. And those are just some of the
Speaker 1: small like some of the things that those are, like
Speaker 1: major work related things, not to mention a ton of
Speaker 1: just milestone family amends. Your mom turned sixty five, your
Speaker 1: dad turned seventy, Cash turned five, turned one, to turn one.
Speaker 1: It was a lot. It was just a lot of
Speaker 1: things going on. In anytime I recap the year, I'm
Speaker 1: always like, thank you God first and foremost, because I
Speaker 1: wanted to complain. However, she took us out. It did so.
Speaker 1: From around April, also filmed another episode of television. I
Speaker 1: filmed what was the show Everything's Trash? So from that moment,
Speaker 1: I think it was in May, I filmed mayor June.
Speaker 1: I was going NonStop. I went from New York came
Speaker 1: back home, flew to Ottawa, came back home, flew to
Speaker 1: do the travel show. To do the tray of the show,
Speaker 1: we went to four cities. Oh no, we went to
Speaker 1: three cities. Flew back home to do the podcast tour,
Speaker 1: then flew back to do the final city of the tour.
Speaker 1: Then came back, flew back to New York for all
Speaker 1: these different Mouthstone birthdays every weekend in September, every weekend.
Speaker 1: Also the cold is Christening. Then we flew back home
Speaker 1: to film Sisters. So I'm on set of Sisters. This
Speaker 1: is in November. After all of that flying everything, I
Speaker 1: was feeling good. I was I was fine. I was
Speaker 1: ready to go. Monday, you were home. Tuesday you started
Speaker 1: to leave to go. You had to go to Jamaica
Speaker 1: for a family weddings, best friend's wedding. So Wednesday, Codeine
Speaker 1: left and I had the boys, My parents and my
Speaker 1: grandparents flew in and it just so happened that's when
Speaker 1: cold and flew season was starting. So the kids had
Speaker 1: gotten sick, my parents came home to help, and my
Speaker 1: parents gotten sick. My grandparents had come home and help
Speaker 1: my grandparents into a sick I come back home on
Speaker 1: the Thursday night and everybody snacks, sneezing, coughing, fevers, headaches,
Speaker 1: and I'm in the middle of production, so I can't
Speaker 1: get sick because if I get sick, all the production stops.
Speaker 1: And we're not even talking about COVID. We're talking about
Speaker 1: the flu. The flu was still a thing, y'all. You
Speaker 1: took the flu into the workplace and it starts to spread,
Speaker 1: it can shut everything down because it was spread so
Speaker 1: fast in this house, so it went from one person.
Speaker 1: Cairo brought the flu home and then everyone ended up
Speaker 1: getting it. So Friday, UM, I'm headed towards lunch. I'm
Speaker 1: feeling fine. I go to lay down and I get
Speaker 1: a knock at the door and it's Crystal. Everybody knows
Speaker 1: her name is Fatima on TV. She said, Yo, d
Speaker 1: they're getting ready to call for you on set. You know,
Speaker 1: get going. I remember feeling like I was trying to
Speaker 1: get up and I couldn't get up. I was saying
Speaker 1: to my body, the val get up, and I wasn't moving.
Speaker 1: I remember being extremely hot, and the reason why I
Speaker 1: was hot is because I was feeling cold, like the
Speaker 1: chills when I went in the room. So I put
Speaker 1: the heat all the way up and turned the blanket on.
Speaker 1: Then I was feeling hot. So I woke up and
Speaker 1: I was sweating, telling my legs just get down. My
Speaker 1: legs are not moving. She's like develoured with the matter.
Speaker 1: I'm like, yo, I don't. I don't feel that. I
Speaker 1: can't move. I can't move. So she puts her hand
Speaker 1: on my foe and she's like, yo, you're sweating. Bro,
Speaker 1: Like I'm gonna call the medic. She calls the medic.
Speaker 1: The medic comes in and was just like, bro, you know,
Speaker 1: what's the matter. How do you feel? And to be honest,
Speaker 1: I started getting nervous, like I felt scared. He was like, yo,
Speaker 1: can you sit up? So I'm like, I don't think
Speaker 1: I can sit up. He was like, yo, if you
Speaker 1: can't sit up? And after cold ambulance. Earlier in the week,
Speaker 1: we had had someone passed out on set because um
Speaker 1: ironically enough, that first day of shooting, it was it
Speaker 1: was in November, but it was eighty eight degrees. The
Speaker 1: first member we had a anomaly. It was an abnormally
Speaker 1: hot day in November and we were filming outside on
Speaker 1: this day and one of our mild castmates pass stout
Speaker 1: because of the heat. We were all dressed up in
Speaker 1: our sweaters and stuff, thinking we're going outside in the
Speaker 1: cold and that's what it called for. But she was
Speaker 1: standing outside for a number of hours in the heat.
Speaker 1: So they're like, may you may be dehydrated. I go
Speaker 1: downstairs too. Um once after, you know, I sat up.
Speaker 1: He was like, um, if you can't see if I'm up,
Speaker 1: to call an ambulance. I said, no, let me sit up.
Speaker 1: I don't want you to call an ambulance. It's Friday.
Speaker 1: If they call an ambulance and I can't finish shooting,
Speaker 1: we lose a whole day because I had a number
Speaker 1: of scenes at the end of the day. And if
Speaker 1: you lose the day, it goes pushed the next week,
Speaker 1: and that, you know, costs more money for the studio.
Speaker 1: So I'm like no, And I also didn't want to
Speaker 1: It's gonna sound crazy. I didn't want to go to
Speaker 1: the doctor and they tell me I had COVID of
Speaker 1: the fluid and I can't film for the rest of
Speaker 1: the film shoot days. And if that happens, then everybody
Speaker 1: has to wait until after the holidays to work, which
Speaker 1: means people don't get paid before Christmas. People don't get
Speaker 1: paid before New Year, and they don't get paid for Thanksgiving.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't want to be the reason why.
Speaker 1: So I will myself to just get up. And I'm like,
Speaker 1: get up, get up. So I get up. Um, he
Speaker 1: takes my temperature. My temperature was like nine nine. It
Speaker 1: wasn't like that high. So he's like, I don't He's like,
Speaker 1: I don't think you you're sick because you don't have
Speaker 1: a fever. I think you were hot initially because you're
Speaker 1: in here with the heat on and you have a
Speaker 1: blanket on. And I told him I felt cold. So
Speaker 1: they gave me some liquid, I VS give me a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of medicines and stuff, and they're like, can
Speaker 1: you finish. So I didn't have a cough, I didn't
Speaker 1: have a running nose or anything, so I'm like, here,
Speaker 1: I can finish. I end up getting up, take the
Speaker 1: liquid I v I drink three bottles of water. I
Speaker 1: didn't use the bathroom at this point, I didn't realize
Speaker 1: what was happening. I get up. I finished my scenes.
Speaker 1: My scenes ended up being the last scenes of the night,
Speaker 1: so I was there until twelve o'clock. And I drive home.
Speaker 1: Me and K have a conversation. When I get home,
Speaker 1: my parents are waiting for me when I come in
Speaker 1: the house because I called him and told him I
Speaker 1: wasn't feeling well. Um. When I get home, I go
Speaker 1: to wait myself. Now right now, I'm naturally around pounds.
Speaker 1: When I weighed myself that day, I was a hundred
Speaker 1: and eighty five pounds, and that's where it hit me.
Speaker 1: Then I'm burnt out. Don't push me because I'm close
Speaker 1: to the edge. Try again, not to lose my head.
Speaker 1: It's like a jungle sometimes to make me wonder what
Speaker 1: they want to take us something, what they want to
Speaker 1: take us something. That's how we're feeling at the edge
Speaker 1: of the bed, like, don't push me off the edges.
Speaker 1: But I really want to go back to sleep, but
Speaker 1: I can't. You know, you got to do to do.
Speaker 1: All right, let's take a break and then we're gonna
Speaker 1: get back into story time and just kind of unravel
Speaker 1: it a bit. Yeah, okay, all right, and we're back.
Speaker 1: So at this point, de val Um, I wasn't here
Speaker 1: and I am in America, and I want to put
Speaker 1: this of the country. Mark this down for a podcast
Speaker 1: for us to do about miscommunications, because this story leads
Speaker 1: into a huge miscommunication between Codeine and I. Yes, it
Speaker 1: was an awful, awful, awful time for us. Um, it
Speaker 1: was like bitter sweets, all of the bittersweet moments all
Speaker 1: in one major disagreement, made your argument major tears. It
Speaker 1: was like a big yeah talking about raveling. It was
Speaker 1: a big deal, um exactly. So I from a distance
Speaker 1: was trying to decipher, like what was going on with you? Um,
Speaker 1: And I'm so used to whenever you're filming, knowing how
Speaker 1: strenuous your schedule is at TPS that devours usually completely
Speaker 1: locked in and we don't hear, but I try to
Speaker 1: keep all distractions away from you. So that was the
Speaker 1: whole purpose of us bringing in the reinforcements. So we
Speaker 1: had your parents, your grandparents in here, so we're like
Speaker 1: four adults in the house. Your sister was here as well.
Speaker 1: We got five adults in the house to kind of
Speaker 1: divide and conquer with the kids. So that way you
Speaker 1: can focus. And typically you stay on campus when you film,
Speaker 1: but this time around you didn't because you've felt like, Okay,
Speaker 1: at the end of the nights, I can come home,
Speaker 1: spend some time with the family at least for an
Speaker 1: hour or two and then go back. But it wasn't
Speaker 1: just that. It was just that. It was also because
Speaker 1: remember I had missed Jackson's football banquet the want Offensive
Speaker 1: Outstanding offensive Back, first year back in football, and he
Speaker 1: said to Okay, he said, Mom, you know this is
Speaker 1: why I would never be an actor, because you missed
Speaker 1: moments like this, so that that hurt me, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. That hurt me a lot. And I
Speaker 1: was like, you know what, if if it's going to
Speaker 1: take an hour out of my day in the morning,
Speaker 1: in an hour out of my day at night of sleep,
Speaker 1: then I'm just going to drive home so I can
Speaker 1: at least see my boys at night or at least
Speaker 1: wake up in the morning and kissed him before I
Speaker 1: go off to work. So I made a choice to
Speaker 1: drive and be here. Right. Um, what was particularly interesting
Speaker 1: to me when you told that story just hearing you
Speaker 1: tell it now for everyone to hear, not hearing it
Speaker 1: from my perspective. In that moment, you were so concerned
Speaker 1: about everyone else and their livelihood and making sure that
Speaker 1: they would be okay, that you completely put yourself on
Speaker 1: the back burner. You said, if I didn't work on
Speaker 1: this Friday, or if I got diagnosed with something that
Speaker 1: would put me out for that next week, then this,
Speaker 1: you know, the cast couldn't work, The cast couldn't get
Speaker 1: paid before the holidays. It would cost Tyler money. Like
Speaker 1: you were thinking about everyone else but yourself. And that
Speaker 1: is just a testament to the person that you are.
Speaker 1: And I think that contributes so much too. On the
Speaker 1: on the on the back end, um, this is the
Speaker 1: bitter side. That's the sweet side. The bitter side is
Speaker 1: that it now causes you to be working and functioning
Speaker 1: continually as at the deficit. Yeah, that's a problem, and
Speaker 1: I receive what you're saying, but I also agree that
Speaker 1: I believe everyone in the cast makes the same sacrifice.
Speaker 1: You know, I feel like everyone who has an important
Speaker 1: job that the job can and I say the cast
Speaker 1: specifically because we're the ones in front of the camera, right,
Speaker 1: So if if someone gets sick, that's a part of
Speaker 1: the grip. So the p s no one will know
Speaker 1: if they're replaced. But when you come to watch the show,
Speaker 1: if Zach isn't there, no one else can play Zack.
Speaker 1: Like if if Danny isn't there, no one else can
Speaker 1: play Danny or for Team or or Andy. So I
Speaker 1: think all the casts make it a point, and we
Speaker 1: talk about this weeks leading up to filming. Because of
Speaker 1: our shooting schedule and because we don't have time to
Speaker 1: do reshoots, we all kind of isolate ourselves from the
Speaker 1: world so that we don't get sick, because that has
Speaker 1: been our our world for the past three years. With COVID.
Speaker 1: You know, if you test positive for COVID, you can't film,
Speaker 1: and at TPS we film all of the season in
Speaker 1: two weeks. So if you test positive for COVID and
Speaker 1: that takes you out for ten days, then the whole
Speaker 1: shoot gets pushed back. And the way Tyler schedule work,
Speaker 1: you don't film in November, you may not be coming
Speaker 1: back again until February. So I think everyone in the
Speaker 1: cast makes uh decision once we find out we're going back,
Speaker 1: all right, two weeks out, I can't go to events,
Speaker 1: you know, I miss family time if things are happening,
Speaker 1: So and we all make that decision. So what isn't
Speaker 1: just me? You're absolutely right? Case in point um Crystal.
Speaker 1: Crystal's Dakota's godmother, and we were trying to plan his
Speaker 1: first birthday party and his crystaling in one and where
Speaker 1: she was supposed to come to New York and at
Speaker 1: this point we didn't even know y'all were filming it,
Speaker 1: and then it just kind of came up, like, hey,
Speaker 1: we're gonna be filming, which put us like two weeks
Speaker 1: after one would have been his first birthday party and
Speaker 1: it's christening and she's like, Sis, you know, I really
Speaker 1: want to be there for sure, but typically I locked
Speaker 1: myself down. So let's try to find a way to
Speaker 1: make this work. So we ended up doing everything safely.
Speaker 1: We had people COVID testing, people staying at home. I
Speaker 1: think people now um understand that if they're not feeling well,
Speaker 1: I just don't just just don't go nowhere, and people
Speaker 1: are very sensitive to that now. I also made an
Speaker 1: effort to not be in the crowds, like when if
Speaker 1: he was where's devout, Where's Delo? A lot of time
Speaker 1: I was outside, Yeah, and it wasn't because I was
Speaker 1: trying to avoid anybody, but you're in closed spaces. We
Speaker 1: had about seventy five people come to the first birthday party,
Speaker 1: and you know, if one person is sick or sneeze
Speaker 1: or cough and I don't want to be the reason
Speaker 1: that everyone has to wear masks. It's my son's first
Speaker 1: birthday party. His first birthday party shouldn't be about what
Speaker 1: his dad does for work. So it was like, yo,
Speaker 1: let people have a good time. I'm going to remove myself.
Speaker 1: I'll come in for pictures. I'll come in and say
Speaker 1: hi and sup. But I'm gonna be outside because I
Speaker 1: also can't be the reason why the production doesn't go on.
Speaker 1: So that's everything that was going on my mind. And
Speaker 1: part of burnout is a mental burnout. How do you
Speaker 1: balance trying to be what you need to be for
Speaker 1: your production but also be what you need to be
Speaker 1: for your family. In the midst of all that, we
Speaker 1: had a whole bunch of other production shoots and stuff
Speaker 1: to do for the book tour and the podcast and
Speaker 1: the live podcast. It was just so many things that
Speaker 1: my mind was like, like, I was exhausted. The days
Speaker 1: were rolling into the days, and I remember saying, you
Speaker 1: know how I lost the fifteen pounds in those five days.
Speaker 1: I woke up on the Monday and said, you know what,
Speaker 1: let me kiss all the boys before I leave. I
Speaker 1: don't need to get anything to eat because when I
Speaker 1: get there, I get somebody eat. When I get I
Speaker 1: get on set. The traffic is so bad coming from
Speaker 1: here going to the studio that every time I got there,
Speaker 1: it was right before I needed to get in the
Speaker 1: chair because I was also so tired. So I would
Speaker 1: get there and be like, I gotta get in the chair. Oh,
Speaker 1: I gotta get ready for makeup. Oh I gotta get
Speaker 1: ready for hair, and then they're like a devout, we
Speaker 1: need you on set. Fine, I'll eat that lunch. Then
Speaker 1: lunch would get there, and when when lunch I get there,
Speaker 1: my cast needs to be like, bro, we got seven
Speaker 1: scenes after lunch, like let's run. I'm like bent, let's run,
Speaker 1: let's run. Then I'd be like, you know what, I
Speaker 1: took a couple of bites of food at lunch. Run
Speaker 1: my lines. I'll eat when I get home. Then we
Speaker 1: get we finished. We wrap it twelve o'clock. I drive
Speaker 1: home is one one thirty, and I'm so tired. I'm like, man,
Speaker 1: let me just get into bed. I'll take a couple
Speaker 1: of bites of food. I'm so tired, and I have
Speaker 1: to rehearse, so I'm face timing my castmates because I'm
Speaker 1: not staying on campus. I mean the facetiming them for
Speaker 1: an hour to go over the scenes we have tomorrow,
Speaker 1: or I'm just studying my lines, and then I go
Speaker 1: to sleep, wake up, and repeat the same thing for
Speaker 1: five days, not realizing I'm going off of bits of
Speaker 1: food and not even order. So most of the fifteen
Speaker 1: pounds I lost was waterway and I was extremely dehydrated.
Speaker 1: That's why I felt the way I felt. On top
Speaker 1: of that, it was all the mental strain and the
Speaker 1: emotional stuff from the months of pounding onto my schedule
Speaker 1: that I literally was burnt out, absolutely And when I
Speaker 1: think about burnout, um, I've seen it, mean recently that
Speaker 1: kind of broke down different ways that people can be exhausted.
Speaker 1: So you know, sometimes you just say, oh, I'm super
Speaker 1: super tired, like I'm just tired. I need to sleep.
Speaker 1: So it's like a physical layer of exhaustion, right that
Speaker 1: need to just feeling like I want to sleep. Then
Speaker 1: you have the mental, you know, exhaustion where it's just
Speaker 1: like I just wish I could disconnect, turn my mind off,
Speaker 1: stop thinking about all of the things that needs to
Speaker 1: get done, could be getting done. Um. Then of course
Speaker 1: emotional exhaustion there can also be spiritual exhaustion. There's so
Speaker 1: many different ways to kind of, you know, categorize zero
Speaker 1: exhaustion and how you're burnt out. So I think we
Speaker 1: can touch on a little bit of that and how
Speaker 1: it's affected us. UM looking at some facts and stats.
Speaker 1: According to World Health Organization, burnout is a syndrome resulting
Speaker 1: from workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It's
Speaker 1: characterized by three dimensions feeling of feelings of energy depletion
Speaker 1: or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job or feelings
Speaker 1: of negatives, negativism or cynicism related to one's job, and
Speaker 1: reduced professional efficacy. That's a fancy as word, the fancy
Speaker 1: as words, um, so three types of burnout. Burnout by
Speaker 1: volumes so being too busy to slow down and rest,
Speaker 1: which I think is something that we both suffer from.
Speaker 1: Burnout by boredom, not being challenged or interested in your
Speaker 1: life or work. I don't think that does not apply
Speaker 1: for us. I wish I had time to be bored, y'all,
Speaker 1: I wish. And then burnout by socialization, so committing to
Speaker 1: others more than yourself, which definitely I think is a
Speaker 1: layer for us so much of our job requires us
Speaker 1: to interact with people. Um And I was even talking
Speaker 1: to the podcast Cruely other night and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if it's the burnout that made me
Speaker 1: feel this way, or if it was the pandemic, or
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit of both. But someone who's always
Speaker 1: been so social and people person in more recent years,
Speaker 1: I want to say, in the past two years, I
Speaker 1: found that I'm become more of an introvert, like I
Speaker 1: enjoy just being either alone or just with my immediate family,
Speaker 1: or just taking time to just have peace and quiet.
Speaker 1: And it may just be also in part because our
Speaker 1: house literally always has someone in something going, whether it's
Speaker 1: something work related, just having family coming into town, and
Speaker 1: that sometimes it's a conflict for you and I because
Speaker 1: you are still Mr. Social Butterflies, so You're always like,
Speaker 1: come on by, come on by, and then I'm just like, well,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk to nobody today, So how
Speaker 1: is that gonna work out? When you don't want someone
Speaker 1: to feel like they're not welcome when your home, Because
Speaker 1: of course we do welcome people here to come by
Speaker 1: and visit and stuff. But it's like, if I'm tired
Speaker 1: and I'm burnt out. I just literally don't want to
Speaker 1: have to sometimes even think about opening my mouth to
Speaker 1: address someone and have small talk. You know what's funny,
Speaker 1: my burner, you know what, my burnout having company because
Speaker 1: when I'm when I'm here by myself, my mind wonders
Speaker 1: and it's like wanders so and it's like what didn't
Speaker 1: I do? What can be done better? And how can
Speaker 1: I fix it? Right now? And when I'm here by myself,
Speaker 1: I don't have many forms of entertainment that I'm like
Speaker 1: that interested in right, like right now. My It's been
Speaker 1: this way for the past six years. Right. I'm the
Speaker 1: person that told myself, I'm going to build my social
Speaker 1: media following, to get my platform up, to boost my
Speaker 1: profile so I can be an actor and do all
Speaker 1: these things. And I want to build a legacy for
Speaker 1: my family, my wife. And I told Matt, who's part
Speaker 1: of the podcast team. Now, I told him this years
Speaker 1: ago what I was gonna do, right, and I've been
Speaker 1: I've been like willing it to happen. So part of
Speaker 1: that is me feeling like if I don't do something,
Speaker 1: it's all gonna fall apart, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 1: Part of the burnout comes from feeling like you can't
Speaker 1: delegate responsibilities and you have to handle everything because it
Speaker 1: all comes from your mind, you know. And when I
Speaker 1: don't have people here, like when the podcast is done,
Speaker 1: when everyone goes home for a minute, it's like, was
Speaker 1: that good enough? Next time? We can do more rather
Speaker 1: than do two podics, do three podcasts. And I have
Speaker 1: to talk myself out of doing more because for me
Speaker 1: in the recent past, more has gotten us more. And
Speaker 1: after being in the NFL and I don't want to
Speaker 1: say failing, but coming up short in what I wanted
Speaker 1: to do, mainly because I wasn't all in, I started
Speaker 1: to feel like I gotta be all in and everything,
Speaker 1: and if I'm not all in, then I'm gonna fail again.
Speaker 1: And that's what's contributed to the burnout. Because I also
Speaker 1: do the same thing to my kids. I take them
Speaker 1: to practice. I see the things that aren't being done,
Speaker 1: and now I'm coaching on the team. And now that
Speaker 1: I'm coaching on the team, I can see all the
Speaker 1: deficiencies that Jackson got. So I take them to the gym,
Speaker 1: let's work on all your deficiencies. And then I become
Speaker 1: addicted to his success, very much like how I got
Speaker 1: addicted to your success, and we talked about this in
Speaker 1: the book, and a matter of fact, that's another podcast
Speaker 1: we can talk about being addicted to your partner's success.
Speaker 1: It's like, all of these things because of my personality
Speaker 1: being so addictive, contributes to me burning out because I
Speaker 1: don't know how to put one down. You know, the
Speaker 1: podcast has gotta be perfect. Sister's got to be perfect,
Speaker 1: the travel show gotta be perfect, my marriage got to
Speaker 1: be perfect. I got a parent perfect, the team has
Speaker 1: to be perfect, which means all the kid's got to
Speaker 1: be perfect. And then before you know what, I'm trying
Speaker 1: to put all this energy into all of these things
Speaker 1: and none of it into myself. Yep, you are the
Speaker 1: epitome of spread thin. Yeah, You're the epitome spread thing.
Speaker 1: And I feel like watching you over the years just
Speaker 1: as a person, a lot of this is a testimony
Speaker 1: to who you are. So you've become as successful as
Speaker 1: you've been now, and I think it's only the start
Speaker 1: because it's literally sees that we've been planting and you've
Speaker 1: been planting that I've witnessed over the past twenty years
Speaker 1: and more aggressively with your career in the past six years. Um,
Speaker 1: but also too, you have a problem with delegating and
Speaker 1: letting people do their job. But I understand that because
Speaker 1: a lot of times, even when we do delegate, we
Speaker 1: always look to you to say, devour what do you
Speaker 1: think because I think there's a pressure that for example,
Speaker 1: me as your wife and your business partner and your
Speaker 1: your co host, there's a pressure that I feel to
Speaker 1: measure up to a standard that you have, and that
Speaker 1: burns me out mentally because it's always am I good enough?
Speaker 1: For am I doing enough? Or I'll feel guilty for like,
Speaker 1: for example, when the podcast is over, your thinking of
Speaker 1: what can be doing next, and I'm like, oh, great,
Speaker 1: the podcast is over. Let me go into my corner
Speaker 1: and just sit for a second and completely blank out.
Speaker 1: Let me watch a show and let me spend time
Speaker 1: with the kids, let me do something that takes my
Speaker 1: mind off of work, whereas you're thinking about the next thing.
Speaker 1: So it's it's a tough place to be in because
Speaker 1: I can appreciate it, and I can see how you've
Speaker 1: become that delusionally successful person and you will be that
Speaker 1: and it's only going to go up from here. But
Speaker 1: it also too, is at your detriment. So I feel
Speaker 1: like my purpose or a large part of my purposes,
Speaker 1: as I help you to achieve those things, I have
Speaker 1: to keep you grounded and keep you um in a
Speaker 1: space where I'm creating an environment for you to have
Speaker 1: downtime and forcing that downtime on you in a sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like you made me go away on vacation. Absolutely, or
Speaker 1: even for my birthday, I'm like, shoot, I was burnt
Speaker 1: out by the time my birthday hit. Do anything for
Speaker 1: your birthday? And that's the first time you already know, y'all.
Speaker 1: Know y'all, you know how I feel about the holiday time.
Speaker 1: So once October hits, it starts holiday season for you. Right,
Speaker 1: So October hits, it's holiday season, Halloween happens. Then I'm
Speaker 1: starting to gear up for my birthday, which is December five.
Speaker 1: My Christmas trees are going up November one. My trees
Speaker 1: are up the entire Thanksgiving seasons. We have family, friends
Speaker 1: over then we go spiral right into my birthday. Right
Speaker 1: out of my birthday, we're gearing up for Christmas the
Speaker 1: new year. I had zero energy to do any of
Speaker 1: that this year. And that's how you know that could
Speaker 1: Seene had had enough. My mom, bless her heart, put
Speaker 1: up ball six of my trees by herself. Okay, because
Speaker 1: in the minds exactly, and I'm like, the children deserved
Speaker 1: to at least have that as we were still ripping
Speaker 1: and running to works the end of the year and
Speaker 1: for my birthday this year, typically I'm like, oh shoot,
Speaker 1: I'm like, shoot, this is thirty nine, my last year
Speaker 1: in my thirties. I'm gonna have a thirty fine birthday.
Speaker 1: What do we do for my birthday? A staycation and
Speaker 1: all in a random airbnb off the grid. Uber eats
Speaker 1: to the Airbnb. We both were scared, watched Netflix and
Speaker 1: that was it. But I think we do have to
Speaker 1: talk a little bit about why we needed that, because
Speaker 1: it also leads into ways to come back burnout right
Speaker 1: um after the whole scare with me and guys, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna be honest, I thought I was having a stroke.
Speaker 1: Like I work out every single day, I still lift heavyweights,
Speaker 1: I still do sprints, I still play basketball, I can
Speaker 1: still run fast and jumphie. So when I couldn't lift
Speaker 1: my legs out of the bed and my vision was
Speaker 1: blurry and I was feeling like all these different like
Speaker 1: temperature changes. I thought I was having a stroke. I
Speaker 1: thought that I had like like worried myself into having
Speaker 1: having some neurological to dysfunction in my body. And I
Speaker 1: was extremely scared. And coming off of that, I still
Speaker 1: had to finish the week of filming. So we finished
Speaker 1: the week of filming. But then we had to go
Speaker 1: right into planning cases fifth birthday in Disney World, and
Speaker 1: we did that, and I was exhausted, and I people
Speaker 1: knew I was exhausted. There were comments on Instagram, people
Speaker 1: like your the value look tired. You need some rest.
Speaker 1: My mom, my dad, Everybody's like, yo, bro, you look tired.
Speaker 1: So Kay said, yo, for my birthday this year, we're
Speaker 1: not telling anybody where we're going, what we're doing. We
Speaker 1: need to get off the grid. We need to just
Speaker 1: spend a couple of days. And it was like four days,
Speaker 1: four days by ourselves. We told the Nora, we're not
Speaker 1: taking no business, old No. It was supposed to be
Speaker 1: a two week block. Remember there was a two week block.
Speaker 1: And two week block I say loosely because like we know,
Speaker 1: we can't take two weeks off of life, like there's
Speaker 1: just no way, right, especially if we're gearing up for
Speaker 1: a busy beginning of but within that we were like
Speaker 1: very minimal conversations about work and stuff, right, So go ahead, sorry,
Speaker 1: then while we're away, you know, And here's the funny point.
Speaker 1: I remember when Josh was here, we were filming the
Speaker 1: last couple episodes of the podcast for the year, and
Speaker 1: Josh and what you're doing with for K for her birthday.
Speaker 1: So me and K decided we're not going to tell anybody.
Speaker 1: We wanted to literally be away by ourselves and not
Speaker 1: have anybody know where we are, because typically when people
Speaker 1: know where we already asked us to do things, and
Speaker 1: and it's not like do things for them, it's just like, oh,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be here, this would be great content for
Speaker 1: this or you have a partnership with that. If you're
Speaker 1: gonna be there, do you mind stopping by this store?
Speaker 1: They're gonna pay X y Z for you to come in.
Speaker 1: And it's like, yo, don't tell nobody where we're going
Speaker 1: to be, right, so that we can just at least
Speaker 1: get some sleep and some rest, right, And it just worked.
Speaker 1: It worked out well for us in that moment. I
Speaker 1: think we did have some time to to disconnect and
Speaker 1: to reconnect in the business call. Yeah, you took a
Speaker 1: business call here and there. I was. I was annoyed,
Speaker 1: But again it goes back to me understanding like how
Speaker 1: you function. I know that you were not going to
Speaker 1: be able to rest if you had to be disconnected
Speaker 1: from work for that amount of time. But the thing
Speaker 1: that scared me the most in that moment, just as
Speaker 1: your wife and as a human and your best friend
Speaker 1: is somebody who cares for you, was seeing you literally
Speaker 1: break like you kept saying to me like, Hey, I
Speaker 1: feel like something broke is broken in me. That's what
Speaker 1: I kept saying, like something broke, and you couldn't get
Speaker 1: out of that rut for a bit um and that
Speaker 1: broke me in a sense because I'm like, ship, this
Speaker 1: is something that I don't even know if I can fix,
Speaker 1: And it's just like, oh my god, do I try
Speaker 1: to encourage him to go see a therapist? Like what
Speaker 1: exactly would have helped you to get out of that moment?
Speaker 1: I didn't know. So it left me feeling very helpless.
Speaker 1: And it was a very emotional time for both of
Speaker 1: us because coming off of the miscommunication that we had
Speaker 1: when everything transpired, when I was away in Jamaican. You
Speaker 1: were here filming, and then everything double down on that.
Speaker 1: It was just a really, really tough space for me
Speaker 1: to be in, and all I felt like I needed
Speaker 1: to do was just be there. And I remember at
Speaker 1: one point you were kind of breaking down. You're you're
Speaker 1: very emotional. You were telling me about how you felt,
Speaker 1: and all I could do in that moment was just
Speaker 1: sit and listen. You know, I feel like we both
Speaker 1: had that desire to want to fix what broken in
Speaker 1: each other, and sometimes we just don't have the answer.
Speaker 1: And I think in that moment it required me to
Speaker 1: just listen to you. And after I kind of listened
Speaker 1: to you and you kind of spoke slowly over the
Speaker 1: course of maybe thirty minutes about how you felt, and
Speaker 1: after that you were just like, man, I just I
Speaker 1: feel so much better that you just listened. You didn't
Speaker 1: try to intervene, you weren't trying to fix anything, but
Speaker 1: you were able to offload some of the things that
Speaker 1: you were thinking. Um And something that always kind of
Speaker 1: rests in the back of my mind whenever I look
Speaker 1: at you and I think about how much your brain
Speaker 1: just works and never turns off, you know, Alzheimer's running
Speaker 1: in your family. Yeah, you know different. Yeah, those that
Speaker 1: runs in your family. And I know some certain things
Speaker 1: are genetic, and we try to find ways to break
Speaker 1: the cycle of those things by you know, knowing better
Speaker 1: and doing better. So if it means changing your diet, exercising,
Speaker 1: if it means you know, having those mental touch bases,
Speaker 1: or having those offload moments, excuse me, having those offload moments,
Speaker 1: it will then hopefully combat those things from happening, right,
Speaker 1: And I don't want to, but I don't want to
Speaker 1: glance over what you said, like having Alzheimer's running my family.
Speaker 1: My grandmother went into early onset Alzheimer's in her sixties
Speaker 1: and my uncle Charles talked to Uncle Charles, he went
Speaker 1: into early on set all timers in his Alzheimer's in
Speaker 1: his early fifties and it was stress induced Alzheimers and
Speaker 1: ended up getting an m R in the cask and
Speaker 1: he had lesions on his brain which was caused by stress. Stress,
Speaker 1: and he was working multiple job. I'm trying to do
Speaker 1: everything that a man is supposed to do for his family,
Speaker 1: and a lot of that scared me because I was
Speaker 1: just like man, I do work a lot, and I
Speaker 1: often spend maybe three hours sleeping. And you know, a
Speaker 1: lot of people make jokes about quality sleep. Yeah, quality sleep,
Speaker 1: Like a lot of people make jokes about marijuana and
Speaker 1: the becoming legal, and I gotta smoke. I gotta do this.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna tell you this right now, guys. I don't
Speaker 1: sleep well if I don't drink a glass of wine
Speaker 1: or if I don't smoke a little bit. Right before
Speaker 1: I go to bed, my brain is constantly thinking about
Speaker 1: what has to happen next. I check my emails first
Speaker 1: thing in the morning, last thing before I go to sleep.
Speaker 1: I checked my bank account first thing in the morning,
Speaker 1: last thing before I go to sleep. And that's just
Speaker 1: my personality. I just I'm super controlling. But I'm also afraid,
Speaker 1: you know, like I have an unhealth fear with losing everything.
Speaker 1: And it's like PTSD from what happened to us in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine. We
Speaker 1: literally did everything that they tell you you're supposed to
Speaker 1: do when you're a professional athlete. I took my money,
Speaker 1: I put it in the stock market. I took my money,
Speaker 1: I invested in property. I didn't buy big fancy cars,
Speaker 1: we didn't travel all the time, we didn't buy jewelry.
Speaker 1: I did all of the things. Then the financial market
Speaker 1: crashes and we run into the biggest recession since the
Speaker 1: Great Depression, and we lose everything and have to start over.
Speaker 1: My biggest fear is that having to have that happened
Speaker 1: again and were having to do that again. So I
Speaker 1: feel like I just I woke around with this anxiety.
Speaker 1: It's like, is this the day that everything stops? Because
Speaker 1: I remember that feeling I was. It was two thousand
Speaker 1: and eight. I was on my way to camp and
Speaker 1: I was driving your Here I am in the NFL.
Speaker 1: I was driving Cadine's Accurate TSX. Still didn't buy a
Speaker 1: fancy car. I was listening to um, Ain't it pretty?
Speaker 1: Ain't it pretty? When she was you're pretty? And I
Speaker 1: remember giving you a kiss when we left the home
Speaker 1: that we had just purchased. We had just got engaged
Speaker 1: and feeling like, man, everything is just perfect. Go into camp,
Speaker 1: and then three weeks later, after having a great camp,
Speaker 1: getting cut, and then after getting cut two days later,
Speaker 1: turning on the TV and being the stock market fell
Speaker 1: for consecutive days for the first time since nine and
Speaker 1: then being on the phone and being like, Yo, what's
Speaker 1: going on with my account? Like, and I remember it
Speaker 1: like it was like everything's perfect, Everything's fine. If I
Speaker 1: was gonna make the team he started, he's slated to
Speaker 1: be the starting returner. It's like everything perfect to a
Speaker 1: nightmare in weeks, like a matter of weeks, And that
Speaker 1: pts D gives me so much anxiety, and I walk
Speaker 1: around always trying to do stuff to make sure that
Speaker 1: that doesn't happen. And I think that contributed to my burnout,
Speaker 1: But I also realize how me being like that contributes
Speaker 1: to everyone around me is burnout. Like sometimes I can
Speaker 1: tell when I'm like, I'm like, okay, I'm overwhelming you, right.
Speaker 1: I can look at Jackson and be like, wait a minute,
Speaker 1: I think I'm overwhelming Jackson. I can look at the
Speaker 1: podcast crew sometimes and be like, ah, ship, they be
Speaker 1: wanting to cry too, because you always you're saying to me.
Speaker 1: Sometimes you look at me and my eyes will just
Speaker 1: well up and you'll be talking to me and you'd
Speaker 1: be like, Yo, what did I say to make you cry?
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I don't even know what. I just
Speaker 1: feel like at this moment, like I'm not doing enough
Speaker 1: like I should be doing something and it makes me emotional.
Speaker 1: Same thing with Jackson, You're just like, yo, why is
Speaker 1: it when I seek to people like they feel like
Speaker 1: they want to cry? And it's like, I think it's
Speaker 1: all I know Jackson, I share the same sentiment that
Speaker 1: we don't want to disappoint you, you know, seeing as
Speaker 1: though you're such a high achiever and you always are
Speaker 1: expecting the best out of people. It's like ship, here
Speaker 1: I am as my life partner, here he is as
Speaker 1: your child, and we just don't want to let you down.
Speaker 1: We don't want to disappointe. We don't want to be
Speaker 1: the weak link. Nobody wants to be the weak like
Speaker 1: the crew, nobody wants to be the weak link, you know. Um,
Speaker 1: And it's it's it's a crazy juxtaposition because it's like,
Speaker 1: you know, I am sharp and tiring, right, so you
Speaker 1: want to be in your presence and you want to
Speaker 1: work with someone like you because it's like, damn, this
Speaker 1: person is gonna make me that much more motivated. This
Speaker 1: this person is going to help me get to whatever
Speaker 1: goal it is that I have set for myself. This
Speaker 1: person is gonna show me a way to do something
Speaker 1: that I really want to do right, You think about
Speaker 1: even just Josh and Matt on the team and they
Speaker 1: we're shooting weddings as as a as a photographer and
Speaker 1: doing so well in that field, and then saying like, man,
Speaker 1: I feel like this more to my talent, Like I
Speaker 1: can do more. I can start doing video, we can
Speaker 1: start editing, we can do a production company. And then
Speaker 1: you found ways to be able to help everyone see
Speaker 1: that much more potential in themselves and achieve those things.
Speaker 1: But then it's also like damn, like there's never an
Speaker 1: off button. But that's usually with most successful people. Yeah, Like,
Speaker 1: like one thing I'm not gonna do is apologize for
Speaker 1: seeing Like if there's a gift that I think that
Speaker 1: God gave me, right, I don't think that my gift
Speaker 1: is in in creating and gift is in being funny
Speaker 1: or I feel like my gift is seeing other people's gifts.
Speaker 1: For sure, every business that I've built, whether it was
Speaker 1: from Elite Prototype Athletics to the Sports Performance Lab to
Speaker 1: the mentorship program, I've always seen things and people and
Speaker 1: be like, yo, you know, if you do things like this,
Speaker 1: you could expand your business and your reach exponentially. Take Roger.
Speaker 1: For example, Roger graduated from college, had no clue what
Speaker 1: he wanted to do, and I was like college, like, Roger,
Speaker 1: you're a great teacher. So, for those of you who
Speaker 1: don't know, Roger worked with de Val as part of
Speaker 1: the program. He was actually was one of my mentees.
Speaker 1: He was MO mentees. He went to Madison like I did,
Speaker 1: but he's way younger than me. He was about what
Speaker 1: sixteen seventeen sixteen? He was in two thousand and nine.
Speaker 1: Hours two thousand and seven, I had went back to
Speaker 1: Madison and retired my jersey. He was a freshman. We
Speaker 1: kept in touch at that time he left. He was
Speaker 1: the leading Russian on the senior year of high school.
Speaker 1: I was looking for college scholar tips. My brother and
Speaker 1: I helped him get a college scholarship to see the
Speaker 1: you post. He ended up earning his full scholarship, and
Speaker 1: he became like like our little brother. Roger's biggest dream
Speaker 1: was to go to the NFL. One thing I saw
Speaker 1: in Roger was that he was so detailed oriented with
Speaker 1: how he broke down the game. I was like, yo,
Speaker 1: he would be a great coach. But then I was
Speaker 1: thinking bigger, I'm like, forget this coach. He could be
Speaker 1: a great teacher, like life teacher. Then he was he
Speaker 1: um graduated from college, NFL didn't happen. He's like, I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do next. I started the mentorship
Speaker 1: program through Prototype, which was a partnership with the United Way,
Speaker 1: where they gave me funds so that I could create
Speaker 1: opportunities to put mentors, young black male mentors in public
Speaker 1: schools in Brooklyn. So we started this whole initiative in
Speaker 1: this program, and I took the kids that graduated from
Speaker 1: college who didn't reached their dream of playing in the
Speaker 1: NFL and NBA, and I said, here's an opportunity to
Speaker 1: use what you've learned in college to mentor young people
Speaker 1: who look like you. I said, you got two years
Speaker 1: to figure out what you want to do next. In
Speaker 1: those two years, we paid them make sure that they
Speaker 1: had a smooth transition into the real world. I noticed
Speaker 1: that Roger was really good with the kids, and he
Speaker 1: could relate and he was good at educating. And I said, you,
Speaker 1: why don't you just be a teacher. So then he
Speaker 1: went back to school, got his master's degree, became a teacher,
Speaker 1: passed these exams to get his license so that he
Speaker 1: could be a teacher. So he became a teacher, and
Speaker 1: then he started tutoring, and I was like, Roger, why
Speaker 1: why would you just tootor one or two kids. Why
Speaker 1: don't you build a program when you can to the
Speaker 1: multiple kids. And I started talking to him about it,
Speaker 1: and we built this whole program out and he took it.
Speaker 1: And and now he's retired from teaching. He's I think
Speaker 1: about to turn thirty or maybe thirty, and he has
Speaker 1: uh business making a quarter million dollars that he runs
Speaker 1: from his home. And it's like God blessed me with
Speaker 1: the vision to see people's potential. I see when people
Speaker 1: do stuff and I'm like, yo, do you know you
Speaker 1: can do this? And I want that for myself as well,
Speaker 1: So I can see the vision. And I got the
Speaker 1: vision to see what God has placed in me. I
Speaker 1: can see it in you. I tell you all the
Speaker 1: time since how I met you. I was like, Yo,
Speaker 1: I can see you can do so many different things.
Speaker 1: And I feel like part of the issue is I
Speaker 1: push people a lot, hoping that they can see what
Speaker 1: I see. But I do realize how hard it is
Speaker 1: to get to that level. And unless you have the
Speaker 1: mental fortitude to withstand the type of work necessary. Most
Speaker 1: people are gonna burn out. So in Roger's instance, you
Speaker 1: showed him all of these things that he could potentially do,
Speaker 1: but he ultimately had to execute You to do it,
Speaker 1: you have to do it. So that's the conflict I
Speaker 1: think for you sometimes is that you're just like, man,
Speaker 1: this person can do even with me, You're like, you
Speaker 1: can do all these things, but do you want to
Speaker 1: do it? Is the question? You know, And that's when
Speaker 1: sometimes I look at myself and I'm like, damn, I
Speaker 1: really think that I'm letting Devout down because he thinks
Speaker 1: that I can do all these things. I know I
Speaker 1: can do all these things, but then I usually end
Speaker 1: up self sabotage and or having another baby. And then
Speaker 1: back to the baby part is that's that was an
Speaker 1: agreement that we made together. We're gonna be having these babies.
Speaker 1: But but yeah, it's um. It's just one of those
Speaker 1: things where I feel like it's one of my duties
Speaker 1: as your partner, as your wife, as your best friend,
Speaker 1: who always do those touch bases. I said in my
Speaker 1: sound by earlier, checking on your strong friends. That's always
Speaker 1: you know, a model that you hear. Check on the
Speaker 1: strong ones, check on the one, check on the ones
Speaker 1: that are always smiling, check on the ones that always
Speaker 1: make other people laugh. That you're literally the prime example
Speaker 1: of that. But people don't see the downside of things
Speaker 1: when you well, yeah, I see it, and I know it,
Speaker 1: and I can feel it, and I don't know if
Speaker 1: you've realized, but in the past maybe a couple of
Speaker 1: weeks since we've had that fallout and then you know,
Speaker 1: we had our downtime around my birthday. I literally will
Speaker 1: be looking at you like are you okay? Like do
Speaker 1: you need anything in this moment? How can I help
Speaker 1: you in this moment? Just your your mental like how
Speaker 1: was your mental? How is your spirit? Like? Those are
Speaker 1: the questions that I now feel like I need to
Speaker 1: ask because I used to rely so much on the
Speaker 1: fact that the Val was always going to be all right,
Speaker 1: The Val was gonna figure it out. In part, when
Speaker 1: I was in Jamaica and you told me that that
Speaker 1: whole episode happened, I was like, oh, but I think
Speaker 1: that was gonna be all right because he's always all right.
Speaker 1: And then I had to check myself and be like ship, like,
Speaker 1: my husband is not always just going to be all
Speaker 1: right because he historically is. I have to know and
Speaker 1: I have to have the wherewithal to say, you know what,
Speaker 1: he's not really okay? Or how am I going to
Speaker 1: go the extra mount to make sure that he's okay? UM?
Speaker 1: So when you told me at the top of the year,
Speaker 1: we normally do it, it's been to kome a thing
Speaker 1: now like what's your word for the year? Um? And
Speaker 1: you assist so so and so, and I was like,
Speaker 1: why why so so? Because from now on, if I
Speaker 1: don't feel like doing something, I'm glad you asked that question,
Speaker 1: because we're gonna talk about way to combat burnout if
Speaker 1: I don't feel like doing something. In the past, I
Speaker 1: had to convince myself of a good enough reason why
Speaker 1: I didn't want to do it, and then I had
Speaker 1: to be able to articulate to other people why I
Speaker 1: couldn't in that time. Now I'm just gonna tell people
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it, and they're gonna give
Speaker 1: me reason why I should. And my answer is going
Speaker 1: to be so like so, like, I just I don't.
Speaker 1: I don't want to do it, and I don't care
Speaker 1: what reasons you give me that I should do it
Speaker 1: or how it could be beneficial to me. My answer
Speaker 1: is just going to be so it's not beneficial for
Speaker 1: me health wise, and it's not. And I think you
Speaker 1: also need to control the access people have to you,
Speaker 1: because you typically are always the ones to never put
Speaker 1: your phone down, always want to answer. People are coming
Speaker 1: to you because they know that you're good with brainstorming
Speaker 1: and coming up with ideas and what about this, And
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, everybody got business ideas and propositions
Speaker 1: and proposals for you. And it's just like your accessibility,
Speaker 1: I think, has to cut back. And it's crazy because
Speaker 1: when you look at people who make it out of
Speaker 1: their community or their environment, you wonder why they don't
Speaker 1: come back as much or all this person changed because
Speaker 1: I can't get in touch with them all the time.
Speaker 1: And it's in part because you just have to protect
Speaker 1: your your peace, protect your space. It's no ill feelings
Speaker 1: towards anybody, but sometimes I just need to disconnect a
Speaker 1: little bit or not be as accessible because I can't
Speaker 1: keep putting things out, making these you know, people making
Speaker 1: these with withdrawals and nobody making deposits. Alright, so real quick,
Speaker 1: we're gonna go over a couple of ways to combat burnout.
Speaker 1: And of course this is going to be dependent on
Speaker 1: the person in the situation they're in. But sometimes you
Speaker 1: need to say no. No, it's just no as an answer. No,
Speaker 1: it's like no, it can be an answer, was a complete,
Speaker 1: complete sentence, no exclamation point period. No, I don't want to. UM.
Speaker 1: Take personal time to unwind and relax as often as
Speaker 1: you can. Sometimes that's easier said than done. You can
Speaker 1: do the physical relaxing, you can, you know, disconnect for
Speaker 1: a bit, but tapping into people who may not know
Speaker 1: how to mentally disconnect like you, that might require a
Speaker 1: little bit more than just down or we're watching a
Speaker 1: show or you know, so that I think you need
Speaker 1: to be mindful if you are taking ways to she
Speaker 1: mentally disconnect. That's why I started meditating. UM. I also
Speaker 1: do the herbal meditations. You know, I can't go wrong
Speaker 1: with some herbal meditation. Indeed, indeed, UM, I don't even
Speaker 1: need all that. The drop of a dime obviously or
Speaker 1: cocked me out. Clocked me out. Ain't thinking about it.
Speaker 1: It's funny because at the end of the year, I
Speaker 1: told Nora and the team that I was hibernating for
Speaker 1: a while. They were just like, damn, we're kidding. We
Speaker 1: haven't heard from her. I said, y'all keep contacting me,
Speaker 1: and I told y'all, I'm clocked out. I don't know
Speaker 1: why I'll keep hitting me. Give me some time, and
Speaker 1: you have to demand it sometimes, UM seek support. So
Speaker 1: if you have, you know, assistance in the process of
Speaker 1: hiring an assistant, because this phone gives me anxiety. With
Speaker 1: my phone lights up or things, I instantly get a headache.
Speaker 1: Same and I'm like, what is wrong? What needs to
Speaker 1: be fixed? Same? What has changed? What's gonna cost? What? Like?
Speaker 1: How much is that? Like that assistant is en route
Speaker 1: because I would love to offload certain things so that
Speaker 1: things can be done more efficiently and focus on creating
Speaker 1: a life work work life balance, which seems virtually impossible
Speaker 1: when your life and work is kind of intertwined like us.
Speaker 1: But we've been very deliberate about that. We've reinstituted date nights,
Speaker 1: you know, our weekly date nights, so we can just
Speaker 1: take time to really online and reconnect because we don't
Speaker 1: do well if we're not. Yeah, we we nothing. Nothing
Speaker 1: is in balance in our life, whether it's to work
Speaker 1: or home. If we're not in balance. So we we
Speaker 1: were very deliberate about you know what, let's go back
Speaker 1: to the gym, right because what was happening with Hey
Speaker 1: and I were the gym for us was wasn't even
Speaker 1: like just a place to work out. It became a date.
Speaker 1: You get dressed up, you you know, you get in
Speaker 1: the car, you go to the gym, like it was
Speaker 1: a thing. So having a gym in your house, it
Speaker 1: was like, oh, I'm gonna work out when I get
Speaker 1: a time. So we weren't even doing it together anymore.
Speaker 1: She would work out on her time, I'm working on
Speaker 1: my time, and once again we were missing each other
Speaker 1: and then not sleeping. So you don't see the results
Speaker 1: of working out. So that was a high miss or
Speaker 1: not drinking your water. So now we made a decision
Speaker 1: like we're gonna go to the gym together as a date.
Speaker 1: We do that three times a week. I mean, it's
Speaker 1: my ideal day because y'all know I still have that
Speaker 1: love hate relationship with the gym. But the results are
Speaker 1: coming in her knee. You've been working your ass off.
Speaker 1: Well know, you've been working ass on and you have been.
Speaker 1: I will say that, and I will say this gentleman
Speaker 1: going to the gym with your partner, right, because I've
Speaker 1: I've seen a lot of comments when we're at the gym,
Speaker 1: and I see a lot of women saying, you see
Speaker 1: he goes to the gym with her. I know a
Speaker 1: lot of men feel like, well, I go to the
Speaker 1: gym with my friends because that's my god time. Plus,
Speaker 1: you don't want to go to the gym with your
Speaker 1: girl and have to argue with her about what to do.
Speaker 1: And I've become I was like that for a large
Speaker 1: portion of our life, and now I don't fight you,
Speaker 1: and I do want to say, two, ladies, if you
Speaker 1: do want him to take you to the gym, you
Speaker 1: also have to be receptive to what he's saying or
Speaker 1: what he's doing if you wanted to be a together thing.
Speaker 1: Plus I love watching my wife dead lift and squat
Speaker 1: in tights. So it's like, as much as I like
Speaker 1: being there with the guys, I don't want to see
Speaker 1: Josh and Matt and Dave do that at the gym.
Speaker 1: But you know, like that's not We can spend time
Speaker 1: eating pizza and drinking beers on the couch, but if
Speaker 1: I want to watch somebody squad I'm gonna take my
Speaker 1: wife to the gym. Start speaking of that. Did you
Speaker 1: see me on the rack yesterday? So I put the
Speaker 1: weight on my back for the first time in two years.
Speaker 1: I want to say, asked the grass babies six times?
Speaker 1: I'm oh, my gosh, So I love that. All right,
Speaker 1: let's take a quick break and we're gonna come back
Speaker 1: into some quick listener letters. So stay right there, all right,
Speaker 1: and we're back for the latter half of the show,
Speaker 1: which is listening letters. So let's start right in. First off,
Speaker 1: bless you and your family and podcast family Josh and
Speaker 1: Triple On. Thank you. I'll keep it to the point.
Speaker 1: I've been separated officially from my wife since April, but
Speaker 1: in her head we've been separated for two years, but
Speaker 1: yet we still lived together. I tried to make this
Speaker 1: marriage thing works so hard, but the stress was affecting
Speaker 1: my health, vision and work ethic. I told myself that
Speaker 1: I needed a fresh start in so I decided that
Speaker 1: I had to take her off my insurance and phone
Speaker 1: bill and we start filing the process. We have a
Speaker 1: son together that's eight, and he's my world, so co
Speaker 1: parenting is a must. But besides that, I don't want
Speaker 1: nothing in capital letters to do with his mother anymore.
Speaker 1: If you guys only knew the amount of verbal abuse
Speaker 1: I've taken from her over the last nine years, it
Speaker 1: would blow your mind. So do I just give her
Speaker 1: a thirty day notice before I cut her off? Or
Speaker 1: just do it be responsible and give her two weeks
Speaker 1: two weeks? Like any job, thirty days is a month.
Speaker 1: Two weeks is more than enough. Times when you when
Speaker 1: you're about to quit something, you give him a two weeks.
Speaker 1: You've already decided that y'all were separated. She also just
Speaker 1: said that y'all were separated for two years. Absolutely, so
Speaker 1: you got two weeks. We were separated for two years.
Speaker 1: We got two weeks to get a new insurance and
Speaker 1: get a new phone. And when she asked you, but
Speaker 1: how am I supposed to adopt the valsier word of
Speaker 1: the year. So that's no longer your problems? But I
Speaker 1: thought so, I don't care what you thought. Listen, y'all separated.
Speaker 1: Y'all officially separated. You have no obligations to that woman.
Speaker 1: And my hope and prayer for you is that you
Speaker 1: will be able to co parent successfully because I know
Speaker 1: you love your son and let's hope that she didn't
Speaker 1: give you any verbal abuse or any hard ways to go.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna hope and pray that I'm going to
Speaker 1: manifest that that's exactly what it's going to be, that
Speaker 1: y'all will be fine co parenting. I don't gotta hope
Speaker 1: and pray. Period. It only happens if you want it
Speaker 1: to happen. Do you want to successfully co parent, then
Speaker 1: it will happen. Since you're done for sure, and since
Speaker 1: you're done done, and you've already made that up in
Speaker 1: your mind and there's no reason for pettiness to transpire.
Speaker 1: I can't speak on her behalf, and you know who
Speaker 1: knows what that looks like on your end. Just to
Speaker 1: keep things amicable for your son, try to make it
Speaker 1: as smooth as possible. Two weeks notice check the deuces. Simple.
Speaker 1: Good luck, bro, Good luck my guy number two high.
Speaker 1: I need some advice because at this point I don't
Speaker 1: know how I stay in this relationship. My fiance and
Speaker 1: I have been together almost two years and have a
Speaker 1: beautiful baby boy. I love him dearly, but for the
Speaker 1: last couple of months we've only been having sex once
Speaker 1: a month. The sex is great, when we have it,
Speaker 1: but he can almost never get it up. I've tried
Speaker 1: to get him to go to the doctor. He won't
Speaker 1: make the time. We've tried vitamins and supplements over the counter,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't work. I'm attractive, so I don't think
Speaker 1: that's it. He tells me his parts just have a
Speaker 1: mind of its own. It's not fair how we can
Speaker 1: ask for an analogamous relationship won't have sex with me. Wow,
Speaker 1: he can ask for a night that we that's important.
Speaker 1: This is funny a woman is saying it. It's not
Speaker 1: fair how he can ask for a monogamous relationship but
Speaker 1: won't have sex with me. You know what's funny b that.
Speaker 1: You know how many women are gonna agree with that?
Speaker 1: But when I said it. When I said it, the
Speaker 1: drugged me through the way, trying to cancel me on Twitter.
Speaker 1: But I bet you hearing a woman saying, they're gonna
Speaker 1: be like, well, sense it's right because if you ain't
Speaker 1: dropping the deck, then now it goes both ways. But
Speaker 1: I agree with you, home girl, don't hey listen, hold
Speaker 1: that man accountable. He want to be he wanted to
Speaker 1: be monogamous. He's gonna say to you you can only
Speaker 1: be with me. You better tell that man, you better
Speaker 1: get that thing up and stand up your stand up
Speaker 1: for your woman. Shoe. Um. I feel like if the
Speaker 1: roles were reversed, his boys would tell him to leave
Speaker 1: me if I was the one not having sex with him.
Speaker 1: Probably yeah. But since I'm the female, I'm supposed to
Speaker 1: suck it up and wait. No, you're not you're not. No,
Speaker 1: you know I can't keep doing this. Please, no, listen,
Speaker 1: let me let me be clear and say this again.
Speaker 1: I'm probably going to get drugged through the mud again.
Speaker 1: All right, but this is a fact. If someone require
Speaker 1: is monogamy from you, man or a woman, and that's
Speaker 1: part of their deal, breaks like, no, we we can
Speaker 1: only be with each other. That person cannot withhold sex
Speaker 1: from you. That's unfair. That's unfair. No, you can't be
Speaker 1: with nobody else. No, you can only be with me.
Speaker 1: But you're only gonna have sex when I want to
Speaker 1: have sex, and I'm not ready right now, so you
Speaker 1: gotta wait. That's unfair. That's unfair. For a woman to
Speaker 1: do it to a man's unfair for a man to
Speaker 1: do it to a woman. It's just unfair. It's psychological
Speaker 1: warfare it is. But I will say this though, Like
Speaker 1: she said, they've been together for almost almost and they
Speaker 1: have a beautiful baby boy together, which means they started
Speaker 1: having sex and she immediately got pregnant. I want her,
Speaker 1: I want her to consider this. This may not be
Speaker 1: the issue. This may not be the issue, but there
Speaker 1: may be two issues. From being honest, sometimes men can't
Speaker 1: get it up because they've already gotten up for somebody else.
Speaker 1: I don't to put that out there because he's the
Speaker 1: one that required anogamy, but also Conina and I found
Speaker 1: this out too. I've never had a problem getting it up. Ever,
Speaker 1: I've always gotten even what stage of life I was in.
Speaker 1: I want to say, it didn't matter what stage of
Speaker 1: life she was in when she was pregnant, right after pregnancy,
Speaker 1: when she was a hundred and eighties something pounds, I
Speaker 1: always got it up. But recently Conine has gotten in
Speaker 1: the best shape of her life. I'm getting there, You're
Speaker 1: you're getting you're getting there, and my get up has
Speaker 1: been on a different level of get up and could
Speaker 1: they be like, bro, what is happening? Stand up? Recently
Speaker 1: she was putting the fence up and she hasn't really
Speaker 1: been putting the fence up since like what college. Then
Speaker 1: she'd be like, bro, like like yo, what's happening, And
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be honest. How your woman looks definitely has
Speaker 1: a difference on how your erection comes up. It is
Speaker 1: the truth, and we all know how it is having
Speaker 1: a baby after baby. They said that some men. I
Speaker 1: don't know you particularly, but some men have said it's
Speaker 1: different when this was my girlfriend or just my wife.
Speaker 1: We were having sex before, but then now she's like
Speaker 1: the mother of my child. Like sometimes they look at
Speaker 1: the woman differently and it's like, damn, I can't freak
Speaker 1: off with her to where we used to because like
Speaker 1: this is my son's mom. Like that's true, you know
Speaker 1: what I mean. Maybe that's a part of it. I
Speaker 1: don't know if that's an anomaly, but I remember in
Speaker 1: my friends groups we were talking about that, right um,
Speaker 1: most of the time. It changed after the second because
Speaker 1: it's like this, like I really want to just freak off.
Speaker 1: But after the first child, a lot of my friends
Speaker 1: were just like she's like she had my baby, Like
Speaker 1: I can't ask her to do the same things that
Speaker 1: we used to do. Like I just I see her
Speaker 1: differently and I was like, all right, give it time,
Speaker 1: it's gonna come back. Like it also comes back when
Speaker 1: you don't see her in the nurturing way. I remember
Speaker 1: when Cadine first had Jackson. I saw her as a
Speaker 1: nurtural and she was a breastfeeding and she was doing
Speaker 1: it and it was like, oh, like that was sweet.
Speaker 1: Then Condine started working out again, started wearing tight clothes again,
Speaker 1: started wearing short stuff again, and she was all perky
Speaker 1: and I was like, oh, there should go. That's the
Speaker 1: one I want to freak off with. So there is
Speaker 1: a difference when you're looking at the mother of your
Speaker 1: children and then we're looking at your girlfriend, you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying. So there could be a couple of things.
Speaker 1: If he didn't have no issues getting it up before,
Speaker 1: and he wants monogamy, I doubt that he's cheating because
Speaker 1: if he wasn't cheating, he wouldn't need be the one
Speaker 1: pushing monogamy, you know what I'm saying. He would be
Speaker 1: like like, no, you do your thing, like you know
Speaker 1: what I'm saying, unless he's just a selfish dude. But
Speaker 1: here's my thing. Why would a selfish dude push monogamy
Speaker 1: on someone that they don't want to have sex with,
Speaker 1: So that to me doesn't make sense. Exactly, it would
Speaker 1: be interesting. I think you should spark this conversation with
Speaker 1: him since exactly it might be maybe he'll open up
Speaker 1: and say what it is. Could be a mental thing.
Speaker 1: Ilse had another friend who had to take He wasn't
Speaker 1: even old, he was relatively young, but he had to
Speaker 1: take pills have sex with his wife because he said
Speaker 1: his wife was annoying his fuck and she just was
Speaker 1: not attractive to him anymore in that way because she
Speaker 1: just talked her way out of stiff dick. That's what
Speaker 1: he said. He's like, she would just talk away of
Speaker 1: stiff dick, Like he would be trying to do stuff
Speaker 1: in and she would be she would just be talking
Speaker 1: about stuff like the bills, the kids, why you ain't
Speaker 1: do this, and now you want to have sex and
Speaker 1: now this and then but this didn't get done, and
Speaker 1: he'd just be like, like, I just like I don't
Speaker 1: want to do this no more. He's like, she just
Speaker 1: wouldn't stop talking. So there could be a lot of things,
Speaker 1: you know, definitely worth having the conversations. Last one check
Speaker 1: his health. Has he been working out is he in
Speaker 1: the best shape because erections also come with blood flow,
Speaker 1: and if you've been eating and out of shape and
Speaker 1: you're letting yourself go as a man, sometimes your body
Speaker 1: doesn't respond. So there's a lot of things he can
Speaker 1: look into, so many things. It's good luck to your girl.
Speaker 1: Hope it works out for you and the fiance, especially
Speaker 1: before you're tied to night, because I don't think that
Speaker 1: that marriage is gonna fix nothing, because it won't. Don't
Speaker 1: be sure as hell won't. All right, y'all keep writing
Speaker 1: into us and this new year, we love, love, love
Speaker 1: to hear from y'all. And one of my favorite episodes
Speaker 1: is always the listener letter episode where we back pull
Speaker 1: a bunch of stories from y'all and we give our
Speaker 1: little two cents. Okay, so if you want to be
Speaker 1: featured as one of our listening letters, be shut to
Speaker 1: email us at dead as Advice at gmail dot com.
Speaker 1: D E A D A S S A d V
Speaker 1: I C E at gmail dot com. Almost clipped you
Speaker 1: on the spelling there this year. You ain't been letting
Speaker 1: me get the spelling out. My bad, my bad, All
Speaker 1: right now, moment of truth, we're talking burnout. What that
Speaker 1: looks like how you can be burnt out physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually,
Speaker 1: all of the leads, baby, So what you guys. As
Speaker 1: a final word for the folks out there today, this
Speaker 1: is my moment of truth for burnout. Most people who
Speaker 1: are burnt out don't realize that they're getting burnt out.
Speaker 1: And if you are the loved one of someone who
Speaker 1: you know has a tendency to get burnt out, do
Speaker 1: them a favor and stop them and save them from themselves.
Speaker 1: Like Codeine has done a good job of saying to me,
Speaker 1: like you're devout, enough is enough? You really have to
Speaker 1: slow down. And if it weren't for her my mom
Speaker 1: who calls um the Nora who also checks in on me,
Speaker 1: I probably would have been burnt out way sooner. But
Speaker 1: you guys tend to reel me back in and say chill,
Speaker 1: that can get done in a later time. So check
Speaker 1: on your strong friends. Yeah, that was actually going to
Speaker 1: be my moment of truth, so piggyback on that. Sometimes
Speaker 1: it requires not just you being the one to say hey, friend,
Speaker 1: hey spouse, hey you know whoever, Hey coworker, I can
Speaker 1: see your burnt out. Sometimes it requires you to then
Speaker 1: tap into those support people around, so so the village
Speaker 1: around that person to say, hey, just check on Devout.
Speaker 1: So unbeknownst to you, there were a couple of people
Speaker 1: who have spoken to who are close to you or
Speaker 1: whose opinion that I know you value, which are very
Speaker 1: far and feeling between that, I said, hey, check on
Speaker 1: your boy, check on yourself, check on your brother, like
Speaker 1: just to make sure that you have people who are
Speaker 1: not aware that you have burnout happening, or that you
Speaker 1: may be in a bad mental space, because a lot
Speaker 1: of times people aren't even privy to that because why
Speaker 1: you are presenting as that person that's always okay. You're
Speaker 1: presenting as that person who's always in a good mood
Speaker 1: and always making people laugh. So people don't even know
Speaker 1: sometimes that things are happening within unless they're privy to
Speaker 1: it because of how you're presenting. So it then required me,
Speaker 1: as your wife to then say to a couple of
Speaker 1: different people, hey, just so you're aware, this is what's
Speaker 1: going on with Devout, very loosely not telling your business,
Speaker 1: but just saying now, I wasn't telling your business. I
Speaker 1: wasn't nothing in detail, but it's just like, hey, he
Speaker 1: just may need some time, you know. Um, so be
Speaker 1: be that village for the person who may need the
Speaker 1: support during that burnout period. And if you are the
Speaker 1: burnt out person, you gotta find ways to ways. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but so okay, that's it, alright, y'all. Be sure to
Speaker 1: find us on social media. The podcast page is dead
Speaker 1: as the Podcast on Instagram, and you can find me
Speaker 1: Cadine i Am on Instagram and the TikTok now and
Speaker 1: you can follow me at i am devote. And if
Speaker 1: you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review
Speaker 1: and subscribe. And if you want to check out all
Speaker 1: of the video content of the podcast, including the after show,
Speaker 1: go to Patreon. Dead Ass. Dead Ass is a production
Speaker 1: of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by
Speaker 1: Dinorapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at
Speaker 1: dead as the Podcasts and never miss a Thing