Transcript for:
Charlamagne's Personal Growth

i want people to hear this conversation today and immediately walk away and say you know what I need to go be of service i always say my dad raised me out of fear and not love what does that mean you know he didn't want me to make up make the same choices that he made and he would always tell me that if I didn't change my lifestyle especially when I started you know really getting in trouble in the street that I was going to end up in jail dead or broke sitting under a tree i worked at Taco Bell i worked at a clothing store in the mall called Demo i did telemarketing i was the guy that would call your house and try to sell you 20 CDs for a penny just to avoid being in the street you got to love every version of yourself like you know how the hell do you do that cuz every single one of us can look back at a moment in time yes and just you just cringe you want to erase that person we beat ourselves up over it how the hell did you get to a point where you could love every version of yourself you got to give yourself grace because you just did not know what it is that you know now so why would you ever beat yourself up for what you did not know there's no redo on this thing called life like this day that you're living right now you're never getting back so you're going to have to start making changes in your life right now to get to where it is that you need to be hey it's your friend Mel welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast i am ecstatic that you are here with me right now you know it's always such an honor to spend time with you and to be together but today today you are in for something truly special and if you're a new listener I also just want to take a moment and personally welcome you to the Mel Robbins podcast family i am so thrilled that you're here and because you made the time to listen to this particular episode here's what I know about you i know that you're the type of person who not only values your time but you also want to use the time that you have in this life to create a life that is driven by purpose and if you're listening to this conversation today because somebody sent this episode to you that is so cool because you have people in your life that care about you and they not only care about you they see a bigger possibility for your life which is why they recommended that you listen to this episode so thank you for trusting them because it shows that you see bigger possibilities for your life too and so does the person that you're about to meet Charlemagne the God charlemagne hopped on a plane this morning after co-hosting one of the biggest radio shows on the planet it's called The Breakfast Club and just to understand how influential his perspective and his voice is 4 million people listen every single week to The Breakfast Club to put this like in a visual sense four million people that's 50 Super Bowl stadiums where every single seat is full and everyone is tuned in listening every single week and that's just the people listening to the radio there's another 6 million more people that follow the show on YouTube and that's not all that Charlemagne does he's been inducted into the radio hall of fame he is a three-time New York Times bestselling author an Emmy award-winning executive producer he's also the co-founder of the Black Effect Podcast Network one of the most successful podcast networks in the world where he has produced 47 shows that have won all the biggest awards that are available to shows in podcasting he's also the founder of a publishing imprint Black Privilege Publishing in partnership with Simon and Schustster which has released 12 books and already released bestsellers including his latest Get Honest or Die Lying he's hosted several award-winning television programs and he is also the founder of the Mental Wealth Alliance which focuses on advocating for mental health and to top it all off he's also an ambassador for the food bank in New York City but his life wasn't always this way and you're about to hear the extraordinary story the twists the turns the lessons learned the regrets and the mistakes that he's made and look you can always learn from your own mistakes but today you have the honor of getting to learn from his so Charlamne welcome to the Mel Robbins podcast i'm so thrilled that you are here thank you for having me Mel i am a huge fan of yours i appreciate that and and the feeling is definitely mutual oh you know I bought my uh my my my Let theory book in here and it's so funny last week my wife comes to me and my wife goes "I ordered you a book you need to read it immediately." Cuz I've been complaining about some things right this really I was complaining about people and she was like "You need to read this book immediately." And it came and it was the Let him The I was like "Oh I'm doing Mel's podcast on Wednesday." And she was like "Really?" And then today she sent me uh tickets cuz you're going to be in New York at Cathed yes she's like "I want to go to this." Yes well that's all God i was like "Wow I'm I'm literally doing her show on Wednesday." Well we are destined to be together today together and I'm going to come see you in April uh on your show and so this is the beginning of a lot of amazing things that we're going to do and here's how I'd like to start could you tell the person who is listening right now that's spending time together with us what they might expect to be different about their life or the life of somebody that they care about based on everything that you're about to share with us today about your life lessons learned the incredible things that you sell in your best you talk about in your bestselling books what what could change about their life we'll see and the reason I say we'll see is because you know you never know where a great conversation is going to take you know like we're all on different spiritual journeys I feel like right now sitting here on the Mel Robbins podcast this is part of a spiritual journey that I feel like I've been going on my whole life so let's see what comes up well I'm going to tell you something i am a huge fan of yours i have devoured your books i listen to you thank you there is not a doubt in my mind that by the time our conversation is done and you so generously share mistakes made lessons learned the tools that you use in order to transform your mind to build this extraordinary career the things that you've learned as a parent about forgiveness about regret about peace mhm you cannot listen to this conversation I'm going to predict and not feel completely transformed i would not have invited you to be here if I did not think that you were of service to a bigger mission and that listening to you is one of the most worthy things that somebody could do with their time oo so maybe that's what it is i mean you know yeah maybe that's what it is i want people to hear this conversation today and immediately walk away and say "You know what i need to go be of service i need to answer that call that's going on in my spirit right now that's telling me to go out there and just go do something do something for myself but more importantly go do something for somebody else go be of service." That's what I want people to learn from this conversation how to be of service well now it feels like we're in church Charlemagne and I could not be more thrilled to be here with you but all of this wisdom that you're about to pour into us it actually didn't come from all the success it came from all the struggle and even though you are one of the most influential voices in the world today but the person who's listening may be meeting you for the first time so what would you like them to know about you yeah I mean you know right now I'm a multimedia personality from you know radio to television the books the podcast like you said but I come from extreme humble beginnings mouse Corner South Carolina raised on a dirt road grew up in a single wide trailer you know uh mom was a school teacher an English teacher who kept the book in my face my dad you know did construction but you know he had his own issues with mental health and you know the run-ins with the law and you know drug addiction and substance abuse but you know the one thing that we always had was love and they always especially my dad i always say my dad raised me out of fear and not love and what does that mean he didn't want me to end up making the same mistakes that he made you know he didn't want me to make make the same choices that he made and he would always tell me that if I didn't change my lifestyle especially when I started you know really getting in trouble in the street that I was going to end up in jail dead or broke sitting under a tree so that was literally his mentality he didn't want his oldest son to end up in jail dead or broke sitting under a tree so he really used to be on me but he would discipline me for things he didn't necessarily teach me what does that mean i remember being I remember being in therapy the first real breakthrough I had in therapy is is is is realizing that like I'll give you an example right like I remember one time um I had just got my license and so I'm I'm I'm following him he was like "Yo follow me as I'm driving in the car just follow me all right so I'm following him mind you I'm a 16 year old kid i'm following him he's driving so he's driving down uh Gillyard Road in Mosqua South Carolina i'm following him when you're driving down Gilly Road you veer off into a highway called Highway 52 so there's a stop sign he doesn't stop at the stop sign he just goes through on the highway so what do you think I do i just go through on the highway so then he pulls over so I pull over behind him he gets out the car roll down he smacks the [ __ ] out of me tells me to pay attention i didn't see that see that stop sign and I'm like you didn't see the stop sign i didn't say that to him i'm like you didn't see the stop sign but that but that's my point he would discipline me for things that he never he never taught me and um so yeah I he he raised me very hard and I always said it was out of fear and not love just it was the fear that I would end up you know making a lot of the same mistakes that he made so but I will say one thing you do got to learn about your kids is that your kids are going to live their life regardless no matter how much you try to hold on to them no matter how you know much you try to discipline them they're going to still live their life regardless and guess what you got to let them you got to let them well played that's right well played talk to me about the name Charlmagne the God yeah when I was in night school um because I got kicked out of two high schools so I was in night school so how old were we talking uh probably the same age like 17 maybe 17 maybe 18 i'm not sure so I graduated from night school in 1998 i'm sitting in night school and um at the time I used to call myself Charlie Chronic because you know it sounds so stupid now when I'm old but it's like you know but we we used to have a crew called the infamous Buddha head so all of us took names of marijuana so you had like Mikey Marijuana Kabadism and I was Charlie Kronic right bobby Buddha that was our names and um I used to always say my name was Charles cuz when I used to sell crack you know I would wear a hoodie give this alias because I didn't want the guys and women who were buying crack from me to go back and tell my parents I'm from a small town of course so you know everybody's judgmental even though you're buying it from you still go tell my parents and so I'm reading in a history book about Charlemagne and Charlemagne it says Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great and he was a Roman emperor who went around spreading religion and education and I literally was like that's a cool name i'm going to start calling myself Charlemagne and you know the god comes from the 5% teachings and the five percent teachings they say god is a Greek word deraic words guma oa which means wisdom scrimp and beauty so I'm like I'm going to start calling myself Charlemagne the god which really didn't make no sense because Charlemagne is French for Charles the Great so it's like Charles the Great the God but guess what i was 19 years old smoking a lot of weed so it didn't really have to make sense it just looked cool and I always said that's going to look really good on a marquee one day you're a good marketer i said that's going to look really good on the cover of a book one day but it also means I've read in your work that God is within you absolutely and talk to me more about that i feel like you know you can either submit your will to the God in you or you can submit your will to the devil in you and you know God is in each and every one of us you know uh it says uh in Genesis chapter 1 vers 26 says God created man in his image according to his likeness and I feel like you know if you keep that mindset it'll at least give you something to constantly strive to it'll give you it'll give you something to constantly look towards and know that you have that you know that inner being within you like knowing that you're really a spiritual being living a human existence and I mean I' I've always literally tried to move like that like you know I'm I'm one of those people that actually believed my grandma and my mom when they told me God was always watching you know even though I I didn't always make the right decisions I still you know strive to move like you know God was always watching because God is within he's always he's I am an extension of my creator so I want you to talk to the person and speak to that like moment in your life where you are dealing drugs you are using an alias because you don't want your parents to find out which is you know smart thinking you know and believe as a spiritual person that God is always watching and so you have the sense because you've already talked about choice there must be this tension of you feeling like this isn't what I'm meant to do but I'm making a choice to do this like what do you want to say to the person cuz I think that's a very relatable thing in life where you have this sense of a greater purpose but you are trapped where you are now and you even see yourself I think about moments in my life whether it was drinking too much or drugs or it was cheating on people that I was with or stealing or whatever the hell it may have been things that I knew in the moment were choices that I was making and I felt like I had no other choice but I still do you know what I mean but I still felt like there something better for me but I didn't know how to bridge it like what would you say to the person that's listening that actually feels that right now in their life man number one uh whatever you're doing that's negative you can't escape from it there there's a million tens of millions of people who have done the exact same thing that you're currently doing and you know how that movie is going to end and it's going to end the same way for you if you continue um down that path and what I would tell folks is you don't have to know what it is you want to do you just know that you want to do something so why not put positive energy you know into whatever it is you're trying to do or just put positive energy into your life period like you know an acronym that I love is uh positive energy activates constant elevation positive energy activates constant elevation and that's peace oh it is yeah positive energy activates constant elevation right so for me it was I know that if I constantly keep doing this like my dad said I'm going end up in jail dead or broke sitting under the tree and when you start seeing that actually happen whether it's to you or other people around you if you continue down that path once again you made the choice so you got to deal with it but for me I decided to say "Yo I'mma do whatever I got to do to not do this." So I I worked at I worked at Taco Bell i worked at a clothing store in the mall called Demo i did telemarketing i was the guy that would call your house and try to sell you 20 CDs for a penny like I did I I did so many I did so many [ __ ] odd jobs like just just to avoid being in the street and I just felt like you know was there a moment though because you know I used to I was a public defender for legal aid and in New York City and I do feel like when you are in that loop of making really bad choices and you feel like you have no options and you're also surrounded by people that are doing the same thing it takes a level of courage to wake up and go I'm not doing this anymore so true do you remember like was there a moment where so what was the moment where you're like I'm not going down like this when well the the first time I got arrested I was sitting in the backseat of a car and uh one of my homeboys shot at somebody so you know we all ended up going to jail literally they came and got me out of high school the second high school I had got had had went to because I got kicked out of the first high school and my mom was teaching at this high school Scrapford High School and they thought I would behave more because my mom was there so I ended up getting caught up in that situation i think I did 45 days in the county jail my dad ultimately ended up bailing me out and you know I I was I tried to be on the straight and narrow a little bit but to your point the allure of the streets right like you know a lot of the the people that I was hanging around and being with they were in the streets heavy so I was like it's your community it's your friends it's what's around you and then you start to tell yourself the story i got no other options absolutely and so it goes from acting up in school to now all of us are getting a little bit older but we're getting introduced to things like the drug game and I'm watching people make a little bit of money so I want to make a little bit of money too and I remember uh I was involved in the drug bus you know the house that we used to to to sell dope out of got busted and I remember just being in those handcuffs and all of it's literally like 11 or 12 of us in a holding cell in Monks Corner South Carolina in the Berkeley County Detention Center and I was just like yo I'm back in jail again and I remember looking at the steel toilet in the holding cell with all of these people in it and just throwing up and I was like is it for me like literally I'm I'm going to figure out my life in a real way i am going to un because another thing that I always thought about when my dad would tell me that people end up in jail dead or broke sitting under the tree i had a lot of people that I used to look up to who didn't make the best choices and I saw that happening to them and I start something just started clicking to me like yo there's no redo on this thing called life like this day that you're living right now you're never getting back so you're going to have to start making changes in your life right now to get to where it is that you need to be because you know one day you gonna wake up and you you going to be 30 and Biggie Smalls had this great lyric biggie Smalls said "Being broke at 30 give a brother the chills." And that's where my mind was at and I was still broke at 30 but I was on my way i was on my way because I was already in the radio business at that point well I want to highlight something because I believe that the only thing that it takes to turn your life around is the decision that the way you're doing life isn't working anymore and that's what you just described and I think so many people I've come to believe and I I'd be curious to hear what you think about this i've be I've come to believe that the single biggest obstacle that actually stands in people's way and yes there are big factors around poverty and money and racism and bias and all this stuff but the biggest obstacle is actually discouragement and despair the sense that there's nothing you can do that's right and I love your story and I love what you stand for because you at time and time and time again have made a decision how I'm doing things no longer works for me and I don't give a [ __ ] what other people are going to think about it i'm going to figure this out and I don't even have to know how I'm going to change my life or what it's going to look like i just know I'm not doing it like this anymore and so you make the decision you work a bazillion jobs how the heck do you get into radio because I think the other thing that happens for people and it's probably this I I can feel so many people sending this episode to their adult kids listen to this man mhm how did you go from no experience a bazillion odd jobs having you know been arrested to actually making a break in radio and in the business you you you you said a lot of things that you know just make me really think about that that that journey right like you used the word just now said this discouragement right i had a lot of encouragement early on even though my dad wasn't always doing the right things and even though he was hard on me he was always encouraging me to do the right thing same thing with my mom she was an English teacher always encouraging me to do the right thing so even when I was you know getting in trouble I knew that what I was doing wasn't what I was supposed to be doing so to answer the question the positive energy that activates constant elevation i used to want to rap like most people who come from communities like I come from when you black and you know you you growing up in a certain environment the people you see who look like you are usually in entertainment or athletics i'm only 5'6 so there wasn't going to be no NBA for me right but as far as be a jockey maybe but but I was always my grades was always so bad I could never play football and so for me I always wanted to rap because I used to always love storytelling always love storytelling you know my like I said my mom was an English teacher i grew up on the Booker program reading four books a week you know to get a free pizza you know my mom would always tell me to read things that don't uh necessarily pertain to me so I grew up reading Mad Judy Bloom and Beverly Clearly so I was always in love with storytelling so I'm in a recording studio right because if you want to be a rapper you got to be where people are rapping so I was in this recording studio um two of them actually one was called TNT Studios another was called Never So Deep Records and well the guy who owned Deep Records is a great mentor to me to this day named Dr robert Evans but at the studio I met a radio personality named Willie Will and he worked at Z93 Jams in Charleston South Carolina and I'm a curious person if I see you doing something positive or doing something that looks cool I'mma ask you and I just asked him like "Yo how did you get in the radio?" He said "I got an internship." And I said "What do I got to do to get get an internship?" He said "Go down to the radio station and ask for an internship." And I'm like "It's that easy." I said "I'm not in school or nothing." And he was like "So 90 this is 1998 Charleston South Carolina like things were totally different." And that's what I did i went down to the radio station and I filled out my internship papers and I started as an intern like literally I was the guy that would drive the radio station vehicle to the concerts or to the different remotes and help them you know set up their posters and things like that and then that eventually turned into me getting a a gig uh in the promotions department which is just being a paid intern so I was making what $5 an hour or something like that and then I would always be in the studio with Willy Will and Willy Will bring me on the mic sometime and you know we'd be talking and I remember one day my man Ron White who was the music director still a good friend of mine to this day he comes to me and he goes "Yo you ever thought about being on the radio?" And I'm like "No but I am now." And so he started putting me on Sunday mornings 11:00 a.m to 3 p.m and they used to do something called voice tracking where you would record your voice and they would air it and you know I was too much for Sunday mornings so they started putting me on Saturday nights 7 to 7 to 10 it was voice track 10 to midnight it was live and that's where the bug bit me and I was like this is what I want to do for the rest of my life well you not only got the bug you dominate um on radio and I want to read to you some of your words from your book Shook One which is an incredible book and there was one passage in particular that I wanted to read to you because we were kind of like talking about this theme of the power of making one decision like my life is not working the way that I want it to work it feel the way I wanted to feel and you had this second huge epiphany because you had become known as like this shock jock and you were like saying all kinds of crazy stuff about people and that was kind of the way that people knew you and you had this epiphany that this is not who you want to be anymore and so I want to read to you this from page 245 of your uh bestselling book Shook One for many years I was edgy and risky with my words on my mic i pushed the envelope on topics like sex people would listen to me and say "Man Charlemagne is wild there's a reason Rolling Stone called me the hip hop Howard Stern." Today I have a much different mind state while I'm always going to be authentic with my life's experiences I'm embarrassed by things that I've said in the past there are moments when I just want it all wiped from the internet i cringe thinking about my daughter watching some of my old clips but I can't surrender to those fears i've come to accept that I can't be a prisoner of my past because the truth is largely with the help of therapy I've evolved a great deal over the past few years i'm not the same thoughtless instigator I used to be i'd love to have you share about the decision to make a huge risk in your career because you gained so much fame and influence by going about things a certain way and then you made a decision I don't want to do this anymore what happened and how have you changed same way that when I was sitting in Monks Corner South Carolina and you know my father would tell me if I don't change my lifestyle I'm going to end up in jail dead or broke sitting under the tree and you know watching you know people who I I loved you know who made poor choices end up in those circumstances it's the same thing now it's like you know I I love hip-hop you know I love being a hip-hop radio personality but a lot of the hip-hop radio personalities that I grew up admiring there was a glass ceiling and they didn't realize it and so they thought that they was growing but they kept hitting their head kept hitting their head kept hitting their head and I'm looking at them now and I'm like yo these people are washed like I don't want that to be you know my life in the future and that was from a professional level and just from a personal level it's like yo my daughters know their daddy they know their daddy is silly they know their daddy is a very unserious person but there's just some things that you know I don't want to have to explain because when I said these things I was on drugs i was drunk like it was I was whing like I wasn't in the right mind space but you know what I have learned Mel is that you got to love every version of yourself like you know how the hell do you do that i mean come on now if you But how do you do because there because every single one of us the person that is listening right now can look back at a moment in time yes and just you just cringe you want to erase that person you You just are We beat ourselves up over it how the hell did you get to a point where you could love every version of yourself because I'm 46 years old this year i was born in 1978 so I'll be 47 right i'll be 47 this year i know 20year-old me did not know what 46 year old me knows i know 15year-old me didn't know what 30year-old me knew so it's just like yo I you got to give yourself grace because you just did not know what it is that you know now so why would you ever beat yourself up for what you did not know and like I said earlier to me life is just a process i don't believe in good or bad i just believe in everything is just one long process and there's things that happen for you along the way not to you there's things that happen for you along the way and I accept it all i accept the good with the bad and you know one thing one of my one of my one of my therapists says to me is that um you know you can't have any of your success without having any of your problems right so any problems that I had you know growing up any problems that I had when I was young that all led me to this point where I'm at now and I go back and I think in my mind I go hug the 8-year-old version of myself i hug the 16-y old version of myself i hug the 20-y old version of myself i have conversations with those other versions of myself all the time you do like get like tell me what's like how do you believe we got Can you believe we're here can you believe we got here yo man I'm glad when I'm glad 25year-old you decided to go this way i'm glad 19-year-old you decided to get in the radio i'm glad you know you read all of those books when you 8-year-old you nineyear-old you 10 year old you read all of those books when you was younger like you know I know you and your pops had some issues man but he did give you the autobiography of Malcolm X when you was very very young and it taught you all about growth and evolution and you know knowing that somebody like Malcolm Little can become this great individual like Malcolm X and introduce you to you know the Nation of Islam where they took the worst of us and made them the best of us so you know you got to give every single version of yourself grace like Marty McFly didn't go back into the future go back into the past and curse his parents out tried to help his parents help his parents get on the correct path we have to do the same thing you know with ourselves you got to give every version of yourself that ever existed grace one of the most beautiful things that you have said so far and you've said a lot of things that are very beautiful and empowering and important but I really want to make sure that the person listening takes this and applies it you You literally just said you got to give yourself grace why on earth would you punish yourself now for things you didn't know back then absolutely what a beautiful gift you can give to yourself and I and I also love how I'm I'm starting to kind of read between the lines that you're also extending it to other people in your life absolutely that we need to be able to extend that grace to people in our lives and stop punishing them now for the things that they didn't know back then you know I'm curious as you sort of like have this like transformation your mind that is both business i see that there's a ceiling to this stick and also as a person I just don't want to operate like this anymore when you started to transform yourself on air did you have any anxiety at all about how the dedicated huge hiphop audience fan base that you had built would be receiving you um not really because I know that our I know that we're we're we're we're a smart community you know like you know I grew up listening to Public Enemy i grew up listening to Wuang Clan you know I grew up listening to Scarface and Killer Mike and like all of those brothers you know always had things in their music of socially redeeming value so I know I know who we are i just think that sometimes u there there's people in in our community that got to have the courage to grow up you know I always say that the two greatest hip-hop albums well the two most important hip-hop albums in the future people are going to look back and they're going to say Jay-Z 444 and Kendrick Lamar Mr moral and The Big Stepper because if you listen to the content of those records Jay-Z's talking about the maturation of a man he's talking about not cheating on his wife anymore he's talking about issues with his father he's talking about going to therapy on that album i remember hearing that album on my third it came out the day after my 39th born day like literally I was on a roof in New York just turned 39 midnight hit me and my wife were leaving and I put it on in the car and it was like he was talking to me in that moment that was the soundtrack for my life right then and there where I was in my life therapy dealing with issues with my pops being faithful to my wife like being apologetic you know for for the the things I've done to my wife right you're cheating on my wife like that was mindblowing to me and I was like "Oh okay god I see exactly what you're doing." Kendrick Lamar you listen to his album Mr moral and the Big Stepper he's talking about "Yo his wife is on there saying yo you really need to go seek some therapy." He's he's got this song on there called uh called Father Time where he talks about his issues with his dad men don't talk about that you know it's always when it comes to daddy issues you think women but no the daddy issues that you have as a man are are real too so it's like I knew we were beyond ready for these conversations because these conversations were already happening in our community they were just being done in secret when I put out that book Shook One it came out uh in 2018 and I remember it was the week of Thanksgiving 2018 i'm home in Monks Corner South Carolina and my dad calls me and my dad is like "Yo man I just um I just finished reading your book Shook One and he goes "Uh you know you know your cousin you know just committed suicide." My he was 25 years old young man tried to complete suicide four times and he was like he used to do a lot of odd jobs with my father and my father was like yeah man between that and your book I just wanted to tell you man um you know I I I was going to therapy two and three times a week and I tried to commit suicide 30 plus years ago and you know um I was on 10 to 12 different medications you know for my for my mental health and I'm like I never knew any of this and so I remember asking my mom like mom did you know dad was dealing deal with all of this and my mom was like I thought he was just playing crazy to get a check right but he really was dealing with his own issues and he never told me this but imagine if he would have told me this when I was young i would have knew what those panic attacks were i would have knew what those bouts of depression were but he never ever told me you know any of those things so I think our community has always been ready for these conversations hip-hop community the black community it just takes somebody to have the courage to to speak them well you wrote about that realization in uh your latest book and I want to go back though to what you said cuz you were talking about how it was 2018 people talk openly now about anxiety and depression and you have done extraordinary work in terms of dstigmatizing those topics and one of the things that I'm curious about is how the hell did you even know that you were having anxiety or struggling with depression because you're right it was not talked about openly like you wouldn't be caught dead walking into a self-help aisle and most people didn't even understand the signs of anxiety or depression so how the hell like in 2007 2016 did you realize that this is something you were dealing with conversations with other people you know talking to other people and you know I always credit you know folks like uh you know Neil Brennan my my my young guy Pete Davidson you know who's been going to therapy for a long time you know women in my life like Debbie Brown who was just an amazing spiritual you know leader been a longtime friend of mine for almost 20 years um these were people who I always heard having these conversations and when I was still dealing with the anxiety and still dealing with the depression even though I was supposed to be at the greatest point in my life cuz I was making more money than I've ever had in my life and I was having more success than ever but the panic attacks were increasing and you know the bouts of depression was still increasing plus I knew I wasn't really living the life I was supposed to be living i was out here being the you know hip-hop rock star right so I wasn't doing right by my wife all of these things were you know coming down on me and I remember just you know saying to myself like I'mma try therapy i'm just going to try it you know me and my wife had a conversation she was like go and so I just started going and then that's when I started to get the language to understand you know what I was dealing with in regards to anxiety and in regards to depression but anybody who's first started therapy knows you go for one or two things and you start peeling back layers and you know unearthing traumas that you didn't even know existed you know in your mega bestseller get honest or die lying you actually say I've been called a fake mental health advocate or critics will say that I use discussions of mental health as a shield to distract folks from all the wild [ __ ] I used to say and talk about on the radio way back when so for the record I started to work on my mental health because I knew that if I didn't deal with my trauma my trauma would ultimately deal with me i love that last sentence if I didn't deal with my trauma my trauma would ultimately deal with me what does that mean i think a lot of people don't understand what trauma is and how widespread it is in people's lived experiences trauma is uh you know things things that have happened well to me things that have happened to you and when those things happen to you you just let it fester you don't actually try to get any healing for it and what we don't realize is trauma hurt you and hurt people hurt people right so it's just like you know when you are dealing with your when you go out there and you deal with your actual issues you start projecting that level of healing ing onto people you can only meet people where they are so if you meet me when I'm a hurt person you know who's upset because I got you know molested when I was eight or upset because you know of how my father used to discipline me like or upset because I got beat up when I was 18 years old 19 years old for running my mouth too much which I deserved by the way but still it's like you project that on to other people and what you also realize when you get older is that 99.9% of everything you're dealing with as an adult is a direct reflection or connection to something that happened to you as a child it's like I'm literally just talking to my inner child every day telling him to calm down calm down we know why that is causing you to act that way and so like you got to go deal with your trauma because if not I've seen I've seen a lot of people self-sabotage i've seen a lot of people self-destruct turn to drugs turn to alcohol or they're just mean nasty rude people and you know that might be kind of worse than the drugs and alcohol cuz then you know people will leave you on an island unto yourself you know you're right about that too you write in your book Get Honest or Die Lying when I see folks who are willing to say anything and attack anyone for attention I just shake my head because I remember that feeling absolutely i know that behavior is eating them alive on the inside absolutely can you talk a little bit about that because I think it is so incredible that you have gotten to the point where you can actually see that kind of behavior in other people with grace and kind of understand what it is what What are you talking about in that section it goes right back to what I just said hurt people hurt people i can listen to I can listen to people say certain things and I'm like "Oh that person is miserable." Because you would never say that about somebody else if you weren't miserable i mean you know I used to always say Michelle Obama say "When they go low we go high." But sometimes you got to take it take it to hell with them right but but but sometimes if you're willing to take it all the way to hell what does that say about you i I'll tell you something i I'm saying this and I haven't shared this with anybody you know um I I came up under Wendy Williams right wendy Williams was a great mentor of mine you know still a friend of mine everybody sees the situation that she's in right now um she's able to move around a little bit and we were out to dinner just what's today this Monday monday literally this past Monday and she said something at dinner and that was profound and she was just like we were just talking about just her and the radio and you know just the way she used to be on the radio and what her future's going to look like and you know would she come back and be that same individual of course she couldn't be cuz she's not that person anymore she's 60 years old now right right but she said something she said you know I think I might be in this situation because how how I used to talk about people that's what she said you know she's you know she's trapped in the conservatorship and I was like really i was like I said what you mean like karma she said "Yeah you know just like God I I've never heard Wendy talk like that in my life but it was just confirmation for me that I made the right choices made confirmation for me that I had the right understanding of the power of my words and the energy that I was putting out there you know and I don't I don't necessarily believe that she's in that situation because of that but that was what she said." So I just you know I want to I tell everybody all the the podcasters and the YouTubers you know the radio personalities this microphone has a lot of power and you can cause a lot of hurt or you can cause a lot of healing you know with the things that are coming out of your mouth i would tell you to choose uh choose the healing so I think every single human being has said things that they regret since you've done all this work on yourself and especially in light of what you just shared that Wendy shared with you have you reflected at all on how your actions in the past or the things that you used to say on the mic have hurt other people oh yeah absolutely how do you process that for yourself you got to give yourself grace you know like I I I I did what I did i said what I said um I know the mind state that I was in but I think sometimes we don't think about the mind state other people may be in and you don't know how fragile somebody may be and you know how something you said could have really caused them you know lifelong trauma or or trauma that they're trying to trying to work through and you and you get that through conversation like sometimes people will come up to you and tell you like "Yo you know you really hurt my feelings when you said such and such." Yeah and what really really what really started to change a lot of it for me was when like a lot of the young artists started coming on the show and like the young artists who like like I remember you know somebody like a young Thug I remember Young Thug was saying like man you know I used to hate when you used to say crazy stuff about me and you know you used to really [ __ ] with me used to really bother me i'm like why he's like "Cuz you Charlemagne you know my mama and them listen to you and you know aunts and everybody listen to you." And you you don't think about that right like you when you're on the microphone you don't know these people but you they're humans too so the same way you might go online and see something somebody says about you that you don't like or you like "Oh that ain't true." Like it's the same thing with with other humans so yeah I I do think about that a lot but once again I got to give myself grace because I was in survival mode i I I tend to forgive people for what they did when they was in survival mode you tend to do a lot of wild things when you're in survival mode and for me when I got on Breakfast Club in 2010 I had been fired from radio four different times that was the seventh radio station I worked at i had a a daughter that was two three years old i wasn't going back to Mos Corner South Carolina it was it was by any means necessary like I I didn't care what I had to say or who I had to say it to and it was the same thing when I used to work with Wendy i was literally just Wendy's attack dog wendy bought me there cuz Wendy knew she was going to make the transition to television and she didn't want to be the same personality she used to be so she had me there to literally be an attack dog like literally get her get him get him like like literally and so it's just like nah that's not that's not what I wanted for myself you also write in Get Honest or Die Lying about any chance I get I walk out into my backyard i put my hands on a tree i lean my head against it and start to meditate that's tree hugging it's a valuable practice i was taught by my sacred purpose coach Yachty here's how I first learned it can you tell us a little bit about like what what what is what what are you doing when you're doing that like I I'm trying to imagine you walking out in your sweatuit with your bare feet and you walk right up to that tree and you wrap your arms around that tree man salute to Yachti yachty Alba yachty is a a sacred purpose coach yachty man it's funny me and Yachty it was all it started with face down ass up face down ass up face down ass up in the grass yes i know you're thinking about two live crew but that was the running joke the running joke was like "Yo go outside take your shoes off do some grounding lay in your backyard." I'm like "Lay in my backyard." Like lay down put your belly on the ground put your face to the ground face down ass up i know it sounds crazy but literally that's what I would go do and you would be surprised the healing energy that comes what do you feel when you do that talk put me there peace peace do you feel energy come up from the earth yes you can literally I'm Yo you can literally feel it from the earth i know when people like "Oh he's a tree hugger." Yeah and you would be too if you could just take your shoes off walk on the ground put your forehead up against the tree lean your back against the tree lay down on your belly if you want to just lay if you want to lay on your back lay on your back on the ground just take a few deep breaths look up at the sun look up at the sky just pray just talk to God and I guarantee you if you allow yourself no phone no distractions I guarantee you you will feel some type of release well you know what's amazing about that is you're reminding us all of what we know to be true because if you think about any experience where you've gone on vacation and you've actually had a chance to lay on a beach yes or to sit down on a trail or to lay down in a park while your kids are swinging and you just take a moment you feel at peace man my favorite thing to do is to be in the water i feel like the direct connection to God is in the water looking at the sun so when I'm in the water I'm looking up at the sun even you know squinting praying talking to God telling God what it is that I want what I'm thankful for a lot of gratitude sometimes it's not I don't even ask for nothing i just go out there and just say "Thank you God thank you." That gratitude is a lost art you know everybody has this sense of entitlement nowadays everybody feels like you know you know that that that that the world is just supposed to open up and give you things it's like I'm grateful for every opportunity even sitting here on Mel Robbins show I'm just like man thank you God this is a a great opportunity like I'm grateful for everything and when you in that water looking up at that sun just expressing gratitude the peace you feel if the person that's listening is just at a point in their life where they've like the metal toilet moment and things just feel like it's just gone to hell made so many mistakes they don't have the grace yet that you're talking about the fact that you need to extend to yourself do you have any suggestions or advice for how you begin that practice of gratitude when you feel like you're just screwed up well you should say thank you because whatever you're going through things could probably always be worse and if you don't believe me just turn the news on turn the news on there's somebody going through something right now that you wouldn't wish on your worst enemy but that person is actually you know going through it so for me when I find myself in those metal toilet moments you know it's it's just like I'm here what am I supposed to learn from this moment thank you God for the experience of going through it like I'm really big on that i'm really big on thanking God when things are not necessarily going my way cuz they're probably going my way you You understand what I'm saying i have this thing where I I feel like you can stand in this moment and you can look backwards in time travel and go "Okay I may not like what I see." Mhm i may not have deserved that it may have been very painful but I can actually in this moment look backwards and see how everything led me uniquely here absolutely i think it's an incredible skill and what you're accessing when you are practicing gratitude in the way that you're recommending is you're actually teaching people how to stand in this moment and in the gratitude of thank you even though I don't know where this is leading you're actually practicing faith because you're saying I'm grateful because I know it's leading me somewhere that I can't yet see that is meant for me and I won't get there without this that's right and I I'm I'm 46 years old i've lived enough life to know God has not led me in the wrong direction yet so whatever moment I'm standing in I'm supposed to be standing in in that moment and I need to deal with it you know I've been like like you know that's why my wife bought me the Let them Theory is because you know one of the things that I've been is just dealing with is just wondering about other people meaning like what about other people uh I've I've I've had different experiences in my life where sometimes people resent me for what I'm actually doing for them meaning like you can be actually doing good things for a person or have done really good things for a person or you know provided opportunities for a person and that person will grow to resent you like I've literally had I've had a friend say to me one time "Oh I don't I don't want to do this deal with you because if I do it people are going to you know continue the narrative i only get things because of you." And I'm like that's strange like you know what I mean like because I would I would love to have a me and I've had a I've had a lot of people in my life provide me opportunity i've had a lot of people in my life get me on the right path or you know allow me access to things that have gotten me opportunity so why would you ever feel like I don't care if I'm with one person that's provided me 10 different opportunities like why would that be a thing and I've had just friends in my life who regardless of how much I've done you know for them they act like nothing i did nothing and I'm not even that i'm not the type person be like remember I did this for you i did that for you i just do things i don't even care like I just feel like that's what you're supposed to do when you're in a certain position you share you know the wealth you share the opportunity yeah so to find out that that person is like "Oh he don't do nothing for me." And you're like "What?" Now you got to now you got to run down the list in your mind now I got to go in my mind and be like "Was I bugging when I did this this is and and and to me that feels cheap to have to do that." But sometimes you got to do that to remind yourself it's not me it's this person and and and that is data about who this person is and where they are and so I can see that clearly when I say "Let them say these things let them be ungrateful let them be so insecure about their own power and success and capability that they're actually threatened by my generosity let them be so concerned about what everybody else thinks of them that they need to distance themselves from me because they are clearly insecure about their own power and skill and so they're trying to manage what other people think can you expound on the threatened by your own generosity yeah of course like so so when somebody I used to be this person like I used to be a person who believed that there was a limited amount of success to go around i used to believe that if Charlemagne were just dominating on radio there was no room for me because you've already done it and so if you would extend a hand at first I would be grateful because I would feel seen by somebody that I really respect and I would feel supported but as I start to build something I would then have to confront the fact that I'm only in a certain place and now I make a mistake and instead of seeing you Charlemagne as somebody who's leading the way somebody who's there as inspiration somebody that provides a formula somebody that provides celebration and support and cheerleading and advocacy for you I make a major mistake because I have a very small mind and I think there's only so much to go around m so now I start to see you the very person that led the way and that cheered for me and that supported me as a person that I'm now against because I now want what you have and I don't actually see that the world is abundant when it comes to success and money and friendship and love and all and peace and healing these things are in limitless supply and the only thing that the only person that can take something that's meant for you is you that's it like like it's so sad that when people look at the game of life right what happens is everybody is dealt a hand and some hands suck and some hands are better that's just how life is it's not fair but you don't win the game of cards by staring at the hand that somebody else is holding that's right you win the game of cards by staring at your own hand and figuring out how to play them and how to be a better player and how do you do that in life you learn from other people mhm cuz you and I and you and your friends you're never playing against each other you're only always playing with them and if you are dealing with people in your life that reveal to you after you have supported them after you have shown up for them that they are actually just transactional that's because of their insecurity absolutely that's why and it hurts because you see the potential in other people and so you give and give and give because that's one of your core values to be of service but then when somebody starts to turn against you or just all of a sudden is antagonistic toward you it just feels weird absolutely i'm basically saying let them be on their own journey let them be very scarce in their mindset let them not understand the way that the world works let them not understand me and let me give this a little space so that I can give them the grace and dignity of their own experience but I'm not wasting time and energy managing this person anymore that's right but that that shouldn't stop you from being who you are like I got like my my niece Luth to my niece Nalis Moone and she says this and it's very genderless when she says it she was like "You like to save hoes stop trying to save these hoes right and I can't stop being me." Meaning that God's not Well you can you can save hoes all you want just don't expect them to become a church lady that's right and and I mean they may become one yes they might be they may that's like So but I'm saying like God God's not going to judge me based off how people treat me he's going to judge me based off how I treat people right and here this is where the power comes because I want to give you this so the let them theory the first part is let them because that's where you actually recognize you can't control what another person is going to do with the support that you give you cannot control that right your control is never in what other people are doing and we waste all our time and energy worrying about what people think and say and do and how they act and we have expectations and we have to learn to just let other adults be who they are and be who they're not and what these people in your life are showing you is they are not abundant people they are not secure and so when you lift somebody up and you've already talked about this if they have not done the internal work you can lift them up on the outside but you're still dragging up the devil inside them right that's right and so we tend to attack the very thing that could actually help us and as you're lifting up somebody to a different level and they have not done the internal work to be at that level they will literally turn against the person that lifted them up it's because of insecurity and so you've got to let them reveal what they're who they are at their core and how they're going to react to your generosity then you go to the let me part let me remind myself I actually always have control because I get to choose how much time and energy I put into this relationship moving forward and your power is in your values you give because you're a generous person you give because you believe in lifting people up you give because you believe God is in all things and you are grateful for all things so that is how you show up that will never change but people will reveal that they are not in that same energy space as you and then that's just data let them so you can better protect your time and energy but don't stop giving just not to them absolutely is that helpful that is beyond helpful beyond helpful cuz I'm I'm I'm the type of person I feel like if anything you build only benefits you not big enough so I'm never going to stop you know being of service to people but what you said is absolutely true once you get that data and you know who a person is you know whether to pull away or how much to give or not to give at all anymore exactly exactly that's all that it is it's it's actually you know how you talk about gratitude thank you thank you for Thank you for revealing how you actually feel because now I can I can protect my time and energy but so in your book Get Honest or Die Lying um you know you talk about how much you hate small talk why do you hate small talk because it's [ __ ] why do you think it's [ __ ] because you're not really you just you're you know two things happen with small talk and and Mel I know you know this people will come up to you like you know I really like the frame of your glasses Mel like you know that's not what they want to talk about they got some they got something else they want to ask you so they just beating around the bush to to ask about it i rather you just come to me with whatever it is i don't want the appetizer i didn't order the appetizer i want the straight entree when you when it comes to conversation give me the entree i don't need to be warmed up if especially when you know what it is you actually want you know what the request is you know what it is you want to talk about don't try to warm me up to the conversation because it's just [ __ ] and we know it waste of time waste of time you know you're right and get honest or die lying this is chapter 28 true intentions one of the best ways to avoid making small talk on any level is to focus on your IG no not your Instagram the IG I'm discussing stands for intention and goals can you break that down for me what is intention and goals intention and goals like you know what the intention of your conversation is and you know what the goal you're trying to reach in the conversation is so just get to it like you know what it is that's all that's that's literally what the opposite of small talk is the opposite of small talk is I have an intention i have a goal i'm gonna go up to this person and I'm gonna have the conversation i I remember being a young guy uh doing radio in Columbia South Carolina first time I ever met Wendy Williams she's down there doing uh her her nally syndicated show from one of the stations in Colombia i walk in the studio i got mixtapz and I got parody songs I want her to hear and I'm like "Yo I got these mixtapes i got this parody song I want to hear." I I'm I'm I'm give it to the board like "Yo put this in." Wendy goes "Yo take that mixtape [ __ ] to my [ __ ] husband." Literally just like that verbatim like no small talk no beating around the bush i wasn't offended i go "Well where's your husband?" She was like "Somewhere in here." So I went looking for her husband and he was in the conference room guess what he was just sitting in there he had time to listen right but that was me not having no small talk hey this is what I'm here for i'm a radio personality i got these parody songs these mixtapes I want you to have she didn't have no time for small talk cuz she's trying to do her show and that got me on the right path that forged the relationship you know i mean I mean I don't have a relationship with her husband anymore but we forged a relationship that ultimately led me to New York how on earth do you deal with the criticism that you get on social media i don't care i really I really don't i don't pay no attention that's something I stress to everybody around me stay off social media we are all in verbally abusive relationships with our smartphones why why would you allow somebody to talk to you like that you wouldn't allow somebody to talk to you like that in real life so why do you go online seeking it why would you go look at comments in a YouTube channel or comments in a you know on on Twitter i ain't been on Twitter since 2019 i like everybody running now because of Elon Musk i forget Elon Musk i ran because of my mental health i need to protect my peace i I used to get on Twitter every morning and say "Thank you God for blessing me with another day of life." Guaranteed like clockwork it would be somebody saying "I was praying you died." You know what I mean so it's like why would I put myself up to that i don't need to go on Twitter to thank God like you know like I thank God every day of my life so for me it's like just don't read it like literally turn your phone off like I remember my man Trick Trick he's a rapper out of Detroit i remember one time I saw him say "Man soon as I do this," and he turned his phone off and put it down i don't even know what the hell y'all talking about and listen ignorance it's so true ignorance is bliss you You ask anybody that works i come in the radio station sometime did you see such and such nope I didn't what happened like I love being clueless because literally why would I care about what another person's opinion of me is and the other thing I tell the folks if they're supposed to talk about you if they're not talking about you then you're probably not doing what it is that you're supposed to be doing you're not making no impact whatsoever so whether or not they talking good about you or whether not not they talking bad about you they're talking and the algorithm doesn't know the difference god you're a genius no I'm not yes you are just that's just a little common sense cuz you know I write about it in in the second book about about the tsunami of you know social media because what we what we don't realize is sometimes we spend so much money I mean spend so much energy on people we don't like right so you're constantly talking about that person talking about that person or that person said something so everybody's coming at that person but then that person's actual supporters they start coming too they start commenting so now everybody's arguing in the comments about you and but The algorithm don't know all they know is Mel's been mentioned 10,000 times in the last hour so who cares h have fun enjoy yourself talk to me about your morning routine because you seem to have really locked in the things that you do in order to keep your mental health and your focus intact to keep yourself in peace to keep you connected to God and gratitude how do you start your day will you walk me through it 4:15 the alarm clock goes off i immediately hit the snooze button eight minutes this the snooze button goes off again so then I get up I say my prayers go take a shower get out the shower i try to sit and meditate for at least at least five minutes because you know I'm I'm cutting it close like in the morning to do morning radio it's a game of inches so I try to do at least five minutes but I read out of two affirmation books every day i read out of uh Ryan Holidayiday's the daily sto and I read out of um uh Robert Green's uh the daily laws I think it's called and then I read what what those affirmations are i kiss my wife while she's sleep i blow kisses to all my daughter's rooms then I get in my car go downstairs and I'm either listening to you know a podcast like yours or J Shetty or Debbie Brown or I'm listening to I love I love the John Stewarts the weekly show whenever he does his episodes because I think that he just does some of the greatest political conversations right now but that's usually what it is i just try to like listen to something I know is going to get my energy where it where it needs to be and my intention every day is the same my intention every day is to serve so I just wake up every day and I say you know God I'm I'm grateful for another day of life i'm thankful for another day of life and you know whatever the day brings today cuz I know it's going to be a new adventure every single time i know it's never a dull moment I'm I'm ready for it oh my god how has having daughters changed you man in in in ways that I can't even imagine because I'm nowhere near the type of disciplinarian my father was like I I'm not putting any type of hands on my daughters in any way shape or form uh I I apologized to them a lot you know one of the one on one something my my oldest daughter she's 16 you know I snapped at her about something we going back and forth about something i had to check myself and realize like oh this don't got nothing to do with her you know it's something I'm I'm projecting onto her i'm projecting my fears onto her the same way I said my father raised me out of fear and not love so when you apologize I remember apologizing to my 16-year-old daughter and she said to me "It's okay you've never done this before." Meaning this is your first time as a father this is your first time raising a 16-y old girl which is very true like so I'm not going to always get it right and you think about how man you long for like just apologies from your parents cuz I know a lot of the things that they might have done to us when we were younger they didn't know any better they they were just doing the best they could with the knowledge and the information and the wisdom they had at the time so it's the same thing now so when you ask me how my daughter has changed me I really don't know yet i just know I am being changed like I know that like this there's just something that's changing me as just a human because the one thing I'm really fighting now is realizing that you got to relinquish control because you cannot control anything that happens to these four little beautiful souls you can't nothing like you know only thing you could do is love them encourage them you know I try to give my daughters the best experiences that they possibly can can have and just teach them to be really great people i I the things that my mother and father and my grandmother instilled in me that really stuck with me my whole life i try to give to them like when I tell them you know manners will take you where money won't you know when I tell them when you walk into a room make sure you make eye contact with everybody you speak to everybody like just you know just just say hello like you know cuz everybody is a human being worthy of that that level of respect treat the custodian the way you treat the CEO like you know that's I'm big on that especially with my nine-year-old because if there's any one of my daughters who is um a hell raiser like I was when I was a kid it's is it's my nine-year-old but you know my only thing with her is you need to have that same smoke for the teachers at school don't come to the parents and the people that love you and be crazy cuz I was crazy everywhere when I was your age i don't tell her that but that's my mindset you know but I do tell her you know you come home and I know you you you act with us the way that you don't act with at school i don't ever hear about this type of behavior with you at school at school you see the the oh she's a pleasure and she's great and but at home you you know do you know what that means no what does that mean because cuz some because I used to complain about my kids this way too okay a a parenting expert therapist told me that that actually is a sign they feel safe that they feel safe with you because they've been holding it together at school yes and you know I really want to acknowledge you and your wife for something and like it just I think it's so beautiful you know you started by talking about choices and we've talked a lot about the power of a decision right and you talked in the very beginning of this about how your dad parented out of fear the choice that you have made to do work on your inner self and to learn how to extend yourself the grace that we all deserve and to also learn how to show up and do better in that simple story of your daughter reflecting back to you the things that you have shared with us today dad this is your first time doing this too she is actually evidence that all of the healing that you have done and all of the work that you and your wife have done have actually broken that pattern of parenting out of fear and have broken the way that trauma gets passed through families mhm and I just really wanted to acknowledge that because that is incredible man you know I remember during COVID cuz my daughter is 16 I think when she might have been like 13 14 she's we started putting her in therapy not for any reason other than why not you know it's like it's like she she's a she's an athlete she's working out all the time right for cheer so it's the same thing it's just like why not go learn what you might be dealing with early and I remember during co she came to us and she goes she was crying I'm overwhelmed she was like I'm overwhelmed she said that she was like "I'm overwhelmed right now." And I was like "Do you think me or your mom would be upset that your grades are slipping during this unprecedented time none of us have ever had to experience anything like this i can only imagine being in eighth grade and you're sitting there trying to do clay projects on the floor and you're you know trying to get through class during the day on your computer like I can only imagine." But the fact that she had the language to come to us and tell us she's overwhelmed my nine-year-old and six-year-old same way i talk to them about going to therapy i tell them about you know dealing with anxiety dealing with depression now you got movies like um Oh Inside Out inside Out you know you got movies like Inside Out that are showing them their emotions and their feelings inside Out Part One and Part Two so these kids have the language and that's all I really want i don't know how possible it is but I've always said all I want to do is raise trauma-free babies man that's it i mean I know that they gonna go through their own experiences in life and they gonna have their own things that they got to deal with but I want to at least raise have them have a traum-free childhood is is as as much as possible well it's very clear you and your wife are giving them the tools to actually respond to anything that's happening which is extraordinary and I just want to make sure that you can you hear the acknowledgement and the work that you've done and the impact that it's having on the daughters that you're raising yeah I receive it from you you know um for me I'm just trying to be a good father trying to be a better father than my dad was i mean it's not like my dad was a bad father at all i don't I don't ever want to say that but he will tell you about his his own issues and you know just me learning what I've learned not just about him but you know through the work I've done on myself I know all the mistakes that he made and you know he was one of my models for going to do the work as well because I just did not want to make the same mistakes that he made especially in regards to him and my mom you know and like you know his infidelity broke up his family and I saw the impact that had on you know not me to a certain extent but definitely to my my younger brothers and you younger sister so it's the same thing you know I didn't want that to happen to my family so it's just like yo in order to not be what my father was I had to be better and since he taught me well since I learned very late what he probably could have taught me early I just you know started doing the work on myself and applying it to my everyday life and it's been a amazing blessing you know you talked about this earlier but I want to read a passage from Get Honest or Die Lying it turns out that my father had been dealing with severe depression and anxiety most of his life he was going to therapy several times a week and was on multiple medications at one point things had gotten so bad that he had to check himself into a mental health rehab he'd even wanted to kill himself but hadn't because he didn't want to hurt his children you know you mentioned how you didn't know any of this growing up how did learning about that those struggles that your father had later in life change how you see your dad oh I gave him it allowed me to give him so much grace because when I first started going to therapy you know I thought that uh I didn't like my father because of how he did my mom really didn't have anything to do with that it was part of it but what what it really was like I was upset because you know I felt like he he he disciplined me for things that he never taught me and it was like damn this guy you know he was he was he was he was very hard on me in a lot of ways you know what I mean um but it was literally because he was dealing with his own issues and so once he told me that and I found that out about him everything made perfect sense i mean everything from the infidelity to you know how he used to discipline me everything made perfect sense so it just allowed me to to give him a whole lot of grace and I just I wish he would have shared a lot of those things with me earlier which is why I'm so big on sharing them with my with my kids now how do you think your relationship with your dad especially before you even knew any of this played into the experiences of having anxiety or being a people pleaser like how did that impact you well the people pleasing people pleasing came from when I was getting molested when I was 8 years old and the reason I know that is because when I was 8 years old and I was getting molested when I wanted to make the young lady stop doing it she would call me when she would call me ugly and she would say I had a big nose and like she really just started to like mess with me mentally when I would tell her to stop right and so I just let her do it because I didn't want to experience that like to me the experience of being called ugly and saying I had a big no nose and all of that crazy stuff that was worse than what she was actually doing to me and that's that's a that's a psychological mind [ __ ] too because it's like it's it's not like it didn't feel good when I was that age right so all of that that's where the people pleasing came in i I learned that in therapy years ago like that's what made me a people pleaser and the type of people the type of people pleaser that you will allow people to run over you and do you dirty but you don't care cuz you feel like you're keeping the peace by making them you know making them happy so damn what was the other thing what yeah whatever how how your relationship with your father particularly before you knew his struggles played into the own the anxiety that you felt oh yeah i mean probably just trying to impress him all the time you know uh especially when I when I wasn't in school no more and I was in night school and you know he would he'd pull up to the house and then you jump up and act like you was you you was doing something you go outside and act like you was cutting grass or you know you were trying to figure life out just because he I knew he would be on my be on my ass so much um but yeah just I I think in a lot of ways he was the person that I wanted to impress the most in my life and that turned into and that's it's I don't know why I'm just connecting these dots now that turned into me subconsciously stunting on him what do you mean because it's like yo I don't know if you ever really believed in me cuz I remember when you would compare me to like you know my cousins who played football and you know like don't you want to be like them you out here always getting in trouble blah blah blah this and that and so it's just like you know when you start to achieve success and you're actually doing things that nobody from your hometown has ever done you find yourself stunting yeah pops yeah yeah yeah now what i'm the I'm I'm the man now you know what I mean like that's how you that's how you you you that's how at least how I registered it so I think the reality is all I really wanted to do was impress him i'm really just a little boy who always just wanted to impress my dad and wanted my dad to say "Yo I'm I'm proud of you son." Which he which he has done you know my mom is my mom my mom set me free so long ago cuz I remember my mom saying to me years years years years years years ago she said "You have accomplished more than anybody in this family has ever accomplished." And she said to me "But just always be happy you're making a living." And that's always been my mind state i don't get too high on any of this i don't get too low on any of this i'm just happy that I'm able to make a living and you know now I'm in a position to help others make make a little living too i would love to have you speak directly to the person that's with us right now that's listening or watching us and you've had this breakthrough so you know it's possible but you know if you think back to those moments in your life and you've told us about a bunch of them where you're really struggling what would you tell the person that feels like they're they don't feel worthy they're struggling they just what do you want them to know about the strength within them about how to think about this moment in their life so that they can get to that point where they feel what you feel first thing I would say is say thank you regardless of what condition you're in what position you're in what's going on in your life you're alive you're breathing so that means that you know God the creator whatever you want to call that entity you know has a reason for you to still be here so say thank you and be grateful and then you know from there just be of service and you start with being of service to yourself because you can't help anybody else until you help yourself first so whatever it is that you're going through you know figure out a way to to get through it figure out a way to find some healing from it you know I don't know if it's therapy i don't know if it's just simply taking your shoes off and going to do some grounding some breathing exercises some meditation something find a way to serve yourself to put yourself in a position to where you can get on your healing journey and then just go out there and start you know serving others just find something to find somebody to go help like go volunteer at the you know local food bank you know go help somebody take their groceries to the car just find some way of of being of of being of service and I feel like man you'll start to see your life transform in ways that you can't even can't even imagine and you'll start to love yourself more i think that's one of the things that a lot of people lack too man we just lack real genuine selflove you know because the world is always the world is always making us feel inferior so it's very hard to feel you know like you're a person you know worthy of love if you can't look in the mirror and say to yourself man you know I really genuinely love you like I stay I stay on my Michael Jackson [ __ ] like if you want to make the world a better place you got to take a look at yourself and make that change like you got to talk to that person in the mirror and when you talk to that person in that mirror and that person has gratitude and that purpose that person's purpose is to serve because I always tell folks your true purpose in life is service to others i like everything we're doing is of service this podcast is of service man like you people literally go and they listen to the Mel Robbins podcast cuz they're trying to find answers to something that's going on in their life and hopefully you know information is being dispensed that does it for them so you just got to find your purpose by just going out there being grateful and going out there to serve serve people find somebody to serve serve just serve and I promise you you'll see your life change in ways that you can't even imagine i I mean that what you just said is actually it's the holy grail it it is like everybody's like I don't know what my purpose is you just told us what your purpose is your purpose is to serve and to to work on yourself to be a better version of yourself who actually give guidance on page 36 of get honest or die lying i absolutely love this human beings that might have started out in one place but have the potential to go somewhere else i'd encourage you to look for that same potential in the people you meet and more importantly in yourself we are all works in progress the more we can embrace that process and let go of the unnecessary judgment and the holier than thou attitudes the quicker you'll be able to evolve into the best version of yourself that's right what are your parting words keep God first stay humble keep working that's that's literally my mindset like I when I tell you I'm just I'm just happy to be here when I tell you I'm just a kid from Monks Corner South Carolina who is just extremely grateful for the journey that God has me on i love being I'm 46 years old i love being me i love my life i love my wife i love my four daughters i love the circle of people that I have around me that I call family i I just I I just that's it like keep God first stay humble keep working that's my mindset it is just radiating off you like you can feel like you were talking about laying on the ground and feeling the energy you can feel the authenticity of that energetic alignment in your soul when you say those words thank you that's it keep God first stay humble keep working that's literally my mindset every day i keep God first you know I was raised a Jehovah Witness my grandmother was a Baptist so all I ever knew was you believe in something there is a God my father was a Jehovah Witness till he got this fellowship but then he got into Islam but there was always God so God is always there that's number one stay humble yo all of this can go away tomorrow like literally all of it can go away tomorrow the same person you meet up is the same person you meet on the way down so it's like treat the CEO the same way you treat the custodian you know I feel like there's a lot of people you know hopefully when I'm not around they say good things about me just because of how I carry myself when it comes you know to other humans and stay working because what else you gonna do and when I say stay working it don't even just necessarily mean a job just stay working on yourself because as long as you're alive you're a work in progress and God has more work for you to do wow we went to church today with Charlemagne i'll tell you that's it well I hope you keep working because we're all benefiting from it thank you for having me you are you you are a light you are a blessing you know uh I don't know if you realize it but you touch so many different people like there's not a demographic of people I can point to and say "Oh that's the Mel Robbins listener." Because I have so many different people come to me and be like "Yo you know Mel Robbins you my wife literally just gave me your book last week." You know I talked to people like Jason Wilson they speak so highly about you like Jay like all like you you are a real light to people man so just please keep doing what you're doing because we need uh we need people like you in the world oh well thank you absolutely i I I can receive that and the Let them Theory is lifechanging yes man because I used to say "Let him drown." Let him Oh [ __ ] yeah i got to get rid of the drown part that's a little too Yeah well because then you're going down with them yes exactly exactly so now I just like let them let them Everybody makes their own choices let him yeah you know I had a really interesting conversation with Dr martin Luther King Jr.'s son Martin and his wife Andrea on their podcast My Legacy and as we were talking about it he said "You know Mel this is my dad's teaching because choosing peace does not mean surrender it's actually a sign of strength." That's right and managing your response is power and when you surrender your peace and your love to hatred then you actually lose your power it's a choice to let them show up with hate or let them show up however they're going to show up and then hold my power and let me choose how I respond because taking responsibility for your life is like let's look at the word responsibility it's the ability to respond and you are a person who has responded to the twists and turns of your life you started by talking about choice you understand the extraordinary enormous transformative power of the choices that you make that's right the good ones the bad ones but the ultimate choice to then extend grace to yourself and to figure out the kind of person that you want to be and the kind of life that you want to live and you've made a decision to be of service and to lead with love and that choice has transformed your life it's transforming your marriage your daughters all of the people that that listen to you around the world it's so powerful so thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you thank you feel that gratitude i [ __ ] love you Charlene i love you more Mel thank you oh and I love you too thank you thank you thank you for choosing to spend time together with us thank you for listening to something that will help you create a better life and in case no one else tells you I wanted to be sure to tell you that I love you and I believe in you and I believe in your ability to create a better life and if you take Charlemagne's advice today be of service there is zero doubt that you will have a better life all righty i'll see you in a few days and for you sitting here watching with me on YouTube I just want to say please share this with somebody don't just sit and watch please do something and take a minute and subscribe to this channel because it's really a way that you can support me in bringing you new videos every single day and I'm sure you're looking for something really inspiring to watch to really move you so I want you to check out this video next