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186. What Makes a Man Strong? The Role of Vulnerability and Mentorship | with Adisa Dempsey
25 Plays4 hours ago
What makes a man strong today? Eric Bigger and Adisa Dempsey break down how vulnerability, mentorship, and community help modern men grow with more confidence, emotional strength, and real authenticity.
About Adisa:
William (Adisa) Dempsey is an author, mentor, and certified life coach with over twenty years of experience in youth and community development. He leads a thriving youth group focused on growth, resilience, and purpose, and uses his work as a speaker and facilitator to help people step into their potential.
Website: https://www.ankh42coaching.com
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Transcript
Introduction to Spirituality and Wellness
00:00:05
Speaker
Welcome to the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger. And each week, we will explore powerful practices, inspiring stories, and expert insights to guide you on your path to holistic health.
00:00:18
Speaker
By blending spirituality and physical wellness, we support you in strengthening your body and soul. Whether you're a seasoned spiritual seeker or just beginning your journey, the Spiritual Fitness Podcast is here to help you unlock your inner potential and live your most vibrant, purposeful life.
00:00:35
Speaker
It's miracle season.
00:00:40
Speaker
Spiritual fitness, spiritual fitness podcast. I'm your host, Eric Bigger. We're back again with another episode.
Adisa's Mindset and Influence of His Father
00:00:47
Speaker
And I got my brother from another, my friend, my compadre, my guy, Adisa Ditsy's in a building.
00:00:56
Speaker
Welcome back to spiritual fitness podcast. Adisa, how you doing? I'm doing good. You know, head high, chest out, doing the work, staying focused. It's about just taking it one step at a time as you elevate, grow, and become. I'm in good space. And I think it's important to hold your head high and to be open and do the work because the work works. But you're a very spirit-led man in a lot of ways. You know, your father, your husband, you're a man of honor and integrity and an authenticity person.
00:01:23
Speaker
Let's talk a little bit about your journey growing up. One, let's talk about your dad because I want to kind of relate. Like I had men in my life, you know, that were providers. I didn't have so much guidance the way I wanted, but I had enough to kind of get through my struggles and hardships in life. But I think right now in the collective consciousness, the male essence and presence is not as valued as much as it once was for a lot of reasons. But I know who you are and what you stand for.
00:01:52
Speaker
You've stopped a lot of things. You've helped a lot of things. And you're very grounded in who you are and what you're becoming. So who was the man in your life? I would think your father. And how did you see through him to be the man that you are to- today for your son?
00:02:06
Speaker
Growing up, my father was an extremely serious man. I didn't find out later on in life that a lot of that seriousness came from a lot of hardships and trauma that he went through in his life. My father was the type of person where as though that he lived with his feelings. And a lot of times that became tough growing up.
00:02:26
Speaker
Like I had to be tough growing up, especially, I mean, growing up in West Baltimore. My father felt as though that I would have it hard just because of the way that I looked and because of the ethnical background that I came from.
00:02:39
Speaker
So he didn't give me no room or no wiggle room to fall into anything. Like it was, it was always hard on me. I had to earn everything. mean, it kind of instilled the type of work ethic that I have as a person today, right? I learned a lot from my father.
00:02:55
Speaker
ah probably learned more of what not to be from my father than I actually learned what it was to be a man from him. I had other figures in my life that filled in the gaps of where my father may have fell short. And that's where community comes in, right? I know I was talked to you before about Baba Imhotep, how much, you know, he's poured into my life and the man that I am today. There has been a succession of men, but...
00:03:19
Speaker
he was the most consistent in leading the path that put me in the space that I am now, right? And like I said, I mean, I'm thankful and I'm grateful, you know, for my father bringing me into this world. But I don't think that he, as a man, was equipped to be able to deal with...
00:03:35
Speaker
the responsibilities that life would press on fatherhood. So it's not even about like, you know, as a father, you know, you come into this world and it's like, I got to do this. But you you got to deal with all of the battles, paying bills and being able to be a strong Black image in a world where Black images were held a certain way when it came to strength.
00:03:59
Speaker
You know, you look at strong black figures in history, I mean, they was what? Executed, exiled, imprisoned, you know, things like that, you know. So my father, he was a powerful man.
00:04:13
Speaker
Probably the only person that I know besides myself that anything that he's seen, he could do. You know, I never seen my father, anything he applied his mind to, he made happen just like that.
00:04:24
Speaker
He had a natural ability for that, right? And I adopted that ability. Whereas though that it's better off asking me what I can't do than what I can do. But I think a lot of my growth came from me being able to forgive what he didn't do so I can figure out what I need to do.
00:04:41
Speaker
And I think that's for any boy that's growing up who has a father that doesn't know how to show up emotionally because they didn't have people show up for them emotionally. Right. And like I said, listening to this, I know people like, dang, like, you know, it's rough. No, my father was a great man. but he didn't know how to do certain things and he worked with what he had.
00:05:01
Speaker
I'm thankful for him that made me bring me into this world, but I'm also thankful for the universe bringing other men into my life to be able to fill in the gaps that helped me strive and grow in the areas I need to grow in, right? It's a collective thing. Like, you
Role of Community and Male Figures
00:05:15
Speaker
need... A man can't be a man singly by only interacting with one man.
00:05:22
Speaker
A boy cannot become a man by only interacting with his father. He needs to have other men that second and third and fourth and fifth, the example and lessons, I mean, that his father is teaching so that he understands, I mean, this ain't just coming from my father, but this is coming from, this is what it is to be a man. And our society doesn't have that, you know? So you have a lot of boys that grow up, black boys that grow up in this world, not understanding what it is to be a man. And they're confused. Right.
00:05:51
Speaker
You know, I learned a lot of great deals of growth and development from men that I never met. I read through books, you know, but I did have a man that was consistent. Bob Emotel was consistent in being an example, but he's also consistent in the way that he dealt with things.
00:06:09
Speaker
You got to realize mixed, right? So my mother's white, and my father's black. And I remember my mother's birthday was coming up. And I was like, I didn't know what the, I wanted to send my mother something. I was locked up at the time. So Bob Emiltuck was like, just send her this poem, right? He gave me the poem and the poem was like, you know, of the importance of a black mother, right?
00:06:27
Speaker
And I was like, man, my mom white though. He was like, you can write it towards the man your mom. She's still your mother, right? She's still powerful. She's still beautiful, right? And I was like, yeah.
00:06:38
Speaker
He was like, all right, apply it. And it wasn't like he made something that felt awkward, not awkward. You know, so when you look at manhood, right, most boys feel awkward about themselves.
00:06:50
Speaker
What will men do is men step in the main to be able to clear the path. So it isn't that awkward that this is the right path. You're on the right path. You're doing the right thing.
00:07:01
Speaker
You know how many times I wish my father would have pat me on the back and be like, I'm proud of You're doing the right thing. It would have encouraged me to continue to keep doing what I was doing. But I didn't get that. I got the hard shoulder because that's what he got.
00:07:12
Speaker
You know, and then when I did do good, know what he say? Would you want a cookie? what you're supposed to do. It's a time and place, right, to give tough love. And then there's a time and place to be able to nurture. Right. And that's what I do with my son. I nurture him because there were men that nurtured me.
00:07:27
Speaker
They made it OK to be nurturing. Right. Because we live in a society where, as though that to say that a black man or a man is nurturing, right, some people try to add cotton to it. You know, they try to make it as soft or or something, I mean, that is is not. It's a no-no.
00:07:43
Speaker
You know, women nurture. Men, no, men nurture too. You feel saying? When you see a young man, I mean, he like, oh, come here, let me at you for minute, shorty. Like, what, man? Look, man, what you doing out here, man? You know, you could be doing something better than this.
00:07:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, yeah, boy. said, all right, so what's other options there? That's nurturing. You feel what I'm saying? Because you're taking the time right to recognize. I'd have paid anything for my father to recognize me.
00:08:05
Speaker
I've realized that for men, from other men, fathers, uncles, mentors, and mostly from women, unless they had a really great mother that really nurtured them, allowed them to be safe and intimacy, right? And as men, the men, we don't feel safe in intimacy. I remember with times where I was young and someone would do something for me. I would say, good looking.
00:08:29
Speaker
I didn't know how to say thank you or good looking out. or I hit my buddy up and like, man, let's hang out. now And I say, man, I miss you, bro. Let's catch up. Or I love you when I get off the phone call instead of saying love.
00:08:42
Speaker
These little words and this, you know, shift in my speech and my language and my vulnerability allows me to be more intimate with my friend that's a brother so we can come closer so we can help each other all because I'm available to nurture and be nurtured.
Spiritual Disconnect and Psychological Struggles
00:08:59
Speaker
Right? And I think Somewhere in our line of masculinity, nurturing doesn't feel safe or the perception of it doesn't seem strong. Where do you think the disconnect is within boys and men where we don't feel safe with intimate interactions with ourselves, with others, especially like in relationships or with people who are challenged us to grow? Where does that disconnect come from?
00:09:26
Speaker
The disconnect comes from because we have spiritually lost our way. We aren't on our spiritual path. We take the physical route. You know, we take the lower nature route because that's what we're used to.
00:09:37
Speaker
To be nurturing, to have intimacy, means that you are already on a spiritual path and you understand the importance of connecting with other people and connecting with human beings. It's a human thing.
00:09:48
Speaker
To be nurturing a man to be intimate is a human thing. Right. But you see guys, they struggle with their own woman with being able to be intimate because they think intimacy to me is sex. You know, they run straight to sex because they don't have control of their lower nature.
00:10:05
Speaker
Intimacy to me is being in close proximity. And it's not just physically close proximity. It's being in close proximity to me mentally, emotionally, and spiritually, you know, where you can enjoy someone's space, I mean, without even touching them or being physical. But that's a level of maturity that's that it takes time to grow into in order to be able to have that, right? You know, but when you have boys that have been handled rough their whole life, what do you think they're going to give? They're going to give a rough interaction because that's what they're used to, right?
00:10:42
Speaker
You know, men and women are supposed to balance a child to be able to understand, I mean, how to use both properties, right? They gave them life. A man or woman brought you into this world to give you life. Both properties represent qualities, I mean, of humanness or being human.
00:10:57
Speaker
So when you have an imbalance in the household, the child is imbalanced. So you grow up in a household where your mom has to be the man and the father, the mother and the father. She has to be, I mean, the nurturer and the disciplinarian.
00:11:09
Speaker
you become confused about how you fall in line and how you deal with things, right? You know, and that's the problem, you feel what I'm saying? That we don't have that balance because we are being reared and raised by people in main that aren't balanced.
00:11:23
Speaker
You know, so my father wasn't balanced. Yes, he was physically in the household, but he wasn't physically there. and He wasn't emotionally there, so he couldn't be physically there. He wasn't mentally there, so he couldn't be physically there.
00:11:34
Speaker
You feel what I'm saying? He wasn't spiritually there, so he couldn't be spiritually there, right? And it's because he functioned from a distance of safety. So my thing is this. If my safety is being right next to you, right, I don't mind being vulnerable.
00:11:49
Speaker
But if my distance is, I mean, is that I got to sit at the end of the couch you you sit at the other end of the couch and now I feel comfortable, right? That's my space of distance, of comfort. That's where I'm at That's my safety, right?
00:12:00
Speaker
Because I don't know how to get closer. You see it in people's nonverbal communication, how they and interact. It lets you know where they at. You get in a relationship. When you first started dealing with the sister you with, y'all wasn't all cuddling and stuff when y'all first met each other.
00:12:13
Speaker
You had to develop that level of safety in that distance. So the closer y'all got, now... would you sit down, she want to sit right next to you. She right there, you know?
00:12:24
Speaker
You feel what saying? When you going through something, I mean, she know how to rub the back of your neck. I mean, it'll make you feel good. You know? She know how to do the little things because y'all have created a space of intimacy where y'all can do that.
00:12:35
Speaker
That's growth and it takes time in order to do that, right? So when you growing up, like me, I grew up West Baltimore, right? You know I'm saying? going to tell you something, right? told my clients, right? And this is how dysfunctional it was in the household.
00:12:46
Speaker
My father, I knew when he... was on good times because his hat would be backwards or he was high. But if his hat was forward, then I knew I had to be on my P's and Q's.
00:12:58
Speaker
So when I come in the house, that's what I'm looking for. Now what's going on is I'm regulating my level of safety. How do I interact? I'm regulating myself, right?
00:13:09
Speaker
My mother, when she didn't drink, she was the kindest person, the most giving person in the world. But when she would drink, that means she would be abusive. She would be verbally. She would be all of these things, right?
00:13:20
Speaker
So I have to measure my safety. And how do I move? What do I say? So what happens is now, what does that do to me psychologically? How does that affect me, I mean, and my growth and development into a man when I have all of these places, I mean, that I have to measure out how I move?
00:13:39
Speaker
So I can't really be myself, you know, because if I come in and my father's on good times and he want to hug me and rub my hair, I mean, and joke or whatever, I can joke back and it's good. But if he not, and I come in and I joke and he smacked me and I was like, whoa, like I'm confused.
00:13:54
Speaker
Right. But how I healed from it was I realized, I mean, that my mother, my father were dealing with things that were way before me. But you can't tell a child at seven, eight, nine years old. I mean, oh, your mom your dad had some things that went through and theyre growing up. All I know is this is what I experience every day.
00:14:10
Speaker
Right. So when you have boys that are growing up in West Baltimore, East Baltimore and Baltimore in general, where they don't know what they walking into when they come in the house.
00:14:21
Speaker
You at war. That's a battlefield. You feel what saying? That's a battlefield, right? Like me, I had to do certain things. Like I come in, boom. Oh, man, my aunt, uncle, they in the house.
00:14:34
Speaker
I gotta go check my stuff. They ain't stole something, I mean, and i ain't gonna get hired with it. This is the mentality. You feel saying? This is what I gotta deal with. You feel saying? So we gotta look at those things. And then that's not even including, I mean, the stuff that happens in the environment.
00:14:48
Speaker
In my community, you feel saying? I'm sitting there trying to fit into my environment my mother and father don't prescribe to. Jordans and Nikes and stuff like that. You know, and new balances. So I had to wear thrift store clothes and shoes.
00:15:03
Speaker
That's what I wore. I didn't see nothing wrong with it until the first person cracked the jokes. Now I'm looking at myself because I don't fit in with my peers. You feel what I'm saying? So to me, it was normal in the household. So the reality is like my mother and father really didn't prepare me for all this.
00:15:19
Speaker
So now I'm at war in school. I'm in war in the community and I'm dealing with the war at home. Right. And then wonder why I ended up in prison with 30 years. And now I'm sitting here and I'm realizing that there's a lot of things that I didn't know that I'm starting to learn.
00:15:35
Speaker
And I can't blame my mother and father because they didn't have it to give. They gave me the best they had, what they was working with, right? So I got to make sure that my son doesn't go through what I went through.
00:15:47
Speaker
So I have to make sure I put him in a ah position to win. But the only way that he's going to win, I have to be winning. I have to be winning, right? So that means that I got to surround myself with men that keep me on my game.
00:16:00
Speaker
They keep me on my P's and Q's, keep me with the edge to grow, right? You know? So that means that I got to always be humble. You know, always got to be humble, right? Because the day that I start stop being humble is the day that mean, I figure, I think I know it all and now I'm out here just doing whatever I want to do.
00:16:17
Speaker
And next thing you know, Those that look towards me, I mean, are left to fall to that. i don't want my son to grow up arrogant. I want him to grow up, and I mean, appreciative of life. I want him to be able to grow up with understanding. That's why anytime he asks me something, I explain it to him.
00:16:32
Speaker
And that's the day, man, you know, you know, salute to you, to all the work and the growth and even sitting down for 18, 17 years of your life, you know, behind, you know, in prison, you discovered a new you, a new person, a new identity.
00:16:45
Speaker
With that story you just told about your upbringing, your childhood, millions of people come up with that same story in a different way, right? I always tell people the challenges are different, but the emotions are the same. Right. Right.
00:16:59
Speaker
And for you to people listening out there, after you explain this, i want you to get into like how men can hold space in a healthy way for women. What does a young man, a young boy do in that circumstance? She grew up to get in the more alignment of their soul, the more alignment of their life where they're fulfilled and they're living out their design, at least on the right path to get where they want to go without going down the wrong path.
Finding Strength in Community and Introspection
00:17:24
Speaker
and do the things they regret. What is something tangibly or practically that they can do or least think about to get in the space of man the right action?
00:17:35
Speaker
And doing a battle surge within their mentality and their mind to live a good life. First of we have to recognize that we are communal people. We can't do this by ourselves, right? There are people that poured into me. So when you look at wisdom, right, wisdom takes a succession of things that happen in order for it to actually be possessed.
00:17:55
Speaker
That means that you have to go through experiences, learn from those experiences, have to watch other people i mean that have overcame those experiences and how they move and then study them and then implement what they are doing.
00:18:09
Speaker
to your own, and then you have to go through trial and error to be able to come to a point where you have reached the level of, I have wisdom in this. I have an understanding, I mean, that I can deal with this any way that it comes at me, right?
00:18:23
Speaker
But that takes time, right? But it also takes you exposing yourself to people, I mean, that you veer and look at as the path. You feel what saying?
00:18:33
Speaker
Well, we believe, I mean mean, that it starts with us and ends with us. We've already destroyed our chances. and growing and becoming great. So what I mean by we are communal people, we are people that mean that we need other people that move in the same ideology a life.
00:18:50
Speaker
We have a lot of people that have a lot of information, but they're confused about who they are because... they aren't centered. They aren't centered upon something, I mean, that they can go back to. So when you're centered, that means, I mean, that when I step out into the world, when I'm faced with a challenge or a situation, instead of me winging it, I go back to my reference. And I make my decision for my reference. My reference, I mean, is what I'm rooted in. Because it keeps me on my path.
00:19:14
Speaker
But if we jump out there, right, we may be so far off the reservation, we might never find our path again. So we have to stay rooted, right? So the thing that what I would give to the people would be this.
00:19:25
Speaker
Like me, I'm rooted in an organization. I'm rooted in a culture. I'm rooted in an understanding, it right? I've been a part of the organization I've been a part of for over 20 years.
00:19:36
Speaker
PLM has been my reference when it comes to manhood, fatherhood, being a husband. You know what saying? It's been my reference because there are men and women that are part of this organization that are moving in the same manner, right?
00:19:53
Speaker
So that means I'm not alone. So that means that when I look back, I can look towards this person, that person, and that person, right? And be like, look, I'm going through this and not feel like an alien when I express what I'm going through. Like right now, if you were extremely vulnerable, right, about something you were going through to most people out there, right, they'll look at you strange.
00:20:14
Speaker
Because they're going to be like, oh, like, hey, that's deep. When you are vulnerable with people i mean that have the same ideology and shared vision, Oh, I dealt with that last Tuesday. This is what we need to do. Like, let's sit down and talk about this. So you have someone to be able to keep you on the path, right?
00:20:31
Speaker
Just like those same people, right, can come to you and be like, I'm going through this. you be like, yeah, I overcame that last year. So this is what we got to do. So now you have a reference.
00:20:42
Speaker
When you stay rooted, right, you never lose your path. But you got to figure out what you need to be rooted in. That's the main thing. Because a lot of us, we got our minds in like five different of ah ah flower pots.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, let me ask you a challenging question, though. Or not even a challenging question, of a question to go against what you're saying. Reference point, community, communal, right? You say PLM.
00:21:05
Speaker
So say, for instance, someone grows up in the church, religious background, Catholic, Christianity, maybe Buddhism, Muslim, whatever, right? Great. Or they have that, or they have their family environment their siblings, or they have a gang.
00:21:19
Speaker
Right. You know, we know gangs run a lot of these men in different places. and that's a brotherhood. That's a sense of community. That's a sense of family and order and reference point.
00:21:30
Speaker
However, in this case, that part of the family or the community has went against me or made me feel less or weak or shameful. And now I feel I'm out here by myself. I'm out here alone. I don't know what to look to. I don't know who to talk to because now the people I thought loved me and who were for me, something went down.
00:21:53
Speaker
Oh, I made a mistake. Now I look different and now they're They're getting rid of me or I got divorced and now I'm not accepted. I quit my job and now my mom and dad don't love me the same because I'm not making the same money. ah I left my 20-year marriage and to go after my career and my kids don't like me. My husband doesn't like me or my partner doesn't like me. All these things that we built our identity in, now it goes against us.
00:22:17
Speaker
How do you get back to center when you in that part of life? Or even bigger, you lose a job, you get furloughed, the terrorists hit, diversity and inclusion, all that's over where now the identity you hold is overshadowed and now you can't even be who you are to the community you're in. So then you go in hiding or you suffocate in silence and you're dealing with depression and anxiety. How do you find yourself when you feel like everybody's against you, the world is against you and you're back up against the wall and you don't know what to do?
00:22:47
Speaker
So in that situation, right, always tell people sometimes the best route is not forward but through you. So you have to come back to self because I've been in positions where I felt as though that everything was against me. I felt like an alien. I felt like nobody understood me, right?
00:23:06
Speaker
And when I went inside myself, right, and I took the time to be quiet to reflect upon myself, right, The universe brought me opportunities. So it's a purpose for prayer. It's a purpose for why I got my altar, why I pray in front of my altar, why I give offerings, because I'm going inside of self to receive, I mean, what is being given, right? So the universe, whatever you put out comes back tenfold, right?
00:23:29
Speaker
I tell my clients all the time, I say, you think when you're asleep that the whole world is up plotting against you, specifically you, right? I say, when you believe that, right, it's easy for you to mean to miss all the opportunities that mean that are outside of you. Because you're going look at everything that man is this, this, this and that, right? What I've learned is, is that when you listen to self and you do what you know is right from here, you receive everything on the outside, you I'm saying? Because it wants to be there, right? It's not about going forward outside of yourself. Sometimes you got to go through yourself to get to your path, right?
00:24:04
Speaker
And like i said, when I met Bob Emotep, You know, I was at a breaking point in my life where, know what I mean, that I really was going to war everybody. I had just ah beat up a dude or whatever. I just ran down on a dude with a knife.
00:24:16
Speaker
So he heard about it, walked up on me. And I told him, I said straight up and down. I was like, man, um if you ever anything you're saying ain't going to get me home, man, I don't want to hear what he said. Bet I got you. But I didn't realize, right, what he meant by i got what you need to get you home. It wasn't about leaving prison.
00:24:33
Speaker
It was home right here. This was home, right? Because we fight ourselves so there's no peace here. So everything that I did, it brought peace here. You feel what I'm saying? And it it gave me the ability to be able to make real steps outside myself because I was able to make the right steps inside myself. You know, everything comes back to self, right? So basically, people listening and watching, what he said is that you have to make steps inside yourself.
00:25:02
Speaker
That is golden. You have to make steps inside yourself for the steps outside of yourself to align, to make sense from your heart center. That is so beautifully put. And I think we don't think about it like because we don't go home to self.
00:25:17
Speaker
We go home to the person or the community or the people and places. and But you, at that point before meeting him, it sounds like you had a wall up. You had a heart wall.
00:25:28
Speaker
And he was able to break down that wall of your heart to go into so you can take those steps with peace to come out 10 times better because you have somebody who was seeing you from a heart space and not from an ego space who was judging you but was observing you and said, how can I help this young brother?
00:25:44
Speaker
And it wasn't about, like you said, going home, but he got you home. You put those steps on the inside and now you on outside taking the same steps. But I, you know, so I just wanted to really pull that out because I've never in my life heard taking steps with inside yourself, which is within your home.
00:26:03
Speaker
And that's what a piece is. This is where it is, right here. And the thing is, one thing about leadership is this, right? You may think you're receiving one thing, right? But you're really receiving something greater, right?
00:26:16
Speaker
And a lot of my boys, the stuff that I teach them, they don't realize that I'm giving them the same method that was given to me. For example, right? There's no such thing to mean as recreating the wheel.
00:26:27
Speaker
It's the same method, right? It's the same properties, right? But there's different methods to being able to Connect with people. You feel what I'm saying? So the properties are to mean that everybody wants to belong to something.
00:26:40
Speaker
Everybody wants to feel safe. Everybody wants to feel connected. Everybody wants to feel valued. Everybody wants to feel recognized, right? Now, the thing is, right, some of us want to be recognized for things that are surface-based, but they're really deeper downside. I mean, there are things that you want to be recognized, I mean, that you haven't even discovered yet.
00:27:00
Speaker
And me, I thought, mean, recognition was, you know, fame, things like that. But the real recognition was that I wanted to be the person that created, I mean, the shift in people's lives, right?
00:27:14
Speaker
that transformed lives I would never meet. And just to have the feeling to know that I did that, right, is rewarding enough, I mean, than any type of accolades, I mean, or recognition.
00:27:25
Speaker
Because that means what I've done here, right, can never be wiped away, you know? And that's what Baba Emotep has done. What he has done can never be wiped away because it will be in extensions of people, I mean, that have gained from that, right? Like you look at yourself, Eric, and the work you do, right?
00:27:43
Speaker
More people have met you through the work that have impacted the people that you have been directly in contact with because of the ripple effect. We don't realize, I mean, that people are living legends.
00:27:56
Speaker
You what saying? Because you hear about them and it's like, oh, I heard about this person, but you never met them. You never was around him Right. But other people's one thing about growth is this. Right.
00:28:06
Speaker
One person's growth can be the growth of an entire nation. One person. So imagine. Right. All the growth that you have helped create in everybody that you've interacted with extends I had a guy on my podcast, Christopher Lee Meyer, and he says, E equals MC squared.
00:28:26
Speaker
The more you grow, the more I grow, the more we grow. But if you're trying to get everything around you to grow without growing, you're failing. So just focus on the growth within yourself. And I think as a word or terminology we use, spirit activation, spirit expansion.
00:28:42
Speaker
And now when that spirit evolves within... my soul, your soul, we all evolve into a higher plane because we're making it about the collective that we get to serve. And that's good through one person who has a million followers, one person who has 10 employees, or just ourselves, when people come to our page just to get motivation and inspiration.
Personal Growth and Modern Success
00:29:04
Speaker
But we want to grow. We want to add more light, more value, more positivity, more strength, more encouragement, more empowerment, more authenticity and transparency so people can feel safe
00:29:15
Speaker
Just say, look, not only I can do it and I can make a difference, but I have somebody as ah a pillar or blueprint that has done it or somewhat can relate to where I'm going or where I'm at to have the life I see for myself.
00:29:28
Speaker
And sometimes in my journey has been a challenge because I didn't know what I was doing. However, I knew where I was going. You get what i mean? Because I was following my inner being, my inner path, that home within.
00:29:44
Speaker
It didn't make sense logically to people, but it made sense to how I felt. And then I would make the left, then make the right, then go straight. And then I end up where everyone's like, wow. But before that end game, the end goal, that outcome, the income I was putting in didn't really line up for people because it wasn't making sense in that moment.
00:30:04
Speaker
And so that's why I want to go back to people understanding You got to get around like-minded individuals who have the same ideology, but you got to get around people who respect who you are and want to help you get where you want to go, but have an example or be in our environment that supports the example you're trying to become and allow it to be fit, feel safe to be who you are in the moment because we don't have enough of that.
00:30:28
Speaker
And I want to just take a quick pivot and to shift, you know, getting into the masculine mindset, allowing the feminine feel safe, right? And then feminine can allow the masculine to feel safe. Because I do feel like in partnerships and relationships, there's not one size fits all.
00:30:46
Speaker
Women need to feel safe. Men need to feel safe. But somehow in some places, in some environments, in some cultures, there's clashing of vibrations. You know, there's no equilibrium, right? There's no balance in the relating, in the dating, in the love, in this kind of war.
00:31:04
Speaker
You know, it's like if we're brothers and another brother tells me about you to make me feel different about you, now we're clashing. Instead of me understanding what's at play, what's at fight, how can we as men, you and I, men are going to watch this and women as well, come together to have a more fulfilling relationship with the opposite gender and to feel safe.
00:31:25
Speaker
It goes back to self. When a man is insecure about who he is, he will never create the security for the woman that he's with. It'll never happen. So everything comes back to self, right?
00:31:37
Speaker
I'm secure who I am. So it's easy for me to do the things that make other people feel secure around me. But if I'm insecure about who I am, right, they don't know how to move around me.
00:31:49
Speaker
You feel what I'm saying? everything is going to be viewed as an attack from my perspective. So we can never build anything that is real. Right. So when we look at men and women, right, men and women create a complete understanding. Right.
00:32:02
Speaker
Together, the complete understanding is this. Right. You have a child. When that child looks towards life, they have to be able to see their mother and father. Right. As the practitioners of that.
00:32:14
Speaker
If one is active and the other one is inactive, that means that that child has a partial understanding about reality. or When both are active and work together to create synergy, that child has a complete understanding, I mean, about how to move in life and what life is really about.
00:32:33
Speaker
When we are struggling in our own self, right? Like you look at the entire person, right? You got the mental, physical, spiritual, emotional, financial self, right? always talk about this. I talk about these five selves. right When you have balance in all five of those selves, you have security in who you are. right That means that I can show up emotionally, you what saying? Sound. I can show up mentally, you feel what I'm saying? Focused. I can show up physically healthy. I can show up spiritually enlightened. I can show up financially stable. I can show up in these areas.
00:33:05
Speaker
But when you're struggling emotionally, In two to three of those areas, those two struggling areas attack those other three. So it causes a domino effect. So that person, right, can pretend all they want because you're leaning on what you have that is strong so hard that after a while, it's like one of my knees are bad and I'm leaning on a good one. Soon my good one going to bad knee because I'm putting too much pressure on it, right?
00:33:31
Speaker
There's no balance, right? And life is about balance and stability. Right? So you got to be able to create that balance. On one of my quote books, I say, never highlight your strengths and overlook your weaknesses because your neglected weaknesses will grow to become strong to make your strengths null or void. They will no longer be a strength.
00:33:50
Speaker
And I talk about that in my new book, um The Book of Right Action. that's about to come out. And I talk about being able to create that stability, right?
00:34:01
Speaker
You got to have fortitude in order for you to be able to create stability in all the other areas. One of the things that I see that most men struggle with, as well as women, they struggle with being vulnerable and honest about their struggles because they think that by talking about it, they make it real, but it is real. They hide it because you got to realize we got some of the best actresses and actors in the world and not on TV.
00:34:29
Speaker
You feel saying? Because they rather pretend that everything is fine. I mean, when it's not me, I always pushed the initiative and I mean, I had a conversation because Because vulnerability is a superpower.
00:34:41
Speaker
The more vulnerable you are, right, the more true you are to who you are and what you're dealing with, right? But also vulnerability, right, is contagious because what it does is it makes another person feel comfortable with being vulnerable, right? I guarantee you if you sit down with your girl tonight, your lady tonight, and you have a conversation that you've never had with her about something that's vulnerable in your life, right, watch how she'll start opening up about some things too.
00:35:05
Speaker
But it takes it takes vulnerability to be able to seek out vulnerability. you know And I do this with a lot of my clients, and it they open up because I don't hold back.
00:35:15
Speaker
And next thing you know, they want to have the conversation. They want to deal with things. I'm talking about people that the staff is saying, like, man, i don't know how you got through to them. And I said, I got through to them because I got through to myself.
00:35:28
Speaker
There it is. Bingo. The way you get through to people is you get through to yourself. That's genius. that I got to go through me to get to you. Yeah, absolutely. You saying? But if I'm trying to go through you by not going through me, I ain't never going connect.
00:35:41
Speaker
That's a spiritual component. You feel what saying? Because by opening myself up, I automatically make you feel comfortable with opening up. It's like, Dad, keep putting the chips on the table. I might put the chips on the table.
00:35:52
Speaker
And it taps in into areas that we have been neglected. Oh, we don't know we have. Like, we don't know we have until someone tells their story. And the thing is, what we don't know, especially at a young age, we don't know who we were until we think about where we were at.
00:36:08
Speaker
I remember at 22 years old, I'm still, you know, like, wow, I had $1,000 to my name. I left Baltimore to come to L.A. I knew one person. So I'm like, damn, how did I do that?
00:36:19
Speaker
I just had faith. Faith in what? That I couldn't be in Baltimore. I didn't have no circumstance in a way where I knew the outcome of coming here. had a thousand hours only one person.
00:36:31
Speaker
A part of you did know. Right. But I'm saying is I didn't have enough evidence to make that decision. My evidence was unseen. It was my my faith, my certainty. I didn't know I was going to stay. I didn't have a job.
00:36:43
Speaker
It was just completely unknown. But I knew I wouldn't stay in Baltimore. So right at the time I get to the tough spot in life, I think about that moment. I did that 15 years ago.
00:36:55
Speaker
And that's why I'm here on this podcast. Not because I did this. If they didn't know, I took a risk 15 years ago that you don't know about, you couldn't see. So if you're a young guy, a girl out there, you feel like you only you got your last. Like I'm trying to tell you, I came to a different city, you know, one person with a thousand dollars.
00:37:13
Speaker
And when I came here, I gave $450, no to pay $450 month for rent. to someone on craigslist is to pay four fifty a month for women Right? So I was already living life on the edge, not knowing, but I had faith.
00:37:27
Speaker
And through that, I just kept going. and I struggled. It was tough. But like you said, that moment today makes me appreciate who I was then because I know that you can do the unthinkable if you're not allowing yourself to stay small, but you need people as mirrors to say you can do this. I had Tony Robbins.
00:37:48
Speaker
I had Bob Proctor. There was no Adisa Dempsey around. Malcolm and Martin wasn't, like, they was in books and stuff, but they wasn't present in the field where I could understand the journey.
00:37:59
Speaker
And so people like yourself, myself, and leaders, man, I'm just glad to know you as a friend, to know you as a brother, that you are the man To daddy because I know if anything will go wrong in my life, I know I could call you and going keep it real and you're going hold me accountable. More importantly, going to give me bandwidth to make me feel safe about whatever I got going on, even if it's embarrassing.
00:38:20
Speaker
And I know I can trust that from you. And that's why I value your opinion. I value how you show up. And I feel like you are the mayor for Baltimore for personal development, psychology, man versus male, becoming more.
00:38:34
Speaker
And I think sometimes the world we live in today, we give so much accolades and acknowledgement to what it looked like versus what it actually is. Because I tell people social media is not real life.
00:38:47
Speaker
Right. Just because someone looks successful doesn't mean they are successful. Yeah. But as we get older and as we evolve, all those towers will fall and the truth will come to the surface and people will see that.
00:39:00
Speaker
But it takes time. So for you, how do we get in your space of connectivity? How do we work with you one to want on one on the container? Where are you in Baltimore where people can connect mentally, physically, spiritually, socially to be more of them, male or woman, to get the medicine you bring to life? How do we connect with you?
Adisa's Mission and Social Media
00:39:22
Speaker
Well, you know, I got my various um social media outlets. um I'm on YouTube, Adisa Fatu. I'm on Facebook, Adisa Fatu. And I am on IG as Action Figure Yo.
00:39:36
Speaker
But also in Baltimore, I do a monthly workshop. It's a PLM's Madhood 101 workshop. And it deals with the real conversation to be able to get to the real issues that we are struggling with and going through. CLM, to people who don't understand, are going to listening. What does that stand for?
00:39:56
Speaker
Pan-African Liberation Movement. So it's been around since 95. It's an organization that is geared towards the advancement, uplifting of the Black community.
00:40:08
Speaker
It is ah a program, I mean, it was a prison-based program that came into society and has done a lot of good work. It's been around for 30 years. But this organization is... about being able to advance and push us forward. We have a platform that's geared into being able to politically educate people to teach them about their culture, teach them about their history, and are also, I mean, to help people organize.
00:40:34
Speaker
A lot of our people aren't organized. We don't know how to come together. We don't know how to fight. We don't know how to support each other. We don't even know how to show up. A lot of times we have feelings, right, that we don't know how to actualize them in a proactive way.
00:40:49
Speaker
We know how to complain. We know how to cuss and fuss. We know how to destroy stuff. But we don't know how to get organized in a way where, though, that we can actually make progression. And that's what this organization is geared towards helping our people do Yeah, absolutely. Now, I'll ask question.
00:41:06
Speaker
What's one thing that keeps you spiritually fit? One thing that keeps me spiritually fit is always leaning on vulnerability as the way to solutions. I always have the honest conversation, whether it be with my wife, whether it be with the leader of the organization I'm a part of, whether it be even my own manager at my job by nine to five. I always have the honest conversations because it gets me straight to the clarity When we sit here and we give the bare minimum, we receive the bare minimum. You know, you never know how a person's going show up into your life until you lay your cards on the table.
00:41:43
Speaker
So that's what keeps me spiritually fit because we're social people. You know, relationships are important to me. I'm not going to tiptoe around a relationship. I'm going to have a conversation. I'm deal with it. And whatever's revealed from it to me is how I'm process it, take it in and move.
00:41:59
Speaker
I love that. Well, Adisa, thank you for your time, brother. I love you, man. Thank you for being present. Thank you for the medicine and the wisdoms the today. And ah people follow him on Instagram, Action Figure Yo. i Go to his website, his Facebook, his YouTube. I'll put everything in his show notes and subscribe to the podcast, Spiritual Fitness. Go to the YouTube. Check us out. DM him. DM me. Let's connect. And um this is another Spiritual Fitness podcast. We out.
00:42:25
Speaker
Peace.
00:42:28
Speaker
Thank you for joining us on the Spiritual Fitness Podcast. We hope today's episode has inspired you and provided valuable insights for your holistic health journey. By blood to spirituality and physical wellness, you can strengthen your body, mind, and soul.
00:42:43
Speaker
If you enjoyed today's episode, please subscribe, rate, and leave a review. Until next time, stay strong, stay inspired, and remember, it's miracle season.