Self-Actualization and Self-Preservation

I shared my full conversation with Black entertainment lawyer extraordinaire Marcy Cleary. Take a listen to her valuable insight into how black creators can get their work off the ground and protect their ownership of it while still sharing their vision with peers and mentors. What advice, Marcy, do you have for people that are are ready to take a risk, that are ready to you know they have a great idea, and you know a part of them is just like, do I pitch this idea? I'm scared because I don't

want it. I don't want to get it stolen right, but they're ready for the risk. How would you explain to them how they begin to navigate this massive industry. No, that's a great question because everybody asks it, like because everybody's nervous because that's their baby, right to put their baby out in the world, and somebody not kidnap, kidnap

the baby, right, right. I would say basic rules is if you have a finished script, like a full script, copywriter registered with the copyright Office before you send it out, you can protect it's the unique it's the expression of a unique idea. So the expression is I'm saying you got a full script, like something written out, like you don't just have a notepath that says, oh, we have this character Danyale in Brooklyn. That's not protectable, right, it's

not unique and it's not fully thought out. But if you have a whole twenty page, thirty page, forty page script about Danielle in Brooklyn, Okay, you got here ideas there. So I always say, if you have a script, will copy richiar with Copyright Office. It costs maybe sixty five dollars to do so, right, that's easy. But don't go around having people sign in DA's non disclosure agreements before you send it. That's a turn off. So some folks will say, oh, well before you review it, can you

please sign this nondisclosure. Well, I'm not gonna tell Oprah she can't look at my script before she signed something. Right, that's a place. Right. So you also just got to trust who you're sharing your material with, right, and know that that person is not gonna take the risk. Right, Like, if you sharing yourself with somebody you scare gonna take you know it's gonna show up on television next year, then that's not the person. Yeah, it's somebody you gotta trust.

But the basis of its copyrighted, Have it written down, have it is thought out as possile before you share. Because it's easy to just take a sketch idea. Anybody can have a similar idea and make it better. And it's I don't know how to protect you man, got it? Got it? No, that's really important. I think that you know, you hear all of these horror stories and then you have people that are like, well I'm just gonna you know, I'm gonna take the risk, or they're gonna sit on

something that's great because they're afraid. Yeah, and so I think that there's this this part of needing to let go of fear. Really, like, this really is in the industry, right, It's not the industry for fear and fear of rejection too. That's a huge one, you know, Like I would say, my clients are tougher than I am because you're gonna hear no fifty thousand times before you get that one yes, and all you need is a one yes. But you're

gonna have to tweak it a lot. Everybody's gonna give you notes, you know, like for a long time before it becomes great. But that's art. Yeah. Well, Marci, you are champion in a whole field of black content creators. And I pray that this is not just a moment, as I say, but it is a movement of you know, us changing this industry from all different aspects of it because I feel like when we own things, you know, then we create the path that other folks can follow.

You know what else is crucial, Danielle is sharing information. Right. I can't tell you the reason why other folks have had a jump in this industry is because they talk to each other, right, Like they tell each other they have role models of like this is what you do, this is what you don't do. Right, So I would say, like, you know, it's great, everybody's building, era's getting their deals, but you gotta talk to each other and say, you know,

are you agreeing to this much like this amount of money? Okay? Like share information. Don't be so private and it's hard because you know you win, and you don't want to tell people about the losses as openly as you talk about the winds. But that's just as important because that's how we build, that's how we learn, right, and that's how we grow. And I think that's also is what creates the sustainability. That's why I have in the Macros and the Spree Hills is so important because they're sharing

information amongst a community. So that's crucial too. It is crucial. Marcy Cleary, I'm so happy that you came on woke f to talk to us about this new world. It's not it's not new, but I think that I think what it's new and exciting about it is that I just want to see more beautiful black stars. That's what I want to see. I want to see. I want to see as EASTERI said, I want to see us win, and it's wonderful to know that we are. There are people like yourself who have our back right and then

can usher us through. Thank you so much for coming on woke f appreciate you. Thank you. Whatever our role is on this earth, be it creating, leading, serving, we all need to make spaces in our lives for ritual

and self preservation. I was so happy in honor to be joined by my spiritual big sister ricikat Okay Day on this week's Feel Good Friday edition of Woke af Daily to tell us what self preservation and ritual really mean, how they're different from what we call self care and habits, and how we can put them into practice in our

everyday lives. What have you noticed over the past year receive as we are moving through this multiple pandemics, right, we're moving through and kind of trying to figure out how to manifest ourselves in this new normal space, and so what have you found in terms of the way that people are trying to connect and trying to ground with themselves. So the big thing is that a lot of people I haven't been doing it, don't know how to do it because our life you know, pre COVID

was go go, go, go, go, go go. And so while yeah, I make tea blends and you know, I like candles, and you know, I'm do full moon and New Moon rituals. That was there was there was a part of my life that was that was a very small group of people that um kind of operated in that space naturally. And when the pandemic hit and folks were forced to sort of sit still, you start asking questions like, well, what the hell am I doing here

and why is this happening? And in order to address, like, you know, a lot, I had a lot of friends that I you know, had to talk off the tree I call it, to prefer a real tree where I'm literally at the basis tree like all right, come on, you can come down now, not know and it's like no, but you can really come down. It's okay. What happens is that when you were forced to sit with yourself,

you were forced to face things. And what you find is that a lot of us, myself included, had not been doing our due diligence when it came to our self preservation. And don't I don't like the term self care because it can you know, for a lot of people, visions of spa days and getting your nails done and backrubs come in and that's not really what self care is about. It really is asking you to preserve the self.

And that looks like you know, meditation for others. That looks like you know, turning off Twitter for some And we initially are so wedded to our technology because that's the only way for us to stay in touch that I think a lot of people just want into overdrive.

And then at some point when you realize this was not going to end quietly and quickly, and as more things started to get canceled, you start to see people really start delving in too, like you have to find some balance, You have to figure out how your life is going to look because you can't go outside and you can't you know, socialize, and people start finding ways

to manage. But they also start to realize that in the absence of constant motion, that their lives, if they allow it, are actually more enriched in the staying still and sort of not having there because part of the going going on is the expectation that somebody's looking for you, or the idea that you that's a that's proof of your hustle or proof that you're making moves because you're going, going, going.

For some it's a way to fill the void. And so when all of that goes away and you're kind of forced to sit, you start to really think deep and ask questions. And there's only so much netflix benching that you can do. There's only so much you know, you know, pandemic eating that you can do before you're like, okay, well, what exactly what does my life look like now? And I think a lot of us are finding that previous, pre pandemic, we were doing a ship job of taking

care of ourselves. And now that you have no choice because it's just you and your kids, or you and your family or whoever's in your household, if you want to be here when it's all said and done, then self care, self preservation becomes a natural part of this. And folks are finding that they actually like it. Like a lot of folks that I'm talking to, they don't trying to go back to whatever was normal before. They really want They like getting up and working from you know,

working from a place that is not the office. They like you know, taking their time, you know, they like the idea of setting boundaries because COVID has taught us a set boundary. So I'm not taking meetings after six pm, or I'm not you know, taking meetings at eight o'clock of the morning or whatever it is that you're doing. And people are like, yo, this way of living is not ideal because we didn't expect it. But it's teaching

us all some things. And one of the big lessons is that the life, the way we were living before was just it was insane. It was absolutely insane, and that was considered normal. Tell us about ritual and why that's important for how we develop and show up in the world. So for me, ritual is something you do with intention. There are a lot of things we do out of habit, and you know, the issue with habit

is that there's no thought to it. It's just something that you So it becomes easy over time to not realize that you're doing it, or to not realize that you might be harming people and doing it because it's just like if you have people say, well, that's just the way we've always done it. For me, ritual is really about being intentional, and I think anything can be ritualized if you take a minute to think about what

it is that you're doing. So when you get into a space where ritual is sort of how you leave your day, what ends up happening is you prepare yourself. And some of us, let's be honest, we live in spaces, We operate in spaces. Our soul contracts require us to be in service. You are in service, and so those of us who are born to be in service and to lead as servant leaders, oftentimes we don't have caretakers.

It's just it's this weird thing. But what happens is that you have been given certain amount of knowledge and you are surrounded by people who can show you how to care for yourself. And when you remove the sort of human aspect of oh, well, what I want to want to take care of me? Yes, we would all love that. But in order for you to do your job, in order for you to do what you came to do, you have to be fully charged. That means that you have to be intentional about what you put in your body.

You have to be intentional about the colors that you might wear that day, or intentional about you know, who you talk to that day. Just because if your goal is to get this information out and you know that there's going to be very little reciprocity. Then that means you charge up and you go out into the world protected and you can sustain yourself. It's so easy to fall off the cliff. Like that's the thing about ritual and it's about about you know, sort of self preservation.

It is amazing. It is much harder to get back off the cliff than it is to get you know what I'm saying. When you fall off that cliff, if you don't catch it and recalibrate immediately, it is so much harder to get back up there. Like for all of that momentum that you build the minute you fall off, it's such a hard place to get back from. So

that's the part, you know. I remember I would have clients who would you know, I would work with and we would put blends together, and that would say, if this works, don't let it run out, because once it runs out and you've gone two or three weeks without it, we're gonna have to go through a whole process to get you back and sink. And those that listened fared well,

and those that didn't. You know, here we are so It is important that you recognize them as rituals and you recognize them as intentions, and that you know you have people around you be like, hey, did you did you do? Did you drink or smoothe today? You seem a little on edge because it's easy, right all right, back off? Yeah, Accountability partners is also a big part of how we take care of each other. Everybody can't maybe everyone can't take care of you, but people can

ask did you drink water? Did you eat today? You know? Have you you know, have you gone outside? You know you're taken a stop for a minute and done some deep breathing. And that is just as that is just as critical I think we're not We can't do it by ourselves, like we definitely need our village to help us. I tell you I could have talked to Risikat for a full hour about all the ways we can preserve

and enrich our lives in this unprecedented moment. If you want to hear more of her knowledge and insight, check out our full forty minute conversation at patreon dot com. Slash woke af as always, five dollars a month gets you five full one hour shows every week. And I have some great conversations coming up that I'm so excited to share with all of you, So head over now and subscribe so you don't miss any of the wokeness that I'm dishing out until then, Power to the people

and to all the people. Power, get woke, and stay woke as fuck.