SPEAKER_00: 0:04

No one is coming to save you is such a great title because the truth is if you complain, blame, and quit, you're going to get exactly what you want. Now, what is that? Nothing. Nothing's going to change. So, life be lifin'. Rich had a crazy vent about something personal that happened to him. I'm going to leave that for an episode down the road because we, man, we did like a 30-minute segment right on some personal stuff that happened with your mother and I'm going to leave it I'm going to leave the teaser there I think today's episode is a really important one Rich this one came directly from our community and it's simple no one is coming to save you you are the one that you're waiting for this is the real reason why you feel stuck this is something that came directly from our community I mean if you're sitting at home and you're feeling stuck Like you're out of options. You're just waiting for somebody to throw you a lifeline, somebody to save you. I think me and you are in agreement, Rich. It's hard to just sit and wait for the world to rescue you from the pain that you are going through. And it's interesting because everybody's pain is different, right? Like everybody's going through a different phase of their life. But when I originally pitched this idea, I gave you a group of ideas when I originally pitched No one is coming to save you. Why did it relate to you? Why did you want it to go with this one?

SPEAKER_01: 1:35

Yeah, I feel passionate about this. This is something that I've repeated to myself over and over again in my early 20s, late 20s. And whenever I felt down and out, whenever I felt like I was below water, drowning, couldn't climb out, wind is against my face, And things felt tough. Like I always reminded myself, hey, by the way, Rich, no one is coming to save you. Like get up off your ass, go to the gym, start to eat good food, educate yourself, watch some YouTube videos, watch a documentary, sign up for a college course, start to do things to propel yourself forward. Because at the end of the day, opportunities are not going to just land on your lap. You have to be in the right place at the right time. You have to be around the right people. And you have to put yourself in a situation where those opportunities can come to you. But if you're just home, potato couch, not wanting to move, playing video games 24-7, you're not going to climb out of that hole that you feel like you're in.

SPEAKER_00: 2:47

Yeah. You know, one thing that I want to get better at with our podcast and building our community is truly... trying to understand what the problem is or what the perceived problem is in our community. And one thing that I read that I really resonated is the common belief is sold to a younger version of ourselves. We're in our late 30s now. We've been through a lot of adversity and by the grace of God and a lot of fucking caffeine and persistence, we came out on the other end, either a better person or somebody that got a scar that got a lesson and we learned a lesson. But one common belief I see, which It took me back to being a teenager was, I used to be of the belief that, and I was told this by people, not necessarily my family, but people in school. If you follow all of these rules, if you take all of these steps, you're guaranteed X. And X is either happiness, money, fulfillment, life's wind at your back, and you feel like you're just going in the right direction. And I think that, common belief is what makes people disappointed in themselves because these tropes create expectations and these expectations are not met because you do all the things that you're told to do and you still don't feel like any fulfillment. You actually still feel more stuck and now you start hating process. You start having resentment towards process because you're thinking to yourself like, damn, I went to school. I went to college. I was a good boy. I ate all my vegetables. I was nice to everybody. I gave my mom everything she wanted. And now I feel, like, empty. I feel stuck. I feel like the world owes me something. So that common belief, I think, it creates a lot of anger with a lot of younger people. And I remember being there at some point in my life. I don't know about you.

SPEAKER_01: 4:40

Yeah, I mean, you mentioned this point. It's called purpose paralysis, right? Essentially, you're... following these rules that were laid out for you in hopes to eventually impress whoever laid them out for you, right? A mentor, your mom, your parents, and then you're doing the exact same thing you used to do when you were a child. You're turning to your parents and saying, hey, did I do a good job? Is this good enough for you? But at some point, you have to stop turning around to your parents for validation and start to look within and say, well, I know what my parents want for me and from me, but what do I want for myself? That's when you really start to break out of your shell, break out of the matrix and really start to find that purpose in you, like that nucleus, like what makes you wake up in the morning? What drives you? What motivates you? What makes you want to push further? And if the answer is, I'm just doing what my parents expect me to do, you're never going to find happiness. You're never going to find that fulfillment. So it's really about separating the two and then ultimately leading with your purpose, not somebody else's.

SPEAKER_00: 6:01

That's an interesting subject you touch on because now you're getting into like real basic psychology, which is a lot of what we do as adults, especially young men, is we seek validation. We're seeking validation from the people the actual human we came from, which is our mother. Do you think a lot of it goes back to that? By the way, Rich and I are not nerds. We're not people that study this shit in school. I'm going from life experience. What you talked about about 20 minutes ago on the A block of our podcast, which will be in a whole other episode, which was this issue you were having with your mother and something she had mentioned to you that really fucked you up. It threw you off. It didn't fuck you up. Do you think a lot of that comes from the validation we seek and a lot of our purpose and how we see ourselves are molded by our mothers and people that are in our family? And it's not necessarily who we want to be. And I think the pain you feel when you realize, oh shit, I've been traveling this side of the mountain for someone else.

SPEAKER_01: 7:03

Yeah, absolutely. How many times have you seen videos of people saying, well, why are you pursuing a medical degree? Oh, because, you know, not to stereotype, but like an Indian family. Oh, why do you want to be a doctor? Oh, because my parents are doctor and they want me to be a doctor as well, right? Like you see that often. In my own personal life, I have soon to be a one-year-old and I'm teaching her how to walk. And I hold her two fingers, right, together. And she takes a couple steps. And immediately after the third step, she turns around and looks up at me. Like, am I doing a good job? She can't talk, she can't speak, but her body language is telling me, I just took two, three steps. Am I doing okay? Right? So, you know what I mean? Like, as early as infancy, we're trained to turn around and seek validation from our parents. And really, that might never go away, right? Like you're always going to achieve amazing things. You're going to purchase a house. You're going to get the job that you're looking for and have the successful career or build the perfect business for you. You're going to have all these things and you're always going to turn to your parents to check in and say, hey, am I doing what you expect or are you proud of me? That's fine. What we're saying is don't have purpose paralysis, right? Don't be stuck in someone else's dream of you and not your own dreams. Wow.

SPEAKER_00: 8:46

That's crazy. The part about your daughter is insane. That to me is like, that's intuitive. That's almost like in us to take some steps forward, literally and figuratively, and then look back to see if the people who raised you, you literally look up to your whole life. The phrase, oh, I look up to this person. Have you spent... a good 10, 12 years of your life looking up to your mom and literally looking up to your dad at some point hoping to be picked up, the validation is innately in us. Again, we're not nerds. We're not science. I'm going to leave it to you textbook motherfuckers that do research to figure out what we're saying is technically right or not. That's not what Rich and I are here for. We're just kind of going off the gut and life experience. And Rich has a daughter. He has a son. He's raised kids. And he's the son himself. And it's ironic that you said that story about your daughter and you also shared something that happened with your mother, all in the same 48-hour window. And yeah, bro, you're right. A lot of that validation comes from wanting to be approved for what it is that you're doing. But I think what we're saying is if a young man feels stuck and he's tried a lot of different things and it's just not filling him in a way that makes him happy, makes him feel content, makes him feel like he's moving in the right direction, It's just like it's simple. The word being stuck. It's funny that we use this phrase like, oh, I feel stuck. Let's extract from the phrase feeling stuck and let's literally think about that word stuck. If you're stuck somewhere, if I put you into a maze in a garden of trees and plants and you were backed into a corner and you felt stuck, you're not going to stay there. What are you going to do? You're going to look around. You're going to try to figure out a way out. If I put you in mud, heavy mud, half your body is in mud and you felt literally stuck, you're not going to stay there. So this idea of going through like the visualization for anybody that's in a fucked up situation, going through a crazy life crisis. I mean, I've even seen people in our community that are handicapped, like literally handicapped. People that have like impediments, people that have speech impediments, they have phobias. They're literally crippled and paralyzed by the idea of doing anything that Makes them feel like they're taking a risk or vulnerable. That's some shit that I can't even relate to, bro. So my advice, I almost feel bad giving out this rah-rah advice that I see online and I want to give out. But it's like, man, what do you tell somebody that has cancer at that age? Everything is case sensitive. And I think we understand that at Failures Podcast. We're a dresser. But everything, when you give advice, you can't give advice to everyone that's going to fit everyone. But I go back to the idea and the phrasing of if you feel stuck, the best thing to do is to take action. Now, whatever that action is, I don't know. But you're not going to fly to the top of a mountain. If the conditions are tough and it's raining and you can't get your footing properly, the best thing I could advise is take one step. If you could look down and see your feet, stop staring at the top of the mountain. Just know the direction you're going in. But if you feel stuck, just look down. Look at your feet. And if you can move one foot in front of the other, I promise you, as you move forward, the fog starts clearing because there's something about the universe and taking action. There's something about the universe just opening up when you say, fuck it, I'll do it. I'm moving in a direction. Nine times out of 10, Rich and I speak with clarity of someone in their late 30s, but there's not a lot of clarity when you're 16, 17, and 18. You just need to move. And just to kind of tie the two pieces of advice that Rich shared and I shared, I think moving in a direction that feels right to you is not going to be clear. There's not going to be a clear answer. If you do all these things, this will happen. That only works for medical students. If you do these things, you're not going to kill the patient. Life isn't built that way. The more you move forward, the more obstacles show up and you get better at the trials and tribulations that come with life. As more obstacles get thrown against you, you get better at dealing with challenges. And I think you know deep in your gut, okay, I'm getting better at dealing with adversity. And it kind of removes the victim mentality. So, you know, I know I said a lot there, but what Rich is talking about is, one, not being paralyzed by your purpose and not being paralyzed by what other people want for you or this validation you seek from your parents. And what I'm saying to compound on that is just start moving forward. Just start moving forward. I can't speak to your immediate situation because everybody's life is different, but I know no action is not the move. There's always a blessing in action. Just pick a direction and start walking.

SPEAKER_01: 13:32

Yeah, I think that's great advice. And when you think about somebody who's stuck, it's usually because issues have compounded over long periods of time. So like quicksand or like mud, there's too many compounded issues where they don't even see a way out. So your advice, I think, is a great advice. It's just like put one foot in front of the other, right? Get out of one issue at a time. And I promise you, by the end of five or six of these steps forward, you're going to start to see the other side. But, you know, there's always clarity at the end. You just got to put one foot in front of the other.

SPEAKER_00: 14:14

You know, one thing that I saw a lot, Rich, which it annoyed the fuck out of me, but I think you're a little bit more irritable than I am with, like, This hive mind that you find online, it's always the most upvoted comment in any forum board, Discord, YouTube. It's always the most up. And it's always this idea of privilege resentment, which I think me and you had this when we were younger. But I don't know. I feel like if I'm remembering correctly, it felt like I put a battery in our back to resent people that had what we wanted And we didn't know how they got it, but we just hated the fact that they would give us advice like, bro, don't worry about it. You'll get there one day. And do you remember feeling that feeling when you were younger? Just people giving you like empty advice and just telling you, hey, don't worry about it. You'll get there one day. But they already had it. They already had what you want.

SPEAKER_01: 15:06

I remember seeing other people having more than what I had. And I've done this with anyone who I meet or... ultimately end up like admiring is I unpack who that person is and how they got to where they got to. And what I've realized over time is a lot of people either just get lucky or just have better circumstances or just have more resources. But I mean, you, we both seen this, we've seen some dumb motherfuckers come across a couple million and we're just like, bro, how? How, right?

SPEAKER_00: 15:47

Shout out to crypto and the dope game.

SPEAKER_01: 15:52

Sometimes combined. Yeah, we've seen the both sides of the spectrum. So I've always kind of like unpacked like, why did this person achieve what they've achieved or have what they've had? And I immediately default to, bro, this person's not smarter than me. You know what I mean? Like, I know my capabilities. I know what I'm made to do. And, you know, how smart I am and how my brain works. And I should be able to figure this out. So when you come across these people who have, I guess, privilege, right, for the lack of a better term, you immediately start to realize, man, this person is not as smart as they appear or they just got lucky. You really have to unpack how they got to where they got to. So that's always been my thing. It's just like whenever I see somebody affluent or somebody doing well or somebody pulling up in a Lambo, it's like, all right, bro, what's your story? You know what I mean? Because like this shit is either rented or, and I do, I sound like a hate motherfucker right now.

SPEAKER_00: 16:58

You know, that made me think about a phrase that I heard, which I absolutely love. It's like, it's hard to tell somebody, trust me, you don't want a bad bitch or a Lamborghini because they're a headache and they come with a lot of maintenance. When you're sitting in a Lambo next to a bad bitch, it's impossible to give somebody that advice who's never experienced any of those things because A, you still have it. And two, they've never experienced it and they want it. So the message is lost on the messenger when you're sitting in a Lambo telling somebody like, trust me, you don't want a Lambo,

SPEAKER_01: 17:37

bro. It's a lot of maintenance. It's the Andrew Tate. predicament, right? Like you look at Andrew Tate and he's walking around his mansion with like all his luxury cars and a cigar in his mouth is like, trust me, boys, you don't want this life. It's like,

SPEAKER_00: 17:53

you know. Well, you had mentioned something which makes me think about the privilege resentment thing. You had mentioned that even talking to your son, there is this idea that if generations of a family do what they're supposed to do, the baton gets passed to the person in front of them so they can go further and faster than the people behind them. So that means your parents or great-grandparents that came from Dominican Republic to the United States, they did what they could in the time that they were here and they passed it to your mom. And then your mom passed it to you and then you passed it to your son. But there is this like hidden resentment that comes from the person that you're passing the baton to because they could see that your life has already evolved. And they tell you like, oh, it's easy for you to say, dad, because you already have everything. It's easy for you to say, Justin, because you're already a music executive with jewelry and a lifestyle that I want. Easy for you to say. So I'm curious to know what's your response to that because a lot of that resentment towards people that already have it exists in these communities and it's used as an out to cope with their situation and not do anything about it.

SPEAKER_01: 19:03

Yeah, my response is you're looking at the end result, right? You're not seeing the journey that it took for myself or said individual to achieve what they've achieved. So yeah, it seems like it was easily obtained, but you didn't see the four years of college. You didn't see all the courses, the certifications, the long hours of studying to really know what that person's journey was like before they achieve what they achieve. You're just coming into... Like, it coming to the ball game and seeing LeBron in the NBA and saying, I want that. It's like, bro, do you know how many shots it took for LeBron? How many hours in a park? How many hours? College ball, high school ball, training camps. It took for him to be a Laker and break all these records and be who he is. So... You can't just sit there at the Laker game and be like, damn, I want to be LeBron. I want what he has.

SPEAKER_00: 20:11

The way I see it is everything comes at a price, right? If I want to buy a Rolex, I have a general idea on how much a Rolex costs. Are you willing to pay for the price that's set for that thing you want, right? If I want to buy a new house, That comes at a price. First of all, am I willing to pay that price? Second of all, do I have enough? So whatever it is that you want that someone else has, the resentment is just the gap between where you're at and where that person is at. But I think for anybody that's ready, willing, and able, capable, two arms, two legs, a functioning body, you secretly know what it takes to get from point A to point Z, not B. And the resentment comes from knowing the price of wanting that Rolex and not being able to afford it or not being able to take the time, energy needed to go and save enough money to go and get that thing. We can interpret paying a price for material goods, but we somehow create this little loop of hate and resentment towards anybody that has something that we want In the abstract, which is a calm mind, a healthy body, beautiful girlfriend, anything that is in the abstract that we want, we forget that there's a price to pay. So I love the analogy of LeBron James. It's like, I think Jay-Z has a line is like, to be Jay-Z now, you have to be Jay-Z then. So if you're going to envy my current circumstances, you have to know everything I've been through to be here. So, I mean, resentment is okay. I would say I live in a hero and a villain's mentality. Like that's kind of the dynamic I always live in. And when I was dumb broke, like hella cousins in my house, family, I knew my family didn't have it. My pops was in and out of fucked up situations. My mom was in and out of fucked up situations. Bro, I turned that resentment into fuel. And if somebody has something I wanted, that shit just gave me motivation. To be like, I hate that person. This is now blocks of wood that I've chopped down to throw on the fire that is the energy that I have towards working towards it. But at the end of the day, no matter how you frame it, you have to take the steps. You have to pay the price to get what somebody else wants. So I love that we're talking on privilege resentment because I find that that's a big cope in this community. Is there easy for you to say? That's the phrase, Rich. Easy for you to say. I'm stuck right now. You don't know what it is to be in my situation. You know, another phrase that I thought of, which I wrote down and I was just taking a look at my notes, a phrase that came up, which I absolutely love is this idea of like how momentum is created, right? Like if you're stuck, that means you stopped, right? You're just at a standstill. And someone had mentioned, which I really love is that you don't need, you don't need wins, right? to be more hopeful. You need to be more hopeful to get wits. And I don't know if that makes sense to you, but I think the misconception for a lot of young people that are jammed and they got no emotion is that like, man, if I had more momentum going and more wins and more support in my life, I'd be doing better. And it's like, yeah, but that's the point. You've reversed the outcome with the necessity. You need to be necessitous. You have to have to want something in order to creates some momentum and then when you get it it creates this really cool loop of like good energy good momentum because you know you're capable so you don't need wins to get hope you need hope to get wins because all you really have is hope right now you don't have wins that's why you're stuck so i don't know if that makes sense but i love that phrasing because it it takes you out of that victim mentality i mean

SPEAKER_01: 24:14

yeah yeah and like you were saying take take the example of what someone has and use it as fuel, right? Use it to propel you. Instead of, you should be thinking, damn, I want what they have, but watch, I'm going to get more, right? Or I'm going to spend the block and I'm going to show them that, hey, look, I'm driving the same car you are, right? Or we at the same level now, right?

SPEAKER_00: 24:37

By the way, I'm not above any of that energy. I didn't been, listen, as a teenager, I didn't been in competition with motherfuckers that didn't know we're competing with.

SPEAKER_02: 24:47

it's

SPEAKER_00: 24:48

crazy that when I pass them, I would show them and they would be confused. Like, what are you talking about? Like, I'm happy for you. And I'd be like, yeah, but I had you on my mind when I was chasing that thing. And now you need to know. And they're like, I don't know what I did to you, bro. I never said anything to you. Like, why do you feel that way towards me? So, you know, that's more of a sicko, sadistic way to approach the world. That is, that has a lot to do with some unpacking. We could do another episode for, Might be little man syndrome. It might be just growing up in a fucked up situation and not having anything. But I will tell you this, Rich, and I think it's the anecdote to the victim's mentality. You got to believe that what you're doing is possible. If you're going to dream, dream that you're the exception. You have to do that.

SPEAKER_01: 25:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 25:38

And if you're going to dream, dream big. And I know that's taboo and cliche, but I'm just saying, if you're in a fucked up situation, if you're in a family situation, that comes from immigrants, if you are an immigrant yourself, if you come from poverty, if you don't have all your limbs intact, if you're not someone that is naturally handsome or naturally charismatic, you have to believe that the road that you're taking is going to lead you beyond whatever it is that you want. Because if there's no belief, you're not going to take that first step. You're just going to always feel like this is what it's going to be forever. And you have to Be accountable. You have to know that it's on me to move forward. And I think that once you kind of like lock down on those two things, it gets a lot easier to start moving forward and start building a little bit of that momentum. Again, you don't get hope from getting wins. You get wins from having hope. And you got to be hopeful that your circumstance could change because that positive momentum is a tailwind that turns into wins.

SPEAKER_01: 26:34

Yeah. And it takes you out of that victim loop that you were talking about, right? Like the, oh, things are hard. This person has what I want. My circumstances are not ideal. I'm never going to get out the hood or I'm never going to get out of this one bedroom or this room where I'm sharing with my three brothers. You have to sort of break out of that cycle. And that's one of those things where like you have to look at these people who have what you have or have more as fuel at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_00: 27:08

They say blame. complain and quit are the most comfortable pillows to lay your head on at night. And I love that phrasing because blame other people for your circumstances. That makes you feel better. It could be the truth, by the way, but it just makes you feel better. Pobrecito. It's not my fault. It's everything else. Complain. Just be around people and surround yourself with with people that all they do is complain about their circumstances, complain about the weather, complain about their boss, complain about their girlfriend, complain about their friends. Bro, they complain all day and it makes them feel better about their situation. And the crudegra, the icing on the cake, the man and the woman on the wedding cake is quit. Start something and quit. Right. Right. I think that is a harsh truth and it's fucked up to say that to people in our community that they want answers from us. But Rich, I feel like you're better at this than I am. Sometimes that's just the most clearest point. It's like, bro, it's really on you to figure it out. No one's going to feel bad for you beyond the conversation you have with them because they're going to go live their life and then you got to live your life. You actually got to live in your life after you complain, blame, and quit and blame everybody else.

SPEAKER_01: 28:57

Yeah, and there's comfort that comes into play when you talk about accountability and blaming others, right? Like, if I blame someone else, like, I'm not the problem.

SPEAKER_00: 29:09

The burden is off of me now.

SPEAKER_01: 29:11

Yeah. Yeah, it's like, oh, that, you know, I'm not where I need to be because of this person or my parents or... Circumstances. I don't have a job or, you know, whatever your circumstances are. But I think what... you and I have continued to learn is that friction is necessary in order to move forward. You have to get to a place mentally where you're comfortable with the uncomfortable. A lot of the biggest breakthroughs you've had in your life or I've had in my life have come from a point of contention and resistance, right? Like we've, Contention, resistance, and a little bit of risk-taking, right? And all of those things, what is the common denominator? It's uncomfortable. It's uncomfortable entering the unknown, right? Or taking a risk where you don't know if that risk is going to pan out or not, right? Or taking accountability to say, signing up for this course, pass or fail, right? But I'm going to do it anyway because this is a path forward. So, really breaking out of that mental cycle that, oh, I don't want to feel friction. I don't want to be uncomfortable. I don't want to do that. I don't want to sign up for this course because it's too much studying. You know what I mean? Like, bro, you have to go through the resistance and the uncomfortableness that it takes to be disciplined to study in order to pass this course. It's just the natural nature of the progression. Well, what comes... What's the end result of having the discipline to study for that course? You pass the course, you get the reward, certification, or the credits necessary, and you move on to the next level. But you have to be able to be comfortable with the uncomfortable in order to move forward.

SPEAKER_00: 31:09

Damn. That's good, bro. I mean, there's not a lot I can add. You know, the one thing I keep thinking about, because we're going to go to this as the last theme for the podcast, which... Again, a lot of these themes that we're touching on is Rich and I learning a really cool thing that came in like, you know, we learned, anyway, I'll just say that we learned like in order to give good advice because we want to be better at giving advice is that you got to understand the real pain points of the people you're talking to. It's not necessarily about who you are and where you're at. It's about the people that you're looking to guide and maybe, you know, share your personal story and maybe they can learn from it, which is the whole thesis of failures. Learn from our failures so you don't have to go through these failures. I have no rebuttal to what you just said because it was so foolproof. You seamed up every hole for somebody to get out of. The only thing they could do is, again, just deflect, blame. But one thing that is coming up in our next segment, which is a topic that I want to present to you as, Rich, I want you to imagine somebody that you're giving this advice to and you kind of corner them off and now they don't really have No one to blame. It's like you have no one to blame for yourself. Your life is what it is because of the actions that you take or don't take. But here's the last one. They're fighting you on this and they tell you, bro, I'm exhausted. I tried it all. I did it all. And I'm tired of fighting alone. I'd rather just be alone in my room. And if I don't promise myself anything, if I don't try anything, I'll be fine that way. I'm just burnt out. I'm exhausted. Everything I tried doesn't work. You don't understand my life. You don't understand my situation.

SPEAKER_01: 32:55

Yeah, this is a full circle moment because I think this goes back to the purpose paralysis, right? If you're feeling that way, like if you're feeling stuck, if you're feeling burnt out, if you're feeling like it's hopeless and you've tried everything and nothing's working, I feel like chances are you're, operating in many different aspects of life for the wrong reason. You have to identify your purpose. I think you shared with me a comment from a community member that was like, hey, I'm 43 and I still haven't found my purpose. That's okay. I actually envy that person because they acknowledge that they're 43 and they're still out there searching for it. That's powerful. If you're still looking for your purpose, you're doing the right thing, right? Just because you haven't found it at 43 doesn't mean that you're not on the right track. What do they say? There's a famous quote where KFC Colonel Sanders didn't actually hit on the idea for the KFC franchise that he was 60-something, right? It took all those years of failure for him to ultimately hit with the right fried chicken recipe and then have this massive success and franchise, but it took a really long time. So chances are, if you're feeling the way that you're feeling, you're not living your purpose. You're living for others, right? You're not operating in a place of fulfillment. And eventually, that's what's going to lead to burnout. That's a recipe for disaster. So I would say try to unwind everything and bring it back to our first point, which was purpose paralysis. Why are you waking up in the morning? What excites you? What motivates you? What is the nucleus that is your identity? For some people, it's, bro, I love my family. I'm going to wake up every morning and do as much as I can do for them. For others, it's giving back to their parents. I love my parents. They did everything for me. I wake up every morning for them. I want to give them as much as they gave me. For others, it might be their pets. For others, it might be like, bro, I'm a world traveler. I want to see every state, every country, every island, and I'm going to die doing that. All of the above are okay to live out, but that's every individual's responsibility is to identify their purpose and live that out to the fullest. So chances are, if you're feeling down, depressed, stuck in the mud, resistance, hopeless, chances are you are not living your purpose and you're experiencing what we like to call purpose paralysis.

SPEAKER_00: 35:43

My rebuttal as a community member, because I read enough to know that this is what the standard response is. I'm exhausted. I'm alone. I've been trying to climb this hill. I've taken courses. I've watched all the YouTube videos. I read all the books. I'm in debt. I come from a broken family. There's a lot of drugs in my family. I'm going through crisis. I'm going through a breakup. I'm going through a divorce. I'm bankrupt. You don't understand where I'm at right now. I just want to quit. I just want to be left alone.

SPEAKER_01: 36:15

Yeah, that's some real life shit. But at the end of the day, I feel like all those burdens, every single point you just mentioned is like an infinity stone. It's like you go through divorce. All right, now you have a baked in human filter that says, Watch out for this pattern in women because this will end up in divorce. Noted, right? That gets bucket into like your DNA. Like you will probably never make that same mistake again, right? You're going through bankruptcy. Damn, what were the 25 financial decisions that were made prior to bankruptcy? Oh, I fucking foreclosed on a car. I lost my job. I overpaid on this vacation. I maxed out my credit. Like you made a bunch of bad financial decisions that ultimately led up to bankruptcy. That negative pattern of spending gets bucketed into your DNA. I probably should never do that pattern again because that'll lead to bankruptcy, right? Et cetera, et cetera. So if you don't have the ability to self-reflect on your mistakes and your failures, there's never going to be a way forward, right? Otherwise, what did Albert Einstein say? What's insanity is doing something over and over again, expecting different results, right? Like one of the greatest minds in the world said that for a reason, right? Because if you don't break out of the patterns that you're used to that brought you to these unfortunate circumstances, you're never going to break through. So this is exactly why we made this podcast for you. is for you to help you analyze your failures and help you break through and come out of them on the other side. But you have to be truthful with yourself, critical with yourself, and realize that the way I'm doing things is not working, right? And identify those patterns, take all that new information from all these negative experiences, and then move forward.

SPEAKER_00: 38:22

There's not a lot I can add to what you just said. And I'm looking forward to transcribing your answer and putting it as the thesis of our landing page because it was perfect. One thing I do want to add that may be a bit more actionable that I think we just kind of harped on the back and forth that naturally comes with this subject in our community. But something that felt actionable and we haven't really touched on too much is two things. When you're going through life, It's inevitably filled with valleys and peaks. The valleys always feel like you're six feet under and you just want to quit and die. I've been there before. Rich has been there before. The irony that Rich gave advice on bankruptcy to one of our community members and didn't bring up the fact that he went bankrupt is admirable because I would have talked about that immediately and been like, bitch, I done been through what you been through. Rich done been through and I done been through relationships that damn near felt like divorces and we dragged ourselves out of it. But we're not here to show you our championship rings and prove to you that we're champions. That's not the point. The point is we want to turn some of the stuff that we've actually been through to maybe some actionable advice. If you're not at a peak, you're probably entering a valley and that's fine. Same for the stock market as it is for your health. as it is for aging, as it is for relationships, friendships or romantic, your career. There's always ebbs and flows. A valley is not six feet under. It's not you experiencing death. By the way, I know this is going to sound insane to say, but you have the option if you want to keep going or not. Let's move that out of the way. Let's assume you chose action and not non-action because I don't have advice for anybody who doesn't want to put in work. If you feel exhausted and you're tired of fighting alone, The one actionable piece of advice that has helped me in the last five years that I think will help anybody is the narrative that you've created for yourself. Be mindful of that. Be mindful of this narrative that you created for yourself. And when your mind is idle and you're not doing anything, when you're taking a piss and you don't have your phone in your hand, when you're going for a walk and you don't have AirPods on and your mind is just drifting, be mindful of the narrative that you tell yourself. A lot of those narratives are false narratives that come from your childhood. They come from things that people told you about yourself or beliefs that you have about yourself that are not true. You don't need motion. You don't need action. You don't need anything to flip a narrative. Simply put, if you tell yourself, I'm alone, I'm exhausted. I tried everything. The world is against me. That's your narrative. That's the person you play in your movie. You're that character in the movie of your life. But if you flip your narrative and start turning it around, this is mental effort. This doesn't even require physical effort. If you start reading books and videos and you could reread all the shit you read when you felt like the victim and just flip your narrative and start thinking to yourself, no, I'm not the victim. I'm somebody that's going to take action. Reread all that self-development book shit. re-watch all those videos, re-listen to all those podcasts, re-listen to this podcast. Once you flip your narrative into the hero's mindset where you're like, all right, I'm going to be the guy that gets out of this. Everything changes because your narrative is flipped. You're no longer telling yourself the same, woe is me, ay pobrecito story that you keep giving yourself. Now you're flipping the narrative and I bet you, you're going to start seeing that cloud break open and a little bit of sunlight is going to come through. That's a narrative flip. That's a mental flip. We are the stories that we keep telling ourselves when our minds are idle. That feeling you feel right before you go to bed and your mind starts telling you like, I call him the doubt monster. He comes visit me every night and he tells me every night, even at 39 years old, man, you ain't shit. Me and Aston Kutcher about to pull up on you and show you you're in an episode of Punk'd. Your life is fake. You're always going to be a hood kid from West New York. This is the actual thoughts that I have swirling in my mind. And I got to flip the narrative, bro. I got to take control of it and think to myself like, nah, you're good, bro. You got this. As long as you wake up early in the morning, you do what you need to do. You've always been able to run away from that demon. You've always been able to shrink the doubt monster. Narrative is crucial, bro. That's something you don't even got to fucking move for. You just got to work on it mentally. And the second thing I'll say, and I'll keep this one short because the first point was long, was be very mindful of the people you surround yourself with. Sometimes we don't even know that our parents are the reason why we take these narratives on and we always blame everybody. Fucking white people, they always got the privilege. Fucking government, Donald Trump is the worst. Bernie Sanders is the worst. Because of Andrew Tate and Joe Rogan, I'm a toxic man. I don't know what to... Kill it, kill it, kill it, kill it. When you're putting bad food into your brain and what comes out is all the stuff that's going through your body. If you get better at doing things that are a little bit more positive, surrounding yourself with people that are more positive, you'll see a lot of that narrative will flip because you are what you put into your brain. You are what you consume daily. You are what you do daily. So if you just sit at home all day and don't do shit, you be around hating ass people and your parents always blaming the world, you're going to be the product of that. A plant that doesn't get any proper soil, sun, or light, or nutrition is going to be a shitty plan. Don't be a shitty plan. Be mindful of all the stuff that you surround yourself with. So those are the two pieces of actionable advice that I feel like we didn't touch on, but are essential and they helped me out.

SPEAKER_01: 44:10

Yeah, I love that. The only thing that I would add to that, don't let your circumstances define you. I purposely didn't mention that I went through bankruptcy or had failed relationships or you had failed relationships because we've never allowed those moments to define who we are. Yeah, they're part of our story, but it's like I'm way more financially savvy now than what I was 15 years ago, right? And that's because I didn't let that moment define me. And that goes for any failure, right? Like you are not a product of your shortcomings, period. So don't let the fact that you had unfavorable circumstances or a bit of unlucky situations or not enough resources or only had one parent growing up, like that circumstance does not define you.

SPEAKER_00: 45:06

Rich, I love that you said that because it was like the tag team partner to the narrative point, right? You're saying, Justin, it's not even a narrative thing. If I would have labeled myself as somebody financially literate, somebody that's not good with their money, someone that went bankrupt, then I would still be saying that to this day. You're saying Rich in his late 30s is someone that doesn't even identify with that moment in my life anymore because that's in the past. I've actually become more financially literate because I went through that. So yeah, man, you're living proof. Again, that's why I enjoy doing this podcast with you and building this community with you because you are living proof of somebody that is preaching what they're saying. And I think that's so poetic that you were like, bro, you know why I forgot that I went through that? Because I don't even see myself through that lens

SPEAKER_01: 45:57

anymore. Yeah. It's a mindset thing.

SPEAKER_00: 45:59

And in order for you to move forward, you got to like, you got to bury that, right? But you're not even saying bury it. You're saying, no, this is a springboard. You can learn from all these fucked up moments.

SPEAKER_01: 46:09

Yeah. I think I saw a statistic. I could be completely wrong, but it's like that we're brand new versions of ourselves every six months or 12 months. You're not the same person who you were today

SPEAKER_00: 46:21

than you were a year from now. Rightfully so. Why live? Why do research? Why learn if you're not going to absorb the information that you take in and then take action to be uncomfortable to apply the new information? You would be a fucking three-year-old child forever if you didn't do that. You live. You see what comes back from living. You absorb the information, you change yourself, you adapt and you move forward, survive and adapt. And I think it's so funny that you brought up your daughter earlier in the show, which we can end on this. You could even learn from watching your daughter trying to walk that six months ago, she wasn't walking. Now she's trying to walk. Where will she be in a year from now, Rich? Like what's the timeline for a two-year-old? She'll be walking and maybe starting to talk.

SPEAKER_01: 47:15

Running. They go from walking to running. And then, yeah, and then a little bit of talking. And

SPEAKER_00: 47:24

then your heart is going to be broken the day that she stops looking back for your validation.

SPEAKER_01: 47:29

Yeah, or the day that she stops. Very famously, J. Cole did the Let Go of My Hand song. Oh,

SPEAKER_00: 47:36

I've never heard this song.

SPEAKER_01: 47:38

I

SPEAKER_00: 47:38

stopped listening to J. Cole when I was able to run. But go

SPEAKER_01: 47:43

ahead. Nah, listen to that song. He talks about the moment where his son said, dad, let go of my hand. Like I could walk on my, like you don't need to hold my hand anymore. It's very, very poetic. So for, even if you're not a parent, I think you can relate. Definitely go back and listen to that.

SPEAKER_00: 48:00

Well, Rich, I think we touched on a lot on this episode. And, you know, again, this is not an indictment. I don't want anybody to feel hopeless when they finish this episode. We're hoping to give tools and guidance based on our experience and what we think is decent advice, decent guidance. Man, I mean, Rich, this is an episode that we could have easily gone on for another hour. And we might need an episode, too, because I feel like we left a lot of advice and feedback and stories on the But at the end of the day, this is what we hope the platform continues to be. It's what we always say, right? The neon sign that I think you ordered or you want to order for your office, which is we're not gurus. We're not gods. We're just regular guys, bro. We're just two normal adults in their late 30s that have seen some shit. And we realize that a lot of the advice on the internet is either predatorial Or it's misguided or these people probably didn't come from the places we come from. So, you know, no one is coming to save you is not an indictment on anybody. It's really hopefully something that can give you a little bit of a roadmap and some motivation to get you out of a fucked up situation. Listen,

SPEAKER_01: 49:16

we love feedback. We love hearing from you guys. So please leave any suggestions, feedbacks in the comments. We read them all. We're going to get back to you and maybe one day we'll bring somebody up here to chop it up with us.

SPEAKER_00: 49:30

Yeah. And I want you to know the more aggressive and the more deflective the comments are, the more irritable Rich becomes. And he'll... We're going to do a segment of you reading the comment section, just flaming everybody.

SPEAKER_01: 49:45

Yeah. Yeah, troll us, talk shit. We'll get back to even the trolls. So just comment. There you go.

SPEAKER_00: 49:52

Failures podcast. Learn from our failures so you don't have to. Rich, another one in the books, my boy.