Bold Discussions on Men's Mental Health and Success w/ Justin Little

A lot of those people in those groups weren't really given mental health conversations in school from their parents, and so they've been taught to mask how they feel, to mask their emotions and to deal with it all, because they haven't really dealt with their inner child. We've done a lot of research when it comes to suicide ideation. It's not the person that they want to kill, it's the pain, it's the hurt, because they feel alone. Your mental health has to be the priority, because if you don't take care of your mental health is going to affect you physically and is going to eventually affect your business. You will fail at your business. You will fail if you don't take care of yourself.

The journey to wealth is a long walk and some may walk quicker than others, but what good is sprinting to the finish line if you pass out when you cross it? On Walk to Wealth, we enlighten and empower young adults to build wealthy, abundant lives. They say the journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step and your first step starts right now. This is Walk to Wealth with your host, John Mendez hey everyone, welcome to the Walk to Wealth podcast.

If you're tuning in on YouTube or any of the podcast directories, make sure to do us one small favor Make sure to give us a follow, not for us, but so you can not miss a beat. We're bringing on amazing guests all year this year, and I don't want you to be the one that misses out on the newest episode, so make sure to give us a follow. We're going to get right into this one Without further ado. Justin, for anyone who hasn't had the opportunity to hear your story or hear what you got going on, tell us your quick elevator pitch Now. Who are you and what do you do?

Hey, first, of all, john, just appreciate the opportunity of being on your show here and I hope again that we can bring some value, have a really great conversation. My name is Justin Little. I have a podcast called the Mental Wealth Podcast. It's currently heard in about 45 different countries. We've been doing it since April of 2021. The idea of that podcast is just to talk about mental health, to have open dialogue conversations. I open up in a very intimate about my life, my journey with mental health, my trauma, things I've gone through. I tell people all the time listen if you want to get to know me, listen to the podcast. It's a bunch, but it's all there. Then I also pivot and then bring on guests therapists, clinical psychologists, mental health speakers, people who are doing work in mental health and have them open up about their story and their message and things that they're doing in the community. That takes up a lot of my time. I also get a chance to travel the country speaking and events about mental health. I'm certified in psychological first aid from Johns Hopkins University. That helps me with being some sort of peer support. One of the things I really love about what I do is each Sunday for the past almost two years I host a virtual support group on Clubhouse. On Audio Platform we talk about a variety of mental health topics. It's called the Mental Wealth Alongness Club. It's about 4,000 members in our community. We've built that community and it's just a chance for us to come together as a community and have conversations. I love doing that, I love speaking, I love going out there. I'm also a part of a few nonprofit organizations as well, too, when it comes to mental health. To me, in a nutshell, just an advocate, a survivor myself of suicide ideations and just someone who feels like if we can just talk more about the things that we've been told forever to not talk about, we're going to help destigmatize the idea of mental health.

Yeah, no, I love it. Man, let's dive into it a little bit. Take us in the time machine. Where did this journey all begin? Where does your walk 12 start? Take us back to the childhood. What was that like growing up, and how did that have a play into who we are today?

Yeah, I had a good childhood In the sense of we were provided for physically in a two-parent household. I had some siblings. I will say that emotionally there was some lacking there. Emotional needs were looked over and a lot of emphasis was put on looking perfect, trying to be perfect in school. In our face. It was a lot of pressure put on us because my dad had elevated seat in our religion. It was like I love to live up to right. But for me, the way I dealt with things, I acted out. I was a bad kid in school. I was very smart, I think, intelligently, academically based, but when it came to behavior I was messing up. I was kicked out of school a couple of times, getting suspended. That was just my way of just acting out, because I didn't really know how to truly express my feelings, my emotions, my anger, my frustration. So I just did it in all the wrong ways and so I got to a point. I also struggled with obesity. I was very heavy as a kid. I was teased for my weight and that was very traumatic as well, being bullied as a kid. And so I got to a point maybe around 14 or 15, and I started cutting. I was a self-harmer and that was it wasn't necessarily in the beginning to try to kill myself, it was more so just a way to deal with the pain. And my parents started to see the cuts on me and I remember they took me to a psychologist and a psychiatrist and a psychologist, or there's a difference. There was one folk for therapy group, like group therapy, and it was like a therapist that talked to them. And then it was another. She wasn't able to prescribe me medicine. So I know she wasn't a doctor, she wasn't clinical, she was more of the behavior-based. And then there was another guy, I think his name was Dr Parker, and he was the guy who prescribed me medicine. So I was diagnosed with severe depression and ADHD and I was medicated for several years.

So let me dive into this a little bit. If you don't mind, let's explore this For me. Personally, I've had Cousin2, kind of been going through some of the things, but it was never my place to say something because one I should have even known to begin with. But it's like those things are hard and it comes by usually. It's a lot more common than most people think it's like, and some of the times we have an opportunity help. So let me ask you what was that like? So you're not here, you're a teenager. These years you didn't know how to really cope with what you got doing or you were experiencing right, so you started cutting yourself. What was that kind of like? If you don't mind us diving deep into this, so kind of get into an understanding first. Some of that may have not gone through it, so we can get some understanding. What was that like in your head mentally, like what were you thinking? What was going on?

Well, I felt like no one understood me. I felt like no one. I didn't feel a safe space to talk about what I was feeling, and growing up in the late 90s, early 2000s, and also in a black family minority bases. Middle health isn't really a topic, it's something that's laughed at. Yeah, you're tall, you just crazy, you just or you're just acting up like no, there's some things are wrong with me and you aren't understanding that and I don't understand it. And there's no support there. And the relationship with my parents while again, we were provided for physically, there was really no mental health conversations until they saw me attempt to take my life right, until I was running away from home as a teenager and being brought home by the cops. That's when they so it took me having to, like, get to a certain point, like, oh, my God, well, maybe we really need. I've been telling you this for years, but now it's like, now you're forced to see it and so it just me and those. It was a feeling of loneliness, feeling like I was trapped and no one could ever understand me for how I'm feeling and that just led to just being one to give up on life.

Yeah, no, and I appreciate you sharing that, and it's something that so many people never, ever hear, especially early on in your teenage years, because everyone first of all just classified as teenage years as rebellious years. So it's like you're a rebel. You can't even say anything because you're already labeled a rebel to begin with. So let me actually start from the cutting and the attempt on your own life. What was the moment that made things turn around, or what was the series of moments that led to things turning around for the better?

If I'm being honest, it wasn't in my teenage years, I mean. So I mean I stopped cutting at some point. I mean I did get help. I was going to group therapy, I was on medication, but, if I'm being honest with you, my feelings never changed. I just learned how to master. So I mean my parents got to the point where, yeah, my parents took me, they got me help and the therapy help, but that didn't last forever. They didn't want me in therapy forever. They pulled me out of school for a little bit. I mean I just went on to still perform at school, graduate high school, go into college for a little bit. If I'm being honest, my healing journey didn't really start until probably two or three years ago. For even after stopping medication, stopping therapy and my late teens so like 18, 19, going into my 20s I just learned to medicate differently. I just did it through drinking and partying and doing rebellious things that could somehow temporarily help me, mass when I was really feeling, because still, there still wasn't a permanent safe space. So I still been holding, and I'm still, even to this day, as we speak now, there's still some traumas that I'm holding on to, that I'm still trying to heal from, from my childhood, that I still have to work through therapy, through my self-work, because I'm 30 now, 30 years old, I'll be 31 in August but I've gone through so much and there's still so much wounds that are there that I never really got a chance to heal and I'm just really beginning to start that work now.

Yeah. So, like a lot of my listeners right now, are in that age group that 18 to 22, their college years, the party years, the drink till you can't drink no more years, right, for anyone that might not be aware that why they're doing it is because they have all these things hidden under the rug. What could you start? What advice could you suggest so that we can start becoming a little bit more aware of some of these things that we may be doing without realizing that there's a deeper, big thing behind it, pulling the strings that really have us, has a grip on our life that we may not be aware of right now. What are some of the things that you can share to help us start recognizing some of those things?

Yeah, because when you're 18 to 22 in that range that we talked about you think you know everything, but you don't know anything at all. And as someone told me one time I think it might be a quote from Oprah you just don't know how much you don't know. And so think about it from the perspective of a lot of your listeners. A lot of those people in those groups weren't really given mental health conversations in school from their parents, and so they've been taught to mask how they feel, to mask their emotions and to deal with it. Right, to refuse help. I'm struggling, but I'm not gonna tell anyone. They suffer in silence and so they, like you said, they might go and they might drink, they might do drugs, they might go out there and be promiscuous when it comes to sexual activities all because they haven't really dealt with their inner child, they haven't dealt with the emotion and the hurt. You see, with a lot of people we've done a lot of research. When it comes to suicide ideation, it's typically it's not the person that they wanna kill, it's the pain, it's the hurt, because they feel alone. So imagine being 19, 20 years old and now high school's over. You're an adult now and now you have to figure this out. You have to go to college, you have to go get a job. Maybe you're away from home from the first time and, honestly, you're probably not really prepared to be an adult. How many, I mean, you go back to school and think about all the classes that they gave us and how much of that stuff are you still using today? Not much of it. The practical stuff they skip. Like, I mean, it would have been good to learn about how to do my taxes, how to write checks and how to balance and budget. You weren't really given that stuff. They taught you trigonometry. They taught you how to dissect the fraud. Well, most people are never gonna use that in their adult years and so, in many respects, young people that age are set up to fail because they aren't prepared to be adults when it comes to physically, and then you weren't really given mental health and mindfulness work. So now you're out here in the real world trying to figure it out and there's not a lot of support there for you. So you know, those folks really need to look in the mirror and examine their experiences, their feelings, their emotions and find a safe space to express whatever they're feeling, find a support group, find a safe group of folks that you can be around and express both positive and negative emotions, and then you can begin to deal with that pain.

Yeah, I love that. I think this is a perfect segue into the conversation, because only about one or two percent of the world is like quote unquote entrepreneurs have their own businesses, right, and then from there, nine out of 10 businesses fail within five years, right. So to be a successful, not even in terms of like making millions of dollars, but just to be a business that doesn't fail within five years, you're already part of a small, small, small percentage of the population. And you mentioned earlier on in your story too, that you felt alone, that you felt that there was, you know, by yourself, and if you're an entrepreneur, the amount of people you could probably reach out to, that even understand what you're going through, is very limited. Now, if you're an entrepreneur and you're successful, the circle gets even smaller as you go for people that can understand Not only from you know, just being able to have empathy, understand, but from having their own personal experience that have anything, have gone through similar things. So let me ask you for Entrepreneurship and mental health. Where do you see those kind of worlds, kind of combined? Because a lot of times we're taught this hustle culture, this hustle mentality. You got to work, work, work. So 80 hundred 120 hours a week and just slave your life away, and just because for the sake of entrepreneurship and starting your own business. So like, where do these two worlds come? Mine, because a lot of the times they're not really talked about. Well, you know.

Well, let's start with the idea, and this, this, this Go specifically mostly to our men, because a lot of the work I do is with men, but obviously there's women and women entrepreneurs, and it's gonna be valid. As men, though, a lot of our value, john, is associated with what we can provide right. As men, we've been taught to perform, that we are providers, and in the moment when we feel like we can't, we start to fill Love, like there's this joke from Chris rock comedy special where he jokes that men aren't unconditionally loved. Everyone else is, but not men, because we're love. You know that, joe, right?

Bro, I was thinking about like really, really, why you're talking. I'm yeah, I think you said like only woman and dogs I love unconditionally. Yes, men aren't something like? Yes, bro, I knew you were gonna go at that. Yeah, I hear what you.

He said we're loved on the condition that we provide something. He says he. Then he ends it. He says you know, if you never saw the wife say, oh, you know, soon as he lost his job. We got closer now. It's not to say that women are just with the man because of, but we understand that we have this pressure to provide. So I wanted the first message I want to say to both men and women is understanding that your value isn't tied so what you do or what you can give or what's in your bank account. There's value in just you existing. There's value in you just being alive today, listening to this podcast, listen, doing whatever you do and being here, because there's so many people who didn't make it to the age you are right now and never will, because this is the world that we live in. So be grateful, practice gratitude and Understand that your value is just in you existing. So, before you ever get to any try to build a business and whatever you want to do For your career, your life, understand that your value should not be attached to your achievements. It should be attached to to yourself who you are as an individual, as a human being, just you being here and then, as we, with that thought of mind, I think about someone and and starting a business and all the work that you have to go through. When I ask folks out there in the field, I say John says, do you know what self-care is? They're like what self-care? They don't know what self-care is. Do you intentionally take out time for yourself to give yourself grace, to take breaks to, to practice gratitude? Whatever that looks like for you could be different from person to person, but a lot of folks are Getting burnt out and are stressing themselves out and aren't giving themselves time to just breathe, live in a moment and absorb. It doesn't mean that you'd not, you aren't Dedicated to your business or to your crap, but you still have to have balance, because if you don't have balance you're gonna burn out. Your mental health has to be the priority, because if you don't take care of your mental health is going to affect you physically and it's gonna eventually affect your business. You will fail at your business. You will fail if you don't take care of yourself. So the two things have to work together. They have to be, you know, tied to each other, because if you don't look after yourself and Intentionally buy out that time to take care of your most valuable asset you. How can you ever be of service to anyone else? I'll conclude with the thought I like the fly. You know we obviously met by long ago down in Florida. What's the first thing they almost always tell you on the plane? The flight attendants hey, in the case of an emergency, if there's a loss of cabin air pressure and you have them, the oxygen mask comes down. Put on your oxygen mask, secure it before you can help someone else. Naturally, as human being, some of our Natural go to is to help people around us because we're good people, we're selfless people, a lot of us off but in certain instances you have to be selfish. In certain instances you have to take care of yourself, because in that emergency I'm no good to the person next to me if I'm not breathing, if I happen to give myself what I need, and so it's the same in business. Take care of you, make sure that you have what you need, that you're looking out for yourself, and then that's gonna automatically make you not only a better human being but a better entrepreneur, to whoever your customer basis.

No, I love that that you mentioned those three things. I want to just recap those things just in case it went over anyone's head. So you talked about your value not being attached to you the amount and you can provide, the work that you can put out. It's attached to you just being you and just living, breathing, being alive. You also mentioned there, too, that pretty much that you have to take care of yourself as well, you can't feel. Pretty much what you're saying is to, you can't pretty much pour from an empty cup. You got to be pouring from the overflow, right? You can't be pouring from an empty cup if you're not Focusing on yourself. And it made me think of some random thought. But while you were talking, I was thinking how? So how many selfless people Masquerade as virtuous and in reality they're just, you know, not actually showing up as the best version of themselves because they never focus on themselves. And I always talk about myself too. I've been guessing on a couple of podcasts and you, you have to. Someone told me this, told me this in a parking lot, one of my guys after a workout. He was saying that we are either center of our own world, we're not the center of the world. So if there's seven billion people in this planet, that's seven billion different worlds. So it's like you have to realize that in your own world you are the most important thing. So you have to focus on that so that you can show up in the overall world as the best version of you. And so many people say, you know, choose the road of being selfless at the expense of themselves. Right, you have to be selfish in order to be selfless, because if you don't take care of yourself, then you'll never be able to fully take care of the people that you want to. You won't be able to fully show up as that entrepreneur that you want to fully show up to, as a best version of you, to your client, to your family, to your friends, whatever may that be. And, as you mentioned too, it'll eventually lead to burnout and we're taught to almost demonize the idea of being selfish, like you're a selfish, you're a bad person, but it's not selfish in a way that's like I don't care about other people. It's like, no, I care about myself so much that I'm going to take care of myself first so I can show up as the best version of myself for other people, because 50% of you isn't the same as 100% of you. So if you're not all there, if you're not taking care of yourself, you're eventually you're not going to be able to help in a way that you could potentially have you been taking care of yourself, and so I kind of want to actually do a little bit because I'm super curious. So, this mental health journey what was it like for you now that you started healing? But you already were speaking and going on stages and spreading the message while on your journey of healing at the same time? Right, you didn't wait until, hey, I'm fully healed now. Let me now start making an impact in the world. You've been making an impact while you've been healing. Give us some advice in that area of like. A lot of people have this imposter syndrome that they can't do it until they get to a certain stature. They can't do it unless they have a certain acronym or letter behind their name some credential, some sort of degree, a doctorate, whatever, a PhD, a CPA, all these different letters. What was it like making the impact while on your journey of healing? That's a great question yeah.

So first of all, I think we live in a society where we try to value perfection and that's not reality. It ain't like you have to be perfect or you have to have never made any mistakes. So I want to talk to the people who made mistakes, because the people who make mistakes and have failed there's so many quotes out there for you know Michael Jordan, for all the shots that I missed, he valued the shots that he missed because it made it more special when he made the shots Right. Like there's so many entrepreneurs the Steve Jobs, the Oprahs of the world, the Walt Disney's they told Walt Disney he was crazy. They said he was a crazy man. Look at the look he's passed away now, but look what he created. Some of the best creators have come from failure, from being told, you know, that they weren't enough or failing at something else Michael Jordan being cut from a basketball team. So I think we assume that we have to have, like, had it all figured out to speak or to influence other people. I think, for me, healing is always an evolving process. It's always something that is continuing to develop, and I wanted to share my truth and that was part of the healing process. Me actually getting on a stage and talking to a group of young folks or any crowd about my story was cathartic. Was was away from me to cope and heal, because now, as a young man, I was told to kind of box all those emotions in and not to express them. Now I'm on stage as expression and I'm doing the exact opposite. So that itself is healing. And didn't think about the audience. The audience typically wants to begin to hear from folks who've been there. I'm not speaking to as just some guy who just read a book. I'm speaking to you as a guy who's lived it. In fact, a lot of the clinical psychologists that I will partner with, because I don't ever claim to be a mental health professional. I claim a mental health expert and having expertise and being an advocate and being a survivor. I'm not a licensed mental health professional, but a lot of the licensed mental health professionals, john, that I work with. They love people like me and what I do, because sometimes folks who really need to get mental health healing they will go see a doctor. They get nervous by being in a community with someone doctor so and so. Where this clinical therapist? All these accolades, you know what A lot more people respond to everyday people just like you, just having a conversation, as people, as men, as women, just being near to support and show up for them. And so I'm able to reach a different type of audience, because I don't come to them as some guy with some fancy smancy degree. I come to you as, hey, I'm just like you. I'm still battling myself and on my podcast I use it as an opportunity to be authentic to my audience. I tell them what I'm struggling. I've had emotional episodes when I'm going on this and cried and been like I've been feeling like giving up. I've been hurting. I've been going through things. Everything in my life I've gone through in the last year going through lost friendships, going through a divorce, going through a fallout with my father. I haven't spoke to him in almost a year. I talk about it all on my podcast because I want my audience to see me. For me, I try to be perfect, not trying to be some. Oh, I'm the mental health guy that never has any problems. No, I'm the mental health guy who cares about you. But I'm also going through things daily and I want you to see that to normalize it. I don't want to hide from it. And I believe that my audience tunes into me because they appreciate that, that genuineness, they appreciate that transparency, they appreciate me being authentic to myself.

Bro, I'd love that you bring that up Like literally right before we hopped onto this, bro. So I read I was in the real estate training last year around this time and part of the training we had to write a letter to ourselves a year later and the lady who was running the training I just got my letter today and, bro, I was looking through the list, I was recording my episode, so I was going to post an interview first. So the day after we recorded this is a Friday. I was going to drop it for tomorrow from the day after recording this and I was like I'm going through this list of everything I had and like on the entire list, bro, I'm like three for 22 based off of what I wrote down where I was going to accomplish last year. But it's like sharing that stuff, bro, because last year I was so convinced that real estate was going to be my thing and around September of last year I completely pivoted. I don't focus on real estate at all I still have an active license but like this is what I really want to get going on. So, like this year, I've been making it a priority to share the ups and the down. So, like in January. I did like a my walk in January where I shared my ups and downs for that month. February did the same thing. March I'm going to keep doing the same thing, just like sharing it. Like yourself that, hey, I'm not this guy who just interviewing other guys, like I'm trying to figure out this entrepreneurship stuff myself, I'm trying to build a life by design myself. And I always use this analogy when I hop on other shows. Is that the reason why I've failed people to win into my show is that I'm still at the dock. Most people they wait till they go out to set sail and go out in the middle of the sea and it's like, hey, the waters aren't that bad, come on board, like they're already all the way out of sea. You can't resonate with that. I'm still literally at the dock, still trying to load up the cargo, still trying to build my ship so I can get set sail. I'm right there in, like you were saying, like I'm a normal guy still, I'm still within arm's reach and even when I do start sail-sail, I'll still be that same normal guy. I can't no one say that, oh, I came up, it was overnight. It was like nah, I've been documenting this. I've been sharing this, I've been transpiring, I've been telling people that money's, I've been telling people that, hey, I couldn't pay this and all that stuff, and it's all part of the journey. So I kind of want to ask you now part of your journey has been helping others while you're on the journey. So many people get caught up with summits, so many people get caught up with goals and things they want to accomplish. How could one start to become more appreciative of the journey you mentioned earlier? You know practicing gratitude. If you want to dive deeper into that, like, share with us some ways to do that, because I feel like that's I've been. You know from personal experience that gratitude is the highest form of energy and there's nothing that beats it. But how do we start being okay with the journey when everyone just want to be so goal-driven, so results-oriented and stuff, and not realizing that there's always going to be more goals and more summits to climb? And it's this journey that we play the game for, not the end boss, not the end goal. It's this journey that we're on.

Yeah, it starts with contentment, being content with what you currently have and what you're. Because you know, jake Cole says it in one of my favorite songs. It's called Love Yours. He says it's always going to be a bad girl on the tour, someone with a bigger house, nicer clothes, more money, but you're never going to be happy until you love yours. So ask yourself do you love you? Do you love what you have? And if not, why is that? Because we look at these celebrities, we look at these millionaires and successful people and just assume that they just got there overnight. We ignore the path to get there. We just look at the results and we forget about all the failures or forget about all the hey. You might have had goals that you said that you didn't hit. Let's talk about it. Let's be honest about those goals. And when I'm looking at these celebrities and I'm reading their stories, I'm always interested to hear about the come up, not where you are now, not about how fancy the house is and how fancy the boat is Now. Tell me about when you were broke, when you didn't have nothing. Tell me about the failures. Tell me about the learnings, because that is what makes it special. And then at some point. Once we get to where we're going again, it goes back to being content and grateful for what you have. So when it the breakdown of gratitude you know one of the things I do with my room every every Sunday we close with gratitude. We go around the room, we say, hey, what's one thing that you're grateful? We might have talked about deep, dark traumas, depression, anxiety. We might have had a heavy conversation, but let's end it with affirmations and what's one thing that we're grateful? So that I think, daily we should be waking up being grateful for life, being grateful for our homes, being grateful for whatever it is. Just pick one thing and think about it each night before you go to bed, or when you get up in the morning and say I'm grateful for this. Practice it remember, because no matter what you might be missing, there's something that you have that special that lives within you. There's a reason why you're still here. So think about that. And then also, I think affirmations are important. Affirming yourself. You know how you speak to yourself. It's interesting how we'll be so negative on ourselves. We'll talk to ourselves in some of the worst ways possible and we'll be polite to everyone else but be rude to ourselves. How do you speak to you? How do you encourage yourself? Are you your biggest champion? Because part of affirmations sometimes you're saying things that you don't necessarily see, but you're speaking it into existence I'm beautiful, I'm smart, I am worthy, I am greatness, whatever you have to say it. One of my favorites is I am, I can, I will. I say it every day, every morning and every night, and no matter how good or how bad today was, I reflect, I pause and I say to myself I'm still here, I'm still standing, I'm still strong and I have the ability to impact, to influence others and to bring value into other people's lives. So I think we can find a way individually to be content what we have, to be grateful for what we have. It doesn't mean that we can't want more, because, see, that's the other thing too. People say, well, if I can be grateful, if I want more, does that mean I'm not grateful? You can always set new goals and aspirations for yourself, but if you aren't grateful and content for where you are and you're always setting new goals, you're always striving for more you're gonna just be like a hamster on a hamster wheel, going in circles, and that's gonna drive you crazy. You have to get to a point where, hey, look at my job, I love my job, I'm content with the job I have, I make great money, I do well, I got great benefits, I have great colleagues. It doesn't mean that I'm not looking or wanna be open to new opportunities to grow, but I love what I do, I'm happy and grateful that I have what I have, and that's something that can't be taken away. There's a lot of people, john, I believe, are missing that, and because they missed that, it drives their mental health craze.

You know, and that's a super deep, bro, because, as I said earlier, like there's always another summit to climb, and just because you break free from the rat race, a lot of people find themselves in another pretty much hamster wheel, another trap, where they could say never ending, not enough or never ending. There's always something more never ending. And they never, as I said, appreciate the journey, bro. And so I wanna ask you too that, because, when it comes to entrepreneurship, right, a lot of people, they get in there and they start getting some success and then, as they get some more success, and then they get some more success, I feel like sometimes a lot of people lose sight of what they were in it for. Once. They start becoming more successful and they start, you know, reaching new heights that they probably didn't think was possible. How could we stay grounded to who we truly are, so that we don't lose ourselves, so that we can still be, you know, that same normal guy that we were when we once started, right? How do we stay true to that?

Yeah, I mean that can look different for every person, but I'll say I'll speak to myself personally and maybe it can resonate. And before I do, it's interesting you said it because one of my favorite I love music, I'm a big music guy and Drake is one of my favorite artists of all time and there's a line in one of the songs where he says sometimes I wish I was where I was back when I used to wish I was here, super deep. Sometimes I wish I was where I was back when I used to wish I was here. And he's talking about the feeling of hey, obviously Drake is very successful, lots of money, but sometimes I miss that feeling of the chase, of the ride, of the journey, because once you get to a certain point, it's like all right, what else do I have to accomplish? And so, for me again, while I am content with where I'm at, I never forget where I came from and how hard things have been for me and who's helped me along the way, who's been a part of that journey, some of the things that got me here. Right, if it ain't broke, don't fix it. So if me practicing self care, or me in therapy, or a certain friend group or something that I've been doing that's been working for me and helped me get to the journey. I don't wanna get to a point wherever I forget that. I wanna stay grounded by surrounding myself with people who see me for who I am, not see me for what I've achieved, because that's gotta be a challenge too. Right? You think about entrepreneurship. A lot of folks maybe just trying to get to a point where they're successful. Think about the pressure of someone being successful to stay successful, because once you're there, they try to keep that level of success and what you've acquired. And then also, too, once you are successful, are the people around me. Are they here just because of what I have or are they here because of who I am? And a lot of people will tell you, people who are very rich and successful is that they value more their friends and family who were there before the come up. A lot of these celebrities are with the same woman they were with in high school. Because, hey, look at LeBron James, high school sweetheart, been with her for his entire life. A sterling example of a black man raising a black family. He's never been caught out here with other women. Any other stories about him. As kids he's been with the same woman. Think about that. So surround yourself with people who know the real you, who see value in you. Going back to what we said before your value isn't in what you provide. Your value starts with who you are as a person. So does your community, does your strength, the people around you Do. They see you for who you are, not for what you can provide, not for what you do, not for the results, but they love you for exactly who you are. That's important and for me, that keeps me grounded.

You know, bro, I love what you said there, and there's something that I need to start looking into. It's called the weight of gold, and I've been listening to podcasts and, for whatever reason, it's crazy how God works, because it's like you just keep hearing the same message over and over again on different things. I need to look more into this, but I recently found out that people have a fear of success, and then I found out about the thing of the weight of gold, and everyone strives to be successful not everyone, but a lot of people strive to be successful, but there's things that come with it that you may have not knew when you first signed up for this journey that you might have been on. And, as you said, bearing the weight of someone that has 10 employees, 20 employees, 100 employees. Yeah, you're successful. Yeah, you're probably making a lot of money, you probably have a lot of things going well for you, but if you don't keep on executing at the level that you need to to sustain all of that, that's just not you. Now that's coming down. It's all the other lives that are not working with you, working for you, whose lives are going to be affected as well. So now you can't even operate as freely almost sometimes, because it's like man, the weight of gold. Man, you wanted the gold and now you got it, and now it's like man. This is a lot heavier than I expected, and I'm a Drake fan as well, so I'm gonna follow up with another Drake quote. You said sometimes I wish I could go back in life not to change, just to feel a couple things twice. Right, a lot of people always talk about the things that they would want to change. Oh, I would do this differently in this site. As you said, when you get to that pinnacle of success, when you get to that place, it was like what is there more? He said another song. It was just like is there more? I forget which song, I think it was one of the interludes. But, like you get to that point, it's like you just have to, as a practice, gratitude, be open, be authentic, be transparent along the way, because, man, all the people that have it all were traded off. To come back to where it got to, because you get to a certain point, is there more? There's only so much we could do right and there's only so much money can buy. It gets to a point where it's like you could buy everything in the world what else? And so it's like a lot of people don't understand the weight of gold and how that actually can play a role. And I think, as we kind of started wrapping up here, man, you dropped a lot of gold and nuggets and for the best of my ability, I'm trying to recap everything. Some of the biggest points that I really want my listeners to take away here is you mentioned the importance of knowing that your value is internal, not external. It comes from you, and it doesn't come from you achieving, it comes from you just being you. I think that was definitely my biggest takeaway. I love your J-Quo. Say it one more time again.

So, because I just forgot it, yeah, I think the quote you gave was from no, you're good. I think the quote you gave was from 6 pm in New York. You said 28 at midnight. I wonder what's next for me Long and chevrolet. Yeah, I know how to say it. Yeah, I used that when I turned 28. I used that quote. That was the caption straight up. But no, my quote was sometimes I wish I was where I was back when I used to wish I was here. And one other thing to touch on what you just talked about about living things twice. One other quick piece of advice is make sure you take the time to enjoy the journey. Don't put yourself on any other timetable but your own. Don't compare yourself to other people, because we get caught up in saying you know I'm not where I want to be because of him or her, or you know you start to look at what everyone else is doing. You have to focus on yourself, in which you what your standards are, because there's people at 23 who are homeowners and there's people at 23 who are still at home. It doesn't doesn't mean that the 23 year old homeowner is better. It just means that they set themselves on a different path. It doesn't have to be your path. But understand, if you don't enjoy the journey and take your time, it will go by so quickly. I'm 30 now. I turned 30 last year and I'll tell you, my 20s went by like that. They will go by. You'll be looking back and be like man. I didn't really take the time to really enjoy my journey. I didn't take the time to really like sit in my truth and now I wish I had that time back. Time is something that we can never get. It's so extremely valuable and we can't get it back once it's gone. So make sure you you are intentional and enjoy your own personal journey.

Yeah, I'm going to finish up. I'm going to quote one more Drake quote. Yeah, quote him. It's just my God, go ahead, you can steal this, bro in seven a seven year old, in Bertle Drive. You said I had to pull my guys up the mud like we train in Marines. Like that is what I want us to be able to say I want to be able to capture, I want to pull. That's what the whole, like the vision, the mission is like help other people up. And like I always tell people this, like the my mission statement came from a Plato quote. It's the duty of the enlightened is to enlighten the enlightened. But that doesn't sound that cool, not going to lie. So I'm going to use the Drake quote, but you know what I mean. I have to put my guys out the mud like we train in Marines. Man, that's saying that's like when I get to the day I can say that it's like I'm doing it, like yeah, and not for me, it's because I know I'm doing it, because I'm helping my people get out of their situation and help my people grow and help my people build things and do things that they never thought was possible. Justin man, I had a great time talking to you. Where can we connect with you at before we get into the famous five questions? Oh, famous five Okay.

Okay, uh-oh, we got rapid fire. No rapid fires, though, all right. Yeah, man, we see it's all Drake for all day. So again, man, just appreciate you letting me on your platform and hopefully there's some value for the audience. For anyone who just wants to reach out, the best place for me right now is Instagram. The mental underscore wealth podcast. So the mental T H E wealth Um, it's going to be D T H E mental underscore wealth uh podcast. On Instagram you can start. We have a Facebook page as well. We are on YouTube we got some stuff out there as well but Instagram is the best place to reach us. As far as the podcast, we are on Apple, Spotify, google anywhere you catch podcasts and we typically, when we're in season, we release every Monday. There's about 65 or so episodes we've done in the last two years. So check us out, listen to a few episodes, leave a review, give us some feedback and if there's any way that I can um, you know, support you, know you and your dreams and things that you're doing, and support your community just reach out to me, let me know.

And so let's get into it. Man, what is the most impactful lesson you've learned in life? Uh, I'll take it for I'll, I'll, I'll.

Steal from a scripture Matthew chapter seven versus 12. Uh, jesus said there that whatever you do on uh to oh now I'm going to misquote this is whatever you do. Do want to others as you would want to do onto yourself. The golden rule, essentially. So treat others how you want to be treated.

What is the most admirable trait a person can have?

Love, because love is interesting, Um, and this is also going back to to my religious roots, but love is the first fruitage of the spirit mentioned in Galatians. And there's a lot of other qualities mentioned. You know, long suffering and, and, and peace and joy, right, but love is the first thing, because if we don't have love, love, love is the foundation. So I think if we love the more, this world will be a much better place. Everything else can stem from love, 100% man.

If you have to change someone's life for one book, which book would you recommend? Change your life?

I mean, one of my all time favorite book is the outsiders. So I would say the outsiders who's that by? I don't know the author, I can't even tell you it's been, it's been. I read that in high school the outsiders but it that book stays with me to this day Outsiders yeah, what is the legacy that you're trying to leave behind? I want to leave behind my passion, my love, my passion for people. I want to leave behind a legacy of reminding men and women that it's okay to be vulnerable, it's okay to show your emotions, it's okay to be exactly who you are and that there's light at the end of the tunnel and that there's value just in your existence.

And if anyone wanted to embark on their walk to wealth today, what do you recommend the first step be, before you can?

be on the walk to wealth and before you can go out there and be extremely successful in the entrepreneurial world or anything you choose to do, take time out to find out who you are, take time to love on you, to learn self love, self care techniques. Make sure that you take out time to discover exactly who you are and what you want to be, and understand that that can change over time. It's okay to adapt and evolve, but take care of you first and everything else will fall in place.

You've now finished taking the first step. Now let us help you take the next one. Subscribe to our newsletter at walk to wealthcom. Just walk the number to wealthcom so we can keep you moving on your journey. We'll see you on the next episode of walk to wealth with John Mendez.