The Power of Thoughts featuring Malik Yoba

My favorite memory of him is seeing him in Cool Runnings when I was a kid, so that was my initial reference point, but obviously he's done a bajillion things since then. Yeah, he is way much more than that. I first met him at the George Hotel. He was having breakfast with some nice lady and I went up to him. I said, oh my god, you are so cute. Are you a trainer? I didn't know who he was, and I was my My boys were with me and they looked and they're like, Mom, you don't know who

that is. And we become friends ever since then. But I'm really looking forward to hearing what he has to say. So here's our conversation with Malik Yobach. Hey, Malik, Hello Bobby. Oh my god, just that voice. Wait say it again? Just hello, Malik, meet Angelie. You know it's almost sounds French, but it's Indian. I know. But I think we're gonna start saying it the way you say it. That's a way better way. What is your name? You? Good to see you, Good to meet you. Yeah, good to see

you too, Malik. Your your bio that they gave me is about twenty four pages along. It's kind of mind blowing everything you have done. You're like, you're like one of those like ridiculous hyphen guys. But congratulations on your doctorate. So now you are doctor Malike dr Yoga. Can you guys say usually can you say doctor dr Yoga? Yeah? So, so congrats on the start of this like amazing cool

journey or on. And um, I was really excited to have you on because this podcast is called The Important Things. It's not just about all your like ridiculous amount of things that you have done, but it's like why and how and who. So if you could do me one favor, if you could just tell the people that are listening how you would describe yourself, like and how do you introduce yourself and tell people what you do a work in progress, and I usually say, okay, well we're in

the elevator. So people say, well, what do you do? I like to say I'm in the give of damn business. And so if I say that, if I've been sure, so you know what, I say, Okay, Otherwise I mean we're not. Yeah, we're not in church. I'm in to give a business. I'm in to give a business that has a lot more to it. But you know, I was just born with a particular um. As my mother would say, you were born with a star over your ahead. And for me, that star has always guided me towards service.

So that's why my bio so long, because if we look at it, the majority of it um is about you know, me caring about other folks and doing things in different spaces to improved a lot of other people. That's how we were raised to contribute and to you know, not just tape. But you know, my father would say, if there's a crack, fill it, you know, and so I kind of took that literally. But but actor, I mean, I know you sing, I do, correct you do? So have you ever done a musical? Oh? Yeah, I started

doing musicals as a kid. That's how I started like theater for me. I saw Alice in Wonderland when I was four years old, and and uh, that's kind of where the dream began, just seeing those characters on stage. UM. And then you know, being taken to theater as a kid. We grew up at the time when they were actually drama programs in most public schools. UM. I was born in the South Bronx, raised in Spanish. M Uh, but

I always went to school. Uh. You know, we can get into a much deeper conversation about why schools in the hood, you know, don't have the real estate tax base to provide proper education to our parents. Always UM sent us downtown. UM. So my schooling was Third Avenue PS one night. Then I went to Wagner Junior High School where a lot of this all began. Around the

theater stuff. I was part of the metropolit not but children's theater go where they would go around the city and audition kids, and they decided where they thought was talented, and they would teach you the gamut like writing, producing, directing, how we've made our own lights, um, costumes. They take your tours of the met you'd see the opera, which is an amazing, amazing experience as a as a kid in New York at the time. So that's where it began,

just wanting to be on on stage. And that's that's I think where a lot of you know, disservice stuff came from. I was always given a seat at the table as a kid, and so I always thought that was important to do to other people. And what kind of student were you? It depends on who you ask. I read, mom, uh, you know, I read. I talked a lot. I always had something to say. But I think as I got older, I realized because I think

I was, I kind of was repressed at home. You know, I wasn't given a lot of space to fully express myself. So I think I acted out a lot because of that. Yeah, did were you? Did you get in trouble a lot? I didn't use that language, No, I did. Hell yeah, I got in trouble all the time. Like you know, in elementary school, junior high school, they they would give you a you or ask for satisfactory, you for unsatisfactory, for baby and self control. Mine was always a you.

Well it was always but but didn't like acting kind of channel some of that energy, and maybe that's why your parents kind of pushed to that direction. Um well, my father wasn't having it. He didn't want us really to do any of that, certainly not professionally. My mother was more of the whatever you want to do, I'll support you kind of kind of thing. But no, you know,

I don't think it was necessary about channeling energy. What drove me to our education, if you read my BIA talks a lot about the work that I do in education, is because I had a sense as a kid. Oftentimes the people who were close to educate me weren't capable of identifying my needs. And so I had that because there were teachers that saw me and those teachers, Miss Tarrell, you know, fifth grade drama teacher understood who I was, gave me my first solo to sing a ten years

old and play Calrady Kate. And this is a woman I invited to any production in junior high, in high school, Um, you know, because of that relationship or someone like Ms. Donnowitz was my English teacher in seventh grade. She was at my thirtieth birthday party because she understood and I was a kid who gave her my autograph and said, I'm gonna be famous, so you should keep this, uh, And she kept it. And you know, I didn't believe

her when she told me that story. Like I when I by the time I was five or six and I started doing New York on the cover, I told that story on an interview and she happened to see it and recorded the interview, brought it to class, showed to their students, and apparently showed them my autograph. Now, for years I was like, Ah, that's sweet that you

told me that, But did that really happen? And I never questioned it until two thousand nine and I turned thirty and ninety seven to two thousand nine, I'm in Puerto Rico and a a club and a woman comes up to me and says, did you have Ms. Donal Wits as your teacher in Wagner Junior High School? Because I was her student, and she showed me the autograph that you gave her when you were a kid, and she would tell that story about you and to the class.

And then maybe a year or so later, right here in Brooklyn, another guy stopped me coming out of the bodega and said the same thing, And so I guess Mr Donowitz told me the truth. But those are the type of teachers that made me want to get into education. What an incredible gift to have teachers that saw you like that's so young, and identified your talent for your needs and to really focus it on you is is

pretty extraordinary. If like not many people, how I mean everyone has a story of that one teacher because I wasn't a bad kid. I wasn't out here like setting a trash candle fire or beating people up. I just talked a lot. I had a lot of opinions. I saw the world a certain way. And I had a teacher, miss Arius, who literally made a dunce cap out of oak tag and sat me in the corner and wrote

Dunce on it. And he was that type of teacher that would tell the kids not to do things, but he would do them, like don't eating class, but he'd have kit cats in his breast pocket to eat them in front of us. And so fast forward, I'm now twenty. I'm working in the thirteen high schools in New York with the City Kids Foundation, helping to reduce the dropout rate, and I'm learning a workshop for teachers on how to

communicate with students. And there's this one teacher that's disruptive, and I probably have fifty teachers in the middle of a library UM in a school in Harlem, uh running this workshop. And I look at this dude, I'm like, oh ship, that's Mr Arius. And I pointed him out and blew up his spot and said, you were that

guy when I was twelve. He didn't recognize me. I was twelve, you were my teacher, and that bullshit you're doing right now is what made me do what I'm doing right now, because you were the guy that sat me in the corner with a dunce cap. The same thing happened when UM. We had another Spanish teacher named Mr Ambrose, who totally really good friend of mine, who was a very successful physician. Now, Adam grew up Puerto

Rican kids. He grew up on ninety seven Street between Park and Lex's father was a super building, seven people in the one bedroom apartment. Adam used to come to school with like no socks in the winner and a track suite and say he wasn't cold, but he always dreamt about being a doctor. And Mr Ambrose told him, you know, you need to be a little bit more realistic. And when I did, They're gonna cover. I get invited

to go speak at that same school. Um, and I invited Adam and that principle, that teacher who told him that was not a principle, all proud of his former student. I had to blow him up to Mike, bro, do you remember what you told Adam when Adam was twelve? And so you know, I think that you ask about what's the name is? The little things? No? No, no, the important things, the important things, important things, but the important things oftentimes are the little things because God is

in the details. And when you do have the ability to see people, whether there's students adults, we all want to be seen. And so those teachers, both the ones that didn't see me and the ones that did, are the ones that drove me to want to do education. Yeah, and what has changed for you, like the important things? Has anything changed especially since the pandemic? Like how did you do during the pandemic personally? You mean besides um quadruple bypass and my mother dying and getting COVID. I

didn't know that nothing happened, but I'm here, No, I'm here. Um. You know the last few years have been quite interesting and transformative. UM. So I spent a lot of my time during the pandemic editing shot a documentary um uh in called The Real Estate Mixtape, which is about my

journey pursuing my first development deal in New York. And I took seven young people with me, UM and I you know, in my mind, I was Anthony Bourdaine, parts unknown, just bring except shot at more cinematically and brought you know, some cameras along and directed it while I'm in it.

UM and exposed the seven young people of color to this built environment UM and gave them access to the process or not just my journey pursuing a dream UM of commercial real estate development in New York City, UM, but also just turning lights which is on in them and introduced them to people that would allow them to dream new dreams. And I feel like they could have

agency in the city that we live in. UM. And so I shot that expecting to work with a couple other editors, but then COVID happened, so I ended up editing the whole thing myself. So too. It's intended for high schools, colleges and community screenings UM, which we've been. Did you have to learn editing or had you already

been an editor? I've worked with editors like over their shoulder, but you know, got the you know, premiere pro uh software, which the learning curve is a bit like tedious and anning. So I ended up editing the stock series on my movie. But what I love to about that experience was finding my voice as a director, particularly in UM documentary format UM. And then you know, you're trust in your instincts to say, I knew what I was shooting. I knew I had,

you know, sort of episode ideas. I wanted to cover history, present future, from redlining too, you know, people who were working finance, to developers themselves, to people who are in construction and interior designers and political folks who make decisions in real estate, the whole ecosystem. UM. But I found I had a good time, like finding an artistic voice in my mind. I was making an art film that just happened to be about real estate. Because real estate

is opaque. It could feel boring, But how do you make it sexy? More importantly, how do you make it emotional? And how do you drive a narrative that's you know, aspirational, inspirational, emotional, accessible. It's not academic, so it's fun to like have this idea which came to me. Actually while I was shooting

a show called Um Godfriended Me. I was playing the real estate developer, and the character says a lot of the same things that I say in real life, around the importance of having agency and equity and a seat

at the table. And it was one of those art imitating life kind of moments, and I heard real estate, filmmaking and young people, and I thought about I was shooting here in Brooklyn, down the block from the projects, across the street from a major development that a friend of mine is developing, and thought about all the people who live in the projects and walked by film sets and construction sites and have no idea how to get

in the world. And I just followed that voice that said filmmaking, real estate, and young people and resulted in UM the Real Estate Mixtape, which you know, is part of the transformation that I'm talking about, big part of it, because you know, I'm at a place where I've been

dealing a lot with the important things. Right this theme I'm gonna keep coming back to, you know, when you our commodity, and we're watching Johnny Depp right now, and Amber heard as an example, and Depth said something to this this, you know, to the effect of it's hard to hear him say here his own name, because he

understands the commodification of his name. So it's not even him. Like, we're watching what we thought was the persona of Johnny Depp, and then the veil is pulled back and now we're getting to see the person same thing with Will, right, Will smacks Chris. It wasn't the persona of Will. It

was Will. And so when you're a public person in your the commodity, the lens that you view life is through that lens, whether you are conscious of it or not, and it can be a very dangerous place, the space between who you are and who you want the world to think you are, or who the world thinks you are, which is even more challenging. Back to the important stuff. The important stuff is knowing who you are, and when you live this life as a commodity, it is easy

to lose sense of who you are. And so who I am I don't believe has ever changed, right, But what happened is because the journey in Hollywood, the commodification of the namely Gilba and the persona has created a distance between me and who the public thinks I am. And so this transformative time to COVID has been about reclaiming self because the commodity and the persona is for public consumption. And so in this time you find self, you find so who am I now? Who? Whatever? I

really care about? I care about the things that I'm doing right, like Yoga Development as my development company. Right, our slogan is we build a builder of people, places, and things in that order. I don't know one real estate development company that has that as a mantra because for most developers it's six and bricks penciling it out to the numbers. Add up, let's get maximum profit for

all of our extraordinary effort, because it is extraordinary. But if you look like me and you don't grow up around the table with your family teaching you these principles about how to build a business, specifically in that area of real estate development, who is shaping the built environment that impacts all of us? And if we don't teach each other because we don't grow up at the table, um sitting at the table, we have to build our own table. We have to invite each other to the table.

We have to eat together, we have to invest together, we have to be educated together. And so the authentic self, the important things is getting back to that core. That same kid they used to get in trouble in school because he has something to say, The same twenty year old that was training those teachers and working in thirteen high schools to reduce the dropout. Right, the same twenty year old I was working at Rikers Island, you know by high school. The same year old I went to

eat theopia, help build a school or belize. And the work that I've done globally with young people um COVID and and this time of intense self reflection has produced incredible art. So not just the mixtape, but business and deal flow and opportunity. And so I'm at a place now where I'm spending the social currency that that commodity has generated, but not in the way I've done it in the past. So it has to be from a place of power, of authenticity, of purpose. It can't be

come auditioned for this and be the actor. It's got to be the storyteller. It's got to be the business. So are you done? Are you done acting? No, I'm not done. I'm writing a script right now. I'm writing a pilot right now. Um, doing a rewrite on the pilot that's set in the world of real estate. And so for me, like, it's about distilling everything that you love, that you're passionate about, and which is the important thing and then standing in that is the legacy. Right, It's

not about the roles that I've been known for. Those are I p I don't know. Well, then how do you like give us take us through your daily habits, because how do you keep yourself like feeling good and excited and attentive? Do you have any practices, any special way of eating? What's your work out? Just the real don't need I don't sleep, I'm kidding, And I don't have sex. That is the key. No. Um, what I've just left the gym a little while ago. Um, what

do you do in the gym? Full body work? There's no all of it, all of it, so we don't It's not like leg day, arm day. It's always a full body kind of situation. And walk a ton, right, you're a big walker? Well I was, Yeah, So part of the heart recovery was walking up to like seven miles a day. So that became a new ritual last summer, which I really appreciate it. But I am fifty four and sometimes the bodies like, what do you think you're doing? Do you feel this need? You feel this back? Sit down?

But no, definitely that I used to sol psychle all the time. I haven't in the pandemic, but uh, you know, just stay active, um, work out, meditate regularly throughout the day. Um. I like to have quiet mornings when I can um to just sending myself and visualize or plan whatever I'm gonna do for the day. And how about food? How about food? What do you have? Well, I'm vegan ish now since vegan ish, I described myself that way too. I'm vegetarian ish because I eat bacon, I do I

need to eat cheese, but directionally vegetarian. That was my new I like that direction direction. Yeah. I learned that this gift from my ancestors called congestive. Well it's called a few things, but I had four blocked arteries and I hate to say it, but that's what it was. I didn't know, so, um, I just thought feeling what

I thought was heartburn. I was working on the show The Last O G with Tracy Morgan, and we finished working, I took a bike ride and I started feeling, uh what I thought it was heartburned, But it turned out it was lactic acid. Um. So it took a bunch of scans and um blood tests and stool tests to figure out what it was. And so um M. You've learned that things like chicken and beef for a person that has a genetic predisposition, can elevate your levels of

cer reactive protein, protein, little a calcium. So those things create blockage and you know, plaque in the in the in the arteries, and so it was. It was. It was an eye opener and a chest opener. Yeah. Well no, but how lucky, I mean, you know, how lucky that you found someone that found it and you could make

the changes. Yeah. I'm very very grateful. So you know, those are those things, like you know, there are things that we consciously want to change, and then there are things that life just goes hey, And I feel like the last three years has been a whole lot of life. Like, Bro, you think you're going in this direction, No you're not. No, You're not no, this is what you're doing now. So yeah, how's your personal life? What about it? Dinner with you? But just at dinner with you? What do you do

for fun? What do you do for lightness? No, but lightness? You know you're you're a heavy dude. We needs it all depends on how you see it. This is light? Why is this heavy? Like life is? This is an amazing life. I'm a black man in America fifty four years old, Like, you know what it is? Every single day? Right every day? What is it like to grow up in this country at this time looking like me? You gotta be like it ain't heavy. You gotta fly above it.

You can see it objectively and see the chess pieces and make your moves. I'm living the dream. I have a life that people dream about and I'm manifesting every single day every day. So you say, what's the fun? Fun is talking to you right now? Like this is not no, but it is you know. I remember my daughter was sixteen, she you know, at sixteen, she's like my friends always say, like, you know, are you so deep? And these are just families that's the way we are.

This is not it's just you know you gotta have these levels of consciousness. I didn't come on this to like talk some bullshit. I have all kinds of fun. Like you know, the show is called The Important Things. We want to go deep. I mean, it's like getting past all this, you know, the other stuff, like again

we can read your bio. Your bios incredibly impressive, and I feel like we haven't even scratched the surface and this winding conversation to actually tell people what you do, because you do so much, but then when you really go down to the core of it, it's clear that

there are red threads through your work. Like to me, it's it's very clear that you know, service working with kids, empowering young people, um inspiring young people to do beyond what they think they might be capable of, you know, just like there's there's pretty clear threads connecting everything and then clearly rooted in themes of areas of interest that you have like real estate or the like. But you know, I think that is it's really what we're trying to

get to and all these conversations. So I'm gonna show up, just ask me more questions. So I have fun, all kinds of stuff, like you know, I like to build business like I've had a restaurant marketing company, have had a theater company. I'm doing real estate. Like to have dreams and to manifest them and understand how to unlock these laws of the universe, to live a life that most people dream about but never achieved because they don't understand how to think right. I can say things like, yeah,

I'm a black man in America. You know what that is. But I don't walk around like with the heaviness of that ship, like I was born to be a king, Like we were raised to be kings. Like that's what my father said, Like you were raised to be a king. Yoba means last of the slaves and new generation, a name he made up right and gave meaning to he was born Milton. Sounds like he could be your uncle Bobby. But but okay, So I'm a serial entrepreneur. I don't

have any hobbies. No, but I don't have anywhere. How does that work? I don't have hobbies. But as an entrepreneur, you don't look at that as a hobby. No. My my work is my passion. It's what I love to do new businesses. But and and yes, I don't have hobbies. I don't play golf, I don't play tennis. I don't go to the I don't do it, but I like to we should go to the theater and then let's go out dancing. I like, I like, actually I liked. Yeah. I'm a terrible dancer. I could never break dancer. I've

seen you cut a rock, Bobby. Why don't you go to the theater? You don't go to the her, Bobby, But is that a choice? Like you just go you know, I'm a live life with no hobbies, or you just get you know, I know, I just I get bored easily. I just get bored. I mean, I think golf is the most boring thing in the world. And yeah, I just find it boring. I'd have to agree with that. Your husband plays, all right, my husband plays golf, and so do my so do all my three sons. Well,

there you go. Let's I need to go play golf with you can take you can take all the guys golfingly were Bobby and I will sit and have drinks with your daughter. You're twenty one year old. But then you guys can go and hold boy golf. But theater you go to, Bobby, do you're not going to see the Bitter Bobby. I have not been to the theater since the pandemic, so hopefully when I remap my one man show Hollywood with that character, gland Is rausenbergs. Okay,

Mali geriatric party, it's instruct what tink therapist? Just do us? Okay, you have a Jewish woman therapist? I did? Yeah? Really really women had Latin guy. I've had a black of therapist. I'm more into life coaches, right have I am? I'm really into life coaches. Like I'm stuck with this? What do I do? How do I drink more water? You know? How do I deal with someone annoying me? So they've been really effective and where do you find them? I've

thought about that, but yeah, oh no, it's amazing. It's amazing. He really helped and he helped me kind of get things straight and help me deal with some emotion. And he helped me love my messy house, like like things that were driving me nuts. He It's like it wasn't it wasn't a shrink thing. And I would tell him all the things that would drive me nuts. So first he'd say, well, visualize yourself with your kids running all over that couch. That's why it looks like that. See

the happiness. But then he said, go around the house, take a picture of everything that bothers you. And I did. He said send it to me. I sent him the film, He printed it out. He gave me a sharpie. He said, this week, go circle what bothers you. I did it. The next week he came back and gave me names of people to fix the things that we're bothering me. So that's what a life coach does, helps you solve the problems. So he's like Angie's List. He's a little

bit of Angie's List, a little yeah, yeah worked. It worked for me. You know this this real estate, Uh, it's actually kind of taking over my life in a lot of way. In a good way. Yeah, because you start a company, you know, you start some ship, and then you've gotta be responsible. You tell people got a dream, and then they buy into your dream. Then they show up, they start calling you, and then you got out. Man. But but no, it's fun like back to the fund.

I mean literally every single day. Like I had heart surgery August nineteen, I was laying on my back of one not even not a year ago. Yeah, so not even a year ago. And so when I couldn't walk twenty or a half a block to regain everything right body at your fees, you really have an existential time and of everything, like, am I gonna lay here? Like you understand how people end up broke and depressed because you can't move right and physically you're vulnerable, you're anxious.

So this is not even June, right, So I I literally went to the hospital with two computers and three drives because they told me I was just having an angiogram. They're like, oh, it's gonna be like, you know, overnight it and maybe we'll have to keep you. It's like an our procedure. So I get up off that table and they're like, we need to admit you right now.

And so I was admitted August sixteen, and so I came out August could barely walk, as and said, but I was determined to walk out of the hospital door. They're like, do you want a wheelchair? Was like absolutely not, ego, ego, ego. But I made it and it was like nine degrees outside. And so I came home and one of the first things I did, I just shot a short film that I'd written and directed in July, and in fact, July thirty one in August one is when I was shooting it.

Two weeks later, I'm in the hospital, not knowing when I was shooting the burning that was in my chest was actually it could have killed me. And so I was editing the docs series. I merely get to work, start editing the film from my couch. Uh and then ah, like the walks gave me strength and I thought I was wasting time, right I would. I would walk every day at eleven o'clock with another friend, Dan Pearson, and

sometimes other friends. My daughter would join, or other friends from out of town, or sometimes with men and women and be like five six people have meetings on the wall. And then business starts flowing again, Ideas start flowing right, the work that I'm doing around this doc series started sharing it with more people. UM, traveling to screen my short film with Steve Harvey Foundation in Atlanta, going to Dubai. Like all of a sudden, I'm back in the flow.

Right December, we start screening the Real Estate Mixtape. The first screening we did UM was in the building in the South Bronx where we were crowdfunding for that actual the purchase of that true building, well not to purchase, but the opportunity to invest in the development of that property. Uh. This work with with Yoba Development, the real Estate Mixtape. You know, there's a scripture that says your gifts will make room for you, and that can be interpreted in

all kinds of other ways, but it is true. When you move with intention and you're on your purpose, all of a sudden life begins to blossom and flow and the right people show up. So all of a sudden, um, all the things that I've been that have been jest dating for the last four years are starting to reach truition. This work has led to an actual development project in the South Bronx of affordable housing, a sports and wellness center, and a school. It's led to the doctorate, it's led

to awards in real estate. It's led to me going to Alabama in a couple of weeks to screen the docs series Day or Atlantic City or Connecticut a few weeks ago, which led to more opportunities where more people and finance invest helping to raise money for the company. So when you talk about fun like waking up every day with the gift of life. I have three birthdays. I was born September seventeen, nineteen sixty seven. I was shot January eighteen three and had heart surgery August um.

So the gift of hoping eyes, the gift a sight of hearing, of being here. It's all fun. So you mentioned it, so I have to ask you were shot. Yes, I was shot in midtime, Manhattan when I was fifteen years or fiftieth Street between eighth and ninth Um. When uh I left school. I went to a school called Park West High School. And there were kids in the street acting up, beating each other up, and they were pushing people out the way so they could beat this kid.

It was nine kids. One had a baseball bat, one had a golf club, and they're beating the ship out of this kid, like I wish they would like, and they did. And so learn about the power of thought and speaking things into existence. So that autograph when I was thirteen, that thought of like I wish they would, and they did. The next thing I know, I'm in the middle of it. I get shot. Um huge life lessons on the power of our words, you know, And so I'm very very grateful. Yeah to be here and

to talk to you and okay, so leak. You're doing so many different things, how do you actually stay grounded and all these different things. It sounds like you have a strong faith or meditation practice and sort of you know anchors. But tell us about that. I've been trying to, not trying to. I've been very intentional about language always, but certain well, sometimes I sunk up, like we all do. But um, if you trust your instincts, right, a lot of times it's a whisper and it's like, okay, go there,

go there, right. But I've been dealing with this very what I realized is a very loud yelling of my spirit, like you can't do that, right, yestery. I was supposed to. Well, so Matt Damon and Ben Affleck doing a film and Ben's directing it. I was asked to audition for it, and I was like, can we get a zoom? They're like, now they're only doing you know it tapes thirty years in this game. That's what I'm being asked. Still, right, Sometimes it's straight offer, but stuff, can you come audition?

Forecasting director discast me in something before and so when that happens, that's not where the flow is. The flow is in all this other stuff that I'm talking about.

It's interesting because I'm observing myself like like, because in my heart, I'd rather be right here doing this, not on the set somewhere doing someone else's vision, or sitting over there writing this pilot, or working on my book or editing my next episode, or having meetings like I did with the d OE with the Chancellor about the school based education platform, or meeting with Pratt because they asked me to be the honorary chair of the School

of Construction, or all these other things that are happening as a result of this work, this purpose, And so it's easy to stay grounded when you're clear around the purpose. So the discomfort has been my my instinct screaming at me, and I'm not always listening because I'm feeling like we like Bobby asked me, and I done. No, I'm not done. I'm writing a character for myself to my own pilot, and I'll die in the in the pilot because it

sets the story. You can't tell what happening. I can always flashback, I can, right, I'd rather be directing and writing and producing and doing this real estate. And so it's interesting because I always said at some point income will come from things that I create. I didn't know that the last three years would be this period where it's where it's happening. Um, and it's been you know, partly me doing it and partly it's just you know, the energy and the flow right in that other space.

And so I stay grounded knowing that I'm staying on purpose, right, and so when things manifest, but typically particularly when you see the rate at which things begin to manifest, right, it's been crazy in the last six seven months, Like and I'm just watching this objectively, right and going, wow, well, this is where I'm supposed to be. I have one final question, Malik. I ask everyone this, and it's it's

an important one. If you could tell everyone that's listening one thing, one thing that they could do, it would change their life. According to Malik, one ounce of doubting you're out. Say that again, that's a good one. One ounce of doubt and you're out. Like people the negative talk, like when you actually sit and talk with folks about

what's actually going on in their heads. There's some extraordinary stuff going on, and a lot of it is not pretty and it's amazing because people don't realize that that is the key, that's that's that's a law as surely as gravity is a law. Where our mind goes, we flow right, you know, we are as a man think it's so, it's you know, so I was eating his heart. Nothing is right or wrong. Thinking makes it so right.

Change the way you look at things, and things you look at change all the whether Wayne die, whether it's the Bible, whether Shakespeare, you know, it's all the same. Thinking right, never gota, whether it's you know, wireless wattles, holding hill, you go back to you know, human history. That's something that has been kept from people quite frankly. And that's actually a big part of the Real Estate Mixtape.

As much as it's about exposing people to this world of being built environment and was doing it, it's also about helping people understand this thinking you hear throughout, Thoughts become things, connective tissue, right, and then what you see and it is actually I stepped back and I purposely

did this in the edit. I pushed the young people forward in the narrative because you see the lights go on in there like in real time, and they're saying when we've only been doing this for like eight days, and I used to think this, and now I'm thinking this, and I can't believe I was raised this where and now I need to go home and tell my mother we've been doing it wrong for the last thirty years. Right.

That's a beautiful thing if you're able to do that and so help people, h uh, not have negative thoughts about themselves and love on themselves a little bit more. I'm only scratching the surface of this guy, and I am so glad to meet you. And I know we have a lot more, a lot more catching up, So I'd like I'd like you to come to my my town, come to Montclair, play golf with the boys, and check out Steven's real estate and let's you know, I love to h