Change is never comfortable.
Deadass, However, the caveats you need to be uncomfortable to change.
M hm hm hmmm, deadass. Hey, I'm Kadeen and I'm Devoured and we're the Ellis's.
You may know us from posting funny videos with our.
Voice and reading each other publicly as a form of therapy.
Wait, I make you need therapy most days.
Wow.
Oh, and one more important thing to mention, we're married.
Yes, sir, we are.
We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of li's most taboo topics.
Things most folks don't want to talk about.
Through the lens of a millennial married couple. Dead ass is a term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts one hundred the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. We about to take philosof to our whole new level.
Dead ass starts right now.
Story time all right, story time, growth, mindset, discomfort with chains.
I'm actually going to take y'all back to two thousand, twenty four years ago. I was a sixteen year old sophomore in high school and I was starring a basketball team, had good grades. I'm like yo, I'm going to go play college basketball and make my life whatever it is. But at the time, basketball was my way out. I didn't know anything else. I'm like, if I play sports well enough and I can get a scholarship, I can do basketball. I'm playing. In the game, kid goes for
a layup. I blocked the ball. Boom, get the rebound, come back down, dunk it. I'm sixteen years old at the time, I'm only like five to nine, right. Football coach comes over to me after the game. He goes, hey, you ever thought about playing football? No, I'm five nine, one hundred and thirty two pounds.
Like, I'm not.
I'm not playing football. I'm not tackling nobody. This was coach Ish, who you know, you know Ish. He was just like, eight, bro, show me how many five nine guys are in the NBA right now.
I was like, said exactly.
He said, I couldn't nobody exactly. I said, but I can show you a ton of guys playing football. He said, I can guarantee you go to school for free music to my yeah, because at the time, I wasn't. I wasn't thinking pro athlete. I wasn't I was thinking change my circumstance. I don't want to be in Brooklyn. I want to go somewhere else. I want to get a higher education. I had a plan.
So he was out. He you go to school for free. I said, cool.
He says, you got to play football. He said, you play receiver. You'll go in between the numbers in the sidelines. That's all I need you for. I need you anywhere inside. You don't got to tackle nobody or lies. But in
that moment, change started. And it was the most uncomfortable part of my life at fifteen, because now I had to go from being a finesse athlete who everybody knew for playing basketball to being a kid that nobody thought could play football, also being too small realistically to play football. And it took me about a whole year, my whole
junior season. Even though I had some success, it was a struggle, like I didn't know much about the game and I didn't know much about developing as a football athlete, and it was hard. It was hard, But during that time, those challenges made me a better person all around, and I grew as a person because of the uncomfortable nature of trying to be a football player. And I became so good at learning how to be comfortable in that uncomfortable nature that it just followed me the rest of
my life, and the rest was history. Ended up getting a football scholarship and going to the NFL. But if it wasn't for me being able to be uncomfortable during that change, never would happen, Never would have happened.
All right, karaoke time, karaoke time.
Yes, So today we're talking about change, things being uncomfortable and baby, when the times get rough and the going gets tough, who else do we lean on but the Lord fact. So that being said, this is the song you got for today? What a fellowship? Okay, a joy divine leaning on?
Get do you get? Tell you to a Baptist.
No, we're saying this very dryly.
It was more like a what a fellowship? It was that joy divine leaning.
Yeah.
My church was very we didn't clap or anything. I know things are different now, but when I was growing up in an Adventist church, everything.
Was very Yes, oh that's why you was going so slow.
Not in the Baptist church.
Everything session what a blessed what a peace of mind? Leaning on the everlasting arms?
Leaning y'all heard the double club that double clap off beat class, Safe.
And secure from all alarms, y'all, leaning on the everlasting arm.
Those those words mean a lot.
Let's take they take a quick break, and then we'll come back and discuss why those words are so important.
What have I to dread? What have I to fear? Leaning on the everlasting? Maybe it's a word. We'll be back, all right, So let's unpack the story time a little bit. The question that came to mind when you were talking about the story and talking about the discomfort you felt
having to learn this new way of doing things. How different do you think your life would have been if you did not lean into that being a lesson so early on when you were younger, like you were able to see that, Wow, I made this change in a season of discomfort, and it gave me this product. So is that something that you just felt like you were going to continue to do moving forward because of that one situation or you just felt like it was always in you to want.
To do that.
No, that one situation showed me that in order to elevate, you have to be willing to deal with discomfort. For example, your star at a sport at fifteen. Everyone knows you for that sport. It's easy to say I'm going to stick with this because I'm good at this, But then you also have to realize that, well, I may be good at this, but do I have the natural gifts and talents?
Even if I worked hard?
And you can't be six ' eight, even if I worked hard, will this sport take me to a place where I see my life going? And sometimes leaning on the everlasting mom is also lever lasting arm is listening when God put someone in your life to send you a message to say, maybe you might want to try this way. First of all, you have to use discernment to say is this message coming from God? Or is this message from me just seeing something and wanting to do something.
Different, trying to fit that square piece into the circle hole kind of thing.
I honestly felt like God sent me that message because something about it just seems so right. And even though I knew I was going to be uncomfortable, it was like rock with it. And when I tell you I was uncomfortable. Okay, I had to go to my first football camp. I didn't bring the right clothes, I didn't like contact at the time. I had to hit dudes who are fifty pounds heavier than me. I had to get hit by dudes. I was around a group of people.
Even in this time in school when you're popular, in this pockets of popularity, I was not popular amongst the football team. So here I am with a group of guys and maybe only one or two of them Stephen Bofo, who everybody knows now shout out to my boy Bofer from Coney Island. He lives in LA He works in the industry.
Now.
He always embraced me. One of his friends, actually Cambridge always embraced me. So I had two people on a team of about forty people who embraced me. Everybody else was kind of like, ah, you're a basketball player, you can't do this. But I learned how to be uncomfortable
but also respect the craft of what they're doing. And then once I was able to thrive in that field, a field that I didn't think I would be successful in, it showed me that I can do whatever I want as long as I submit myself to God, listen to what God is saying, continue to work, be respectful to whatever the changes that I'm doing, not being arrogant to think that, oh, since I was good at this, I'll then be good at that.
It took me a whole year.
Trust in the process.
Trust in the process.
It took me a whole year in high school to figure out the game of football order for me to be successful. When I figured it out, brough a bunch of broke a bunch of records, and became a full scholarship athlete and ultimately an all city or state player. But going through that taught me about change and told me that change was necessary in order to reach my goals. You have a plan, But I say this all the time. The funniest thing you can do in life is tell God where your plan is.
I've seen that time and time again.
My plan was never to play football. Ever, my brother played football his whole life.
I watched him. It was like, this is dumb.
I remember meeting you at the Tradeway Field School banquet and you told me that you were a football player, and I was like, oh, okay, I mean cool, if you're playing football, that's awesome. But what I thought, esthetically a football player looked like, you know, I'm looking at NFL players.
I was just like, well, I guess I guess he'll grow into it.
Huh right, No, seriously, sious, most people did?
I mean when you met me, I was five ten, one hundred and forty six pounds.
Were you one and forty?
When I went to camp that year in August, I weighed I was trying to get to one fifty five. I weighed in at one eight. Oh my goodness, I was I was small and I was tiny.
And when we started dating in college, there were all the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches late at night, making bacon eggs and pancakesakes every thirteenth floor. Estebrook hall me just saying, all right, you need to gain how much weight we're just gonna eat?
And I gained the weight too. And then what talk about discomfort?
Right?
It was comfortable for me the minute it left my lips. I'm like Deville was going to say that it was comfortable for him. I can think of one of my earlier seasons of discomfort, And I think it happens for us around kind of that teenage years or high school years rather, because that's when you kind of start to have an awareness of self. You're starting to not necessarily lean as much on your parents, but you're trying to
figure out who you are. So my earliest season of discomfort was when I was graduating from Midwood High School. I was applying to colleges and my track at that point was going to be nursing and eventually pediatrics.
I always wanted to be a.
Pediatrician, but I think that was just the narrative that I was teaching myself. Having existing in the comfort of the space of medical professionals.
That was the mindset that I had.
The narrative I taught myself.
Yes, the narrative I taught myself because I was existing within a world of medical professionals with my immediate family and surrounding family members, and everyone applauded and revered the idea of Kadeen.
Becoming a pediatrician.
And it made me think of this more recently because my mom was watching some old videos Florida at my grandma's house and I was giving an introduction of myself to the audience when I was on stage competing for the Miss New York Junior Team title, and I said that I aspire one day to be a pediatrician, and I was just like man. That was back when I was just I told myself that that's what I wanted
to speak. It sounded good at the time, and it made sense, and every parent wants their kid to be a doctor, and I was just trying to walk in that purpose of what my family had for me. But the discomfort came in when time came to apply for colleges and I was applying to these pre med and nursing programs and just was not bought into the idea
of it. And my comfort was insaying to myself, all right, well, I could just go across the street, because Midwoo High School is here, Brooklyn College is really across the street. I could just like stick around for a year and be in my comfort zone of being on Bedford Avenue and figuring things out for a year while I find a way within this discomfort to tell my family that I don't really want to be a pediatrician. I want
to pursue communications. And if I did not stand in that at that age and say I have to let them know that this is not the route that I want for my life, who knows what more discomfort would have been on the other side of that had I not made the decision to say no, I'm going to take reins of my life, and just though it may cause them discomfort in this moment and me discomfort in the end, we're all going to be comfortable with Kadeen is living her dreams. So that was my earliest moment
of that. But why do people shot away from change and discomfort? Because when I look at it, mediocrity dwells in comfort. Yes, you know, that's a space where you're okay, just being okay because you're accustomed to or you're used to it. And we see it with a lot of
people in relationships. Oh, I've been with this person for X y Z amount of years, so it's comfortable here, even though I may not be happy, And you're willing to dwell within that mediocre situation and ultimately you are uncomfortable, but you're telling yourself that I'm comfortable because I'm used to it.
I'm accustomed to this. Remember jobs everything.
Remember in prototype, the one thing I should say to these kids all the time, comfort and complacency was the road most traveled to mediocrity. Think about it as a muscle. This is a scientific fact, ladies and gentlemen. In actual this is an actual scientific fact. If you want to see growth in any muscle, you know what you do with the muscle.
Stretch it, push it, you.
Make it well uncomfortable.
Right, Growth in your muscles is uncomfortable, right, You have to break it down to this rarest form. You have to overwork it. You have to push it.
You have to feed it.
You have to feed you have to work it. There are things you have to do. You have to in order to see growth. Your life is no different. When you sit in comfort and you sit in complacency, you will be mediocre your mus and it's easy for you to It's easy to even find an analogy because you said it. Most of the time in life, we like condition our own minds with narratives that we hear from other people who are around us. So you was like, O, hey,
everybody arouns me's doctor, medical profession. I'm telling myself that's what I want to do because that's what I see. So you spend your life telling yourself that, and it's comfortable because you've seen everybody do it.
Here's another thing about comfort.
It doesn't matter how much money you make in your comfort state, you will never be happy. I'll tell you right now. I never wanted to be a professional athlete. I wanted to be an entertainment I wanted to be a creator. I wanted to write, direct, produce, and act. I made it to the NFL. I was making a lot of money. I woke up every day like this,
I practice. You've watched me going through it. And the reason why I say that is because when they say things like money don't find won't bring you happiness, that is a fact. I was making a lot of money doing what was comfortable because at that point I had just worked so hard at becoming a football player that being a football player was noisy.
It was normal, what's the next step? NFL? I can do that.
But then when it was time to leave and it was a choice to make, it was like, all right, now, not in college, no more, not in the NFL. There's no money coming in. I have to make an adjustment with my wife. And the adjustments didn't only come in occupation. It came in location. It also came in relationships because we went from being boyfriend and girlfriend to being fiances, and we were going to go from being fiance to
being husband and wife. All of that change was happening at the exact same time you went from being a stay at home girlfriend to now having to get into the workforce. That was uncomfortable for you. So you and I both were going to the going through the most uncomfortable changes in our lives. At the same time, we leaned into each other. Yeah, we leaned into trusting God, trusting the process, and just believing that what you put out in the universe you will get back tenfold.
Yeah, And that wasn't easy for us.
I mean, we struggled through those changes because in that discomfort and in the change, there's also this feeling of bewilderment, right because you don't know what to expect, You don't know what's going to be different, you don't know how it's going to affect your life in the long run. And I feel like for us it happens every like,
maybe like every five years or so. There's something that gets uncomfortable for either one of us or as the collective, and we just kind of know like, Okay, maybe something has seen its course, maybe it's time to pivot, maybe
there's time to do something different. So I implore people to look at every aspect of their life and think about when something isn't working anymore, or you feel like you've given your all to a particular you know, relationship or situation, and then you feel like, damn in this season. I think this season's coming to an end. Sometimes you have to lean into that, you have to accept it, and you have to figure out how you're going to
pivot and move. For me, I realize also a big catalyst for change or discomfort in my life are milestone birthdays. I don't know what it is about milestone birthdays, and it's almost like every five to ten year, those increments like the five and I can tell you what I think it is. I think for me, okay, yeah, for me, I know that it forces me to do a reflection on the previous years and how far I may have come in those five or ten years or the entire
my entire life. So at forty, for example, feeling that discomfort all of my thirty ninth year because I felt like, man, okay, I'm about to be forty. Now, I feel like I have to really think about what the rest of my life is going to look like and how I'm going to map that out. What have I been doing in those past maybe four to five years that wasn't quite working or didn't bring me the results that I wanted.
How can I now make adjustments in order to make my forties or to at least forty five better than from thirty five to forty. So that's the way I see it, and that's normally when I have a season of discomfort is for whatever reason around those mouths, I'm gonna.
Tell you us go ahead and tell me.
This is the reason why women are conditioned a lot like athletes. What do they tell athletes? Tim run it out, timing it out? As you get older, you won't be able to do this time round. As you get older, you won't be able to do that. And to be honest, they don't say that to men men who work in fields is enjoy the process, you know, saying you have time, get better, get better, you have time. But women, it's just like are you married by this time? Did you
have kids by this time? And it's it's like, since we condition women from a young age that things have to happen because of the biological clock. I've noticed that women are really big on timetables. And there's a reason why. There's scientific facts that prove that women who are looking to have it's biology. Women who are looking to have families and do things have to get it done at a certain age in order to protect their health right.
So part of the reason why you feel like that with milestone birthdays is because women are conditioned to always look at age, because athletes to the same way. They always tell you when you get to twenty five, now you old head. Athletes is an old head.
That's the market for that field.
When you get to thirty, you're ancient.
Anything after thirty for most athletes is where you're downhill as far as your athletic performance is going to be. So you have to learn how to pivot to do things a little bit more less athletic. We see it with Tom Brady, We seen it with Lebron James and Steph Curry. Once they got past thirty. You've been in the league eight, nine, ten years, then it's like, well, what you're going to do now your athleticism is going even though Lebron's athleticism in the thirties was still at its peak.
But I say all that to say this. You talked about pivoting.
This is a little thing that I noticed about the world that I don't think a lot of people notice. You always have to be prepared to pivot because we live in a copycat society. If you find a way to make money or do something the world is watching, you're going to have hundreds of thousands of millionsic people then doing the same thing you do. So now there's less money to make. Now it's uncomfortable because I was
doing this and now everyone's doing it. So you always have to be prepared to change and grow so that you can outlast the curve. That is the fact that you have to always outlast, and I've learned this in sports. I learned this in sports when I first got to HOSTRA we were one of the first This was two thousand and two. We were one of the first teams to run the four wide receiver set no huddle in college. Now every team runs it. Before that, teams are running
the wishbone, the wing tea. Everybody was running a ball. Now they're passing. There's going to be an evolutionary change, and it's going to change again, but it's the same thing throughout life.
Everyone's running to the medical profession.
So if everybody's running that, there's less jobs because everyone's going there, there's a higher fight.
Now they can pay people less money.
It's like, thenk I did all of the stuff that my parents did, I'm not making anywhere there as money as they did. Same thing with real estate. When my parents got into real estate, you could buy a house for thirty forty thousand dollars back in the eighties, and so now it's like, oh, that generation made a ton of millionaires because they were able to do that. Now, if you're looking to buy a home, a two thousand square foot home in Canarsi, seven hundred thousand dollars.
So it's like that.
You can't stay the same and just listen to what you've been conditioned to by your parents to do what they did, because as the world changes, those things are not available anymore. You have to have a growth mindset if you want to continue to prosper and have upward mobility, because if you just do what everyone else do, then just be comfortable, you're going to be mediocre.
And you know what, don't pay mediocrity, don't pay.
It doesn't That was literally our mindset with our live shows. Yes, find different ways to you know, elevate the experience for y'all. So if you're at the live show this past, go round, Shout out to.
Y'all, shout out to yeah time.
Yes, all right, let's jump into some facts sin stats. Individuals who believe their talents can be developed through hard work, good strategies, and input from others have a growth mindset. So ask yourself do you have that? They tend to achieve more than those with a more fixed mindset, those who believe that their talents are innate gifts. Hard work beats talent when talent doesn't work hard.
But you have to explain to people different between talents and gifts. Go ahead, tell the gifts are things that God has given you that can't be taken away.
For example, you six ' eight right now.
It don't matter how much stretching I do, I will never in my life be six eight.
That's a gift. Right.
Talent is a combination between a gift and a skill. For example, you six ' eight, but you can dribble with both hands, you can shoot. You've worked on your apploid metrics so you can jump high. That's a skill. You combine someone who's talented with a skill set, and now they've become gifted. There you go everyone is given a gift. God gives everyone a gift. It's your responsibility to find out what that gift is, nurture it, pair it with a skill, and then you know what you
do with that gift. You share it with others.
That is really good.
That's how the coal to mine.
You're a good people person, You're great with just people want to be around you. You have a great spirit, you have this vibrancy about it.
And then you go.
Ahead now and then you well I was speaking generally, but yes you do.
Oh I thought you're talking about me.
I was like, because you are actually an example of this. But you have something good to say. You speak life into people. So then we peer that now right with you then saying you know what, I went to school for communications. Now I can be a great motivational speaker or an oratory aratory just men toward people.
You know what I'm saying on a voice addiction classes.
That makes sense.
Saring the gift, which is just your personality with the skill and then making it a little bit or making it something beneficial, or you become a niche market that people want to buy into.
Right, So that's some good stuff.
People with a growth mindset, they embrace challenges, they exercise less, or they experience less stress. Rather, people with growth mindsets approach challenges with enthusiasm and excitements. This allows them to transmute fear into motivation instead of letting fear manifest as stress. That's something I gotta work on personally because I know sometimes I'll be like, m this change is exciting the idea of it, but doing the work is like daunting.
But fear is the ultimate motivation.
Think about when I had to do the backflip and when you had to do the split right, you was afraid that something was going to and also embarrass yourself. Yes, for me, I was afraid I was gonna fall, bust my ship, and embarrass myself. But that fear motivated me to work on the skill set so that that doesn't happen. Rather than saying the fear is going to make me run away from it, It's like, hey, this can happen to it, right, I'm leaning into that. If I'm afraid
of that, let me focus on training and ways. And this is one of the ways. Remember I said, what if I get out there and the floor slippery? What if I get down? I can't see. So since that was my fear, I went out here.
Did it in any weather, when it was raining, when it.
Was slippery on grass, when it was dry, when it was hot, when the sun was in the sky, in type spaces.
So the fear motivated me. It was a challenge me.
The fear motivated me to challenge myself to develop the skill set, so the skill set so that I don't have to worry about it when I actually have.
To do it.
Because life on life Murphy's law. Anything that can't go wrong with me wrong. So if you are prevered on any facet for anything, and again it was just repetition, repetition, assistency, hard work, you can be prepared for anything.
And challenging yourself, finding the challenges in anything you do to challenge yourself to be greater. Like the backflip was just a precursor for me to develop that skill set to do it in front of a live audience. I wanted to be able to do it in front of a live audience so that if I ever have to perform anything physical in front of a studio, I know I've done this in front of a live audience. So there was always a plan for me. There was a plan to be able to do this in front of
a live audience. So since I want to be an action an action actor who does his own stunts, I want to be able to say I can deliver this on time when thousands of people are watching.
On on cue.
I love that often learn new skills, So someone with a growth mindset often tries to learn new skills. When you see your weak spots as opportunities for learning, you're more able to seek out opportunities to foster that learning. Prime example, people with growth mindsets also are good at finding new opportunities even if your skills don't exactly line up. A growth mindset allows you to see what you can bring to the opportunity as well as what you can
learn for it. So just putting your own little like raz as on it is always helpful. Having fostered resilience. So seeing failure as an opportunity to learn, and we talk so much it's an opportunity to learn and try again, and that's how we learn to be resilience.
So first and foremost, there's no such thing as failure. The only failure that exists in life is when you quit. That's what I tell myself it again. There is no failures in life. The only failure happens is when you quit. Think about just think about science, right. You create a hypothesis right. Once you create a hypothesis, you then have to prove that your hypothesis is true. You prove your hypothesis is true by failing over and over and over and over again until you find out how to make
it work. We've watched that in every aspect of life. That's the way things are done. Just failing is not a loss, it's a lesson because failure does not exist to me, I did that wrong? Why did I do it wrong? How can I correct it? To do it right? And an athlete help me develop that. You know when you miss a jump shot? You miss a jump shot.
How do you correct?
Was it too long? Was it too short? Right? Left?
Catching a pass? Why did I catch it? When my fingers not close enough and my fingers not shown enough. Let me develop that. People have to start developing that mindset where failure does not exist because I'm not quitting.
And that brings me to the next point that says, you have higher confidence people with growth mindset, But how do you develop that confidence. We've gotten that question before. I think someone even one of the live shows asked about like, how do you help with being confident in doing the things that you want to do well? You have to develop it somehow by being sure of yourself. And how are you sure of yourself by practicing from
failure and repetition and working at it. So being able to approach challenges and learning opportunities with enthusiasm instead of pessimism keeps your self confidence intact. It actually makes you feel better about yourself when you know you have achieved something hard, Like everyone knows what that feels like. I hope when you really achieve something that you've been working at, you know absolutely there's a euphori in that, and then they are receptive to feedback. Good feedback is at the
core of growth. So those who seek feedback from their mentors, collaborators, stakeholders, family friends, whoever has valued opinion.
We're not talking about the comment section.
We're not talking about people who've never tried to do the things that you're doing. People who actually know and can give you sound advice. You consider that, and you apply the feedback when necessary. You're able to then grow more.
I think you made a valuable point there when you said, understanding who you're getting feedback from, that's the most important puge. You know what I'm saying, Because if you don't trust the person you're getting feedback from, there's no reason to listen to them. You should only get feedback from people who you've built a relationship with. You value that they've already done what you're trying to do, or you've seen them have success in an arena that you're trying to
have success in. There was something you said here about feedback. I've noticed this with people in general. It's easier to give constructive criticism to people who've been athletes or dancers or pageants, someone who's existed in a space of competitive nature through their early teenage to young adult years, because those are our years where we're are most impressionable, from
like pre adolescents to your early early twenties. Say the onst a most insecure when you're your most insecure and you're most malleable and you found a way to let your ego go and to accept that someone else is looking to help you. This is why I believe in keeping our sons in sports or doing most playing in
instruments because you have to learn to trust people. And I remember playing football and being an arrogant nineteen year old kid who just was just like I know I could do this because and the coach is telling me, like, no, you only went seven yards. I said, no, I got ten yards. Well, let's look at the videotape. Deval the eye in the sky, don't lie. And at nineteen years old, I saw my self believe. I believe that I was
at ten yards. And when you watch yourself argue with someone that you went ten yards and then you watch yourself only go seven, it's like, coach, what'd you said I could do to help get to ten yards? Absolutely, and then you let that ego go and you start to watch yourself grow because you're listening to somebody.
It's the most fulfilling thing in the world.
It's actually something that we see now with our children, because even Jackson, like one of the questions here was how do we encourage our kids to orient more towards facing their challenges versus shying away from it. And Jackson, who dealt with a lot of performance anxiety with just even basketball because he was still new in learning in the game. He's come leaps and bounds in the past, well this first year to his second year, now his second year, going to his third year, because he is
now getting comfortable with the things that he does not know. So, for example, when you had said to him recently, like, you know, where do you see areas of areas of improvement for me? And he has said mentioned something and you said, well when you go to practice that they tell koch Yo, I want to work on this because
that's something that you're not as confident. So that's what we're trying to work on our boys early on in to just say, you know what, you're not going to be one hundred percent of everything all the time, but if you work towards it, you're going to be that much better as you progress.
But it's also explaining to them that, like, for example, with Jackson, we talked about this with him last night. Literally he misses a shot, He misses one shot body language now and I'm just like, why do you do that when you miss a shot? I don't want to miss the problem with this generation is that they watch social media. You know what's on social media highlights everything they watch is the shot going in everything you watch, is Steph Curry or Kyrie Irvin is the shot going in?
So you think that you have to make every shot. But look, let's look at the stats and the facts. Steph Curry is the greatest shooter of all time, and on average per season, he shoots anywhere between forty five and fifty percent from the field, which means Jackson, he misses more than he makes. Missus Jackson, I said, yeah, he misses more than he makes from three. He's known for the three ball. Right, he shoots at forty percent, which means he misses sixty percent of the time, Jackson,
sixty percent of the time. I can show you a compilation of Steph Curry misses that will have you thinking, Steph Curry doesn't play well and he's just like I never thought about that. Stop looking at the highlights and thinking that that's reality that is affecting people's confidence, not only in sports, but in life. You're watching these couples, for example, you watch me and k we loving each other, We got matching clothes, we take nice pictures. That's less
than one percent of what our actual life is. Less than one percent. I say it all the time. There's one four hundred and forty minutes in the day. If I post a video a day, it's only going to be one minute because reels have taken over. So you get one minute out of the fourteen hundred minutes. That's not my life. The other minutes that you don't get a chance to see is me working, me working so
that you can see the backflip. Not that every time you see the backflip, I landed it, No, because I definitely bust my shit.
Kay, definitely want to.
Do the split, and I was like, I need a little icy hot, you know what I'm saying.
Don't look at highlights on social media and let that affect your confidence because you think like you got to be like that one hundred percent of the time. That will affect your confidence, and it will affect your growth mindset because now you're afraid to and I hate saying fail because fail it only happens when you quit.
You're afraid to be, You're afraid to reach.
A lesson, an obstacle, adversity, those things, you know, get people afraid right right right.
So I hope this has helped people who I have a fixed mindset and kind of helped them leaning more into that growth mindset.
I think we've touched on a lot of things that.
Could be tips to help you kind of develop that growth mindset as well. And as we close out, as you're growing at a different pace from others around you, because I know sometimes we feel like we're just kind of in our own little space, growing and trying to figure out ways to always reinvent ourselves and do things differently. How do we move forward with grace for people who may not be And I'm saying you and I but
just a general for your listeners. If you feel like, man, I'm trying to progress and I'm moving forward and I'm working at it, and I'm trying to get the people around me to rally around me or to rally around each other so we can all grow together. How do you feel or how do you give people grace that may not be on the same.
Page, understanding that my page is not the only book that exists in the world, and if I want to change and continue to have a growth mindset, it also means sometimes that you have to leave people where they are.
I was about to say, you know what I'm saying, like, sometimes they can't go where you're going.
Right there.
The feelings growth may come in a later time. That doesn't mean you're leaving them forever. It's just right now. I'm in a position where I think I need to go this way. You're rocking with me. You're not rocking with me. Cool, there's no love laws. Growth means I have to do what's in the best interests of myself, and so do you.
So having empathy for people.
Is understanding that your perspective on what they need to do with their life is only just your perspective. Let them have their conversation with God and the people in their circle and then figuring out on their own time. Because if you think about it, I came through it on my own time just because I realized it now, don't mean everybody else.
I could be late to the party.
There's people now who's probably where I was in this moment who I'm like, Oh, that's how Oh that's why we don't talk as much. You own something different, and now I finally caught up. You know what I'm saying. Sometimes growth means you get left behind, not that you're always leaving someone.
You don't see it.
Everyone has a revelation at a different point, right but also too, you have to realize as you grow, as you elevate, everybody can go.
With you all the time.
And there's some people who may just get left behind because you know what, they're okay with a comfortable lifestyle.
We know a lot of people who are just like I don't necessarily want more.
I got my nine to five, my house, I got my kids, I got my wife, my husband, whatever, and they're comfortable being there. So we have to not judge people who are getting what they want out of their life and it may not align with what we want out of our life. It's not passing judgment, but just saying, hey, you cool. I'll meet you at a cross road at some point if we happen to intersect, and if we don't, it's all good.
Don't love you any less.
And we got to stop doing this. We got to step judging people who have grown and done other things. If you got left behind, if you got left behind because that person is onto something else or doing something else, learn to applaud them and say to yourself, whatever that person has gone through or seen to get them to that level, I just hope that God allows me to see that for myself.
Or I hope that it's the feeling for them, though it may not be something that I necessarily aspire to, you know, so that you're not getting the comments like oh you big dog now, or the.
Hollywood thing like you know, I feel you.
That that those comments too are tired and washed.
They are kind of shady. Yeah, I'm trying to be like you big player.
You could have been if you worked hard at it or whatever it is that you wanted to work at.
Or if they experienced the growth mindset. They still can't do it.
Absolutely.
Sometimes it's shady because those those words are rooted and you did something unsavory to get to where you you got to. You know, sometimes people don't realize that that's those were those things kind of imply yeah, you know, and it's simply hard work.
Yes, it's hard work. It's all work from everybody, you know.
So all right, y'all, let's take a quick break. Hopefully that was helpful to our listeners out there today. We're going to pay some bills and get back after these ads, so stick around. All right, now we're back. Let's jump into our listener letters today. All right, First and foremost, I just want to give you guys, your flowers for being the inspiration to so many, including my companion. I'm a comedian. I've been doing content for about three and
a half years now. I've built my following to almost two million across three platforms, one point three million on Facebook, two seventy k on Instagram, and four fifty k on TikTok. That's awesome, right. I feel like it's been time for me to expand my talent and further expose myself to gain connections outside of my state and sort of at a standstill and don't know how to go about getting auditions and further exposing myself. Content creation is how I
make money at the moment. Twenty twenty one was an amazing year financially, twenty twenty two I was demonetized and I had to drive uber and lift. This put a damper on my relationship. We have been on and off now for nine years. This year, I plan to ask her to marry me. I want the world for this woman and my family. I've put myself in that position to make it happen. I just don't know how to execute this next step with my career and making sure she's involved as well. My main goal is to get
auditions and land a role. I have the following and engagement. I know this can be put to use, but I just need advice on how executing the next step will get to this blessing, auditions, etc. This is me asking for help me if needs help me. Thank you for being amazing and big inspirations to all of us couples out there and those preparing for love, God's gift to humanity.
Thank you for that.
That's what's saying so much.
Thank you for that.
This does sound very similar to what I went through as far as creating content in order to give myself opportunities for TV film. The truth of the matter is, even though I was creating content, I was still doing the work that an actor needs to do. I was still going on auditions. I did a lot of commercial work. I did off Broadway work. I did stage work. I went to Esper Studio and did a two year conservatory there. I did four years at Hofstra. I did speech communications, I did rhetoric studies.
I did what else.
I did voice and diction classes, performance. I took jobs because he talked about doing lyft and stuff. I took jobs at the substitute teachers that don't knock yourself, substitute teacher in studio. Analysts like I was willing to do anything in order to make money to provide on my family.
I was a trainer for twelve years.
I say all that to say this, being in the entertainment industry doesn't mean that you don't have to do the things outside of the entertainment industry to provide for your family.
That's what I was willing to do.
I was willing to I would have peeled oranges and sold them on the street if it mean I made a couple hundred dollars to pay for my kids' classes or my wife's whatever. And I think so often people believe that getting into acting needs you have to sacrifice everything and to just dive into acting and be a struggling, starving actor.
You and I said, we never wanted to do that.
I watched my wife go from being a stay at home wife to working in the mall, you know, for three years because we needed health insurance, you know. Then she started doing content creation and it was you know, it was good, it was lucrative. But we're still doing the work on the thespian side, and that's going to be my advice to you. My advice to you is, if you really want to get into being an actor, you can't shortcut your way by doing content creation. You
still have to be a thestpian. You still have to go on auditions, you have to write your own projects. You still have to get in these rooms, meet with producers, and meet with casting directors in order to make sure that they know who you are. Just the following is not enough. The industry has shown putting an influencer in a movie is not going to make a movie hit because it's different when people get content for free and then they have to go pay to watch you create
create content. You know, part of the reason why Kadeen and I did live shows was to not only showcase our other talents, but was to also see, like hm, how many of these people would.
Support us if they had to pay to watch us.
And that's how you get a gauge on whether you've developed a skill set enough to attract people's attention away from the cell phone. Because the cell phone was a shortcut. It's free content. Everybody watches it.
It's free.
So I would say, continue to build your resume, Continue to go on auditions, seek out an agent or a manager, but also do the work as a thespian. You know, that two year conservatory was a sacrifice. We had just had Jackson. I was still taking clients, Kadeen was still working at the time, and I had to go to the city three times a week for two years, like three times a week. I had to go there, had
to do scene study with my partners. I had seen partners at the house, Kadeen walking in the freaking life room, and I got seen partners were going over studies and going to the city. Those are things people don't see. So it was never just I created something on Instagram and then ended up on Sisters and Zatima. That never happened. If you go back, I was on the Blacklist, I was on Blue Bloods. I was on Power Way before social media, which means I've been working at this TV thing for a.
Couple of years time.
Yeah, and I love that he kind of has like he has an idea of what he wants to do. He's been out with his woman for a while now, or yeah, his woman he says, okay, or her woman.
Sorry didn't specify, But knowing that.
You know having the support of a partner to do that with is also very amazing.
So good luck to you.
Yes, and onto our lastness and letter for.
The day number two.
As the coda comes in here and just flops on the floor because you know we work at home. What's up, buddy?
You chilling?
Yeah?
All right, go find your brothers, Go.
Find her brothers. Go ahead, all right, be careful, hey, K and D.
First and foremost, I would like to congratulate you guys in your success and beautiful family. I've been watch since way back, and I'm truly inspired by both of you and wish you nothing but the best of the best in your future endeavors. Thank you so much. My question for today is how do I stop myself from crying? My boyfriend twenty five and I twenty four have been together for almost two years now and have been living together for less than one year. We met online, met up,
and then the rest was history. Through our relationship we have established and that communication that oh I know where she's going.
That communication and comprehension is key.
So whenever we have an issue, we do our best to communicate with each other and figure out how to move forward. I'm very big on not going to bed upset after each other with each other, and although following that is not as easy for him, he tries his best to keep that thing okay, keep that a thing. We normally are able to have a conversation about our problems without having high emotions effect affected. However, recently I can't stop myself from crying, Kadean when we do try to talk it out.
This is what you're going to have to answer this question.
He feels that I'm trying to manipulate and overthrow how he feels when this happens. But I really, in reality, I cried because I'm so mad at myself. Go ahead, baby, literally mean that I have disappointed the person I love. I try to bottle it up at times, and it just comes out.
Baby.
I know I feel recently that I just can't do anything right, and I hate disappointing the people I love. Go ahead, baby, answers, I wish any advice.
I wish I had advice.
I still be doing the same shit, and I sometimes at this point try to shy away from conversations because I know I feel exactly how you feel.
It's like damn, like, how could.
I have been so stupid to do this thing to disappoint the one person who's doing everything to make sure I have everything in life, and I can't help, but just want to. I don't want to say that I can't help, but at that point just want to just kick myself because I'm just like, how can I have disappointed this person? I really had to work on and I still continue to work on this, and it's really
trying to make sure that I contain my emotions. Sometimes I have to gather myself before I then go to speak with Deval about something because I don't ever want it to feel like it's a manipulation tactic or that I'm crying for sympathy or emotions. And Devou has said to this point like he's like, I don't even care if you cry anymore because I'm so like over the crying thing that it doesn't.
Move me either way.
Yeah, And if I were trying to manipulate the situation with crying, then it would be easy for me to stop. Now.
No, yeah, I don't. That's part of me saying I don't care anymore because I understand where you are, Like, canne go ahead and cry and let it out but let's.
Talk about this, right, So sometimes I have to remove myself and devout some and DEVELOP was taking that at one point as me just trying to abandon or jump ship on the conversation, and I'm just like, I just need a minute or two to just get it out, because as much as I try to be the sagittarian thug that I think I am, I'm not, particularly when I know that this is somebody who I am married to, I'm committed to, he's committed to me, and he's doing
all the things necessary and then some to make sure that I'm okay, when ultimately I want to make sure he's okay too. But the emotion of it all and the disappointment in myself takes over. So I would say to you, take some time sometimes when you're having these conversations. You know you don't want to go to bed upset,
you know you want to have the conversation. Just say, babe, give me a second, go to the bathroom, let it out, do whatever it is you need to do, and then come back when you're gathered, so that way you can have a conversation with him. That's a sound mine eliminating some of the emotion from it, but you do also want it to be genuine because sometimes now when I don't cry or I sound like I'm being too rigid
with my delivery, Deval feels like I don't care. So you're trying to have to find the line between showing empathy and care for your partner, but also making sure that your sound in what you're saying and you're in a space where you're not judged, you're not clouded by the emotion of it all. How does it feel being received on your end? Do you think that it's a manipulation or do you think.
That it's No, I don't think.
In the beginning, I was just like always going to cry because she knows once she starts crying, and once Kadeen starts crying for me, my world's done.
I could be mad at something she starts crying.
Used to be used to be the minute she started crying, I grab her and I'll just be like, come on, wee can't like no, whatever it is, will fix it, I'll fix it.
I'm sorry.
And then after a while I started to feel like I always do that, and I let her off the hook because now she's like, oh, Davalo said, he's fine.
So I continue doing what I want.
And you're not really fine.
No, I'm not fine.
What I've learned is, and what I've tried to tell Kadeen so many times is even if it's one hour every week, one hour every week, Kadeen will say, if I come to say, can we talk about some things I think need to be corrected, the first thing Kadean would say is that we always having a talk. Just think of the mathematics. One hour a week, there's twenty four hours in the day. There's seven days in a week, so that's about what one and one hundred and sixty
one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week. If I want to talk about what we can change for one hour, that's less than one percent. But the first thing that you think of is I can't do anything.
Right because it's logical standpoint, practical versus emotion.
So for one hundred and sixty seven hours out of the week, I praise you how much I love you. The fact that I want to talk about it doesn't mean that none of that stuff is still true. Oh yes, it's just like, let's talk about it for hours.
I'm out the window, and anything that's going right in that week is completely gone.
But that also talks about what we talked about here, the change mindset. In order for you to have a change growth mindset, you have to be willing to take criticism, especially from the person you love the most, because you're supposed to do life together. You can't have a growth mindset. In the minute he or she wants to talk about something that's affecting them, you think everything you've done is wrong.
That's a quit and failure mindset. True, so it means everything has to be perfect your way or it's not good. And the minute you can start to get to the point where you realize, okay, he wants to discuss something that's in this moment that's affecting him, that doesn't negate all of the other great moments we have, you'll be able to accept criticism. Because athletes go through that too.
When you first get the college and they always correcting you right, you think I can do nothing right, but then you realize, dang, that coach at avoid me and told me good jobs so many other times. And human nature, when someone tell you good job, you kind of let all the thanks.
Yeah, But then when.
Someone tell you need to fix that the world comes crumbling down.
It's true.
Even think about, like, for example, the comments section, all these praises positivity, we love you, we love you, and then somebody makes one negative comment, whether it's a troll or not, and it's just like, damn you harp on that one negative thing, you know, So that's a good I think that's a good way of putting.
It as well.
Have a growth mindset.
I have a growth mindset when it comes to the relationship as well. And it's just no baby, gifts and talents, put them together because I know what my gifts and talents are, darling, and that usually fixes things at the very end.
Anyway, definitely leaning. I ain't gonna lie about it that.
No, but we're not using that.
Either, just to don't manipulate, don't in sense to just you know, get enjoyment and discussingcause after a while he gonna take the couchatcha.
And still be mad, and still be mad, and then what because.
Now you're talking but now nuts and so like I was.
Saying, oh my god, that would drive me insane. I'm sleep I'm sleeping, all right. If you want to be featured as one of our listener letters. Email us at dead assadvice at gmail dot com.
That's d E A D A S S A d V I C E at gmail dot com.
All right, moment of truth time.
We're talking growth mindset versus fixed mindset discomfort when it comes to change.
What you got for them today, baby.
Mine, mine is very very easy. Learn to be comfortable being uncomfortable. And once you can find comfort and uncomfortability, you'll always grow because you'll learn how to adapt and pivot and you'll never get stuck just being complacent.
That's a good one.
I think my moment of truth is uh, Mediocrity dwells in the arms of comfort. So if you aspire to do more, to be more, to have more, to be your best self, you have to get ready for change that comes with this comfort. And like this said Devao said, pushing past that there's always breakthrough on the other side. So Hire is waiting, y'all, Hire is waiting.
All right.
Be sure if you have not yet to join us on Patreon, we're having a time over there, y'all. You can see exclusive dead Ass podcast content. The After Show, which has become a fan favorite with Triple Matt and Josh and you're going to get some more exclusive Ellis Family content over there, So if you haven't joined yet, jump on it. And you can find us on social media dead Ass the Podcast and Kadeen I Am and.
I Am Devo And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review, subscribe, and pick up your copy of We Over Me Baby, The counter Intuitive approach to getting everything you want out of your relationship.
Let's do it.
Let's help us break one hundred K.
Let's do it, y'all.
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