Take A Break Before It's Too Late

Everywhere looks it's old. Every time I say I got it, I'm gon't be having it. Dead ass, Well, that's news to me because you are literally the epitome of check on your strong friends that as Hey, I'm Cadine and Devour and we're the ellis Is. You may know us from posting funny videos with our boys and reading each other publicly as a form of therapy. Wait, I make you need therapy most days. Wow. And one more important

thing to mention, we're married. We are. We created this podcast to open dialogue about some of life's most taboo topics, things most folks don't want to talk about through the lens of a millennium married couple. Dead ass is the term that we say every day. So when we say dead ass, we're actually saying facts, the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Were about to take pillow talk to a whole new level. Dead ass starts right now.

This past year two was an extremely long, arduous, but successful year for the Other's family. Indeed, I personally filmed. I did a film in Ottawa, A did three seasons of television. We went on a podcast tour, We finished writing the book. And those are just some of the small like some of the things that those are, like major work related things, not to mention a ton of just milestone family amends. Your mom turned sixty five, your dad turned seventy, Cash turned five, turned one, to turn one.

It was a lot. It was just a lot of things going on. In anytime I recap the year, I'm always like, thank you God first and foremost, because I wanted to complain. However, she took us out. It did so. From around April, also filmed another episode of television. I filmed what was the show Everything's Trash? So from that moment, I think it was in May, I filmed mayor June. I was going NonStop. I went from New York came back home, flew to Ottawa, came back home, flew to

do the travel show. To do the tray of the show, we went to four cities. Oh no, we went to three cities. Flew back home to do the podcast tour, then flew back to do the final city of the tour. Then came back, flew back to New York for all these different Mouthstone birthdays every weekend in September, every weekend. Also the cold is Christening. Then we flew back home to film Sisters. So I'm on set of Sisters. This is in November. After all of that flying everything, I

was feeling good. I was I was fine. I was ready to go. Monday, you were home. Tuesday you started to leave to go. You had to go to Jamaica for a family weddings, best friend's wedding. So Wednesday, Codeine left and I had the boys, My parents and my grandparents flew in and it just so happened that's when cold and flew season was starting. So the kids had gotten sick, my parents came home to help, and my

parents gotten sick. My grandparents had come home and help my grandparents into a sick I come back home on the Thursday night and everybody snacks, sneezing, coughing, fevers, headaches, and I'm in the middle of production, so I can't get sick because if I get sick, all the production stops. And we're not even talking about COVID. We're talking about

the flu. The flu was still a thing, y'all. You took the flu into the workplace and it starts to spread, it can shut everything down because it was spread so fast in this house, so it went from one person. Cairo brought the flu home and then everyone ended up getting it. So Friday, UM, I'm headed towards lunch. I'm feeling fine. I go to lay down and I get a knock at the door and it's Crystal. Everybody knows her name is Fatima on TV. She said, Yo, d

they're getting ready to call for you on set. You know, get going. I remember feeling like I was trying to get up and I couldn't get up. I was saying to my body, the val get up, and I wasn't moving. I remember being extremely hot, and the reason why I was hot is because I was feeling cold, like the chills when I went in the room. So I put the heat all the way up and turned the blanket on. Then I was feeling hot. So I woke up and I was sweating, telling my legs just get down. My

legs are not moving. She's like develoured with the matter. I'm like, yo, I don't. I don't feel that. I can't move. I can't move. So she puts her hand on my foe and she's like, yo, you're sweating. Bro, Like I'm gonna call the medic. She calls the medic. The medic comes in and was just like, bro, you know, what's the matter. How do you feel? And to be honest, I started getting nervous, like I felt scared. He was like, yo, can you sit up? So I'm like, I don't think

I can sit up. He was like, yo, if you can't sit up? And after cold ambulance. Earlier in the week, we had had someone passed out on set because um ironically enough, that first day of shooting, it was it was in November, but it was eighty eight degrees. The first member we had a anomaly. It was an abnormally hot day in November and we were filming outside on this day and one of our mild castmates pass stout

because of the heat. We were all dressed up in our sweaters and stuff, thinking we're going outside in the cold and that's what it called for. But she was standing outside for a number of hours in the heat. So they're like, may you may be dehydrated. I go downstairs too. Um once after, you know, I sat up. He was like, um, if you can't see if I'm up, to call an ambulance. I said, no, let me sit up. I don't want you to call an ambulance. It's Friday.

If they call an ambulance and I can't finish shooting, we lose a whole day because I had a number of scenes at the end of the day. And if you lose the day, it goes pushed the next week, and that, you know, costs more money for the studio. So I'm like no, And I also didn't want to It's gonna sound crazy. I didn't want to go to the doctor and they tell me I had COVID of the fluid and I can't film for the rest of

the film shoot days. And if that happens, then everybody has to wait until after the holidays to work, which means people don't get paid before Christmas. People don't get paid before New Year, and they don't get paid for Thanksgiving. And I'm like, I don't want to be the reason why. So I will myself to just get up. And I'm like, get up, get up. So I get up. Um, he takes my temperature. My temperature was like nine nine. It

wasn't like that high. So he's like, I don't He's like, I don't think you you're sick because you don't have a fever. I think you were hot initially because you're in here with the heat on and you have a blanket on. And I told him I felt cold. So they gave me some liquid, I VS give me a whole bunch of medicines and stuff, and they're like, can you finish. So I didn't have a cough, I didn't have a running nose or anything, so I'm like, here, I can finish. I end up getting up, take the

liquid I v I drink three bottles of water. I didn't use the bathroom at this point, I didn't realize what was happening. I get up. I finished my scenes. My scenes ended up being the last scenes of the night, so I was there until twelve o'clock. And I drive home. Me and K have a conversation. When I get home, my parents are waiting for me when I come in the house because I called him and told him I wasn't feeling well. Um. When I get home, I go

to wait myself. Now right now, I'm naturally around pounds. When I weighed myself that day, I was a hundred and eighty five pounds, and that's where it hit me. Then I'm burnt out. Don't push me because I'm close to the edge. Try again, not to lose my head. It's like a jungle sometimes to make me wonder what they want to take us something, what they want to take us something. That's how we're feeling at the edge of the bed, like, don't push me off the edges.

But I really want to go back to sleep, but I can't. You know, you got to do to do. All right, let's take a break and then we're gonna get back into story time and just kind of unravel it a bit. Yeah, okay, all right, and we're back. So at this point, de val Um, I wasn't here and I am in America, and I want to put this of the country. Mark this down for a podcast for us to do about miscommunications, because this story leads into a huge miscommunication between Codeine and I. Yes, it

was an awful, awful, awful time for us. Um, it was like bitter sweets, all of the bittersweet moments all in one major disagreement, made your argument major tears. It was like a big yeah talking about raveling. It was a big deal, um exactly. So I from a distance was trying to decipher, like what was going on with you? Um, And I'm so used to whenever you're filming, knowing how strenuous your schedule is at TPS that devours usually completely locked in and we don't hear, but I try to

keep all distractions away from you. So that was the whole purpose of us bringing in the reinforcements. So we had your parents, your grandparents in here, so we're like four adults in the house. Your sister was here as well. We got five adults in the house to kind of divide and conquer with the kids. So that way you

can focus. And typically you stay on campus when you film, but this time around you didn't because you've felt like, Okay, at the end of the nights, I can come home, spend some time with the family at least for an hour or two and then go back. But it wasn't

just that. It was just that. It was also because remember I had missed Jackson's football banquet the want Offensive Outstanding offensive Back, first year back in football, and he said to Okay, he said, Mom, you know this is why I would never be an actor, because you missed moments like this, so that that hurt me, you know

what I'm saying. That hurt me a lot. And I was like, you know what, if if it's going to take an hour out of my day in the morning, in an hour out of my day at night of sleep, then I'm just going to drive home so I can at least see my boys at night or at least wake up in the morning and kissed him before I go off to work. So I made a choice to

drive and be here. Right. Um, what was particularly interesting to me when you told that story just hearing you tell it now for everyone to hear, not hearing it from my perspective. In that moment, you were so concerned about everyone else and their livelihood and making sure that they would be okay, that you completely put yourself on

the back burner. You said, if I didn't work on this Friday, or if I got diagnosed with something that would put me out for that next week, then this, you know, the cast couldn't work, The cast couldn't get paid before the holidays. It would cost Tyler money. Like you were thinking about everyone else but yourself. And that is just a testament to the person that you are. And I think that contributes so much too. On the on the on the back end, um, this is the

bitter side. That's the sweet side. The bitter side is that it now causes you to be working and functioning continually as at the deficit. Yeah, that's a problem, and I receive what you're saying, but I also agree that I believe everyone in the cast makes the same sacrifice. You know, I feel like everyone who has an important job that the job can and I say the cast specifically because we're the ones in front of the camera, right, So if if someone gets sick, that's a part of

the grip. So the p s no one will know if they're replaced. But when you come to watch the show, if Zach isn't there, no one else can play Zack. Like if if Danny isn't there, no one else can play Danny or for Team or or Andy. So I think all the casts make it a point, and we talk about this weeks leading up to filming. Because of our shooting schedule and because we don't have time to do reshoots, we all kind of isolate ourselves from the world so that we don't get sick, because that has

been our our world for the past three years. With COVID. You know, if you test positive for COVID, you can't film, and at TPS we film all of the season in two weeks. So if you test positive for COVID and that takes you out for ten days, then the whole shoot gets pushed back. And the way Tyler schedule work, you don't film in November, you may not be coming

back again until February. So I think everyone in the cast makes uh decision once we find out we're going back, all right, two weeks out, I can't go to events, you know, I miss family time if things are happening, So and we all make that decision. So what isn't just me? You're absolutely right? Case in point um Crystal.

Crystal's Dakota's godmother, and we were trying to plan his first birthday party and his crystaling in one and where she was supposed to come to New York and at this point we didn't even know y'all were filming it, and then it just kind of came up, like, hey, we're gonna be filming, which put us like two weeks after one would have been his first birthday party and it's christening and she's like, Sis, you know, I really want to be there for sure, but typically I locked

myself down. So let's try to find a way to make this work. So we ended up doing everything safely. We had people COVID testing, people staying at home. I think people now um understand that if they're not feeling well, I just don't just just don't go nowhere, and people are very sensitive to that now. I also made an effort to not be in the crowds, like when if he was where's devout, Where's Delo? A lot of time I was outside, Yeah, and it wasn't because I was

trying to avoid anybody, but you're in closed spaces. We had about seventy five people come to the first birthday party, and you know, if one person is sick or sneeze or cough and I don't want to be the reason that everyone has to wear masks. It's my son's first birthday party. His first birthday party shouldn't be about what his dad does for work. So it was like, yo, let people have a good time. I'm going to remove myself. I'll come in for pictures. I'll come in and say

hi and sup. But I'm gonna be outside because I also can't be the reason why the production doesn't go on. So that's everything that was going on my mind. And part of burnout is a mental burnout. How do you balance trying to be what you need to be for your production but also be what you need to be for your family. In the midst of all that, we had a whole bunch of other production shoots and stuff to do for the book tour and the podcast and the live podcast. It was just so many things that

my mind was like, like, I was exhausted. The days were rolling into the days, and I remember saying, you know how I lost the fifteen pounds in those five days. I woke up on the Monday and said, you know what, let me kiss all the boys before I leave. I don't need to get anything to eat because when I get there, I get somebody eat. When I get I get on set. The traffic is so bad coming from here going to the studio that every time I got there, it was right before I needed to get in the

chair because I was also so tired. So I would get there and be like, I gotta get in the chair. Oh, I gotta get ready for makeup. Oh I gotta get ready for hair, and then they're like a devout, we need you on set. Fine, I'll eat that lunch. Then lunch would get there, and when when lunch I get there, my cast needs to be like, bro, we got seven scenes after lunch, like let's run. I'm like bent, let's run, let's run. Then I'd be like, you know what, I took a couple of bites of food at lunch. Run

my lines. I'll eat when I get home. Then we get we finished. We wrap it twelve o'clock. I drive home is one one thirty, and I'm so tired. I'm like, man, let me just get into bed. I'll take a couple of bites of food. I'm so tired, and I have to rehearse, so I'm face timing my castmates because I'm

not staying on campus. I mean the facetiming them for an hour to go over the scenes we have tomorrow, or I'm just studying my lines, and then I go to sleep, wake up, and repeat the same thing for five days, not realizing I'm going off of bits of food and not even order. So most of the fifteen pounds I lost was waterway and I was extremely dehydrated.

That's why I felt the way I felt. On top of that, it was all the mental strain and the emotional stuff from the months of pounding onto my schedule that I literally was burnt out, absolutely And when I think about burnout, um, I've seen it, mean recently that kind of broke down different ways that people can be exhausted. So you know, sometimes you just say, oh, I'm super super tired, like I'm just tired. I need to sleep. So it's like a physical layer of exhaustion, right that

need to just feeling like I want to sleep. Then you have the mental, you know, exhaustion where it's just like I just wish I could disconnect, turn my mind off, stop thinking about all of the things that needs to get done, could be getting done. Um. Then of course emotional exhaustion there can also be spiritual exhaustion. There's so many different ways to kind of, you know, categorize zero exhaustion and how you're burnt out. So I think we can touch on a little bit of that and how

it's affected us. UM looking at some facts and stats. According to World Health Organization, burnout is a syndrome resulting from workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. It's characterized by three dimensions feeling of feelings of energy depletion or exhaustion, increased mental distance from one's job or feelings of negatives, negativism or cynicism related to one's job, and reduced professional efficacy. That's a fancy as word, the fancy

as words, um, so three types of burnout. Burnout by volumes so being too busy to slow down and rest, which I think is something that we both suffer from. Burnout by boredom, not being challenged or interested in your life or work. I don't think that does not apply for us. I wish I had time to be bored, y'all, I wish. And then burnout by socialization, so committing to others more than yourself, which definitely I think is a layer for us so much of our job requires us

to interact with people. Um And I was even talking to the podcast Cruely other night and I was like, man, I'm not sure if it's the burnout that made me feel this way, or if it was the pandemic, or

maybe a little bit of both. But someone who's always been so social and people person in more recent years, I want to say, in the past two years, I found that I'm become more of an introvert, like I enjoy just being either alone or just with my immediate family, or just taking time to just have peace and quiet.

And it may just be also in part because our house literally always has someone in something going, whether it's something work related, just having family coming into town, and that sometimes it's a conflict for you and I because you are still Mr. Social Butterflies, so You're always like, come on by, come on by, and then I'm just like, well, I don't want to talk to nobody today, So how

is that gonna work out? When you don't want someone to feel like they're not welcome when your home, Because of course we do welcome people here to come by and visit and stuff. But it's like, if I'm tired and I'm burnt out. I just literally don't want to have to sometimes even think about opening my mouth to

address someone and have small talk. You know what's funny, my burner, you know what, my burnout having company because when I'm when I'm here by myself, my mind wonders and it's like wanders so and it's like what didn't I do? What can be done better? And how can I fix it? Right now? And when I'm here by myself, I don't have many forms of entertainment that I'm like that interested in right, like right now. My It's been

this way for the past six years. Right. I'm the person that told myself, I'm going to build my social media following, to get my platform up, to boost my profile so I can be an actor and do all these things. And I want to build a legacy for my family, my wife. And I told Matt, who's part of the podcast team. Now, I told him this years ago what I was gonna do, right, and I've been

I've been like willing it to happen. So part of that is me feeling like if I don't do something, it's all gonna fall apart, you know what I'm saying. Part of the burnout comes from feeling like you can't delegate responsibilities and you have to handle everything because it all comes from your mind, you know. And when I don't have people here, like when the podcast is done, when everyone goes home for a minute, it's like, was that good enough? Next time? We can do more rather

than do two podics, do three podcasts. And I have to talk myself out of doing more because for me in the recent past, more has gotten us more. And after being in the NFL and I don't want to say failing, but coming up short in what I wanted to do, mainly because I wasn't all in, I started to feel like I gotta be all in and everything, and if I'm not all in, then I'm gonna fail again. And that's what's contributed to the burnout. Because I also do the same thing to my kids. I take them

to practice. I see the things that aren't being done, and now I'm coaching on the team. And now that I'm coaching on the team, I can see all the deficiencies that Jackson got. So I take them to the gym, let's work on all your deficiencies. And then I become addicted to his success, very much like how I got addicted to your success, and we talked about this in the book, and a matter of fact, that's another podcast we can talk about being addicted to your partner's success.

It's like, all of these things because of my personality being so addictive, contributes to me burning out because I don't know how to put one down. You know, the podcast has gotta be perfect. Sister's got to be perfect, the travel show gotta be perfect, my marriage got to be perfect. I got a parent perfect, the team has to be perfect, which means all the kid's got to be perfect. And then before you know what, I'm trying to put all this energy into all of these things

and none of it into myself. Yep, you are the epitome of spread thin. Yeah, You're the epitome spread thing. And I feel like watching you over the years just as a person, a lot of this is a testimony to who you are. So you've become as successful as you've been now, and I think it's only the start because it's literally sees that we've been planting and you've been planting that I've witnessed over the past twenty years

and more aggressively with your career in the past six years. Um, but also too, you have a problem with delegating and

letting people do their job. But I understand that because a lot of times, even when we do delegate, we always look to you to say, devour what do you think because I think there's a pressure that for example, me as your wife and your business partner and your your co host, there's a pressure that I feel to measure up to a standard that you have, and that burns me out mentally because it's always am I good enough?

For am I doing enough? Or I'll feel guilty for like, for example, when the podcast is over, your thinking of what can be doing next, and I'm like, oh, great, the podcast is over. Let me go into my corner and just sit for a second and completely blank out. Let me watch a show and let me spend time with the kids, let me do something that takes my mind off of work, whereas you're thinking about the next thing.

So it's it's a tough place to be in because I can appreciate it, and I can see how you've become that delusionally successful person and you will be that and it's only going to go up from here. But it also too, is at your detriment. So I feel like my purpose or a large part of my purposes, as I help you to achieve those things, I have to keep you grounded and keep you um in a space where I'm creating an environment for you to have downtime and forcing that downtime on you in a sense. Yeah,

like you made me go away on vacation. Absolutely, or even for my birthday, I'm like, shoot, I was burnt out by the time my birthday hit. Do anything for your birthday? And that's the first time you already know, y'all. Know y'all, you know how I feel about the holiday time. So once October hits, it starts holiday season for you. Right, So October hits, it's holiday season, Halloween happens. Then I'm starting to gear up for my birthday, which is December five.

My Christmas trees are going up November one. My trees are up the entire Thanksgiving seasons. We have family, friends over then we go spiral right into my birthday. Right out of my birthday, we're gearing up for Christmas the new year. I had zero energy to do any of that this year. And that's how you know that could Seene had had enough. My mom, bless her heart, put

up ball six of my trees by herself. Okay, because in the minds exactly, and I'm like, the children deserved to at least have that as we were still ripping and running to works the end of the year and for my birthday this year, typically I'm like, oh shoot, I'm like, shoot, this is thirty nine, my last year in my thirties. I'm gonna have a thirty fine birthday. What do we do for my birthday? A staycation and all in a random airbnb off the grid. Uber eats

to the Airbnb. We both were scared, watched Netflix and that was it. But I think we do have to talk a little bit about why we needed that, because it also leads into ways to come back burnout right um after the whole scare with me and guys, I'm gonna be honest, I thought I was having a stroke. Like I work out every single day, I still lift heavyweights, I still do sprints, I still play basketball, I can

still run fast and jumphie. So when I couldn't lift my legs out of the bed and my vision was blurry and I was feeling like all these different like temperature changes. I thought I was having a stroke. I thought that I had like like worried myself into having having some neurological to dysfunction in my body. And I was extremely scared. And coming off of that, I still had to finish the week of filming. So we finished

the week of filming. But then we had to go right into planning cases fifth birthday in Disney World, and we did that, and I was exhausted, and I people knew I was exhausted. There were comments on Instagram, people like your the value look tired. You need some rest. My mom, my dad, Everybody's like, yo, bro, you look tired. So Kay said, yo, for my birthday this year, we're not telling anybody where we're going, what we're doing. We need to get off the grid. We need to just

spend a couple of days. And it was like four days, four days by ourselves. We told the Nora, we're not taking no business, old No. It was supposed to be a two week block. Remember there was a two week block.

And two week block I say loosely because like we know, we can't take two weeks off of life, like there's just no way, right, especially if we're gearing up for a busy beginning of but within that we were like very minimal conversations about work and stuff, right, So go ahead, sorry, then while we're away, you know, And here's the funny point.

I remember when Josh was here, we were filming the last couple episodes of the podcast for the year, and Josh and what you're doing with for K for her birthday. So me and K decided we're not going to tell anybody. We wanted to literally be away by ourselves and not have anybody know where we are, because typically when people know where we already asked us to do things, and and it's not like do things for them, it's just like, oh, you're gonna be here, this would be great content for

this or you have a partnership with that. If you're gonna be there, do you mind stopping by this store? They're gonna pay X y Z for you to come in. And it's like, yo, don't tell nobody where we're going to be, right, so that we can just at least get some sleep and some rest, right, And it just worked. It worked out well for us in that moment. I think we did have some time to to disconnect and to reconnect in the business call. Yeah, you took a

business call here and there. I was. I was annoyed, But again it goes back to me understanding like how you function. I know that you were not going to be able to rest if you had to be disconnected from work for that amount of time. But the thing that scared me the most in that moment, just as your wife and as a human and your best friend is somebody who cares for you, was seeing you literally break like you kept saying to me like, Hey, I

feel like something broke is broken in me. That's what I kept saying, like something broke, and you couldn't get out of that rut for a bit um and that broke me in a sense because I'm like, ship, this is something that I don't even know if I can fix, And it's just like, oh my god, do I try to encourage him to go see a therapist? Like what exactly would have helped you to get out of that moment? I didn't know. So it left me feeling very helpless.

And it was a very emotional time for both of us because coming off of the miscommunication that we had when everything transpired, when I was away in Jamaican. You were here filming, and then everything double down on that. It was just a really, really tough space for me to be in, and all I felt like I needed to do was just be there. And I remember at one point you were kind of breaking down. You're you're

very emotional. You were telling me about how you felt, and all I could do in that moment was just sit and listen. You know, I feel like we both had that desire to want to fix what broken in each other, and sometimes we just don't have the answer. And I think in that moment it required me to just listen to you. And after I kind of listened to you and you kind of spoke slowly over the course of maybe thirty minutes about how you felt, and after that you were just like, man, I just I

feel so much better that you just listened. You didn't try to intervene, you weren't trying to fix anything, but you were able to offload some of the things that you were thinking. Um And something that always kind of rests in the back of my mind whenever I look at you and I think about how much your brain just works and never turns off, you know, Alzheimer's running in your family. Yeah, you know different. Yeah, those that

runs in your family. And I know some certain things are genetic, and we try to find ways to break the cycle of those things by you know, knowing better

and doing better. So if it means changing your diet, exercising, if it means you know, having those mental touch bases, or having those offload moments, excuse me, having those offload moments, it will then hopefully combat those things from happening, right, And I don't want to, but I don't want to glance over what you said, like having Alzheimer's running my family.

My grandmother went into early onset Alzheimer's in her sixties and my uncle Charles talked to Uncle Charles, he went into early on set all timers in his Alzheimer's in his early fifties and it was stress induced Alzheimers and ended up getting an m R in the cask and he had lesions on his brain which was caused by stress. Stress,

and he was working multiple job. I'm trying to do everything that a man is supposed to do for his family, and a lot of that scared me because I was just like man, I do work a lot, and I often spend maybe three hours sleeping. And you know, a lot of people make jokes about quality sleep. Yeah, quality sleep, Like a lot of people make jokes about marijuana and the becoming legal, and I gotta smoke. I gotta do this.

I'm gonna tell you this right now, guys. I don't sleep well if I don't drink a glass of wine or if I don't smoke a little bit. Right before I go to bed, my brain is constantly thinking about what has to happen next. I check my emails first thing in the morning, last thing before I go to sleep. I checked my bank account first thing in the morning, last thing before I go to sleep. And that's just

my personality. I just I'm super controlling. But I'm also afraid, you know, like I have an unhealth fear with losing everything. And it's like PTSD from what happened to us in two thousand and eight and two thousand and nine. We literally did everything that they tell you you're supposed to do when you're a professional athlete. I took my money, I put it in the stock market. I took my money,

I invested in property. I didn't buy big fancy cars, we didn't travel all the time, we didn't buy jewelry. I did all of the things. Then the financial market crashes and we run into the biggest recession since the Great Depression, and we lose everything and have to start over. My biggest fear is that having to have that happened again and were having to do that again. So I feel like I just I woke around with this anxiety. It's like, is this the day that everything stops? Because

I remember that feeling I was. It was two thousand and eight. I was on my way to camp and I was driving your Here I am in the NFL. I was driving Cadine's Accurate TSX. Still didn't buy a fancy car. I was listening to um, Ain't it pretty? Ain't it pretty? When she was you're pretty? And I remember giving you a kiss when we left the home that we had just purchased. We had just got engaged

and feeling like, man, everything is just perfect. Go into camp, and then three weeks later, after having a great camp, getting cut, and then after getting cut two days later, turning on the TV and being the stock market fell for consecutive days for the first time since nine and then being on the phone and being like, Yo, what's going on with my account? Like, and I remember it like it was like everything's perfect, Everything's fine. If I was gonna make the team he started, he's slated to

be the starting returner. It's like everything perfect to a nightmare in weeks, like a matter of weeks, And that pts D gives me so much anxiety, and I walk around always trying to do stuff to make sure that that doesn't happen. And I think that contributed to my burnout, But I also realize how me being like that contributes to everyone around me is burnout. Like sometimes I can tell when I'm like, I'm like, okay, I'm overwhelming you, right. I can look at Jackson and be like, wait a minute,

I think I'm overwhelming Jackson. I can look at the podcast crew sometimes and be like, ah, ship, they be wanting to cry too, because you always you're saying to me. Sometimes you look at me and my eyes will just well up and you'll be talking to me and you'd be like, Yo, what did I say to make you cry? And I'm like, I don't even know what. I just feel like at this moment, like I'm not doing enough like I should be doing something and it makes me emotional.

Same thing with Jackson, You're just like, yo, why is it when I seek to people like they feel like they want to cry? And it's like, I think it's all I know Jackson, I share the same sentiment that we don't want to disappoint you, you know, seeing as though you're such a high achiever and you always are expecting the best out of people. It's like ship, here I am as my life partner, here he is as your child, and we just don't want to let you down. We don't want to disappointe. We don't want to be

the weak link. Nobody wants to be the weak like the crew, nobody wants to be the weak link, you know. Um, And it's it's it's a crazy juxtaposition because it's like, you know, I am sharp and tiring, right, so you want to be in your presence and you want to work with someone like you because it's like, damn, this person is gonna make me that much more motivated. This this person is going to help me get to whatever

goal it is that I have set for myself. This person is gonna show me a way to do something that I really want to do right, You think about even just Josh and Matt on the team and they we're shooting weddings as as a as a photographer and doing so well in that field, and then saying like, man, I feel like this more to my talent, Like I can do more. I can start doing video, we can

start editing, we can do a production company. And then you found ways to be able to help everyone see that much more potential in themselves and achieve those things. But then it's also like damn, like there's never an

off button. But that's usually with most successful people. Yeah, Like, like one thing I'm not gonna do is apologize for seeing Like if there's a gift that I think that God gave me, right, I don't think that my gift is in in creating and gift is in being funny or I feel like my gift is seeing other people's gifts.

For sure, every business that I've built, whether it was from Elite Prototype Athletics to the Sports Performance Lab to the mentorship program, I've always seen things and people and be like, yo, you know, if you do things like this, you could expand your business and your reach exponentially. Take Roger. For example, Roger graduated from college, had no clue what he wanted to do, and I was like college, like, Roger,

you're a great teacher. So, for those of you who don't know, Roger worked with de Val as part of the program. He was actually was one of my mentees. He was MO mentees. He went to Madison like I did, but he's way younger than me. He was about what sixteen seventeen sixteen? He was in two thousand and nine. Hours two thousand and seven, I had went back to Madison and retired my jersey. He was a freshman. We

kept in touch at that time he left. He was the leading Russian on the senior year of high school. I was looking for college scholar tips. My brother and I helped him get a college scholarship to see the you post. He ended up earning his full scholarship, and he became like like our little brother. Roger's biggest dream was to go to the NFL. One thing I saw in Roger was that he was so detailed oriented with how he broke down the game. I was like, yo, he would be a great coach. But then I was

thinking bigger, I'm like, forget this coach. He could be a great teacher, like life teacher. Then he was he um graduated from college, NFL didn't happen. He's like, I don't know what to do next. I started the mentorship program through Prototype, which was a partnership with the United Way, where they gave me funds so that I could create opportunities to put mentors, young black male mentors in public

schools in Brooklyn. So we started this whole initiative in this program, and I took the kids that graduated from college who didn't reached their dream of playing in the NFL and NBA, and I said, here's an opportunity to use what you've learned in college to mentor young people who look like you. I said, you got two years to figure out what you want to do next. In those two years, we paid them make sure that they

had a smooth transition into the real world. I noticed that Roger was really good with the kids, and he could relate and he was good at educating. And I said, you, why don't you just be a teacher. So then he went back to school, got his master's degree, became a teacher, passed these exams to get his license so that he could be a teacher. So he became a teacher, and then he started tutoring, and I was like, Roger, why

why would you just tootor one or two kids. Why don't you build a program when you can to the multiple kids. And I started talking to him about it, and we built this whole program out and he took it. And and now he's retired from teaching. He's I think about to turn thirty or maybe thirty, and he has uh business making a quarter million dollars that he runs from his home. And it's like God blessed me with

the vision to see people's potential. I see when people do stuff and I'm like, yo, do you know you can do this? And I want that for myself as well, So I can see the vision. And I got the vision to see what God has placed in me. I can see it in you. I tell you all the time since how I met you. I was like, Yo, I can see you can do so many different things. And I feel like part of the issue is I push people a lot, hoping that they can see what I see. But I do realize how hard it is

to get to that level. And unless you have the mental fortitude to withstand the type of work necessary. Most people are gonna burn out. So in Roger's instance, you showed him all of these things that he could potentially do, but he ultimately had to execute You to do it, you have to do it. So that's the conflict I think for you sometimes is that you're just like, man, this person can do even with me, You're like, you can do all these things, but do you want to

do it? Is the question? You know, And that's when sometimes I look at myself and I'm like, damn, I really think that I'm letting Devout down because he thinks that I can do all these things. I know I can do all these things, but then I usually end up self sabotage and or having another baby. And then back to the baby part is that's that was an agreement that we made together. We're gonna be having these babies.

But but yeah, it's um. It's just one of those things where I feel like it's one of my duties as your partner, as your wife, as your best friend, who always do those touch bases. I said in my sound by earlier, checking on your strong friends. That's always you know, a model that you hear. Check on the strong ones, check on the one, check on the ones that are always smiling, check on the ones that always make other people laugh. That you're literally the prime example

of that. But people don't see the downside of things when you well, yeah, I see it, and I know it, and I can feel it, and I don't know if you've realized, but in the past maybe a couple of weeks since we've had that fallout and then you know, we had our downtime around my birthday. I literally will be looking at you like are you okay? Like do you need anything in this moment? How can I help you in this moment? Just your your mental like how

was your mental? How is your spirit? Like? Those are the questions that I now feel like I need to ask because I used to rely so much on the fact that the Val was always going to be all right, The Val was gonna figure it out. In part, when I was in Jamaica and you told me that that whole episode happened, I was like, oh, but I think that was gonna be all right because he's always all right. And then I had to check myself and be like ship, like, my husband is not always just going to be all

right because he historically is. I have to know and I have to have the wherewithal to say, you know what, he's not really okay? Or how am I going to go the extra mount to make sure that he's okay? UM? So when you told me at the top of the year, we normally do it, it's been to kome a thing now like what's your word for the year? Um? And you assist so so and so, and I was like,

why why so so? Because from now on, if I don't feel like doing something, I'm glad you asked that question, because we're gonna talk about way to combat burnout if I don't feel like doing something. In the past, I had to convince myself of a good enough reason why I didn't want to do it, and then I had to be able to articulate to other people why I couldn't in that time. Now I'm just gonna tell people I don't want to do it, and they're gonna give

me reason why I should. And my answer is going to be so like so, like, I just I don't. I don't want to do it, and I don't care what reasons you give me that I should do it or how it could be beneficial to me. My answer is just going to be so it's not beneficial for me health wise, and it's not. And I think you also need to control the access people have to you, because you typically are always the ones to never put

your phone down, always want to answer. People are coming to you because they know that you're good with brainstorming and coming up with ideas and what about this, And all of a sudden, everybody got business ideas and propositions and proposals for you. And it's just like your accessibility,

I think, has to cut back. And it's crazy because when you look at people who make it out of their community or their environment, you wonder why they don't come back as much or all this person changed because I can't get in touch with them all the time. And it's in part because you just have to protect

your your peace, protect your space. It's no ill feelings towards anybody, but sometimes I just need to disconnect a little bit or not be as accessible because I can't keep putting things out, making these you know, people making these with withdrawals and nobody making deposits. Alright, so real quick, we're gonna go over a couple of ways to combat burnout. And of course this is going to be dependent on the person in the situation they're in. But sometimes you

need to say no. No, it's just no as an answer. No, it's like no, it can be an answer, was a complete, complete sentence, no exclamation point period. No, I don't want to. UM. Take personal time to unwind and relax as often as

you can. Sometimes that's easier said than done. You can do the physical relaxing, you can, you know, disconnect for a bit, but tapping into people who may not know how to mentally disconnect like you, that might require a little bit more than just down or we're watching a show or you know, so that I think you need to be mindful if you are taking ways to she mentally disconnect. That's why I started meditating. UM. I also do the herbal meditations. You know, I can't go wrong

with some herbal meditation. Indeed, indeed, UM, I don't even need all that. The drop of a dime obviously or cocked me out. Clocked me out. Ain't thinking about it. It's funny because at the end of the year, I told Nora and the team that I was hibernating for a while. They were just like, damn, we're kidding. We haven't heard from her. I said, y'all keep contacting me, and I told y'all, I'm clocked out. I don't know why I'll keep hitting me. Give me some time, and

you have to demand it sometimes, UM seek support. So if you have, you know, assistance in the process of hiring an assistant, because this phone gives me anxiety. With my phone lights up or things, I instantly get a headache. Same and I'm like, what is wrong? What needs to be fixed? Same? What has changed? What's gonna cost? What? Like?

How much is that? Like that assistant is en route because I would love to offload certain things so that things can be done more efficiently and focus on creating a life work work life balance, which seems virtually impossible when your life and work is kind of intertwined like us. But we've been very deliberate about that. We've reinstituted date nights, you know, our weekly date nights, so we can just take time to really online and reconnect because we don't

do well if we're not. Yeah, we we nothing. Nothing is in balance in our life, whether it's to work or home. If we're not in balance. So we we were very deliberate about you know what, let's go back to the gym, right because what was happening with Hey and I were the gym for us was wasn't even like just a place to work out. It became a date. You get dressed up, you you know, you get in the car, you go to the gym, like it was

a thing. So having a gym in your house, it was like, oh, I'm gonna work out when I get a time. So we weren't even doing it together anymore. She would work out on her time, I'm working on my time, and once again we were missing each other and then not sleeping. So you don't see the results of working out. So that was a high miss or not drinking your water. So now we made a decision like we're gonna go to the gym together as a date.

We do that three times a week. I mean, it's my ideal day because y'all know I still have that love hate relationship with the gym. But the results are coming in her knee. You've been working your ass off. Well know, you've been working ass on and you have been. I will say that, and I will say this gentleman going to the gym with your partner, right, because I've I've seen a lot of comments when we're at the gym, and I see a lot of women saying, you see

he goes to the gym with her. I know a lot of men feel like, well, I go to the gym with my friends because that's my god time. Plus, you don't want to go to the gym with your girl and have to argue with her about what to do. And I've become I was like that for a large portion of our life, and now I don't fight you, and I do want to say, two, ladies, if you do want him to take you to the gym, you also have to be receptive to what he's saying or what he's doing if you wanted to be a together thing.

Plus I love watching my wife dead lift and squat in tights. So it's like, as much as I like being there with the guys, I don't want to see Josh and Matt and Dave do that at the gym. But you know, like that's not We can spend time eating pizza and drinking beers on the couch, but if I want to watch somebody squad I'm gonna take my wife to the gym. Start speaking of that. Did you see me on the rack yesterday? So I put the weight on my back for the first time in two years.

I want to say, asked the grass babies six times? I'm oh, my gosh, So I love that. All right, let's take a quick break and we're gonna come back into some quick listener letters. So stay right there, all right, and we're back for the latter half of the show, which is listening letters. So let's start right in. First off, bless you and your family and podcast family Josh and Triple On. Thank you. I'll keep it to the point.

I've been separated officially from my wife since April, but in her head we've been separated for two years, but yet we still lived together. I tried to make this marriage thing works so hard, but the stress was affecting my health, vision and work ethic. I told myself that I needed a fresh start in so I decided that I had to take her off my insurance and phone bill and we start filing the process. We have a son together that's eight, and he's my world, so co

parenting is a must. But besides that, I don't want nothing in capital letters to do with his mother anymore. If you guys only knew the amount of verbal abuse I've taken from her over the last nine years, it would blow your mind. So do I just give her a thirty day notice before I cut her off? Or just do it be responsible and give her two weeks two weeks? Like any job, thirty days is a month.

Two weeks is more than enough. Times when you when you're about to quit something, you give him a two weeks. You've already decided that y'all were separated. She also just said that y'all were separated for two years. Absolutely, so you got two weeks. We were separated for two years. We got two weeks to get a new insurance and get a new phone. And when she asked you, but how am I supposed to adopt the valsier word of the year. So that's no longer your problems? But I

thought so, I don't care what you thought. Listen, y'all separated. Y'all officially separated. You have no obligations to that woman. And my hope and prayer for you is that you will be able to co parent successfully because I know you love your son and let's hope that she didn't give you any verbal abuse or any hard ways to go. I'm not gonna hope and pray that I'm going to manifest that that's exactly what it's going to be, that y'all will be fine co parenting. I don't gotta hope

and pray. Period. It only happens if you want it to happen. Do you want to successfully co parent, then it will happen. Since you're done for sure, and since you're done done, and you've already made that up in your mind and there's no reason for pettiness to transpire. I can't speak on her behalf, and you know who knows what that looks like on your end. Just to keep things amicable for your son, try to make it as smooth as possible. Two weeks notice check the deuces. Simple.

Good luck, bro, Good luck my guy number two high. I need some advice because at this point I don't know how I stay in this relationship. My fiance and I have been together almost two years and have a beautiful baby boy. I love him dearly, but for the last couple of months we've only been having sex once a month. The sex is great, when we have it, but he can almost never get it up. I've tried to get him to go to the doctor. He won't

make the time. We've tried vitamins and supplements over the counter, but it doesn't work. I'm attractive, so I don't think that's it. He tells me his parts just have a mind of its own. It's not fair how we can ask for an analogamous relationship won't have sex with me. Wow, he can ask for a night that we that's important. This is funny a woman is saying it. It's not fair how he can ask for a monogamous relationship but won't have sex with me. You know what's funny b that.

You know how many women are gonna agree with that? But when I said it. When I said it, the drugged me through the way, trying to cancel me on Twitter. But I bet you hearing a woman saying, they're gonna be like, well, sense it's right because if you ain't dropping the deck, then now it goes both ways. But I agree with you, home girl, don't hey listen, hold that man accountable. He want to be he wanted to be monogamous. He's gonna say to you you can only

be with me. You better tell that man, you better get that thing up and stand up your stand up for your woman. Shoe. Um. I feel like if the roles were reversed, his boys would tell him to leave me if I was the one not having sex with him. Probably yeah. But since I'm the female, I'm supposed to suck it up and wait. No, you're not you're not. No, you know I can't keep doing this. Please, no, listen, let me let me be clear and say this again. I'm probably going to get drugged through the mud again.

All right, but this is a fact. If someone require is monogamy from you, man or a woman, and that's part of their deal, breaks like, no, we we can only be with each other. That person cannot withhold sex from you. That's unfair. That's unfair. No, you can't be with nobody else. No, you can only be with me. But you're only gonna have sex when I want to have sex, and I'm not ready right now, so you gotta wait. That's unfair. That's unfair. For a woman to do it to a man's unfair for a man to

do it to a woman. It's just unfair. It's psychological warfare it is. But I will say this though, Like she said, they've been together for almost almost and they have a beautiful baby boy together, which means they started having sex and she immediately got pregnant. I want her, I want her to consider this. This may not be the issue. This may not be the issue, but there may be two issues. From being honest, sometimes men can't get it up because they've already gotten up for somebody else.

I don't to put that out there because he's the one that required anogamy, but also Conina and I found this out too. I've never had a problem getting it up. Ever, I've always gotten even what stage of life I was in. I want to say, it didn't matter what stage of life she was in when she was pregnant, right after pregnancy, when she was a hundred and eighties something pounds, I always got it up. But recently Conine has gotten in

the best shape of her life. I'm getting there, You're you're getting you're getting there, and my get up has been on a different level of get up and could they be like, bro, what is happening? Stand up? Recently she was putting the fence up and she hasn't really been putting the fence up since like what college. Then she'd be like, bro, like like yo, what's happening, And I'm gonna be honest. How your woman looks definitely has

a difference on how your erection comes up. It is the truth, and we all know how it is having a baby after baby. They said that some men. I don't know you particularly, but some men have said it's different when this was my girlfriend or just my wife. We were having sex before, but then now she's like the mother of my child. Like sometimes they look at the woman differently and it's like, damn, I can't freak off with her to where we used to because like

this is my son's mom. Like that's true, you know what I mean. Maybe that's a part of it. I don't know if that's an anomaly, but I remember in my friends groups we were talking about that, right um, most of the time. It changed after the second because it's like this, like I really want to just freak off. But after the first child, a lot of my friends were just like she's like she had my baby, Like I can't ask her to do the same things that

we used to do. Like I just I see her differently and I was like, all right, give it time, it's gonna come back. Like it also comes back when you don't see her in the nurturing way. I remember when Cadine first had Jackson. I saw her as a nurtural and she was a breastfeeding and she was doing it and it was like, oh, like that was sweet. Then Condine started working out again, started wearing tight clothes again, started wearing short stuff again, and she was all perky

and I was like, oh, there should go. That's the one I want to freak off with. So there is a difference when you're looking at the mother of your children and then we're looking at your girlfriend, you know what I'm saying. So there could be a couple of things. If he didn't have no issues getting it up before, and he wants monogamy, I doubt that he's cheating because if he wasn't cheating, he wouldn't need be the one

pushing monogamy, you know what I'm saying. He would be like like, no, you do your thing, like you know what I'm saying, unless he's just a selfish dude. But here's my thing. Why would a selfish dude push monogamy on someone that they don't want to have sex with, So that to me doesn't make sense. Exactly, it would be interesting. I think you should spark this conversation with him since exactly it might be maybe he'll open up and say what it is. Could be a mental thing.

Ilse had another friend who had to take He wasn't even old, he was relatively young, but he had to take pills have sex with his wife because he said his wife was annoying his fuck and she just was not attractive to him anymore in that way because she just talked her way out of stiff dick. That's what

he said. He's like, she would just talk away of stiff dick, Like he would be trying to do stuff in and she would be she would just be talking about stuff like the bills, the kids, why you ain't do this, and now you want to have sex and now this and then but this didn't get done, and he'd just be like, like, I just like I don't want to do this no more. He's like, she just wouldn't stop talking. So there could be a lot of things, you know, definitely worth having the conversations. Last one check

his health. Has he been working out is he in the best shape because erections also come with blood flow, and if you've been eating and out of shape and you're letting yourself go as a man, sometimes your body doesn't respond. So there's a lot of things he can look into, so many things. It's good luck to your girl. Hope it works out for you and the fiance, especially before you're tied to night, because I don't think that that marriage is gonna fix nothing, because it won't. Don't

be sure as hell won't. All right, y'all keep writing into us and this new year, we love, love, love to hear from y'all. And one of my favorite episodes is always the listener letter episode where we back pull a bunch of stories from y'all and we give our little two cents. Okay, so if you want to be featured as one of our listening letters, be shut to email us at dead as Advice at gmail dot com. D E A D A S S A d V I C E at gmail dot com. Almost clipped you

on the spelling there this year. You ain't been letting me get the spelling out. My bad, my bad, All right now, moment of truth, we're talking burnout. What that looks like how you can be burnt out physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, all of the leads, baby, So what you guys. As a final word for the folks out there today, this is my moment of truth for burnout. Most people who are burnt out don't realize that they're getting burnt out.

And if you are the loved one of someone who you know has a tendency to get burnt out, do them a favor and stop them and save them from themselves. Like Codeine has done a good job of saying to me, like you're devout, enough is enough? You really have to slow down. And if it weren't for her my mom who calls um the Nora who also checks in on me, I probably would have been burnt out way sooner. But you guys tend to reel me back in and say chill, that can get done in a later time. So check

on your strong friends. Yeah, that was actually going to be my moment of truth, so piggyback on that. Sometimes it requires not just you being the one to say hey, friend, hey spouse, hey you know whoever, Hey coworker, I can see your burnt out. Sometimes it requires you to then tap into those support people around, so so the village around that person to say, hey, just check on Devout.

So unbeknownst to you, there were a couple of people who have spoken to who are close to you or whose opinion that I know you value, which are very far and feeling between that, I said, hey, check on your boy, check on yourself, check on your brother, like just to make sure that you have people who are not aware that you have burnout happening, or that you may be in a bad mental space, because a lot of times people aren't even privy to that because why

you are presenting as that person that's always okay. You're presenting as that person who's always in a good mood and always making people laugh. So people don't even know sometimes that things are happening within unless they're privy to it because of how you're presenting. So it then required me, as your wife to then say to a couple of different people, hey, just so you're aware, this is what's going on with Devout, very loosely not telling your business,

but just saying now, I wasn't telling your business. I wasn't nothing in detail, but it's just like, hey, he just may need some time, you know. Um, so be be that village for the person who may need the support during that burnout period. And if you are the burnt out person, you gotta find ways to ways. Yeah, but so okay, that's it, alright, y'all. Be sure to

find us on social media. The podcast page is dead as the Podcast on Instagram, and you can find me Cadine i Am on Instagram and the TikTok now and you can follow me at i am devote. And if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, be sure to rate, review and subscribe. And if you want to check out all of the video content of the podcast, including the after show,

go to Patreon. Dead Ass. Dead Ass is a production of I Heart Media podcast Network and is produced by Dinorapinia and Triple Follow the podcast on social media at dead as the Podcasts and never miss a Thing