Episode #45: Kanye West, Dave Chappelle, Johnny Manziel and Oprah

I was watching an interview with Oprah and Dave Chappelle and David dropped some 🔥🔥. He said, ”success will take you to a place where your character can't sustain you”. Oprah follows with how important it is to ”really know who you are” before you hit the bigtime bc of how many directions you're pulled once you pop. It's profound because I've been trying, unsuccessfully, to articulate how I feel about the current state of mental health, addiction, politics, the perception taken from social media, insurance coverage, religious groups and a plethora of other lightning rod topics while also being compassionate towards how difficult it must be to navigate such things in everyday life. In other words, it's easy to judge what other people are doing from the sidelines. Particularly, when one has never been in such positions, been at that level of success or had to withstand the pressure of public scrutiny. It made me think of the journey that Kanye West has been on. Going from one of the most influential entertainers of our time to wearing a MAGA hat ranting about slavery to now, an evangelical Christian. Note: Kanye had me listening to Christian music for the last two days! I even listened to a sermon on the radio yesterday! It also made me think of the rise and fall of Johnny Manziel. How he burst on the scene like a rocket then crashed and burned after a few years behind addiction and mental health. It's oh so easy to throw rocks from outside the ring and to pontificate about what we think we would do if we were in their situation. The reality is, I have no f’ing clue what I would do in their situation. And I would argue, neither do most people. It is always so humbling when we finally get to hear the behind the scenes story. All the after the fact revelations that come with time and of course, after we've all had our chance to put in our two cents of judgment via social media or with our friends.... On another note, I'd love to hear from you. If you are listening on Anchor or Spotify, you can leave me a voice mail asking a question or leaving a comment. You can also drop me am email at [email protected]