This Past Weekend - Maurice Clarett, Cory Gregory, and John Fosco | This Past Weekend #140

Episode Date: October 18, 2018

Sitting down one on one with Maurice Clarett, and eventually joined by his podcast cohosts John Fosco and Cory Gregory. Check out their podcast Business and Biceps https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/business-biceps/id1072159330?mt=2 Support Our Sponsors Squarespace http://squarespace.com/theovon 10% off your first purchase or domain Skillshare https://www.skillshare.com/theo 2 months unlimited access for $0.99 with this link Grey Block Pizza 1811 Pico Blvd. Santa Monica, CA http://bit.ly/GreyBlock Music “Shine” - Bishop Gunn http://bit.ly/Shine_BishopGunn Submit a video question on LiveRaise’s Fan Line: http://bit.ly/Theo_FanLineSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Call 1-866-531-2600 or visit connectsontario.ca. Please play responsibly. Today's episode is brought to you by Gray Block Pizza, and that's a great place to get a pizza pie. He's a college football superhero and an embodiment of perseverance. He's one third of the business and biceps podcast squad. Uh, and they will be joining us later. It is Maurice Claret. How long have you been out here?

I've been out here about 14 years, I guess. 14 years, would it be back in 04? Yeah, actually, I guess maybe about 02 or 03. And when were you here? You lived in Los Angeles. Yeah, January 04. Yeah. January, February 04, yeah.

Yeah. And was that fun? Like, was that a fun time in your life? Or what was that like being out here? Beautiful. Beautiful. Beautiful. So just for my listeners, so if we could, could you kind of, if you could, I know this might be absolutely impossible.

Maurice Claret, could you sum up like kind of like football and some of the Ohio State stuff maybe in like, you know, about two or three minutes or whatever you think you can? Yeah. For people who may not be familiar. Well, you know, I came out just as a highly touted recruit from around the nation. Went to Ohio State in the first time in history started as a running back for Ohio State. Went out and won a national championship within my first year. Yeah.

A huge amount of success from a personal level and from a you know obviously career level uh and in the process of doing that i always put it in context i gotta remember that uh lebron is about a year younger than me oh wow yeah so around that time yeah so lebron grew up maybe 40 minutes away from me and this is at the height of lebron basically going to become lebron you know in high school when he's selling out college stadiums. And at this time you have, you know, 50 Cent, a new rapper, Jay-Z's fairly new yet, like the Blueprint 2 out. And I can just remember after having so much success in watching LeBron have his success, I can remember just me sort of losing focus as a college kid. Oh, I see. So you kind of said, you kind of followed that, like his path,

even though it wasn't your path, maybe. Yes. You know, and I'm speaking hindsight is 2020. Right. Yeah. So I can remember after being done with the season and, you know, as an 18 year old kid, you want everything in high school. Fast forward 13 months later, you want everything in college, all of the adults around. I don't blame this on him because everybody's enjoying the moment when you're famous or popular or notarized. Nobody tells, you know. Yeah. Oh, yeah. You get it. You get it all. everybody's enjoying the moment uh when you're famous or popular or notarized nobody tells you no yeah oh yeah you get all you get it all everybody's just telling you yes and i can just remember uh i can remember when 50 cent had in the club song it came to the best still one of the

best albums still one of the best albums period yes and i can just remember uh you know lebron asking oh let's go up to cleveland state and let's enjoy this. And I remember Nike, Reebok, Adidas, all these guys were chasing them. And I could just remember just enjoying that a bit too much. And the reality of it is that I ended up getting suspended from having too many illegal benefits. It wasn't LeBron's fault. You know what I'm saying? Just doing too much. And what ended up happening was, and I always say it, that was probably the most impactful time from an standpoint, because that was the first time I actually felt like depression.

You know, never really went through anything from a mental standpoint, never felt anything adverse from a personal level outside of sports. You know, in sports, if you have a hard time, you can, you know, watch film, you can lift weights, you can get in better conditioning. You can, you know, as a comedian, you can learn how to tell better jokes. But from a personal standpoint, I just didn't know how to process that. That was a tougher thing. Yeah. And that's an age when the voice inside of your head starts to become like a real voice, I feel like at that point, you can hear it more. Yes. And so, obviously I didn't realize that prior to that, from having so much success, So, you know, obviously I didn't realize that prior to that, from having so much success, there was so much sex, drinking, drugging.

Yeah. But it was done in a celebratory standpoint, from a celebratory standpoint. Right. You know, I'm celebrating a game or hanging out with the fellas. It switched from having celebrations to me masking what I really felt. Yeah. Because I can't go play the sports. I can't go play the game. I have no, like, fucking clue as to what's going on in my life and so that's kind of like where where life like kind of really

met me at and that's like a like a gray space oh yeah nobody can kind of navigate out of this and nobody knows what's going on you know what's going on you don't want to reveal your feelings and that's kind of like what really had happened with me and you probably can i mean at that point like you couldn't trust the media very much it was was like, I'm sure you were probably not scared, but just directionless maybe. I don't know. Yes. So just to put context to it, after I got kicked out of school, there was a two year waiting period before I was allowed to go to the NFL. And at that time, I really thought that NFL will let me enter the draft because I was big enough, strong enough and everything else. But when they didn't allow me me enter the draft because, you know, I was big enough, strong enough and everything else. Uh, but when they didn't allow me to enter the draft, I was just kind of like

sitting two years away from football. So I ended up going to Vegas to, uh, watch, uh, it was, uh, it was a Roy Jones and Antonio Tarver fight. I go out there and, uh, when I watch them in house of blues and Jim Brown was out there, Jim Brown hits me up. He says, yo, you know, I remember I helped you out with your, um, uh, your case at Ohio state. Can you please like, you know i remember i helped you out with your um uh your case at ohio state can you please like you know get away from that environment you just don't look like the same individual that i've seen you know oh wow prior to that and so that was the original reason for me coming out to la so when i came out to la so you took that to heart when jim brown said that yeah because you know he had seen me as the uh the 19 year old kid who still was wanting to play

football and everything like that when he seen me at the Antonio Tauber fight, that was probably seven months later, eight months later. Different you. Different me. You know, I had partied all night. You know, we up to four or five in the morning. You know, you know, you know that look, you know what I'm saying? Dude, I know that look.

One time I used to go buy makeup, dude. I'd be so, I never wore makeup in my life, dude. I'd be in a 24 hour CVS at like 5am. Trying to get yourself together. Asking people about bronze or in blush. I'm just trying to look okay for a meeting in the morning. So yeah, I feel you a hundred percent. And so he saw you and he said, uh, he, he kind of just, you know, commented and then you moved to Los Angeles. Yeah. I commented and I moved out here with the whole motivation to come out here and to gather myself.

And when I got out here, what I didn't realize is that, you know, he was in North Carolina or South Carolina, wherever he was at. And there was a period of time when I was out here by myself waiting for him to come back out. Who, Jim Brown?

Jim Brown. Yeah. And so when I got out here, I was like, all right, you know, I'm cool. I kind of got away from Ohio too. You know, like during the process of me getting away, you know, I got back into the streets. I'm selling dope. I'm selling weed.

I'm hustling. You know what I'm saying? So I was full-fledged into the streets and I'm full-fledged away from everything sports related. I'm just all the way deep in the hood, right? I separate myself. I come out here because throughout that process also, and I was talking to John this morning, I got almost robbed three times. And the last time that I almost got robbed, my mother was in the house.

Some guys on our bushes ended up coming outside. We was in the suburbs at the time, so these guys ran off. By that time, I was like, man, I got to get the fuck out of here. That's too close to home. Too close to home. And do you think you were in those streets,

do you think you went back into drugs or into selling, that type of environment environment because there's still a level of you probably got a a lot of street cred did you well i think like was it just for the hustle was it just for money do you think there was because there's a you know there's a level you can always have a claim at in the streets i feel like that you that's different than in the world, like in society. Like in the streets, if your cloud is a certain level, it's kind of always there. It's in that space. Well, when I look back on it, there was a few things that put me in the streets.

One, my brother had needed money because he had just got arrested. He had needed money for an attorney. The second thing that put me back into the streets is just familiarity. I don't know if I can say it right. Just the familiarity of how do I take care of myself? money for an attorney. The second thing that put me back into the streets is just familiarity. Yeah. If I can say it right, right. Just to feel your familiarity of how do I take care of myself. And I think there's some sort of glorification that when you come from the hood, the machoism of selling drugs and the coolness is attractive. Right. So it's something still almost as cool as athletics in a way.

In a way. You're still allowed to be a somebody, right? And my access to me being able to get drugs from people, the drugs that I was selling, they, these people, it was easy to get to these people. So, so, so I'm speaking from that perspective. And I got to say, and also just from being, just being a bit more realer, I was just a dumb fuck when it came to school. I was just a dumb fuck when it came to school. Right. You know what I'm saying? So there was nothing like, you know, let me go ahead and get an education. And, you know, football's not working out. Let me go ahead and live my life in some academic format. So it just wasn't there.

You just couldn't even pay attention in school. It just wasn't your thing. It just wasn't interesting. Like when you look back on it, when you grew up in an environment, you know, like when you grow up in an environment, the only thing that you see as being successful, what you deem successful, is guys either selling dope or the cool guys or the athletes. That's the only thing that you want to gravitate to as a kid. Especially like probably growing up black in America at your age. I mean, I remember the only successful black men I even knew growing up were the guys on Coming to America. No joke. Or the Dallas Cowboys.

When I really think about it as a child. Gotcha. Or the guy on uh in the heat of the night the you know Virgil Tibbs yeah but see when I think back like that's who I it's like there was only a really yeah like I remember and I've talked about this before yeah if I even remember watching commercials for like Disneyland or something like that it was always white people yes like there was probably yeah so I can only imagine what the vision probably looked like being a young black child you know yeah so see you just you just put that into context and so you gotta you gotta put

everything in context you're more more about being cool is important to you rather than yeah doing the right thing and building your life at 18 19 years old cool is it oh cool is it cool is it and so the selling of the drugs makes me cool to the women. The selling of the drugs gets me money in my pocket to do foolish shit, to buy champagne, to buy liquor. But you don't realize the habits that you're forming from this are detrimental to you. Yeah. So at that point, I can remember I'm out at that time in Vegas, and Jim Brown's like, yo, slow down. Like, yo, just slow down. I can remember even, I remember at that time too james

prince was out there i remember james prince was like yo you're tripping you know me because he had seen me as a regular football player and then to see me in that condition i can remember him saying like yo you're tripping man i'm saying slow your ass down so i came out here and in the process of jim brown not being around i went down to sunset yeah when i go down to sunset when i'm going into hollywood when i'm partying all day oh yeah uh you know partied on a monday never heard of fucking parties on the monday party on a tuesday party on the wednesday you know party on the thursday hey come get this brunch you know but it's hollywood's crazy man you can always find it you can find it there's a group of people that it just never ends so so just take like this so put this in the context i'm from ohio yeah from youngstown to columbus ohio i don't care how progressive you think ohio is if you're

from ohio it's still slow in comparison to these larger cities and how they do stuff so in ohio if you're uh fucking drunk out of your mind and high out of your mind at fucking two in the afternoon somebody would say you're crazy in la they walk past you like there's no big deal. Yeah. You know, because this is a social function. And so I got caught into that crowd and it was just a good time. But also in Ohio, you can be very popular. You can come to LA, you can hide. Right. Nobody knows you.

So they don't know that your accountability for being a professional, there's no accountability. Right. They don't know that. Yeah, there's no accountability. You can fake it. It's all. Yes. There's no, you can't see any of the behind the scenes of anyone here really no like in in a

smaller city you can see you might run into maurice's cousin or maurice's aunt or a friend of maurice's like he's not doing well or here everybody will lie to prop everybody up yes and nobody even knows what anybody's really doing anyway and nobody really knows and so from there you know obviously i partied and jim brown reached out to me a couple times and i went to his house up in the hills and just from the the discipline he tried to implement on me i was resistant for him i was like yo how much of africa's in jim brown's house i bet i could see him having masks i could see him having like traditional mombasa warriors like i bet he gets really real in there does he

no he's a serious dude uh it's serious and just he has he has a great spirit and a great soul but uh if if if if i if i remember correctly just a bait like this very basic house but one thing he talks about is his view like if you go up there you can just see the whole city like it's a phenomenal view yeah and uh he always hosts like uh he probably still does it to some degree he used to host like meetings at his house every monday and tuesday nice and bring different I guess a phenomenal view. Yeah, and uh, he always hosts like uh, he probably still does it to some degree He used to host like meetings at his house every monday and tuesday Nice and bring different dudes from different gangs all over la to his house and you know bring in uh, Just people who would speak and it was just about basically basic fellowship on life. So he's big on that

Yeah, so he had the americam program and this was helping guys transition from prison Giving them job skills giving them uh different support once they were released back into society. So he had felt that since he's dealing with people who are gangsters, that they would take me in like a little brother and provide some structure for me to basically get better. Great idea, but I just wasn't ready for it. You know what I'm saying? In my mind, I was a celebrity. In my mind, I'm like, fuck, I'm somebody from Ohio. I'm not about to come out here and listen to guys and have structure and discipline and go to bed. It's hard to hear. It's hard to hear when you're a celebrity, isn't it?

Yes. When you think about it? When you think you're a celebrity. Right. Right. When you think you're a celebrity, when your ego really starts to puff up, it's hard to, you can listen to people, you can look at people, but it's hard to really hear them. There's something that's different. I would call it, there's no discernment. Right. So, um, I, cause,

cause this is what happens. You, you get to a space with how you've always wanted to live your life. Right. So, you know, I grew up in the MTV Cribs era. I always say that. Right. And so to a kid that is impressionable, you know, if, if I've made it, you know, like who doesn't like let's like you know i have a woman we've been together 14 years right but in that space i want to have sex with the most beautiful women yeah i want money everywhere i want to fucking bitley outside i want to rose royce outside i just want to live life oh yeah so anything that you get tigers

everybody gets tigers so you know i'm saying you? So, you know what I'm saying? You get to a, you're living some sort of pseudo moment in your head. You don't want this to end. Right. And so now you're coming to me as an advisor with a great advice. And I'm like, fuck, like, it makes sense, but this isn't helping me to do all this shit that I want to do. Right. Like, this isn't helping me, you know, fuck all these girls.

This isn't helping me be cool in the club. And fame like fame or notoriety is fucking intoxicating it's intoxicating especially when you don't have a lot of feelings already inside of yourself that kind of um that you can notice that sort of thing like you don't have like a real framework or a groundwork that builds you up from the inside any you know anyway um and i'm not saying that you don't i'm just saying even from my own life no it's like i know that there's things it's like man when things come in that seems appealing yeah um but you gotta ask yourself when did you figure out the discovery process of knowing yourself you know nobody's thinking 18 19 years old 35 maybe come on listen to me i'm still at

what do i value how do i love myself know, what is really important to me? I was sitting down today with John having coffee. I said, man, like I'm having fun sitting on a table outside having coffee at Starbucks. Yeah. I can appreciate just cars going by. You know what I'm saying? Right. Different, different appreciation.

Oh, yeah. I mean, it's, yeah, I mean, I got it. You know, I'm a sober guy now. So I got in a program about two and a half years ago. And that's the first time that I started learning. That's the first time I could almost really even hear anybody. Like before that, life was just this. It was great and there were great moments.

And I was involved and invested. But I just couldn't, I don't know. The things hadn't lined up enough. It was still too much of a Rubik's Cube, you know, for me. But not to take your story away. So you end up back out here. Jim Brown has you up in the hills. He's trying to help out.

Yes. So at that time, I disconnected from him and all things responsible. Ended up coming and met another gentleman. Still a good friend to me today. And his name was High. He was obviously in the 30 for 30. Oh, yeah. I saw him in the 30 for 30 oh yeah so i'm in the 30 for 30 yep so and and how i met high and at that time high uh was under a federal

federal case you know federal racketeering case and and that's highly noted uh and all over the internet and so what happened was we ended up going to a party at his house and he lived out in the marina and as we went to the party at the house i ended up bumping into him to make a long story short you know we was just just talking shit to each other. Just like, who are you? Where are you from? How did you get out here? We ended up partying some more that night.

And then he was just like, yo, you're kind of from Ohio. You've landed in LA. You don't know anybody out here. Hook up with me. Let me help you get your shit together. And I don't really understand even how it happened, even when I look back now. But it was one of the best and worst things to happen to me The best because I got a friend and a brother for life like that was that was guaranteed

there was also like a cool deal of just me getting exposed to other people who are successful outside of Athletics, okay, right you got in the in crowd. Yes, so i never knew somebody so they they own a shit ton of real estate you know probably a couple billion dollars uh worth of real estate and i can just remember thinking to myself i'm like how the fuck are these people so rich you know right as naive as it sounds at 20 19 20 years old i never seen somebody who had had money outside of athletes right i couldn't even conceive of people being like that massively successful of athletes. I couldn't even conceive of people being that massively successful. And so what ended up happening was that he was under a racketeering case at that time, and he was getting ready to go to trial maybe that next summer. And so every day he would get up at eight in the morning and he would have his curfew at 11, but he thought he was going to prison for a long

time. So it was all about living life to the fullest. Okay. And you were on that wave. And I was just, I happened to be a part of the boat. So I'm out here trying to semi-train for football, nothing really serious. And I'm also around him every day because this is the only person I know. Right. So we're talking about a guy who has three or four fucking Bentleys. Oh, yeah. A fucking house in Beverly Hills, a house in fucking uh by the beach

and just seeing that as a young man it can't it really i could imagine probably in your scenario i don't even i don't know if it could help that much seeing all that you know but but it makes it worse and i gotta say this one of the worst things that can happen is that you get into a vehicle or you get around people who are super successful And you lose sight that this is their success. You're just living in it. Yeah, you know i'm saying oh, yeah and so the hunger for me to want to become something had faded because I thought I made it yeah and 19 20 years old you're not processing like this is their shit, right? You know i'm saying but you have a sex with beautiful women, you know, because there's a lot of beautiful insecure women out here Oh, yeah, this is the sex belt out here man. It's the sex belt think saying but you have a sex with beautiful women you know because there's a lot of beautiful insecure women out here oh yeah you're the sex belt out here man it's the sex

belt think about this you have a mercedes i got a 2004 five mercedes 604 in my garage is 2004 you have a 745 out here it's a brand new cars you're living in the marina yeah you know you got money in your pocket you're partying you got goldfish made out of real gold yeah you know what i'm saying i remember they couldn't even swim like damn those fish are heavy man yeah like that's a 14 karat flounder right there you know they got all kind of stuff so you so you so you have the bad scenario you get caught up uh you you have you have influences but but their life isn't your life yes and you're starting to believe that it is or of course if that is who wouldn't i'm starting i'm starting to but it's easier to live the lie.

And you end up, and I remember you ended up back in the NFL combine. Yes. Went back to the NFL, went to the combine, failed horribly. I ended up coming back to LA, and as I come back to LA, I'm thinking like, I'm not going to get drafted anymore. And after I ended up getting drafted in the third round, I went to Denver, and really it was just a shit show in a nutshell. I couldn't stop partying. I was literally going to the clubs and we'll stay out till maybe three or four in the morning and we have to be to practice at seven. So I'm coming to practice in the morning, like shit, you know what I'm saying? Not just a professional athlete.

And I always talk about Denver because I can't, I can't really shit on Denver. They tried to help me. Right. So throughout the process, they tried to sit me down with a sports psychologist and they said, Hey, you know, can you please slow down, you know, get with the sports psychologist and allow her to assist you because they kept on saying, you've experienced a lot of trauma before you've come to here. Right. Instability. So at my mind, I'm like, okay, I'm not about to sit here and talk to this lady one, because she was a lady. And two, I think that I'm a gangster. And this is like an old white lady trying to talk to me about ignorance, you know, not that she has some information but just pure ignorance so you fast forward that story we're getting ready to play the um indianapolis coats this is the third

game of the preseason they come to me again and they said hey can you sit down and uh work with the sports psychologist but also get on the practice squad like just sit yourself down like allow us to develop right in my mind i process that as i'm not good enough and you want to sit me out yeah couldn't see the forest for the trees right yeah so the next thing you know i push her away they call me that next day they cut me that morning i end up getting on a plane coming back to la and when i got here you know the depression went from like you know a two to a negative 40 right and it's building behind the scenes you don't even know it no absolutely it's such a monster right? And it's building behind the scenes and you don't even know it.

No, absolutely. It's such a monster, the way that depression and that kind of stuff, and all of it can be building in your base and you don't even realize it. 100%, 100%. And when I get here, this is when I knew I was real fucked up.

Like sometimes like, you know, you have moments of clarity where you can identify how you really feel. I went to a party off of Sunset and I can remember like it was yesterday, I'm standing in the party and as I'm standing there, the whole party's going on. And I literally had smoked before I came. I had drunk before I came and I literally felt nothing. Didn't feel high. Didn't feel drunk. Didn't feel connected to the moment. Didn't feel the party.

Didn't feel the music. Like just was like in this like stale space. You know what I'm saying? Anybody ever been fucked up off of drugs know what I'm talking about right so the next thing you know i get um i get in the party i'm fucking around and uh i was like man i gotta get the fuck out of here i just knew i had to exit la yeah so i get back to the house uh i went to uh that time i was banking with fucking whoever that next day withdrew my money because they didn't have the same bank in ohio caught a one-way ticket to ohio and went home left Left all my shit, right? So I connected with my coach when I came back home. And when I connected with him, the whole thing was like,

hey, you know, I need to get my shit together. I feel lost. Like, I'm just, like, totally disconnected from fucking reality. So I ended up coming back to Ohio. When I got back here, the coach had gave me a bunch of instructions. Like, you know, a bunch of shit to do to help me get back home. Direction, yeah. Did you follow no but he always talked he always talks about coach trestle always talks about takeaways after we're done talking and he said you know i need you

to go back to school but then i also need you to get in better shape the first thing was like fucking shit ton hard because i couldn't get back at school because i didn't know how to do the fucking work right so i was rejecting that in the back of my head the second one i said okay i'll start to get in shape so as i started to get in shape and wake up and go to the gym that he referred me to like i started to feel better look better the whole night but what happened was i had a ton of free time on my hands right so i'm 21 at this time ton of free time on my hands no money can't pay for rent really didn't have like the humility to go get a job right back to the street yeah back to the streets where you're still a king you're always a king there in my mind right

in my mind so i get back in the streets and as i'm getting back into the streets the drugs are not as accessible as they were before because the guy who i was messing with he ends up going to the federal penitentiary yeah so now i mess with all type of new guys inconsistent i still got back but i got la habits so la habits are spend money like it's fucking going out of style you were just with a guy who spends thousands every day yeah so i'm still caught into that mind frame oh yeah you'll tip a rich guy in la you'll be a fucking rich dude you'll give him 20 he'll be like i don't even want this is it but but you lose your fucking mind agreed you lose your mind right and so i come here

i mean so i get out there the next you know, money's starting to slow up. So now I'm like, fuck it. I got to start robbing people now. Yeah. So now I'm robbing people. Damn, that's cool. And not to laugh, man. It's just so wild, bro.

It's fucking delusional, though. You know, I could have came back to LA, humbled myself, really talked to my guy and said, I got to get my shit together. But my pride wouldn't allow me just to be where I was at. Right. So the next thing you know, I end up catching a robbery case in Columbus. And so I'm kicked out of college, kicked out of the NFL. Did you do it? Were you the robber?

Yeah. A hundred percent. A hundred percent. Yeah. I got caught. You know what I'm saying? He came up his shoulder as he ran a four to two. It was definitely him.

The bad, like, so i feel bad like right like what is this this is 2018 now i feel fucking bad for doing it uh but you know you're a good robber or not i was i was good into that point but so no but these are the like the irony of this is probably my first time saying this shit there's the wrong people so the the people were i supposed to go and rob they weren't there Are you an inaccurate Robber You're supposed to Hit the A gap

And you hit the B gap That's what happened So if the people Listen I'm sorry You know This is Theo laughing And not me And I'm just laughing

I'm laughing Because I can laugh Now at the pain I can see You know It replaces it When you can laugh now at the pain i can see you know it replaces it when you can laugh at it later every place you got that right i don't know i was i was uh yeah you were different i was out of my fucking mind out of your mind out of my mind and so uh what ended

up i ended up getting caught for that and i was out on bond but january 2006 to sept august when i got arrested i was just out of my fucking mind. And, you know, I'm committing more crimes because I have no money. My lady's pregnant at this time. My daughter's getting ready to be born. And I'm like, you know, you're going to the penitentiary. It's like the perfect storm. You ever seen that movie, The Perfect Storm,

with the Andrea Gale? No. And it's like the ship and everything, the ship, it's like it starts off, it has a great plan. And the next thing you know, it's just trying to catch shrimp. And it's in the middle of like nine tidal waves and a typhoon. You could probably call it that. Yeah.

It just seemed like, I can't even imagine that. At 21. At 21. So just at 21, imagine having everything at the height of your life. You lose everything. Put this in context, right? After you lose everything, every decision that you make is fucking retarded. Yeah.

When you fucking think about it. Excuse my language, but it's stupid. And you fast forward everyone's ignorant at 21 yes especially people that you know that if you don't have certain guidance or you are you not really connected to the whatever guidance you have you know yeah i think that's good you're not connected to the guidance you have i think that that was uh that would accurately describe me. And from there, nine months later, I ended up going to get caught. I came down to Columbus. This is a real story. I tried to tell it to ESPN, but they didn't include it.

And as I come down to Columbus, I get off on the wrong exit. This is about 3 in the morning. As I get off on the exit, I come to the stoplight, and I make a U-turn in the middle of the road. So I make the U-turn. There was a Home Depot parking lot, and there was a police officer sitting there. make a U-turn in the middle of the road. So when I make the U-turn, there was a Home Depot parking lot and there was a police officer sitting in there. Make the U-turn, I have an AK-47 on the passenger side, right? I'm out on bond. And as he comes up to me, I start thinking about this episode from Cops, right? I have no fucking clue why. So I'm thinking to myself,

when he walks up, I'm going to pull off. And from there, you know, I get away. So he walks up in the car, and literally I could see when he looked on the passenger side, he see the fucking rifle. So he's, like, nervous as shit. I'll fucking speed off. He's running back to his car, and I'm coming over on this bridge on this thing called Bryce Road. I get on the on-ramp. He's right behind me. Here's a real deal.

I'm trying to get away in a Hyundai Santa Fe. You know what I'm saying'm saying i hate to get away car you know that's hectic boy yeah and so uh now now the next thing you know we're running down a freeway and uh we get about four or five miles down the road and as i get further down the road uh you know i'm from i'm not from louisiana i'm from youngstown right we have fucking like buildings and shit i start to see the woods right and so i'm thinking to myself Like you know Brothers don't do no woods Right That's dangerous

A lot of brothers End in the woods That's where it ends Yeah Even on cops Even on cops That's where cops ends Every time

It's in the woods Absolutely So let me turn my ass around So I turn my ass around And next thing you know They had the The fucking spike strips They go out

They bust the tires That's a cop out bro If I'm a cop A real cop, get out there and shoot somebody. No. Lay the strips down. You know what I'm saying, bro? That's easy. That's like when they hire a dog to do the cop's job.

Get out there and get your neck wet. Well, when they got me, they caught me. You hit the strips? Yeah, I hit the strips. When they throw them, hopefully you'll never be in a situation where you're going to run. Those fucking strips are probably 40 yards long, man. Oh, wow. You throw them, hopefully you'll never be in a situation where you've got to run. Those fucking strips are like probably 40 yards long, man. Oh, wow. You throw them out there.

Probably 20. I would say a legitimate 20 yards. They throw them out there, and you can't even swerve to get around them. And they busted the tires. And the next thing you know, I ended up getting pulled over. Easily getting pulled over at that point. Easily getting pulled over at that point. And they took me out.

They roughed me up, threw me in the back of the car um you know shit and basically took me downtown and uh the next thing you know uh i call this like one of the uh i call it my divine intervention moment yeah i'm saying because i i believe personally had that not happened i really believe and i know people talk about a lot i can just see myself either going to prison for life or being dead yeah and yeah because what's next after that when you think about the scale of anything what's next after you you know running from police and having guns it's like there's not much else after that bro you just keep you keep on pushing the proverbial uh bar until you just fucking believe that shit doesn't stink anymore and the next thing you know you put yourself in a horrible situation. And were you grateful?

You think when that happened a little bit? I guarantee if you go talk to people in treatment, talk to people who got locked up, even though you don't want to admit it because it sounds crazy. You're glad you're glad that you're in a circumstance that you can't get in your way anymore. And that was my my my exact feeling. I can't get away. I can't get in my way anymore because God, I can't get in my way. If I do my my exact feeling i can't get away i can't get in my way anymore because god i can't get in my way if if i do it i'm gonna fuck it up i just don't have the discipline right now and another thing that happened to me i went to court that next week because i was wednesday i went to court like that next monday or some shit the judge had mandated

that i get that i get a mental health assessment so i've been pushing away all this mental health assistance in college and the pros and all this other shit. She mandated I get it and I was suffering from anxiety and depression. Yeah. Right? Yeah. Finally get on mental health medication.

My first seven months of my incarceration, literally in a room, probably about the third of this size, a nine by four cell, you're locked down 23 hours out the day. You know what I'm saying? Three pairs of drawers, three socks,

three t-shirts, same toilet that you piss and shit in. It's the same shit that you drink water out of. You know know i'm saying three pairs of drawers three socks three t-shirts same toilet that you piss and shit in it's the same shit that you drink water out of yeah i'm saying yeah literally basic basic shit and uh in that process i call that like you know like um probably the most introspective awakening process of my life you know it was almost like a childhood or like an adolescence in a weird way because you're very limited there's not much you can do you can't really you're safe in a way you can't really harm yourself great way to look at it you know great way to look at a chance for your brain to just be patient for a minute you know you know what you do you empty yourself because when you get caught uh and this is a real experience

and i've heard more people admit to it you start to think about everything you've done wrong yeah and you start to like cleanse your you've done wrong. Yeah. And you start to like cleanse your mind of thoughts of things to put you in here, right? Because there's nothing to distract you. You can't do anything to distract yourself. And what ended up happening was, like the greatest fucking thing, all of that isolation of God,

I will promote this book to the day I die. A guy dropped off a book, a small 70 page read called As a Man Thinketh by James Allen. The most impactful book I've ever read in my life, bar none, comparison to none. Very simple. And I was asking myself, like, how did you get here, Reese? And after reading the book fucking 70 times in that situation, the book kept on showing me that thoughts are things. Until thought is linked with purpose, nothing me that thoughts are things until thought is linked

with purpose nothing intelligent should ever happen until thought is linked with purpose nothing intelligent should ever happen i kept on thinking myself like what the fuck does that mean at first right what a man thinks about plants in his brain plants his mind he shall manifest whatever conceive believe and achieve and speak up over it shall come so true isn't it bro so fucking true so simple though yeah but when we grow, we think like life is just a series of events, like random shit happens and you have no control over it. This game, supreme control over me creating my life.

Wow. And so I said, Oh, I thought I was a gangster. So I responded as a gangster. I talked as a gangster, but gangster shit has consequences within the American system. You ended up as a gangster.

You're running from the police. You got AKs on the seat. That's you were, you get everything that you want you know i'm saying so then i'm transitioned to prison at this time i get seven and a half years yeah uh now i want to take this medication i'm stable i'm calm i'm cool like there's no anxiety there's no like i gotta get somewhere something that makes you go yeah that's absolutely like a dirty motor a dirty fucking motor you can% you can label it that. I get to prison. There's a gentleman by the name of Mr. Calicante, the warden of the prison.

Beautiful guy. Talked a bunch, but he said, Maurice, my father was a chief of Sierra Leone for 15 years. Wow. He said, in Africa, he said, when guys would do something wrong, we would bring them closer to the village, figure out what's going wrong, help them out, fix them back up, and then send them back out. He said, in America, you all throw people away. He said he said this is not over i don't want to throw you away so i'm like all right this is like all right cool i've been in my fucking way this much right next thing you know he said i want to put you in a bunch of psychological social and emotional supportive courses right at this point i never heard of this shit but for those who don't know it's therapy you know all he told me is like you're going therapy. But guys in prison don't want to call it therapy.

It's just you're going to classes, right? And so through the process of that, I start going to these fucking classes every day from like 8 in the morning until 12 in the afternoon. And how educated were you at this point? And not judging your education or anything, but like at this point, how were you? Like, could you read a book? No. I was going to get into that. No.

So I could read the words, but I probably couldn't comprehend. Right. No. So I could read the words, but I probably couldn't comprehend. Right. Right. So my talent allowed them to, or I allowed myself to basically be pushed through school. Oh, yeah. Since about 10th grade. Like me and Corey were laughing. I had a 13 on my ACT and I cheated to get into college.

You know what I'm saying? Right. Right. The barriers weren't there. There was nothing to tell you, hey, look, there was no mirrors really for you. It was just all just one-way signs kind of as long as you can generate revenue on this football field we'll find a way to get you to the football field so and then you never think it's going to win you never think it's going to end of course not you know i'm saying so uh we look we literally

got done with that but then another thing happened after i was doing that uh i didn't realize that that same motivation that i had to be a great football player was the same. Like that was an energy that was inside of me just wanted to do something phenomenal. Right. So I said, OK. That's a great. I was going to ask you about this. Yeah.

So I said, what do you do when you want to be good at football? You go watch film from people you want to be like. So I said, OK, I want to be a businessman because there were so many entrepreneurial things that drug dealing had gave me. I always say crime in its inception is entrepreneurial. I want to take control of my own destiny. Oh yeah. Drug dealer. People always look at a drug dealer like a bad guy. I'm like, that's a bit, that man is a businessman. Wrong product. Right. Yeah. Bad product. Bad product. But he's the businessman. He sources product. He sells, he retains customers. He gives consignment. He worked with logistics.

That's really true. Capital allocation. We can go on and on and on. Yeah, agreed. But that's what he does. And so I said, okay, let me formally teach myself about this. So I started educating myself and reading and reading. So I used to go to commissary, and when people would send me money, $20, $30 here, I would start to get legal pads.

And I would start to do book reports and just read from people, read from people, read from people, read entrepreneur, incorporate a fast company, wall street journal, New York times. And how are you feeling at this point? Like, are you like, I mean, are you still thinking about football at this point? No. So at that time I was 22 and I'm at seven and a half years would have put me out of prison. I'd have been 30 years old. So at that point I'm like, you know, I'll never play football again. And so I was just anxious to learn something else that I can take care of myself with. And so through reading, I was just like, yo, there's a fucking big world out here. You can be successful in anything you want. So, and if you ever hear me talk, I always talk about fucking reading changed my life. Nothing

else. Reading changed my life. It just opened my eyes up to what was possible what you can do how you can create your world how you can take that same work ethic and place it elsewhere and what about your child at this point is your baby born yet yeah so she's born and and uh and you can't see her you can see her during visitations so what would happen is that uh you know every probably three months and I stopped them from coming because it was easier to live the life prison as if they didn't exist. Oh, wow. So you tell your wife about that or you tell you told her that. So it became hard.

So if you came to see me, it will remind me of what I was missing. Oh, wow. So if I see you, I got to see like, fuck, this is a whole child. She's around me. I mean, she's around me in the moment. I'm visiting my emotions that I cut off in prison. This shit is like for real. You know what I'm saying?

Like, what the fuck am I doing? You'll start to beat yourself up. Is that a common practice for people that are inmates sometimes or people that are incarcerated? You have two different extremes. Some guys like a ton of visits because they like to live in the outside world. Right. like a ton of visits because they like to live in the outside world right so you know prison is like prison i always say is the most intense environment you can ever be in you know i'm saying so just think about this right and there's no women in there it's all men the guard women the guards

are women sometimes you know that's got to be that's got to even be worse like damn i can't even get a woman this one's making me go to bed. Yeah, man. It's fucking nuts, man. Just imagine like six o'clock in the morning. So first of all, the lights never go out. Just imagine this. I used to have a roommate in college. I wouldn't turn the lights out, dude. And it fucking pissed me off, bro.

So you'll be pissed off in prison. This dude, Lester. Yeah. If fucking Lester's out there, they call him lit up Lester, bro. This dude was fluorescent as fuck. Bulbs all day, bro. Bulb, bulb, bulb, bull bulbs the dude love light bulbs on all day he walk in any room and he wouldn't even in the room and just turn on the fucking

lights and roll out like fuck him yeah there was something riding in his head if he had lights on it made him feel comfortable so he would cut them on everywhere he went man and fuck you lester bro so i mean he's a nice kid but he he wasted a lot of money around America with all this wattage. Erroneous wattage, bro. Well, prison is wasting a lot of money, and they keep the fucking lights on all day. But could you imagine six in the morning, you have to be like it's game day every day? You know, it's fucking nuts, bro. It's not game day either.

But it's game day. We're not talking about sporadic events. You're talking about on a consistent basis, guys getting their ass kicked at 6 in the morning. We got into it at recreation last night. We go on a chow. You get your ass kicked on the way to chow. You're talking about motherfuckers getting fucking baby oil and hot water

thrown in their face over fucking card games. You're talking about motherfuckers just intense environment all day what were some things that you liked about it the one thing you like about prison is the respect factor and so in society if i disrespect you or you disrespect me we can like walk away you know or hire lawyers bullshit we can do other thing in prison it is the ultimate punishment fast. So there's no lying. There's no talking behind people's back. There's no people bullshitting you.

Wow. There's no stealing if you can't like defend yourself or taking what you want from people. There's no gossiping. There's none of that. And everything has a serious demeanor. People in prison

literally don't look at each other, right? So I can remember like for four years walking through prison, like you don't look at people. Because you don't want to show your cards. Your cards are in your eyes. If we don't talk to each other, we don't have no business with each other. We don't need to look at each other. We don't need to speak to each other. So there's a there's an organ.

There's there's a sense of organization in prison. That's fascinating. There's a sense of discipline within the within the element or within the environment. Right. Did you have altercations in prison or no? Yeah, just over, but over bullshit, over a washer. So you just think about this, right? So you have a washer and this is a serious thing.

If you allow somebody to skip you online to wash your clothes, it can be perceived wrong. You have arguments over the microwave. These are serious things. You have arguments over the microwave these are serious things have arguments over a basketball game right and so this forces you to defend like your space and so prison everybody's trying to just imagine you're in a neighborhood and all the sales are houses everybody's trying to state claim as to who they are in that neighborhood yeah and it's either you are with the guys you're with the populace you're with the populace, you know what I'm saying, the majority, either with the Bloods, Crips, Mexican guys, you know, or guys who are within a white gang. And there's many different factions.

But you have all of that within one housing unit. And so for everybody to coincide, there has to be an extreme amount of respect amongst each other. This is every day, bro. Every day. You only have three telephones. It's not like Monopoly, but with knives, bro. knives bro it sounds fucking intense you know so you just imagine that so i've learned click i've learned quickly when i'm here this ain't my program right like this ain't my deal like you know i don't what i did in the streets and what the consequences were

like yo this is not you like and so i had to admit that to myself that i'm not ready to die here right you know so i'm not ready to fight over a fucking microwave i'm not ready i'm not ready to die over a microwave right i'm not ready to die over disrespect in prison like it's just not this is not my environment so you have guys like literally who are fucking nuts and i can call it for what it is these guys are fucking nuts guys are never going home so right they got nothing to lose my sentence is seven and a half years so my circumstances aren't like yours because the and call it for what it is. These guys are fucking nuts. Guys are never going home. Right. They got nothing to lose. My sentence is seven and a half years. So my circumstances aren't like yours because the average person in prison

who I was at, these guys are doing 15 years or better. So the way they look at what's going on, the way I look at what's going on is two different things. So I said, Reese, your program is to get your ass in here, re-educate yourself, figure out what you want to do, and get the fuck out of here. That's what I did. And at this point, when you get out who's still there that was there whenever like are any of the

celebrities and the stars is any of that still no so um i give it to mike tomlin uh the coach for uh oh yeah pittsburgh yeah he reached out and wrote me a letter which is beautiful because i'm like you know you guys are fucking at that time that won the super bowl and for you to think about maur Claret in fucking prison, who've never, I didn't go to NFL around for yards, which was great. And literally that was it. You know, but, you know, you start to look at it different because you start to look at life as, you know, these people don't owe me anything. They don't owe me the personal connection. And you start to realize that your friendships are just circumstantial. As long as you're that guy entertaining or you have a certain status amongst peers, people would love to be associated with you. But when you're not that

guy anymore, there was never a human connection or a human part to that. And so I can't say it was the same in all cases, but you're not a factor. You don't help me get pussy. You don't help me get in the club. You don't help me get an endorsement deal. You don't help me to do that. So we don't hold any value. Right. And the only people I had in my corner, like outside of anybody, it was just my mother, my lady, my daughter.

And that was it, bro. You know, I just called it for what it is. That was it. Yeah. And so when I got out of prison, you know, fuck, I have 400 bucks, you know what I'm saying? And I had bunches of people who were. And what was your attitude like?

Because would you, I mean, because you had had, I mean, fiscally, maybe you, who knows what you had in like your, you know, but you were at, I mean, just, yeah, you were at this superficial level of a billionaire. I mean, you were a superficial billionaire. Yeah, superficial, yes. Right. superficial level of a billionaire i mean you were a superficial billionaire not superficial yes right like not you personally but the you know the the environment inside yeah in your psyche it's like you think you're a billionaire bro let me tell you this is it was very fucking humbling you know and um and what kept you like going at that point at those moments like to know after from reading from people so many success stories there wasn't a shadow of a doubt like so if you talk to me long enough i even outside of this you'll see i got a a shit ton of confidence i just believe like anything i attach myself to or put my put my

focus on and i just really focus on i feel like i can have success you're gonna do well with it there's not a shadow of a doubt um i don't even worry like weary it's always been in you that's always been in you so even from football to whatever I do, I just feel like if I focus on something, I can figure it out. So I had read so many success stories and just the process of it. And I'm very disciplined. I got a fucking crazy work ethic. These are things that I just know I can control. And so I knew I would be successful in something. And the thing I wanted to be successful in initially was senior care services. And this happened from, I used to have eight ladies. I used to call them my golden girls. These are old ladies who said, we identify with people who are incarcerated because

as our children grow up, they forget about us. Oh, wow. And they start to live their families. They start to like live their lives. It's a huge problem in America. A lot of senior citizens are really forgotten about a lot of men up in homes, really not being cared for appropriately. So I had people who told me that. And so they said, these are just real needs. So they all said this, but they weren't from one place. They were just Ohio state fans and Maurice Claret fans. Right. As I said, man, this would be a cool deal to learn it, to understand it, but to provide care, transportation and so on and so forth. That was the initial thing. But from seeing so much success or reading from so much success, I was like, I can actually do this. And that was my motivation. I just was like, I'll put myself together at some point. And so I ended up getting

out of prison in 2010. And I had an opportunity to play football for a minor league team in Omaha, Nebraska. Great fucking city, if anybody's never been to Omahaaha and so i went out to omaha and i thought that omaha was going to be like full of just fucking cornfields and everything else and it wasn't and it was some of the most down-to-earth good people american it's the most american place that you can fucking name and from small businesses to people who are fucking millionaires billionaires driving pickup trucks simple everyday shit from people who were so successful. But what Omaha also allowed me to do was to adjust slowly. So I got out here, I was able to play football, go to the gym, come home, talk to my family and just do like simple

shit. Some safe regimen in a safe environment. Safe regimen. But I also, I also, I also talk about this, like this is one of the greatest experiences in omaha aside from playing football when i was in prison i had read so much uh from warren buffett fucking shit tons of information when i went to omaha i knew warren buffett was out there and things like that right so uh our coach ended up being this guy by the name of joe moglia joe moglia had made probably 400 million dollars he ended up leaving as the active ceo of td ameritrade he ended up becoming the um uh the chairman of the board so out of all things he wanted to do he wanted to get back into coaching football he ended up coming back to be the head coach of our team so every wednesday he would tell guys like hey if you have anything that you want

to ask financially come and meet me on wednesdays wow out of everybody only two of us showed up right every week so he said fuck that i'm not about to keep on making this available the guys had no fucking clue of what he was offering valuable information from a motherfucking titan right so he said maurice come to the golf course with me i'm like yo bro i can't play golf you know i'm saying he said just come to the golf course tell me your story how the fuck did you go from prison to ending up here so i told him my whole story. After I'm done, he said, I've never asked Warren for a favor in my life.

Let me see if I can call Warren Buffett and get him to meet you. So I'm thinking to myself, like, motherfucker, I'm 18 months released from prison. Like, this motherfucker ain't about to meet with my black ass. You know what I'm saying? So I walk into my apartment, and serious shit. Yeah, you know it's true, right? This is funny, man. So he's like, yeah, Warren Buffett ain't fucking about to know it's true, right? This is funny, man. So he's like,

Warren Buffett ain't fucking about to beat my black ass, right? So I walk through the fucking, the joint, I'm walking through the apartment, he hit my phone up, he's like, Maurice, he said, you know,

this is Warren. And I'm like, oh shit. You know, cause, and I remember his voice distinctly because I used to watch Charlie Rose in prison. I used to watch his motherfucking interview everybody, right?

And so Charlie Rose, my man, right? Minus the allegations, right? I'm not convicting my man. It is what it is, right? And so we end up going, right? I end up calling him, right? Or he end up calling me. I'm talking to him on the phone.

And he's like, yo, you got anything I'm going to do on Saturday? I'm like, yo, whatever's going on Saturday is canceled. Don't even worry about that, right? And so I'm getting my shit together. I go to TJ Maxx at the time. I get my fucking outfit. I think it's the best thing. I'm broke as shit.

So I go over to his house. I go over to his office. And ironically, the person who had a meeting before him had canceled. And he was like, yo, do you want to hang out? And I'm like, you serious? And I'm like cancel and he was like yo do you want to hang out and i'm like you serious and i'm like yeah like you want to hang out so he's sitting there one-on-one for five hours right and so i'm asking to do everything i've like fucking dreamed of and uh it was like cool shit that happened was he preaching at you or was he cool to talk to was that dude this dude so he reads a fucking ton so it's easy for him to have a thoughtful intellectual personal conversation this was

saturday this dude is more fucking humble and down to earth than anybody i've ever fucking met right this dude controls fucking a shit ton of our world. Did you think about even asking him for like a million? I would have asked him for a million. And I would have called it a small million. Let me get a small million. I'm telling you, this dude was just like, he was like fucking, he was, he was zoned in, you know what I'm saying? And, uh, and so the next thing, you know, we ended up meeting and getting together and, uh, I had in i ended the meeting and fucking was like yo i know you got better shit to do and talk to me right you fucking run the world and uh the next thing you know i rolled out to um excuse me i rolled about rolled out back home a few months

after that esp and it reached out to me and they said hey can we do a 30 for 30 on your life yeah and um and and after that uh it took about eight months to shoot the show and uh i woke up one day after the show came out and i had 1100. And I remember literally 1100 emails from people just either talking and asking to come and speak. I've never done public speaking prior to that. And I ended up just going on the road and starting to tell my story and ask questions and answer questions. And from there, I ended up getting into the transportation business because i got tired of uh it literally felt as i was traveling and i'm pretty sure anybody who's traveled a lot you can feel lonely as cool as it may look to the outside oh it's long you're in a hotel by yourself you go uh you're a spectacle once you get on stage yeah after you get off stage you're

taking a picture you're talking hands and next thing you know you're thinking about what other city you're going to next right and so I had done about 350 speaking engagements in three years, which is a fuck ton. You know what I'm saying? That's a lot. After a while, I feel like you're just repeating words. And I was like, okay, let me get into another business because I don't want to depend on this my whole life. Like I can't force somebody to book me for an engagement. Right.

Right. And so from there, I ended up getting into transportation. And after transportation was doing what it did for a couple of years, I ended up going to an event in Ohio and I was doing the event. And through the process of doing the event, the event had ended. And there was a person, a gentleman who had been teaching some young men who were about like 17 or 18 years old, some of the work that we had done in prison. And I was like, yo, my man, where did you get this stuff from? It was cognitive behavioral therapy. It was an exercise with activating the event, the mind activity, the body reaction, the consequence. And this was stuff that I had helped to facilitate in prison. Wow. It's one of the things they teach

you in licensed clinical social work. It's one of the things they teach in the first year. It's like one of the CBT. Yes, sir. Yes, sir. And, uh, what ended up happening was that, uh, I just like enjoying what he was talking about. I was like, you know, what do you do? And he was like, you know, I run a behavioral health agency. And I said, what the fuck is a behavioral health agency? He was like, I work with mental health and drug and alcohol. And for me having so many issues with drugs. You're like, this is my, yeah, this is my home. This is my home.

But even going through that work in prison, I felt that out of everything that was helping to rehabilitate guys, the actual work, the social work, right? The therapeutic services were the things that guys would come back to the block and talk about and have intellectual discussions or guys would become revealing about themselves in a therapeutic format. And I thought to myself, like more kids in the intercity need to basically be involved and connected with this. So I went through like an eight month process of policies and procedures. We go through that uh deal in the process of doing that i end up

opening up our company called the red zone and at first we went back to literally inner cities and i thought that um there was so much emotionally like i was thinking about to my childhood uh the amount of murders i had seen the amount of domestic violence and robberies and just the amount of trauma that i had been experienced that i never processed. I never emotionally got over it. I was functioning from a space of fear or where the drugs and alcohol masked some of my childhood shit. Oh, yeah. Yeah, you keep it inside of you. And your father wasn't present when you were growing up? No. So I was born in 83 and my mother divorced in 84. I see, yeah.

And so my mother never down talked him or or made him out to be a bad person but just through their disconnect like there just wasn't any male involvement so my mother uh worked as a second year educational coordinator in medical school so she worked 45 minutes away so as a result from that the kids come home alone a lot yeah so now the neighborhood in the environment raises you starts to raise you yeah and so how i found i mean obviously i've known about you right okay and a lot of people like when i said maurice claret's gonna come on the podcast you know i listen to his podcast business and biceps you and uh cory and john and it's um it's a great hang it's like uh if you know if i recommend checking out their podcast because it's a fun – it's like – I don't know what it is.

I can't tell if I feel like I'm at the gym or the office or the therapist. That's what I can't tell, but that's what I like about it. But I'm glad you feel that because that's the intention. And it's exactly what I feel. It's like there's moments where it's like, okay, this is uplifting and this is inspiring. And then there's moments where it's like it's just this is uplifting and this is inspiring. And then there's moments where it's like, it's just guys like joking around. It feels like a fantasy football league. And then there's moments where it's like, you know, the other day you guys were talking about loyalty and stuff like that.

And even if I don't resonate with everything that's said on the podcast, and we're going to have Corey and John in in just a few minutes. Even if I don't resonate with everything, there's just, every now and then, it makes me think of something. Like, oh, loyalty makes me, just hearing about loyalty makes me think, oh, well, you know, let me think back into my life. Loyalty, if I were to go back and make a list of who's been loyal to me in my life, it's just, you know, it's fun to hear

just things that you hear, you're then inspired to think about, you know? But I think one of the biggest things that we talked about this last night at dinner and what the focal point even is just to bring like real things that you feel. Yeah. I'm a real big feel person. Yeah.

If you don't feel it as you're saying it, it's not real. It's like entertainment. Right. And when we talk about business and you talk about growing business from our business standpoint, we try to talk about things that are actually real and not like the cute pictures and videos and bullshit bitch music on instagram that like misleads kids you know so because oh 100 especially young kids yes but you and so you could be misled so if you've given me your time a fucking hour just think about this right so people are giving you an hour of their fucking day or 40 minutes or 30 minutes or however long the format is right you kind of owe it to them if they believe in you and they're giving you ear

to be thoughtful and pure with your entertainment and to give a message that's real yeah and so that way like at the core level so i heard denzel say this on um charlie rose he said from the specific comes the universal so if you can connect to yourself and get down to specific emotion i'm pretty sure that may work in comedy right you're drawing from something i don't give a fuck like you're drawing from something that's how it connects to people because people like oh i feel that i can laugh from it right yeah this disconnects somewhere and so the podcast is a format of things that like uh i've actually been through things that we actually experience yeah and and and. And having a level of entertainment that doesn't seem cheesy, phony, or like commercial.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? But that's real. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And so like you have, you also have an element to where people who have come from humble beginnings.

You know what I'm saying? Corey literally comes from the trailer parks. John comes from a poor background in Chicago. You know, very, I come from humble beginnings. You know what I'm saying? Corey literally comes from the trailer parks. John comes from a poor background in Chicago. I come from the hood in fucking Youngstown. Yeah, and it's a great voice that's out there. I mean, that's one of the things that I really like about you guys' cast is that, yeah, it connects. It's the Midwest, you know.

It's hardworking. Our producer Nick is from Wisconsin, and he's one of the hardest workers I know. It's like, you know, it's a voice that's, that's not out there as much these days. I feel like, um, or that you can't find on the coast anyway. And so it's, you know, that's what I really love listening about it. Um, I've got a couple more questions for you and then we're going to, uh, we're going to take a break for a few minutes and get Corey and John in here and we're going to do another

hour with the guys. Um, and some, some listener questions as well. Oh yeah. We got some Corey and John in here. And we're going to do another hour with the guys. And some listener questions as well. Oh yeah, we got some listeners and questions as well. I just want to ask you this. Do you feel like do you feel like you were always going to be

do you feel like football was supposed to be your thing? Or do you feel like that you were always be your thing or do you feel like that you were always going to be good at something? I don't know if that's a wild question or not. I was not. Um, I don't think when I was young, I think football when I was young was a way to, uh, fit in and grab friends. Right. Yeah. I think, um, I didn't necessarily like football. I like to work hard. Right. And I also looked at football as a vehicle to get out of my situation. Right.

But I didn't love football. Didn't love it at all. I love the element of competing, but not football as much as that. And the older I got and I started to realize the science of working hard and understanding what you're working towards and being clear at that, I have a confidence, not to sound arrogant, but I believe that I can be successful at whatever it is I choose to put my attention to. And so I don't know if that answers the question, but I still feel like I'll be great at something because I know how to just connect with my feelings. And I know anything that I may be connected to will be connected to what's real and not even a commercial success like you know uh i'll be

successful just because i'll be doing shit that makes me happy this makes me like as corny and cliche as it may sound but this like sitting down makes me happy yeah talking to you oh i can tell man look when i was uh watching 30 for 30 i mean i I mean, I was teared up at one point, like just seeing you, like, you know, you could just kind of tell, um, I don't know, just that you were just a really deep person emotionally, you know? Yeah. And that, and I, I'm that, I'm that same way, you know? And I noticed when I'm growing up, if I didn't have like somebody to tell me that it was okay to be that way, then it's like like i was always didn't know what was going on with my emotions you know absolutely and so then you have this whole life where you have these emotions but you don't know if it's even okay to think about them or how to feel or so but just

imagine you pioneering a space for that to be cool right yes right so so now if i look up to you if i look at the maurice i look up to anybody now this guy talking about it now like this is a real thing yeah now this is cool to be indifferent about my emotions it's cool to be not cool but being sad is normal being confused is normal having anxiety is normal right uh feeling indifferent about different things like and so even as you say that it just it just affirms and gives confirmation that that's the road i keep on needing to travel because there's more people who fucking putting your voice in the ear on a consistent basis who needs that. And that helps them to heal or to be whole as they're moving forward. Oh, it's a good, it's an amazing gift, man. I mean, it's, I think you have that. I really feel

like you have that gift. I like it to a remarkable level of anybody that I've, you know, listened to or heard or, um, yeah, i don't know i just i have this why like you just have an uncanny ability um to iterate comfortably to others um like kind of how you feel and then also how it kind of fits into what you're doing though you know um because sometimes it's so hard to connect those two you know it's so hard to connect those two. Yes. It's so hard to connect those two and still stay confident in it and moving forward. Oh, I get it. I get it. But I don't know.

Do you feel like that's a blessing? Do you feel like that's a learned thing? Yeah. I think it's a learned from experience. But I believe it's a blessing because it allows me to walk as a whole person everywhere I go. Yeah. And I don't have to bring a representative. I don't have to,

um, like I get to, I get, I get to be me, you know, like, like, um,

if I would, if I would have did this podcast 10 years ago, I would have said, man, I care about my jeans, what my shoes going to look like. Yeah. I got on a $5 red,

red, red, hot chili pepper shirt. I don't even know who they are. You know what I'm saying? But I like the shirt. You know what I'm saying? He thought it was from maybe a farmer's market i got on 30 dollars and we got red hot chili peppers right here that's ironic we just got this plant um you feel like i'm coming

from no i feel you and i don't this is i honestly this is the most dressed up i've got because i honestly i was so excited about you guys coming in oh i appreciate it i appreciate it but i feel yeah i just feel yeah like i i listen to you and i feel like you really embody a lot of what we want you know like what we try to do here you know we got a lot a lot of our listeners are young men that have struggled you know and that you know have struggled you know being raised by single parents that sort of thing and um and yeah i'm just i'm glad that to be able to help turn some of our listeners on you guys podcast because I think that There's a you know, you guys have a wealth of knowledge in a fun way

Um and emotional knowledge to offer people man No, I even so they gave me when they told me who you were before I purposely did not Look at you because I said, okay. I looked at something on ig and I said, okay I don't want to form an opinion of somebody Yeah, and then but because you want to like you want to go and have like the natural energy of something. And even through talking, you could tell if something is forced, you can tell the energy

and you could tell if it isn't right. But when I was on the plane yesterday, I was coming down, I don't know where the fuck we were at, but I said, man, everything feels right. Right. And so, you know how this stuff feels right. Yeah. Like my relationship. Oh yeah.

A hundred percent. Things feel right, but not only feel right. And, you know, we talked about this at dinner. Like oh yeah 100 things feel right but not only feel right um and you know we talked about this at dinner like i know why they feel right and i know how you can push the gas for things to get better than what they are look better what they are and um if anybody like has ever felt that feeling that's like a beautiful feeling to have yeah and uh to know you yourself i'm not drinking drugging i'm not fucking being uh uh uh bad towards my woman i'm not fucking sleeping around uh i'm great to the guys and we have a good relationship powerful huh you feel i'm coming from and and the stuff that we're talking

about is stuff that you can like actually say this is what i do and the preservation of that in a in a society right now um where so much is driven off side of uh let me look cool and let me promote what's fake i think that even you we owe it to people to provide platforms to be like okay like humanity still does exist yeah right that's a no i get that uh there's something about you. You don't like to be the center of attention in a weird way. Or the way it makes you feel doesn't land super well inside of you. I'll put it like this. The center of attention is too much responsibility, my man. And I would be the center of attention if it was simple. Right.

You know, in that thing. But a lot comes with the center of attention. Yeah was simple. Right. You know, in that thing. But sometimes- But a lot comes with the center of attention. Yeah, because you're whoring out. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. You become a whore and you can get involved in things that financially make sense or look

cool, but just may not be you. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? And I don't want to be anybody's whore. I don't want to be a product whore. I don't want to be a system whore. I don't want to be standing next to people. If I really don't like you and I really don't believe what you value, I really don't want

to be around you. Like, and not from a hateful standpoint, I just don't want to affiliate my being with your being. Right. And, um, it's bad magnets right there. But, but I think that, but, but that comes back to understanding why I love myself and I love myself from like, I do right by my family. Who do you, can you feel you, Can you feel, is it easier to feel love now as an adult than it was when you were young? 100%, 100%. But I think it starts with self though, because now I love myself and I know who really loves me.

And I can just tell like, is this a working relationship? Is this a you need something? I can identify that clearly now. Right. working relationship is this a you need something i can identify that clearly now right and um and it is beautiful to have uh somebody to love you for you i'm talking about my woman i'm talking about my mother i'm talking about my daughter i'm even talking about what cory and john uh and i think that uh like i can give you one thing about john right so uh and this is john fosco he'll be in here in just a couple minutes i know they're chomping at the bit they're watching on the live feed so just think about this right so we were

getting ready to do a show that was revolved around sports and then john goes and watches um he watches the 30 for 30 and after he watches the 30 for 30 the sporting show that we were going to do was a little bit more hardcore and language was foul and all this other shit right and so after watching the show he had come back to cory and say yo i don't really think that that's direction that serves him well to put him in that light based upon the amount of kids and people that he deals with yeah and so to have that uh amount of consideration right and doing that so cory knew me already i mean cory have been buddies fucking eight nine ten years or however long we've known each other right and so cory already had like a level of like you know our connection but for john to step in and do that without even knowing me right to recognize that in advance to recognize

the value yes and um it just it just spoke to a lot about that so like you kind of know who you're around or you know what like what's up with the people around you. So when you can do that and you can fucking sit and have a good meal and you can talk and you can bullshit. And when you get to the airport, you're laughing like little kids because you're happy that it feels like a team is going somewhere to do something. That's fun, huh? Bro, it's like. That's what you miss probably most about the sports, I bet. The camaraderie. There's nothing like it.

The brotherhood. Bro, there's nothing like you and a group of guys who have a common interest and you're all working towards something and shit's starting to go right and you're figuring shit out and you're having fun. Team. Think about this. You're getting energized off of ideas. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That's not the cool fucking Bentley and the cute music and all the bullshit filters. You're getting inspired from talking about an idea and what this could become.

That's like fucking dreaming. That has nothing to do with nothing else other than creative thought. It doesn't have to do with women and fucking fake titties and ass shots and all that stupid shit. It's real. fake titties and ass shots and all that stupid shit like you know there's it's real there's like just think about how you may get excited about somebody who may comes onto your show you're thinking where could this go who could we affect how would they receive this what are comments looking like that i give my all to the show that is beautiful bro oh it's a fee it's a real feel it's visceral you get it in your body in your chest it runs up my neck i can feel when when things are

when it's real you know and then when you're done you're like this is work well done you go to sleep satisfied yes because you're not cheating anybody you're not you're putting something good out into the world you're being rewarded for it yes sir and uh yeah it's it is a really different and comfortable way to sleep um yeah i remember when i would go into aa meetings one of the best times i ever had and still have are, I remember sitting down between two guys that I knew in meetings, from meetings, and I sat there

and they were both laughing, we were joking around. And I was like, man, this is interesting. All I really wanted, and I just started tearing up, I was like, all I wanted my whole life really was just to sit around and joke with guys. And I've been chasing these other things that have made me try to feel whatever this little feeling is right here, just to be around and joke with with with guys and i've been chasing these other things that have maybe tried to feel whatever this little feeling is right here just to be in a little group

and have fun you know like i've been chasing this you know or you know you think about other stuff or do other things like you're saying you go after like the shiny trinkets you know but you but i was like man it just i don't know just have some sort of a little bit of a brotherhood i was about to ask pastor brotherhood what is it else that you think that you're getting from that moment? It was nice to know that these people cared about me because we'd all agreed to meet there and we all showed up. And so, like, they cared, you know, and I knew they cared about me. And so that made me feel, when I knew somebody else cared about me, it made me feel good. So did it, and this is one thing I like about meetings, right?

It allows me to comfortably put my vulnerabilities in front of people. Yeah. If I don't come in front. Oh, yeah, yeah, 100%. Oh, yeah, I know I could talk to them and say anything to them. Yes. But I don't know, there was just something about being flanked by two people that I knew were like were like almost like brothers you know yes it just felt uh like a childlike love yes that's what it felt like it felt like something i'd never really had that i've been wanting my

whole life so i guess the question like so when we see people are more people you know because like you like i always say it by like you weren't birthed out of your mother's pussy to become an abuser of drugs or alcoholic. And you're chasing a feeling. Right. That's why I'm real big into feel. Yeah, that's what I'm into, man. And that's when I saw, I was just like, man, we have got to have Maurice Claret in. I'm just so excited.

And then when I got turned on to the podcast even more, I'm like, oh, this is great. This is like a fun, goofy, educational, but also heartfelt place where I can hang out. Let's get the guys in here, and then we'll go to the video questions and do that then. Okay. They're pretty Murray-specific. They are?

Yeah. All right, well, let's rattle off one or two. We'll just make it a long episode. Yeah, yeah. I emailed those guys. I was like, we'll still do a full hour with you if you got no place to go. And we have nothing to do. Oh, yeah, yeah. So we're not going to be cutting it short at all i

have a couple quick ones uh when you had your cops uh chase yes i might have gotten some bad intel did you have a katana in the car a katana what is a blade like a blade a big sword oh no i had a no you had a bad information no gotta ask great question no so here is the thing there was a hatchet in the car already so no so it was like a fucking it was like um it was like a uh a fucking you know like a meat cleaver who you borrow cars from man hey paul bunyan dealership no it was my it was my uncle's car he He had like a fucking, uh, like a little tool that he used for the yard. I did have four guns though.

I have four, I have four guns. You weren't going to need the hatchet. I didn't need a hatchet. That's a more logical weapon. The gun. Yeah. Uh,

but, and here's a, here's a, Oh, and one more in prison before you realized that like, that wasn't for you. And you were talking about their scuffles all the time. Like,

I'm sure there's gangs and stuff, were people fucking with you because most i'm sure one on one so no there was there was michigan fans no no there was no there was shit talking but the in prison is also an environment that is very clear it's either you're into the shit or you're out of the shit right and it was clear that i was out of the shit you know i'm saying so even as you walk around i'm not being boastful for myself but there's a lot of tough guys in prison but i'm not a bitch myself right you know i'm saying so you walk around with a demeanor and your demeanor is like whatever is whatever you know rather motherfucker want to fight rather you want to do whatever and so guys can feel it on you you know it's an aura like and you didn't

have it i'm not a chump you know know what I'm saying, on any level. But I'm not the toughest guy in prison. And I humbly say that because anybody who really runs the prison are Mexicans. Mexicans run America these days. The guy who has the power is the guy who is willing to take it the furthest. These guys, these Mexican guys in prison, just based upon where they're from they don't care about dying yeah they're ready to go to heaven bro they don't these dudes do not give a fuck about dying i give a fuck about dying that's it that's it that's the finish line i'm 50 pounds

lighter than you i'm not fighting you i'm'm going to stab you. I'm cool. I know my boundaries. You win. That's it. Yeah. A lot of guys have just like so many, like the tattoo, the rosary. They're already, they almost have something like a funeral tattooed on their chest. Like, damn, dog, you ready to die?

You got your whole family standing around a casket on your chest? It's a wrap. Let's go to one of these video questions real fast. Word. What's going on, Theo, Bong, Gang, Gang? And then what's up to Maurice? I'm a big fan of both of you guys, and I've been watching this past weekend since the beginning, and I decided to call in for a question or a video and a question. And so my question for Maurice is,

what led to you choosing Ohio State to play football? And is there any advice you'd give me as a running back when picking what schools I'd like to go to? So thank you both and, you know, have a good day. Yeah, well, Ohio State didn't offer me a scholarship. I decided to go to Ohio State and told them I was coming. And that was it. I knew I wanted to go to Ohio State.

I knew the guys who were there, they weren't better than me. You know, I was a lot more arrogant then. And I think you have to be arrogant and decisive within your decision making to understand if a guy is better than you or not and go where you feel that you want to go, not where you feel like maybe cool. There's a lot of young guys who go to schools because they think the school is cool. Oh, yeah. But it isn't a good fit for their skill set, you know, understanding your skill set.

But the biggest thing I can give advice to the guys, understand your skill set. What do I do well? And does that translate to this environment right here? Right. And plan ahead. That's a business. Yes. Yes.

And so I understood very well my skill set and what I did. And then I looked at their offense and it was the same thing. And I went to go meet the guys and I went to these guys. And Mike Tyson is my greatest person. I want to meet him and Jim Carrey. If I can meet Jim Carrey and sit down at halftime with Mike Tyson, I think that that would be like some of the coolest shit. And literally that's what happened. I just was like, Mike Tyson, I think that that would be like some of the coolest shit. And literally, that's what happened. I just was like, you know, I'm taking y'all shit.

And so Mike Tyson used to talk about the art of skullduggery. And he said, you know, guys, they're very easy to compete behind each other's back, but there's a different sort of reverence that you have when you tell a guy, I'm taking your shit. You know what I'm saying? And so now it becomes like, I'm about to work my ass off, and do you have that same deal? And I knew that they didn't, and that's basically how I became. You know what I'm saying? And so now it becomes like, I'm about to work my ass off. And do you have that same deal?

And I knew that they didn't. And that's basically how I became. You got Mexican right there. I got Mexican. I was willing to die. In that instance, in that vibe, you're like, this is what I'm putting on the line is that I'm going to do. This is as far as I'm going to go.

Can you match it? So same thing that you do. Same thing that you do in your industry. Yeah. Motherfucker, I got this. Yeah. You know, so I'm going to take it to a place that i know that you can't i'm gonna take i always call it take a motherfucker to the middle of the ocean let's see you're gonna get to the shore yeah you're

either gonna die in the water or we're gonna get to the shore i love that man um and yeah the other questions i think the other guys would have some good input even though they were specifically for you so okay great cool um awesome reese claret so excited so excited. So grateful that you guys have come out. We'll be right back. We'll be right back with the other guys from Business and Biceps. Business and Biceps, yes, sir. Yeah. We just had Maurice Claret in, and he is going to stay in studio,

and joining us is going to be the Business and Biceps guys, the other gentleman from his podcast. And if you want to join something, you can join Skillshare.com and you can join a classroom. Skillshare.com, it's a place where you can take any class you want. You don't want to drive across town and park and get a backpack and get a Capri Sun and call your mom and ever make you a lunch and then get beat up at recess, do you? Well, now you don't have to, but you can still learn. Skillshare is an online learning platform, over 20,000 classes in business, design, technology, photography, or photography, creative writing, data science. Man, there's everything. You can learn how to

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To sign up, go to Skillshare.com slash Theo, T-H-E-O. That's Skillshare.com slash Theo. This episode is also brought to you by Squarespace. From websites and online stores to marketing tools and analytics, Squarespace is the all-in-one platform to build a beautiful online presence and run your business. Quit running your business just in the real world.

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Oh, you're going to get that. Yeah, so he has new shoes on today. Not them orange joints he had on. Yeah, so my main man, Helling, all the way from the Windy City, six foot two. He had to sit in first class

to stretch his legs out on the way here. Motherfucker's six foot. Yeah. That's what I'm saying, bro. I'll take every inch, bro. Apparently this room takes off two inches.

Rip to the bone. My man all the way from the Windy City. The one and only who always wears his sunglasses day and night in the gym. I did request the glasses. And is at Dottie Fosco. Thank you, Moe. I love you, Moe. There we go.

Come on. I'm happy to be here. And his tag team partner? And his tag team partner, the only guy I know who eats fucking chicken. No, not chicken, because he says steak. The only guy I know... White steak, they call it, some people.

The only guy I know who won't fucking go to the DoubleTree and eat a fucking cookie when he goes there. The only guy I know who is disciplined to the double tree and eat a fucking cookie when he goes there. The only guy I know who is disciplined to the bone and regimented, hailing respectfully, and he talks about it all the way from the valley, Mr. Corey G.

Yo, yo, yo. There we go. Thanks, Maurice, for introducing us on the show. I don't want to say Trillip Parks because I'm a black guy. I can say Trillip Parks about a white guy saying he's racist. It's funny.

Sometimes I get called. And this is the – you guys started business on Biceps, right? And then brought Maurice in. How did that work out? Yeah. We was rolling for about 100 shows, Johnny. I think about 80 shows, yeah. Yeah.

And then we were going to bring Mo in for a sports podcast, right? And I didn't know Mo well and it was crazy we recorded the pilot of the sports podcast and it was a really raw podcast a lot of swearing not that we don't swear now we swear a ton still

it's a little sweary yeah it's very sweary but basically after we did it the night we fucking did it uh most 30 for 30 came on and i had never seen it i had never seen it and i called cory after i watched it and i said cory i don't know more well but if i'm if i'm going to take in a partner we're going to take in a partner um i don't feel comfortable as an individual uh bringing him into this platform i just don't feel it's right. I think he can offer a lot on business and biceps because we're trying to motivate and we're trying to talk about overcoming struggles.

And my God, you know, what I just saw, you know, touched me straight up. So, you know, Corey was like, man. Yeah, I mean, me and Mo had been boys for a while. So it was like I said, yeah, absolutely. I'd love to bring him into that space. You know, we were just, we wanted to do something with him. We had already had a show that was starting to chart and do well. So, but open arms, I was like, of course, Mo's personal development and the stuff that he's been through alongside us is now morphed into a, you know, a top five show.

Yeah. And was it interesting, like, or was it tough? Is it tough befriending? And I noticed this even in my own walk out here in Los Angeles. It's tough sometimes befriending somebody that has like a name that precedes them. So what was that like for you what, you know what I mean? You're intrigued by them. You're interested. But when somebody has a name that precedes them, it's hard sometimes to, to how did, was there, did you have trouble managing your genuineness or was there anything like that? I'm not putting you on the spot. I'm just curious. I think it should be great for Mo to answer actually,

because when we, when we connected Mo had just come back to Ohio and I had a business that was doing really well in the sports supplement space. And told mo like i was working with huge athletes and some pretty heavy people sterling's sharp yeah way bigger than him so i was like so i was like you know what i was like mo here's the deal we have a 4am crew i asked mo to come to the gym and work out i said man i don't really need nothing from you but what you're going to get when you mess with me is i'm never going to miss workouts i'm going to be disciplined i'm about my business and but i don't really need nothing from you. But what you're going to get when you mess with me is I'm never going to miss workouts. I'm going to be disciplined. I'm about my business.

But I don't need anything from you. Right. I don't need to. I'm not trying to get into the club and rep you. I'm not trying to get a cute video on Instagram. I don't need any of that stuff. I don't need somebody to Uber my guns across town. Yeah.

You know, so I was like, but I got a positive environment. And if you're trying to get down with it, then you should come on to the old school gym, motherfucker. And you felt that, huh? Yeah. And I think that was like highly important where you could just go be yourself. And I think we talked about it earlier. Just to want to be yourself somewhere and just be a guy.

Yeah. I mean, I think that that was cool. And nothing about our relationship, we didn't gain anything from being around each other yeah we didn't like okay let's connect and go do this deal let's connect and go do that deal let's connect and show a picture and it makes one of us cooler and uh i think that that was the the original part but then also um i think that even when we start doing the first few episodes i think that there was just a natural feeling. Yeah.

You know, it wasn't nothing like, you know, like most times you get together with people. It's like, yo, let's outline the business. And you're worried about everything,

but the actual thing of what you're doing. And I think that we did more doing of the show and talking as an episode. And I think it felt right. But I think also if you can ask these guys, I think it was something therapeutic about it. Oh, wow. Really? Oh yeah. Most definitely. Cause we were doing it for the right reason. We didn't have a business model. We were just literally, John and I, when we started it, we were having these amazing conversations that I know all these young people would be down trying to be a fly on the wall. I'm like, we should record this.

You add Mo to it on top of it it's shutting it down right because now you have there's uh there's the race factor there's the culture factor there's all these things that nothing's off bounds and we can hit every demo that's great man it's so necessary right now i think too especially with a lot of like you know there's a lot more like young black men who are having opportunities these days um and do you guys see that in Ohio as much these days? Is it different than when you were growing up, do you find? I think just with any young person now, I think the access to information and the wanting to sort of take control of your own destiny and be an entrepreneur are things of that nature. I think that that's more accessible.

I think with young people like okay so they see theo vaughn right they see you on netflix they see your podcast and they may see what other people do and they're like i want that right but they don't understand and i don't even know your history what the fuck you went through to get to that chair right now right and they don't want to know the process they want what theo has right and what we're trying to do is say dudes settle the fuck down take pride in sweeping the floor and say i'm on my way up yeah don't think you're going to be driving out bentley in two years because you're a stupid fuck it's just not the truth that's not gonna happen that way every time john talks i feel like i'm at uh wwe in 1994 and i mean that in a loving way it's it's really straight down the middle bro that's what you get i was listening to an episode last night man i got

some hello fresh you know because they're um they're not even a sponsor of ours yet but or they are a sponsor now, but I was excited. I'm making some hello fresh and I'm listening to an episode in the kitchen and I felt, here's what I noticed. I felt better at the end of the episode. I felt like I just had a good time. You know, I felt like it was, you guys were talking about loyalty, um, and you know, and

loyalty and how you, uh, how you know where loyalty is and, and, and how you know where loyalty is and how you recognize it and how you treat loyalty and how you treat your friends and business associates and stuff. But then also there was people screwing around, and it was just a little bit of everything. Before I knew it, it was over, and I was like, oh, this is cool. It's like half entertainment. We've added that because we're having so much fun now,

but also giving people real applicable information because everybody thinks they can get a laptop and go to starbucks and now they're an entrepreneur oh yeah when i started my gym when i was 20 like my friends tried to have an intervention with me because they thought i was like fucking crazy and you know coming from business dude yeah they're like wait a second you know and so it's like they were tripping like you ain't drinking with us on wednesdays no more And I'm like, motherfucker, I'm trying to open a gym. Yeah. Like, so it was one of those things where it just wasn't as cool as accepted. Now it is looked upon almost like an athlete or something to that level.

Oh, entrepreneurship is almost looked upon as an athlete. Absolutely. Absolutely. To some degree, it's way more popular than it ever was. That's why there's so many fake motherfuckers out there trying to drain these kids' pockets, dude. And that's what gets me fired up it's like okay so we don't need to do a podcast is it a profitable endeavor sure we do other businesses and we do a podcast to literally try to give him for dude i didn't go to college he didn't go to college right mo didn't try

ran some fucking touchdowns but but it's like we're trying to help people because success doesn't happen, dude. You got to make it happen. And these kids don't know that. They're told, okay, you go to high school. You go to college. What if I don't want to? No one says it's okay if you don't want to. What do you want to do right

motherfucker go follow it but but but but that's not safe right because then otherwise then you just get the feeling as a kid oh if i don't go to college and i'm a failure that's what the other side of that teeter-totter is yeah it's like oh you're gonna be a bum it's like come on man and and we're here to dispel that and there's nothing against college you know if you want to be a doctor an engineer a lawyer sure you have to go there but if you love something don't tell yourself it can't be a career yeah because you're fucking lying to yourself and you're hearing your brother you're hearing your uncle you're hearing your parents who are all frayed afraid to take the chance that you are about to take yeah and you're gonna let them take you but fuck that yeah you guys

don't know what's going no but i just think think even to add to that point, but even- Dude, I feel like I'm on you guys' podcast. You are. I'm not even joking. I feel like no joke, dude. I feel like I just morphed into my- You are now in business and biceps, Theo. Bro, this is so cool.

I'm not even joking, man. I love this. Yeah, it's serious though, like just imagine like there's there's conversation there's processes and systems that have to be built to build your own career yeah and to to what john was saying people just want to jump towards the end result to be where you're at but nobody talks about all the production that took place when we had to walk out the room to break to the segment nobody talks about the cameras nobody talks about the hard work nobody talks about the actual things but how you feel during those processes and the things that you have to do to make that thing a reality right and that

conversation needs to be had because it's not had in the classroom or if it is in the classroom it's inaccurate as to what's currently taking place and i think that if we provide that information then a kid can come back and say you know what i spent my hour listening to you all i got something out of this shit and you can kind of go through all the titles and find out where you're currently at in your process you know saying like library the other one we have manage your dick right when you're successful managing your dick is a book it's the latest episode yeah Oh, it is? Yes. Oh, wait. I think I did. I didn't click on that because, honestly, I've had enough issue with that.

Nobody will help you. No one will help. Straight from John Fosco. It's the NYD program. You stay away from it, dude. I just pictured that guy with the megaphone in WWE back in the day, like right next to my penis, like, get erect. What's that guy's name? Jim. What's his name? Jimmy Hart. Jim Cornette? Or the Hitman like right next to my penis. Like, get erect. What's that guy's name?

Jim. What's his name? Jimmy Hart. Jim Cornette? Or the Hitman Hart. Or Hart, maybe. Jimmy Hart. Jimmy Hart.

Just slap it on the side of the ring. Get in there. I like Bobby the Brain Heenan. Yeah, I love it. Well, Bobby the Brain Heenan is another euphemism for your penis. Yeah. Crazy. So, anyway.

But, no, I didn't click on that episode let me think see i think i've listened to four episodes but but yeah i just love the camaraderie man i'm so grateful that you guys are here um what do you guys feel like do you notice like a like a vibe in your own community from the podcast like that's what i start to wonder what's it like there by you guys me and cory were talking about this yesterday was crazy as so we have employees and now listen to the podcast so they they know how we think right so we've broken a lot of employees mentally unfortunately by absolutely doing nothing right so they get it in their head that were these guys on the podcast and they say oh shit i messed this little thing up i'm gonna get

the john from the podcast or i'm gonna get the cory and they get in their own heads and like we start losing labor and we're like brother no this is that that that's a show and yes we teach but we've lost people actually because they're like, man, they're so regimented and they're thinking, I don't want to get in that line of fire. You know what I'm saying? So it's had kind of a weird effect, but there's respect for people from the outside,

people who don't work for us, but it's had a weird effect with employees. I just think online, just the overarching thing of we're here to teach and give back. We've all been successful in our own regards. We're all pushing for more success. But understanding of what's happening in entrepreneurship right now and how fake as fuck that it is.

And that we're coming straight down the middle so often and that they can take it out and apply it. And then when it works, they're writing your DMs like, yo, bro, that shit was fucking real. I went and did this. It's just those things right there are worth it all because there's no monetary value to that, bro. You're literally, I was at Gold's Gym today training and people were coming up, showing love, dude, podcast, blah, blah.

And hey, three out of four guys was like, I'm here to see Theo Vaughn. Oh, that dude's so funny. Like, you know what I'm saying? So it's like the podcast community is just, it's cool to bring these two worlds kind of together, Theo. So I commend you for being open to that. I think it's awesome. Yeah, no.

Well, look, a lot of our listeners are in the Midwest and in rural communities. And I don't consider where you guys are from a rural community at all. from a rural community at all. But it's nice to know that when I'm listening and I'm feeling inspired from a place that's a little bit more connected to America than I feel like the environment I live in is, it's just, it's cool for me. I think real quick on the camaraderie,

one main point is I think it's so hard to trust three people all the way to the core and have that loyalty and that's why you can hear us hit like hard points and then have fun with it because you know you may have a business partner but like you ain't down with them like you would trust him when your back was turned if some shit was going down but like the three of us we don't need each other right because we don't need each other everything we do is pure and because it's pure it could be serious as fuck but then it could be fun and it's like we don't need each other yeah so it's just fucking what it is right you know no

i love that i mean that's one thing that podcasting has given even me as an entertainer is just freedom you know the freedom to if really to not live in some of these bounds of this entertainment industry, but to be myself, you know, it's like no rules, homie. Yeah.

And that's, and then people love that, you know, people absolutely love it. But I think that's to, I think is one of the greatest things about it is that these podcasts have broken across all barriers, all ethnicities, all boundaries of subjects, titles, everything.

And that now you just have a platform to see the person and to fall in love with the person. I think that that is what we bring to that. I always, in my mind, I think it's called business, biceps, and culture because I really believe that I've loved some of the racial conversations that we had yeah so that i know you couldn't get anywhere i love um just the back door of the business conversations i love just just the camaraderie amongst people and i just believe that that is

like something that if even if i just don't even if i'm just the only one who cares about it i feel like that's our gift to other people you know i'm saying absolutely yeah when you're his brother came in and we talked to his brother after the show he's like you don't get it like in our community we don't have wi-fi and he's like amazon ain't even a thing in the hood yeah you guys like like we don't listen to podcasts we don't have why and i'm sitting there thinking like amazon's not a thing and and and i'm like a lot a lot of people that i am unfamiliar with live like this and i didn't know that yeah you know but that's a really powerful thing i'm telling you like in and that was probably one of the most coolest things to me is to bring an environment or perspective to a place and to have like honest conversation about it yeah you

know i'm saying just how the state of america is like the state of america has never been so intense when it comes to race right ever you know i don't know if they feel it out here in los angeles but everywhere else you go in america you feel like that but to talk about a culture and to not be offended to be easy going to laugh to joke to say shit that's normally tougher now you have people in different environments who are like yo okay i've had a chance to digest this information outside of like just one side either it's a left wing or right wing way conversation this is just an independent conversation i think that just helps to add uh just to america or just to people's perspective yeah no i agree i mean in la you guys also have a gift

i think that like in la and our i feel like sometimes we can't even talk about stuff you know like it would be it's scary like it's scary to have like race conversations and stuff out here because people also don't even understand what the rest of america is kind of really like you know a lot of people out here are third fourth generation los angeles people and hollywood people yeah that's the thing the rest of la is totally A lot of people out here are third, fourth generation Los Angeles people and Hollywood people. That's the thing. The rest of LA is totally cool, man. You get out into some of these suburbs

and the Latino kids and stuff like that, they're fucking, they get it. They joke around like crazy, like ridiculous. But then you get into some of these more Hollywood circles

and it's like, man, you have to just, you just turn into such a Muppet, man, that it's almost exhausting. Yes. It would be a little exhausting. It's exhausting because you got to get you just turn into such a muppet man that it's almost exhausting yes it would be a little exhausting because it's exhausting because you gotta get to be free yeah man it doesn't connect to your soul and like like at the end of the day man if you're connecting to vanity you're connecting the bullshit and you're you're sort of putting on this suit or this mask or this persona that just doesn't really tap into you at some point that shit just runs its

course yeah i don't give a fuck who you are i don't give a fuck how much money it's like the beautiful girl who gets with the ugly guy because he has money and then after uh all of the the chills and thrills and the boats and the planes and all that shit wears off she wakes up like man what the fuck am i doing yeah you know what i'm saying because dude named d'artagnan like but it wears itself out but but you have guys who whore themselves out because like john's back home i'm in california me and john grew up together on the internet i want to look cooler than john and that's where it stops right and then i sell myself and i'm not a whole person you know i'm saying but like i think just the preservation of that and i like as we're as

we're sitting here talking i'm like damn we hit on a lot of topics on our podcast yeah i'm just thinking about the shallowness thing that you said and i'm going through my head and uh running through this feeling of being able to have a partner of the opposite race that's black yeah that on a couple shows i've been able to look at and this is what i believe needs to happen more in america i've been able to look at them and through a conversation use the word nigger right because that's what's going on right like i i think it's a gift to have someone of an opposite race to have a discussion where you could be like these are how motherfuckers are talking right now in certain places right so we're gonna talk give you context for it yeah some person doesn't take it the wrong way they'd be like yeah no no i even need a little there goes the neighborhood but this is blunt this is blunt

conversation yeah real shit and in parts of the country that that oh yeah people say it and you some people can't say and it's uncomfortable and they hear and listen it's come back put it this way it's come back strong and that's just what it is and i want to know and i'm comfortable enough and i feel blessed enough to have a guy that i could talk right to a black man and say what is it like when you're fucking standing outside at a food truck and some dude rolls by and says fuck you nigger yeah like that's a real conversation and i think that's how we start maybe to make progress right and these surface conversations you refer to that you're scared of like the only way to like get through that is to knock the wall down you know it's like fuck that i'm gonna live in this world if i can't have a real conversation

with you i don't want to fucking talk to you right let me give reference to the people who made up so john's not racist if anybody made like so no i like i'm trying to defend you so like people don't understand it now is this guy you know is this guy racist no he's not racist but i think his personality and his bluntness and his forwardness allows us to like because he may have that thought in his head you know what i'm saying and he wants to know this question this is a thing that happened i lived in south carolina i heard five white guys walking down the street every night you know going to the bars in charleston i didn't hear that 10 years ago right this is real and i want to know i'm not saying it i want to know how a black man feels about it right that matters to

me right so so being able to take it that far not be offended not feeling any way about it like i'm i feel like i've experienced enough even from prison right i was in prison with this guy named chad chad was a part of the arian brotherhood and i asked chad i'm like yo like why do you dislike black people i think i said it on one of our early episodes. He just like Maurice, I've never grew up around any. And so I was like, well, he doesn't really not like black people. He just never grew up around them. Yeah.

No different than like somebody who just never grew up around people. Like he's like, I'm just choosing to stay around white guys. And I just want to be around white guys because this is what I'm familiar with. And so I didn't look at Chad as like a bag. I'm like, this motherfucker is just ignorant. Right. You know, so he's just never been exposed. And so like to be able to have these conversations like are or even to have the conversation.

I'm a black guy who lives in a neighborhood where I know how I don't feel accepted. Right. But I don't want to be in a hood. I don't want to be in the suburbs. And so you have these conversations. And so now I have people who are of a different race who could tell me like this is how people feel right this is but but but so now we're dealing with the truth now right you know saying but then these people may not like me for fictitious reasons so like actually why don't you like that a black person's living in

neighborhood and who is it that i don't like or what is it that i don't like about you but peeling that stuff back makes this conversation real yeah and so now we're dealing with the human side but now we can grow if we've dealt with the reality of stuff but being able to talk about but but in in business these are all factors into people dealing with each other right how to deal with other people and then that all that plays into all business so you take into business and biceps You take all the stuff Business is psychology, bro That's what it is But we're dealing with all with each other

Whether these are employees Whether these are people answering your calls To pass you off to the right person Whether these are people introducing to you Whether they have a preconceived notion Before y'all get together These are all things that make all of us up But you tell me right now

Where are you going to go get this conversation Without being ridiculed about that happening right no saying you're not going to get it anywhere but in america this is a fucking factor but i appreciate that i'm here to where it's it's a it's a respectful and wholesome and i don't take shit personal conversation because like we're trying to get to a space to where you can like okay let's get some resolve and grow from this like that's that's the front side that's the intention right yeah let's get some yeah i like it no i mean i think it shows that you guys are i mean it's one of the the gifts of you guys is dynamic is that you can talk openly it's not happening anywhere else man right and peeling back that poverty's poverty man whether you're a white kid from appalachia like myself or from the hood of Youngstown,

from the south side of Chicago, wherever. All of that, it's different factors and it might be different parts of the country, but it's resources, it's education, it's opportunity. Dude, that's what it is. Yeah, and racism a lot of times and hatred and stuff like that when you're poor, man. It's just if you have nothing else. You have no reference. But also sometimes it's the only thing you can do. You have nothing. You have no reference. But also sometimes it's the only thing you can do.

You have nothing. You have no education. The one thing you have control over is. Your homeboy Bo has a Confederate flag on his truck and you're like, hell yeah. Right. It's to hate somebody, you know? And it's like, yeah. I mean, sometimes it's just like a thing that comes in poverty.

Poor people love to fight. It's all they have to do. That's what they take pride in. And it's a free. It's free. Well, it's something to do. It's something to do it's you know it's like that's what they take pride in and it's a free it's something to do it's something to do it's a free activity it's a free activity bro it really really is dude you know i'm saying you were lucky if somebody would cut their how we're laughing at the end of that i'm not sure did i remember when if somebody cut their hose on let's use their water they were like keeping a watch on how much water you're getting out the hose like dude some of this it was ridiculous you know um yeah but i think it is a gift of you guys podcast man i think it's one of

the things that's neat uh and i think it's i i agree it's conversations that need to be heard you know like i mean i grew up you know they had yeah you i just didn't realize when i was growing up you would see black families you're like oh they don't care about themselves you know that's what you would think you know you would see a black family you know it'd be like um what would give you the thought from saying that they don't care about themselves probably what would you visually see in that process i would see like you know probably their you know they you know maybe the the their neighborhood they didn't try to keep their neighborhood up or they didn't you know like um the parents were smoking weed or, you know, the mom was smoking weed.

The kid was buying weed for the mom, you know. Or also things, you know, it's really a great question, you know. I guess like, oh, the kids, some of the kids couldn't, you know know we had kids in seventh grade that couldn't talk even really you know and they were in seventh grade you know black kids how could this be right and so then it made you think i guess actually i didn't it made me think oh they don't care about themselves you know now as i get older and now i live out here and i see more of the world you know and i understand that like oh well if you have generation after generation of a family not having any income or if the grandfather gets a parking ticket and that means that the son

you know the grandson is going to get a christmas gift you know like if it's that fine of a line yeah now as i get older the socioeconomic oh you see it it's so much clearer but from me as a child being in an environment, you don't see it. And you also don't get the information. Nobody's telling me this, my perspective that I am able to see now. And then also black and white people fight all the time or would be fighting. So then you have this other thing where it's like, you know, are we even allowed to get along? Like, do they hate me?

You know, and then like, yeah, it then, yeah, it's a messy environment sometimes. And I feel bad about some of the ways probably that I thought as a kid, but as a child, some of them were probably survival mechanisms, and they were thoughts that I needed maybe at certain points to make me feel a certain way, and sometimes safety mechanisms. Like I grew up in poor black and white, and there was a lot of fighting sometimes. And so I was scared of both of those, a lot of those people sometimes.

Not all of them. You know, some had friends in both areas. But in poverty, there was much more of a chance for volatility. And that's what made me really, really nervous, you know, is volatility. I think you hit on a major thing as I'm listening to you. Black and white poverty are probably very similar in terms of the things you referenced about not being able to speak or not keeping up your yard or something like that. But a crucial part to everything, whether it goes back three generations or four generations, is everybody has to take it upon themselves. And we talk about this a lot to break the cycle and it's the hardest fucking thing to do yeah because your family doesn't

understand you your relatives don't understand you but there's always got to be one there's always got to be one in the family that's like fuck this no more fucking 800 square foot house with the roof leaking like i'm gonna do something about that right like there's gotta be one and we are all those ones yeah and i think that's why i resonate you know with you guys's podcast i mean it's funny like my and one thing that i've learned is my brother now you know he started a successful business and tree business right he doesn't like trees really but he likes business you know so he realized now he's like damn okay if i see a damn two by four i'm about to slip my throat with it you know but he loves business but one thing he realizes looking back in our neighborhood is just child psychology and so that's what he wants to

get into now and so he uses like the ymca and it's like very it's extremely black and white kids over there and he doesn't really see a difference um difference. We don't see some of the same differences that we saw as kids. But to see him wanting to help children so much, no matter who they are. That's how you change a community, right? That's how you change a community, right. And he's really a big inspiration to me. But when I really think about it, I was thinking about this the other day. When I really think back, the kids that I associated with the most were kids that felt this i could see felt the same way that i did which was that and it

didn't matter if they were black or white it almost was a color that was within us it was some other gray color within us or a confused color within us you feel like it came from like a space of struggling yeah like a space of struggling and probably a space of just not really having structure within to know how to handle just day-to-day situations. Not knowing when to be confident. Not knowing – because sometimes your confidence would get strayed. You'd be confident at a time. People would go, what the fuck are you being confident right now for? It's a spelling bee.

You appear yelling and screaming about vowels like calm it down. How would you get the confidence to say down you know how'd you how'd you get the confidence to say you know what i'm funny i'm gonna go after this shit how'd you get it oh you know i don't know sometimes i think sometimes it's one of those things that kind of stayed it was like this this light that stayed in me that i needed i think it was a defense mechanism when i was young you know i couldn't really physically take care of myself much, so I had to joke. I had to be the jokester. And then joking kind of

transcended. Black kids love to joke around. White kids... The jokester was always welcome everywhere. Unless you joked too much, then you got your ass beat. So that was the risky line. Gotta run the line. That was the risky line, man. But no, I mean, look, even moments of this conversation have been a little

bit uncomfortable for me, but not in a bad way. Sure. And I recognize that because I'm in a place where, you know, I know you guys are, you know, people that care about the end of this conversation and the next week and the next year and the next 20 years of, you know, of young men and young women growing. And, you know, we're not just thinking about, you know, this moment right here. And I feel that, and I feel that when I listen to you guys' podcasts. I mean, it's ridiculous.

You know, I still don't know if Fosco should be allowed on the air sometimes, dude. Dude, me and Maurice always look at each other like, this motherfucker. I know, bro. Dude, but now as I see him in person, I realize he's so WWE, bro, it's real. I thought, I'm like, this guy's hamming up his contract bro i never been oh dude he could be in the easily listen listen we we have a disclaimer before i speak but but what he does is that he pushes the boundaries on what we're talking about yeah always right so he pushes so one is two things right so, I didn't realize he was that introspective and intelligent.

So they may, some people may think you're a comedian, but I listen to people, what they say. It's the same thing with him. Yeah. Right. Sometimes people's personality be so harsh that people forget. Like they like fucking deep, introspective, well thought out people. Yeah.

His personality may be different than yours. You feel where I'm coming from? Yeah. I feel you. And I'm referencing John to people who are talking. Dude, you got to see this John Fosco guy, man. I can't even. This guy's fucking something else, bro.

I'm not joking. I've never met anybody like this dude, man. But he pushes. Corey, would you say score would agree? Yeah. He pushes, and then it may come off harsh and brutal and tough, but then it's followed up by- It's usually dead on, though. It's tough but then it's followed up dead on though it's followed up to leverage it by something intellectual and then you can volley with the

conversation back and forth and at the end of it you say okay he may have come with me hard but if i digest what the fuck he said he's not fucking lying like my girl listened to the Manage Your Dick program. You know what I'm saying? But it is harsh. Just like my man Johnny Duke. Yeah, it's fucking kind of like makes sense. Yeah, I mean, I think when you gloss over things, you're increasing the probability that people do not take them and understand them and digest them clearly. So if you come right down the middle, it may sound harsh. They may think

you're an asshole or they may love you. They normally go one of two ways. But at least you're giving real information. And I don't fucking care who likes me. I actually like to be not liked who likes me right i actually like to be not liked because um if you like me that that that's cool but i i have like this um responsibility i've always felt this um to the truth and if it's not the truth fuck you fuck whoever like get out of my face bro like i want nothing to do with you like i don't play any of those games and and that's and that to me is beauty because that that's purity when you're speaking in truth bro that's the substance that's where it's at once you you know we always say we don't talk about things i can talk about my car my houses for what right who's that benefit right nobody let's talk about the skills yeah we can give people to not just get things but become better

people help their family and and fucking be happy yeah and and if you don't like the way i say it fuck you yeah i think that constant i think that being uncomfortable though is huge theo no it's huge is that so like i i told john the other day so funny it would have been uh coming off another venture it had been really easy for me to just kind of coast and be comfortable john i like him and he keeps you uncomfortable right so some people don't they dislike john because of that they just don't fuck with them where it's only pushed me to be better and i told him that the other day like bro i just appreciate it because it would have been much easier for me to just kind of coast and because i know what i've got myself into that is going

there's going to be uncomfortable moments I'm talking about reference to business because we have multiple businesses together he keeps pushing and the podcast being one of them he's going to push the limits which makes you go a little bit deeper on things and you know try to reverse and push him and that's what we've been doing all three of us and to your point on um on changing that uh changing the cycle, breaking the cycle, I wanted to ask you is what you've been able to do broke the cycle for your family? Is it giving your family like a new breath of air

that things are possible, like from where you come from? I think so. I mean, I think, you know, I think one thing for me, honestly, like, you know, a lot of my family's ended up with addiction, you know, it's been like a big thing in our family. And I think, yeah, I think one thing for me, honestly, like, you know, a lot of my family's ended up with addiction. You know, it's been like a big thing in our family. And I think, yeah, I just have learned a lot about, you know, it makes me, I've learned for some reason, it makes me feel really sad when somebody doesn't know how much they're valued, you know. And that really, for some reason, like it breaks my heart, you know.

And I think, because I think as a kid, I needed just somebody to know that they valued me, you know. And my mother worked really, really hard. You know, she worked, you know, delivered newspapers and still does. And, you know, and I think she never was taught some of those things, you know. And so then, yeah, then I'm able to see a lot of the cycles, you know uh and so then yeah then i'm able to see a lot of the cycles you know and then when i watch like even when i watch like you know maurice's 30 for 30 like there's a you know i couldn't connect a lot of football stuff i could connect like from a fan perspective like oh it looks like so much fun and like you know did they really beat miami and like i could connect how he throws that in there

but no i could connect on like, but then I could connect. There was some moments where I connected like, oh man, I wonder if that young man knew how much he was valued as a kid, you know? Like, I wonder if he got the love that he, you know, like that's where it made me think like, man, that might be a place that I have in common with that man.

Not that I needed him to have it in common with me, but that's a place where I could feel something, you know? And that's the part that I really, and that's the part that now when I go back into a community where I look at a kid, you know, where I look at a family or anybody, I'm able to see it from, you know, from that. And that's where I feel like I know in my heart

that's a place that I can, that's a place that I can start to help at, you know, find some way to let people know, uh, that they're valued, you know? Um, but yeah, I mean, I think for some of the race stuff, it just took getting a bigger perspective. It's hard when you're in those perspectives and you know, when you're in the, and when you're in a small place, it's hard to see the big picture, you know? Um, well, as long as you get to a place where you figure it out or at least you hear the information, I think that's very important. And the reason I like to talk about it so much is because you deal with it on a daily basis. Sometimes we only like to talk about race and these harsh conditions or it's like an extreme view one way or another.

Or you have some sort of police um, you know, police shooting or the race gets commercialized with the Colin Kaepernick deal. And sometimes you lose the actual message of what's going on. But if you don't have these conversations, then you don't deal with the truth. And if you don't deal with the truth, or you're not working towards to shift the perspective to where, you know, we all fucking people at the end of the day, like nobody's better than nobody. And, you know, you don't have to have a harsh perspective on somebody because they're black or white and even you know you deal with racism and you do a classism and just because another person doesn't have as much as you do it doesn't mean that they're uh they're less than you right and to

and to have that stuff and to and to talk about that and to have platforms to do about i just think it's to be responsible with your voice and for anybody who's been through any hardship like if you've been through addiction uh there's no way that you can feel that you're better than anybody yeah because you've been fucked up and you've been not been able to take care of yourself and you've not been responsible at some point so at some point you are like the person who's uh vulnerable or the person who comes from the lower socioeconomic background but it's it's the same thing with everything but those are the human things and and and like i say i know this is about our podcast but having the vehicle and the people who come from those

backgrounds and to be able to talk about it and put it out there the blessing you guys have bro i believe it's the only weapon to move let's say maybe the two hardest things in this country forward um having a white man and a black man talk about real issues when they don't have to if those conversations could happen in every county in every house every day that that's going to move something racially forward yeah let's say you take one political side now on the other political side you don't have to agree but if you can just have a civilized dialogue you will find hey i might not agree with you but we got shit in common bro yeah you're cool and no one's willing to have those conversations because we're so divided and and and and that and that is ignorance at its finest divided with trivial shit

and like how many times we have this conversation? Yeah, with trivial stuff. Trivial shit, right? So fucking stupid. And old school shit. It's like old school stuff plays out 30 years later. Yeah. So ask yourself like this.

Ask yourself this. When have you ever had platforms who have these conversations? Right? What are these conversations going to happen in a fucking town hall? No.

What are these going to happen in a school? No. What are we congregating at the library talking about? there's no podcasts or platforms which you control right you're not going to the radio station and say yo like 107 to whatever fuck it is you know can we get on here can we have this conversation we can't talk about that you know or just like let me get a little further into it what do we have like some uh some representative who think he represents all black people you have somebody with an agenda who's being sharp and comes out

just just just just be just it just is what it is but you know these motherfuckers come and they don't represent all voices right they want to be a superstar then it also there's a level of of achievement that they're trying to achieve yeah so so so it's not honest and so I'm not about to cry about the fact that we didn't have it. I just want to know. And so this was, I'm going to tell you what, it would inspire me even more is the university of Maryland, Virginia,

one of those Rutgers, one of those universities I was telling you all about. They had a session where they were hosting for white kids, how to deal with racism. And so as I'm looking at this shit, I said on a college campus, you are inviting a space for all white kids to just understand how to process this shit.

So somebody had the foresight to say, this is a real fucking thing. And kids may have feelings that they feel about something or incorrect information. So how do I deal with this shit with the climate in America? So you have to ask yourself,

right? If they're fucking giving a shit to kids on a college campus, right? And you're hosting a safe space for these kids to express themselves because there's probably a space where a person can't say, just like John say, um, you know, there's people in our neighborhood who may think,

or who look at you all as niggers. You know what I'm saying? Like that's a real thing in America. And that same person who feels that way may be the same person at fucking Starbucks or the same person at the fucking local gas station. And until you have healthy dialogue with these people, nothing's going to change. These people are going to grow up with these same views. You know what I'm saying? And it hasn't changed.

I mean, you know, a lot of the stuff has just been the same types of things that haven't really changed that much bro like so what are the incentives to change them right i mean when you really come down so for me just a better fucking america well i'm saying an individual level but unfortunately i keep on with chris for my fault god bless you chris yeah beautiful man it's like a it's like a tackle drill over here yeah yeah but like outside of individuals what are the incentives i mean you always got to follow the money and the people who control our shit that's why voting is so important hey they make the rules and they don't have right now there's a huge incentive to keep us divided yeah a huge oh i agree and and let's just open our eyes yeah and eyes and say,

well, what can we do about it? Don't throw your hands up like a pussy and say, I can't do anything about it. Have hard conversations. Try to find real people. But yeah, I mean,

we're in these conditions because the people who we voted for contribute to them. Yeah. Yeah, I mean, it's wild, man. You know, it's so funny you say

pushes the boundaries and then growth you were talking about as well because yeah when you said that a little bit ago i'm like fuck now there was like this space in the room right but then we had to fill the space you know absolutely and that's what i mean it was just it was really really interesting but yeah i mean i think there's a lot of i think yeah racism is tough because there's a lot of like white people i think like you know i grew up i got jumped a couple of times by black kids, you know, and it made me, I mean, I grew up in fear of like some of the white kids in our neighborhood and I got beat up by some of them a couple of times. But it made me, so then when I would see like a group of black guys sometimes. This is therapy session.

I would get scared though. But it's like, I would get scared, you know? And I didn't want to be, I think, I didn't want to be angry. Like in my heart, I didn't want to be angry at black people. But I would be scared of those types of kids. And if I saw a replica of a group like that or something in my head, it's just like, you know, if a Doberman attacks you, then when you see a Doberman, you're going to be nervous, you know? You get the feeling, absolutely. So I had a lot of those feelings.

And I think, you know, I think there's probably a lot of like, you know, other people that have had a lot of those feelings and i think you know i think there's probably a lot of like you know other people that have had similar type of feelings yeah but but it's but it's the same like but don't get me wrong black people are scared of black people yeah you know and it's not the black people it's the behavior and the environment you know white people are scared white people oh i would get scared if oh there's a couple of, look, there's some dudes in my neighborhood who, you know, allegedly killed a couple people with a truck, you know, and it's just like, man, I'm way scared of those people. So just think about this.

So we're walking through life with these prejudices or these. But I'm just being earnest about things that I've thought. No, no, no, but it's cool. Like, I mean, you say that. It's no difference than how I may feel towards a white person who comes in my community as a young black kid. Whether you're a police officer or whether you're just a white in our neighborhood, what the hell are you doing here? You know what I'm saying?

Things that you don't know are really believing or growing up believing that all white people are racist. You know, like they just don't like black people. You know what I'm saying? But that's not true. It's not true yet. You know what I'm saying? But think about media, dude. Okay, so I always say this and people can judge me for whatever.

That's sad, man. I'm sorry that that's ever been a perception. That makes me sad, too. But it's ignorance. Right. The perception is built from ignorance. But what is, I'm sorry if this upsets listeners, but what does Fox News put out there? They put out pictures of Black Panthers at voting booths.

You know what I'm saying? there they put out pictures of black panthers at voting booths you know what i'm saying like like this is what's consumed for like six to eight hours by a lot of america i ain't dogging fox it could be msnbc going the other way but like these this is what people are consuming so they may not even have to get a beating right they see it on tv and they're like i'm not going to the voting booth black panthers are there right yeah it's like the same with the charlottesville thing like yeah they had some racist kids with racist young people or middle-aged people that showed up there right people that we don't need anywhere you know like not a type of hatred you want anywhere but then to make it seem like it's a hundred thousand people and a pop you know that scares so many people and makes things a lot more

you know racist than they really are divide you know yeah because they keep us the more news we make the more fighting the news stays in business if we go to war the news will cover it and we stay they stay in business and they get better ratings yeah why they stand outside getting blown around by her say maurice brought up on the podcast one time, Theo, that running at the track in the morning. So I'm at the track in the morning all the time, right? Yeah. And I'm out there running, lunging. He gets up in the early, doesn't he?

Yeah, like at three. So I'm up there running, lunging. You're like Jocko Willink. He's way tougher than me. You also just stay up all night. Basically. There's really no point. So I'm at the track, and there's other people there. In in the morning i'm lunging my 800 meters of things i do and and i don't think

no no different it doesn't matter if the person's white black uh purple walking around the track marie says and i'm in a black hoodie hooded up the whole nine right marie says i'm at the track and there's um a white woman uh running or walking by and i'm out here by myself then it makes me uncomfortable like oh yeah it's the thought that goes through that i never even would even think about theo when he brought it up on the podcast i was like man that fuck but it's real he's 250 pounds he's a fucking big dude and it's like those and he's black and the things that you're talking about and he he stole that ball from Sean Taylor that one time. So you know he's got the grip.

So it's like those things, those things, those things are real, bro. And it's like a lot of people wouldn't even think that that's even a thing. Man, so just think about that. Yeah. That is a real thing. Every time I go to the track, to the point, I can grab my phone and show you what my lawyer, I text the lawyer and say, look, this is weird, but I'm texting you, but this is 6 in the morning. Right, the point I can grab my phone and show you what my lawyer, I text the lawyer and say, look, this is weird, but I'm texting you, but I'm, this is six in the morning.

Yeah. I can't even imagine that. Serious shit. But I'm thinking to myself that anything can be said and my life can be altered or she can feel nervous or whatever it is. I mean, but, but, but it's simple shit. I can, even when I go to the gym in the morning, I can, I can, without a shadow of a doubt, if you're on a treadmill, I don't want to be by the black guy if i'm lifting weights in a certain area i don't want to be by the black guy and it's almost weird to the point like i'm the black guy until somebody introduces me as maurice claret and then when i get introduced as maurice claret oh this is a cool nigga yeah you from coming from oh yeah like now it's acceptable to talk to me so in my head it plays like

who the fuck was i before i became maurice claret to you you know saying but these are real things you know saying like stuff today i never think about like even when we walk out here in la like i know if i'm around them and talking with them like it's an easier um it's easier for me it's easier for people to talk to me when i'm two or two white guys right if you're on coming from literally you don't you like you don't go through this, right? When I go to the barbershop based upon what event that I'm about to do. Okay. I got to shave my face because I'm a little bit more softer on people. You know what I'm saying? A beard makes me look a lot more aggressive and a lot more, this is, but this is, this is just not

my story. This is a story of preconceived prejudices and all this is stupid shit right you know i'm saying and what i'm saying is like to have uh somebody you can volley conversations not that business and bicep and i don't want to get this perception that we just deal with race no it's okay this is good this is a conversation that you know like this is the kind of thing is that you know things happen on you guys's podcast that can be just a good conversation it just it's just a good conversation amongst other stuff that we're talking about but the fact that race has been so vacant from america and people's conversation you can look at it as if like it's this distant thing but you deal with it every day and that's all i'm saying you know i'm saying and it prepares you to work with others, right? Yes. So if we're digging into race and you go and get a job in an office with 10 people or 100,

like this stuff will prepare you to work with the Muslim who your dad said, you know, attacked us on 9-11. Right. You hear this shit and you're like, all right, none of that. So it's important. It all ties to business. It all tie backs. There's always a meaning. And I think the meaning should never be about any of us.

It should just be about like, hey, I'm trying to share this shit with you. Yeah. Yeah, I think sometimes – no, I love this, man. I love even having the opportunity to talk – to even think about this. I mean sometimes I get intimidated by black guys because I feel like they're cooler than me. And so I'm not joking, bro. I'm really serious.

Like hip hop culture drives, but no, if I saw three black guys that were like, that looked cool, dude, I'm not joking. I think it's a, this is a real fear.

I don't know what the fear is called, but I'm not joking, man. I feel really intimidated. Like not that they, yeah, I don't know. I guess I feel like a dance contest is going to break out. I don't know, but I feel that. I feel really intimidated. Not that they... I don't know. I guess I feel like... A dance contest is going to break out every second?

I don't know. But I feel that. I'm trying to identify what he's feeling. I don't know what it is. I'm not saying that they're angry at me. I'm just saying I would get more intimidated by three cool-looking black guys than three...

If it was three cool-looking white guys, I would probably think like oh those are rich guys whatever dude but if it was three cool black guys for some reason i would feel intimidated and it could just be a me personally thing you know but it probably is but i kind of fucking i love it maybe yeah but just maybe i'm not as cool i can't be as cool as those guys maybe that's what it is you know i don't know i don't know i mean and yeah hip-hop culture is cool hip-hop culture is cool i think you know yeah i think it just looks better i think hip-hop culture looks better on black guys so then maybe that's why i don't know i don't know um but uh but i don't yeah man you know what's so funny the first time in my life that i ever

i was out about a year and a half ago out here. I was having a tough time getting any traction in my career. And they, you know, this is a lot of like a lot of during the political stuff. And everybody out here was like, fuck all white people from the Midwest and from the, you know, and from the South. Like anybody that I even sounded like, like my father's from Nicaragua, right? My mother's from Chicago, from Peoria, Illinois. But anybody that even sounded like me or looked like me, they were, oh, this, no, this is bad. We don't want this on the air.

This is not what we're going for. This guy doesn't have a chance here right now. It was so liberal out here. It was so liberal. I mean, dude, we couldn't even, we couldn't even speak. But here's an interesting moment that happened to me. I was like, man, I felt bad i was like man i felt it i felt bad about the way that i looked i felt bad about the way that i sounded and i felt like because of

those two things i wasn't going to be able to live out my dreams which were to be you know in in the entertainment industry so you felt like a black person so there was a moment for the first time i was like wow this must be what it feels like to be uh to be black sometimes or to be of maybe a woman's or you know to be yeah but the first thing i thought was because of something you can't change but i never had that much rubik's cube kind of shift in one moment so just think about like this so if you felt like that in the moment imagine how a lot of black people feel all the time yeah that before we even get to if i'm talented enough or skilled enough or am i even acceptable to do what you're being asked for i gotta deal with how i look and how i sound you just basically said the same thing i said what

how i gotta like so the reason i cuss a whole lot is to let people know you can you know they curse words and still make it the reason i'm myself all the time amongst these two is like you can still be yourself you don't have to be a coon or Uncle Tom, or you don't have to switch who you are in order to make it in life. Like you can still be yourself. And I think that that in itself is my responsibility, whether they feel like it's, whether some people are turned off by it, whether they say it's not professional enough. But even hearing you said, I was like, wow, I didn't even realize how that can be an adverse effect to you because some people may identify you as like he's a trump supporter or he may be somebody who looks like people who hate black people and we don't want this to be um either represent we don't want

to be involved with this right but to even feel like that is to feel like how a lot of people feel and even though in certain segments or parts of america people don't deal with this so we shouldn't have to deal with this i think it's just like just think how stupid that is though yeah like i have to like that has to be a thing you know oh yeah i couldn't imagine that i can barely get out of my car and know make sure my fucking shoes are tight i couldn't imagine you know at that point though from a success standpoint because a lot of people when they when they deal with doubt or circumstances that are challenging, they say, maybe I should adapt who I am, or maybe I should come at it differently when I think we all know the key to any kind of

success is authenticity, pure authenticity. Did you ever at any point in that process say, maybe I got to dial back the accent, maybe I got to the haircut maybe i gotta be less of me to make it out here which i it's a question no it's a great question i did i mean i actually for a while i tried to sound like really really mainstream and not be myself you know i think i grew this haircut out because i looked at a picture of myself and i'd always had short hair and i have a big nose so it's like you can hide a big nose better if you got you know more hair or something you know like that i mean yeah okay um sorry but you can but so those were things that some of this was insecurity but then once i started growing my hair i was like oh man oh i i saw a picture of myself i said i never want to see my i'll never know what it's

like to have long hair my whole life because all my pictures are short hair i said maybe i'll change it up a little and just try yeah try something wild you know uh and in canada this is a hockey haircut in canada you think this they think you play for the canadians you know but here down here it's like they don't know what you do um but i don't man i i look forward to coming i'd love to come on you guys's podcast i'll be in columbus um i didn't even announce these tour dates yet but it'll be in the early early spring hell yeah we can't wait to watch it so i'd love to talk about this kind of stuff some more just think about it man you know the whole way i can't wait this is uh this is the i haven't one i've enjoyed myself and two i i'm glad i didn't listen to you before I came on.

He's like, fuck you in his head. Yeah, no. So I was like, one, I said, okay, this guy cheesy, right? Oh, yeah. Sometimes. No. I'm 38, dude. The level of queso as you start to get older and age, it builds up on you, bro.

You can't help but build up on queso. I was asking myself, but then after you start talking, and there's a deep sense of intelligence when you talk because i could tell people like i've read enough and listened to enough people you could tell through cadence through words through purpose how to use them how to leverage them and you could tell when somebody's volleying back and forth what conversation i would say if i'm not good at a lot of shit i think i'm good at that and because i think in prison you fucking hear people talk all day yeah and so you can like you know you pick up on shit well your instincts are probably pretty acute i bet yeah my man there you go so you know i don't

know i don't know i've thoroughly enjoyed myself and i'm pretty sure i think but i don't know conversations never stop and i'd absolutely love to have you uh when you're in columbus yeah that's the whole deal with our stuff these conversations they don't have an end point we're always working to get to a better place and we'll die working to get to a better place i love that i can't tell someone uh when john talks if we're like i feel like i'm in like in the military one moment i'm like what are we about to go listen theo but no it's great though it's great man no i love knowing that i have people that i could talk to about business you know i love knowing that if i you know uh this is cool you know i'm a big fan of you guys dude and um i'm really really really grateful that i came that you guys came out here um you know maurice i

think one thing that you do have a gift at is being like uh a liaison to people you know and connecting people because i mean that is one of the like a liaison to people, you know, and connecting people because, I mean, that is one of the benefits of having a name, you know, is that you get to be a bridge, you know, you really, you know, as much as people sometimes want to use you as a staircase, probably. I bet a lot more people probably want to use you as a bridge, you know. Hopefully, hopefully through this podcast, we can do just that. Hopefully we get people who listen and hopefully people who like and i've had a ton of people i gotta say now one of the biggest

y'all was talking about earlier uh one of the biggest things happens when i was a fucking steak and shake not steak and shakes the in and out no i love shake shackq No I was in Shaquille O'Neal's house Shaquille O'Neal No Penn Station They sell the Steak Cheese steaks And a guy came up to me And the guy was like

Man And I thought he was Going to say something About football But he's like Man I listen to y'all Podcasts every fucking day And when he said it

He emphasized He said you don't realize I learned so much shit From there And so that To me Yeah And when I get DM's From dudes And these dudes Are naming specific things He said, you don't realize I learned so much shit from there. And so that to me. Yeah. And when I get DMs from dudes and these dudes are naming specific things from what we're talking about.

And my dudes are sending me text messages about shit that we talked about. Dude, that is the most rewarding thing to let you know that you are doing what you're supposed to be doing. And I think in life, when you when you can do what you are meant to do and you can connect to people in a way that you want to connect like that is the greatest shit and i think that that is like what leaves an impact on people yeah i agree man i mean yeah it's well said yeah i think we're you guys good man real good man yeah awesome john cory uh marise thank you so much nick we, we good? Yeah. Yeah, just super grateful you guys are here,

and I look forward to doing it on you guys' podcast in the spring. This is the Business and Biceps crew here on this past weekend. Thank you guys very much. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. And I feel I'm falling like these leaves I must be cornerstone Oh, but when I reach that ground I'll share this peace of mind I found I can feel it in my bones

But it's gonna take a little time For me to set that parking brake And let myself unwind Shine that light on me I'll sit and tell you my stories Shine on me And I will find a song I will sing it just for you

And now I've been moving way too fast Ladies and gentlemen, I'm Jonathan Kite, and welcome to Kite Club, a podcast where I'll be sharing thoughts on things like current events, stand-up stories, and seven ways to pleasure your partner. The answer may shock you. Sometimes I'll interview my friends. Sometimes I won't. And as always, I'll be joined by the voices in my head. You have three new voice messages.

A lot of people are talking about Kite Club. I've been talking about Kite Club for so long. Longer than anybody else. So great. Hi, it's me. Here's the deal. Anyone who doesn't listen to Kite Club is a dodgy bloody wanker. Charmaine.

I'll take a quarter pounder with cheese and a McFlurry. Sorry sir, but our ice cream machine is broken. Oh, no! I think Tom Hanks just butt dialed me. Anyway, first rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club. Second rule of Kite Club is tell everyone about Kite Club. Third rule, like and subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts or watch us on YouTube, yeah?

And yes, don't worry, my Brad Pitt impression will get better.