The Daily Stoic - Martellus Bennett - Super Bowl Champion on Finding Success

Episode Date: September 16, 2020

On today’s Daily Stoic Podcast, Ryan talks with author and former NFL player Martellus Bennett about the clarifying effects that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on their day-to-day lives, how readers should engage with the books they acquire, how Marcus persevered to help the New England Patriots come back from the largest Super Bowl score deficit in NFL history, and more. Martellus Bennett is a former NFL tight end who played for 10 seasons with teams such as the Dallas Cowboys, New York Giants, New England Patriots, and more. Bennett was part of the Patriots team that defeated the Atlanta Falcons in Super Bowl LI, coming back from a 28-3 deficit to win in overtime. In 2014, Bennett created The Imagination Agency, a production company focused on children’s literature and entertainment; they have released multiple children’s books and movies, all written and designed by Bennett.This episode is brought to you by Four Sigmatic. Four Sigmatic is a maker of mushroom coffee, lattes, elixirs, and more. Their drinks all taste amazing and they've full of all sorts of all-natural compounds and immunity boosters to help you think clearly and live well. Four Sigmatic has a new exclusive deal for Daily Stoic listeners: get up to 39% off their bestselling Lion’s Mane bundle by visiting foursigmatic.com/stoic.This episode is also brought to you by the Theragun. The new Gen 4 Theragun is perfect for easing muscle aches and tightness, helping you recover from physical exertion, long periods of sitting down, and more—and its new motor makes it as quiet as an electric toothbrush. Try the Theragun risk-free for 30 days, starting at just $199.***If you enjoyed this week’s podcast, we’d love for you to leave a review on Apple Podcasts. It helps with our visibility, and the more people listen to the podcast, the more we can invest into it and make it even better.Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: http://DailyStoic.com/signupFollow @DailyStoic:Twitter: https://twitter.com/dailystoicInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/dailystoic/Facebook: http://facebook.com/dailystoicYouTube: https://www.youtube.com/dailystoicFollow Martellus Bennett:  Twitter: https://twitter.com/martysaurusrexInstagram: https://www.instagram.com/martellusb/Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/MartellusBennettOfficial/See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke. For each day, we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. of necessary for living good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could live in a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean working during the day and partying at night with your best friends and have it be 100% paid for.

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From Bloomberg and Wondery, comes Spellcaster, a new six-part docu-series about the meteoric rise and spectacular fall of FTX, and its founder, Sam Beckman-Freed. Follow Spellcaster wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, Prime Members, you can listen to episodes Add Free on Amazon Music. Download the Amazon Music app today. Raising kids can be one of the greatest rewards of a parent's life. But come on, someday, parenting is unbearable. I love my kid, but is a new parenting podcast from Wondry that shares a refreshingly honest and insightful take on parenting. Hosted by myself, Megan Galey, Chris Garcia, and Kurt Brownleur, we will be your resident

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to, I love my kid, but wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on the Amazon Music or Wondery app. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. There's another story that starts in an airport unknown time and date. I was exhausted. It was some international flight,

which with a bunch of stops. And I was trying to get to some airport lounge. I had no idea where I was. What was happening? I was staggering around. And I finally got there. I'd opened my laptop and I was checking my email. And someone had sent me an email that Martell has been it

had tweeted about reading ego as the enemy. And he was there at the packers at the time. This was, I didn't know he was reading the book as a total surprise. We ended up connecting and becoming friends as a result of it. And he had me out to his animation studio a few, like a year or so later.

I think he was still playing at the time. I don't remember. But I remember after our conversation, I went and I, this is when we talked on Twitter, I bought, because I just had my first son and I bought the kids' book that he'd written. He wrote a great kids' book called, Hey, AJ, it's bedtime.

And he was sort of bemoaning the lack of people of color and children's books. He'd written one for his daughter, and it's a great book. And I just had no idea it was into all this different stuff. You know, LeBron James has that stuff more than an athlete. And I think when we hear people say more than an athlete, we think, oh, they're also politically engaged. And Martellus definitely is.

But what I love about Marty is that he, it's like football is just one of the things he's good at and it's not even the thing that he's most interested in. So to give you a sense of how, I mean, how incredibly talented you would have to be that you could play on the New England Patriots win a Super Bowl with them, perhaps the greatest Super Bowl victory of all time, and it's not even your primary interest, and that should give you a sense of what a talented artist he is. Anyway, he had this amazing studio in LA, like Florida-sealing books, basically looked like a set from the movie Big, he had all these toys, and it was like, it was a dream office, and it was so awesome to to talk to him and so I wanted to have him on the

podcast because he's a big reader, he's interested in stoicism, he's interested in creativity but you know Marty has also been someone that I've gotten to know and we've talked about things that are happening in the world and you'll hear you'll actually hear this happen a little bit in the interview. But I feel like every time I hear Marty say something, whether it's about race or politics or American history, he just, he presents it in a way that I hadn't thought about it before, and that always I cherish people that make me think, that can provoke me,

that can think about things in a different way. And again, it's important to realize, like he's able to do this because he's not just this person you see on television chasing after a ball, but an extraordinarily unique and special human being. And is a human being? And it can be so easy to sort of depersonalize people because they have different experiences than you, because they, you know, you see them on TV and this is where we get this nonsense about shut up and dribble. Anyways, fascinating guy, other Bennett story. I had been at, and I mentioned this in the episode too, but I'd been at a Seahawks practice

because the Seahawks had read my book and I was standing on the sideline. This big fight broke out. And the instigator slash winner of said fight was Michael Bennett, Marty's brother. And let me tell you, I would not want to get in a fight with Michael Bennett. Anyways, fascinating family, great writer. You can follow Marty on Twitter.

He's Marty's source, Rex. You can check out theimaginationagency.com. You can see his books. He wrote a book recently called Dear Black Boy. It just is sincerely Marty on the cover. It's sort of a letter to a young black kid. If I think there's a fascinating little book, you can see his comic, Towel Boy, and then of course the Hey AJ. It's Bedtime and Hey AJ. It's Saturday series, which are worth checking out, and got a bunch of cool merch there. You can check out as well.

So anyways, here is my guest today. Super Bowl champion NFL star, and most importantly, brilliant artist, fascinating human being, Martellis Bennett. I do bet as a creative person, and you seem like a little bit of a homebody, that this sort of lockdown, anything has been good for you creatively and family-wise. Yeah, I don't really like being around a lot of people and I enjoy it. Like, I didn't realize how much of my life was tied to things, right? Like, unfortunately, I had a furlough a lot of people at the company, but then I realized how much of my life

was tied to my, the people who worked for me, you know, like I had to be there or be certain places for them or to be some like, you know, 9 a.m. And honestly, I've been questioning the way that we've been living in the past a lot the past a lot of the stuff that we have done are just basically the strengths that we put on ourselves and our times tied to going somewhere or being somewhere that you really don't it would be easy for like an artist or writer to forget that like your, your the only thing that really counts is like doing the work, like are you making good stuff?

That that's the engine that keeps it all going but I feel like I clearly lost track of that or I wouldn't have been so productive and happy the last few months when all that other stuff including a lot of lucrative stuff, you know, just disappeared like that. Yeah, I mean, you can't do the speaking engagements, what the fuck we gonna do about that?

I mean, that's a good source of income. I mean, speaking of some of my via Zoom, make the same thing as being in a room. And the energy's not even the same. Like your presentation don't feel the same. Like this whole idea of interacting with another human being via Zoom, I almost prefer a phone call. Right, right. Well, I like doing this with,

I like doing this with, like I'm doing it with you. We're not doing video because like weirdly it helps me concentrate more than like watching this grainy video of you just sitting in your chair. I know and also I get tired looking at myself. I think I see myself so often in these meetings or whatever whenever I try to not deduce them or whatever they're. You become subconscious about the way you look, how you present on the screen, all these

things that normally when I'm talking to somebody, I don't really think about it as often. You know, you might have moments when you twist and turn your shirt, but now you constantly see yourself and how you look and it's kind of like, you know, this is crazy. So have you, have you been getting a lot, have you been doing a lot of drawing and making your next, your next projects? Have you at least used that time for that? Oh, man, that's all I've been doing. So the best thing about I think is allowed me to realize that sometimes I thought I was focused, but I was actually kind of unfocused, right? So it gave me a chance to really like just buckle down and just like, yeah, and jump into extreme focus because I'm not working

with as many people or on as many things with others, so it gives me more space just to sit and think, which is to imagine. I just have more time to just imagine and to think. I can wonder, I can look for a three hour walk and it's just not for any purpose whatsoever, but to think. I can read as many books, like a point of time to read. And then also just to work on my archery as an artist like my art, my hand from, you know, five months ago to my style is today, it's just not just

not in days, totally different way better because I draw more often like I'm drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing, drawing, right? And then create every single day all day. Well, I wanted to ask you about your reading things. I'm glad you brought it up. You have a rather unusual, let's call it, iconoclastic reading style where you don't, you don't like read a book left to right page to page, right?

You read differently or do you not do that anymore? Well, I still do, I try to read only the left-hand pages depending on what the book is. It looks like a really good book that deserves me to read two pages. I read both right and left and right. But a lot of times when I'm reading philosophy or anything, it would be like self-help

or like, you know, I just self, but I don't know what the category would be called because I really think self-help is the right Man for it, but like it's already you know books. I don't read the left hand page like for sure And why is that Well, why don't those guys in Bruce, and he wrote this incomplete manifesto of growth. And he's like, it's really creative, dude. It's like, you know, I would say like,

Olivia Pope of Traitivity, which is kind of like, well, I would like to do too, but I mean, that's just from my reading. I never met the guy, I don't know much about him. I mean, besides what I read about him was his song. But he wrote this thing called the incomplete manifesto and broken. It's like 46 bullet points. And one of the moments is why there's only read the left hand side of the page.

And this was probably like six or seven years ago reading it. And I started I was like, well, because you know, because a lot of times what happens when you read book, it doesn't leave room for imagination or for it, it gives us the answer, right? So our mind doesn't have to really work for the answer because the more you read, the more answers you will give, progressively they give you that actual question and then the author will give you the answer. And sometimes I feel like writers don't give, leave enough incompleteness to what they write to allow the reader to imagine their own answers

to things that arrive in the book. We feel like a lot of times we feel like we got readers of dumb. So let's give them the answer on this page, on this page, on this page instead of just letting them just kind of dive into it. So I'm gonna say things like with movies and some movies, you'll get to watch and you'll get to the director will give you all the answers

as you go. Like knives out wasn't really great movie that did this very well. Right? Like it kept you on as you can see. But like people don't write like that anymore. They just reveal reveal reveal reveal. We built. Well, I was going to say, yeah, as a person who slaves over both the light, the left and the right hand side of the page and I'm writing, I'm somewhat hurt, but then also as a person who sort of respects creativity. I love it. There's a, there's a quote from this poet, Juan Ramón Jimenez, and he says like his rule is like, if they give you lined paper, he says, like, go the other way, or, you know, write the other way.

Basically, like, if they tell you to go left, go right, they tell you to look up, look down. And so, but I could see why you're sort of reflexive. Like, you know, I'm gonna do it my way. Attitude is also creative and probably works for you. So, okay, so when I first started doing this, I used to get headaches. Right? When I first started getting just the left hand page, I would get headaches. And I could feel my mind basically saying, like, yo, something is missing.

Like, what is missing? What is missing? And not knowing the information, you know, searching for is unreadin' because sometimes I may read something on page 38, it may not connect until I page 50. But the whole time my mind is looking for answers or make great and it's own solutions because it wasn't given to them. And I really like that too because a lot of times if we're in anyone, we're talking to anybody, we never get all of the information. Like you never get all of it.

And even when you read a book, like it's really one side perspective and your perspective as a writer is how they see the world. So like when you write something, I get the stepping to your lens and see the world through your eyes, right? And that's an interesting thing. But at the same time, I don't want to see exactly how you see. Because I want to see some of what you see, but that I want to mix in how I see it as well. So I take it more as a conversation, then a more, then a lecture whenever I read these books.

No, it's definitely got to be a back and forth. And sometimes like people will be like, oh, I love your book and they'll show me it. And it'll be like in great shape. And to me, that's a sign that they didn't actually engage with it. I feel like it should be an intense conversation between the writer and the reader, and the readers should disagree. And if the book's not pissing you off in one or two places,

the author's probably not taking risks, too. I agree. I like to, because I, so I think a lot of times like I get in conversation with people, and people think to be informed is to read one book on a subject. But I think that you got to read multiple authors and multiple connections to that subject,

and then you have to draw your own conclusions. I think sometimes like people just take the author as the know it all and just live with the conclusion that they have drawn and with the conclusion that they have drawn and what the literature they have read. What I think that like, it's really just a conversation started and see like, yo, what are your thoughts about this? Right? Like right now I'm reading about Wabi Sabi.

Right? I don't know shit about Wabi Sabi. And, but like there's certain things they say that, I'm like, okay, I get this but then I'm like, oh, this should go missing. Why would anybody do this? You know, say it like, but it's my right to do that. Like, because all there doesn't know anything about Wabi Sabi is their interpretation of Wabi Sabi from their studies and things that they have learned.

They say this in the beginning of the book. So it's like, I don't have to take it as like, this is what Robbie Sabi is. These are the underlying tones of Robbie Sabi, but then Robbie Sabi is an individual thing. They said so in the book. So why would I read this book in terms of thinking about what Robbie Sabi is to her instead of like taking the information as if she's talking and deciding

what Robbie Sabi is to me, while I'm reading about what she thinks about what we're talking about. No, I love that. I love that. So obviously, you're much more than an athlete. So I don't, and I know you prefer to talk about the other stuff, which I want to do as well.

I had two sort of quick philosophy of sports things for you. And I think you'll see how they apply to stoshism. But so obviously you played in maybe the greatest Super Bowl of all time, you know, the 28 to three come back against the Atlanta Falcons. Walked me through, because obviously from a physical performance standpoint, you were incredible in that game, that game was incredible.

But like, how does someone look at that scoreboard at that point in the game and not give up hope? Well, I just tell you the most interesting thing about that game. It was nothing that happened on the field, by the way. Well, there was two, there was two days, there was one thing that happened on the field, and I'll tell you about that. But the first thing I wanna tell you about is we went in a half time, we went in half time, I didn't really realize what the score actually was. Right, because we were so caught up in trying to get things right.

I just knew we just knew things weren't going our way. But like, we always felt like it wasn't going our way because we were making mistakes. So like the whole time was always felt like it wasn't going our way because we were making mistakes. So like the whole time was like, yeah, my shoes did better. I should did, you know, like each person felt that way. Sure. Going into halftime, which is very rare usually when you lose it. When you usually lose it, everyone points to finger, right? Like, and you're big, especially like in a super bowl, like it's the last chance, this is a big moment. It's easy to just be like, yo, you need to do this, you need to do this, you need to do this.

So we go in a half time and my new really lost two game that year, we lost one to the Super, the, I don't know about say Super Sides, to the Seattle Seahawks, kind of a lot more about sports. We lost one to Seattle Seahawks on a last play where they battled the ball away from Brock. That was a good loss, meaning that we played a really good team. It was a great game. They happened to come out with a victory at the end. That's one of the, the way that game went is one of those losses that

you can go home and just be like, all right, I can't wait to next week because you gave it everything you got. And they played well too. Like this is a respect and like, you know, there's more couples about their ball and today, but we were hitting them right back in the mouth. So we lost that game to them, which was the only game that we really lost with time. The other game we lost was with Jakobie Bursi, against Buffalo Bills, which we all just took as a flute. Like man, that was just a, you know, it was like, I can't believe we lost the Buffalo Bills. Like one of those days, right? Like, man, that was just a, you know, it was like, I can't believe we've all said Buffalo Bill's like one of those days, right?

Like, it should never happen. Like, but there was a couple of other issues that came up like, you know, Jimmy Grop, a little down her, Jacoby Brissley was there. So we felt like we didn't have our whole squad and then Tom came back the next week. So it was like the week before Tom.

So if we ever been in, like, we've been in some, like, adversity, this is my first year on the Patriots and we were winning like a mother Like I never went that much in my life at anything Oh, well basketball we won like that before it like grown up But like an NFL to be winning 14 to win 14 weeks out of 16 is ridiculous Yeah, right? Right like and then you lose one by last second pass. And then you lose one to the third through quarterback. Right? And some other key misrepaces.

And that game you should have won. But you know they didn't go right. So anyway, we get to the Super Bowl. And we're getting to ask you. Right? Like everything's going to go. Interception, fun ball. I don't get out of battle.

I want to play. They could got us posted for another chance to score. But we had a set of four field goals, which gave us the three. You know what I'm saying? So it was just kind of like all these things are going wrong. But it's like, you know, like, yeah, like, yeah, Tom will be like, man, I should why haven't throw that ball? And then I'll be like, man, how are you going to miss that block? So we get in a half time. And I walk into half half time and this is my time, I'm like, cause I'm like losing to me is nothing, right? Like I've lost so many games that to me losing is like I've never given up, right? Like I've lost so many games like in Chicago

and Dallas or wherever I played, they're like, it's not your identity. It's not your identity, like it doesn't define me. So like I don't really care about losing, but the way some people care about losing. But losing in New England kind of defines you because they don't lose often. So like when they lost the game,

like we lost that Buffalo build game, it was like someone died. When we lost to the Seahawks, and to me I'm telling how I was at the Seahawks game, like yeah, that was a good game. Like, yo next week, next time we see these dudes, we're going with one like they could be in a, you know, super well whatever like we treat them again we'll get them. That's a hot thing right because that's the way I was. I've been on so many losing situations that it's kind of like, oh next time I'm gonna go out there and

ball even more. I'm gonna do whatever I can to make sure we don't lose and I never want to be the guy on the losing team that doesn't play well in the third or fourth quarter because the game is done. But I would never see them. But I'm saying that because I had never truly seen my teammates on a Patriots and losing situation where we may be down for a touchdown or down by field goal. But 28 to 3 in a super bowl, the big deal. I know I'm telling Mr. Story to Longway by giving you the big. Now I love it. The back Mr. Story the long way, but I have to give you the big deal. No, no, I love it. The Black story of like how wild we felt

and why we did certain things. So we get to the Super Bowl, we down, right? Things like the interceptions, everything's going wrong, they sack us, they dance in. We look over, so then we go on a halftime, and we go on a halftime, I'm like, all right, I wonder what's going to happen. Because I've seen lots of people yell,

I see people curse each other out, I see people go chairs, I see people want to fight, I see people blame each other, like I've been in lots of losing situations, like one thing I know how to do, one thing I know is what a loser looks like, right? Like, because I've been around losers before, right? So, but when I walk in this locker room, I didn't see any losers.

I didn't see any of the loser's antics or anything that losers do. All the stuff that I've been seeing, other losers at moments of time happen to them in a situation. And I knew the way that they react. I was racing for it because I've been around people who lose it. And now I've been around these guys who've been winning and never really experienced losing like this with me this year. But I can't even say I was surprised.

Like, well, I walked in the locker room because we have practice half time. Like we practice half time leading up to the Super Bowl because it was longer. But the schedule is going to be like, what we're going to do and win in the locker room. Yeah, five minutes to yourself, what you're going to be with you. Like we knew what half schedule is going to be like what we're going to do and win in the locker room. Yeah, you know, five minutes to yourself. I'll just be with you. Like we know what halftime is going to be like because we actually work half time into our Super Bowl

practices. Like, you know, practice halftime, that's incredible. Yeah. So Bill will take a long, however the long halftime is, it's like 15, 17 minutes or something. Right. Like double the time. We had that actual halftime at practice where you had to get around You have to stretch again and get ready to go back out and play for the second half of practice. So we practice this Which to me I didn't I was like Get the shit over with like I oh, damn, they're like, because the crap is you just sitting around, you kind of have to, like you don't go through all the plays

and stuff, you're just like, hey, this five minutes we'll be talking about this. And then you'll sit about five minutes and nobody's talking about anything about, except for what they wanna do after practice today, and so on, and so on, like you just have this time to yourself, which I also think was really good as well, because really you started being like, man,

we just fucked it around so much, we can be fucked, because everyone started looking at being like, man, we just fucked it around too much. We can be fucked, because everyone started looking at everybody like, man, we can be fucking around like this during the game. So anyway, we get in a halftime. And I walked in and literally no one yells, no one goes to cheer, no coaches shouting, no coaches do say anything.

And I think the only thing that Bill said, hey, you got five minutes before you meet with your coaches right I go to my locker and I sit down I eat my peanut butter jelly sandwiches my it's like the regular just like practice right I'm in there and you know my I'm always change socks and hearth time um it's just kind of like this thing I always do like so like I'm changing like take off your pads guys are like kicking a feet up kind of like this thing I always do. So like I'm changing it. I take off your pads. Guys are like kicking a feet up kind of relaxing. But when you look around, you can see that every single guy was individually, they were focused individuals. Like they were thinking about

what they could do. They had a headphone on. Nobody was messing around. It was everyone like reflected on themselves and what they had did the first half, right? And then you look over, you see the cultures out of them. The cultures are yelling, they're just like, you can see them having a good conversation. Like, yeah, I think this, I think this, oh, what do you think about this?

Like, you can see a really like over there, like not fussing, but trying to figure out solutions to the problem, which is us losing. And so I'm looking around like, damn, this is incredible. So I take off my pads and stuff and relax and then they call us up and we meet and we're talking to whatever.

And then Josh McDaniels and Bill or Tom, all of them basically, they'll be like, what do you guys see out there? So here we are in the biggest game. These cultures who are usually, you know, cultures come from the ego standpoint. But there was no ego there. They want everybody there just wanted to win

because the question they asked was like, so what do you got to see? And, you know, I'll tell, hey, this is what I've seen and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom, then he's like, hey, do you think that we could do this, this, and that? I was like, yeah, and then, and I was like, we get on days like we get a lot of pressure off the edges. And I was like, yeah, I was like, I could chip.

And I think if I chip a bit more, we could slow down. Like, because a tight end, because they're playing men to man. And as a tight end, the last thing you want to do is chip around to the flats, because you've never going to get the ball. It never, you've never going to get the ball in the flat. It gets man to man when you're ch to the flats, because you're never gonna get the ball. It never, you're never gonna get the ball in a flat and get the man and man when you're chipping on the, then let's see, decide to, let's see, shadow rushes,

but, or trigger rush, depending on what, it's just to be playing. So, we have this conversation, and then we know we huddled back up and feels like, all right guys, let's get ready to go back out. No, three minutes, so guys, I'm tired of this shoes, getting ready to stretch in, all those things, we're ready to go go back out. No, three minutes or guys start tying up their shoes, getting ready, stretching, all those things,

we're ready to go stretch in, doing a little warm up and things like that. And then we huddled, like, you know, where everyone, all the players get together. And, you know, usually this is that any given Sunday moment, like they write in a movie, you're like, you know, it was like the program, you know, like, it's just, this is a perfect time for that moment

in a movie. But, but if time for that moment in a movie. But if what happened next happened in a movie, everybody would be unsatisfied because all they had who it was, we got in a huddle, Julian Adams is in the middle, and I remember his words to his day, and he was like, hey, all right guys, we got 30 minutes to make history. Patriots on three, one, two, three, Patriots. And we went out. And yes, because we, but what was crazy when we got back on the field was,

I cannot tell you what was happening during the game. Right, and I think it was kind of like this for everybody in a way of each person was doing their individual job. Like our model, our children for the season would do your job. But this was the first time I thought that every single person was focused solely on doing their job. Like if my job was to chip, like the wife, pretty much you started shaking his head when

inside me saw me like, like the white printer, you started shaking his head when he saw me like, line up next to him. Because most high denser just tried chip and get out. But I was like, he was ass up. There was literally a moment in the game where I'm hummus got stuck together. Like that's how I put it all in. And we have to take out the referees and take out hundreds off and get them apart.

Like that's not hard, that's not hard to get him apart. And I was remember seeing his face and looking up at me and the way that he looked, I looked across the entire defense and they looked the same way because they was like, then who's gonna come up with this one? Not quick because they would get first down, second down, they make good plays, but then we have a third down conversion

because what people really realize is in that game, I think that we ran 101 plays or 100 plus plays. I can already remember because Chris Hogan had every single play of the game and he had like a 111 snaps or something like that. But that's because we kept doing our job, right? We were able to stay on the field because one of the things we realized is that offense was explosive. So we couldn't give the ball right back to him, right? Because they had really good players. Like, Rewash Julio Jones catches in that game. Like the defense was amazing, but he just had making some amazing catches. Like it was just like one of those things.

Like, man, this is why he's Julio Jones right there, right? That's, like any other person can make those catches. Only Julio Jones can do a Julio Jones right there, right? That any other person can make those catches only Julio Jones can do what Julio Jones did in a situation. So anyway, what I'm saying is like, I was so super focused, hyper focused that, like there was a parent, remember, when we won the game, I didn't even know if we won.

I asked Tom, I said, Tom, did we just win? He was like, yeah, but the game's over. Ha, ha, ha. Ha, ha, ha. Literally, bro, that's how focused I was. I didn't know how much time was left. Like when we went to overtime, I didn't know. I was just kind of like, I never, like,

it was like we were in complete flow, like I lost track of time. And I wasn't really paying attention to time. It was just like, all, we got to go again. We got to go again. So the whole thing was like, let's just get the job done. But that was kind of like the most interesting thing about the Super Bowl, the other catches and all that stuff in school.

But like, have you ever come anywhere close to that flow state like before or since? It seems like it'd be on, you'd never get there again, but maybe you have. Never, never walk playing football. Cause who bought anything else? Oh yeah, I get it there like when I write in my drawing and sometimes I'm like that all the time. I get there all the time when I'm creating, I live in a constant state of flow.

Like cause I've been able to create an environment and a system that induces flow for me. So I know it was exactly how to enter flow because I have to enter so many times. Speaking of sort of flow and focus, I'm always been fascinated by this because like I culturally come from a very different place. I've always, I've never sort of been into it. And it's definitely more in the athlete culture, but, you know, I've done some like rap books and stuff before and it was there. What is the relationship with, with weed? Like from a creative standpoint, from a, a leap performance standpoint, it seems like

it would be a performance inhibitor, but I know you've talked about it as being for a long time at least sort of just part of your lifestyle and part of your routine. Yeah, so I don't think that we make you more creative. I don't think we make you more of anything besides of what you already, what you already, you know, what you already are like. For me, like Mary wanted to help me focus. So like, like, like, I, because like, when I create, if I'm not high and if I'm high, the stories I write are exactly the same, right? The difference is that when I am high,

instead of writing, like, I'm not as easily distracted. So I instead of writing for two hours, I would write for five hours straight. You don't say just kind of like, beat in flow and beat in my zone. So I'm not, well, I'm not smoking. It's like, I may write for two hours, then, you know, Lolly got in the round for a bit

and then get back into it and then go back. So the interesting thing about flow is that once you enter it, anything for triggering and pull you out, and it takes you a minute to get back into it. Right? So, I don't like talking to anybody before, like, 12 or 12. You keep the mornings for your creative space? Yeah, five, it's 12, it's 5, five, eight, five, eight, and 12. Like, if I'm talking to somebody

is usually about something I'm creating, I got a question about something or things like that. I don't like to have phone calls. I don't like to do anything with my mornings. That's like my mornings or mine. I'm the exact same way. Oh, yeah, that's pretty. Because even like, just where,

I just, it just feels good to wake up and just make something. Totally. So it sounds like maybe you've got, like, I don't want to diagnose you, but it sounds like you've got some like, attention focus issues, like my wife is like that, like has trouble sort of focusing maybe a little ADD.

And it certainly sounds like Marijuana's a much better than, you know, Ritalin or what's essentially speed that they prescribe a lot of kids. So do you feel like that's what Pot does for you? Now I don't think that, like I wouldn't say that, I think that like, you know, when I'm writing, I'm focused, like it's interesting because like, like, because when I write and I'm focused, like, it's interesting because like, if I'm right here, like, Sam editing, like right now I got this new graphic novel series that I'm working on.

What I mean is that like, so for me, the way that I work is that everything is a part of the process. So I could be writing, but I may need to just, I may switch to drawing, right? So I may switch to drawing, and then from switching to drawing, I may need to just, I may switch to drawing, right? So I may switch to drawing. And then from switching to drawing, I may go into whatever, because the way that my writing style is not consistent of any one method, right?

Like sometimes that storyboard, sometimes you script, and sometimes that right, you know, synopsis, right? Like I just do whatever I can to get the story out. I would say that the thing about, and I get things done, but I just feel like I wouldn't say is it I'm able to pay attention longer what I hide. I don't hear as much noise, right? Like my ears aren't as open when as they are when I'm not high. When I'm high, my is as open to that of the world. Like what I'm hearing and what I'm receiving is like how to focus on what I'm taking in,

because I'm only taking it in stuff that has to do with my work. When I'm not high, my is a more open. So I could take a more randomness from the universe, right? Like I feel like the vibrations of the universe are more in tune. It's a water cast when I'm not high, but when I am high my frequency is more more fun. Like it's just like it's almost like being on a radio station, you know, not completely on 979 to box, which may be on the channel. Yeah. Yeah. 4.3, right? You can hear tuning in. Yeah, so like when I'm not a tune in better, let's basically what I'm saying.

Yeah, like my crystals and my ears are this shit are, you know, the frequencies are better. So why is there such a stigma or such stiff penalties about it in not just the NFL, but all professional sports? Because the same reason why there's a peer relief for all touches shit right now, because what the fuck is living the past?

Like why are we still governing ourselves or rules made in times when people didn't have cell phones, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, you think marijuana was such a bad thing in the 70s and 60s and whatever, but so those people who grew up in a time where marijuana was such a bad thing in the 60s and the 70s and it was built as a whole propaganda plan to put people who smoked weed in the category. Those people are in charge now, right?

Then you have a lot of people and when you know, it was, you had to be a rebel or different to want to smoke weed, it was like a negative thing. So if it was a negative thing, when they were growing up, it's a negative thing when they're in charge. Like, the look for they're gonna change their minds? Right, nobody hears about, you know, an NBA coach who has a big wine collection and things like, oh, that guy's a degenerate, you know, we should find him. you know, we should find him. But maybe that's what we did.

See, but wine has been branded as like the sophisticated thing. Right. We was not branded that way. It's all about brand and language. Like the language that was always used to describe we in a way that was the imagery used was like some stoner sitting in a chair, chips on our stomach, et cetera, et cetera. We're like, I'll get high, not the run five miles. You know what I'm saying? Like, it's not like, am I run would be better, right? Like, those would be like, yeah, because I'm like, it's just what it is. So like, they built this culture and this, they built this brand identity for marijuana that made it seem like it was such a terrible thing. And now even with science proof of murder,

is it, they still, because of branding and brand image, they still think it's a really bad thing. I know you wrote like a really beautiful, although it's also tragic. When your brother got arrested, and there was that thing in Vegas in, was that 2017, I remember your Instagram post. It really hit me. So I grew up, my father was a police officer.

So I'd always sort of had, you know, like, you hear things and you go, oh, okay, I assume this is what's happening, I assume this is what's happening. But I remember when I read that, it was eye opening, you were basically saying like, look, this could happen to anyone. And it could happen to you. I'm just, I'm just curious, like, what do you feel about everything that's happening in the world right now? Well, I just think that it's like people always be like, they're so straight black or they're associated with, associate, the struggle with blackness.

So like if you have money, it's almost like they don't see you as black as someone that's poor in black. Right? Like because they think of black, they think of poor. But if you have money, like well, you're not black and poor, you're like a whole different type of black, right?

It's like, you know, right? You know what I'm saying? Like, I'm just, I'm just as black because everybody else, I had, like, one person told me, like, why do you care about this thing? I have friends who are black within you. He's just spending, I was like, well, I do. And I was like, real like, how could you have somebody

that is black within me? What does that even fucking mean? Like, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Because he, because he associated with it because they didn't have the things that I have in my life. My thing is that like, when you're black, I don't care. How much money you have or how much money you don't have your blackness is the same in the world, right?

Like when the police see my black he doesn't see my black as any different That anyone else is black until he reads the ID, right until he reads the driver license or something Then they'll treat you differently in that situation But if there's a chance opportunity where they don't have your license if something is going down Right, they treat you as they would treat you if they thought you were Go other black to them, right? Sure And so I just feel like everybody is a suspect no matter how much money you have as black you are the suspect

I mean you have you're where you have the Milwaukee bucks player in Milwaukee getting you know taste for parking in a handicapped spot. Yeah or did you see that video of the GM from the the Raptors when he was trying to walk on to the court after they'd they'd won a championship and it's like it's I mean, it's it's like if you and you've obviously done it But you know, you know, you sometimes you have backstage passes to something or or or you know You've you have access or whatever you sort of walk in and your body language and the way you're dressed and who you're with sort of Says like I belong to be here. I belong here, right, let me through. And he was used to that because he should be.

That's what his job is. And you could tell that the cop just, it does not compute to the cop that this, that this well-dressed black man would have any business walking onto the court, you know, as the game is winning. But if he had been an elderly white man, I've got to imagine that he's gonna have a very different reaction, and that is the problem.

Oh, yeah, that was Jerry West. He was just being like, all right, yeah, no, Jerry, Jerry West, they could have been a huge lost buy in the court board. They probably would let you right by. I think so. I mean, although I look like a kid, so people always assume, I actually, I remember I was adding, this is a good example of that.

I was at a Patriots game when my books had first sort of been read by the pages. This would have been maybe 2014. And so I was on the field before the game. And then you know, like they start to clear everyone out who's not supposed to be there. And the game's about to begin, but nobody comes over and explicitly tells us,

like, hey, you got to get out of here. So we're just like, let's just see how long we can go here. And we made it all the way, almost all the way through the first quarter on the field where we had no business of being. And and that's because somebody just assumed like, oh, he's a kid. He's probably one of the coaches. Sons, I won't bother him. But if I had been dressed differently or of a different race, I'm not going to get that benefit of the doubt. And I think I can't understand why it's so hard for people

to wrap their head around that being a part of our reality and something that through conversation and change, we should be able to address and rectify. So you go, Mahol, all you think conversation is the right move because it's like, so say so like so say like all right so there is conversation but I think the conversation has to be peer to peer right like that's to be white man to white man or someone in their family have to be like yo you're wrong it came to come from outside source of like me like yo black people feel this way this is what we going

no that doesn't always work because when they go back into a while like think about right now This is what we go and that doesn't always work because when they go back into it, while they think about it right now, a quarantine, there's white people who haven't seen a black person. You know, yeah. Yeah. This quarantine started, right?

But there's not a black person who hasn't seen a white person, right? Because our bubbles aren't built that way, right? Like we see white people everywhere. I'll go, we're on 12% of the population. So my thing is like, so you're inherently, you're inherently surrounded at all times. Yeah, so if they're not, but they're not surrounded by black, onetime, experience, black is through music, through TV, through something else in the culture,

through the news. So their interpretation of black is created by the media and not by experience. So therefore, that conversation that they have to have will have to be someone around them that knows black people or have black friends that looks like them, that they know that could tell them about it, right? I just how I feel. I feel like there are few,

but there's not many who will change through a conversation with somebody that's not familiar with it, right? It's hard to, like there are few, but there's not many who will change through a conversation with somebody that's not they're not familiar with right it's hard to like as you know it's hard to inspire people, you know, to change and I change the really hard thing. No, looking I feel like every time I think conversation works in the sense that every time I talk to you, you manage to say something that, and I think this is what's special about you, is you have such a unique perspective, and you manage to always, and this is the artist in you, you manage to always pick a really vivid, either analogy or metaphor or way of expressing it

and always hits me in a weird way, which I wrote down I wanted to talk to you about. We were texting and we were talking about, I forget what it was, but your point was, you're talking about your goals with your animation studio and your art, and you were just like, look, Disney is the most successful animation, a movie studio of all time, you were like, look, that was founded in 1923.

And then you said something to me like, like think about what it was like to be a black person in America in 1923. And that's why Walt Disney is owned by a white person and not owned by a black person. Yeah, because the competition at the point that was even, who knows if Walt Disney would be as popular as he could got beat out and some black media company could have been the biggest media company in the world Right like or just as equal like that could be too side by side like right like serving two groups of people like you know in a way of that like I think about that about most media, right? I'll watch, like, we had the opportunity

to start businesses, and then you did start businesses a hundred years ago, they burnt them down. No, I mean, like, I was reading, I've been reading a lot about reconstruction and about the Jim Crow years, and I think it's just hard for people to wrap their head around, like, it wasn't that people were racist back then. It was as if society was ruled,

but not in all of America, but definitely in the South. It was as if America was ruled by a series of gangsters who would murder you if you stepped out of line in some way. Like Jim Crow wasn't just like, hey, you got a drink at this water fountain, and then we'll give you a nice water fountain. Jim Crow was like, we will literally murder you and your family if you try to approach this ballot box.

You know, like it was viciously and ferociously aggressive. And I don't, I think that's hard for people to wrap their heads around. I mean, I tell people like that, like it's, it is like, it's crazy because it wasn't that long ago either. Like I think my dad was born a year after the Jim Coles ended. Like, you know, it's just crazy.

Like that's my father. Like, and it's not that many generations removed. But the thing is, like, some households want to talk about their family's experience during that generation, right? Because they may be embarrassed about it, or they may not be embarrassed about it. They may feel like that's the way things should be, right?

So there's like this whole space of word, these conversations aren't happening with children and in these households, right? Like the parents, the grandparents are racist and then the kids are racist, then racism is taught, right? Is like, and people don't think that they're teaching it, but the number one thing that we learn

is by seeing, seeing the behavior, right? We see racism, like they're gonna use to hand people, it used to be like a family gathering, I put them down football game, everyone is going around and like, let's go see what they're doing, so they just like, this is the craziest thing ever. Like everyone stands around like,

kids are there, right? Parents are there. They eat sandwiches, they're picnic, picnic, and lichen. No, and if you missed it, you could buy a postcard of it later. And there's postcards that you can fucking buy with, you know, like, charred bodies on them or, or, you know, like a dangling, you know, a dangling cadaver, or, I mean, even, I mean, even, you know, you go to college football, like those, those

gator bait chance, like that, that is not just, you know, a funny thing. That, that has roots in racist art that, that, you art that comes from, who knows if it was true or not, but comes from a very, very vicious place culturally. It's like, we'll feed your babies to an alligator. It wasn't white babies. I know it was really fucked up. I never thought about just going back to history.

I never realized that a master bedroom was called a master bedroom because that's what a master lived in. And it was like, you're like, bro, that's so fucked up. That's just crazy. The biggest room in the house, and everyone wants the master bedroom when you get to the house.

Everyone talks about this. This room was made for the person who ran the plantation. No, that's, that's true. I say that because racism and these tropes, or these ideals are still in trust in our society. And my problem with what everything that everyone is trying to do, right?

This is my issue with everything that's happening right now. Well, it's not my issue. Like, this is a big part of my thoughts on what's going on right now. I know you actually hear. Well, the problem I see is that everyone is looking for new ways to work within a system that we already live in.

When what really should be happening is a new way that people should be designed, the design, the new way to life to live. The old system, no matter how you rework a room, the room is still the same size. You can move the furniture, you can move things round and round, left and right, all that shit. You can do all that shit, it's cool.

But the room is still the same just because I decorated different. It doesn't mean that the room is a different room. They may have a little different feeling to it, right? You change the color to paint. Right, you get a new piece of art, yes, and we carpet. Now, it may feel different,

but at the end of the day, it's still the same room, right? And the worst thing, the problem with ours is that the way the system is set up is right at the foundation. Because the foundation was built, racism, hate, crime, doverine, stolen, like sometimes like like, if you're, if you're white, and this makes our radical as hell, from just trying to say something, there may be a time where when your ancestors have stolen something that made your family prosperous, down the line from people that they shouldn't have been

still a pro and they got away with it because they were white. And the person they stole it from was black. Who knows how many inventions that people got credit for that was stolen from black people, right? Because those black people didn't have a voice they could take in the court. There was nothing they could do about it. This is mine now, right? So to go to your point about competition, I mean, that's something I've wrestled with. So it's like my my grandmother on my father's side grew up in Arkansas, in the, you know,

this would have been the 20s and 30s and 40s. And so it's like, obviously, her schools would have been segregated. And then, and so people go, okay, and then maybe they confuse themselves with the separate but equal thing. But let's just think about when she went to apply to college, right? Black people in the South were not allowed to go to these colleges. So when we think now about how competitive it is to get into college, to get into college if people complain about it and you know it's such a competitive and so hard and they sort of think back to the glory days of it.

Well, it's like, hey, dude, I don't know how to tell you this, but it was at a minimum 12% less competitive in 1930, because a whole swath of the population was threatened at the point of a gun or the news of a rope from bothering to apply. And so we don't we have trouble wrapping our head around what the consequences of those things are. So somebody goes, Hey, I earned my way in a college, I blah, blah, blah, I picked my book myself up for my

bootstraps. But it would be, you know, it's like, no, the competition was artificially tilted in your favor. And you myself up for my bootstraps, but it would be, you know, it's like, no, the competition was artificially tilted in your favor, and you just, you just never thought about it that way. But the thing, the crazy thing is about that is that the system education is still set up that way, right? These schools and neighborhoods or communities that, you know, black people living there are largely for God. They don't get the tools, they don't get the assets,

they don't get the introduction. It's like, I go like, I've been fortunate to put my daughter, like my daughter, like my school growing up wasn't bad, right? Like, I went to a good school. Like my school is brand new, first built. My neighborhood was very diverse. But like, I dropped my daughter up her school.

She sits, right? Yeah dropped my daughter up her school. She's six, right? Yeah. They're fucking building robots, right? And I read to a lot of kids, right? And I go to a lot of predominantly black schools, right? And when you go in these spaces, the lights are ugly. It's not an inspiring place. It feels like a gel.

It just, you know, there's no reason to want to go there, right? Like, and then if you have a, if you're a living home situation is, you know, not the best, and then you go to school, and that's no better, then like, you don't want to be a home, you don't want to be at school, neither one of those places is inspiring, right? Like, schools should be inspired.

And they, and I really think the school system is all fucked up. They need to redesign the entire school system. And they need to get the motherfuckers out as a charge of the school system out of it and start empowering teachers if people will actually work within the system to design it. And I also think that schools should be designed for

to be the communities that they live in. They do it with Starbucks, they do it with Apple stores. Why is Apple store more inspiring than a schoolhouse? Right, I don't get it. Like why am I more inspired to want to be designed or be great or think different when I go to Apple and then when I go to school, it's just like, oh, this place is in, right?

Like what is that about? And then they need to let the need to let the students like, you know, so they desire for communities because these students, these teachers know they're neighborhood is the best, right? No different from your barista at the start, but she's like, damn Tony's not here today. Tony makes the best, you know, Mokolate, you know, but they're Suzanne, you know, Suzanne don't know me that well. She don't do a little thing. You know, I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke.

I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. I'm not saying that's not a joke. to stay preparing for prison, right? And we all know about the school to prison pipeline.

But big part of it is that one out of three, every black man, I know I'm just kind of going on a budget shit right now, but one out of three, I mean, black men will experience jail, right? Like, I've never been a jail. I know that's shocking to a lot of people because I could be crashed at times, but I've never been a jail, you know what I'm saying?

So people use that to me, like, oh, you're a criminal. I'm like, bro, like my record is way clean. Like, you know what I'm saying? And they get it. But so anyway, so basically, one out three men, you know, black men, it's pretty prison. All right. So prison system is a private business

and the business is the prison is booming, right? We see them, like, you know, they, they suffer right now because prison inmates can't fight fires. Which they pay a two, right? $2,000 for to go out there and risk their lives to fight fire. No, and then, and then when these, these prisoners

get out of jail from having learned a bunch of experience fighting fires, they can't get, they can't get hired as firemen because, you know, they have a marijuana arrest on the record. It's absurd. Right. Exactly. Right? Oh, yeah. No, they're good enough as slave labor, but God forbid they want to be paid and be a contributing member of society than all of a sudden they're untouchable.

They basically are sharecroppers. This is exactly the same sharecroppers system they did. Basically, they were like, you're working this farm, you have this land, and then you have to buy your food back from the owner of the farm. So it was just like another way to save slavery. But then they could raise the price of your rent, raise the price of the food, they wanna pay you pennies on your food,

they could control the market. So it was like no real way, and they created more debt for you. So it's like you could never pay off or whatever you could do. And there's like this debt still being paid by someone with a marijuana charge. You know what I'm saying? It's like yo, like I have to fight fires for you when I was incarcerated, but I can't be a firefighter. I might be damn good at this job to possibly change my life. Well, no, and look, that's what I think people miss too, right? So they'll go like, okay, you know, whether it's the Michael Brown case or whether it's

the George Floyd case or whether it's the, was it Jacob Blake case in Kenosha right now? People are like, well, why are they, you know, why are they resisting arrest? Why aren't they going peaceful? It's like, first off, you know, are they resisting arrest? Why aren't they going peaceful? It's like, first off, they're resisting arrest because they still get killed even when they are not resisting arrest, which anyone who watches

the George Floyd video will see. But if you have a relationship with law enforcement where law enforcement is essentially an arm of the sharecropping store come to collect absurd unpayable debts from you in the form of, you know, parking tickets and court fees and bail amounts, etc. You're going to have a much more hostile relate, like, when I get pulled over, I'm like,

okay, the worst thing that happens is I have to pay this ticket. I don't, I'm not spiraling through in my head if I, you know, I'm already on probation for this charge and so I could go back to jail for that. If I get this fine and I can't pay the fine or if I can't miss work to do my quarter appearance, you know, like the red of using my freedom is never there. Bro, and why do people, this two things, but all that, I don't have any arrests, and I get pulled up, I hear a siren and a rap song,

I get mad at it. Very much like God damn it, like I have to be nervous. Why am I driving? Like sometimes, like I have to, I was driving a Mercedes-Benz. I went to the windows, right? Because I was just a girl, they got to see me.

My wife, I was jogging, I lived me my wife I was jogging I live in Hollywood all the jogging through Hollywood and I stopped because I felt like I look suspicious running past the sidewalk every damn day and my neighborhood my wife who let me walk at night because you know I have to wake up at 6 a.m. to walk and sometimes I got engaged with time if the sun goes down I can't go for the walk for the day about missments, I can't go for the day. About Miss Moon. So I can't walk in the evening unless I bring my poodle with me, you know what I'm saying?

Or my dog with me, whatever, right? Because then it's like, you know, he's a big black man with a poodle. He can't be suspicious, right? Like, you know, so like in my own neighborhood, I hate that, man, that sucks. I hate that. And another thing that you touched on too,

why do people say that not communicating with the police is resisting arrest? If I'm not under arrest, I don't have the fucking talk to you. No, I think we've been sold, we've been sold the weird bill of goods with the police. It's like the police, the police work for me, and they work for you, right?

Like the police have got this weird perception where they are the good guys and everyone is the bad guys, black and white. When really they should understand it's like, like, you work for me. And so we've accepted a whole warrior culture from the police. And it's like, who are you at war with?

You're at war with the state that provides your job in the first place. It's absurd. You know what? You know what? It's absolutely facts. Because the whole idea of blue lives matter, right? That says that we're not white.

We're not black. We're a whole different species. We're a whole different person. Like we're blue lives matter, right? That says that like we're not white, we're not black, we're a whole different species. We're a whole different person. Like we're blue lives, like this is a whole, like you don't say like, that's true. That's, if you think about what they're encapsulating as people, when we say black lives matter, they encapsulate everyone that's black. When you say blue lives matter,

they encapsulate anyone that's wearing a uniform, which isn't a fucking thing, right? You're right in a blue uniform, you're black or Hispanic in a uniform. You're not, you're not, if you're black and you wear a blue uniform, you still part of black lines matter, right? If you're black and you wear a blue uniform,

you're still part of white America. You're not part of blue America. What the fuck is that? Well, I was trying to, I was talking as a friend about this the other day. I was like, look, man, nobody hates the fire department because the fire department, the fire department doesn't, first out the fire department does their job without killing people.

And second of all, the fire department, like, when you walk by a fire department, they're flashing the lights at your kids and they're waving and they're you know that like that they they have a different culture and it's a culture you know the protecting serve culture of police everyone knows that's a you know that that euphemism is bullshit like nobody's walking up and protecting and serving that's not how they walk through the world. And I think that's a cultural problem that has to be addressed. There's nothing friendly about police officers. I'll take you to the office.

So go ahead. All right. Here's my question. Have you ever held a gun? Yes, of course. I live in Texas. Yeah, so how does it make you feel? Like someone holding a gun, the way that it makes someone with a gun,

the way it makes you feel, it's crazy, right? Yeah, there's a power in it. All right, have you ever had someone, have you ever pointed that gun at something? Like an animal with yes, but a human being now. Okay, so like, yeah, so like that moment when you've had an animal, even had an animal, that feeling that you get, right? Because think about it, there's a period of time where black people are making considered humans, right? We were labeled and treated as animals,

right? So like, all right, so when you point that weapon at that animal, you know that the animal can't fuck with you, right? You not worried about that animal attacking you or doing anything. And an animal, when a citizen's point that gun, it is scared shitless. They don't like how they know that they're in danger, right? Yeah, sure. Like they know, like this animal is like,

fuck, this motherfucker has a gun. Animals know this shit. And some animals are freeze, they're so scared. And then other animals, they fucking take off. Right? Right. All right. So, have you ever had someone point a gun at you?

No, thanks. Why not? Why you didn't have a gun? Could you imagine being the animal? Well, you were pointing out that shit, I'm not saying that killing animals is bad if you eat in the meat and all that shit. But like, if you were the animal, right? That that was you, right?

That that was a person or whatever, right? You was on the other end of someone else has a gun. And you were in an animal shoes. What the fuck would you do? No, it would be an overwhelming emotional experience. Like, imagine how people feel getting yelled at and having someone pointing a gun at you, threatening to kill you must be like a thousand times that.

All right, so check this out. Have you ever seen, have you ever had your kid hold a gun? No, he's only four. Okay. If your kid was holding a gun, how would you feel? I would be scared, I wouldn't like that. Right, right. Now imagine walking into a room and someone's holding a gun,

don't have to be pointed at your kid. It could be another kid holding a gun while your kid is in the room. How are you feeling? I mean, I can only imagine what you must have felt when you watch that video of those people pointing, those policemen pointing weapons at your brother. And I can only imagine how he must have felt knowing that

even though the situation was wrong, there's nothing he could do about it and that these people could kill him and he would be blamed for it. Right. And you know what? That situation changed my brother's entire life. It's all a good life.

Sure, it'd be like being in a plane that almost crashes or something. It would just fundamentally change how you walk through the world. So, my brother experienced that. It changed my life, seeing it. Now, if you go Instagram, Twitter, what do you see all the time?

Black men get shot, black men get it. It's torture, right? But visually, like you see someone who looks like you get murdered, like you stop it, I identify with those people because it's another one after another one after another one. And then you start to think like, well, damn, am I next? Right?

So now there's a spirit that's in the air around, right? Yes. That's when the shit gets really scary when, you know, you know, the world is a crazy place out there, man. No, look, and I think what you're talking about is empathy. And I think people think stoicism is this philosophy of unfeeling this, of mastering the emotions, but I talked about this a couple of times. Marcus really talks about, he's like, look, you strip out the emotions and you have to replace them with love.

And if, just for anyone listening, like if you watch these videos, like if you watch the video of Martellis's brother or you watch the George Floyd video or the the the Arbery video, if you watch that and it doesn't hit you in a soft place, regardless of your race, you are I need you to know that you are the problem. Like you, you have somehow walled off a part of yourself or you have dehumanized other people to a degree where like, it changed my life to watch those videos

and I know I don't really have to worry about it the same way. Like I don't have to worry about when I'm walking through my neighborhood as you're talking about. It's just, it's not, you have to care about people to a degree that when you see something like that, it should hit you in your message, you're so good when you're saying,

how would you feel if people were pointing a gun at your kid? You gotta get to a place where when you watch that, George Floyd was somebody's kid, and George Floyd had to, you know, have kids. Like, you have to be have to see people that way. You have to be human, right? You have to be human. You like empathy. A lot of times when people talk about empathy, they think people think he wants sympathy. Nobody's asking for your sympathy. The empathy is really hard. Sympathy is easy. Empathy is really hard. and if anybody wants to learn about empathy the only thing they need to do is watch ET

Seriously, their whole movie is about empathy, right? And if you get in the movie to do There's brother, alien brothers like Want to push on my lesson? What you put yourself in someone else's shoes for a change Right, and now time, he feels what ET feels. He's literally in ET shoes. They'll listen about Elliot learning about empathy. Those are empathy movie. I know it's random, but like that's some true shit. Like ET is a movie about empathy. And I also think that ET stands for empathy training. But no, I mean, wrong? Yeah. No, I mean, look, I watched your, I was at a Seahawks practice once,

and I watched your brother get in a fight and expertly handle himself to a very intimidating degree. You know, he's a super bowl champion, he's a pro bowl, he's made millions of dollars. He does not need my sympathy, but he does need for me and for everyone who watches that to see it and go, this is insane. This cannot happen.

But could you imagine if you have to arrest my brother and he made any set of moves, knowing how big he is, how strong he is, that I, and not only that only the concept of the black man, the ideologies that they put out to the world about the black man, you welcome to this black man, and then with the heightened situation of what's going on in the world,

where I know white people feel like everyone as black is mad at them, right? If you're like, man, I can't wait, oh man, I can't wait, my black friends are part of this stuff. A lot of white people don't know what they stand with their black friends if they have them, right? me. A lot of white people don't know what they stand with their black friends if they have them. They just like, oh, can I talk to them?

Am I racist? Have I been racist or not known? So like, now you hate that situation with guns and all this and these moments of time, because all these are single, these are moments of time. These are just moments of time that's happening. Like eight minutes and 46 seconds in our lives, you know, saying, that's like in a strict trauma

before you go run. You stretch for a long period, then you, then what they did, what they killed, George Floyd, right? So like all of this is crazy. I find the world to be a fascinating place. Like I find people to be fascinating. The fact that like history repeats itself because we keep trying to work within the infrastructure that was built by history instead of trying to write a new history and build a new world, a new place. They built a one-world now it's time to start building a new world. What does that world look like a one-year-old, now it's time to start build a new world.

What does that world look like, and what does that leadership of the world look like? Like who is it? And honestly, the old one fucking big got the way and started letting it be, being more positions of power. Like we have to go in here and struggle. I have to sit in real where eight white people

tell me what black families are gonna watch on TV. Eight all white men. You know what I'm saying? Like what? I mean, though. Like what is the last time, what's the market research? What was the last time you had dinner with a black family or went to a barbecue or just hung out on top of two black parents that wasn't, you know, running for market intertested?

No, look, and I think to go back to where we started, I think with the craziness of the world, but the awful things that we're seeing and one of the things you've got to do is make art because art does make a tiny, tiny difference. Okay, I got to jump on. This is the last thing I would say because what you've said is perfect, right? Everything that a human being enjoys is the result of another human being's creativity. Everything. You like your house, you like your car, you like your movies, you like your music, you like your dances, you like your, you know, the way that you do your farming, like everything that

you enjoy, your garden, et cetera, et cetera, the result of another human being's creativity. So only thing that can save the world is creativity, but I don't see any leaders with creativity and also the problem with leadership is they stop learning. Like they don't look, they're not people who continue to learn, they just try to lead instead of realizing the best way to lead is realizing you, it's probably realizing that you don't go.

And when you realize you don't know, you're more open to more solutions. When you think that you know't know. And when you realize you don't know, you're more open to your solutions. When you think that you know, right? Or you think that you just have those small group of people that know everything and you're not further your knowledge of the world or the people that you're serving, right? The people you serving today aren't the people

that you know, George Washington was serving, right? The mindset ain't the same. So like a lot of stuff that has been done, that may have been right in the past and right today. So creativity is the only thing that can save the world. Imagination without imagination, we cannot create solutions. And we keep putting people in power who lack imagination. So they can't see a better world, they can't see new solutions, they can't see new things because they don't have the power that they need, which is the power of imagination. And then they ripped it out of our schools, so we raised it in future leaders not to be imaginative people, which then would create a world that's unimaginative. And that is the problem I see with a lot of

things going on. No, man, I love your shit so much. Thank you. And I wanted to wrap up this episode, something that happened afterwards. And so I got home from the interview, and I was telling my wife, I was like, I just had this incredible conversation, Martell, and I was saying, like, sometimes people hit you

with stuff, and I was telling her how he was saying that because he's, you know, a spacing, artistic and a human being, it doesn't occur to him that there are times that you can't just get up and go for a walk in his neighborhood because you know, someone might think that he's suspicious or be intimidated by the fact that there's a, you know, a huge black man walking around his neighborhood, and I was telling her how hard that hit me and how just how nuts that is. I mean, here you have again a super bowl champion who is having to navigate the world in a way that just doesn't even compute to me. I mean, I don't know about you, but I would never have to think, is it an appropriate safe time for me to go around my neighborhood? And I could

totally see not thinking that way. And then having to have someone who's smarter and wiser as my wife is for me, you know, remind me of that. And so anyways, I was telling her that and she was listening. And she was like, you know, what's crazy is when I was hearing it, I was assuming, and she was like, this is the definition of what privilege, you know, sort of does, you're thinking, she was like, I was thinking you meant that he couldn't just go for a walk whenever he wanted because he was famous. And it just struck me how sad the state of things are that a human being has to navigate the world that way. And I know I said this during the interview,

but if hearing these things doesn't hit you in a soft place, if it doesn't strike your sense of what is just or unjust, then you're doing this philosophy wrong. And look, I know it would be more pleasant to just talk about how stoicism can make you a more productive person person a more resilient person But the stoics would remind us that what good are those things if not deployed in the pursuit of or in the fight for justice? And so I'm really glad I got to have this conversation with Marty

I hope it opened your mind a little bit. I know it's certainly did for me and open your mind a little bit. I know it certainly did for me. And anyway, thanks, Marty. And I hope we can all work towards a better world because certainly the one that we have now is not nearly what it needs to be. To fulfill not just not just what the founders of America had in mind, but of course what what Mark Surrealist was talking about, what he learned from L Hell videos, equality under the law, justice, truth, free speech, all of those things that go to the core of what still is his miss. If you're liking this podcast, we would love for you to subscribe. Please leave us a review on iTunes or any of your favorite podcast listening apps.

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