So there was a time when I used to pack a gun with me everywhere. That was such a dark, dark time and I probably contemplated suicide four or five times. And one of the stories that I always tell people, a friend of mine said, you need something, come to the temple. At the time, I didn't know what the temple was. She said, come to the temple. So I drive up there and I've got this big Springfield 45 next to me.

And at the time I just got off the phone, my ex, we had just gone into a major argument. I'm literally just like shaking uncontrollably. And I'm like, do I just do it right now? I'm looking at the gun. I'm in front of the temple. I'm looking at the gun. And then I'm like, I forgot I'm going to go do whatever this fucking thing is, I don't know what I'm going to get into, but I'm going to do it.

That could have been my last day on the Earth. And instead, I chose to sit in front of a wall in silence for an hour and a half. My name is Hakim Tafari and this is the ritual podcast. The Rich Roll podcast. Hey, everybody, welcome to the podcast. Quick reminder. I've got a new book coming out. It's called Voicing Change. It's basically inspiration and timeless wisdom lifted from my eight years of hosting this podcast.

Thousands of hours spent talking to hundreds of extraordinary people and all wrapped in stunning photography to make for an awesome addition to your coffee table book collection. I'm so proud of this book. It's gorgeous. It's compelling to learn more and preorder visit voicing change dotcom. We ship globally and we're selling it exclusively and only through our website. Voicing change dotcom or rich roll dotcom. Shifting gears, may I have the courtesy of introducing you to on running board in the Swiss Alps, the fastest growing running brand on the planet for good reason on kicks are the ultimate lightweight running sensation packaged in minimal design with the aim of maximizing performance and pleasing the eye.

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Love them. Keep I'm not convinced. Send it back for a full refund. No questions asked again. That's OK. End running dotcom slash rich roll to test on shoes or gear firsthand and experience what running on clouds feels like. We're also brought to you today by the fitness and Recovery Tracker designed to optimize day in and day out performance. I love this thing. I've been evangelizing it since the very first day of dawn, my wrist, because it's tech that has actually and truly moved the needle on my relationship to training and to sleep.

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That's OPIS dotcom and use the code rich. Roll a check out to see fifteen percent off your order. Unlock your best self today. So today's guest, Hakeem Tafari is first and foremost cool. Like super cool, cool in that category. Defying way beyond that. It's kind of a challenge to describe this unique soul as he is and does so many things. His story is remarkable and beautiful. And ultimately, I guess I would say that above all else, Hawk is a seeker.

He's a journey man of reinvention, an ambassador of running culture and mindfulness, a master of many, a martial art from kung fu to Tai Chi. He's an herbalist, a massage therapist, a vegan, and a student and practitioner of many spiritual traditions, from Buddhism to Daoism and everything in between. Along the way, he has overcome quite a lot, I would say, to create this very intriguing and exceptional life that he leads today so paved with solid life lessons.

This is a conversation about Hock's hero journey. It's about transformation. It's about finding peace and failure, creating a mindfulness based lifestyle and spiritual growth. But more than anything, this exchange is about finding freedom, freedom and mind, freedom and body and freedom and soul. I guess I'd like to add that I had the pleasure over the years of conversing with a lot of incredible people. But every once in a while I click with someone in a certain way that kind of takes everything to the next level into this higher gear.

And I think this is one such experience. It's full of heart and truth and vulnerability and authenticity. My hope is that Hock's words inspire and love it and guide you towards a more meaningful way of life and also a total reach imagination of your personal truth. So with that, I give you Hakeem Tafari. Cheers, man, welcome to the podcast. Thank you, so good to have you here. Man, it's so funny because we just met.

Yeah. And the circumstances around how we met are so bizarre. Yeah. We shot this little commercial video for Jaybird. We both work with Jay Bird. And part of that project was us encountering each other as if we were like lifelong buddies. Yeah.

So we had to go into a little bit of a method acting to do it. But I had so much fun hanging out with you all day and I just thought this would be great. And you have an amazing story.

And so I'm delighted to have you here today to share a little bit about it.

Thank you for having me. And then in the wake of that, you go off to we're trying to schedule a date and you're like, I'm going to be out of town and I'm checking your Instagram and you're hanging out in Montana with Conrad Anker.

Yeah. What were you doing out there?

So I'll give you this a little brief, because obviously I'm held to this NDA thing that the but secret top secret is it's kind of top secret, but it was an amazing, amazing time. In fact, I didn't know what I was going to be hanging out with Conrad until like a week before. But I got a call for the special project and were like, yeah, we'd really want you to come out to Wyoming. It's going to be based around Montana.

It was Wyoming. Wyoming, Mike. That's okay. Sorry. Okay. So they said, you know, we want you to come out. It's going to be this crazy project. You're going to be here with a whole bunch of people that you don't know. And Conrad's going to lead this expedition and we're going to do it. But we ended up doing Wolverine, the Wild Tetons and got to hang out with some indigenous folk. And yeah, the rest is history and cagey about what exactly did it.

But like, I get it, you know, they were like, yeah, you know, keep your mouth shut. I got you. You can only share a little bit, but you shared enough for me to gather that you bonded with Conrad. I mean, what a beautiful guy.

Oh, that guy is that guy treasure. He yeah. He is a living treasure. And, you know, I was just talking about him today. He really is. He's like a monk on a mountain. He's a monk on a mountain. He's like a real bodhisattva in the aspect that he is so free giving and his knowledge and this is his wisdom. His compassion is just. And we had this running joke and I was like, I don't really look up to a lot of middle aged white men, I really don't.

I'll be the first one to tell you here. And you're like, he's my mentor now. Yeah, but Conrade is literally like my mentor. He's like, you know, there was a couple of experiences I had on the hike. And, you know, he was just there with me and he was literally like my Obi Wan, you know, he was all my Yoda, so to speak. And we were in the database system and I was just teach me the ways.

What do you make of that?

I mean, what is it about him that's so special? Do you think? You know, I get the human experience, I get the human experience with Conrad. Like there's not a lot of people that you meet offhand right off the bat. And you can tell it's very, very authentic. It's very, very genuine. And you can tell that he's lived so many lives and within so many lives, he's had so many experiences that have led him to where he's at right now.

Yeah, and that's what's beautiful about this being around him. I mean, for people that are listening or watching who who aren't familiar with who he is, I mean, he's probably the the greatest living mountaineer climber in the world. He's done everything. He's he has lived nine lives. It's incredible. Yeah. And he's so giving to the younger generation, like the whole kind of expedition community just reveres him.

Oh, yeah, totally. And, you know, one of the things and we'll probably get into a little bit later, but one of the things that we talked about and this was literally after this like three days missing, we just bonded. Right. And when when I left, he was like, we're going to do something to bring black and Latin next folks to the mountains. Yeah. As I'm with it.

So that's needed. I mean, it sort of is the purview of the older white dude. Yeah. I mean, that's something I talked with with Myrna about as well with respect to her relationship with where trail running that, you know, these pursuits are traditionally so white, you know, and that's got it. That's got to change. Yeah. So how do we do that? Coming in, we bring her in. Right? Yeah, I'm like, let's go, we're hitting this space, that space in this space, huh?

Yeah, well, it's quite a trajectory and arc of your life. I mean, there's so many it's hard to get a grip on your story because there's so many permutations to it. But when you look at point A from where you came from and kind of all the things that you've done over the course of your life to end up like on a mountain with Conrad or shooting television commercials for Jabor, it's pretty amazing, right?

Yeah. And in the amount of time that it's I mean, in the grand scheme of things, you know, I'm forty six years old, but in the last six, seven years, it's just been right.

It's cool. Yeah. And I think in reflecting, you know, as I was driving over here trying to wrap my head around you and your story, it's all an outgrowth of the investment that you've made in your own personal spiritual development. Right. Like these are these are outward manifestations of what has been very much an inward journey for you. Most definitely. Yeah. So let's let's take it back. Let's go all the way back to the beginning.

I want to hear about oh, man. Ipswitch So I was born and raised in Ipswich. It's a little town right outside of London. It's about an hour and a half outside of London. I think Ipswich is most known for Ipswich Town FC, which is a football club which was really big in the late 70s, early 80s. They were a premiership league team. And that was really the big thing about Ipswich. We had a great football team.

Right. And for the American listeners, that soccer, I think they're getting it as we're all falling in love with your accent, which feels like you're right out of a Guy Ritchie movie.

So and your parents are of Jamaican descent? Yeah, my parents are Jamaican descent. They came to England in the 60s. My dad is a jack of all trades as far as well. The mechanic, he did everything. And then my mother came over here as a nurse and ended up becoming a psychiatric nurse. And that was a weird scene, you know, having to pick up my mum from a mental institution, you know, in the late in the late 70s, early 80s.

And just I remember that was just. Very surreal, very surreal. So, yeah, so, you know, growing up in Ipswich, going to a predominantly all white, you know, elementary school and then going to a very not so diverse high school. And what kind of kid were you? Well, I would say I was up until I reached high school, I was a pretty hands on books kid, right? My parents have drilled it into me.

They were like, you know, we didn't get to college. So you're making sure that you're going to college, right. And starting from now. So they were very, very, you know, hands on. Make sure you get your books, your homework done, stuff like that. And in high school happened. Aha.

So during high school, I had cousins who were older than me and they were kind of like my protectors. Right. And everyone knew my cousins from that school. And then I had cousins. You know, that's the thing with Ipswitch. Everyone knew kind of everyone. And within the black community, the West Indian community, everyone knew everyone. Everyone had an aunt, your cousin and uncle who knew such and such so. In a way, it was kind of protected.

Even I went to a predominantly white school. People knew my cousins, people knew who were associated with my cousin, so they didn't really matter to me too much. I would get into an odd fight here and there to prove myself. But other than that, I didn't really get picked on. And then my cousins left that high school and then it was kind of like, OK. Game on. Yeah, it was like Komati in high school.

Yeah, it really was, especially towards the last few years. It was. Education was there, but I was going through a whole rite of passage, you know. Playing footsie with the boys and then discovering art, which I was really getting into, and then discovering hip hop and American culture and then discovering like things like Malcolm X and Martin Luther King and the civil rights movement and the five percent. So all this stuff is happening between the ages of like 14 and 16.

And I started rebelling a little bit, as we all do when we get into those teenage years, and after a while I was brought up and raised in the Anglican Church of England. I was an altar boy and then 16 hit. I found alcohol. I found some other vices. And it was kind of like, yeah, off to the races. And one of the things that was really instrumental, I would say, in my upbringing was at 16, I wanted to go to college at school, and I was doing comic book art and I wasn't really serious with art.

At school, I was just doing my own stuff and my teacher, I remember my teacher one day just saying like, why, what are you doing? What are you doing with yourself? You hardly come to school. You're hardly learning. What are you really going to do with yourself? Because you're definitely not going to make it not. And that lit a fire my last year. It lit a fire in me and the idea that being told you can't, yeah.

Motivated you to do it.

And at that time, art schools kind of more of a thing in any way. You hear big guy, big time. Big time. You know, those vocational schools, especially back in the mid. 80S were really big in England, you know, you had after school programs, you had youth programs, stuff like that, you know, and this was during the time of Thatcherism and, you know, that big recession that England had at the time.

So do you feel kind of wild at that time? And a lot of us, you know, the rave scene was really big. And you are events at a rave scene. You either playing footy or you were doing art and you were living in art. And in that was when I found, like, you know, guys, when they hip hop and guys who are really culturally kind of diverse. And I started being other than what my parents saw me and what the community saw me, I kind of.

Was kind of outgrowing them, so. And then I was going off to London. I had a sister in London have two sisters and one of them lived in London. And I would go to London and just hang out there and soak up that culture. And I'd go to museums and go to Soho and go to the record store and pick up vinyl.

And then at 16, I decided to leave home, which was killed my parents.

What was the motivation behind that? Why did you feel like you had to get out? At that time, I thought I was a man. Yeah, you know, I was coming into new things. I was. Finding myself, I was hanging out with these kind of bohemian cats who were already in art school and they had known people who I had known. I was hanging out with them. And then funny enough, I got into art school right in London.

Or where did you live? In Ipswich. There was a really big college called Suffolk College that a lot of famous artists came out of. In fact, one of my teachers was Brian Eno. Anyone who who knows who Brian Eno is? Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Well, I'm just when I when I said that, Art, my sense that art school is a bigger thing in England than it is here, I'm thinking about all the musicians, you know, like Radiohead guys like, you know, all these great artists are a product of kind of it's a state thing, though. Yeah. Like, it's it's not like private colleges. Like, no, no. You could go to a private college, but most of us, you know, we got on rides and, you know, I was lucky in the fact that I was working two jobs, I'd worked two jobs since I was like 13, 14.

So I was making some income anyway. And then I was getting a little bit of help on the side. So that's how I basically managed to live kind of rent free. I was squatting with my cousin and going to college and working at clowns as a dishwasher at night. Right. So you moved out of your parent's house, but you were still in Ipswich out of school. Yeah. Yeah, right.

So. Yeah, for 16, up until I was about 18 man hours, I was wild, yeah, making the scene, I was wild man. So drugs are part of that. Are you guys. Yes, I was. I was I was running with a lot of cats who were dealing with ecstasy at the time. And then hash was real big and hash was real big. And in college, I mean, you know, in our college scene.

So, you know, we were dealing how she was selling, how she was selling ecstasy the whole nine yards. Good times. Yeah. It was a wild time.

How long do you do that for? Oh, so you graduate school? Yeah, I graduated and I was about 17, 18 and I got a phone call from my cousin. One of my cousins in London who I was very, very close with, and she came to Ipswich to visit some family and she came to where I was squatting. She was pissed. She's like, you need to come see your parents. They got some news for you.

So I went to go I went to go over there for Sunday dinner. I haven't been over there in probably months. We just didn't get on.

So I go over there and. They were like, we got some news for you. It's like, OK, what is it? My cousin was the media at the time. And it is a green card. And now I like. Do you want to come to America with us, we're going wow. So at that time, I just had had a couple of mates of mine go to jail, we had known a couple of. There was one family friend who had just committed suicide in jail who we knew a whole bunch of mates and mine were really getting into the whole ecstasy thing and dealing and seeing the good times were turning back.

The tide was starting to turn on his crew. But, yeah, it's starting to get a glimpse that this might be headed towards Nowheresville. Yeah, it was like the future is looking bleak if you don't make a change. And at the time, I was looking at uni's universities to carry on R and. But I I had to weigh my options, and at the time, I was really enamored by hip hop, has so enamored by hip hop like, you know, watching Yo MTV Raps, watching Fab Five Freddy.

I had an American uncle who was on the Air Force base. There was a lot of comic books, hot dogs, the whole nine yards, the whole American culture. So I was like, OK, let's give it a shot. Brooklyn, there you go. It's not like it's not like they were moving to St. Louis or something like Brooklyn. It's happening there. Yeah, right. Yeah. So you're and you're you're thinking you're a grown man, but you're 17, right?

Yeah. I was 17 just turning 18 and I was not in that right. I was not a man because I got thrusted into Brooklyn and and meanwhile I want to preface it. I had gone to Brooklyn like every other summer. It was a it was a thing for my family to kind of you. So already kind of knew I was raised in Brooklyn, so to speak. It was like a second home to me. I remember buying my first Big Daddy Kane album on Flatbush Avenue.

I remember by my first pair of fat laces and somebody to show toe's, you know, I mean, so I knew Flatbush, but this was during the crack era. This was like 91 and it was big, like Jamaican parties were running Flatbush. So I get to Flatbush, and it wasn't the Flatbush that I know. And I had an uncle who had worked for the World Trade Center at the time, he was a security guard and I had two aunts and two cousins who lived in this brownstone.

And I lived there. For about half a year. Mm hmm. And getting back into school in Brooklyn. Well, that was the thing I had originally planned on going to pry or 50. But I just got jaded when I was it was this not how I envisioned it, it was fast paced. It was not New York now, you know. So I had my father's sister lived in Austin, Texas. And. I was really close because those were the cousins that were my protectors in high school.

Yeah. And I remember having a conversation with my aunt and she was like, do you want to move to Austin? Maybe it'll be a little bit easier for you in so New York, Brooklyn, overwhelming, overwhelming. Now, let's keep in mind, I ended up coming back to Brooklyn a little bit later as I got older, and that was like a rite of passage for me, but we'll come back to that. So I moved to Austin, Texas, and lived in Austin from.

92. All the way up until about 98. Mm hmm. And that was that's another chapter in my life. Yeah. So what was going on there? You fell into, like, the South by Southwest.

Yes, yes. Yes. So after kind of establishing myself and kind of making new friends and I had a lot of friends who were going to UTD, University of Texas, getting involved in Texas culture, learning about Texas relay's, you know, the Mexican culture within Texas cowboy culture. It was because, to be honest, would be strange. Oh, well, to be honest with you, you've got to remember this boy from Ipswich. And and all I could think about with Texas was Dallas.

That's all I knew about, was that it's not even a football team, just Dallas, that the TV TV show J.R. Yeah. And there was there was no black folks on that, so I'm thinking to myself definitely, and I'm thinking about John Wayne and I'm thinking about everything Texas. And I'm like, it's amazing. You even went if that's all you knew. You know, I've had this love, hate relationship with being in uncomfortable situations and I've just trusted myself with them.

And this was one of them. But it ended up being such a jewel in the rough because coming to Austin. Was when I truly learned about veganism, vegetarianism, kung fu, the e martial arts, erb's this. Everything you could think of was all in my growth in that span of time of being in Austin, Texas, and in that time, you know, I moved to America before my parents and my parents ended up coming to New York and then they ended up coming to Austin, staying in Austin and then leaving Austin to go to Florida because.

You know, in that time of living in Austin, it was really hard for my parents, West Indian. My dad doesn't really have too much of a scholastic background. I mean, basically got told he was to become a man when he was 14 years old. And I mean, there was this not really much work for him. He worked on a in a plastic warehouse and then he ended up getting laid off. So my mom ended up becoming the breadwinner.

And then her dilemma was that she would have to go back to school. So, you know, luckily they had their pensions from England, but it was really, really rough for them and I would suspect I mean, getting your green card, there's all this promise, the American dream.

We're going to go to America and we're going to stake our claim and we're going to have this life and then to be met with resistance and frustration.

Oh, it was yeah. I mean, they've already suffered it from England and luckily they were able to build up and establish themselves. But then to come here and to start from square one again and come from the route. I mean, and, you know, my my my mom was going to watch this and be like, why are you telling this story? But I have to say, I remember. Being God, maybe 19, 20, I know we're supposed to talk about South by Southwest, but we'll come back.

All right. Now we got time all day. I remember one time having, you know, just trouble getting into the nursing system. And, you know, she was doing some work going into people's houses and helping elderly, but it was doing a number on her back. And she already had back issues already. And something happened and she ended up taking another job and it ended up being McDonald's and I just remembered those times of her. Having to navigate working, helping elderly break in and back, my father is not working.

I think I was working like Circuit City or something like that. I wasn't really making that much money. And she was had a brand new house. Earning little to nothing, and I just remembered her working these two jobs and being like, fuck, this is really something and I really need to do something in my life because it was really tearing me apart at a time. Like my parents, my mom was basically looking after me and my father.

So, you know, seeing that I really had a profound effect on me and I was like, OK, I need to really start doing something with myself. So as I said, I was working with Circusy in and I ended up working for UPS. And in that time, I was in a music group with these three guys, we were called Sarki, I think that was my first hip hop group and we met I can't remember how we met, but we met.

And then something happened with one of the guys from the group and we were like on the cusp of like really doing big things, we were working with these guys named Matt Flavor Dallas, who subsequently ended up. Becoming tied up with Erica Free, who later ended up becoming Erykah Badu. Wow, that's another story in itself.

But looking into your story, poking around the Internet, there's some music out there. Oh, yes, it is a little bit like what is this? I know about this part that, as you know, there's there's a little bit so ended up doing this thing. We ended up calling ourselves The X Factor can really become kind of, you know, godfathers in in hip hop in Austin.

I mean, what was that? What's that what was the hip hop scene in Austin at the time? And at that time, there was a guy named DJ Casanova who was at this place called Catfish Station, and it was like Overlord X, who was a very well-known guy, but it wasn't really breaking ground like. It should be oh, it should have, so obviously, me being who I am, I come to Austin and then I started befriending these guys in this skate shop called Blondie's there in this place called Bartons Great KWAM Square Mall.

And I go in there and I'm like, hey, do you have the Philly Black T-shirt? That was the rage back in New York in the day. And we're like, no. And I was like, well, you should really get into that. And then from NetSpend, a relationship. And I would give him the stuff and they would bring stuff in. They ended up moving out the mall and moving on this place called Guadalupe Guadalupe, a strip which is right by a UTI, is the hub of where everything is.

And you're the guy who's telling him what's what. Yeah, right. OK, so then I form a friendship with the guy in Tower Records and he's handing me stuff like that's like new and upcoming and I'm getting all the same, becoming like a street promoter. So then I start street promotion for like certain labels, like loud records, Big B, several different hip hop Def Jam that led to me starting bringing groups into Austin, Texas.

Aha. Then I started working at this club called Imo's. IMOS is a at the time was a very punk rock venue and it was where everyone was going like gazy from the butthole surfers used to hang out there. Right. The Reverend Horton Heat would hang out there like the 930 Club of Austin. Yes, exactly. So everyone was hanging out there. I mean, to this day, there were so many people who I met like Danzig. I would work like neo-Nazi, like I was.

Yes. Skinhead punk dudes. Right. So I had formed a relationship with this guy named Chris Tominaga, a.k.a. Sweetener. And me and him ended up becoming really good friends. And he was the promoter. And then there was a guy named Dave, and then there was emo. And I formed a relationship with these guys. And these guys knew that I was in hip hop circle and running with these gay guys. And from there we all formed a relationship and we're like the south by southwest, but south by southwest is predominantly white.

It's predominantly cowboys. And, you know, you know, all this other type of music. Alt rock. Yeah. AltaRock. Exactly. Let's get some hip hop in. And we formed up and when people didn't want a house hip hop, because they thought it was going to be too rough, therefore there's going to be gang activities, we were like, well, let's bring it to the punk scene. You can't get no more punk than hip hop.

And the punk scene embraced it. And from there, you know, one of the guys who was booking shows there was a guy named Dave who'd work for South by Southwest. And then I knew this guy named Andre, who I managed to bring them two together. And thus that created kind of the genesis of what we kind of see in hip hop and south by Southwest today, because at that time, no one really wanted to take a chance on hip hop.

But it was just a few guys who were like, now, in fact, that we're going to we're going to make a scene and we'll do it for the punk way. And then not only did the punk boys really love it, the skate boys really loved it. And and then from there, I met these two dudes that became my. Guys bring in hip hop groups to Austin. Now, here's the caveat. They were ecstasy dealers and they had relationships with all the strippers in town, and that's how they made all their money and putting them on blast.

They got a laugh because they got to know the story. But I ran with these cats who were this they were ahead of their time as far as like the, you know, marijuana and ecstasy. They were getting kind. But in the end, all is good. But when it was this like swag and in in Australia, some ran with these dudes and these dudes were basically like, you will pay you to bring these hip hop dudes into town and let's make big shows.

And we did it. And then that caught the eye of South by Southwest. And they were like, OK, you have the power to bring these big groups and let's make a showcase. And I remember one of the first showcases that was really big was 95, 96, where we brought reser in at the time. That was when Resow had Gravedigger's Gravedigger's came through exhibit Big Pine. I remember doing one of our first shows with The Roots when they were first coming out and then I just grew.

And then the next thing you know, Austin became a hub for not only alt rock country, you know, all different types of rave music. It was really becoming a hub. And then South by Southwest grew and it grew. And by the time I left, it became like a mega machine.

What's interesting about that is that you could have I mean, you were having success. You could have just doubled down on that groove, that lane that you'd established for yourself and become, you know, like the the king of that scene in Austin.

Well, this is where the next story comes. Yeah. So in that time of partying and smoking, copious amounts of weed and, you know, just I was living kind of a crazy lifestyle because I was working Circuit City has working ups. I was working all different types of hours. I had an amazing girlfriend at the time who was still working in Circuit City. Yeah, I'm still there. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I'm still doing all this stuff right.

Had an amazing girlfriend who is a photographer at the time. My name is Alexa and she was like in the hip hop scene or so. And, you know, it was this a part of the scene. But then what had happened was because of all this partying, because of all the successive. Back and forth. I got really sick. And. That's what kind of led to me finding vegetarianism, and so I met this guy named ETN at UPS who is like the super yogi at the time, and hopefully he he gets a chance to listen to this because I owe him a lot.

This guy was ahead of his time. He was a Sprouter and he was the guy that hit me. And I know you know this book really well. The guide to the 21st century, Victor Kavinsky and Dick Gregory, you remember that? Yeah, so that was my that was my he he basically gave me that book. And I remember one time walking out of work and he was like, hog, your belly is just out of control. You got to do something brother you own up to.

Yeah, you're getting fatter. Oh, yeah. I was like 260, 270 pounds. I was like greasy, like the whole nine yards. I was just like a mess. And he was like, you need a change, you got to change and no sooner. And he said that about two months later, I was lying in bed, bleeding out of orifice, out of my body. And I was like, I need to do something.

And at the time, there's a paper called Austin Chronicle. And on the back there was a acupuncturists free acupuncture session. And in that same week.

I had gone to the Chinese restaurant right down the street from my house and found a card for kung fu. And the guy who practiced kung fu lived a block away from me. Uh huh? So all these things were coming into play, this confluence of events. The universe is signaling, the universe is signaling. And I love the fact that, like the original guru mentor, is this sprouting up sky? Yeah, it's almost like out of a Dan Milman book.

Yeah. Something. Yeah, surely. Surely he was he was he was a Rastafarian who was a Sprouter and a connoisseur of herbology. He knew all the things go to college down the line, the whole nine yards.

I break it down. He's getting you Italian. Exactly. Exactly right. So keep in mind, I was I was a Sunni Muslim at the time that had kind of flirted with nation Islam and and five percent. And then I meet this rustow and then I totally go through this 360. I give up alcohol. I start doing Master Cleanseas. And then before that, I go to this acupuncturist and this keep in mind, I had been having irritable bowel syndrome, I was having heartburn, everything felt for the previous like two years, I would say, to two to two and a half years.

But it came to a head. So when I came to this acupuncturist, I took stool samples and I was a guinea pig for Zantac. No one really isolate the issue. Within five minutes of me being with this acupuncturist, he was like, you have busted your Iliescu valve, you have major illnesses. And if you don't change your life, I'm going to give you seven, eight years, tops.

So you're talking to a 21 year old. Yeah, and he was like, I'm going to give you seven or eight years tops. Wow, you have diabetes that runs in your family, have high blood pressure that runs in your family. You have all the stuff that runs in your family.

If you don't change your ways, you're not going to be around and you are able to hear that this cat was this white boy, Buddhist, who is about to go to China to convert, to become a Buddhist. And I was one of his last sessions before he went to go, wow, this. And you kind of skirted over it quickly.

But I think it bears, you know, taking a minute to talk about the fact that behind all of this, you've always been a spiritual seeker, right? Like you raised Christian. Yeah. And you just mentioned that, you know, you were you Muslim. You've had these various incarnations where you've dropped in on these, you know, a wide variety of different dogmatic religious approaches to life. So that was always there. Yeah. In the background.

So what is that seeking sensibility all about and where do you think that comes from?

I wasn't satisfied with Christianity for one star, that was this, I was you weren't down with the church? No, I was not me. And I love you, Mom, but you know, I won't lie to you. You know, how could you make of parents that are like, you know, I was in when when I say I was baptized, I was like, get in there.

So, you know, but then you have the roster guy. Oh, man. Different flavor of it was Jamaican. Yeah. But then less. And then you had Islam to. Right. So the Islam piece was really deep because. You know, Sunni being sunny in England and then coming over here and then being immersed in black nationalist, that black nationalist movement and the nation and then the five percent nation that was really radical at the time, the bow tie.

Yeah. And then, you know, you had like the brand new beginnings and, you know, the poor righteous teachers and, you know, all along the Hip-Hop circles. But it was this a form of. For me, it was a form of me finding myself because, you know, I remember I got raised in all white England, I had a black family in that community, but I was really never part of a movement. My father was my father got to see the hands, were frightened that, you know, the Brixton riots and the Tottenham.

Right. So he was part of that. But I wasn't. So then coming to the States. And and seeing the plight of black Americans and black culture on a whole. I identified with it so and then the kind of religious connotation or the spiritual connotation to Islam, it taught me a sense of discipline, food to five percent nation. It taught me a sense of knowledge and to study. And many people go to schools of theology to study all these major religions.

And I studied this myself, and no one told me to go pick up the Torah or to go pick up the Koran or go pick up the Bible. It was a five percent named Andrew Powell, who was like, you know, study Empire Strikes Back, Steady Return of the Jedi study, the Peaceful Warrior Study, the Dow dizzying study, all these books and a differentiator also being that distinct from just esoteric kind of theological ideas.

This was very much a get your shit together. And yes, you know, what kind of man do you want to be? Yes. World. Yes. Which you needed.

Yes. Yes. So all of that. So that when you say when you when you ask about seeking I was seeking myself out. I was really seeking myself out by seeking how to become the person that I am today. I didn't know it back then because I was still dipping my toes in the spiritual world, but still being a householder and still trying to do all the things that were cool and still hit, but also a willingness to continue to iterate and and grow.

Right. Like, you know, when something stopped serving you or you see a new idea, your you strike me as somebody who always open to that as opposed to just becoming entrenched in one way.

Yeah. That that's a that's a I think that's a big aquarium thing. I get that a lot from other aquariums or people like you and aquarium because we have this innate ability. Yes, exactly. The sea. And so I'm not just resting on the fact, OK, Kung Fu School is a school. I wanted to go deeper and that's when I went into the Taichi and that's when I went into, you know, the Daoism and, you know.

The rest the rest of Fahri was amazing because Rasta Fahri really taught me how to eat, how to look after my body, how to look after my temple, that was such a great component. And and meeting ETM and who was this character who was doing African, African and Gold and Capoeira and Capoeira school. Oh yeah. So you got these cats? It was a crew, right? There was a crew of cats. I had my crew that were kung fu.

I had the crew that was Angolan capoeira and we were doing music, but we weren't of that lifestyle anymore. So I had kind of renounced, you know, a lot of people. I kind of shot a lot and all that stuff. It wasn't me anymore to the point where a lot of people when I came back into the scene, they were like, are you on crack? Because I had lost a hundred and some pounds. I now had locks.

I had this big old beard. And I'm talking about doing fast for like twenty days. Right. I'm talking about being a Sprout's Harian and a fruitarian and, you know, doing wheatgrass shots when I used to do shots of Yagur and and, you know, whatever shots. So it was it was at the time. And and in that time I found Kung Fu. There was a woman who who owned an Arab store in town. And she took me under her wing and I tore my meniscus and I kind of did it, you know, here it myself and I would go to the Arab store.

She would give me ERPs to rebuild my knee. I started going to the bookstore and starting yoga and I had books of yoga. So I started doing yoga myself. And then, lo and behold, I found titchy. And my teacher, Sifu Hughes, who is an amazing teacher, if you're ever in Austin, you want to learn about kung fu or tease the guy along with my brother, Thomas Leveritt. These guys were instrumental in me finding Tai Chi, finding the Eastern arts.

And there was a time when the my girlfriend broke up and then I had this house to myself and this house became the dojo and it became where everyone came and I had a futon, a seat, my records, kung fu movies out of Yahoo, the ying yang and a pull up bar and a bed. And that was it. And all the homies came over and we would read. We would drink tea and we would study. That's crazy, man.

This was back in like 97. Aha. So it starts with kung fu and acupuncture basically.

But then you kind of blossomed from there. Yeah. So what is it that you're learning specifically in Kung Fu and this introduction to Chinese medicine that gives you a sense of belonging and direction?

It was this. It was like an aha moment. It was like. Because I was so enamored with kung fu and obviously at that time, you know, Wu Tang was really big and they were talking about it, and then you had cats like Jiru and then you had you had other cats that were coming in the scene. So there was a lot of you know, again, hip hop is closely tied to a lot of the stuff that was going on.

And I'm looking at the landscape. And I was like, how does a lot of black folks that are doing different things and entering different spaces and not so much cultural appropriation, but really acknowledging the East and how, you know, that Silk Road came from Africa or, you know, and from China, and they were very closely connected. So I started seeing that there was a very close synergy between African culture and an Eastern culture. And I really started delving into it.

And and I just knew how much. At the time, there was a real big shiatsu school in Austin, and my friend Thomas and Claudia became Sheff's, they went through the Macrobiotics School of training and I became really I saw the power of macrobiotics. And I was like, wow, this is amazing. And then we kung fu and, you know, learning how to make your own remedies de jour and, you know, did jours a special concoction that a lot of martial arts use whenever they bruise themselves, you know, sandbag training, metal training.

You rub this ointment and he owes you space from DOWER'S Law. And it's been passed down from generation to generation. So learning stuff like this and learning the Arabic culture and then, you know, adding all this knowledge that I'm seeing them like this is something. So then, as I said, me and my girl break up. My mum and dad are in Orlando. And I'm like, you know what, they're getting older and I don't want to be in the same town.

I don't want to be in the same city as this woman. And I have a lot of history here and. Let me go and be with my parents and go study Chinese medicine, study Eastern philosophy, yada, yada, and originally I was going to go to acupuncture school, but I was not making enough money, even though I can still work and upset. See the bands. The bands weren't, you know, because I was kind of at that point, I was still fraternizing with music, but I didn't really feel like that anymore.

It wasn't doing it for me. What was doing it for me was learning about the arts and learning about, you know, because I really wanted to become an acupuncturist. I really wanted to be on some Matola Shakoor type business and felt for all the people out there who don't. Matura because Metrological was part of the Black Nationalist Movement in the 60s. And I want to say he was Tupac. Uncle Sam, he was one of the first acupuncturists, black acupuncturists in the States.

Wow. And was real revolutionary for bringing acupuncture to the hood. So I was in I was so enamored by that story, I was like, this is this is this is, you know, not the purview of, you know, the black man in America. Right. Right. I mean, it sounds like you are creating your own scene. Yeah. And it's interesting how, you know, music is sort of a catalyst for this. Like when you're recounting your story, I'm thinking about HRR from Bad Brains and, you know, kind of the impact that he has had in a similar way as music and advocacy and how many lives he was able to touch and change if you're having a kind of analogous experience to that.

But there aren't a lot of examples of a black man who are pursuing a path like that. Yeah, not a lot. And funny enough sidebar I used to hang with as road manager in Austin, Texas. Oh, wow. Way back in the day. So that's my connection to H.R.. Funny enough, you ever come across John Joseph from the Kromagg? No. And it's funny because we all know kind of the same circles.

But, John, stories similar to yours. Yeah. I mean, H.R. took him in and sorted them out and, you know, he went down his own, you know, wellness rabbit.

Yeah. That's kind of similar to yours. Yeah. Yeah. I've got a feeling we're going to meet each other very soon. Think so. And we also have a very mutual friend and hopefully the ancestors are looking after him as we speak. David Clarke, who transitioned. Right. You knew. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That was a very good hobby of mine. So but anyway, so with all that being said, I was really enamored by, you know, mythological and and and funny enough, in Orlando, I ended up befriending his first student.

That ended up adopting the program. Wow, was a random or did you know it was random, was there? It was random. So I'm going to go to Orlando is the hotbed like acupuncture? It was. And culturally, it was so surreal how we met. And this was later down the road. And I ended up having a really her name was Dr. Kim Zula. Amazing woman. She was one of Dr. Matula because very few students and practice acupuncture.

I don't know if it was I want to say it was Harlem, but her and Dr. Shakoor practice acupuncture for free in Harlem when acupuncture was not looked at in a very good light, especially with black bodies doing it. So to have her in, I've met a lot of and been taught and been brought under the wing after under a lot of people. She's definitely one of the people that I, I hold in high regard because she was able to share stories with me of those days and how hard it was for black bodies not only to bring acupuncture to a level of prominence, but to show and prove why it was effective and show and prove why it was effective to black folk who definitely weren't looking at acupuncture.

Mm hmm. So, you know, having her I mean, her was amazing and instrumental in my life. But at that time, I wanted to be an acupuncturist, and I was I didn't make enough money. So I saw a program that was at this massage school that was all eastern body work. They taught shiatsu. They talked to in between five element theory and they taught Tai Chi. And I was like, I'm going to that school.

So that's what she did. So that's what I did. Yeah.

And I moved to Orlando and I moved in with my parents for the umpteenth time. I've moved in my parents so many times. But how old are you now? Like 25 or something like 25, 26, your, you know, 40 years or so. But so I ended up moving in with them and yeah, I went to college and then this guy, Dr. Sean Odom, took me under his wing. And for that it was a speed program, which they don't do anymore.

But it was like a six month every day and night program you learn. Was it 200 or 500 hours of massage and then X amount of hours in traditional Chinese medicine theory, yada, yada, yada? I had some amazing teachers, but this teacher, this guy was amazing in the fact that he was Buddhist and he was my first vegan. That lived a long life, but that was a household that really lived it lived it, lived it.

Huh? And. Yeah, I studied with him right before he moved to North Carolina, he got a practice in North Carolina at the time, he was one of the world's leading pediatric acupuncturist where he was just like working on kids with major, major problems. And he was world renowned and he taught me tai chi. He taught me so much about five elements. He taught me so much about acupuncture, acupressure, and then taught me this other form of martial arts called Bagua.

So I got immersed into the internal martial arts world where I just became immersed and in that time. I kind of found music again, and I had met some guys who lived right down the street from the school, and then I started working on my first album along with going to massage. Wow.

Well, Chinese medicine is no joke. I mean, people spend decades immersed in that, trying to get a handle on it.

My buddy Colin went to the doctor not in the name of the school here in Los Angeles, but he's a doctor of Chinese medicine now. But I mean, it was like he went to medical school. It is, you know, very, very intense. And then I would go and get acupuncture with him because as a practicing student, I could get it for cheap and free. Yeah, exactly. And then the the the kind of mentor, you know, full Chinese doctor would come in and oversee it.

Yeah. And then he would do the thing where he takes your pulse, the pulse, you know, and they're like these masters of touch and feeling, whether like 100 ways or 50 years he's been doing this and they can tell you everything about your health from putting their thumb on your arm.

Yeah. Isn't that amazing? And then you get some wacky herbs. You know exactly the way out, bro.

I can tell you some stories. I can tell you some stories, like the one time when I had finished massage school. I don't know if it was it was so weird. I had these lesions on my arms that this came out of nowhere. And I don't know if it was stress or what, but it was traditional Chinese medicine. And I remember being in a bath of different wacky herbs covering these lesions. But it worked. Yeah, I don't know what it was.

Yeah.

And those guys that can can, you know, do the pulse thing, they're wizards.

They are absolutely amazing. And there's, you know, as I said, there's like over 100 ways of reading pulses. And they can tell you basically I can tell you, oh, you were eating too much dairy when you were like five years old. I know, right? I know. You're like, come on now. Yeah. Where's the scam? Where is a scam? And I'm like, this dude, as I said, you know, the dude who I went when I first initially went through my stuff, doctors had been trying to figure out what was going on and didn't know what was going on.

Within five minutes, he knew exactly what was going on.

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So does anybody at some point say, come on, man, like pick your thing? Is it going to be kung fu or tai chi or massage or acupuncture or weirdo when you're exposing yourself to, you know, so many different traditions, like how does that all synthesize and synergise like you have? And and on top of that, all these different kind of philosophical, spiritual, religious, you know, notions are swimming around in your head like you're like a mishmash of everything.

Right? Like does this does this congeal into some kind of universal theory? You know, how does that work? You know, it was so at that time, I didn't really even know what I was doing. I was in it just living life, you know, again. I come back to it, you know, coming from Ipswich, there's not really it's like coming from like beefalo somewhere outside of Texas or, you know, it's a small town, you know, there's this stuff happening.

But who would have thunk that? I would have thought about acupuncture and I would be immersed in Rastafarianism and five percent and eating frigging sprouts, learning how to do my own broccoli sprouts in my cabbage, you know? I mean, but at that time, I was just more like, how can I be a game changer? How can I make lengths for myself? And that's why I really got into the Eastern philosophy and the Eastern arts, because there wasn't a lot of black bodies doing it.

And I was really enamored by that. And I saw that there was a spiritual connotation to Africa and to the motherland. So I was able to, you know, with the knowledge that I had, I was able to come back and be like, OK, well, let's come back to this. And this relates to this, so. There was that and then. You've got to remember, I was really sick and all of these things that I learned were healing arts and then on top of that, there was a period of time when I was a rough cat.

And I was beating people up and I was like, you know, slapping people for fun and it was that's not me. So coming to the healing side. Was really grounding and was really fortifying for me and then the knowledge. You know, with this, I felt like it was this making me a better person, so the more I seek than the more I learn the market, this like how more people out. And because I realized I had seen where I was and and and that all the help and all the guides and all the people that helped me get my way, not only could I be a game changer, I can actually help people being a game changer.

Yeah. So my thing was I wanted to be different. I wanted to be different. I didn't want to be just. Oh, this guy from England who came over and is this, you know, lost in the shuffle. I wanted to be somebody who is going to make a name for myself and I didn't know to what capacity. And my parents will always say to you, you know, he always wanted to be something they wanted. But it was I just knew and especially from that time seeing my parents, how hard they worked, how hard and diligent they've done in their life, I wanted somehow to pay it back to them and they wanted to go through the steps to show that I'm working hard to get there, but to show that I can make it and somehow pay it forward.

So the path wasn't, you know, go to medical school or go to law school, you had to go on this crazy inward Aquarians journey to find yourself become an integrated, you know, human being. Yeah.

And it's it's what's cool about it is how heartfelt and organic it is. It's not like, oh, here's here's what I'm going to do and it's going to get me to this place like it was just a like a relentless pursuit of, you know, personal growth and whatever flavor you could find it. And you had this thirst for it and that all kind of like sated you and got you to this place where you could be of service. Yeah, but that idea that behind it all, you had some knowledge or understanding that this was going to lead you in the direction you were meant to go?

Most definitely. Yeah, most definitely. So you're scrambling like you can't be you can't be, you know, making more than minimum wage, like paying for all those things. Right now, I'm actually working.

I would literally that day, that stereotype. There's a stereotype of, you know, the West Indian man or that dude who worked like four or five jobs. And I was that dude, right? I literally was that dude. I was working like four or five jobs. I was teaching massage because at this time now I graduated and the guy at the school loved me. I got on really well with all the teachers, so they brought me in to teach.

What Dr. Sean Odom taught, which was five element theory, because, you know, I was under his wing, so then I started teaching Taichi. So then that led to, you know, me making a name for myself within the city with Taichi and I started learning with several different teachers, Sifu Ken Howard, who is a Bagua specialist, this guy, Seafood Lollie, who was a wool stylist, who was a wool shoe stylist. And then I met Wang Siefer and Wang CIFOR was an old guy from Shanghai.

Who no one knew about, you had to basically know somebody who knew him in order to learn with him. And Wang Sifu taught on a rooftop in downtown Orlando. So I knew this guy named Paul, who we had did some martial arts together, and he was like, oh, you really in a tight you need to see this guy, but you're going to have to come to a couple of classes because he's not going to just let you in, huh?

He's like the Miyaji wizard. Yeah. Yeah. Get permission. So it's all very cinematic on a rooftop. It really was. It really was. And, you know, for any martial artist out there, you know, there is a certain thing that is called the indoor circle or indoor society. And it's basically when you get to a certain stature in your martial arts practice where you get invited into certain sects, they have it in Arnis where they you know what, a Filipino martial arts.

They have it in the Japanese martial arts where it's closed off. You can only get initiated.

You just you get a tap on the shoulder one day, basically, and this is my tap on the shoulder. And that was really another chapter, because at that time there was a place called Garden Cafe in Orlando that was a restaurant that was run by Dallas. Real legit, I was monks', so at that time, they had no idea Taichi and know that I was immersed in the arts and they were like, come to the holy house, come see what we were all about.

So then that started me down a rabbit hole. Daoism and I was initiated in this holy house, in this Daoist sect while doing Tai Chi. So, you know, religious spiritual vertigo. Oh my God. Here. So I mean, I told you I got some stories. Yeah. So in this time I'm learning Tai Chi with this tai chi teacher on a rooftop, learning four or five. I would go see him twice a week, Tuesdays and Thursdays, and we'd study for four or five hours, end up drinking Chinese rum, reading Chinese newspapers, poleward smoked Chinese cigarettes.

And we were just immersed in this life. And then I had Daoism.

So, you know, Daoism, you just getting it from all sides, all angles. And I'm still I'm still messing with the Rasta's in Orlando because I still got my WLOX, yada, yada. So I'm still, you know, I'm still with everyone, yada, yada. So I meet this girl who I ended up marrying and and then my life takes a different course, man, you know, Chapter 11.

Yeah. My life takes a different course. And then I get married. Well, we date and soon enough I have my first child. It was a very. It will it was a whirlwind romance that got very serious, very quick and. You know, the caveat was it was a white girl and, you know, a lot of the a lot of the community didn't feel it. And, you know, I was a bit I was kind of blackballed in in, you know, the kind of afro spiritual community that I was in.

Wow. That's interesting. Yeah, it was it was it was a really it was a really deep time.

And yeah, I had my first kid at the same time.

I just put out my first album. Aha. And what do you 27 or 28 now. No, at this time I'm like this tenth for everything went high and the music is going really well and. You know, I'm starting to make moves, we start talk about tomorrow, and then my goal is like, put that shit on, hold me, that ain't happening.

And, you know, I have I have a great relationship with my ex-wife now, but. Married, being having a kid, not knowing that person and not really, really solidifying a relationship like you supposed to was rough.

So having my first how to land the rough way of fatherhood and then, you know, got my first child at 16, seven, four years later, we have another one daughters, two daughters.

And then she got real and all the spiritual practice. And all the time she was still and I was still doing it. But the spiritual practice and everything kind of went away. And I really started getting into household a lifestyle. And, you know, my. Wife at the time was very traditional in the aspect like, you're going to work, you're going to be the breadwinner, I'm going to stay home and look after the kids. And, you know, just seeing how my my parents were, I was like, OK, that's that's this is what I signed up for.

And, you know, the one thing about having kids that I always envisioned was that kid is always going to be around me no matter what. And I have two kids and working three jobs. I'm working Whole Foods at the time. Massage, envy. Because I'm and I'm teaching some teaching, I'm massaging I'm working Whole Foods, but no more five hour rooftop get togethers that kind of like, yeah, came to a halt.

It was like, no, you you got to be a father.

So, you know, becoming a father, becoming household and, you know, knock no knock on my my ex. But she was not spiritual. She was atheist and. You know, having been kind of blackballed from a certain community and and having a wife that was not spiritual, where am I now?

Mm hmm. Yeah, identity crisis. Big time. Big time.

So, you know, life happened. Um, I. This became, you know, the guy who was the white picket fence man, right? We had dogs, we had the minivan. I was working three jobs. That was my life. And, you know, I, I, I remember one time, you know, I had all these dreams and aspirations are going to Ethiopia, go into Mexico, going to Costa Rica. And I had all these dreams and aspirations of doing all this stuff, you know, teaching taichi or, you know, teaching some type of spiritual what have you.

Right. All that shit went away. Now my life is relegated to becoming a household that's become becoming, you know, the pictures. I can see the pictures of Buddha, the pictures of Malcolm X, the pictures, all of those things were going out to house. It was toys everywhere, so in our last house before the big day, I had a room, right? So what I didn't talk about was I have a big vinyl collection, like a monumental vinyl collection.

Right. And then I have a pretty big book collection that is spanned with me all the way from Ipswich, all the way to Brooklyn, all the way to Austin has traveled me everywhere. So I had this room that was literally like my record room and it was literally like my sanctuary. I put on my spiritual stuff. Everything was like a little room in this big old mansion that we used to live in and. Yeah, those things went from bad to worse, and we just fell out of love and my next kid came, I had had one more child named Layla and so I have and I learned Layla and Layla came and Layla came with a broken hip out of the womb.

So that was a lot going on. Yeah, right. That's a lot. So, you know, we have to take her to Johns Hopkins and she's having to get her. She's having to be in a cast up until nine months out. So, you know, I'm I'm we're looking after two kids, taken the school, yada, yada, and then we have this one here.

So keep in mind, my my ex was a triathlete. Up until we met and then we had kids, she put on weight and then she rediscovered the gym again, lost all the way and became this bad ass like gym rat, which was detrimental because they're resentful that she's yet to find a passion. Yeah. And and invest in that. And you feel like you're you don't have that privilege. You got it.

You knocked it right on the head. Right. Aha. So there's so much stuff going on. She's going to the gym every day. I'm here. They're going on Disney cruises. The kids are all going on Disney cruises. You know, they're living the best life. They've got the best like that that they have no idea. You know, we've got a big trampoline my parents are paying for. You know, my parents did so much because they knew I was only one person.

So they were paying for groceries. They were like, you know, we don't want you to do this. You know, we know it's a lot. I'm paying for two cars, a minivan, you know, the whole nine yards and you got three jobs, got three jobs going.

So, you know, I'm resentful. So in that time, I started seeing running and I don't know how the conversation occurred. I was starting to lose weight because she was losing weight. And I might put the weight back on. I put it was going to kind of fluctuate, fluctuating back and forth right. Throughout the years it fluctuated. So at this time, I was about two twenty two about to twenty to fifteen to twenty times. She's not keeping the weight tight.

She's not keeping weight off. So I get my jump rope. I used to love jump rope and so I get to jump rope out and then discover catapults. I'm doing carabao. This was before Crosthwaite became real big. The Homie Thomas, who is my kung fu brother, ended up becoming one of the first guys to do cross fit in Texas. So he told me about Karabo. So I was in enamored with calabaza and I started doing Carrados jump rope and but I needed it to cut it a little bit more.

So she told me about running. She shredded right now, she shredded it used to be a triathlete, she did an Ironman right before my first one, you know. Right. So she was like, yeah, you should try running.

So maybe that's something you guys could do together.

Well, we did. And then that that in I didn't let me. That didn't work. That didn't work. Huh. So when I got in the barefoot running. Right. Because when I'd get into something I go into it for half an hour looking at the spiritual aspect of it. So then that was when the V brims with a big thing. So I get in the V Bram's, I get in the door barefoot running, I'm studying the Kenyan running and yada, yada, yada.

And then she has the firm. People are dying. And within the space of like two, three years, 10 people died, my marriage is going to shit. And ultimately. The marriages that in that time, I lose the house, I lose my kids, I lost that life, some shit happened at the end. And. Here I am. We're basically meeting yourself. Yeah, this is dismantling.

Yeah, this is your this is your what my wife would call your divine moment. Yes.

Yes. And I know you've been you've been there.

You I mean a version of that. Yeah. You know, I think I think it's very relatable. I think, you know, a lot of people, if not most people have some version of this happened in their life. In retrospect, I'm sure you look back on it now with gratitude as a cat, so much that everything so much that has happened to you since.

But when it's happening, I mean, it's I can't imagine anything more painful like your whole life getting pulled out from underneath you, the levels, you know, and it's funny because I just watched the podcast with you and I can't remember the guy's name, but you talk about old stories. Right.

And how to rewrite and to make new. And I look at all these things in the past of where I've come from and what I've done and, you know, I was joking before coming in here and I was like, you know, how did I even get into Rich podcast? I don't have a story. You have an amazing story here. Like, I'm not worthy. But now after kind of listening to it, I'm like, OK, it's incredible the story.

And I'll tell you this, like, as fun as it is to have, you know, Erin Brockovich and Edward Norton and all these really cool people come in here, I have to say, like my favorite. Part of this job is finding people like yourself who I mean, you have a profile and people know who you are. It's not like you're anonymous. I mean, you're a public figure on some level. But to be able to put a microphone in front of you who has such a worthy story and so much wisdom and try to amplify that, it gives me, you know, that's like that's the stuff.

And so for me, this is like the sweet spot of the podcast.

And I'm grateful to have you here because I think you have an amazing story and so much wisdom to share. Thank you. Thank you. I'm on it.

And that place of just being broken and lost and confused, you know, despite having this incredible background and education and all these various spiritual, you know, techniques and traditions and feeling inapt or unable to leverage that for your own personal well-being in that moment, I think speaks to how hard all of this is. Yeah. You know, even though you knew all that stuff, you're still suffering.

Yeah. Yeah. And and, you know, that's that's going to be in chapter 50 because that's what you said there is so beautiful and it's so reminiscent of my life and and and even up till last week, even with Conrad and even the same sentiment still came into play. There's so much beauty in suffering, so much beauty and suffering.

And I and I know it sounds so it's not cliche, but it's people are like scratching their head, how can you suffer? How can that be beauty and suffering when you go through the suffering that all a lot of us have that have been on this show, that have become successful is because when you go through that suffering, you go through such a darkness, you go through such a bottom feeder kind of exposure that. You learn to have gratitude for the smallest thing.

The smallest thing, and when I when I think about the times when. I didn't think that. I was going to really make it. Out of that space. There were times, rich when. I would be in the car park of Wholefoods. Like crying. Crying my heart out, screaming at the top of my lungs, looking around like, how the fuck did I end up in this situation? One of the stories that I always tell people, and it's a it's a story, but it's a story that I, I, I often tell people because mental health and suicide is so big.

And I know in this day and age it's being amplified and people are talking about it. But when you hit a certain level of. Suffering and you think there is nothing else you can look back at these times? In darkness and be like, man, if I didn't know the depths and the levels of darkness, I wouldn't be able to enjoy this moment right now. So there was a time when. I used to pack. A gun with me everywhere, Orlando was in Orlando, used to be in Orlando, still kind of has a very you've got the Disney side and you've got a super rough, like home invasions.

Like they'll come and run in your house. They'll shoot you in the middle of Wal-Mart. That's like Florida. Right.

Right. Uh huh. Sometimes I pray for my kids still out there. But still, you know, Florida was you know, Florida is a state where you have your Stand Your Ground law. So you can come in if somebody is. Residents and they can shoot you on self-defense, and that's it. Stand Your Ground or Castle Law, which so interesting in light of what's going on with Berhanu Taylor, right?

Yeah, right. That and then also you mentioned to me that the cop who put his knee on George Floyd's neck. Now is living down the street or was living down the street? Yeah, from from my kids. Yeah, I'm in Florida. That's insane. Yeah, which is and that's that's a whole nother story in itself. But, you know, just to bring it back to this, that was such a dark, dark time and another set, you know, for me, I used to pack because where my parents live, it's not a rough neighborhood.

But there was a lot of home invasions. There was a lot of breakings. There was my parents are old. And again, you remember I told you I had to move back in with my parents? Well, after couch surfing and yada, yada, my parents had. After that. After the divorce. Back in the seventh. Yeah. So this is the umpteenth time I moved back in my parents.

But if I didn't have, you know, my my relationship with my parents now. I used to be scared of them, I used to fear them, I used to not like my brother and sister. The relationship is amazing, and this was partly the reason I'm not going to say this last thing with my parents and for them to see how broken I was. Was really, really deep and and and cry with your parents is even deeper, and I don't know if you've ever had that, but when you've when you're in the presence of your mother, your father, and you are legit, all crying in despair.

It's a hard, hard pill to swallow then. And it was and it was hard to come home knowing that I lost everything and it was hard to come home that I had three kids. And I'm still paying for that. I'm still paying for their school. I'm still paying for everything. And I can't talk to him because she won't let me talk to him. So all this stuff is going down. Meanwhile, I'm still paying for the house, I'm still paying for the minivan, I'm still paying for all extracurricular activities.

And I'm at home at my parents house. With a shotgun underneath the bed crying in the parking lot behind me, did you have a sense?

You know, this idea that you can't be a Phoenix without the ashes, right, like this idea that you're being you're being burned for a reason, that there's a purpose or that there's something to be mined and learned from this experience so that you can emerge more fully integrated.

I mean, with all of this spiritual education behind you, you must have been able to hold on to some aspect of that or to believe or to choose to believe that there is some kind of purpose or lesson to be learned here.

I did, but it was very little in the grand scheme of things. Yeah, it was very little because although I had the running that kind of took me out of that space. Right. Because I would run and it was then that becomes your new healing. That becomes my new healing mechanism. Right. So I had the running that became my new healing mechanism. And and I could grab on to that. And I still had my spiritual faculties, but I wasn't leaning on to as much as I could.

So in that interim. I had my friends, you know, I had a really good I have a really good girlfriend of mine. Her name is Christina. My ex-wife named Christina, my best friend with Christina at the time. Christina was the first person that I went to when I got essentially out of the house and I was couch surfing. She looked after me basically for two summers because I was broke and she looked after me for two summers along with my parents.

And really kind of helped me get back on track and then as I said, you know, because in that time I had probably contemplated suicide four or five times. And you know, the one story that I was trying to bring up and I really bring this story was the story was me in the parking lot of Orlando Zen and a friend of mine, Sandra Beanca, love Sandra. Sandra was the one who said, you need something. Come to the temple at the time, I didn't know what the temple was.

She said, come to the temple. I was like, OK. So I drive up there and I've got this big Springfield 45 next to me, and at the time I just got off the phone, my ex, we had just gone into a major argument and she's asking for more money for the house. I'm I'm literally just like shaking and I'm just. Shaking uncontrollably and I'm like, do I just do it right now I'm looking at the gun, I'm in front of the temple, I'm looking at the gun.

And then I'm like, oh, fuck it, I'm going to go do whatever this fucking thing is, I don't know what I'm going to get into, but I'm going to do it. And that ended up becoming my. That that could have been my last day on the Earth, and instead I chose to sit in front of a wall in silence for an hour and a half, my.

That's heavy, man. I wonder how many people show up at a Zen center with a gun contemplating suicide. Yeah. Wow.

And that was and that's what led me to, you know, subsequently that was that was really when I was literally crawling on the bottom, like, I don't know if I can make it. That was kind of like the ladder. That was like, yes, you can. And I went into that, I went into that, I went into that songa or what in Buddhist term we call a spiritual community. Mm hmm. And I remember having my first Dharma talk with the abbot.

Her name was Claudia. She was a wide bodied lesbian and she broke it down for me. So real and raw as a Zen Buddhist does, because, you know, you never get really anybody who knows about Zen Buddhism. You never get a straight answer, right? Yeah. You got to go confounding. Yeah. I mean, on some level, did you walk into that thinking, come on, man, like I've I've done I've been in I've been into Daoism.

I've been into Rastafari. I've done I've done all these things like what is this place going to teach me that I don't already know.

I really did. Yeah, I really did. I really did. And especially when it was no frigging oh wait, Fokin, I was like, oh, and white people pretending like this, it's like, oh really. I was like, OK. And those people ended up becoming my saviors like you would not believe me. And there were some young folk in then and ended up seeing more diverse crowd. But at first it was just like what am I getting into?

And then they're chanting in Korean. And then there's this big ball and there's this huge Buddha. And then you're having to sit in front of the wall. Mm hmm. But that was so in Orlando, in Orlando, in Orlando, still in San Francisco or in, you know, now in Orlando, off South Street in Orlando. And I end up coming out of that. So I'm not going to say like Buddha under the body, but it was near enough, it was near enough and I just came out and I was.

It was it was powerful, so came out of that meeting, your first session, or that was the first session. That was the first session. It was that quickly. It was it was it was that the it was so profound being in silence for for an hour, hour and a half. And then to talk to that abbot and the words that she left me because I gave it to her, I was like I was literally like I had nowhere to turn like this was it for me.

And she was like, I don't know if it's going to be for you. Huh? But you're going to realize sooner or later if it really was like, fuck you, right? So I left out of that. I just came out of a relationship. And I was you know, I had a friend who had just died not too long back, I just got out of a serious, serious relationship. I thought this guy was the one bum, bum, bum.

And at the same time, I had a friend that we had conversed and I just had a liking to her on Instagram. So low and behold, this relationship that was this based on a friendship ended up kind of growing. And she was Buddhist, too. So at this time, I'm finding so much love and compassion in this Zen center that I'm just it put me on a projection and then this projection, I stopped meditating. They stopped meditating every day and prior to this meditation wasn't part of I had kind of put it under the rug because I was just dealing with real shit.

Uh huh. Meditation was there, but it wasn't really in the. The the way that I was moving now, because meditation was and I would meditate, but it was like, this ain't working, it just won't work because I still have contemplations of doing what I needed to do in order to offer myself for this ain't working, because if it did, I wouldn't be in a situation. I was right. But then it became my solace. So now I've got meditation and I have running and I still have my friends here who were looking after me and kind of giving me advice and telling me, you are going to make it.

But it was really these two severe needs to suddenly started coming together slowly and surely, and then I started really seeing the power because now. I'm starting to feel good about myself. If I can make an analogy of like a Gumby, you notice things that are doing like this in me, so I was flat. Now I'm starting to get air pumped in me, so now I'm starting to learn about compassion. Now I'm starting to learn about equanimity.

Now I'm starting to learn about discernment in its highest regard. Now I'm learning about all these commands that are kind of in a weaving and I'm starting to use these commands in my life and I'm starting to see things change.

And now I'm going showing up to court or showing up to these mediation battles with compassion and now dealing with my ex-wife with compassion.

Oh, you don't want to let me talk to the kids.

I'm good with that. I know it's going to happen because I'm doing good things and paying bills and pay, even though I could have stopped and said, I'm not paying this, I'm not doing this, I was like, I'm going to do it. And then I started showing up to certain things and I started showing up for myself. And then that confidence started building and then my parents started saying, like they started smelling the incense coming out of my room, right, because I'm burning like four or five incenses at a time.

They're seeing, like, you know, the mat out in the middle of the living room or, you know, they come in from my mom's doing a walk on. My dad's out in the garden and he sees me like chanting. So this is becoming real now. And now we're seeing it at work because now my 15 minute breaks that I would be going in the bathroom crying because I'm leading a team like one of the biggest themes, I'd become a global all star, you know, for Whole Foods, the nine yards, I'm still breaking down, crying in the middle of my work sessions.

But now that breakdown is now me meditating in the break room and now other people are seeing me meditating. Now they're asking questions. And then that was like the Phoenix starting to get his or her, you know, wings back. And then all this hate and resentment and aggression started transmutes hating. Right. So all those base metals started changing into gold. Slowly but surely. And then I met this woman.

And she's like, come to L.A.. Never been to L.A. in my life, and at this time I'm still working now I'm working for jobs now I'm still working Wholefoods 40 hours a week and work a massage every 25 hours a week and working lift like 10, 15 hours a week. And then I'm just doing odd jobs here and there for the homies.

So this is like 80, 90 hours a week of work. And then in between that, I'm just your practice. I'm just and you're run my practice and my running.

And are you able to register or calibrate in your own mind the changes that you're undergoing or.

Oh, yeah. So there's a thing in the recovery community where you don't feel like you're making progress and it's only when it's reflected back to you from other people because you can't see it on a day to day basis and you don't feel like you're making progress and other people will be like, you look different. Yeah. You're holding yourself differently. Exactly. You know, in the eye in a way that you weren't three months ago. Exactly. Exactly.

And all of that started happening. All of that and. It was a sea change. I had a really good friend named Zach, who is. He's like mine. He was like ETN, but in the Florida version, right. And I he lived in a place, Canossa Manor, which is right outside of Orlando. And he was like he was like a Monkhouse. And I would go visit him on the weekends and. It was just really great because I would have a spiritual brother who was locked in just like me.

And we would meditate together and just hours and hours we cook food and just talk. And that was so good for me because in this time now, you know, all this stuff is happening now. I started seeing my kids and I would get them every other weekend. So, you know, one of the biggest things was how do I support my kids on such minimum? You know, there would be times I would have to save, you know, 10 to 20 dollars just to make sure that I had enough on the weekend to make sure that I would look after them because all my money was elsewhere.

Wow. So, you know, that was really good, but it was really good because I started becoming a parent. I was a parent, but I wasn't really a parent. I was a parent because now there was no ex-wife telling me what to do. It was me holding my kids. So I had relationships with all of them. And it was rough and it was hard for them. It was hard for them to see me in such a sunken state.

But as the Buddhism evolved, I started evolving as a human and it started making relationships with them even more pliable and more tangible. And then I was teaching them the things that I was learning. And at that time, you know, you're teaching a little 12 year old that at the time my oldest one was 12 and she was like, what the hell are you talking about? My eight year old is like that. I just want to watch Peppa Pig.

I could care less what you're doing. But they started to see a change in me. And, you know, my daughter now is so in the know now that we can have these conversations and talk about Buddhism and, you know, all the stuff that's happening. But they had to see it. And and as I grew, I started having more confidence in myself and started realizing that. Let's get back to that spiritual faculty. So then I grew up, and as that practice grew to run and grew, then I found Akito and at the time, I don't have enough going on.

Right. Come on, man. I need a new modality. Yeah. New Madalitso. I found Akito. Aha. So Akito is was amazing because I'm going for the Zen Buddhism and we go for Akito and boom, boom, boom. So when I meet this girl in L.A. and she just rocks my sock off, she, she flies me out here. And we have this love affair letter on Instagram, on Instagram. So we have this love affair, right?

But here I am. I'm still a household. I'm still you know, I'm not really cool. Right? I'm not cool. I'm still wearing dad jeans. I'm still, you know, I mean, I'm because I can't afford anything I can't afford. You weren't rocking like all the flies.

No, not at all. No. So I'm like, you need to take me shopping.

You've got to sort out my closet because you got to go. I see how you we are joking. During the shoot, we were talking about our daughters because our daughters are about the same age. And I was expressing, you know, my challenges and trying to connect with them. And you're like, dude, my daughters don't think I'm cool.

And I'm like, if they don't if your daughters don't think you're cool, we're all hopeless now, you know? No, you know, it's funny because I get people like them and me like, dude, your style is I'm like my daughter is like, you're African. Mangalyaan is killing me, Daddy. It's killing me. How does she know where?

Oh, you know, what could you put on that. But impressive. Well, well, you know, it's funny because now it's when I look back at what I was rocking and now she's like rocking the way Air Force One's in the car parts and stuff like that. But, you know, it's it's so funny how, you know, I'm not cool. I'm not cool on any on any given day. I got news for you. Do you are cool.

Not for them I'm not. Yeah. But anyway so. So yeah I wasn't cool. And here, you know, give you a background. My girl Melinda is. She's an ex plus sized model. She's a fashionista. She is like. You know, she dated models, dated rappers the whole nine yards, so I'm looking at this woman, I'm like, what is she even how does she even see this dude in Orlando working at Whole Foods?

Exactly. I'm working for jobs. I'm not cool at this time. I'm Instagram. I was you know, I'm posting records and talking about my life, going for divorced people and really messing with me for style and running and all that stuff. But she was like, no, you're amazing. You know, I want to kind of kick it with you and yada, yada, so that formed that relationship happened. So hold on a second. Clearly, it's a vibration that you're putting out like and that vibration is a reflection of all the inner work that you've done like that has power and potency like that is a real thing.

But if she was sitting across from me right now and I was to say to her, tell me what it is that you saw specifically in hock at that time, what would she say?

I think she would probably say I saw powder he didn't see that he had in himself. Exactly, yeah. She she she would probably say that I saw power and a light that he didn't see that I saw in. And and I got a credit, I mean, I tell people regardless, my business manager, that's my lawyer, that's my you know, when you and I know you have a strong, amazing wife to, you know. And we we talk about this in therapy, because that's another thing that was a game changer for me was therapy.

But we talk about this all a while like she is legit, like the first woman that I have ever been with that has made me feel. That I can achieve and do anything and all of its totality. The first and probably kick your ass, too, and kick my ass at the same time. That's the best combination. Yeah, the easiest.

It's not the easiest is not the easiest, but. What she has done for my life has been nothing short of. Amazing, she is one of the reasons why I can say when I'm sitting in front of you today, because she gave me the. She gave me that red pill to say that you can do whatever the fuck you want to and it doesn't matter that you're in Orlando and it doesn't matter that you're working all of these jobs, yada, yada, if you want it, you can have it.

It's all up to you. But I can tell you that you're going to get it and I'm going to help you get it.

And so something really major happened between me and my ex and. I'm in Orlando and the relationship's great, running's great, Buddhism's great, the martial arts are great, but I'm still not where I'm still working for jobs. I'm still not making the money that I'm you know, child support is coming out of every paycheck and barely cut the mustard. And then something really cataclysmic happens.

That really upsets my whole being with this divorce and yada, yada. And I made the decision and it was such a hard decision to leave my kids in Orlando, but I wasn't getting anywhere. And in order for me to be the best person that I had to be for them, I had to leave. I had to leave Orlando.

There had to be people who thought that was the wrong thing.

Oh, dude, I would say probably 80 to 90 percent of the people who were in Orlando said to leave your kids. And how are you going to how to me, my parents were devastated. My parents were devastated. They didn't really have a relationship with my ex-wife anyway. So for them, they were like, I'm never going to see my grandkids again. And and then for my my younger one, the two youngest, it really didn't really affect them, but it affected my oldest one where she really didn't want to mess with me.

Mm hmm. And that was a pivotal part of life, right? She was 12 years old, I think, at the time. 11 or 12, so it was a pivotal part of her life, and she'd send all the stuff that had gone on in the space of being her mother, being divorced had gone through a lot as kids. And then here you are now your dad's about to move to L.A.. And then on top of that, I have all these people telling me you're not going to make it, it's super expensive, you're working for jobs.

How the fuck do you think you're going to make it in L.A.? Right. Right. Where the rest, you know, ten times what it is exactly now.

So I come to L.A. and, you know, it was rough. That first year was really rough. And I was just trying to navigate myself. And then I'm still going through the divorce because the divorce is still going on. And then I'm meeting this woman who I'm madly in love with, but we never lived with each other. And then we got a stepson or I got a stepson now.

Oh, wow. So you go from Instagram love affair.

Did you just move in with her directly? Directly. And then your stepdad and then my stepdad, Felicia did.

Right. It gone all kind of crazy. Kitgum, all kind of crazy, all kind of crazy. And, you know, there's so many sidebars with, you know, her previous marriage, divorce, how rough it was for her. You know, and the thing that I love about my partner is that she has her own story of abuse and and yada, yada, and her resiliency, her resilience and her power and her. Coming into this and as rough as it was the first year.

We both had came out of so many damage and detriment, all life changing situations that we were like, no, this is going to work.

So then I met these crazy kids in Koreatown called Koreatown Run Club. I ran with a whole bunch of different crews in town, but I met these guys, Koreatown Man Club. And at the time, you know, Ron, crews were arriving in L.A., but not as big as New York.

Yeah, not at all. Not at all. Not it's not like bridge runners are black. No, think wasn't like that.

Yeah. It's still not really it isn't you. But the thing I don't know. All right. I'm going to stay I wouldn't say create it, but so so then I met with these cats and I started running with them and I loved what they were all about. And then months go by and then they realized that I do taichi they realize that I'm into mindfulness and meditation, yada, yada. And at that time I was I come to L.A., I wasn't really immersed in Zen.

I kind of gone into inside and there was a group of crazy cats by the name. And I'm sure everyone knows them, especially if you're in recovery against the stream. Mm hmm. And Noah Levine and Dharma Parks punks. Right. So I came to L.A. and Melinda was already part of that crew already. So then I came in and then what really what I really loved was there was. But is that look like me? I mean, logit look like me, black tattooed who were like teaching Dharma and I was like, I'm into that.

That's what I'm into. And you are speaking my language, so then I met. Joanne Ahady, who is one of the leading black body dominant practitioners in the world, and she came she was basically Noah's right hand and I just really took a liking to her and I just really loved what insight was about. And then I started reading books on Jack Kornfield and Argin Cha and the whole Tai Forest Monks and I. And then I started learning about the passion.

And then lo and behold, Thomas and Claudia, who I had known for years, were doing The Passion is to. And I was like, passion. This is. Yeah, yeah. Now I found it. I was like, OK, this is a real deal. Oh, you've got you have to spend 10 to 14 days in silence with no phone and, you know, follow precepts and yada, yada. And you can still look like this and still be black bodied and still have tattoos.

I was like, let's go, let's go. Because as much as I love Zen and I love Zen Buddhism and the Zen philosophy, it's very whitewashed. I'm not going to you know, it's very whitewashed. And, you know, the thing with Buddhism is, is that we're coming into a new state of Buddhism now where you are seeing a lot of diversity. You are seeing a lot of BIPAC showing up. You're seeing a lot of the alphabet, LGBTQ, you know, in different everyone's coming into it now, whereas back when I first was messing with Buddhism, there wasn't so much of that.

So you're seeing the roof kings, you're seeing that Joanna Hardys, you're seeing the Lama, Robert Owens coming out of this where they're bringing a radical space of Dharma into this space of Buddhism now. And that is that was what was really attractive. And remember, as I've always said, I've always wanted to be kind of a game changer. So being with this crew and then being with this Koreatown crew, I was like. How am I going to really make a name for myself in L.A., and how can I really bring all of these worlds together?

These guys were like. Do you want to become a captain, is that yeah, why not? They said, if you're going to be a captain, bring your own twist to being a captain and I was like, OK, are you sure about that? Like, yeah. And then they threw me another caveat and they said, and then we want you to teach Tity to run us. And I was like, you're giving me this bone, too, you know?

But right now, I've been waiting my whole life. I've been waiting my whole life for this. I still doing the vibraphones thing. No, no, no, no, no. I gave those up. I'm like, boy, now I'm like, give me a four percent. Give me the next pissants, whatever. So. And that was the real cool thing about running with KRC was because they had an association with Nike. So I was able to be part of a capsule for the Nike EPIK reacts.

I was able to do all these really cool capsules. And in this time one of the really co-conspirators of KRC making the group as it was, had passed away. And that really did a lot for running and the community. So in that I want to say this is right before the L.A. Marathon 18, these guys had said to me, we want you to become a captain. So then what had happened was. I's like, if you want me to be a captain, I want to bring mindfulness because that's my bag.

I want to show the power of meditation, how you can use, how running is a meditation and how you can use mindfulness in that space. I have running. And then that blew and, yeah, the intersection of mindfulness and running was I mean, how long ago was this? Oh God, this was I mean, it had been going on. But 2013 was when I really started implementing not that long ago.

But that's right. When those two worlds were starting to intersect in a meaningful way. So it was almost like a right place, right time thing for you. Yeah. And you had this like robust, you know, decades of experience leading up to this. And you're just you're like perfectly suited.

But I still had imposter syndrome. I still had imposter syndrome because you because I'm I'm in California. I'm in L.A., whereas everyone, you know, I mean, you've got the downa sometimes you've got a take, you've got every you know, you've got all you know, you have a few big runners. You know, my friend Mochis, you had the Noels and then then you started having, you know, luminaries coming into L.A. You started having knocks the knocks.

He's coming in to L.A. now. You started having people started taking oh, this is what I like about you had the blacklist. Black List is a really big round crew out here. And then you had KRC now as Black List, the one that's downtown.

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So but then KRC had this big Nike epic reaction to people who started nine about Kathleen from crew culture. And then. And lo and behold. Oh, you're doing mindfulness and running now, so then you have people from Korea, Australia. Then people started coming and doing articles on the crew and in articles on me and how I was bringing this intersection of mindfulness and running.

So before you know it, um, I went from being this kind of small time crew captain to now I'm on a I'm on a magazine in France. I'm on a magazine, you know, spiritual run gurus of L.A. or, you know, the world. And then I had this company, this Tempo magazine from Australia came out. They did a whole bit on KRC. Then they came out and did a story on me. So then the next thing you know, I'm getting a podcast requests.

People are asking, oh, come on this podcast. And then I'm doing little pop ups of mindfulness running collabo. And then these group of crazy Mexican brothers called me and they're like, Hey. We love what you're about. Do you want to come running Sharper's and teach mindfulness to runners? Mm hmm. And I was like, yeah. You'd never run on a trail once, never. Yeah, right. And here I am in the middle at yappers, running in the jungle.

And. That was like but but, you know, with I was looking at these guys, the guy's name, Early Break, and it's Mao and me and Daniel and I looked at them and I was like, wow, these are really some really interesting characters. And and you probably know Knoxy had did their first run, right? I do know that. Yeah.

So, I mean, you and Knox is very you know, there's a lot of overlap. Yeah. And yeah. Kind of what you guys are about. Yeah. And then you add another one into the mix. You got Charlie Dark from Random in London. He's another component of that. So so you had these guys named Liebreich and they're doing this thing and they're talking about spiritual running in the wilderness. And I'm like, OK, so we started this Internet conversation and the next thing you know, they're like, we want you to come to choppers.

We want you to lead this thing in choppers with us. I was like, count me in. Never been to Mexico. Never been, you know, hadn't even. The element of traveling was so foreign to me, like eight years ago, my parents had given me money to redo my passport, my English, one of my American one, and I ended up spending it on the mortgage or something like that because I'm black, because my ex-wife told me a long time ago, if you're thinking about traveling, it ain't happening.

You're a stay at home dad. Yeah, that's all you need to think about.

Well, the other thing it's interesting, unlike Knox, you're not out, like, crushing it, you know, on track or on the road. You're not out, you know. Podium standing on the podium at Ultra's or anything like that, like you're you're you know, you're like middle of the pack, dude. Yeah. How do you even run a marathon? Yeah, yeah. Run, run, run. I got here and it's like it's really tipped toward the spiritual side and the education side of this.

And it's not about like the running category other than the fact that you're like a running enthusiast who loves running, running, you know, with deep. Because I was really like, you know, I was I was fanboy to Knoxy and Charlie and and and all these guys. And I was just like, wow, they got run crews. And they're like, you know, I'm looking at Knox. Knox is like cross-country champion when he was 14.

And, you know, you got Charlie who started running him when he was like in his late 20s and now he's like run in New York. And I'm like, looking at these dudes. And here I am. I'm a middle of the road, like eight, seven, four, if I'm good, you know, I mean, a mile running a mile, you know, and I run maybe a trail here and there, but I'm running the streets.

That's what I was you know, I'm running five k's and 10K some streets. I'm running in the heart of Koreatown at ten o'clock at night. That's what I'm known for. That's what I was really known for, like city running, like did I have dreams and, you know, dreams of grandeur, of running Boston and in New York. Yeah, I did. But then what had happened was, was I started seeing an evil side of running.

I started seeing, like, how people were like really like. You're not even getting paid to really be putting yourself through all these rigors to be like just the ridiculous performance out of it as has to the pure enjoyment and thank you operatives of it like this is something we didn't even go into it. I don't think enough how instrumental running was in helping you get through the divorce and the experience like like what that what that did for you.

Just the ability of being able to put on a pair of shoes and go outside and be with yourself.

Liberation one on one. When you talk about liberation, you're talking about complete freedom, mind, body, spirit, soul. And that's what running was for me at that time. That's what running still is for me. And that's what I try to impart in people, that it's bigger than running.

You know, that was one of the biggest. So I did a capsule for Adidas. And they had reached out to me and they were like, can you kind of, you know, show and prove how running really helped you? So I was able to kind of and I'm in a mini frame explain my story. And one of the biggest things that I still use today to this day is that it's bigger than running. Running is the vehicle. But what comes out of it?

And a lot of us are either running away from something or running to achieve something. And when you add the spiritual component in that. You realize that it's not about the metal. The metal is. The medal is nothing. Oh, you ran Boston in two hours and 50 minutes. Not to discredit those who are about their life and who want to do that. More power to you. But there's something that is so much more deeper when you run.

And for me, as much as I was trying to chase that goal of, you know, sub three and whatnot, I didn't. I didn't. Give up on that. I just saw that there was a different angle to that, and I started seeing that there were other people who saw running in the same way. But it's more spiritual. There was a spiritual essence and component of running. There is there is a dynamic aspect to running when you are able to tune the mind, because it's really a form of mental gymnastics.

It really is a form of meditation in itself. And when you take away to watch, take away the gunman to Santa or whatever, and you just run a long piece of road, it is this you, your body, your breath and your spirit. And lastly, your mind and your mind can either dictate you and tell you, I'm not going to make it a mile or two miles or 20 miles or 70 miles, or you can put your mind as the co-pilot and have that synergy with your mind and work together.

And. Get to that finish line, and that's what I was able to do in the aspect of taking the mind and letting the mind dictate and tell me, no, HOK, you can't do this, you can't do this. And took the mind out and used it as a vehicle along with my body, and then put it together with my spirit and made a cohesion to where. Now I say it's bigger than a running because it's so much more value.

In Iran, yeah, now I can find and answer questions, I can answer questions on my own life, I can break down OK, why is my marriage not working? Why is this not working? OK, I can do this to make better sense of how I talk to my child. Oh, this is a different fact. Just taking the ear buds out because that was another piece I used to run the music and then I took the music out and then I started listening to the birds and then I started listening to my breath and listening to my feet on the concrete.

And then that's when it made sense. And I was like, Ah, this is why they come hand in hand. So beautifully put. It's about the relationship with yourself. Yes, right, and irrespective of whether you're winning races or coming in last place, what did that experience of putting one foot in front of another teach you about who you are and who you can be? Exactly. And I think that does get missed in our culture of biohacking and GPS devices and the like.

When we strip it all away, like I'm in the process, like you went from the barefoot to the I'm kind of going back because I never went through the barefoot things and I want to feel what that is like. Yeah. And I'm trying to retrain myself to run in that way. And I'm leaving the garment at home and just going out and stripped down.

Yeah. Like full analog. Yeah. And there's and you feel naked at first you're like, well you know what if it's not on Straubel and all of that. And it's like well all right well what is that discomfort about. What am I, what am I? You know, why do I feel an attachment to that? Like, what is that telling me about my ego? You know, where is the lesson in humility here?

How can I be more connected to my environment and to myself?

How can I tap into a deeper sense of wholeness and oneness with everything? And that's really what running is about, right?

You just hit it right on and you hit it right. Whether you're in Koreatown or you're in the Santa Monica Mountains or in Chiapas. Yeah, that is available to everybody.

And I heard you say this in another podcast like it's free. Yeah. You know, you. Yeah. You got to buy the shoes. You got to buy a pair of shorts. But then after that, it's free. I said, and again, when we talk about liberation, what is liberation is total freedom. So it goes hand in hand, it goes hand in hand. And I think, you know, you said you said it.

We do take it for granted and, you know. I'd be the first one to tell you, you know, I used to live and die by my Garmin, I used to live and die by wearing a you're wearing it, right? You know, I was like, oh, my God. But the only reason why I'm here is because watch. I'm not even looking. It looks cool. Well, it does. It does. But, you know, Strava, I can't tell you the last time I made a strava update, it just doesn't, you know, I have it, but it doesn't serve the purpose like it used to.

Because now for me, you know, even when I was thirteen thousand feet old, me would have been like, OK, I got a you know, I got a timeless and I got a man. I was in it. Just the smell. Yeah, I was in it just to do the damn thing and just to feel the experience and to find that beauty and the suffering. Right. And I think that's why, you know, you're going to have schools of thoughts and running.

You're going to have those who are like, you know, you're going to have you Knox's you're going to have your Charly's, you're going to have your Tim Ferris's. You're going to have your Mariola. Your your Mario. Really? Exactly. You're going to have all these different cast and characters within running. But we also have a different purpose. And my purpose is really just to show one. Anyone can run to black indigenous people of color have every right to be in running spaces just as much as anybody else does.

Three, that there is such a powerful spiritual component within running and that it is actually a great tool for mental health and for you to reclaim your sense of mental clarity. Um. And lastly, it just feels good and it is such a great tool for tuning the temple. It's karma yoga for your body. It really is just like you do karma yoga when you're cleaning your house. It is just the same way you're doing it for your body.

You're just doing a little bit of karma yoga for your body and.

When you look back on this crazy trajectory and now you are this, you know, you are a running influence or a mindfulness influencer who gets flown, you know, to crazy places to hang out with super cool people and talk about the things that you love. I mean, there has to be a little bit of like pinch me to the whole thing, like, how did I get to this place? I mean, you mentioned imposter syndrome, but on some level, like, you know, I feel like you're owning it.

Right.

And when you look back and think about that time that you're sitting in the parking lot at Whole Foods and crying in your car, you have to know that like there was this maybe not a plan, but there's a thread like there's a through line.

There's a theme to all of this that have led you to this place. And yes, when you look backwards, it's always 20, 20. It looks like everything, everything, all these experiences that you've had have created this like incredibly nutritious soup that have contributed to you being, you know, the person that you are like the only person actually who can, like, do what you do. Like, you have this unique vibration and expression to, you know, the advocacy that you share with everybody.

But how do you like think about that? Hmm, that's a very good question, um. Man is. You know, I think. For me. It took me forty six years to get like, you know, I, I do have those myself moments like. Um, I was just talking to Brian Levin from 10000 who they told me to give you a call. Yeah, you know, I was just talking to Brian yesterday and. He was just like, you know, just so great to have you on board and you know what you're doing for running and this, you know, you've really and and I had to really just look at myself in this like, man, is he talking about me?

And you know, even this talking with Conrad last week and we were having this deep conversation and here I am like I just finished watching Mail.ru. Aha. I just finished watching this guy, like, you know, literally be a superhero, dude. Yeah. Like he's hanging off a freaking cliff, like, you know, just eating couscous on a cliff for, like, something crazy, like 17 days. And here he is. That's like telling me.

It was such an honor being in your space, and I think about those times when I was in that car park and I think about the times when. You know, I think about the time when I told my parents that I was living in the house that my dad made, like crying like, are you fucking kidding me?

But here I am at 46. Having conversations with Rich Retiro. Having. Calling Conrad Anker, my brother, having. These stories and having these people that have all played Major. Roles in my life. All the way down the road manager that I spent the crazy time with the guys from to the curb, that fueled me, paving the way to get opportunities to being south by Southwest. And even up to now, just the fact that. I'm having conversations with specialized bikes.

I won't even get into, like, the whole cycling. Yeah, we haven't even gotten to the cycling thing, the next iteration of what you're doing. I mean, so I mean, you know, cycling, mountain climbing, running, you know, teaching at Spirit Rock last year, being asked to, you know, teach Taichi in a place that is the home of American Buddhism to teach with, you know, to have somebody like Jack Kornfield following me to have, you know, is this if you had told me this eight, nine years ago when I was working for jobs and thinking to myself, there was no way that I'm going to be.

In situations like this, or there would be no way that you would tell me that I'd be running up a volcano in choppers, that I would be. On a on a record of one of my. Idols at the time, this guy named Stic from Dead Prez. Oh, yeah, and then I'm on his album was pretty cool at 46 years old.

Yeah. Fellow vegan. Yeah. You know, and I'm talking to my 16 year old and we're just talking about life. And I told her about the situation, me being in Wyoming, and she was the one who told me to do it.

This these things I, I, I won I. Bow and humility a thousand times over. And. There's a saying that. Nice guys always finish last. That's bullshit. And it's bullshit in the fact that you can be a good person. You can be a good person and live your authentic life. If you just do the work. Just to work and we are in such a cookie cutter society where people don't want to do the work I had to do to work for X amount of years, and I had to go through so much suffering.

So, yeah, it looks good on the ground now. I'm like, you know, got my shaved legs. I'm, you know, I got the freshest gear on, you know. I mean, I'm hanging out with Rich. I'm hanging out with I'm hanging out with all these luminaries.

But you don't know what it took to get to this point. It took a lot of hard work. It took a lot of years of thinking that I was a failure of thinking that I couldn't make it to. Now, where I just as I said, I you know, I I talk to my plants. I say to my my you know, I say to my girl, I say to me, I saved the house. I, I do these rituals where I, you know, massive my little sound ball and I meditate and I just give thanks man, because I just I, I really this I paid into my karmic bank without even knowing it and.

Yeah.

Well I can hear the the gratitude and the humility is unmistakable and it's so inspirational and empowering. And I think one of the things that strikes me the most about your journey is the fact that you're like a product of the profits that walk among us, the anonymous profits who are everywhere. When you're a seeker and you're able to identify them and avail yourself of what they have to teach you.

It's not like you said, I want to learn Akito or Tai Chi or yoga or acupuncture, and I'm going to travel to, you know, sit at the feet of the the world master. You just you found these people in your community. You bumped up against these people and you had an openness and a willingness to say, I'm going to check this out.

And, you know, through a thousand iterations and versions of that, you know, it kind of forged you into the person that you've become. And I think what's instructive is that is the fact that that these people are in our communities. Right. Like you're in Orlando, you're working all these jobs and you are able to find these people and carve the time out to, you know, learn and grow. And it was slow and it was hard.

And you got fucking crushed. Yeah. Yeah. And you leverage that experience to just deepen your commitment to your spiritual practice. And your faith was tested. But you've you know, you've persevered.

But it's really just a it's a product of showing up for that experience. Right. Yeah. And and keep on showing up. You know, it's.

I mean, I don't know where this chapter's going to lead, there's so many different chapters to this book and I and I and I think as I as I listen to myself and as I reflect back. And all these journeys to where I'm at now, Kimeli, is a really big piece. It really is a big piece. And and, you know, somebody had asked me the other day, what is your purpose? And I know I just said this to be a good person.

I mean, does that mean to you like how do you define being a good person? I mean, you know, I could go for the precepts, you know? Yeah, yeah. I could go on and on about that. But I mean, realistically, it's just to treat people how they are supposed to be treated, to really amplify those who don't have a voice, to really speak for the justice or the injustices of the world. Being that I have a voice, being able to have a voice that can take my words pretty clearly and very well.

There are many bodies, black bodies, indigenous bodies that don't have that capacity, who don't have the space to do that. For example, just the fact that to climb on the side of a mountain, there's black folks who have probably never even seen the bottom of a mountain. But what I can do is show that, yes, you do have the right, you have the ability and you have the you have the tools to do that.

So. You know, something that just bring it back full circle when I when I when I talk to my parents now.

They're proud of where I've come. And it's not even so much on a monetary level, it's just to know where I came from, what could have happened, what may have happened and to what has transpired now has been thus for them to say how happy they are knowing that they could leave this earth at any time and that I've made them somewhat proud of my kids. Same thing. You know, I have conversations with my 16 year old, like every day, rich, and it's like so empowering.

Whereas four years ago she didn't want to talk to me.

She didn't want to talk to me and, you know, and here we are with this woman named Melinda, who was the same person who was like, be patient, OK? She's going to come back around the same person who was like, be patient, hawk. These opportunities that you're looking for are going to happen. They're going to happen. Having people like that.

So, you know, I, I, you know, humility, again, is such a big piece. Gratitude to the the the the actual practice, because I think people get caught up in the glamour and the glitz and the face value of something, but they don't understand the inner science and the mechanism of it. And I think coming into spaces like this and having an opportunity to talk to you because. I I realize that I have a privilege, just like Myrna was talking about it, we're so blessed to have this privilege where we have publications that we're on, that we have these podcasts on.

But you can bet your bottom fucking dollar I will amplify. May this color, this culture set a tenfold, because I've been given that I feel that responsibility. I do. The ancestors would be ancestors would be ashamed if I didn't.

Yeah. And so how does that. Translate into how you think about and communicate. Around what is happening in America right now, like as a as a black man in America and somebody who has been studying these various spiritual traditions for a long time, that inform how you respond and react and and and talk about. What's occurring, I'm interested in how you process all of that. I mean, we're in this incredible moment of upheaval, of social activism, of of, you know, civil rights and civil rights violations.

And I would I would imagine you wake up in the morning thinking long and hard about what is the right thing for me to say, like how do I fit in here and what is my responsibility in terms of how I communicate and channel these spiritual principles?

And how does that meet or gel with what's expected of me in, you know, in in this in this kind of crazy moment, like what I'm supposed to say? Yeah. And it's a great question. I it's such a great question because, you know, like, just this morning I woke up and. You know, the first thing I post, one of the first things I post is this young brother named Toby Engie, where I think is I think is pronouncing his arrest, the killers of Brianna Taylor.

And I was one of the first things I posted. You know, it's it's one of those things where. It's tiring, it is tiring, and it is very exhausting, exhausting having to explain over and over. And I'm not saying just in this situation because I love we're talking about this, but this thing, General, the the the landscape of the black experience and the black. Black culture is we are tired. And, you know, I don't want to get on a on a kick because I've read some of the comments on YouTube with people who talk about Black Lives Matter.

And some of your people are like not having it and not feeling it. But hey, man, I mean, you know, those people can say whatever they want, you know what I mean? But I hear what you're saying. Like, I got that same sense from John Salley. He's like, yeah, I've been around the block so many times, man. Yeah.

It's it's getting to a point where we. Yeah. I mean, it's it's it's tiring, exhausting. It's it's very, you know, to watch a dehumanizing of a race of people on a regular basis. It's there's a there's a two way street because I feel like. There's a renaissance, so to speak. Like. Black. Excellence is at an all time high. You're seeing, you know. Rest in paradise, Chadwick Boseman, but with Chadwick, with the Michael B.

Jordan's, the the Jonathan Majors that are coming out, these black actors that are coming out, you have black scientists, you have black Broadway actors and actresses. You're getting so much blackness in its purest and most beautiful form, really in the public eye lens and being showcased at the same time. You're seeing the degradation and the dehumanization of black folks in this country that the mass shootings and so forth. And how I've been able to navigate it in my space is something that a black body that I know.

Doctor Reverend Angela Chiodo, who brought out a pivotal book not too long ago called Radical Darma. And again, we talk to La La, La Marrot owns this, brought out a book, Rage Would Fire. You know, I'm leaning on a lot of my contemporary peers and and and people like Joanna, I'm I'm leaning on them because I'm seeing how they, you know, navigating in spiritual spaces, the Dr. Ruth Kings and even going back to the James Baldwin's and Fred Hamptons.

And, you know, just going back and studying Joe Joe, George Jackson, Soledad, that brother the writings from from him. I'm having to really.

Realize that I do have a voice. And, you know, I'll be the first one to tell you that. I'm introverted, but I have a big mouth and I do have a big mouth, but I do feel that when you hold yourself in such a spiritual order. You have that rock, right, you have that stick that's holding your back up, that's holding you in front of the masses, that's like I have to show up. I have to show up in my spiritual sense at the same time, you know, as much as I want to smash every race racist asshole in the face, that's not Dharmic of me.

That's not going to work. So that's where the middle path comes in. And Buddha always talks about the middle path, right.

That is. Where you're not just going for flossed in full force in the asceticism, but you're not just being lackadaisical and being like, oh, well, Buddha will work it out, you have to meet somewhere in the middle. And I think my middle is really. Engaging my community in their spiritual practice and telling them, don't lose sight of your spiritual practice because it is what has got you here, it is your foundation. It is it is your way of holding yourself accountable on holding your spiritual discipline accountable at the same time.

Let your voice be heard and let your voice be heard in a way that you are attacking the system in a different way. So if that means protesting but doing a silent protest, then go ahead and do that. If it means attacking the system and attacking it from a different way, from a social justice standpoint, using your means of social activism as Instagram or Facebook or stuff like that, doing it on that medium or being out in the streets and educating, you still have to have somewhat of a foundation.

And that's where I feel like my Buddhism is my spiritual foundation on top of my activism. So even though Dharma there it is radicalized because I am mindful that there is stuff of the world happening, I am mindful that the Briana's, the Freddie Gray's, the the, the, the Achmad Aubrey's, the George Floyds, all these atrocities are happening. So what I have to do in my own capacity is educate those who are not educated at the same time, educating those who are educated in a different way, teaching them a different way of attacking it, and at the same time showing them that you can still be spiritual as fuck and still be woak as fuck at the same time.

Right.

Maintaining your equanimity yet not being reactive. Yeah. Sort of channeling your inner Jedi and just standing in your strength to speak from a place of experience and wisdom, but also with some level of kind of distance or dispassion so that you're not getting caught up in a bunch of fucking crazy.

Not exactly sure what exactly. Yeah. Yeah, because you've seen that and we've all seen that. We've seen that. I've said, you know, I'm not going to name names, but I've seen those who are somewhere on that mission and on that like, no, we need to do this, we do this. And then something came out about them or somebody saying something and then they're looking like a total wolly and and and their purpose and their mission has now been clouded because of something else that happened.

Mm hmm. You know, I mean, so for me. I've been really, really, really mindful of how I really play my part and put myself in certain positions because. There is a war going on outside. And. My stance right now is to be both sword and shield, so if Malcolm wears the sword and Martin was the shield, then I'm trying to be that balance, right, because I still got Malcolm and me and I still got a little bit of Martin in me, but I want to bring that together.

So for me, I feel like I've been given a voice. I've been given a platform. I still have those revolutionary tendencies and I'm still about the revolution. But I still fall into that same bracket of silent weapons for silent wars. There's a way of attacking the enemy that they're not going to know. And that's where the tity comes in because. When hardness attacks hardness. There's not going to be any type of resolve, but if the hardness finds that softness, that softness is able to yield that hardness and transmute and redirect that energy, and that's what I'm trying to do in my own son when so I'm really trying to elicit the philosophy of Taichi, along with a little bit of Ché, a little bit of Malcolm.

But at the same time, bringing the little Partick Nhat Hanh and bringing a little bit of a mine and then bringing the running and bringing the cycling and bringing the women in and out and a little big on top. Yeah.

Put a little vegan's sprinkles on top for the ice. How long you been vegan now? Since November of 95. 96. Right. And your your website is vegan boyfriend. Maybe these. Yes, I'm sure it's man. I can't wait to rock this. Yes. Shout out to Tony. Groovy for that. Yeah. What's what is the vegan boy fresh thing all about. So vegan boy fresh is really just an umbrella for just what I'm about.

You know, the veganism, the that would be your nickname and the Guy Ritchie movie, right?

Yeah. Yeah. It really would be your boyfriend. Colin Farrell's. Can you get the boy fresh air. Yeah. There you go to the boxing gym. Guy, I need you to watch this might be your next movie, but no, it's it's it's really so I have Piazzolla's in mind, which is like my run crew, Tity Club Cycle Bandit crew and then the umbrella is vegan boy fresh. And that's kind of like, you know, it's where I talk about mindfulness, spirituality, you know, fasting because it's I love fashion.

My my girl is a fashionista, so I've got no choice. Veganism, which is a very, very big component for me. And what does that mean to you? I mean, you know, before I really before it was just the whole thing, right? You know, it's really definitely sick. I needed to change my life. I found veganism. I found a power of, you know, sprouts and grains and all that stuff. And then I started getting to the spiritual component of it and the not that no one harming of animals and that all animals are all sentient beings.

And that this that. That factor really played a big. Part in character in my makeup to the point, you know, you know, it's easy as even a musky a man, I don't want to slap a mosquito on my leg. I'm like the first person, like, come on, let me. Yeah, you know, is is to that point. But, you know, veganism for me is is a game changer. Is this a game changer?

And just the fact of the clarity, the mental clarity that you have when you're not putting death in your body, when you're not putting, you know, lifeless souls in your body. And I know that sounds drastic for enemies out there, but, you know, coming from a point where even just the way you smell, just the way you the way you act, you know, there's a saying, you know, man can turn animalistic within a heartbeat.

Where does that come from? Animalistic. I'm not trying to be animalistic, to be honest with you. I'm just trying to be a human being. Bodhisattvas. Yeah, really. And truly. So for me, the spiritual component of not eating me is really big. And and the physical component, like I feel I'm 46 and, you know, because I think I read somewhere about, you know, how you were forty six and then now you're 50 and how you feel and yada, yada.

There's a feeling that you have when I feel how I should have felt when I was twenty five, I feel at twenty five I was 50. I'm now coming into, you know, three years away from 50, and I feel like I'm 25, like I get up in the morning and very rarely do I have I might have an odd little pain in my knee or something like that, but, um. Even I remember, you know, climbing the mountains the one day I saw a F, I just remember like that 13000 feet, not my ass, but then the next day I got some electrolytes in me, some other stuff, and I was good to go.

So, you know, I think there's something to be said. It's like an elixir. It really is. It really is like an elixir of veganism for me is like a new age Daoist elixir. And it just keeps me fresh. It keeps me alive. And boy, fresh keeps me vegan. Boy Frax. Yeah. So I love it. Yeah. That's great. I mean I couldn't agree more. I feel great. I'm, I'm turning 54 next month and you look fucking amazing.

You look at me right though. Yeah. Don't worry about you know, don't worry about that. You're killing me with the beard over there like you're the first person to sit across from me with the bigger beard. Oh, I love that. I love quarantine. But I love that beard that some people like you look like you're one hundred and no, you don't know. You know. And I can tell you as somebody when 2012 was when you brought your book out.

Right. I remember it. And it was at a time when I was really getting into, you know, my team, veganism and yada, yada. And I remember your book and Brendan Fraser's book from Frasier. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A of five and nose two books. And I remember looking at you and being like, dude, this guy's absolutely amazing, like an amazing specimen of a man and to know where you came from. To where you're at.

Back then and to where you are right now, I can tell. I can tell you now that I know you and seeing you in the flesh, you are the embodiment of what somebody who takes that craft and that diet and their well-being into serious into serious levels. You are the epitome of that. And I totally have such a high respect for you as far as that, because you you take yourself and you look really good and I'll be the first person to tell you I am heterosexual to the core.

But you're a good looking man and you keep yourself pretty well. So I have my imposter syndrome is just like no overbred right now. No, no, no, no. I will I will take been told that when I'm complimented I should just take it, take it, take it that I appreciate that.

All right. We got to like land this plane beautification or be gone. Coming up on three hours. Are you serious? Yeah.

Jesus, no, this is great. But I do want to end it with one thought, which is I said to you earlier that, you know, you're somebody who's you've immerse yourself in all these various traditions and reflecting, you know, on what you've learned from all these respective ideologies. You know, is there a unifying theory? And I don't know that I got an answer for that. But, you know, as sort of parting words, like when you think about.

Everything that you've learned over the years from your personal experiences to these spiritual principles that you've studied, you know, what is the message that you want to give to the person who's watching or listening, who does feel stuck or is in that place of working three or four jobs or just in a cubicle and feeling like their life? You know, feels like it's at a dead end, like they have this sense that. They're here to do something, and yet the puzzle pieces just aren't connecting for them.

Yeah. I would definitely say. If you are ever encountering uncomfortable situations or you have opportunities that feel stifling or feel very scary, jump into it. Jump into it, that has been one of the things from just traveling the country, traveling different continents, there's always been an air of me being kind of scared, nervous. And like, should I make this decision? And every time I. Talk myself out of it, something tells me, do it, and that little thing that always tells me to do it, I do it.

And ten out of ten times it has been the best decision that I have ever made. Those situations that look very, very you might see the end of that light at the end of the tunnel, and that light might be the size of a pinprick. The thing that I would tell you is crawl, walk or run to that pinprick, because that pinprick is going to end up being the size of the sun sooner or later. But you have to know that that journey is worth it.

And it's almost like a.. I always tell people, like my journey has been somewhat like, look, going to take a bus system and I don't know what my purpose was for it. I don't know why I do what I do, but I'm glad that I did it.

And I'm glad that I, you know, went through the stages of my life that I did wherever. Uncomfortable with a scary weather, doc. I'm glad that it brought me to where I was, because at the end of the day, I just said, fuck it, I'm going to do it. And I did it.

Yeah, I think we all have that little voice in the back of our head. And most of us, myself included, we exert a lot of energy to quash it. Yeah. Rather than trying to find the courage to fertilize it a little bit. Hmm. Yeah, that's hard.

You know, it's hard because you have to go against basically, you know, all the inertia of whatever circumstances you find yourself in in order to pay attention to that choice, because it's telling you to make changes and changes, hard changes hard if you're not willing to undertake some change, shit ain't going to change.

Exactly right. What's the meaning of insanity when you keep expecting different? You know, you keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results. And it comes at the same. Exactly. Yeah. And I think for me, that was one of the things that I realized that I had to jump off that rabbit will. And jumping off that rabbit, well, was I would jump into another rabbit well, and then jump off until I realized why do you keep jumping into that rabbit, Will?

Mm hmm. Right. And I and I and I think that was really big for me. But again, you know, you got to tap in and leaning into your spiritual faculties, tapping into it and not being afraid. And for men especially, we have this bravado where we feel like we can't be vulnerable. Vulnerability was one of the biggest tools that helped me break through somebody's ego. You know, in Buddhism, they say diamond cutting, cutting through the rough, cutting to the core.

So for me, vulnerability was that vulnerability was that tool for me to cut that diamond in the rough. And the more vulnerable I was, the more things became liberating. And I think if you can let go of the ego or strip away the onion of that ego, because we still all have it, insecurity, not feeling that you're valued, all these things are all part of it. But you have to let it go, because if you don't let it go, it's going to become a big ol bag backpack on your back and it gets heavier and heavier and heavier and it breaks you down physically as well as spiritually.

So what I done, you'll have your reckoning with it eventually. Eventually, you know what I mean? So it's either going to be rough and super hard or nip it in the bud, nip it in the Bali, nip it in the back. And, you know, I had to you know, it was like my mentor Meru with that backpack. But once I reached the top of that summit, I let that backpack off and it felt so good.

I think that's a good place to end it. So much love, brother. That was beautiful. Yeah, I loved it. How do you feel? Oh, man, that was amazing. Yeah, that was great.

Oh, my God. Come back any time now. Oh, man. Thank you so much. The beginning of a bromance. Yeah, I really do. I really do that. Yeah. Super cool.

So if you're digging on Hakeem, the best place to track you down is probably Instagram. Probably Instagram. What's the harm? It's not just your name, Huxtable.

That's because this stuff comes down here. Now I get it. I'm trying to figure out with that can now or vegan boyfriend or vegan boyfriend dotcom.

Cool. All right, brother, thank you so much. I found this two plants. Good times. Damn that Hakim is a lighthouse before we close up shop voicing change.

Oh yes, over eight years, 550 plus conversations, multiple thousands of hours going deep with some of the world's most compelling and dynamic minds across health, nutrition, human performance, the arts and entrepreneurship. I picked up a thing or two and I wanted to canonize some of what I've learned. I wanted to further honor my esteemed guests and most importantly, you guys. So I created this book. A primer on the power of conversation, a testimony to our collective power to transform ourselves and culture, replete with excerpts from past episodes, my thoughts, essays and stunning photography all wrapped up as an elegant coffee table style tome.

Whether you're new to this show or a devout listener, this work has so much to offer and you can preorder it now anywhere in the world. Exclusively rich roll dot com slash v.c or voicing change dot com more to come on all of this. So stay on the lookout. Of course. Let him know what you thought of today. Show him up on the social. He is at Hox Tau HK Stato on Instagram and its website Vegan Boy Fresh Dotcom.

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How could you evolve? How can you grow? How can you transform? And the tradition that we spoke about today, peace, Lance.