Emmanuel Acho's Comeback Story

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Before we dive into this week's episode, be sure to follow leave a review like Comeback Stories, hit that subscribe button so you don't miss any episodes. If there was anything Donnie and I could ask of you guys, it will be to give us a five star review in a written review. Our mission has always been to reach as many people as possible to remind that they're not alone and that we all have a comeback story within us. And we feel like you guys can definitely help us push that message further by helping us in this way. So we appreciate you, guys more than you'll ever know all the times you've supported us from the beginning of the show to this point. So thank you, and let's drop in deep to this week's show. Welcome back, everyone to another episode of Comeback Stories. Darren Waller here with my man Donnie Starkins is always let it happy. Here bro, always talk to you, be with you. Excited to have the guests that we have on today. He's NFL veteran, but to put him in a box would be a disservice. He is a two time New York bestselling author of Uncomfortable Conversations with a Black man and uncomfortable conversations with a black boy. He is a Fox Sports one TV analyst, Sports Emmy winner, Primetime Emmy winner, among many other things. So please annual also to the show emmanual. How you doing in What's up? People? H D. Water is a long time coming, man, We're supposed to then linked up a while, bat Donnie. Good to see you, man heard. Great things have red, great things have looked up, great things. So it's good to wrap with y'all. Yes, sir, it's a blessing to have you here. We love to die right into the story. We want to know what it was like life was like for you growing up, dude, growing up the youngest of four night Jerian parents. So I'm in a household in Dallas, Texas, and I'm the youngest of four and Nigerian parents is a little bit different, right, like you can't date until you get married, tight, right like Nigerian household is. You must be a doctor, You must be a lawyer, You must be an engineer, like you got to be a doctor or a lawyer, an engineer. But I wanted to play football. My pops is five nine, my mom's is five eight. Football to them was that black and white circular object that you kick on the ground. My brother ends up being six three to forty. He goes to a usc football camp. He runs a four to six forty back in the heyday when Pete Carroll was there. Pete Carroll instantly offers him on the spot. Next thing, you know, the Acho name became something in Texas. My brother decides to commit to the University of Texas. I then decide to commit to University of Texas. And this was back when we were in our bag national championship with Vince Young coming off the heels of that. So I go to a private school growing up, this all boys school where we had national merit scholars and I end up being the jock, if you will. But growing up for me was complex because several different cultures d wall and identities I had to fit in. You were born to Nigerian parents, but went to private school, then went to church in the hood, and so it was simultaneously trying to live in these different spheres, in these different spaces, but it made me who I am. I can relate to having different environments. Do you feel like you have to fit into? I was always struggling with not being black enough when I was growing up, because I went to school, hung out with predominantly white people for the most part, and when I got into sports teams, you know, just being around people were as more of my skin color. They kind of, you know, made fun of me, crack jokes on me in It was tough for me, and I always felt like I had to wear masks in different environments. Do you feel like you had to put those masks on? And if you did, what kind of impacting I had on you? Man? A thousand percent, especially in college because my football team in high school was predominantly white. Again, true story on the school I went to, called Saint Mark's, Dallas, Texas. For context, the owner of the Kansas City Chiefs, Clark Hunt, he graduated from that school. His children graduated from that school. Just to give y'all context of the caliber of financial individual that attends that school. Mark Cuban, the owner of the Dallas Mavericks, I believe his kids go there. Tony Romo, former quarterback of the Cowboys, I believe his kids go there. So just to give y'all context. Now, mind you, my parents were trying to get me and my brother scholarships to attended school because my parents migrated from Nigeria. So I'm at school in Dallas, super nerdy private school. Then I go to Texas and at Texas it's all kind of inner city, country, urban, all types of folks. But I'm this private school kid. They really don't know nothing about nothing, So I had to figure out who I was on the fly. At the University of Texas, I'm figuring out my own identity. So it was very awkward. It was very uncomfortable, if you will, But I loved it because it made me a much more well rounded human being. Yeah. Man, I mean all those experiences, I feel like are what allow you to radiate the energy that you radiate in culture today and looking at what you do now. I was doing a little research on you. In it said that your family was big into missionary work growing up. What kind of impact you felill feel like that had on you and what lessons do you think you carried from that today? Man, the greatest thing that's ever been done for my life is going back to Nigeria every summer. So growing up, every summer we would go back to the rural village of Nigeria and for context. If you think you've seen poverty in America, the villages of Nigeria are American poverty on steroids. They are poverty of poverty. You wake up when the sun wakes you up, and you go to sleep on it's dark outside. There ain't no natural electricity in the villages. You shower in the stream, the same stream that you collect your water and carry back on a bucket on your head, the same stream that you wash your motorcycles and your vehicles in. Like, that's the same stream that these villagers are showering in getting water to cook from. So every summer we would go to these rural villages of Nigeria for context for all the listeners and viewers. In Nigeria, seventy five percent of people live off less than one dollar a day, less than one dollar a day. So finally, after nine years of fundraising, we build a hospital in Nigeria, Like in the middle of nowhere village, we built a hospital and a two million dollar raise, and we would go with forty doctors and nurses and we would perform cataract surgery so blind people or people who had limited site would regain their site. We were removed and extract different on aligned limbs. People would get a spider bite that might erode their arm, and we would give them antibiotics. Keep in mind, in Nigeria, there's not cvs, there's not Walgreens, there's not right Aid, there are not pharmacies, there are not places where you can do an annual checkup and wall or we were the annual checkup. So going back to medical mission trips in Nigeria, that literally kept me humble in the midst of trying to live out the American dream. What do you feel like for you if you go back into childhood days, Darren, I always like to ask this question. Can you tell us an early memory of pain that you had? Who an early memory of pain? I can tell you an early memory of fear. I give you an early memory of fear. I was six years old. I was sitting in the back of a I was five years old because I was sitting in the back of a nineteen ninety five beat up Mercedes Bends while we were driving through the country side of Nigerian village. Now in a Nigerian village, the officers are corrupted, and not just in the village, in the city. A checkpoint an officer might pull you over and they will ask for your papers. Your papers, give me a driver's license, you're insurance something. Really, they don't care about the papers. They want you to run them some money. You feel me, it's just one of them stops where hand me a couple couple of dollars and will let you go. Well, my dad wasn't going to be extorted, so they stop us in the car. I'm sitting in the back seat. My mom's to my right, my brothers to my left. My brother's seven years old. I'm five years old, this little baby. They stop us. They pull my dad out of the car. My dad's like, I'm not giving you all any money. They put a gun to his head. He will shoot you now and just throw you off this cliff. I'm sitting in the back of the car, like mommy, mommy, they're really about to kill my dad. My dad's just sitting there standing there like I'm not giving you all any money. They're threatening to shoot them. We'll just shoot you right here, right now in this thick Nigerian accident, they say. And I vividly remember, like, yo, is this what life is like? Like I was I was shooting done to my core. That was probably the earliest memory of fear. Now, thankfully, I think they finally just let us go. Whatever the case may be my earliest memory of pain, man, Honestly, I probably wouldn't say I experienced pain like that until college. I think my earliest memory of pain came in college, and it came in athletic defeat. I would say that would be the earliest memory of pain. Can we go back, and I want to learn more about your dad, because I know you've learned a lot of lessons from your dad and heard the story where he came over and was working a taco bell job for three dollars an hour, went on to get his doctorate in PhD. Can you tell us a little bit more about him and some of the lessons you've learned from him. Man, my dad is the oldest son of I believe maybe eight or nine siblings, and in Nigerian culture, in African culture, the oldest son is a provider in some degree and in different aspects of American culture. And so my dad leaves Nigeria in his early twenties to come to America and be a missionary to be a pastor. While in America, working literally at Taco Bell and our job. He gets his degree, then he gets his PhD in psychology, and then he opens up his own private practice. And my favorite thing for me about my father is I recall he only missed one football game in my high school and college career and there and the reason I know he only missed one football game, it's because he only missed one football game. And so I recall him just being present and sacrificing for his family, and I try to live that out in my life, sacrificing for society. I mean, my dad had no reason to go back to Nigeria, had no reason to start this medical mission trip team that would perform over two point two million dollars in free medical care. So, Donnie, I've garnered so many things from my dad and so many similarities, and it's probably why we butt head a lot, because we're so much alike. But that's really taught me the lessons I know to help me navigate the crazy culture we live in today. Yeah, you're all about teaching your life lessons and you're full of one liners and quotes. I've been following you for a while and you got a lot of them, one of them I wanted to talk about. Well, Darren, kind of work this into your intro about this man cannot be put in a box because I've heard you say that your biggest fear is to be put in the box. How has we always talk about how fear can either freeze us or fuel us, And it sounds like that fear of being put in a box has absolutely fueled you into like massive action, more than most would take. So can you just talk a little bit more about that. I mean, I think the greatest, probably my greatest fear in life would be not maximizing my potential. Like, we're all here for a limited amount of time, Darren, I know as an athlete, you would clearly have maximized and continue to maximize your potential. Dinning as I looked and looked into your story prior to this conversation, seeing what you have done and impacting people in your life. Dude, we are here for a limited amount of time, and I think we all have a unique skill set. We all are uniquely gifted to be great at something. So the second I found my unique gift being a communicator, oh it was put on the gas because if I try to be like Darren, then I am never going to be the best version of me. So when I was in the National Football League and I was like, man, I ain't gonna be all pro, not gonna be a Hall of Famer, I'm not going to be a pro bowler. It's time to pivot. And once I pivoted and gotten a television that's when I realized, oh, I'm uniquely gifted at this. And so the fear of not being the world changer that I know I'm capable of being, that's what drives me to continue to do, to continue to create, to continue to ideate. I'm always trying to figure out what's the next best and next greatest thing. I love that maximizing your fullest potential. And I feel like there's a lot of guys like me and yourself that I spent time in the NFL, and they may reach a point where their career ends and they feel like that's the only potential they may have or were some of the mental battles, the mental hurdles that you can speak to, because I know a lot of guys face those when they transition out. Man, first off, let's talk about the league. I was cut five times by the age of twenty five. So let's not get it twisted like I didn't have this glamorous NFL story the Philadelphia and the same team, right, same team, bro same team. They just ain't get tired of it. There was you know we'll cut him today, that we'll cut him again tomorrow. No, I mean the Philadelphia Eagles cut me five times by the age of twenty five. I was traded at the age of twenty two, and obviously I was drafted at the age of twenty one, so my NFL career was crazy. I get drafted for the Cleveland Browns. I tear my MCL in preseason Game two against the Green Bay Packers. I'm playing a stretch outside its own run. I try to play off a cup block. The dude gets into my knee. I tear my MCL. Finally, I've rehabbed. At the end of the season, the athletic trainer, he comes up to me acho. General manager wants to see you. I don't know nothing about nothing. I'm a second year player at the time. I got that handshake and that pad on the bat. Kind of nice knowing you. Next thing you know, I'm in the coach's office coach tells me, you know, hey, Emanuel, want to trade you to the Philadelphia Eagles. I'm trying not to laugh because I'm like, yo, I get to get out of Cleveland. That's a trade. So I end up going to Philly. I'm in Philly, man. I get cut five months later. Then they resigned me. I get cut in the middle of that season. Then they resigned me. I get cut at the end of the next season. Then I break my thumb. They cut me. Then then they signed me back on my birthday. Then I get cut again three weeks later. So Darren, before I even got out of the league. Being in the league was as chaotic as could possibly be. But what I always remembered, and I went to the rookie symposium. I don't remember if if you went to the rookie symposium, bro, but if you do, you can attest to this. They said. NFL players, their salary, it does this. It starts super high and it goes down over the course of their life. A doctor their salary it does this. It starts slow and it goes up over the course of their life. And at about thirty five years of age is where they intersect. The doctor surpasses the NFL athlete. I vividly remember hearing that at twenty one years old at the Rookie Symposium, and I said, Nah, that won't be me. I'm gonna do this. I'm gonna jump out of the NFL when I start to see my career decline, and I'm gonna jump into another industry. And so that was what I did. But here's the true story. When I was in Austin, Texas in twenty sixteen, after four years in the NFL, I emailed every single news director in Austin and I said, Hey, I would love to come on television after a Texas Longhorn game. Just add my expertise one news station, Fox seven Austin. They responded, And that is how I got into television. So nobody handed me nothing. Nobody was like, oh, we'll just throw you a job. I just cold emailed everybody and one person bit I got into Fox seven Austin. I got into longer network of subsidiary and Waller. While I was trying to figure out my life, I was like, look, closed mouths don't get fed. And so I said, let me open up my mouth and started shooting out some emails. And it all worked out. I want to ask you, as you were getting your reps in early on in your media career, can you tell us what it was like and when the seed was planted in your mind to create the Uncomfortable Conversations platform, because I think it's brilliant. You know, me and Donnie we love having meaningful conversations and conversations like these to where you know, we talk about things that have happened to you, talk about times where you may have failed, Like when did that idea begin to take place in your mind and how did you and the people that support you up make that come about. It's a great question, man. May twenty twenty was one of the most chaotic months in the history of my life on this earth. May twenty twenty would be when George Floyd was murdered. I was living in Austin, Texas. I was only a sports analyst at the time at the time for ESPN currently obviously for Fox Sports. After the murder of George Floyd, everybody was trying to figure out what to do. Right Do I go march? Do I pay an assign to our protest? Do I post a black square on Instagram? What do you do. I'm sitting in Austin, and I was like, what in the world can I do? Okay, so many of my loving friends that aren't of color are well intended but to poorly executed. So at a minimum, the first step to progress in life is education of all sorts. The first step to progress of anything is education. So I said, let me have a educated conversation true story. I was going to name it Questions White People Have, because my white friends had questions. Terrible title. So as I'm sitting there in Austin, just doing trying to figure out, Okay, what am I gonna do? I called a dear white friend of mine and she's and I said, you know what. No, she said, you know what, Emmanuel, it's not just white people that have questions. Why don't you name it Uncomfortable conversations? I said, I asked missing something's missing something. I don't like that title. True story. Dan. I finished a bike ride. I went back into my house and Austin, I was staying in a true story townhouse. I walked by the bathroom. I walked back by it. I look into the mirror. You're a black man. Uncomfortable conversations with a black man. Now Here was a dilemma. I don't know nothing about shooting nothing. I don't know nothing about recording nothing. I've always had producers. I've always had executive producers, camera and everything. So I texted my designer and I said she also designed weddings. I said, Joe, you got a videographer. She said, I got a wedding videographer. I said, great, give me his number. I texted my other friend, best friend, an Olympic gold medalist at the twenty sixteen Olympics. I said, hey, can you find me a studio to shoot something in? She said, okayy, why just do it. I got a wedding videographer. I got a studio in Austin, all of which I pay for. Mind you, I don't know what's about to happen, but I say, yo, I'm just gonna sit down and I'm gonna get some thoughts off my chest. Now here's what people don't realize. The first episode, Darren was supposed to be me and a dear white friend of mine. SIMI a little how you and Donnie are having a beautiful conversation right now. But an hour before the conversation, my white friend was like, Hey, I can't do this. They don't want to see me, they want to see you. This isn't right. She had a change of heart at the last minute. So now I'm thinking to myself, bro we practiced you and I. You asked the questions. I answered, Donnie, it's uncomfortable conversations with a black man, not uncomfortable monologue with a black man. So why in the world I sitting in a chair by myself for the first episode because at the last second, my dear friend bailed on me. So Darren, true story. It was me in a room with a wedding videographer and his wife, my best friend, an Olympic gold medalist, myself, the owner of the studio, and the friend that bailed on me ended up sitting in. It was a all white room in Austin, Texas that I paid for a videographer that I hired. I had no idea that this nine minute and seventeen second monologue would change my life. And I spoke from the heart, and somehow the world listened and it ushered me into a space that I didn't know why I would be in. And since then I just continue to move as my heart speaks. It's powerful man to lean into that. You know, that's a very easy situation to let fear allow you to play small and to lean in and to watch what's happened. I can't believe it's just been a few years and where your career has gone since then. I've heard you talk about and I love this around goal setting, and I wanted to bring it up because you might have to even backtrack into your college combine junior year senior year story to set that up. But I just think it's really important for our listeners and whoever might be listening to understand the concept that you have around goal setting and maybe not setting goals. Darren, you believe in setting goals. Actually I don't, and I feel like I was honestly uncomfortable in the fact that I didn't, especially in the industry that you know, you spend time in and I am still currently in. I feel like if I don't have goals and say I'm gonna get this many catches, this many yards, then I'm like, I don't have a vision, but I don't set goals, and I've always felt like an alien for not doing it. You are not an alien, and if you are, I am occupying the same planet that you occupied. I think goals are dumb. I wrote about it in my book A Logical. I think that goals are dumb. I think the surest way to fail in life is to set a goal. Okay, I tell us sounds ridiculous. We'll think about it. Anything that we have failed that in life. Relationally, man I wanted to be married by twenty five. Familiarly, man I wanted to have at least two kids by thirty. Occupationally, man I was trying to make two hundred thousand dollars by the time I hit twenty eight. Spiritually, I wanted to attend church mask synagogue every week. Anything we feel like we failed in life, there was tethered to a goal. The only way to fail in life, in all honesty, is to set a goal. Without goals, there is no failure. Here is what I submitted. Donnie have talked about this before. If you set a goal, at best, you'll achieve it. But what if you could have achieved more. If you set a goal and you fail, well, now you've ruined your self esteem and you ruined your self efficacy. How you think you could have achieved a task? Your confidence in your ability. Two thousand and eleven, I wanted to declare for the NFL draft. I had just finished my junior year in Texas. We went to the national championship in two ten. Two thousand eleven, I had started like we was balling. I was like, yo, I'm done with this college stuff. I'm good. My brother was going to the league. I wanted to go to the league. So I set a goal. I set a goal my senior year. So so so you know what, I forget it. I'll come back my senior year because I want to be drafted in the first three rounds. Right. I went to Texas, played in the ship like I wanted to be drafted in the first three rounds. Problem at the NFL combine, I'm running the forty yard dash. Do you wall you know what it is. I'm trying to make a couple extra million dollars. I'm running the forty yard dashes. I'm running out here, boom boom boom. I thought my heels were clicking, but my quad was being torn off the bone, so I kept running. Boom boom boom. I grasped my quad and I fall to the ground thirty meters in I get carried off the sideline. I got drafted in a sixth round. Devastated, But why was that death stated? Only two hundred sixty year sol players get drafted out of roughleally one point seven or so million high school football players, and I'm devastated that I got drafted in a sixth round. So Donnie, why in the world was I devastated? Because I set a goal? So, rather than celebrating this accomplishment more likely to be struck by lightning than you are to play in the National Football League when you think about the statistics, rather than celebrating this accomplishment, I'm warning the failure of a goal. So goals, in my mind are dumb. They are limiting. I believe that goals do more damage than good. Now. I did get my master's degree in sports psychology. I committed my final thesis paper two goal setting. So I understand the needs of goal setting. I understand the feedback and goal state setting. I understand you have to achieve flow. That is an operative desire in people's life. But when you really kick back and think about it, what's goal setting ever done for you? Because I could submit that goal setting does a lot more damage than it does, and so what is it? It's objective without limitations? Is that more of what? And when you said that, it made me think of as as a yoga teacher, I teach meditation, we would call it maybe your intention. So maybe it would an objective be similar to your intention, like the intention that you're setting and then redirecting your energy towards the intention, and then the intention or the objective pulls you forward. A great question. James Clear rights in his book Atomic Habits, focus more on systems and outcomes. So I say, instead of setting a goal, set an objective and no limitations at semantics, goal objective, same thing, no, no, no. Small difference in wording will have a huge impact in your life. A goal it is an end towards which energy is aimed. An objective is defined as energy aimed in a direction. Why in a world would I start something in my life with the end in mind? Why why would I start something giving myself a limitation? And when Jay Clear references focused on on systems not on outcomes, he's saying, yo, focus on the process, don't focus on the end. If you focus on the process, then you will look back and see how much further you've gotten Walder. When I got out the league, everybody was like, yo, you want to be like straight Hand. You try to be the next stray Hand. I was like, no, because if I try to be the nextray Hand, then I might just be the next stray Hand. But I could be the next Meet, you know, and straight Hand's already taken. He's doing a wonderful job being Michael Straighthand so why would I want to try to be the next straight Hand when I could be the next Acho? You feel me? And so if you set a goal, you might just achieve it, and that's the problem. So true. I mean, Darren and I have talked a lot about this with just objectives or goals and talking even in performance when we're talking statistics, like you don't have control over those statistics. You don't know how many balls are going to be thrown your way. So to set a goal on something you don't have control over your right and then it doesn't allow you to be in the process. So if you're so attached to the goal and you get the goal, it's like now what, Or you don't get the goal and then you're a failure. So I love how you're explaining it, and man, I'm vibing with everything you're saying right now. It's just to me, Donnie, it's just not worth it. Now. Here's what's crazy. Most people will listen to that and be like, I don't even want to hear this is this is crazy? Yeah, why not just set smaller goals and then hit them? And set other smaller goals and then hit them. I try to think of it like an archer. If you're an archer, the only way that an archer succeeds is if they hit the goals, eye or any one of the small targets. But if you want to make mass impact, rather than being an archer, you I would rather drop something that makes or mass impact. Like and when I think about objectives, I don't want to be an archer. I don't want The only way I can win is if I have you know, nine five catches and eleven hundred yards. So if you don't do that, your your your your season with a failure Like make that makes sense? Think about it. In football, everybody has a goal of winning the super Bowl. So if you don't win a super Bowl, then everything else you did that season was for not like that, that that's bad mad. That's just bad mad. And that's what we do in life. Man. That is uh, that's that's that's huge, you know because I M going into twenty nineteen, twenty twenty seasons for me, I didn't set any of bols. I didn't have that mindset going in. Those are my first years really being a starter. And I was like, you know, if I take advantage of running one route to the best of my ability and turn that into a practice, turn that into a week of practice, turning that into a game on Sunday, and then let those things stack, that's where the results started to come. And you know, these past couple of seasons where I haven't been as healthy, you know, I've been battling in my mind of like, man, I didn't reach those markers. I didn't reach those results, the things that people love me for. So in a way like I feel like I failed or I'm not living up to my truest potential. And it's like, I don't know, man, It's it's tough to battle. But I want to ask you. You know, because you take and the energy that you embody, I'm sure it may make certain people uncomfortable because you're willing to have uncomfortable conversations. How do you go about not people pleasing and trying to fit in or fit an image of what people want from you? Man, I think about this quote. You can either please all people some of the time or some people all at the time. You ain't gonna please everybody, you know what I mean? And I think the only way to avoid criticism is to say nothing, is to do nothing, and it is to be nothing. And so if you want to avoid criticism, and you quite literally have to cease to exist. And criticism is the cost of praise. So I don't really worry so much about people pleasing. Like I put out a message based on a revelation. I don't put out a message for response. So when something's revealed to me, then I put out that message. Now it gets me in trouble sometimes other times people they respect it. But you know, I put out messages based on a revelation. And so at the point in which it was revealed to me to start uncomfortable conversations with a black man, I put that out. If a sports take or sports ideology is revealed to me, I put that out. So I bro I speak from revelation. I don't speak for response, but in society, so many people just want to speak for some retweets, and I think it's a dangerous, dangerous place. Tell us about the words that were spoken to you of you have the thing. Man. My life has been crazy last three years. So three years ago, really two and a half. I got a call. It's a no caller ID number. I don't recommend picking up no caller ID numbers, but I get this call picked up. I am Manuel Oprah Winfrey speaking Oprah like Oprah Oprah, She's like, yeah, are you free later today? I'm like, am I free? Are you free? You to billionaire? So I hop on this call with Oprah and she asked me one question, she says, Emmanuel, what is your intention? D Walter, is the question I ask anybody before I red an interview with them, if I am the host, I say, Hey, what's your intention? And she Oprah says, Emmanuel, what is your intention? I say, Oprah, my intention is to change the world, and I truly believe I can. I'm currently working on writing a book. She says books. I love books. So we partnered together to write Uncomfortable Conversations with the black man with the black boy like there and said the introduction number one New York Times best seller and a number three New York Times bestseller. Cut two a month later, I'm doing a conversation with Oprah. The Oprah Conversation meets Uncomfortable Conversations for Apple TV. I'm sitting in a room in the middle of the pandemic by myself. I have ten iPads in front of me and one call it hundred screen inch monitor ahead of me. Oprah's on a hundred screen TV and the ten iPads are populated by random faces from people across the country. The face would populate and they would ask me a question. I'm not prepared for it. They would ask me a question. Oprah would take the question that they asked. She would ask it to me. I would answer. Next face would populate. They would say the question. Oprah would repeat the question. I would answer. Next face would populate. They would cite you the question, Oprah repeat the question I would answer. At the end of that two and a half hour conversation, Oprah was going to turn it into a TV show true story. Finally, it's all over. I'm exhausted. Donnie is my first time communicating with Oprah in front of people. Waller, it's my first time communicating would Oprah in front of pep Well again, for those of you are at home, this is Oprah a speaking icon. I'm sitting in my dressing room after this, I am gas. Mind you, Oprah was not in the same room as me. It was during the pandemic. Oprah's right hand woman who was present. She walks up to me, Hey, Manuel, great job, but I'm I think Oprah's trying to call you. Pat patting for my phone. I'm looking, I'm looking, I'm looking. I call her back. At this point in time, I have Oprah's number. I call her back. All she says is this, you have the thing. To my friend, you have the thing, and coming from someone who had the thing and has the thing, you my friend, you have the thing. I say, well, what in the world is the thing? She was like, you have the specific gift to speak hard truth to people and they still want to listen to you. This goes back full circle. Dare into the conversation we started having. Dying into the conversation we started everybody has a unique gift. Oprah was telling me, like, Yo, your gift is in communication, you have the thing, And from that day forward I was now empowered to navigate life, realizing I have been anointed by one of the greatest orators of our world, and that Donnie truly allowed me to move in confidence, realizing like, oh, if Oprah says I got the thing, I don't really care what this Twitter troll got to say, because like she already told me, I got the thing. You know what I mean. I have a question in response to that. I know there's people that are listening that they find themselves in tough situations in their lives, are just lost as far as what their purpose is, what they bring to the table, and they may not have somebody validating them in the way that you have. What would you say to them as far as trying to find confidence and maybe in the midst of their uncertainty. I love this question. I got asked this question two years ago. I haven't been asked since. So the part of a story I left out before Oprah called me, I got one more no call riding a call five days after the first episode of No Uncomfortable Conversations with the Black Man, I got a call from a no Call ID number before Oprah. I picked that one out. I show McConaughey speaking. I want to have a conversation like McConaughey, like Matthew McKay. My voice gets high when I was talked to famous people. McCay. So he says, I want to have a conversation. He says, um, I want to do one of your episodes. I was like, let's do it in about three to four days. Wallard. My first episode, I told you it was with a wedding videographer. It was with a studio I rented in Austin, and it was my friends who was an Olympic gold medalist. I don't know what I'm doing, but y'all didn't know that. Y'all thought this was a high quality product. It wasn't. It was just a bunch of dudes in Austin and do that's in Austin chilling. And So when McConaughey calls, I'm scrambling. I'm like, Yo, this is an Academy Award winner. What in the world am I going to do. McConaughey says, let's do it tomorrow. Okay, well don't tomorrow. I start scrambling. I call the owner of the studio. I say, hello, McConaughey just called me. He wants to record. Can I get in your studio? She says, acho, I have a promise, And what's the problem. The studio is painted all blue. It takes twenty four hours to paint and twenty four hours to dry. Anybody that's ever seen my episode, it's in an all white room. I can't do a freaking episode in an all blue studio. How would that look on camera? She said? I have an idea. She drives around town, she buys a big white sheet of paper and she puts it in the studio. I don't tell McConaughey this. It was like, I ain't gonna let him cancel. He shows up, He's in this all blue room with a white sheet of paper, and we cheat the camera so it looks like we were in an all white room. Why in the world did I tell that story? To answer the question that Darren asked about? Okay, all right, what about people that are trying to figure out you know what they're they're they're calling? Is in life? Your calling will call you, just pick up. Your calling will call you. You just got to pick it up. See my calling literally called me in the form of Matthew McConaughey, in the form of Oprah Winfrey. But your calling will figuratively call you, meaning, what are you inherently gifted at? Are you an inherently gifted listener, an inherently gifted lover, an inherently gifted leader? What are you inherently skilled at? Are you inherently empathetic? Are you inherently sympathetic? Are you inherently type A? Your calling will call you. All you have to do is pick up. The issue in life is not that people aren't called. The issue is that people don't pick up the call. If I don't ever pick up that no CALLORAD call from Matthew McConaughey, you and I aren't having this conversation. If I don't pick up that no COLORAD call from Oprah, we're not talking right now. Or if McConaughey calls me and I'm too scared to sit in the room with an Academy Award winner, I'm not sitting here talking to these listeners and to these viewers. Your calling will call you. You just gotta pick it up. And so I say that, and I also say your calling is your calling. It ain't a conference call. Bro. When I was gonna do uncomfortable conversation, they got a text from a friend of mine and they said, hey, don't do that uncomfortable conversations thing. It's not our job to educate white people. White people didn't help us assimilate into their culture. Why should we help them assimilate into ours. I was like, y'all feel you, I feel you to each of their own. But I was like, this was a calling put on my heart, so I have to act with it. Your calling is you're calling. It's not a conference call. So the wall, I don't think it's that people lack the skill. I think it's the people lack the will. Because everybody has a gift, they just gotta use it. We gotta we gotta honor your voice and honor your time. There's a lot of juice here. There's more to get into. Maybe on another episode. We know you gotta you gotta run and you gotta protect that voice right now. But thank you man, thank you for this conversation. Thank you for Darren. I love to have meaningful conversations, and it doesn't get more meaningful than that meaningful this, So thank you for your time. Appreciate y'all Waller pleasure to finally wrap it you, Donnie, y'all keep doing it man, y'all keep leading in society. Yes, sir Man, appreciate you picking up the call. Brother. It's been honored to talk to you.