¶ Welcome and Guest Introduction
Hello listeners and welcome back to The Science of Self, where you improve your life from the inside out. We have another guest with us today. I'm excited to introduce to you, Robin, Nathaniel. Robin and I have talked for a few minutes. I'm looking forward to this conversation. Robin, you're somewhat of a social media consultant or advisor, an author, a TEDx speaker many other things. Tell us about you. Introduce yourself and let our
¶ Robin's Personal and Professional Background
listeners get to know you.
Russell, thank you so much. Really excited to be on the show. Really I start off by saying I'm a two time dad. Like, that's my, like, my crowning achievement is being a two time dad. One of the most rewarding exper experiences in my life is being a dad. I have a 15-year-old and a 6-year-old at the time of recording this, and also, uh, uh, a loyal and dedicated husband loving my wife. Right now we're, we're, we're in a really good phase growing together, so I'll start with that.
in terms of my career, I am a social media strategist. I focus specifically on the nonprofit sector, and we also support some mission-driven organizations as well as some, um, local government organizations in terms of maximizing and optimizing their reach on social media. We have a specific focus, or I have a specific focus around human connection online, and sometimes those two concepts kind of clash when you think about social media and human connection, but that's a large part of my work.
That's what my book is about, and giving folks the tools and frameworks to really build those authentic and intentional human connections online.
Fantastic. So first of all, did you say six 15 or 16 and six?
have a gap. We have a bit of a gap.
Yeah,
put him to work. We let her, him babysit her and stuff, so we, he, you know,
there you go.
he's affordable. He's an afford affordable childcare professional.
that, well, that's, uh, that has its benefits. Yeah. That's great. That is quite a gap we have, uh, I'm a father of three, I'm glad to say, and it's interesting. I really appreciate you starting off the podcast that way. So you are a, a social media strategist, but your social media connections are based on something deeper than just the regular social media. Can you give us a little more on that?
You talked about connections and, and real real connections being the basis for a social media platform. Can you expand on that a little bit more?
So.
¶ The Evolution of Social Media
In my career, I'll, I'll start by saying like, I'm, I'm old school social media. So I started my career back in the early two thousands when social media was brand new. At the time, Russell, I didn't know that I was carving out a path as a social media professional. I was just in the Wow.
Wow. West with everybody else, you know, whether it was Friendster or MySpace, these older social media platforms that we were just kind of, you know, blown away by, because you could talk to people in other countries through the internet. It was just wild. Right. I'm talking dial up service. the long beep beep, you know, of, of getting online. So I started my career back then and now to see where we are today. We're, right now we have 5.3 billion active users on social media.
So essentially a huge percentage of the world's population is active on social media. So where many companies, brands, coaches, strategists, might look at it as just an opportunity to get some kind of financial return. I look at it as an opportunity to build intentional human connections, whether it's with people that you have in your life, like your aunt in Minnesota that maybe you haven't seen in seven years, and using that tool to connect with her deeper.
Or if you are a business owner or an author. Trying to build genuine and authentic connections with your audience. So I really am focused in on this work because I see so much value in it, and a lot of it has to do with my journey as a TEDx speaker. Having to kind of unpack some of my dirty laundry, if you will, and sharing it publicly with the world kind of gave me a new perspective on how we can leverage the power of social media.
Fantastic. A little side note here before we continue on, TEDx unfamiliar, of course, with the PLA or with the concept or the platform, whatever the right phrase is, what does that tell me about that process? What is a, you say when you call yourself a TEDx speaker, what does that mean? Other than you've done a presentation, um, you've made a speech, but what is actually a TEDx speaker? What is the organization, um, what does it take? To call yourself a TEDx speaker.
¶ Understanding TEDx and Its Impact
So TEDx is the local chapters of ted. So TED is a organization that is about sharing ideas, you know, worldwide. when they started, more people wanted to organize TED events. So they created this division of ted, essentially called TEDx. And honestly, in, in, you know, in the world today, TEDx is just as influential as ted. They are aligned, it's a part of the, the company, but they're operated by local managers license managers, if you will.
So what does it take to let, to, to become a TEDx speaker is pretty much getting selected. And then landing the talk. Some people, I believe, when they apply, they're selected and then something happens where they don't actually get to give their talk and they would still probably say, Hey, I got selected as a TEDx speaker. In my estimation, once you land on the stage and you present your idea to the world and your your video is published, then that would equate to becoming a TEDx speaker.
Now, what does it mean? What it means for me is as a speaker, right? So I come from the a, a musical background. For many years I did hip hop music and I, I found that it wasn't necessarily about me getting on stage and like performing as much as me getting on stages to share messages, to share ideas, to help people, to influence people. And when I found public speaking, I knew that I wanted to land.
I. A TEDx talk and in the speaking world, many would refer to TEDx as the Super Bowl of public speaking. So landing a TED TEDx talk helps you to open doors in other areas and for me to impact more people.
¶ Robin's Music Career Journey
Tell us about your music career. You're in Atlanta, is that right?
I am, I'm, I'm currently based in the Atlanta metro area. Yep. I'll give you a quick rundown. So I'll start by saying that although I am based in the Atlanta area, I have not actively pursued music in Atlanta. I'm originally from New York City and my earliest memories of music was when I was about nine years old. I heard a strange sound coming from someone's vehicle, and I was like, what is that sound? Come to find out, this is the mid eighties.
It was, uh, MC Shan he had a song called Hip Hop and he was just saying, hip hop, hip hop, hip hop, hip hop. And I was like, what is that? I want to be a part of it. And from there I started writing rhymes at a very young age, at about nine years old and did it secretly, not really sharing my stuff. And then when I got in high school, I had a breaking, uh, a breakthrough moment. I went to my first ever concert, which was a Wu-Tang Clan concert. I was 15 years old.
You had to be 21 to get in the club. So somehow I had gotten my 15-year-old self into this club to see Wu-Tang Clans first ever club tour. And I was Russell, I must have been 10 feet from the stage. And it blew my mind. On the way back home, I set a couple of rhymes in the car to my friends. They did the, the, the classic. Oh, he said, oh my gosh. Right? And it gave me the confidence. And from there I went all in on my career.
While my classmates were pursuing degrees at Duke and UNC and many colleges in, in the North Carolina area where I went to high school, I was sending my demo tapes to New York City knowing that I wanted to pursue that career. Fast forward in the early two thousands, I packed a, a backsack and a of clothes and a backsack of CDs and went to go sell CDs in London.
And I moved to London and ended up, uh, spending about two and a half years in Europe helping to grow an international hip hop movement called End of the Week. Essentially it's a rap competition where we bring international competitors in different languages with multilingual judges and we crown a world champion. We just had our last world championship in, uh, 2025 in Uganda, and we've held the event in Paris and Berlin all over the world and it's still happening today.
And um, that's just a quick rundown of my music career.
Oh you don't look, excuse me, you don't look old enough to have accomplished all that. At
will take
in your life.
¶ Moving from New York to Atlanta
That's, I you grew up in New York. You live in Atlanta. I grew up in Chicago and moved to Atlanta in, uh, the mid eighties. So I date myself there. How do you compare New York to Atlanta? That's a tough question. I know, but what was your, when you moved down from New York, uh, to Atlanta, I'm just wondering if you had the same mindset that I did coming from Chicago.
Well, we're in this season of life. If I was younger, I would say I, I would probably have a different perspective, but I
I.
in this season of life, so I have two kids, a wife, you know, we, we were pandemic transplants Russell. So we, we as we used the pandemic as an escape hatch to get our kids outta New York City for a brighter future. So when I arrived down here, I had kind of had that mentality of like, woo, we made it out of that, you know, that mess. And to give you a little more context, when we were in New York City, we were in Forest Hills, Queens, very close to Corona, Queens.
This is the epicenter of the pandemic. So there were literally. Um, trailers, truck trailers, with bodies in them, three blocks from my house. So we were in this space of like, is it the end of the world? Like, like what do we, how do we keep our kids safe? So I think when I got down here, I just felt a, a sense of safety, a sense of peace. And even today, I joke with my friends.
I have a friend who sent me a text that he's coming down from New York to visit, and I'm like, well, I won't be coming to visit you. So you, you could come down. I don't, I don't need a 24 hour bodega. I don't need, you know, I don't need any of the lights, I don't need the Empire State Building. All I need is my backyard. We literally, Russell have like rabbits and deers like walking through our backyard in these suburbs. It's like fricking Disneyland.
Like, I'm like, I'm, I'm at peace and I have no need to, to go back to, um, to New York.
Wow, that's great. I had, uh, had no idea about that timing and what it must have been like in New York. During that time, a very different experience here. And I'm in the far northwest suburbs, I guess you could say almost halfway to Chattanooga for not quite that far, but quite a bit outside the city, but still pretty close to Atlanta. A much different experience of those few years as, uh, people in, in urban areas did. So it's fascinating to hear that viewpoint.
So let me get to the question that some of my listeners may be asking at this point. You have a, a music background, you're a social media strategist. Lived in London for several years, or abroad, at least in Europe for several years. I, that's, that's fascinating. But our listeners are interested, and for the most part, our podcast is about self-help, self-improvement, and living a better life. And our tagline is improving your life from the inside out.
I know you have some things to bring to that mindset. We don't, our listeners might not be looking for a social media base, you know, for a, a, a, a large outreach. So expand a little bit on, on why you contacted me, why you wanted to be on this podcast in particular, and, and what that brings to our listeners.
I think one of the things that stood out to me is that, uh, listening to a few episodes, it seemed like people had general topics, at the core of it, it was about identifying challenges maybe they had in their life and how that transitioned them into their next step to have some kind of success or some kind of happiness and peace. And that's like. Yeah, pulling all of my strings. That's like a part of who I am.
I, I mentioned earlier, like sharing my dirty laundry on the TEDx stage, and that's something that do before. Russell. I, I didn't share all of what I call the muddle my boots because didn't wanna mess up anybody's carpet, right? I don't want to come into your world and bring my mess. But what I realized in my journey is that the more of my mess that I share, the more people that I impact. So for example my parents were immigrants, right?
So we grew I grew up in New York City, clueless to my socioeconomic status. I was just a little kid living in. One of the roughest times in New York City in the mid eighties. This is the height of the crack epidemic. I remember Russell walking down the streets and when people were using crack cocaine, there were these little vials that they would store them in, and they all had different color tops.
I remember thinking those little things with toys, like, oh, there's re, they're like puddles of water with these little things floating around. I used to be like, oh, look. And she's like, don't touch that. Right? So that was my childhood.
So when I share you know, my background with folks and the things that I've been through, it always starts a conversation that, or often I should say, starts a conversation that leads to a season of their life that they can relate to my story, and that's why I wanted to be a part of this podcast.
Fantastic. Sorry, just looking at my notes here to find, to make sure I, I know where I want to go. Tell us, we might be backtracking here a little bit back into social media. Do you wanna give us a, a little more about your book?
Sure, sure. So it's called, uh, social media Sync. And basically what it's, what what I did was I got off the, the stage of my TEDx Talk in 2024, and I had this framework called the Sync Method, and I knew I wanted to write a book. My field is social media marketing, social media strategy, so I just merged the framework into philosophies that I have around social. It can be a bit radical. It's not necessarily what many of the quote unquote social media gurus might say online.
I, I oppose many of those ideas and really, it's stem, it's, it's rooted, I should say rooted in the idea. folks can build general and intentional human connections using this framework. I'll quickly break down the framework for you. So, so S is for simple. Often online people wanna show up, and this is in the conference room too. Wherever people are doing business or or operating, even in the church, right? It may be even in your community, people complicate messages that sound smart.
So it's like, you know, whatever they need to do. It could be a simple dish, but they'll break it down very complicated to show that they have more information. My challenge to that is that you simplify your message and make it easier for people to receive the message, then they're more likely to hold the message and hopefully put it into action. So s is for simple. Why might be my favorite one. Why is yield to your intentions? Right?
So people get online and they're like, I need the views, I need the followers, I need the conversions. You know, I, I just need the numbers. Gimme, gimme, gimme, gimme. As opposed to taking a step back and saying before I make any action online. Whether that's a direct message to someone, whether that's a post to someone, that you have clear intentions on how you want the receiver of that message to feel, how you want them to, you know, absorb your, your content. You know what I mean?
I think many, many folks online are selfish, pretty much like, I just need to get the word out so I can get people to come to my event as opposed to. I need to share this information because this event could change someone's life. Life. And I think that's kind of a switch and, and why it might be my favorite one. n is for natural. So often people have corporate speak. They're showing up using maybe the new AI model of chat, GBT or Claude to kind of create language that is not how they sound.
They might sound robotic, even come to the event at 7:00 PM right? As opposed to let's all connect, let, let's have some fun together. You know what I, my test and just as a quick ninja trick is to read what you wrote before you post it and ask yourself, would I really say that in a conversation? And if you question that, I would rewrite it. Another trick that I do, I narrate a lot of the content that I create for myself or for clients.
And then I play it back and listen to it to see if it's conversational, conversational enough. And then the last step is see, change it up. Oftentimes on social media, folks are what they hear from the gurus, they're going according to what advice they're getting online as opposed to creating their own experience.
So I would challenge folks where if people are saying, you gotta make videos, you gotta make videos, but you're really good at writing, it's okay to just write, you know, just, you know, go on a platform that appreciates writing. For example, LinkedIn is great for writing x Twitter, blue sky. These are great platforms for writing or even create your own personal blog on a, a platform like substack.
I'm finding so many writers are going to Substack right now, which is an amazing platform that I would strongly recommend people try out. Especially if you don't like social media. Substack is a great place to start because it just gives you the opportunity to write freely, and that's a quick and dirty breakdown of the sync method.
No, that's great. And in that viewpoint, what applies to social media really, if you put that in your everyday relationships, is some pretty powerful advice. I, I like the, the, the, and make it natural. I, by profession, I'm an audiobook narrator and to narrate a book that has dialogue in it. I don't do much fiction, but I have some fiction. And to narrate a book with dialogue in it, as you say, where it's like, it's almost reading an encyclopedia article.
I know that authors are trying to bring in background information or share, you know, why a person developed the way they did, but they presented in such a way that is so completely unnatural. You would never hear somebody say it that way or even talk about the topic that they're bringing into a dialogue. So putting that in the right perspective, uh, yeah, is good. Different viewpoints of maybe the same topic.
Robin, part of your material said you live by the motto, it talks about living by the motto, connect, create, contribute.
¶ The Three Cs: Connect, Create, Contribute
Can you break that down into a personal application, what that means, um, how it can apply to our listeners?
So that came to mind for me while I was making a sandwich. So I'm in my kitchen making a sandwich, and at the time I was processing the, the loss of my older brother, Kevin, Nathaniel Gar rest his soul. He passed away in 2021 Russell, and when he passed away.
My condolences.
sir. It hit me like a ton of bricks, you know, and I've, I, I lost another brother in the early two thousands, and I also lost my mom in the mid nineties. Nothing hit like this. It was, when I describe it to people. It felt like my organs had been removed from my body, and I was literally just walking around hollow at the time I was working in a school.
And I remember walking through the hallways of the school and I could almost hear the voices of the kids being turned down a couple of notches and all I could just hear and feel was my body moving it was empty. So I'm, I'm at making a sandwich during this time. Because I'm, I was trying to be more intentional about my schedule, and I did something that I kind of morphed from hearing different people around.
There's a guy, uh, named Cal Newport that I really like his work around simplifying life and, and, and productivity. was just really fascinating to me. And I just had been exposed to him and I was trying to do this audit of my life broken down by, by blocks, like, what am I doing from five to 5 30, 5 30 to six, et cetera. And I was trying to make sense of it while I was making this sandwich. I did the audit. I knew where I was putting my time thinking about my brother, all of these things.
And then it just hit me and I, and I told myself, I'm not making a sandwich. I'm creating, I'm not having a cup of coffee with my wife after this. I'm connecting. I'm not going to work when I leave the house. contributing. And those three Cs, when I re revisited this idea of doing an audit of my time, I changed it from being just an a time audit to a joy audit. How much, how many hours of my life are committed to these three things?
And if they're parts of my life that I can't somehow connect to these three concepts, then something gotta go. So if I'm not creating, if I'm not connecting, and if I'm not contributing, I can't do it. And that's like my non-negotiable. Now, last night, me and my wife tried to do this exercise. Together. I, I mentioned simple earlier on. I should have, I tried, I should have tried to be a little more simple with her because I was giving her the create, connect, contribute.
And she was like, dude, are we doing like a time audit or what? But I would say to anyone who wants to try this, it's a really interesting practice. And one thing that I, I, I always tell people my three pillars might be different than yours, and that's okay. Like create, create might not be a pillar that works for you. It might be service, you know, depending on the way you operate your life. So that's a quick breakdown of that three C motto that I have.
And, um, it's been just a life changer for me over the last couple of years.
Newport, of course, is an author. I, I really don't know too much about him personally, whether he is an author or a therapist or a researcher as, as far as his profession. But I know his work is quoted frequently in the, in the books that I narrate, and he has quite a presence. So your create, connect, contribute framework, can I, if I call it that, you use that to control what you, what activities you involve yourself in?
It, to me, there's a, a, it reminded me of the concept of like the Eisenhower Matrix. Are you familiar with that? It, it goes by several names where you have on the x axis urgent and important.
this.
Yeah. Uh. Yeah. And if it's, you know, if it's not urgent and it's not important, you don't bother with it. Right. You delegate that to someone else if it's urgent and important. That's what you do right now. And the, the I most important part, I think of that matrix is understanding the difference between urgent and important because they're not the same thing. But you use that to determine out of this huge to-do list that we have on a day-to-day basis.
And I've broken my day down into blocks and where each of these blocks fall and it's, it's very interesting that you use those three categories to determine, do you, so if you have an activity that doesn't fit into one of those categories, it's just something you quit doing. It's something you take off your plate. It's not a, it's not an issue in your day-to-day processing. Is that right?
will be exceptions, right? So there some
Of course.
don't want to do, but you have to do it just because you're, you're living life, right? But here's the trick, this is the ninja trick for me, is that the things that can't necessarily put into one of those buckets, I will myself to find a way. So let's say taking out the trash. Taking out the trash is not a popular task. It's something that gets, know, is get handed off to the kids.
It's like not something that anyone's super excited about, but something, even a task as mundane as taking out the trash me, you could turn it into create. Because, you know, it could be like, Hey, every time I take the trash out, I want to come up with a new motto. I'm gonna try to come up with a new motto. Let me try to. Create the basics of a framework while I'm just wrapping up the trash here. So it doesn't necessarily need to be the task.
It could be the space that you're creating for the task. The time and space is where you can create, connect, or contribute as well.
Wow.
¶ Connecting with a Higher Power
one more thing on that that just came to mind. Russell, the easiest hack, and this is, you know, depending on people's faith and spiritual background, if you report to a higher power, that's always a way that you can connect. So whatever I'm doing, if I want to, I can just have a conversation with a higher power. And that could be connection as well. It could also be giving gratitude out loud to the universe or to, you know, whoever it is. So that's connecting.
Like, you know what, I'm just so thankful for this opportunity to be here with Russell having this conversation. I could be running that in my head if we had a sound issue and you needed to get offline. So there are ways to get creative around it. I think going back to intention, if we're intentional about it, then we can. it all connect.
But if we're just living life haplessly, just kind of like going through the motions, then you know, I think we're missing out in a huge opportunity in the time that we have here.
¶ The Book That Changed My Perspective
A friend of mine several years ago told me about a book, and I never got the book from him. I never got the author or the title of the book from him. In the short conversation we had, he was Catholic and the book was written by, I believe, a Catholic priest. And the concept of the book was Break your Life Down, or We're made up of several pieces of our personality. Our, we have a religious side, a physical side, and emotional side and intellectual side.
And there may have, did I say there may have been four or five? I didn't, I don't have the exact list. the author of the Book's Challenge was to every day make progress in each of those categories, which I thought was fantastic, maybe one of our listeners can, relate. Some information about that book. If we, if that strikes a bell in anybody's mind that came to my mind as you were working through your, your day-to-day process.
We have to do the things that, you know, we have to take out the trash and those kind of things. but to connect or create some time during that process while you're doing them, what we might call a mundane task instead of just, I don't know, zombie through a portion of the day that we could be putting it to use and saying, you know, we let our brains go idle while we do this physical task, when we could be producing something, we could be creating somehow.
You mentioned, again, intention and that is part of your sync process. And then I think intention is another point from your email that I mentioned I wanted to bring up.
¶ Aligning Online Presence with Deeper Purpose
This is your quote. I've helped people align their online presence with their deeper purpose. You talk about deeper purpose, you talk about intention. You also talk in, and I want you, if you can, and maybe this will be a separate question. You're, a spiritual person it sounds like, and possibly we always, we frequently fall into the discussions on spirituality and religion and the contrast between those. But talk about intention and talk about their deeper purpose again, and how that ties in.
Really, it ties into your framework of create, connect, contribute. I believe, correct me if I'm wrong, if you don't know your inner. Purpose, your why If I dunno my deeper purpose, then I don't know what to create. I might not know how to connect or what the point of contributing is. Tie those together for us on a day-to-day basis. On a personal level, if you can.
I'll start by saying,
I,
that those concepts in my interviews and when I go around on, on this podcast tour, they rarely get brought together in the same segment. So I'm excited about that because, you know, the,
okay, great.
turn, I, I, I really look at my work as like a big whiteboard with just a bunch of diagrams overlapping. It's quite mad scientist the way I think about it, but I'm super passionate
¶ Finding Your North Star
about it. So I'll start by saying that it's hard for most folks to really identify what their purpose is. You know, I've been trying to figure that out for years, and I still am a work in progress. I, I, I believe that. My North Star is making sure that my children and my wife and the people that I love see me pursue something that I'm passionate about that will serve people, benefit people, and that I'm maniacally obsessed with it working. So I could impact people in a positive way.
kids seeing their dad and saying like, man, that I don't know what social media is really, but my dad, it, it's his job. You know, and he's, he's, he's obsessed with it. So in terms of being intentional, once you find that purpose right, I think that having a clear north star, a clear light that you move towards in your journey can help you to operate. In a way where you're moving through a tunnel as opposed to moving through a cave.
¶ The Cave and the Tunnel Analogy
I think in life sometimes when we have these challenges around finding purpose, finding meaning. motivation that we feel like we're in a cave. I I heard a, a pastor recently share this analogy of the cave in the tunnel and we're in this cave lost, right? We're like hitting the walls. It's dark. Like, which way am I going? And the only way out is to go back the way you came in. And that's not how humans operate. Humans want to push through, they wanna make progress.
Most people, right, want to do well in life. They wanna make it to the other side. in fact, when you're in that closed space, if you keep moving towards your goal, even though it's dark in front of you, you can make it through the tunnel. And I think that's what that's the alignment with intention. If you know, I know my intention is to create positive experience for my, my family, and my children in terms of their finding their passions and goals, right?
If I keep moving towards that target, even if it's dark in front of me, I can eventually make it to the other side of that tunnel. note, it's okay to change your, your, your, your purpose and mission. I think that people sometimes are driven by something. A great example is in my music days, I went from being a rapper to being a show promoter, to being a producer of music. I taught myself how to play basic piano so I can make beats and, and sell beats.
I went through all of these different phases because I was holding on to that one purpose, mission, and dream, when in fact I believe I was being led towards something else, not necessarily something bigger or greater, just something else that would a, bring me more joy, but b, impact more people. And I think that's a way for folks to kind of connect their intentions. their purpose to create optimal alignment.
¶ The Role of Religion in Life
How does, uh, how does your religion tie into that, uh, that purpose, that North Star? And I love the concept of the tunnel versus the cave. I've never, I, I've not heard that analogy before, but. If I can infer something from a 45 minute conversation. So far, I think the religion plays a, a large part in your life. Were you brought up in church? Do you, you, I assume you're still active in a church. Can you share some of that or are we off bound here?
So thank you for asking me that. I know again. Doing podcast interviews. Sometimes this is not a topic that works for all shows, so I'm grateful for the opportunity to talk a little bit about my faith. So started off in the Catholic church when I was probably in the first grade because my parents wanted to get me and my brother into a private school, my brother Kevin, that I spoke about earlier. So we went to a, uh, a private Catholic school for a couple of years.
Then my mother and father split up and fast forward, my father remarried, uh, my stepmom, who I affectionately referred to as mommy, my mother, uh, who raised me from the time I was in the sixth grade right up until today. She just turned 90 years old a couple of days ago. So love her. Grateful for her. She took me to church early and she had me singing in the choir. She had me going to Sunday school. She had me going to revival. If folks don't know what revival like.
No, not anymore.
It's like, it's like night Church. And I'll share a quick story. This is a a church where people will catch the Holy Ghost and Holy Spirit. And we were at revival in line one time waiting to get touched by this visiting pastor. And when the visiting pastor touched her head, Russell, you would fall on the floor and essentially have a seizure. And I was like in line with my dad and my cousin. They were behind me. Before I know it, I look around, my cousin went to sit down.
So I'm getting closer in the line. I'm probably about four or five people away. I turn around. My dad went to go sit down and now I'm like two, two, maybe one more person up. And I had to take the longest walk of shame that I was afraid to allow this pastor to touch my head. So that's my early experiences with church. As I grew older, I. I realized that many, especially in the Christian faith, there were a lot of barriers in terms of an inclusive environment at church.
And that always kind of made me a little icky. Like I, I love church. I, I love God. I, I believe in Jesus, all of the things, but I didn't like that part that we would hit people with the whoa, whoa, whoa, wait a minute, you're not us, you're going to hell. And I was like, I don't wanna, I don't wanna be a part of that, right? So I kind of disconnected from the Christian faith for many years and just focus on my spirituality.
And then as I got older and had a family, I wanted my kids to have a good experience with church. So I researched churches that had good youth programs and we found the church that we love and, and my wife who. disconnected from her faith for many years. Came back to her faith. She's actually volunteering at the church. My son is going on a retreat to Daytona with a, with a like a thousand high school church fanatics, you know, and my daughter also at six loves her church experience.
So it's a big part of our life as a family. And for me, I think with, in terms of like purpose there's a book by Rick Warren called The Purpose-Driven Life that my, my wife gave me a few years ago. And I was like, still in this season trying to find purpose and there was a chapter or a section where basically Rick said, just. Let your purpose be serving God. Like I know I mentioned earlier that my children and my family, that's a part of it, right?
But I think at the core of it is if I serve God and do what pleases God and try to put myself in a position where I'm doing God's work, and that's from those mundane tasks, even like making the sandwich, I wanna bless the sandwich when I'm making it for my kids, you know? And that helps me to kind of bring my purpose to fruition because I know it's rooted in my faith. I'm imperfect, I'm flawed. I, I, I'm still a work in progress with it.
But knowing that my faith can guide me through that tunnel that I talked about earlier, is a huge advantage for me in life.
Uh, yeah, Rick Warren's book is. Very well known and very powerful. a lot of people have gotten a lot of, a lot of powerful help and insight from that book. I'm struck as different as you and I seem personally, how many parallels there are between my background and yours. So, I, I'm from Chicago, but on the far south side, the far south suburbs, so not an inner city boy by any means.
My parents were, I grew up in Alabama, so they were not city fired by any means, but, being in church at an early age, going every time you could, every time the door was open night church is a great phrase. revival is almost like VBS for adults, right?
I love that.
And it's interesting, I've had other guests that have grown up in a strongly, I'm gonna say religious rather than spiritual family because, and I don't mean I, when I say religion, I don't mean it in a bad sense. Spirituality I think is an to, to me is kind of an internal awareness of things outside ourselves. And religion is kind of the organization of that and how you choose to express that. And as you said, religion has a lot of good and some bad.
It's organized a lot of times, well, obviously it's our organized and run by humans, so there's always gonna be some drawbacks. It's not gonna be perfect, but it's very common for those raised in a religious and family to either depart from that a little bit or obviously question that as they turn into adults. So frequently we turn back to religion or we recognize that spirituality and come back to some of the early things that we learned as children.
But so many things that in your life story that to me are just it. I appreciate you sharing them. the loss of your brother. I know some years have passed, but still, the loss has felt strongly, I can tell. And I've had a few family struggles with, with health and death in the last few years, so I can understand to some extent, possibly what you're going through. And I appreciate you sharing that.
And it's through that sharing through that vulnerability a lot of times that, as you said, by I don't want to equate. Being emotionally present and vulnerable to what you called, you know, scraping the showing the mud on your boots and scraping it off on the floor. But those are related. you have to show those weaknesses sometime, and that way you can relate to the individuals or per perhaps a younger listener, that is going through the same thing.
Just so much great information, and I appreciate you going through all those. You did mention Rick Warren and the Purpose Driven Life. If you could give our listeners, a handful of books that they, that it would be your top recommended reading books are there, do you have three or four on the top of your head that you would strongly recommend that most anybody should read and be familiar with?
So I'm not gonna plug my own book.
No, feel free.
But I said it earlier if you want to check that out. But, um, I would say Rick Warren's book, A Purpose-Driven Life was huge for me because at the stage and season of life that I was in, I was reaching for purpose. And my wife, she has this amazing quote, it's this again, simplicity, right? S is for simple. It's the, it's super simple, but it like, it kind of like my, my journey to like, identify my purpose. And she said. B she said, I'm sorry. She said, do what you are, what you are.
So at the time I was like having this huge transition in my career and trying to identify purpose, and she helped me with that, that quote, do what you are. Rick Warren's book would be one, and I'm, I'm kind of a marketing geek, so most of the stuff that I read is like nonfiction marketing books. Seth Golden, this is marketing is one of my faves. It's something that I refer back to Tribes by Seth Golden is another go-to, and most recently I've been reading.
Day Trading Attention by Gary Vanerchuk. Those are the ones that I'm reading right now, but I think Rick Warren's book for PO Folks who are seeking some Purpose, or even if you've read it before and you wanna revisit it with maybe some of the frameworks that I talked about in mind, I think it, it could be fun too.
Okay, great. Thank you very much. We're winding down here, so I've saved, uh, my two, wrap up questions for the end here. Do you have, um, speaking of books and pretty much every episode bring up Stephen Covey's the Seven Habits of Highly Effective People. Most people are familiar with the concept of, at least if not familiar with the book. Do you have any daily habits that you do that you would recommend or that, that have contributed significantly?
Things that are non-negotiables on your to-do list that you make sure you do every day to maintain the idea of your purpose and that you are following your North Star?
¶ Daily Habits for a Purposeful Life
What would you list as some of the fundamental habits on a day-to-day basis that keep you centered?
So the first thing that came to mind on this one, Russell, is connect, right? So I wanna make sure I connect with. People who are important in my life. So typically on my commute into my, my day job, I, I do social media for local government. Uh, I lead a small team and it's a, it's a dream job. It's like, I, I love it, right? But there's a part of my day that is kind of up for grabs. It's my commute and it's my lunch break, right?
So during my commute, which is about 30 to 45 minutes, depending on traffic I try to make sure that I connect specifically top of that list is my mom and dad. So I talked about my stepmom, AYA Thomas IV Thomas Andel, who I affectionately call mom, mother, mommy. Like she's 90 years old. You know what I'm saying? So this is something that I, I wasn't always the best of, the best at, especially during my traveling days when I was living in Paris for two years and living in the youth.
I lived in Saragosa, Spain for four months. Like I was, I did not have the opportunity to call home every day, right? This was back when people use calling cards. You know, there was no Skype, there was no Zoom calls. So one practice that I put into place is making sure that I connect with the people that I love every day, whether they live close or they live far away. Sometimes it's my son. Sometimes I'll just call my son who might be at home playing video games.
I'm like, Hey, just checking in on you. You know, want to see did you eat, you know, but specifically, if you have elderly family members, grandma, great grandma, elderly parents, check in on them daily because you have no idea how far that goes for them. It's, it's a big deal for them that you're calling consistently and also it will feed your soul. And it's it connects to. You know, sure that you don't leave any words unsaid. So the last thing you would
Hmm.
like to not talk to your loved ones for months at a time. And then God forbid something happens to them, you're like, dad, I should have called more. That's something that you can do that's low hanging fruit. So that's the first thing. The other thing is I try to move. This is something like, you know, I'm I'm in my mid forties. I'm, have this in this whole hamstring issue that I'm dealing with my right hamstring. It gets sore from like, standing up now.
It's like I'm feeling pains I've never felt before, but I have to move at, at, at the base level. I can walk if I really want to get advanced. My son is an aspiring basketball star, so I'm like playing basketball with my kid in the front yard. He's like dunking these days and I'm like barely doing a layup. So that's another thing I try to do daily is like at least walk at the minimum. Make sure I have one of those smart watches that I'm documenting my steps.
Try to get to 10,000 steps a day and make sure that I move. And then the last thing me that I really try to be intentional about is making sure that I am. Mindful on how I'm using my time online. So my wife and I talked about this last night, when online, you can easily go down the rabbit hole, like depending on your interest, depending on your platform. If you're a YouTube person, you might end up on YouTube just watching mindless videos. You might be on Facebook wherever you spend time.
So for me, I'm guilty of that too. And I also work in the field, so I have to be on social anyway. So this trick that I have is when I open up my phone and I go to like, get into the internet or go into social media, go in with intention saying I want to have one takeaway. And after I get that takeaway, I'm shutting this puppy down. So if I have a one hour lunch break and I say, I want to take 15 minutes to do this, I'll go in. For example, I did a, a TikTok video.
You know, EE ex ex expedition the other day looking for something good. And I found something about artificial intelligence, search engine optimization, how SEO is gonna be replaced by IEO. And I was like, oh, this is for me. But I shut my phone down and then took the, saved the video, and then I moved on. So those are three things that I put into my daily practice and try to, try to just make sure I'm, I'm optimizing my day.
Those are great. Yeah, that's exactly what what I like to hear out of that question. So thank you for being transparent there.
¶ Final Thoughts and Recommendations
You mentioned you work for a local government and a, a link in your email took us to, uh, uh, the, your, I believe it was your tele award winning. Was that a, a commercial or a, a promo video of some type for? Tell us something about that. Just real quick as we get ready to wrap up here.
that I was a part of. Uh, we do a bunch of different campaigns, obviously in local government. There are all kinds of different, you know, initiatives that we are working on. And that one was a, uh, for a a transit plan.
It was interesting. It brought it up. I was surprised. I wasn't expecting what came up and it, I thought, did I click on this? I misdirected somehow, but as I looked at it, I thought, oh, well that's pretty cool.
work.
Yeah, that I like that.
work.
Yeah, I bet it is. I think we're, we're at the hour and I wanna be cautious of your time. So I have one last question that I throw at people. I don't save a, a zinger question for the end, but I'm sure I missed a question that you would like to have been asked or possibly a, a point of information that I, that we didn't get to. Or a last word of wisdom that you might give to our listeners.
Just something to keep in mind, a word of encouragement, a a word of advice if there's something left and if not maybe a final plug for your book for your business, for your services. So, however you wanna close out the podcast episode for us, feel free to to venture as far as you'd like.
Yeah. So I said, um, earlier that in the sync method Y was probably my favorite. And the reason is, is because I find it to be most practical of all of the pillars. So for example, if you go to Walmart or Target, wherever you shop, if you shop at one of those stores and you go through the checkout line, you, you're not going through the automatic one. You're going, you want to like let a human take care of you, right?
And. If you think about it, you have the opportunity to be intentional to leave some kind of an impact on the cashier. It could be knowing she, she might seem frustrated with the, the guest before you, or you could just see a blank stare where she hasn't given anybody eye contact in the two people that were in front of you. You can intentionally say something to leave her with some kind of positive impact or value. It could be as something as simple as, Hey, thank you so much. I appreciate it.
You have a blessed day. People don't get that, and I, and I think that what I would leave your audience with, no matter who the person is, no matter where, what arena of life you're in, your professional arena, your personal arena. Look at every interaction as an opportunity to leave the person that you connect with better off than they were before your conversation. And that, I think, will help you, you know, get the most out of life. Uh, one more thing. Go
Then, then,
Now, I was
yeah.
one more
No, go ahead.
a gift for your audience. If they visit land the talk.com, which is also the name of my podcast, they'll be sent to my mailing list. And I'm going to give them a couple of free eBooks as well as a free preview to my book. So I'll give you the first chapter intro as well as the well as, uh, a couple of free eBooks just for you joining the list. And it's just you know, a, a token of my appreciation for you having me on the show, Russell.
Land the talk.com.
That.
The, just a, a quick note on intention. When you brought up the point yield to your intention, I tied that in to, uh, your purpose, uh, your belief system and all those kind of things. It's, and I, I, I'm sure that applies, uh, it applies for me if, if not meant by you, but. Yield to your intention. Also, as you just said, means to be intentional in your actions as you, as you go through.
Don't dumb dumb through life as a friend of mine used to say, but to be intentional in all your actions and more specifically in all your interactions so that you're not just glazing over the people that are around you, but you're surrounded by individuals that need something that day. And that might be something that you can provide
got it.
our guest today. Listeners. Thank you very much. Robin has been Robin, Nathaniel TEDx, speaker, author, podcast host and producer. Are those correct? For land the Talk? Visit his website@landthetalk.com and check the show notes for further information. Robin, I've greatly enjoyed our conversation. Thank you so much for being with us today. Listeners, thanks for joining us and we'll see you again next week.