Yo, what's going on everybody? It's your boy, Devan. And Jay. And we are back with another twice born radio podcast, another episode.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm super grateful again, man, to be back in the building. Try to be consistent as possible for you guys. And we've been enjoying these episodes.
Shout out to everyone who rode with us on our pivot. From our last episode. Also, greatly appreciated it. Yeah, we had a good time with that one.
But tonight is really what we were intending on talking about. Absolutely. Absolutely. So we're getting back to it, man.
We're talking about adult deficiencies. What would be the subtitle if you were to give it one? Adult deficiencies. Subtitle would be how much of your upbringing is prevalent in your adulthood?
Mmm. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Well, I mean, this is good. I think it'll be good for you to... Well, let's do this. I think context matters, especially when you're talking, right?
Yeah. And we both have interesting family dynamics growing up. So I think that's important to talk about, right? Yeah, no, no, you're right.
Because this is an opportunity for them to get to know us a little better. Because we're going to share our own deficiencies, at least what we believe to be deficiencies in our own lives. Yeah. We dealt with them.
Maybe we had it. We'll see as we can go through the conversation. We can be here. We are going to find out together.
Yes. I mean, why don't you give a background on how you grew up? I think it's good for people to know this for you. Yeah, sure.
So I am the youngest of two, not like 100 kids, but like half-way. Most people don't say the youngest of two. I just have an older brother, pretty much. However, my father and mother were married for the first seven years of my life and then my mother left.
When she left, there was obviously the forced decrees and proceedings and all that stuff. I'm only seven years old, so there's not a whole lot of understanding that I really have at the time. But that being said, we ended up, my brother and I staying with my father. We were raised by my father through 18.
And my father did not remarry until I was over 18. My mother on the other end actually did remarry two years later in 89. And so I had a stepfather for a lot of my younger days. And to go along with that, I will also mention that my mother did have visitation rights as part of the divorce decree where we would spend every other weekend with my mother.
Now my mother, when she left, she moved to LA and then moved from LA to Carson. And that's how the connection with, and I don't know if I've ever talked about this, but like Brandon, Ray J, all that is from Carson because we grew up in the same neighborhood. But again, I'm only there every other weekend and half of the summer of every year. So it's not like we had a chance to get really tight and all that kind of stuff just because we weren't there that often.
But that being said, that was the family dynamic. I will say this, as I started to get older and probably at the time of about high school, even though visitation rights were every other weekend, things began to taper off a bit, but mainly because of athletics. So at that time in high school, I was playing basketball, baseball, football, and then introducing golf as well. So there would be weekends where we would not go out there just because we had too many sports things going on.
And mainly that was my sports stuff. My mother wasn't really, he didn't really have an opportunity to play many sports, just because of some injuries he had as a youth. So yeah, I mean, that's pretty much the dynamic, but raised by my father. And when I say raised by my father, let me just try to clarify, raised by the village, honestly, because my father is one man.
He had a whole mortgage to pay. So with him being a tradesman, he would spend a lot of his off time from work, actually doing more work in the electrical field, just doing rewires and service changes for people in Pasadena, Pasadena area. So a lot of that we were kind of brought up in a village because my aunts and uncles all lived in Pasadena. And we would be always welcome to go up there and spend time.
He also had some neighbors that always looked out for us. I grew up in Pasadena on a very middle class street. However, all of my neighbors were older retired black folks. One was a Tuskegee airman.
A couple of them were actually millionaires, but they did not live like millionaires, not with like mansions and all that kind of stuff, but they had properties and things like that. And so they always looked out for me and my brother coming out. They knew that my dad was a single father and they always looked out. We had that tribe and village mentality in the neighborhood as well as with the family.
So we were always taken care of with great respect. And honestly, I think that's part of the reason why I love to sit at the feet of the elders today is because I learned so much from my uncles, my father, my neighbors, those ogies that came before me that already did this stuff, I learned a lot from them. And they kind of helped me with especially for myself to keep me out of trouble. Man, so you mentioned something that was stuck out to me immediately.
When you said you were raised by, you know, it was basically your all hands on deck raised by the tribe, right? But when we talk about efficient deficiencies, was it that the tribe helped fill in some of those deficiencies due to the, due to your dad having to hold everything down or what? Well, I'll say it like this. My dad taught me how to be a man and there was no other, his influence on that was enough.
Okay. Right. But part of God's structure in a family is father and mother. Yeah.
And so my dad could not be a mother to me. Right. And this goes out to all those ladies who are trying to be a father to their kids. You're not the father.
You can't be the father. It just doesn't work like that. Yeah. So, you know, give your value and efforts and all that stuff, but understand that you can't be a father, just like I can't be a mother.
And so my father did not mother me. Which is a dope thing to say again. My father did not mother me. There it is.
And my mothering came from my mother every two weekends and from my aunt's and my neighbor. And you know what I mean? Like, but that wasn't as daily and it wasn't in the household. So I had to go places at that mothering.
If that makes sense. All the way. All the way. So, you know, what would you say like is that we always talk about like me and not having men in the homes.
Yeah. We talked about that a lot. But you and I both had that experience where our mothers were the absolute ones. Right.
Which is real crazy that we're having this. I don't think we even realize that until right now. But what would you say like the biggest deficiency from having your mom or like that? I can tell you mine, but I want to know yours.
Well, you know, honestly, I think it's, well, I don't know if this counts as an adult deficiency because this is something that I really struggled with as a youth was I, but when my mom left, I was a mama's boy. Man. I'm seven years old and when my mom is home, I'm cuddled up under her. Yeah.
You know what I mean? And so the hurt and the pain that I had when my mom left, I can't even explain it today and definitely couldn't explain it then. But I would tell you this. When my mom would drop me off from, from our visitation, she would take us to my house.
I would stand at the door watching her drive away crying. Wow. And I mean, absolutely crying and devastated. Devastated.
You know why? Because I never thought that I would see her again every week. I always felt like this was the last time I was going to see her. Not because of anything that she said or did, but you're not in the house anymore.
And I just got to spend this weekend with you. I see what I mean. You know what I mean? Yeah.
And now my stepfather was a, he's a lawyer and actually was a great stepfather. I mean, me personally, because of who I am today, I don't really use step, right? But back then, I used step. I was a disrespectful kid from the standpoint of, you're not my father.
You ain't my daddy. Now, I was never like, you ain't my daddy. But I wasn't going to recognize him over my father. That just wasn't going to happen because my dad didn't give up on us.
But then again, this is young mentality, right? Today I don't exactly feel the same way. But back then, it was kind of like you left us. Yeah.
He stayed. You left. Yes. So I had to get counseling and all of that about that, you know, that whole scenario situation.
But I would say from a deficiency standpoint, I would really say that, you know, as a teenage boy, I wanted to be in love. It's funny because you showed me that video from Daddy Devotionals, right? And I actually was talking about in that video how I used to play out my life every like two or three years as a young person, I would think about where I would be at 18. Where am I going to be at 22?
Where am I going to be at 22? And I always knew I would be married by 25. And the reason was is because I wanted to be in love. Wow.
Because I had already seen the heartbreak. I saw my father cry. I saw my father and my brother and still to this day, I can see that day when my mom left. I can see the letter on the TV when we get home.
And I can see my dad take the letter going to the bathroom and next to you know, we just here and crying. You know what I mean? Like, that's all just filled with pain. So for me, I wanted to be in love and I wanted to be in love as much and as soon as possible.
So what did that do for me? That made me actually be insufficiently in these relationships that I was in and doing everything I could to, you know, hurry up and get to the love park. Which, okay, so just for people who are listening, that wouldn't sound like a deficiency to you. But that actually is because deficiencies often show up in desires or they'll show up in where we swing the pendulum to the other side and kind of overcompensate or things like that.
So, you know, wanting to be a girlfriend, I had, man. You see what I'm saying? Like, and most people would not consider that a deficiency or even a red flag if you want to go as far as that. But anytime you get to that kind of place where it's like the love park, it's like, what is driving you to want to have that?
You know what I'm saying? And like, unless somebody knows your story, it would just be like, oh, he just loves love. And he's like, yeah, but there's a history of that kind of sense of that. Paying and hurt.
And so let me give you the flip side of that. The effect it had on my brother. Oh, yeah. Now, my mother was the catalyst for us going to church on a regular basis and all of that stuff before she left.
And so my brother was not going to continue with church. He was rebellious about church. He was rebellious about black women. And actually to this day, still does not, you know, I haven't seen him with a black woman since prom.
Wow. That counts, because I want to say he got stood up for prom or something like that. Jesus. Yeah, something bad happened.
I'm trying to remember maybe the problem was good, but it was maybe another dance that he got stood up for, which was very unfortunate. I hated to see that for him. But that being said, my brother ended up becoming a pimp. Like a real life pimp.
Like a real life pimp. Yeah. And you know, it really was, and it may still be in a deficiency for him. I mean, he does struggle.
To me, he struggles with trusting Christian women. he struggles with trusting black women, because my mother was the representation for both of those in his life. That's crazy. It's understandable.
It's completely understandable. And I think for anybody listening, you have to think about that too. When we find ourselves in some of these positions, man, especially church people, we talk about generational curses and things like that. But some of it was just consequences of decisions that left us with deficiencies that did not show up blatantly until we became adults.
So you know what I'm saying? It's not like it's an instantaneous traumatic event happens, or somebody's absent all of a sudden I just turned into something. It's like, no, I grow up without something that I didn't even know I needed. And I don't realize I'm deficient until I need it, and I'm finding a different way to compensate for what I need.
Yeah, and there's that recognition, usually that recognition doesn't happen until you're an adult, to be able to see like, oh, that's why. Yeah. You know what we think about it in the moment? Either somebody tells you, or you have this epiphany moment, and then you're like, okay, I can fix this.
Well, at least one would hope that that's where we get to. Yeah, because not everybody wants to fix it. Some people are just like, this is who I am. And my mom will meet his way, and it's the blame game.
For me, I did grow up with my grandparents, as my parents as an adopted kid, but I didn't meet my biological mother until I started dating Raven. Yeah, that was like just halfway in. I think we've been dating like six months before I met my biological mother. But what I grew up with the entire time was the question of, like where is she?
And it might be, I had never met her, right? So I won't get into all the details, but I was adopted very young. So this is what I had the full epiphany. I could not vocalize our verbalize should I say, what I was feeling I knew I just had questions.
And one night, it was a Monday night, I was sitting at home, and there was an episode of Fresh Prince. Well, that man of guys daddy came in with that, from that trucking trip. Oh, come you don't love me, man. When he said that, I cried so loud, my parents ran into the room, my grandparents, because they were like, what happened?
Did he fall or, and I, and mind you, this is back before DVR and all that stuff. So by the time I'm crying and they get to me, it's commercial break. Yeah. And they don't know what, they don't know if I've been watching a scary movie or, and I could not verbalize what I had just watched, but it felt like he said what I had been trying to say.
Why did she, yeah, it got real. And I was, you know, I was doing high school or something when that happened. So long story short, what that did was, for me, the deficiency, this is why women in the home are so important, man, as much as men. There's a level of affirmation that comes for boys that regulate to their system where they don't necessarily need affirmation outside of their mother, right?
And sometimes we can swing the, like Jay said, mama's boy, I was a mama's boy. Like sometimes we can lean too heavily into it, but what it does is it gives you a different level of confidence and swag that doesn't make you thirsty for women or thirsty for their affirmation or thirsty for their praise. And so growing up, you know, affirmation for me from a woman went, I mean, it hit me like, it hit me like Cupid's Arrow, baby. You affirm me, gas me up, all that stuff.
And so you combine that with being a 16 year old musician and that is the recipe for trouble. I didn't realize until I got into my twenties that most of my relationships were born out of trying to answer the question of why my mom doesn't want me. It's like, oh, oh, she doesn't want me. Well, if this girl wants me, then surely the problem is my mother and not me.
So it was a constant like, affirm me. I need to find that, affirm me. I even find myself sometimes with Raven having this. If I'm being transparent, where if she's having a bad day or she's off, I will, I will need some sort of it.
My assurance and security comes from her, affirming me. There was one, this is before Rey, there was a girl that I was dating and we were out somewhere, man, running an errand or something like that. We had to go inside, I think our family members house or something. We were grabbing something, coming right back out.
Somehow between the car and the front door, we got an argument, a huge argument. And so we were all over doing what was going in there. She had the keys of the house going in there grabbing stuff. We got a huge argument and went into the house.
And then for whatever reason, I went to the bathroom and I was coming out the bathroom, she had grabbed the thing. So she was just heading back to the car. But the visual on my head, when I came out the bathroom, was keys, whatever she had in her hand, going out the front door. And I screamed out, please don't leave me.
And she wasn't even, she was like, what do you mean? I'm just like, we ran together. And I had to stop myself in that moment because I thought, you know what I'm saying? And that deficiency shows up, man, it shows up heavy.
What would you say is an adult deficiency that you've realized, let me put it this way. What has happened in your life that has forced you to see some of these deficiencies that you didn't know were there before? Like any trigger moments, any moments you can remember was like, ah, I noticed this. You know, I started to have, so my mother and father were married in 76.
Oh wow, okay. I think 76, 75, 76, somewhere in there. And in my mind, they stayed married for 12 years. I think it was 75, 75 to 87.
That was 12 years, right? Yeah. In my mind, when my marriage got to 11 years. Oh no.
And we're on that 12 year. Yeah. I had anxiety. Really?
Oh yes. And my wife will tell you I had anxiety because in my mind, she's gonna leave me. I never knew that. This is when it's time.
This is when it's time for her to go. And so when I tell you I was on edge for that year, I was on edge, like to the detriment of almost sabotaging things. Really? Because I'm putting what my mother did and what my mother's relationship was.
I'm putting that pressure on my wife. Who does not deserve that? Was she aware of, like, she was aware of the history? I spent that whole year telling her that we got to get to 13.
Really? So I could ease up. So you weren't gonna feel safe until you got past 12? Yes.
Now, check this out. We get to 13. I talked to my dad and I'm like, yo, we made 13. I'm so happy we made 13 because I had so much anxiety about 13 because you and my mom broke up in 12.
He said, me and your mom broke up in 11. So carry that. I carry that anxiety for no reason. For a whole year, a longer than you needed to.
Well, you didn't need to at all. Let me be honest. I didn't need to at all. Exactly.
I really didn't need to at all because they're not us. Yeah. You know what I mean? But it goes to show how you can formulate things in your mind based on what happened when you were a child.
Yeah. And you begin to draw a picture with that and expect it to happen like that again just because that was the happenstance that happened then. And truly wasn't fair to myself, wasn't fair to my wife. And I probably could have done a better job in communicating these things in counseling before then.
But here's my thing that when you say communicate that's that were you even aware of them? I mean, you know it now. But I mean, I won't be aware of it because I was trying to get to 13. It was literally my goal.
Let's make it to 13 because if I can make it to 13, we smooth selling from there. That's how I feel. So we should crazy, right? It sounds crazy.
But it sounds completely reasonable if it's rooted in a traumatic experience, right? I think. And that's what it was for sure. Well, number one, the fact that you told your dad that and for your dad to come back and be like, it was 11.
Like you know what I'm saying? Yeah. That's incredible. I mean, when he said that I laughed and he laughed too, but my laughter was an uncomfortable laugh.
And his laugh was, this is actually kind of funny. But at the same time, I think at the moment, we both realized, wait a minute, this is because and I mean, like this is still something that's bothering. I'll say this. One of my issues of being an early adult was is that I was in and out of relationships because I did not want to be alone.
What will cause you to break up? Various things. Various things. I mean, some of them were just toxic relationships.
Yeah. And sometimes I had to get away from them. And don't get me wrong, it's not that I was the good guy in all of these scenarios because I had fault in a lot of these scenarios and situations as well. However, I literally would go from one bed to the other.
Man. You know what I mean? And to me, the bed wasn't about an accomplishment of being in someone's bed. The bed was the accomplishment of, okay, we belong to each other now.
Which is different. That was like the seal to deal to our relationship. But that's why I asked, like, how did you end up breaking up or whatever? The reason I asked that is because generally people in that position where they're like, I want to be with you.
Like it's hard for them to come to the realization that this is toxic or we shouldn't be together. They only make excuses to stay with the person. You know what I'm saying? Oh, I overstayed all of those.
This was what I overstayed. I mean, it shouldn't have been as long as it was. I mean, I was shacking up with a couple of them. You know, it just, these were like real relationships, real relationships, playing house.
You know what I mean? But I was literally moving from one to the other to one to the other. And it was after my last relationship where I basically broke up with her and told her, it's not you, it's me. Not you getting with that line.
Please don't listen. Listen, listen though, in the midst of me using that as an excuse of it's not you, it's me. I actually began to realize that it was me. Like for real.
And in the moment had a real legit breakdown because I'm realizing there is something wrong. And so before I got with my wife, my wife was my very next girlfriend. But I took time off for myself. Yeah.
And to write things, I began to journal, write poetry, and I wrote a whole letter to my mother. Like a, I don't know, I think it's like a seven page letter or something like that. Like a poetry? Like Dearestan and Eminem?
No, no, it was just a letter. But I wrote the letter and never gave it to her because it really wasn't for her. It was for me to get out the feelings that I had as a young child and seven years old. That I could never express for all this time.
I didn't know how to express it. But in that moment, I wrote this letter and I actually got everything out that I needed to get out. Years later, I told my counselor that, and he said, did you ever give it to her? And I said, no, he said, why didn't you give it to her?
And I said, well, I didn't give it to her because I realized when I got it out that it really wasn't for her, it was just for me to get it out. Yes. Well, she wanted to get a point. Go back and talk to her about it.
Yeah, you can't start a point because it's two parts. Number one, she was deficient of something that ended up bleeding into you, which created another deficiency. Which means a part of her deficiencies can get healed, or at least the conversation can start being healed by that. But that's the other here, that's a suggestion.
But when you were talking, I was like, man, it's so crazy. Most women would kill to have a man that was like, I want to be with this girl a long term. I'm serious and I want to be loved and out of the other. And on the surface, it is.
But if it's not rooted in a true and authentically healed place and it's coming out of a deficiency, like that's why you can't just be like, I want a loyal man. Because there are some people who can be loyal because they don't want to be alone, bro. And that's bad as you know what I'm saying? Yeah, absolutely.
So like don't ever measure success as a sign of no deficiencies. Right? Some people have a hustle mentality and they go after the money because in their mind, they are identifying their worth with the money. And so it pushes them and they strive and they're motivated by it.
And they only know who they are when they have money. They have no clue who they are when the money goes away. Absolutely. So like that so the even success does not necessarily, it's not a sign of a lack of deficiency.
It actually could be masking a deficiency. Absolutely. Because it benefits you but it's coming from a bad place in them. And like I really pray that when people are connecting with people with friendships or relationships or whatever, that they really ask God for discernment, they really ask God to open my eyes.
Because here's the thing, like the last thing you want to do is become committed to somebody who is committed to you. You know what I'm saying? Who's committed to you for the wrong reasons? Yeah.
What happens to you is based on not because they really want you who is because they want someone. And you are replaceable. Because you are the person who can just feel the boy for the meantime. There it is.
There it is. And what's scary, and this happened to me, getting into a relationship, but I know who you are, at least not being aware of what you're supposed to be doing, or at least know where your deficiencies are, is you'll give somebody, and then when you have the epiphany and start to evolve, you could be two or three years into a relationship and realize, oh, I'm with the wrong person. Yep. That person fit my deficient stage, but now that I've had the deficiency met, or now that I've been healed in that area, this doesn't work for me anymore.
And so like I think you have to be even careful in that, if I'm being honest. I'm not going to be in a relationship, and one person has an epiphany, and all of a sudden, the road changes, the road map changes, we might find out that we're going in different directions. Yeah. I'm growing, and you don't want to grow.
Yikes. And so when I'm growing, and you don't want to grow, well, I'm going to try to, I'm going to try to encourage you to grow, but that's going to seem like me coming down on you. There it is. Yep.
Yep. I'm judging you. I'm telling you you're insufficient, and you know, less than and all that stuff. So what would you say for people today?
Like, what's the road to discovering self-deficiency, or adult deficiencies? You know, I'm so sorry. So it's funny. So I taught a lesson last night in Bible study, and it was an introspective lesson.
Yeah. It was parable of the solar, but it's an introspective lesson. It is. I have to look at self.
Yeah. And so I think when people need to address their adult deficiencies, the way you discover your adult deficiencies is, I think what you do is, you really need to look at self. Yeah. And you also should probably write out, what do you want in a person?
Yeah. But you can't meet your own needs. How are you going to meet somebody else's? Yikes.
You know what I mean? Like, when you literally write out what it is that you're looking for, and you find that you wouldn't date you? Yikes. Whoo.
You know what I mean? Parsh we are. Now, the problem is, is that a lot of our reality today is conversation around, he needs to come to stable with this, that, and the other. You have to have all of this in line before we get together.
But in the meantime, I got issues. But we're not talking about my issues, my list needs to be met. These, you got to have a six-figure paid job, you need to spend $30,000 on my ring, you need to spend $40,000 on my wedding, you need to do this, that, and the other. Pay all my bills, get my hair done, my nails done, get all this stuff done for me.
Man. But I can't cook, I can't clean, I can't. Now, I'm not saying gender roles, I'm not even just talking about gender roles, I'm just saying, what do you bring to the table? Bro, okay.
Can I have a four minute? Because it is gender roles, because what these women are asking, here's what happens, there's an absence of the father in the home, so they want the next man to be what their father was not. So the adult deficiency begins to make the list. But money don't make you daddy.
Hello? So thinking that because a man spends money on you is the positive, and is what you need, is where you're gonna come up deficient, because what's going to happen is, you're gonna have a man that spends money on you, and then he's gonna cheat on you until you guess what, I'm spending money on you. If you want me to continue taking care of you, you're gonna put up with the rest of my hair. There you go, there it is, because what you're gonna do without me?
See, it's like, man, I'm telling you bro, you just said it bro, that was it? As soon as you said the gender role thing, I was like, let's see, here it is, let me say this, and let me also be very clear. I don't think Jay and I are in any way trying to insinuate that you need to have all your flaws worked out before you jump into something. Absolutely.
But you do need to know what your boundaries and your lines are and what you can tolerate, right? You need to have that in line. But here's the thing, when there's an absence of an example of a role, you will quickly redefine it based upon what your perspective is. So for instance, if there was an absence of a father in the home, that means that that that role of a father is not there.
So that person who was supposed to be fathered, now gets to define the role based upon what they feel would best suit them. Like if my father was there, I would need my father to yadda yadda yadda yadda, and that could be brought together by, you know, envy and other people's father-child relationship, they could be stuff we see on TV or whatever. But the issue is that your deficiencies can form a expectation that is rooted in a lack of what God really wants for you, right? Like it's like, no, I need to do this, this, and you won't be happy unless you have that.
But you weren't happy because you didn't have it growing up. So now you're like, I refuse to have my adulthood be the same way as my childhood. Yes. That should be a sign, in my opinion.
That should be a sign what you just said. If you are a young lady or a young man, and you have a list of what you desire, but you don't have any desire to change, shift, evolve into a person that can fit that, that is a sign that there's a deficiency. You're trying to have a need mat that's unfair. It's unfair, it's unfair by your spouse, or whoever you're dating.
And also keep in mind that you can have parents that are there but they're not present. My God, please don't get me started. And so what I mean is like the hands-off parenting. Hands-off parenting is not something that's going to generate an active young adult.
Nope. And then there is the other side of it where you're over-parenting to the point where you are fulfilling every want that your child has. Your child has to build the needs and also teach some lessons along the way of how, like, I put you like this, there's a line in the first Black Panther movie when the father dies. And he says, Chadwick says to his father, he says, I was not ready for you to die or something like that.
I can't remember exactly what the line is, but essentially the father says something to the effect of the whole purpose for what I did as a father was so that you could live without me. My whole purpose is to set you up so that you can live without me. I can't remember the line man. I need to find that bar man.
Because it actually brought me the tears. The first time I watched the movie, I was like, yo. It was a heavy moment. It was heavy.
It was really heavy because this is when he took the purple stuff and he was under it. He was seeing his dad as the ancestor, right? The purple stuff is wild, bro. The flower, I can't remember what the flower was called.
But the point is, is that it's important that we, that that parenthood is like, don't give me wrong, man. Because I don't think that there's any perfect parent, right? Because nobody parents and then parents again. At least you shouldn't, right?
You parent your children and then your children parent, their children. When you become a grandparent, if you try to parent your grandchildren, that can be an issue all in itself. But kind of getting back to the adult efficiency. I think there are things that you can do as a parent that can create deficiencies in your children.
Because you either do too less or you do too much. You can do too much. And now your child is a lifetime dependent. Whoa.
Bro, that's a real thing. It's heavier with our generation, man, because we have so many reasons and excuses to continually stand that place. But you mentioned the Black Panther part, right? Which was, but I know exactly the thing you're talking about where he dies the first time.
Yeah. And goes to be with his father. But what's interesting is he held his father on such high esteem, which is why the first time he died, he was like, yo, man, I can't do this without you. Yeah, I don't want to do this.
By the time he gets to the end of the movie, you remember he died a second time. Yeah. The next time he sees him, though, he's mad. Yes.
He found out some stuff that helped him realize that he thought his father didn't have any deficiencies. Correct. Because he did not know about Killmonger. He had no idea that Killmonger was.
That dude? Yeah, he had no idea. He's like, why didn't you bring the boy home? Exactly.
And then you realize that they were human. Yeah. It's what's interesting is what you thought you were sufficient in, all it takes is one truth, to shake your core. And now, we have a minister at the church, man, just an awesome person.
But one of the things they had mentioned was they have found something out about a loved one, but they found out right after they died. You know what's coming down? All the truth are coming out about stuff? Oh, man, that can be tough.
Yeah. What you thought you knew? Bro, and she mentioned. We have seen that you held him in.
Yes. And she was, in large part, she's like a theologian. She's like another Preston period or church or Jackie Hill, whatever, right? She said she was struggling.
She called me. She said, I'm struggling because I got into the faith because of this man. You know what I'm saying? Like she was like, my faith is built on Christ, but my introduction to Christ was based off of this man.
And she's like, now everything for me is shaky. Bro, she was solid in her faith. And then all of a sudden, it just, so it's amazing. Like, I say all that to say this, to go back to what kind of what you were talking about, is like part of preparing your kids and preparing, you know what I mean?
Like those you're raising to be ready to live without you and to be sufficient, self-sufficient as much as possible. It should kind of tell them the truth, man. Like you got to tell them where your deficiencies were or are. You know what I'm saying?
And I feel like a lot of us found out things about our superheroes way too late in the game. Absolutely, absolutely. One thing I will share is I remember specifically my father, and this was early on after my mother left. We were basically, my brother and I, were the ones who cooked and cleaned in the house.
And he taught us how to wash clothes. He taught us how to mop, how to sweep. Now, mind you, we grew up with hardwood floors. So, you know, I hate sweeping.
To this day, I hate sweeping. I hate my mother, Mark's from the blisters. Like, because that's how long it makes the sweep hardwood floor when the whole house is hardwood. But he taught us how to do that stuff, and he always used to tell us, I'm teaching you how to do this stuff, how to cook and all that.
Because there's no guarantee that you're going to have a woman. Wow. Do those things. Jay, wow.
Now, mind you, he's teaching us this lesson while we're living this lesson. Yeah. You know, and in the meantime, I'm watching him. My father has a, you know, he's in and out of relationships.
Oh, man. You know, in and out of relationships, I think the first couple of relationships that he had after the divorce and everything, I think in his mind, he was trying to have a female present in our lives to kind of replace what he felt like we were missing, right? Yeah. Which is a valiant effort, but it is not a good idea to bring women home to your children to try to, you know, you know what I mean?
Yeah. So that kind of didn't help us as much as he probably thought he was trying to help us at the time, because I saw a two-year rotation. He would, he would someone for two years, and then it would be another woman. And then in two years, it would be another woman.
And there was always some kind of deal breaker. Now, I won't get into the details of all the deal breakers, but I'm glad that they were all deal, those were all broken deals. I'll say it like that. Because when it all comes out and you learn what was happening, it's like, oh, okay, I get it, necessary.
Necessary, because some of it was, you know, our kids don't get along. Or the parenting aspect, we don't agree on how to parent. You know, if I got a problem with my kids, and I'm going to reprimand your kids the same way I would reprimand mine. And if you don't like that, then we're not for each other.
Because I can't have, in his mind, he's got boys in that late 80s, early night. This is the height of gangs. Yeah, yeah, man. So he's trying to do everything he can to keep us out the street.
And bro, and I know Pasadena gets painted in a certain light. Deena was, y'all. It's not a place, y'all. I tried to glance over it in that last podcast, and I was like, you know, other than some teenage, you know, stuff from the 90s, you know, the small gang stuff.
It's not small gang stuff. There are many of friends and people that I know that are not here today because of gang stuff. And my dean is a problem, bro. There are pockets of like, you know what I mean?
High affluent places, but Deena, for the most part, has a hood, has a hood, man, has a hood. So but that's interesting. That's an interesting thought, bro. Like your dad is trying to, your dad is really trying to make sure his boys make it out all right.
Say they're crazy. Ain't it great? He's trying to parent in the time. Yes.
This is the height of gangs. This is gangster rap. This is, you know, all of this stuff is fresh on the scene. You know, we're too young for a crack, but we can see the effects of it.
Yes. Well, to be honest with you, like by this time, you're dealing with the crack babies. You're dealing with the babies that had to, right? My friends don't have their fathers around.
There it is. My father is my friend's father. Wow. So that's another thing that we can get into.
But my father parent did a lot of young men. Yeah. Yeah. Because they didn't have it.
Because they didn't have it. They didn't have it. And that's so good that you said that, man. Because again, we're starting to see the domino effect of deficiencies.
Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. Yeah. It blends into that.
And for your father to have to try to navigate that space with two sons in a city that is not as friendly as those would think from the outside looking in. You know, you have to make the same time trying to deal with how do I give them the one thing that I can't give them is what mothers can give them. So how do I provide them at least at the assembly of it? And let me get one more aspect in there.
So when my mother moved to Carson, she lived on the street called Centerview. Wow. I don't know how much you know about gangs in California, but there's a game called Centerview pyru. Yep.
We lived on Centerview. Centerview is not a long street. Centerview is one block. We lived on the street that the gang was named after.
And so my father, while we were at my mother's house, was on pens and needles in fear because his sons are in Carson in the middle of a gang neighborhood. Now, mind you, everybody in the neighborhood was from the same gang. So we were fine there, but you would have sets of crypts from Compton that would come right through. Yes.
And so you know, you know, when it, you know, just like what's the movie? Trainee Day, we're flipping pigeons and all that stuff? All that. Real thing.
That is a notifier. Hey, somebody's in the hood. Everybody get inside. Yeah.
And so my dad is in fear in Pasadena knowing that we're all the way out there in Carson and he can't get to us. And there are no cell phones. So put that out there. Cell phones that happen.
Internet's not a thing. So basically the only way you got news was if somebody popped up on the news or there was a phone call, that was it. That was it. Other end of 110.
Yeah. Yeah. Carson and Dean are on opposite ends of the earth as far as I'm concerned. You might as well just go ahead and pack yourself to go back because you, you, you don't be out there for a while.
But like another thing that I want to kind of put in the context as well, as you talk about, like, you know, I don't want to point to it. But like you, you, you, you were saying, like, you know, sit if you pyro, everybody on the street from the same gang. Well, here's the issue, right? If I see your face in that neighborhood enough, even if you're not a pyro, I assume you are.
So like, so, you know, I mean, you step outside that neighborhood, you just guilty by association, even though you don't have any affiliation, you know what I'm saying? Like, and all of that going into that. Like, so here, the point of bringing up is like for, for your dad and, you know, for those who haven't met Jay, I don't many of you guys know Jay and stuff like that. But if you haven't met his dad, his dad is one of the most genuine loving people.
You know what I'm saying? Like, like, if he's concerned, he's concerned. It's not like a fake concern. But like, you have to think about like when all this is happening without the internet, without knowing, trying to navigate all that space, man, you're going to make some decisions that you think are best for your children, even though in the end it's really coming from a deficiency in some area in your life.
You know what I'm saying? So like, even like when we think about some of the deficiencies we had to grow up with by our parents, it's not necessarily because your parents were doing something wrong or bad. They were trying their best. You know what I'm saying?
You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? You know what I'm saying? I'm talking to parents even now, man.
You know, I have some family members who are dealing with some way with children and things like that. Like, you have to understand, like some of that stuff is not necessarily because it's your fault. It's just a byproduct of you trying your hardest. As crazy as that sounds.
Like, you know, I fell into my sex addiction because my mother was so animate about me going to church. So animate about me going to church that like all she did was she just kept dropping out of the church kept going to church because that was safer to her than walking the streets of San Bernardino. Gotcha. Well, here's the problem.
Most of the harlots were in the church. So you were dropping me off at the one place that while I was safe from gang violence, I was getting it in. Yeah, because you're talented and you're playing the keyboard. Yeah.
So you know what that does to the heart of the church dog? It's just a problem. Remind me to tell you the story about when the woman put some panties on the organ that this deficiency that my parents were trying to do their best by making me go to church and even in that it exposed the deficiency in me that bled out in the church. So like there's some things as a parent you just got to realize it's outside of your control and you did your best.
You can't even if you wanted to go back and change certain things. It's just hindsight is always 20 20. You know what I mean? So I want to speak out of her parents, man, who may be feeling a certain way.
Like y'all are doing a great job. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Y'all doing a great job.
You're doing the best you can with the tools you've been given. And just like you're okay coming out of those deficiencies from your parents, if there's a place that you're lacking and missing, know that it's going to be okay for your children to man. I want to speak that over. I want to speak that over everybody man.
Like God is going to take care of those. This is the great part about the deficiencies. He always finds a way to connect this. Like Jay, I tell the story all the time.
I'm not even sure I told you this. How about I told you this? I don't know. And this is a couple of others, but I'm going to say on those two, but these two have been so instrumental in me identifying flaws in my late 30s and 40s that I did not realize I had and they've helped me to see it.
But there was a moment where we moved to Houston. This is breaking news. There was a moment where we moved to Houston and me and my wife were at odds, bro. I had been.
I was it was me. It was my fault. I did not know it at the time. But it was definitely my fault and we were like, we were just beefing and on my side, it was just a normal beef.
On my wife's side, it was like I'm thinking about divorce and I don't realize how bad it was, right? They would call Call of Duty professionals or some of the greatest players we ever seen. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your service.
We're up for whatever reason. My wife is my wife is sleeping a bit and me and Jay love to play Call of Duty and it's often late in my time. It's two o'clock in the morning. We have been going hard in the pain to a clock in the morning, chopping it up with Jay playing multiplayer and he says something.
I'll never forget it. We were talking about money and me and my wife were beeping about money. Jay goes, Hey man, have you ever thought that maybe the Lord sent you your wife because she's been like custom made to handle your deficiency? Like maybe she's so good at money and God sent her because he knows that you're bad with money and that really you have the answer to your financial problem inside your house.
Then I was like, I kid you now. I was like, Jay, I have to get off at two o'clock in the morning. I go and I wake my wife up in full tears because I had no idea that in that moment, like Jay spoke that over my life and I did not realize how important my wife was until right then. You know what I'm saying?
Like they're like, God will literally send you people for your deficiencies. Absolutely. Absolutely. And that's the, that's the where I am weak.
You are strong and we need each other. That's the whole point. Now, granted, it does not mean that you don't need to work on your deficiencies either. Yeah.
Because even part of the conversation is teach me. What am I missing? Why am I, you know, and you know, oftentimes these deficiencies and things can be cured by effort of trying to adjust them, but it takes recognition first. You have the first know where you're deficient, right?
Instead of just arguing over the same thing over and over and over again, it takes something to realize that there's a deficiency there is just like my wife and I had a lasting conversation or a lasting argument about communication and the argument and I'll be very transparent. Here's the argument. For her, it is. It's not what you say.
It's how you say it. For me, it's how I, it's what I said versus how you took it. And I said you choose violence when you hear what I say. You take the negative, you find the negative and you take that and you say that's how you said it.