Masculinity, Vulnerability, and Brotherhood | Grown Man Game Ep. 11

speaker-0: All right. Welcome back to the grown man game podcast. I am one of your hosts, Rod. And this is my co-host. Yeah. Yeah. Back in business, back on the couch, back talking about grown man game. ⁓ Big Mike, I'm going kick it over. How you been, my brother?

speaker-1: Big Mike, what's up, y'all? I've been cool, man. I've been, um, had some struggles, but you know, always come out on the top on the other side, so.

speaker-0: That's what they say. Up to this point, you've always survived your worst day. Whatever you thought that was, you've always come out on the other side or else you wouldn't be here right now. That's a great mindset to have, but not always. I mean, that can't be the only one. I'm always going to make it on the other side. A lot of time leaves you ⁓ with pain and scars that you ignore.

speaker-1: sir.

speaker-0: Not you personally, but I'm just saying in general, right? So it does definitely need some time to live in, sit in it and kind of ⁓ process it. But the overall feeling is we will make it on the other side. We're going to climb the mountain and we'll get to the other side of it. I think that's kind of a cultural thing, right? Like just as a people, we shall overcome. And that's a mindset, especially in the 40s, when you in your 40s that you've adopted because it was still a big thing when we was young. People were still singing, we shall overcome. I haven't heard nobody say we shall, we shall overcome. I haven't heard that in a long time. So I don't know if that mean we overcame or we just forgot about the struggle. But man, I guess I'm doing all right.

speaker-1: My bad, was supposed to ask you, man. How are you doing?

speaker-0: Same thing, we do this every time. I do it to you, you do it to me. It's like a part of the intro now. Nah, I've been doing good though. I'm technically on spring break this week, even though I didn't know I was. I had planned a bunch of work things for this week and then my supervisor sent me an email like, are you sure these are the right dates? Because you can't do anything this week. And I'm like, what? He's like, yeah, you're on spring break. Because the way our school works, half of the ... So I'm responsible for all of them, right? From LA County all the way down to San Diego. But LA County right up to the middle of Riverside County is on spring break this week. The rest of them are on spring break next week. So technically I'm not supposed to do anything either week, but I can't put things off too much longer. So I have to do them next week. And it's not really... I'm getting paid to be off this week. Next week I don't. So I actually got to try to do some work. That's weird.

speaker-1: Let's just run that back, you said you had a supervisor. Man should never have a supervisor, B. Man should never have a supervisor, B.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah Yeah, yeah, there's a lot of things that man shouldn't do man. It's crazy

speaker-1: I think that's what we're going to get into that. Let's into it, man.

speaker-0: Yeah, let's dive into it. So, ⁓ I was Barstool Sports Instagram, and I'm assuming it's a joke, right? It's kind of a spoof, right? But it's not too far from what's been going on. I don't know, because I'm not really wrapped up in it anymore, but I did used to see stuff like this all the time. And there was a video where dudes were talking about, ⁓ essentially, a man listen to headphones while he's working out? ⁓ The dudes in the video are like, you know, absolutely not. Like you're listening to another man in your ear while you working out, while you pumping iron, you got- got Drake in your ear singing, it's okay, we're coming home. Like that is totally unacceptable. And like I said, obviously it's a joke and I hope, I hope it's a joke. But there's also been like, like the masculine feminine thing, right? Like where- There would be, this used to be on TikTok all the time, where it'd be a video of a woman saying something that a man can't do because she'd be suspecting and the dude would type it in his notes, things man can't be. Men can't ride shotgun with his friend and fall asleep. like, you can't fall asleep in the car. You know what mean? You just going let this other man take you wherever he want to take you and you're going to fall asleep with your mouth open next to him. Yeah, it's just like little-

speaker-1: soft

speaker-0: Little stupid stuff that like, I don't know how that makes you, and I think that at the time it was like, it makes you gay or less feminine, but the only thing that makes you gay is liking other men. Like there's no other, there's no other thing that you can do that is like, ⁓ man, he's gay. ⁓ No matter how off brand it may be. But it's funny how society does stuff like that, right? Like different people do stuff like that. And I think masculinity is, I think we talked about this before, but masculinity is like a, It feels like it's open to interpretation. It feels like it depends on the person or the scenario or whoever's talking at the moment or this is masculine or that is masculine or this is feminine or that is feminine. And I don't know if that changes. I think we had a really clear idea of what masculinity was in the 60s, 70s, 80s. Right?

speaker-1: The 70s and Soul Train, you like, ⁓ you got the little silk scarf.

speaker-0: Right. Eyeshadow. Yeah. Yeah. So like, already dudes used to wear chokers, like stuff like that, or just some of the clothes they would wear. Like if you look back at some of the bands, like they would be wearing stuff that's, if you put it on today, we'd be like, ooh, Dr. Dre, for example. Like album cover, hat on the shiny, like skin tight suit, like that. That's, that's, you know, but again, that doesn't make you gay, but it is feminine. It's a feminine outfit.

speaker-1: And a world class wrecking crew. I mean, I I think, like you said, masculinity is, or you didn't say that, but masculinity can just kind of shift through, you know what saying, through the times. Cause I mean, I know for me, I guess you could call it a toxic maybe thought process and whatnot. But for years and years and years, if you went to go get your nails done as a man to me, ⁓ you getting the manicure, my guy? Nah, bruh. You soft. You soft in the Play-Doh. You soft in the baby powder, you know? But nowadays, it's like, these dudes go get manicures. They get pedicures. ⁓ I didn't get a massage until 2023. You know what saying? I always thought, like, massages, nah, bruh. ain't no man gonna be rubbing me down or ain't nobody need to be rubbing me down unless it's my wife. But then again. It's just massage. You know what I mean? It's like, ⁓ you don't know how to work on your car? ⁓ you soft. But I grew up in the family where everyone worked on their cars. Everyone built the house or laid the tile. We weren't paying nobody to do nothing. Everybody knew how to do it because my mom's side of the family, they all grew up on a farm. So you had to know how to do it. So that's how I was taught. But it was like, OK, that's not an expression of masculinity. That's just... a certain skill that you were able to require. Right. But. What would you say to a man that had the skill to do nails? What if I was like, hey man, I'm open to my own nail shop. I do nails eight to 12. And then I, you know, I take off and I let everybody else run the shop. But you know, I'm just in there. You walk in there to get your nails done. And it's me. And I'm like, what's up, bro? Sit down, man. Let me buff you out. me, ⁓ look at

speaker-0: Don't buff me out. No, bro. You have to rephrase that. I'll come back when you want something else. You're on some different time right now. You're going to buff me out, homie. No, I'm good, bro. You ain't going to buff me out. No, you know what though? So I've been to enough nail salons in my lifetime to know that it's dudes that work in nail salons. It's like... And most...

speaker-1: Try to get your nails healthy, bro. Snuggles off.

speaker-0: I don't know why I'm trying not to be cancer, because I really don't care. Most nail salons are Asian, right? Like most people in there that work there are Asian. From time to time, it's an Asian dude in there. And he ain't giving off no feminine vibes, right? He might be a co-owner of the shop, might be the husband of somebody, but he in there doing nails just like everybody else. I don't know. So to answer your question, no, I wouldn't think anything of it, because I've seen it before. Matter of fact, I took Reese for her birthday, Maybe it for her birthday to get her nails done. ⁓ And I got the manicure or whatever. ⁓ And it was a dude. The dude was doing it. ⁓ Both of us. ⁓ No big deal. I mean, he wasn't looking in my eyes or nothing like what he was doing. He was just doing his job, right?

speaker-1: Okay, okay. ⁓ yeah.

speaker-0: Like, don't know. It's weird to look at stuff like that and be like, oh, you can't do it. Like, why not? I mean, there's certain things, certain things, yes, are probably a little bit more questioned, and I can see why you might question that, but only because it's you, right? Like, if I walked into a nail salon and seen an Asian dude, like, eh, whatever, right? And I walk into the salon and I see Big Mike, I'm like, eh, he look like, you security, sir? Do you need security in this nail salon?

speaker-1: Playboy, I'm trying to come get your nails done, man. Here, look what I can do.

speaker-0: See that this, I don't know. I mean, again, again, it's definitely racist. It's less sexist or feminist or whatever than it is racist. I mean, it's definitely racist. But yeah, that's not much different than like if you go to a barbershop, right? Especially now. Cause dudes at barbershops, they used to just cut hair, right? Clippers, scissors, razor at most, right? Now dudes is putting in whole units. Dudes are like braiding hair and like. Yo, let me put your S-curl. That's kind of started it, right? What dudes is doing at... Did you ever have like an S-curl or? Huh? All right, so...

speaker-1: Rest in peace, Pops. ⁓ My Pops is gone, so can admit it. I had one, no, two.

speaker-0: See, I mean, good hair in a box, right? But if you didn't do it at home, it would be barbershops that they would do it for you and they would do the cut and all that with it as a part of a package. So them dudes was doing hair. Does that make them... They're basically a hair salon now, just like a woman's salon. So what's the difference, you know? That's true. But I think we are so quick to kind of put boxes and labels on people. And then as dudes, we just be trying to be funny. There was a long, long, long period of time up until recently. even now probably in private, where somebody would do something, but, that's gay. We didn't mean like, you know, it wasn't derogatory. Like we wasn't like trying to hurt nobody's feelings, but like you do something, that's gay. I still do it to you every once in a while. It's just a natural thing, but I'm not really saying you gay or I'm not like downing you. Cause if you, I mean, you're not, but I'm saying if somebody was, it's not a big deal. It don't mean nothing. But it's crazy to see how-

speaker-1: Bye.

speaker-0: Like people are pushing back on certain stuff. think it's like the whole cancel culture thing, just in general, right? Like everybody's looking for a reason to cancel people. You see the frequency Cesar Chavez? They got him up out of there.

speaker-1: He was, He was, was, was it because of the quotes that he said about like the immigrants coming to America?

speaker-0: Nah, it was something about pedophilia or something like that more recently. Yeah, man, I forgot what campus they put a tent over his statue and covered it like the university did so that nobody would deface it or tear it down. But in no time, was like two days, two days, they burned my man legacy down. And it's just because everybody's looking for a reason to like, everybody's looking for-

speaker-1: Yikes.

speaker-0: You know what I think it is? This is crazy. I just had this like thought. I feel like everybody's kind of lost and looking for something. Right? And so people are lonelier than they've ever been. Right? It's got like a pandemic of loneliness, especially in men. ⁓ People are isolated more than they've ever been. Even though we have the most contact with other people than we've ever had, right? We have the ability to reach out and touch millions of people at any given moment. We have access to everybody's life. that's like at our fingertips, literally. But people are most disconnected. So whenever there's something that I can align with, a cause that I can get behind, or like it's us versus them, or let's all get together and take them down. Everybody wants to be a part of something. So like when something happens, oh, yeah. See, did you hear what happened? Like even, I just did it just now. excited to tell you about something that happened. Kind of bad to somebody. I only brought it up because of the podcast, but. But again, like I only seen it because somebody was like, Caesar Chavez is a son of a bitch. And I'm like, who? Really? ⁓ wow. And then I started looking at it. was like, ⁓ man, maybe he was it. But again, history, like history is told by the victor, right? And some of the stuff that that a bunch of our historical figures have done, like you look at all the presidents and all, there's a bunch of things that they did that was terrible. ⁓

speaker-1: I'm like, how? slaves you

speaker-0: Yeah, like it's a bunch of terrible stuff going on. We can celebrate them for the things that they did, but the character of the man is determined by like how they treated people they can't benefit from. So if he was in fact a pedophile. We appreciate the unions and all you did, but we got to get you up. We got to pack you up and get you up. It's unfortunate, but that sucks though, right? Because I don't think that's a forgivable offense.

speaker-1: Yikes Yeah, you got the gold, Yeah.

speaker-0: I think there's some things that, know, because again, how are we going go back and find out what's really true? Yeah, that's the Because at this point it could be AI generated or somebody lied, right? Like Donald Trump said, if you say a lie long enough, people start to believe it. So if enough people get behind that megaphone and say that you was a pedophile 100 years ago, who going go back and prove you wrong?

speaker-1: It's true. Especially nowadays, people don't really like to... Yeah. You know, there's no need. Sounds like it could be true. Spicy is true.

speaker-0: Ain't no fact checking. Nah. For what? Yeah, there's a quote from Abraham Lincoln that said, 60 % of stuff you see on the internet is fake. Yeah, it's all like... You know I'm saying? And people don't fact check stuff, man. They just be running with it like, ⁓ my God, Abraham Lincoln knew about the internet. ⁓ And that's unfortunate because you have your heroes. And they do it to Martin Luther King. Like they talk about Martin Luther King like a dog. ⁓ And sometimes I wonder, all right, so granted, he may have been, right? He may have been doing all these things, but that ain't what we were ever celebrating him for. Right? Like we never talked about.

speaker-1: Super like a dog.

speaker-0: Maybe we did, but we never really, I don't remember a whole lot of conversation about Martin Luther King was an exemplary husband and like all husbands should be like him. Right. Like that wasn't his platform. His platform wasn't like men be better husbands to your wives. And it was never that. Right. So like, that I don't care. I wish he was better to Coretta if that's in fact the case, but yeah, I don't really care about that. And then maybe that's just me. Right. Cause I have, like you said, you told me this before, I have an ability to separate the message from the messenger.

speaker-1: Yeah, for sure you do.

speaker-0: ⁓ But I don't care. I would wish he was a better husband, but man, I don't care if he was having orgies and knocking down white chicks. That was progress back then.

speaker-1: I'm trying to get to that booty. Right.

speaker-0: He was, listen, he had a dream. Little black boys and little black, like, come on, man. And again, ⁓ being a pedophile, from unforgivable crime, however, appreciate, yeah, that's the tough one, right? I appreciate what Cesar, let me say his name right, what Cesar Chavez was able to do for his people, even up until this point, is still echoing through time, like the stuff that he was able to do.

speaker-1: I have

speaker-0: ⁓ which also brings me to, I'm just rambling right now, so I'm gonna stop.

speaker-1: Man, you know what saying? We'll get away there.

speaker-0: I'm going stop after this. I meant to send it to you, but I didn't. It should be from the group chat. have you seen the La Russell, the newest song? It's kind of on this same line where it's like everybody's heaven sent, right? Which is true, right? If we believe that God is the creator, then every person here was technically heaven sent, good or bad. ⁓

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

speaker-0: His point was like more of the bad people, Like even, even, even, you know, people that we all know and hate, Hitler was heaven sent. ⁓ And I think it's more about like the silver lining in it and what it created. Like that person, as terrible as they are, if they never show up, then these things don't happen. Right. Like X, Y, and Z doesn't, doesn't happen. And yes, there's these terrible things that happen because of them, but also, right, because of them, these other things happen.

speaker-1: I've had conversations with Tiff and you know there's things that we had in our relationship that were hard and you know going through it at the time but then when I look back on it I'm like I wouldn't change a thing about it because that's kind of like how we got to this point now. Like if we didn't go through this how do we get to a point to where we have to have good communication? ⁓ we had a question that we asked, and I'll just ask you, if you could go back to you being 12 years old, knowing everything that you know right now, would you go back there?

speaker-0: And so I'm 12 years old with my knowledge now.

speaker-1: Your knowledge of everything that you know now. you'd have to relive everything, you could just go back.

speaker-0: That's tough. Because it's it's stuff that you can go back and you can avoid or change or adjust. But nah, man, I don't think so. I don't think I will go back. ⁓ One, because I already feel like everything happens exactly the way it's supposed to. This is a mindset that I learned through trauma and tragedy. ⁓ And if I know all of that now, then I'm like, all right, I'll go back and I'll end up here anyway. Right? Because everything that happened, happened exactly where it's supposed to. I'm supposed to be where I'm at right now. So going back wouldn't change anything for me because I would... I guess it's weird, right? Because you would try not to change stuff. Try to make sure I get on the bus at exactly the right time so I can meet my wife. All that stuff is weird. I think people say stuff like that when they're talking about like, we'd go back and we would... buy a house or would invest in a certain thing. I was 12. I wasn't doing nothing but eating a bunch of candy and playing sports, playing outside, playing with dogs.

speaker-1: So that was one of things that we were kind of saying like, okay, so even if you did do that and then you went back and then you were like, all right, mom, can I have my allowance? And your mom gives you $20, grandma gives you $20 and then you decide to start putting that to the side and you're saving more and more and more. And then once you get to 18, you open an account, Scott trade or whatever. Yeah, and you just.

speaker-0: Mm hmm. Whatever's open at that time.

speaker-1: Boom, I'm buying Apple. I'm buying all the Apple I can. I'm buying all the Google I can. I'm buying all the Amazon I can. So by the time you're, you in your 20s, you're a millionaire. Multi-millionaire, right? How do you end up meeting Ari? You're a millionaire now. I'm not going to school. Or if I do, I'm going there for a little bit. I'm like, you know what? I'm cool. I'm out. I don't gotta do this. Or maybe you do stay there around, but maybe you're not going. to play football. Why do need to play football? Right, I'm saying.

speaker-0: Right, right, right. Because I'm just going, you know, I'm not going to the league. So why, you know, why beat myself up like that?

speaker-1: Yeah, and then you're like, man, I'm getting out of Richmond. Mom, we got a million dollars. We don't gotta live here no more. We're going over here.

speaker-0: Yeah. Yeah. You know what? That reminds me of two things. One, quantum. You watch quantum leap when we were young. Right. So you go back and change time or fix this thing or whatever. Right. Ziggy would always mess up. Ziggy's tripping and smoke a cigar. Or Butterfly Effect or this show that's on Netflix. 23, or 11, 26, 63 is about like the JFK shooting.

speaker-1: Heck yeah. ⁓

speaker-0: It goes back in time and tries to like fix things and... ⁓ It's funny too, because in that particular movie it's a Stephen King, that the dude? The writer?

speaker-1: Hehehehe. I was Stephen King's definitely a writer.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. So it's one of his ⁓ things and it turned into a show. And it's all kind of, you know, like it and Derry and all this stuff kind of all center around the same like little county or whatever. ⁓ the dude who's in it, the main character lives in one of the cities that's in that county. then there's a portal. He goes through the portal. He ends up back three years or so before JFK gets killed. And he's trying to like stop that because, know, if you know, whatever happens, JFK gets killed and then the world kind of changes, right? Cause JFK was supposed to be progressive and the world was going to be a better place if he would have stayed president and things happen, LBJ, all that, whatever. So they're trying to go back to fix it. Well, they eventually, spoiler alert, eventually by the end of the season, they fix it, but the world is terrible because there's internment camps and there's like, the world is awful because JFK survived. And so it's like, all right, we'll go back and do all these different things. like, but that would change the trajectory of everybody around you. Right. And like, yes, we all want to have more money. want to invest and, you know, be millionaires and billionaires. But what is that going to do to the life that you would have had? Had you not done that? Like none of this would be here right now. If I went back to 12 with all that I know now, right. Because I would, there's definitely some things that I probably would do. I don't have any regrets, but I'm like, make a little extra money here, make a little change on this. Bet on this game or whatever, do these little different things. And all of that's going to change the things around you. All the things that you love about being here now are going to change. So no, I wouldn't. wouldn't. Definitely wouldn't go back to 12. That's too young. You can't do nothing as a 12 year old. Definitely wouldn't be 12. I guess you don't have all the concerns and the worries of like, bills and all that stuff, right? It's probably when you were still carefree and just being able to be a kid and go outside, scuffle up your knees and stuff like that. But, yeah, yeah. But nah, man. I wouldn't even go back to 22. I'm good. I think everything worked out exactly the way it's supposed to. And I'm happy with where I am. And it's only getting better, right? Like, would miss out on what's next to come.

speaker-1: through. Yes, sir.

speaker-0: I'd be sacrificing my future to go back and live in my past. That just sounds backwards to me.

speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ⁓

speaker-0: Going back. Did you go back? didn't I saw that part of the episode. I finish it though

speaker-1: No, no, no, I didn't go back. didn't go back. was just like, nah, I'm cool. Same, same reasons. Yeah. It's just like, and it's so funny because I was watching Rick and Morty. Ever seen Rick and Morty? All right. So I'm watching it and to make a long story short, Rick basically puts his grandkids into the matrix and kind of teach them about stop taking my charger. So he puts them in a matrix where chargers are the most important thing and it's crazy. But

speaker-0: couple times.

speaker-1: Once he pulls him out, because he's like, ⁓ man, I fell asleep. I forgot they were in there. They had lived for 17 years in the Matrix. It felt like 17 years to them. It was only like an hour. So they come out and the son, Morty, he's just like, he went to war. He watched one of his best friends die in war. So he's still kind of like shell shocked and he's got issues, but he knows how to. fix things and it was kind of just snapped and made him a little bit crazy. She became like a tech CEO, went to college and everything. So she comes out, she's talking to her mom like, this is my home girl, Beth, what's up? And they're having drinks and having a good time. And then she's like, all right, cool. I gotta go back to high school. She's I think 14.

speaker-0: His sister.

speaker-1: either 13 or 14, maybe 14 or 15 something. But she goes back to high school and soon as she walks into high school, two girls start clowning her and she's like, do we really have to do this? This is ridiculous. You're just yada, yada, yada, yada. And they tear her up. You know what I'm saying? And it takes her a while, but she's like, oh man, can you just erase my brains so I can go back to being 14? Because this is crazy. But it's like, yeah, man.

speaker-0: I guess the flip side of that is if you could go in the future, would you go like, right now, I don't want to say 12, that's too young, because then we'd have to say 30 years forward. Let's say 10 years into the future, right? know, Marty McFly pulls up outside the Lorian door, pops open, he's like, hey man, we're going to, you know, 2036. You want to take a ride?

speaker-1: And I had to stay there?

speaker-0: No, you don't have stay there. We're just we're going to visit. know Marty on a mission. He always going to do something. So you're just going on a mission and go see what's happening in 2036.

speaker-1: And we start with a little mission with Marty, man. We can't get back.

speaker-0: So yeah, that was gonna say that was my second part, but go ahead.

speaker-1: I was like, yeah, man, I'm out. Let's go check it out. See what we got going on.

speaker-0: Okay, so now you get there, you're in 2036. you mean it's just beautiful, it's everything, it's utopia, right? Something happened in those 10 years, you don't know exactly what it is, but the world is an amazing place. Finally got the flying cars and all of the futuristic things that you could imagine, all your wildest dreams. Do you stay or do you come back?

speaker-1: Nah, I'm coming back. Okay, I gotta come back. All right, gotta come back home,

speaker-0: get out there 2036. Yeah, I guess you got to come back. got to come back. Yeah, I'm coming. Come back.

speaker-1: I come back, man. I gotta try to figure out how to have a relationship with my daughter or something. And 10 years have gone by and I've been gone and then whatever effects that that's been on her and me not being around.

speaker-0: It's true, it's true. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's the part I didn't think about, right? Because if you leave now, then you don't exist in the future. Because you know, you're always going back in the past and you can't see yourself, right? So you have try to avoid yourself. But in the future, you don't exist because you left. ⁓ And the terrible part is, Marty pulls up outside. You didn't even tell nobody. You just bounced. Just bounced. So you just disappeared. So they probably mourned you. There's probably a news thing about you. Big Mike loves about the community. He's a pillar. in the community, was all, you know, the neighbor comes out, yeah, he was always so, just he was so happy, he was always smiling. And then you just, the kids feel like you abandoned them. It's gonna be mic sightings all over the place.

speaker-1: I swear to God, here's a picture.

speaker-0: Yeah, it's like a blurry outline of some Black dude.

speaker-1: Yeah

speaker-0: Yeah, nah, would be treacherous. They would love to see you though, like 10 years from now you guys cross paths and they're full blown adults and you're like, dad? I'm like, yeah, I got kidnapped. ⁓ I was abducted by aliens or something. Like you had to tell some kind of lie.

speaker-1: Yeah, nah. That is, I do kind of want to transition, we can go back to that, but I do want to transition into congratulations, brother. And I want to congratulate you and still your congratulations. And congratulate myself at the same time. Okay. Right? So, you know what saying? When I was talking about like, how am I doing and this and that, I was saying, you I have some challenges, you know, so there were some family challenges that I was dealing with. last week and you know, we've talked about on the podcast, like having somebody that you can trust enough to protect your feelings or that you can share your like, you know, your innermost feelings with and be safe and to know you're safe is amazing for a man to have, right? So I hit you up, you know, dealing with the issue and I'm Like I know Roddy got my back, but there's still a certain amount of nervousness. And I was supposed to call you and talk to you. I think I had told Tiff I was going to call you and talk to you like Monday or something. think, when did I call you? I don't know when I called you. Yeah.

speaker-0: It wasn't Monday though. This is whatever it was. It was some days or day later or something.

speaker-1: Yeah, yeah, she was like, did you call Rod? I was like, nah, nah, nah, yeah, I'm gonna call him, I'm gonna call him, I'm gonna call him. But it's still like, you know, as a man, get vulnerable, you know, but he got things going on too, he don't need no added, you know, stuff going, you know, you feel that way. And you actually texted me like, hey, big fella, you all right? You know, just checking in on you. Then it prompted me like, ⁓ yeah, I gotta call him. So that's when I hit you, I'm at work, I hit you, he picked up the phone.

speaker-0: yeah

speaker-1: I told you, you know, everything that's going on. I even started crying on the phone, y'all. I'll still sock you out though.

speaker-0: You're doing nails now. crying. Bruh. If you want to just come on out to closet, you know what I'm saying? if you want to get your Ray J on and just come on out to closet, then come on out closet, homie.

speaker-1: Masculinity is a spectrum. But. Hey man, wear a pink shirt. But I was safe, man. Not only was I safe, you built me up. And it made me feel even safer and it made me feel like, you know, better from where I was. And I was able to get off the phone feeling like, I renewed. I feel good. I feel.

speaker-0: Color spectrum. Yeah.

speaker-1: Like I got that dog in me, you know what saying? So congratulations brother for being a brother that I needed in that moment. And thank you. Congratulations to me for being able to share that emotional and be vulnerable.

speaker-0: Yeah, to be... That's tough. That's tough. Because I know how that feels, right? Because you're confident in your ability to open up to this person, right? But it's still that real feeling of like, don't really want to do this. You know it's going to be received well, but it's something about that, right? That we've just been conditioned to not...

speaker-1: You

speaker-0: allow that to be visible. ⁓ So yeah, for sure congratulations to you on stepping out on that and stepping out on faith and just, you know, trusting that I was going to be there to hold you up or build you up or whatever. ⁓ That's big because there's a lot of us out here that don't have that or might have it, but don't take advantage of it. Right? Or we'll say to ourselves, we ain't got nobody to talk to. And there's probably somebody right there that you could probably lean into, but we don't give them the opportunity to do that. Right? We don't trust them enough to allow them that space. And it's necessary.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Right? Like we don't have to do all this stuff on our own. Like it's cool, you know, to as a badge of honor, like I got it out the mud and I built this by myself, you know, brick by brick. it don't have to be that way, And that's why I text you, because I'm like, I kind of felt like I... Initially when I heard it, I was like, ⁓ he's going to hit me up when he's ready. That's why I told R.H.E.L. Have you talked to Michael? No, he'll call me when he's ready. And then you hadn't. And I was like, all right.

speaker-1: No.

speaker-0: be on the fence right now. Let me just extend an olive branch out there and see what happens. And then give you a space to do it whenever you're comfortable to do it, or if at all. Because it may be a situation where it's like, hey, this is not something I want to bring to the table right now, maybe comes out later. I'm not going to press you. I'm not your therapist. I'm not qualified to be that anyway. Like I said, if nothing else- not qualified.

speaker-1: Yeah Yeah Right?

speaker-0: I'll just beat some ears. I might not have no solutions, but I'm willing to listen. ⁓ And that's why I was trying to position myself as just like, if you want to talk about something, I'll listen to you. I don't know what I'm going say, but I'm going listen to you. And then just say whatever feels natural. But I appreciate that, man. And I appreciate you. This is awesome to have. I'm sorry, y'all. This is turning me and Mike talking. Y'all just listening. ⁓

speaker-1: I'm sorry.

speaker-0: Mike, you know, he's doing hair and nails now. ⁓ man. Sharing his feelings.

speaker-1: The Sajah's tune is coming up.

speaker-0: ⁓ man, it's so far away from the red pill, it's crazy.

speaker-1: I don't need that blue pill, blue pill podcast.

speaker-0: ⁓ But yeah, one, I did have a, this is congratulation thing. We got to figure this out because I feel like it's weird for me to ask you to congratulate me on something. But I'm to share something that's happening that I'm happy for. I on the last podcast, we talked about kind of finding my stride in social media and positioning myself in a certain way. ⁓ And I had a supplement brand, actually an angel investor reach out. They just purchased a supplement brand that was kind of falling off the map. The guy who owned it didn't want to be in the business anymore, whatever. So they purchased it. They were looking for somebody to kind of be the face of the brand and kind of build out a brand. For a long time, I've been thinking about trying to do something similar, like a pre-workout protein, kind of stuff like that, supplements. And I've worked with people. other companies, other brands, promoting their products and all that kind of stuff. And that's been cool, but it was never like my own thing, right? It was never like I had any real say in the product itself. So I'm like kind of promoting some products that I thought were really good, but there's always like good things and bad things with everything, right? So this go around, like they reached out to me and essentially it was like, hey, look, we got this. We just need somebody to be the face of it. And we'll build it around. you and whatever you want it to be. We'll provide all the infrastructure. We'll do all the shipping and handling and we'll help you build the website and like pretty much everything. We just, need you to be the driving force for the brand. And I was like, thank you Jesus. I mean, like I've been like flirting with this idea for a long time, but it takes a lot when you build it from the ground up. Like it still takes a lot. It's still a bunch of stuff that I'm doing. Like I sat on Spring Break, I've been working.

speaker-1: Yeah

speaker-0: All week. not to have to do it on your own, to have at least what I think is the support of a really solid company ⁓ and some really solid products. they've been in business for a while, so they got some ideas for how to do different things as a team. Trying to do it all on your own is rough. some of the companies that I worked with before was a one man show and he was trying to build it on his own great product. It's hard to do on your own. ⁓ And this is, ⁓ I think, going to be really exciting. ⁓ The supplement company or brand is Baseline Performance. ⁓ Name I created, it wasn't like something that somebody else did. It's like my own idea. It's literally me building a brand, which is really, really cool. It's fire, So yeah, and the idea, and I just shared this with Ari the other day. I had this kind of Baseline idea. been thinking about for a long time, but I really didn't have an idea of why I was calling it Baseline. But I was sharing my fatherhood story with somebody the other day and got to the part where I left my previous job so I can make sure I get back home. I always say, I left my work purpose to lean into my real purpose, which is my family. just out of nowhere, was like, so I just had to get back to my Baseline. And I was like, ⁓ That's where it comes from. Getting back to your baseline. There's a lot of supplements out there. There's a lot of companies out there. There's a bunch of stuff. You've listened to social media. If you're on any kind of fitness algorithm, it's about a million things they tell you need to take. Million things you need to do, especially if you're over 40. You got to drink a bunch of water. You got to take this. You got to do that. got to do this. Ultimately, you got to get back to the baseline. There's only a few things that you need to be for sure taking, and these are the things that the brand is going to be. I'm not going to have a thousand different things. It's not going to be like GNC. Three, maybe four things to just the baseline products and that's where we're going to stay.

speaker-1: I was trying to dig in my pocket because I didn't take mine. So y'all can see. It's real out here. We got a little CoQ10, magnesium glycinate, vitamin C, and B12. So yeah, man, this is not planned. I just had a pocketful of drugs.

speaker-0: See this guy. Bring out the What's up, bros? Right? Mic is going to make a couple of stops on his way to work. But yeah, I'm excited about it. ⁓ We're a month out from, well, less than that to get samples and stuff, and I'm going share some samples with some people. But about a month maybe out from a full rollout, hopefully. We had some little hiccups with the protein because it was in the tubs.

speaker-1: work.

speaker-0: But the tubs cost so much more to ship that ⁓ trying to switch it into the bags. got the protein in the bags now. ⁓ It's way more cost efficient, takes up a whole lot less space. And then I can keep the price down for people. Because when you go in the tubs, you got to add an extra 10, almost $12 in order to ship them. because of the size of it, when you put it in, it's just...

speaker-1: Pro.

speaker-0: It's never full. There's no way to make it full. Like you open it up, it looks like it's half, which is not good for people. ⁓ It's just upsetting, right? It's the same amount. It's the amount that it says on the outside, but when you open it up, the visual is just not very good. with the bags, you can get pretty full. ⁓ yeah. So I'm excited about that.

speaker-1: Is the resealable the bags? think I'm be mad.

speaker-0: Yeah, yeah. Which is also good because with the tubs, because there's so much air in there, the longer you have it, like if you're not using it faster, it oxidizes and it diminishes the quality of whatever's inside of it. So having the bags, you can seal it. ⁓ You're obviously not going to vacuum seal it, but there's a lot less air inside the packaging, so it can stay fresher for longer.

speaker-1: That's what's up, brother. I seen you, you know what saying? I seen Instagram and the friend in me, the brother in me has to stop sometimes because I see you with your shirt off and I'm about to get these jokes off. Like, put the muscles away, nigga, don't nobody care. You know what saying? I'm like, wait, wait, wait a minute. This is.

speaker-0: Yeah, man. Throw it out there. Do it. Listen, go for it, bro, because people don't care. People that don't, people that don't own me don't care. I did a video for, ⁓ I did a video for like a, what is it? A broth, like a bone broth company. It was Dr. Kellyann or something like that. And she, like the company ran it as a Facebook ad. So I seen it just ran on Facebook the other day. I seen the actual ad and I was like,

speaker-1: You

speaker-0: It was like, because in the video that they wanted me to heat up the water. So I heated it up in the microwave and then underneath somebody was like, you just ruined everything. You put it in the microwave. Now it's got all these. I'm like, what the are you talking about? And then like under that one, it was like four other people had commented like similar stuff. And I'm like, I don't care. Like whatever. Like the comments is cool. I mean, it's not on my page anyway, so I don't get to see it. I only happen to see it because the ad showed up. But people are going to say whatever they say.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: Go ahead, man, get your jokes off. Yeah, I'm cool with it. Because then I just go back at you and then we got comments and then just keep the algorithm going. People are interested.

speaker-1: Yeah. All right, yeah, that's dope, man. That's dope.

speaker-0: Speaking of, see you and Tiff is rocking and rolling, Dan We Grown is ⁓ out there, it's out there. Episodes is flowing, ⁓ posts is posting.

speaker-1: I mean, I try to be like you. That's literally what I told Tiff. said, and I actually had this conversation with one of my buddies at work, because we got into a deep conversation about, you you're in your career. You're like, man, is this, am I living to my full potential here at this career? Like, the job I have is cool, takes care of everything, know, amazing healthcare, I got a pension, you know, all these beautiful things. But, you know, we were just talking, like, is this our full potential? And I was like, telling him about the podcast and I was like, yo, I got a podcast with my bro, Grow a Man game and I'm just learning more and more from him. I said, because I feel like I was talking to my buddy at work. I'm like, we're thinkers, right? Not to say that you're not a thinker, but we're thinkers and we'll just keep thinking. How can I make this idea better? ⁓ if I do this, it'll be better. And then if I do this, and the quality be better, and then I can do this, and then I'll do this, and then we don't never do. And I'm like, my boy, Rod, he's a doer. Like, he's gonna be like, okay, the quality might not be the greatest, but let's get it out. Even this, y'all don't know, we had about six episodes, four or five episodes before we dropped it, because I was like, we gotta get it more crispy. He was like, hey bro, when we gonna drop these episodes? He right, he right, man, let's drop it, let's start in January.

speaker-0: and we iterate along the way. But you see what happened though, once we put them out, now the urgency is like, okay, we got to keep going. it just, puts, it's like the idea, and we can still iterate, right? We can still have ideas of different ways that we want to do stuff and see stuff. Like even now, like I'm looking at them, like there's some things that we can do. I got to figure out the lighting in this room. Cause I feel like sometimes we're too dark and like there's little stuff that we can continue to build on. we won't know that, right? We won't know that unless we actually do it. Right? Cause then all of it outside of that is just an idea. Right? Like now, this little ring light is trash. I got to get like a soft box light, right? So we can get a little hair lighter. Maybe I was thinking too, we set it up, we get some lights behind us to of make us stand away from the wall a little bit, like little stuff like that. But it's all, it'd be no proof to concept if we didn't have the content out. Cause now we can look at, you know, whenever the episode, whatever episode it is when we have that versus episode one, like, oh yeah, that does really pop. Okay, cool. Then we can add this or do that or take that away. Like, we don't like that. Like if you guys are seeing on social media, like the early episodes, it was like the three piece, right? Whereas like the top, the middle, the bottom. Super cool, but I'm sure it took you more time than it does to do what you're doing now. I think we should get the same effect. It's just me and you, no distraction, right? And it's easier to put the text in, right? Because before I had to kind of like figure out how to not block her faces out. like wrap the text around it somehow. It's just another step. ⁓ Saves you some time to now just do it the way we do it. And I think action, ideas are phenomenal. You got to have ideas, but you got to take action on something. that's kind of, I am a ⁓ thinker as well. It's just eventually I'm like, I just got to do it.

speaker-1: do it. Faith with that works.

speaker-0: It's dead. 1000%. So yeah. So I'm glad I can inspire you in that way, but I am by no means just an action taker. I'll be thinking out here in your face.

speaker-1: I mean for sure, for sure.

speaker-0: If you look at my ⁓ chat GPT history, there's a bunch of ideas in there that I've just been throwing at it. Like, hold on to this. I'm come back to it. ⁓ And I will. I will. There's some things that... Even the supplement thing I just talked about, it was an idea for seven years. I would say 2018 is the first time I thought about it because I was training this kid. He's not a kid. He's a grown man. ⁓ He fought MMA. and he had a supplement company that would make supplements specifically for him. There's a place in ⁓ Ontario that he would go in and they would make them, they would formulate it specifically for him. they do blood work and all that stuff and then they make it for him. And he was talking about making a brand out of it, but it was like, don't really care about it like that. So he supposed to give me his connects. Never happened. ⁓ So that's, know, and then I never chased it down because I had other stuff going on. So that's why I say it was an idea or a thought for a long time. And finally I'm taking action on it. But you know, that's how it is sometimes. And I think that's okay. Right? Like you look at some of the most famous or most wealthy people in the world, they wasn't.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: They wasn't on to it at 20. They wasn't on to it at 30. Most millionaires are in their late 40s and 50s. So now's the time. Now we're getting too old to have too many thoughts and no actions. Now it's got to be like, okay, is this a good idea? Let me bounce it off a couple of people. Oh, okay. You think it's a good idea too? All right, let's start. Let's start it. See what happens. All right. And if it sucks, it sucks. So what? We tried it. It's the same amount of time, same amount of effort. Move on to the next thing.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: So yeah, dog.

speaker-1: Yeah, man, that's what's up. What we looking at? You got any other things?

speaker-0: Nah, nah, I don't. I don't actually. ⁓ One thing I do want to say though is, you know, obviously you made it to this point of the episode. You definitely need to be making sure that you share it. You like, subscribe, ⁓ make sure you tell a friend to tell a friend and that we can be friends. ⁓

speaker-1: We can do this every week. We do do this every week.

speaker-0: Every Every week. So make sure you do that. Follow us on Instagram, the Grown Man Game pod. You got questions, if something comes up you want to share an idea or something maybe you want us to chat about, ⁓ go ahead and email us at thegrownmangamepodcast.gmail.com or just shoot us a DM. We are open to all suggestions. They don't mean it's going to make it, but we open to all suggestions.

speaker-1: Yeah.

speaker-0: And we'll wrap about it a little bit if it makes sense.

speaker-1: We appreciate y'all, man. And we've been seeing the follower count been jumping up, subscriber count jumping up. So, you know, we appreciate that and it feels good to, you know, getting a little noise out here because we're trying to make an impact and let y'all know you ain't alone in your struggles. You're not alone in your convictions. You're not alone in your championships. You know what saying? Like, you're not alone. We're here. We're here.

speaker-0: Yeah.

speaker-1: I that. like that.

speaker-0: Alright fellas, that's it for this episode. We will see you next week. ⁓ Deuces.

speaker-1: Bye. Ooooo ⁓